College Football Rankings

College Football Schedule: Week 9

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The BCS standings may be out, but my College Football Rankings are still the rankings you see on the schedule. I’ve also updated the lineal titles, including a change in the NFL lineal title, despite Freehostia being a little kinky at the moment. Apologies for putting this out now when Ohio-Temple is already underway. All times Eastern.

Top 25 Games
*Oklahoma State @ Texas 3:30 ABC
USC @ Arizona 7 PT FSN
Penn State @ Ohio State 8 PM ABC
Oklahoma @ Kansas State 12:30 FSN
Kentucky @ *Florida 12:30 R’com/Y’hoo
Central Florida @ Tulsa 8 PM SU ESPN
*Alabama @ Tennessee 7:45 ESPN
Texas Tech @ #21 Kansas Noon ESPN
Colorado @ Missouri 6:30 FSN
#12 Georgia @ LSU 3:30 CBS
Wyoming @ TCU 6 PM mtn.
Eastern Michigan @ #14 Ball State Noon CSD.TV
#16 Boise State @ San Jose State 9 PM FR ESPN2
Virginia @ #17 Georgia Tech 3:30 ESPNU
#25 Boston College @ #18 North Carolina Noon Raycom
UNLV @ #20 BYU 2 PM mtn.
#22 Minnesota @ Purdue Noon ESPN Classic
Baylor @ #23 Nebraska 12:30 VS.
Watchlist and Other Positive B Point Teams
Duke @ Vanderbilt 3 PM
South Florida @ Louisville 3:30 BEN (ESPN+)
Rutgers @ Pittsburgh 3:30 ESPN360
Michigan State @ Michigan 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Virginia Tech @ Florida State 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
Bowling Green @ Northern Illinois 4 PM CSN/CBSCS XXL
Fresno State @ Utah State 3 PM KAIL/KJZZ/CSN W
This Week’s Other HD Games
Ohio @ Temple 8 PM TU ESPN2
Auburn @ West Virginia 7:30 TH ESPN
New Mexico @ Air Force 8 PM TH CBS CS
Illinois @ Wisconsin Noon ESPN2
Wake Forest @ Miami (FL) Noon ESPNU
Northwestern @ Indiana Noon BTN
SMU @ Navy 3:30 CBS CS
Middle Tenn. St. @ Mississippi State 7 PM ESPNU
Notre Dame @ Washington 8 PM ESPN2
Big 12
Texas A&M @ Iowa State 7 PM FCS
SEC
Mississippi @ Arkansas 7 PM PPV
ACC
NC State @ Maryland 3:30 ESPN360
Big East
Cincinnati @ Connecticut Noon BEN (ESPN+)
MAC
Central Michigan @ Toledo Noon ESPN+
Kent State @ Miami (OH) 3:30 ONN/CSD.TV
MWC
Colorado State @ San Diego State 9:30 mtn.
C-USA
Rice @ Tulane 3 PM
Southern Miss @ Memphis 8 PM CBS CS
Pac-10
UCLA @ California 3:30 ABC
Oregon @ Arizona State 7 PT
WAC
New Mexico State @ Idaho 5 PM Altitude/CSD.TV
Nevada @ Hawaii 9 PT KAME/PPV
Sun Belt
Florida Atlantic @ Louisiana-Monroe 7 PM ESPN+
Troy @ North Texas 7 PM CSD.TV
Bowl Subdivision
Louisiana Tech @ Army 1 PM ESPN360

Quick college football ranking note

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The new rankings are up, and links should be fixed to the Week 6 full rankings, but there won’t be an RTF of the full rankings for this week until I post tomorrow’s strip. I should also have a couple more logos up by tomorrow, including TCU’s.

I may have a more substantive post later today turning back to politics and/or global warming/mass transit… or I may not. Coming down with something over the weekend has really played havoc with my plans and I’m still recovering.

