Odds and equals in College Football this week

Remember last week how I wrote about the different levels of favorites? Well, we had a perfect distribution of upsets and favorites winning to demonstrate the results of those predictions:

“Possible Routs” – we listed eight games that were predicted to be anywhere from 18 to 40 point victories. Guess what? One of them was an actual upset (Richmond fell to Elon 36-33!) and two others were near-upsets: Tennessee held off Massachusetts by just four points, 17-13, and Baylor threatened Oklahoma before falling by a touchdown. The other five went as expected, ranging up to North Dakota State taking a 56-0 lead after the second half kickoff before putting in the scrubs to finish the game.

“Closer games but we think this team will win” – Six games with spreads of 7-14 points were listed, and we suggested that at least one would end up an upset.

Wrong. THREE were upsets – Virginia dominated Boise, 42-23; TCU waxed Oklahoma State 44-31; and Florida State fell to 0-2 by losing to NCSU, 27-21. 50% - we might as well have flipped a coin!

 “Games with a favorite, but…” – We described seven games in the 4 to 6 point spread range, and suggested they were 60/40 predictions. So there “should” have been about three upsets.

Turns out there were TWO: Texas Tech beat Houston, 27-24, and UL-Monroe took two overtimes to beat rival UL-Lafayette, 56-50. Others were close – Wake Forest only won by a single point, 20-19 – but held serve. (It just goes to show the volatility of predicting what 18-22-year-old men will do under pressure.)

“Games that are really too close to call” – ironically, three of the largest victories came out of these games: Georgia State routed Charlotte 28-0, Georgia “upset” Mississippi State 31-3, and Utah State put up 61 points against San Jose’s ten. (The other winners were Duke, Tulane, Ohio, and Miami-Ohio.)

Want to play along? All you really have to do is add three points to the visiting team's rating, and then take the difference between the ratings of two competing teams. (I take some other things into account, but that's the basic premise.) And the system is pretty accurate, once the starting points are right!

Here are the current rankings from the ELO-Following Football rating system at each level of Division 1 American collegiate football after four weeks of play, as most teams are starting conference play in earnest. Included in parentheses are the team’s win-loss record and their national media top 25 ranking, if applicable. Here are our top 25 ratings among the Power Five conferences:

Alabama (4-0, 1) - #1 - 8 rating.

Clemson (4-0, 2), Oklahoma (4-0, 3), and Washington (4-0, 6) – equal #2 – 12 rating.

Oklahoma St (3-1, 15), Penn St (4-0, 4), and Ohio St (3-1, 11) – equal #5 – 14 rating.

Southern Cal (4-0, 5) - #8 – 15 rating.

Wisconsin (3-0, 10) - #9 – 16 rating.

Michigan (4-0, 8) - #10 – 17 rating.

Florida St (0-2), Stanford (2-2), Auburn (3-1, 13), Georgia (4-0, 7) – equal #11 – 18 rating.

TCU (4-0, 9), Virginia Tech (4-0, 12) – equal #15 – 19 rating.

LSU (3-1, 25), Notre Dame (3-1, 22) – equal #17 – 20 rating.

Louisville (3-1, 17), Miami-FL (2-0, 14), Kansas St (2-1), Texas (1-2), Oregon (3-1), Florida (2-1, 21), Mississippi St (3-1, 24) – equal #19 – 22 rating.

“Below” that set of conferences are the “Group Of Five” – the FBS teams who fight with smaller budgets, smaller stadia, smaller everything, and yet are expected to fight on supposedly equal footing with the teams above. Here’s the top ten from the Group of Five, according to ELO-FF:

South Florida (4-0, 18) - #1 – 23 rating.

Central Florida (2-0) - #2 – 27 rating.

San Diego St (4-0, 19) - #3 – 28 rating.

Houston (2-1) - #4 – 29 rating.

SMU (3-1), Colorado St (2-2) – equal #5 – 31 rating.

Boise St (2-2), Appalachian St (2-2), Toledo (3-1), Memphis (3-0) – equal #7 – 32 rating.

And then there’s the FCS, which used to be called “Division 1-AA”, and competes not for bowl games but to participate in an actual 24-team single elimination tournament for their own national championship. Here are their top 20 teams by ELO-FF rating after four weeks:

North Dakota St (3-0, 2) - #1 – 25 rating.

James Madison (4-0, 1) - #2 – 27 rating.

Sam Houston St (3-0, 3) - #3 – 32 rating.

Illinois St (3-0, 8), South Dakota St (3-0, 4) – equal #4 – 33 rating.

Youngstown St (2-1, 5t), Jacksonville St (2-1, 5t) - equal #6 – 35 rating.

The Citadel (3-0, 11), Western Illinois (3-0, 16), Weber St (3-1, 18) – equal #8 – 36 rating.

Central Arkansas (2-1, 12), South Dakota (3-0, 10), Villanova (2-2, 17) – equal #11 – 37 rating.

Chattanooga (1-3), Richmond (2-2, 15), Liberty (3-1), Eastern Washington (2-2, 9) – equal #14 – 39 rating.

Wofford (3-0, 7), Mercer (1-3), North Carolina A&T (4-0, 13) – equal #18 – 40 rating.

Within the HBC (“Historically Black Colleges”), a subdivision of the FCS which simultaneously holds its own championship, the top five schools are:

North Carolina A&T (4-0, 13), 40 rating; Grambling St (3-1, 19), 44 rating; and equal third with ratings of 50 are South Carolina St (1-2), North Carolina Central (2-1), and Prairie View A&M (1-2).

Our record last week picking winners was only 76% (three out of four), which lowered our season-long record to just over 80% (349 right, 86 wrong). But we are even with the Vegas odds makers and slightly ahead of the Sagarin ratings for accuracy this year (68 to 68 to 62, respectively).

[Originally published in The Roar, Sept 28, 2017]