Five weeks in the books in college football…

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If you had Week 4 in your “First Lineal Title Change” pool, collect your prize! If you had Week 4 in your “First Lineal Title Held By A Team That’s Not Unbeaten” pool, collect your prize! If you had both… you obviously saw the Oregon State upset of USC coming (or you saw Mississippi State beating LSU, or you had Alabama losing by now).

It’s funny… before Georgia beat Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl to unify it with the Auburn Title, the 2004 Utah Title was, in a way, the “mid-major” title. Now, if Utah beats the Beavers this week, the 2007 Boise State title, another title created by a mid-major BCS buster, could serve the same role – only going through Washington, Ohio State, Illinois, USC, and Oregon State first. As for Bama, although this means the Auburn-Utah and BCS titles are now both held in the same division, it’s a long road to unification – LSU must beat Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tulane (two of those teams are ranked), while Bama must face Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Arkansas State (one of those teams is ranked and another is in positive B Points). It would actually have been a shorter road if Georgia had won, as Georgia would have had to face only Tennessee and Vandy, but Vandy is still ranked. Bama really runs the risk of losing to Kentucky this week, and if that were to happen we’d need another loss or a Kentucky-LSU title game for unification before the bowls, but the game is at home and Bama can handle the pressure.

Lineal title updates and the new C Ratings, including stylesheet changes and most logos, are now up (or should be up by the time 45 minutes have passed from the timestamp on this post). No logos past R for now, and UConn will have to wait for the Us. Many of the changes are a result of the ratings being more volatile early in the season.

I think I figured out why I couldn’t load more than two files at a time in Freehostia’s new file manager: it only opens up a new line if you put something new in the first line, not any later lines. So if I change the file in the first line, I get a new line, but not if I put something in the line I would normally put it in. Which sucks.

College Football Schedule: Week 5

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All rankings come from the new C Ratings, out now. I’m going to do some reorganization later that will mean that link will always link to the current ratings; this will also involve improving access to last year’s ratings, and making some CSS changes. The asterisk still indicates lineal title holders (also updated). All times Eastern.

Top 25 Games
Alabama @ *Georgia 7:45 ESPN
*USC @ Oregon State 9 PM TH ESPN
Virginia Tech @ Nebraska 8 PM ABC
Mississippi @ Florida 12:30 R’com/Y’hoo
Wisconsin @ Michigan 3:30 ABC/ESPN
Weber State @ Utah 8 PM
Kent State @ Ball State Noon ESPN+
Illinois @ Penn State 8 PM ABC
Navy @ Wake Forest 3:45 ESPNU
#15 TCU @ #12 Oklahoma 7 PM FSN
Arkansas @ Texas 3:30 ABC
Western Kentucky @ #14 Kentucky 7 PM Gameplan
Central Arkansas @ #20 Tulsa 7 PM CBSCS XXL
#21 Colorado v. Florida State 3:30 ABC/ESPN
#22 Minnesota @ Ohio State Noon BTN
Troy @ #23 Oklahoma State 7 PM
Connecticut @ Louisville 8 PM FR ESPN2
Mississippi State @ #25 *LSU 7:30 ESPN2
Watchlist and Other Positive B Point Teams
Tennessee @ Auburn 3:30 CBS
Michigan State @ Indiana Noon ESPN
Houston @ East Carolina 3:30 CBS CS
Northwestern @ Iowa Noon ESPN Classic
Colorado State @ California 6 PM
Rhode Island @ Boston College 1 PM ESPN360
South Florida @ NC State 7:30 ESPNU
UAB @ South Carolina 7 PM Gameplan
North Carolina @ Miami (FL) Noon ESPN2
Oregon @ Washington State 6:15 FCS
Fresno State @ UCLA 3:30 ABC
This Week’s Other HD Games
Maryland @ Clemson Noon Raycom
Virginia @ Duke Noon ESPNU
Purdue @ Notre Dame 3:30 NBC
Big 12
Army @ Texas A&M 12:30 Versus
Big East
Pittsburgh @ Syracuse Noon ESPN+
Morgan State @ Rutgers 3:30 ESPN+
Pac-10
Stanford @ Washington 7 PT FCS
MAC
Northern Illinois @ Eastern Michigan Noon ESPN+
Western Michigan @ Temple 2 PM CSD.TV
VMI @ Ohio 2 PM CSD.TV
Buffalo @ Central Michigan 4 PM CSD.TV
Conference USA
Southern Methodist @ Tulane 8 PM TH CBS CS
Central Florida @ UTEP 8 PM CBS CS
WAC
San Jose State @ Hawaii 9 PT Gameplan
Bowl Subdivision
Arkansas State @ Memphis 2 PM CBSCS XXL
Cincinnati @ Akron 3:30 Gameplan
Marshall @ West Virginia 3:30 ESPN+
Louisiana-Lafayette @ Kansas State 3:30
Bowling Green @ Wyoming 4 PM mtn.
North Texas @ Rice 5 PM CBSCS XXL
Florida International @ Toledo 7 PM CSD.TV
New Mexico @ New Mexico State 8 PM Gameplan
Idaho @ San Diego State 8 PM
Nevada @ UNLV 7 PT mtn.

Can you feel the excitement?

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Can you feel the excitement? College football season is about to start! Football season – pro and college – is always momentous here on Da Blog. Before my recent webcomics-driven popularity (well, sort of), quite a few people were attracted to Da Blog by my Sunday Night Football predictions. Soon, Da Blog will be taken over by football, especially on Mondays, as my various football-related projects kick into gear. As such, my football hub is all set up for the new season.

The College Football Lineal Title – won by any team that defeated the last champion – will soon take over Da Blog. I made some changes: the Princeton Title is now the Princeton-Yale Title (and I could call it the Walter Camp Memorial Title), reflecting their shared dominance over the early days of college football, and while the 2004 Auburn and Utah titles were unified in last year’s Sugar Bowl, we got a new split title as none of last year’s title holders made the BCS Title Game. Also, every title now has a field listing each team’s next title defense. Missouri and USC are the only two teams with any real shot at losing their titles in Week 1, as Georgia and LSU play 1-AA (oops, “Championship Subdivision”) teams, but the 2004 Auburn-Utah and 2008 BCS titles are most likely to be unified – unless Missouri loses to Illinois and USC loses to Ohio State. (And I said that about the Princeton and Auburn titles last year, because of the same conference.) There’s an NFL analog as well, but it’s never had more than one dissenting title at a time, and there’s no split title this year.

Then there’s my College Football Rankings, my personal, non-proprietary computer rankings that aim to strip out all the bias and distrust and bring some clarity to the world of college football. The ranking formula is unchanged since last year, despite my being tempted to change the C Rating calculation from being based on conference ratings to being based on B Ratings of opponents (a change you’ll probably see next year). The conference layout of college football is also unchanged from last year, as is the fact that you won’t see any rankings until after Week 4, so the only thing different from this description is that OT games are considered to have a margin of victory of 0; the only difference between the winner and loser is being recorded as a winner and loser. That is also equivalent to a score ratio (described at the link) of 0, which gets averaged in A Rating as .5, and OT games give B Points similar to a I-AA game: only the home field modifier regardless of outcome. As exciting as college football OT is, it’s a joke and has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual play of the game. It’s more of a skills competition, akin to penalty kicks in soccer. If drives occurred the way they do in actual play, as opposed to starting within field goal range, I might give it more weight.

Next week I’ll talk about the NFL Lineal Title and talk more about the SuperPower ranking concept and why I’m not doing it this year. And tomorrow I’ve got another new college football feature.

The final college football rankings of 2007 (and other musings)

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I’ve kept track of who won my College Football Rankings for three years, counting this year. The first year, the title went to Texas, as my rankings correctly predicted the winner of the national title game. The second year, it went to Louisville as the Big East got disrespected.

This year, West Virginia’s beatdown of Oklahoma threatened to topple them, but for two out of three years, the BCS and my rankings agree on who is the true national champion: LSU.

Longtime readers know that I have, on occasion, remarked on the standing of professional sports leagues and their market penetration, this being an example. I’ve realized that I haven’t had any words on Seattle’s long-time-coming MLS team, which will result in an uneven distribution of teams between Eastern and Western conferences. Seattle bypassed Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix, and former MLS home Tampa Bay to put the league’s 15th team in the #14 media market. But being a Seattleite myself, and especially being the son of a soccer fanatic, I’m actually a little surprised MLS didn’t come here sooner – this area is one of soccer’s few homes to truly devoted fans, and MLS is sure to carve a niche should the Sonics move. It’s like having a hockey team in Buffalo – there aren’t going to be a lot of people, but boy will they be devoted. The only possible objection I’d have is that MLS didn’t try to re-establish itself in the South, especially with the WNBA putting a team in Atlanta. But I’m sure they’ll do that in a matter of years to put the league at a nice, round 16 teams.

By the 2000 definition, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, and Miami are the only larger metro areas without an MLS team. I erred on my earlier post on the Atlanta WNBA team, where I said that Seattle had been the largest metro area with a WNBA team but no MLS team; not only does that honor also go to Detroit, but Detroit wasn’t even dethroned by Atlanta. Phoenix would have inherited that crown had I been right.

Who SHOULD Be Going to Which Bowls?

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Based on my understanding of the bowl tie-ins and the College Football Rankings, while respecting the bowl eligibility rules. Teams on the left of an “OR” assume the BCS selects partly based on its standings; those on the right of one, if it selects purely based off my rankings.

  • Poinsettia: Utah v. Navy
  • New Orleans: Florida Atlantic v. Houston
  • Papajohns.com: Rutgers? OR Louisville? v. Southern Miss
  • New Mexico: Air Force v. Nevada OR Fresno State
  • Las Vegas: California OR UCLA v. BYU
  • Hawaii: Fresno State OR Hawaii v. East Carolina
  • Motor City: Ball State v. Purdue
  • Holiday: Oregon v. Texas
  • Texas: Troy v. Memphis
  • Champs Sports: Virginia OR Wake Forest v. Wisconsin
  • Emerald: Florida State OR Maryland v. Oregon State OR California
  • Meineke Car Care: Georgia Tech (or Wake Forest) OR Florida State v. Cincinnati OR Connecticut
  • Liberty: Central Florida v. Kentucky
  • Alamo: Michigan State v. Texas Tech
  • Independence: Colorado v. Alabama
  • Armed Forces: UCLA OR Indiana v. TCU
  • Humanitarian: Boise State v. Maryland OR New Mexico
  • Sun: Arizona State OR Oregon State v. Texas A&M
  • Music City: Mississippi State v. Wake Forest OR Georgia Tech
  • Chick-fil-A: Arkansas v. Clemson OR Boston College
  • Insight: Michigan v. Oklahoma State
  • Outback: Illinois v. Tennessee
  • Cotton: Missouri v. Auburn
  • Gator: Boston College OR Virginia v. South Florida OR Cincinnati
  • Capital One: Penn State v. Florida OR Georgia
  • GMAC: Tulsa v. Central Michigan
  • International: Connecticut? OR Rutgers? v. Bowling Green
  • Rose: Ohio State v. USC
  • Sugar: Kansas OR Florida v. Arizona State OR Clemson
  • Fiesta: Oklahoma v. Georgia OR South Florida
  • Orange: Virginia Tech v. Hawaii OR Kansas
  • BCS Title Game: LSU v. West Virginia (Ohio State? They’re 4th)

College Football Rankings after Week 12

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Because of my busy schedule and my emphasis on the SuperPower Rankings, I haven’t really said much about the College Football Rankings. The last two weeks have been dominated by the laptop situation, and the two weeks before by my antsiness about the Arizona State-Oregon game getting on TV. Before that, I often had overly short remarks; “The college football rankings from Week 6 are finally up here” was the entire text of my Week 6 update. I did have that long rant about a playoff system, and the simulated playoff is fast approaching, but that’s been the exception, not the rule.

Here, though, are some remarks:

  • People keep talking about how there’s so much parity in college football we desperately need a playoff. But this year could turn out to be a situation in which a plus-one system, or pseudo-four-team playoff, would work just fine. In my view, any plus-one system has to protect the traditional Big Ten-Pac-10 Rose Bowl matchup, but can ruin any other bowls for maximum clarity. Because I want to protect the sanctity of the Rose Bowl, it wouldn’t have helped a lot in 2000-01, where the most obvious solution was to have Florida State and Miami play again, in the not-impartial-at-all Orange Bowl, and Washington would not be able to play Oklahoma in the other plus-one play-in. A similar problem would have occured the following year, with Oregon relegated to the Rose Bowl. However, it would have solved the 2003-04 (same Rose Bowl and – possibly moved to another bowl – Sugar Bowl we got, as was proposed at the time), 2004-05 (USC v. Penn State in Rose Bowl, Oklahoma v. Auburn in another bowl), and 2006-07 (Ohio State-USC in Rose Bowl, Florida-Michigan in another bowl) controversies. As you can see, however, what it would not do is mollify the concerns of non-BCS conferences.
  • In what I think is a first since starting keeping track of the Top 25 in my system in 2005, I have no “watchlist” of teams with positive B Ratings but outside my Top 25. I have Tulsa way down there at #35, depressed by a bad conference.
  • LSU I think we can agree on at .
  • Ohio State: Pollsters always overreact to losses, especially at the top. The most flukey loss imaginable will still send a team plummeting down the polls. Illinois is still a good team and you can’t dismiss a season of excellence with one loss.
  • Kansas: Need to prove their worth. Ohio State will take a couple weeks of idle hands so Kansas can easily move up to , but it might take two wins.
  • West Virginia: Let’s see, the Big East has four teams – or half of the entire conference – taken up with world-class teams (West Virginia, Cincinnati, UConn, and South Florida), plus two dangerous teams (Louisville and Rutgers) that aren’t bad either – that’s three fourths of the entire conference – and a team (Pittsburgh) that isn’t as bad as their record because of the strength of all the others, and you still want to denigrate the Big East? To dare to say the f’in Big 12 is better in a year where that conference is “three teams and everyone else? To brush off South Florida’s losing streak without considering the quality of team they did it against? To say that West Virginia, a team that has so far escaped that schedule with only one loss, should be left out of the national title conversation – at least if Kansas loses – “because it’s the Big East”? And West Virginia is probably going to face a random sacrificial lamb from the ACC in the Orange Bowl. Shameful.
  • Florida: Overreacting to losses, redux. Some people think the polls are basically a way to reflect winning percentage in college sports where that’s meaningless. It’s hard to disagree. (Yes, I know they lost to Georgia, another two-loss team. Florida also lost to LSU. Meanwhile, Georgia lost to South Carolina and Tennessee, while eking out a ten-point victory over Troy – a team from the effing Sun Belt Conference. Good team, though.)
  • Missouri: Yeah, they beat Texas Tech, something Oklahoma couldn’t do. And their one loss is to Oklahoma. But they also never played Oklahoma State, their best nonconference game was a six-point nailbiter over Illinois, and they and Kansas have been it all year in the Big 12 North.
  • Oklahoma: Simultaneously overreacting to a loss and not looking at the schedule redux. Your best nonconference opponent is either Miami (FL) or Tulsa… you win a nailbiter over Texas and another one over freaking Iowa State… very concerning.
  • Oregon: Overreacting to a loss, once again. Actually Oregon is only one spot lower than here in the polls, but below Arizona State.
  • South Florida: Reappears in the BCS this week. Beat WV, which Cincinnatti didn’t do.
  • Where is the love for Penn State? Loss puts Michigan negative.