2010 WASEAN Team Ratings – Week 6

I was on vacation over the weekend, so the ratings are late this week, my apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Quite a shakeup at the top this week. Alabama loses, and drops to #4. Ohio State can’t move up, as the Miami win doesn’t look nearly as good after Florida State rolled the Hurricanes.

Boise State has moved to #2 and TCU to #3. Staying in the WAC, WASEAN is starting to see Nevada’s win over Cal as a bit of a fluke. Nevada is ranked above Cal because they are still unbeaten, that trip to #46 Hawaii this weekend could be interesting.

Oklahoma is another strange team. They destroyed #18 Florida State. But against #145 Utah State, #42 Air Force, #41 Cincinnati and #75 Texas, the Sooners won by an average of 5 points.

Let’s wrap up with a quick look at where WASEAN has the 13 unbeatens . . .

1. Oregon
2. Boise State
3. TCU
5. Ohio State
7. Nebraska
8. Nevada
11. Missouri
17. Oklahoma
19. Utah
20. LSU
23. Auburn
24. Oklahoma State
36. Michigan State

To see the complete rankings, please click the “read more” link.

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2010 WASEAN Conference Ratings – Week 6

Please click the read more link for the conference ratings through week 6.

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2010 WASEAN Team Ratings – Week 5

The game of the year did not disappoint. Oregon and Stanford put on quite a show last night. After a slow start, the Ducks emerged with a 52-31 victory and have clearly played the football in the NCAA so far this season.

Alabama buried Florida but WASEAN pretty much expected this, so neither team moved in the rankings. Alabama’s rating moved up but not enough (or as much as) to catch Oregon’s. Florida’s rating dropped, and they fell behind Nevada and Cal. But they moved ahead of LSU, who should have lost at home to a bad Tennessee team; and James Madison, who was on borrowed time.

Boise State passes Ohio State who was unimpressive against an improved but still pedestrian Illinois squad.

Missouri and Nebraska both rocketed up the chart, from 27 and 25 to 14 and 15, respectively. The interesting thing is that they were both idle this week. This is an example of why it’s important to tear up last week’s ballot and start over every week.

Even if a team doesn’t play, you find out more about their opponents and earlier games get a new perspective. Missouri’s win over Illinois looks a lot better after yesterday. Ditto Nebraska’s 56-21 blowout of Washington, who beat USC on the road yesterday.

There are a few teams that are getting national attention that don’t deserve it based on their play so far. Oklahoma has not shown themselves to be top 10 caliber team. Michigan State may be 5-0, but WASEAN isn’t seeing them as a top 40 team, let alone a top 20 team. Auburn? An overtime win at home over Clemson and a close call at home with South Carolina as the marquee wins of a top 10 team? A 17-14 win at Mississippi State? C’mon voters.

And the worst of them all, Texas. WASEAN has seen this all year. After 3 weeks it warned you about them, only ranking the Longhorns #38. Even that underestimated how bad they were, not foreseeing a rout at home against UCLA. Something is definitely wrong in Austin, as WASEAN has Mac Brown’s team wedged between Kentucky and Cincinnati at #70. Ouch.

Please click the ‘read more’ link to see the ratings.

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2010 WASEAN Conference Ratings – Week 5

Another banner week for the Pac-10. There were no inter-conference games for the league this week, so Pac-10 opponents must have been out wreaking havoc. The league’s average rating shot from .727 to .751, a very healthy jump. The gap with the SEC tripled from .012 to .037.

For some perspective, as dominant as the SEC was last year, the league’s final rating was .703. That Pac-10 itself was easily the worst of the BCS leagues last year, with a paltry .601 rating. That’s worse than the awful Big East has been last year. But don’t forget, Washington and Washington State were god-awful last year, and definitely wrecked the league average.

The average Pac-10 team has been as good as South Carolina. The league has 3 of the 6 best teams in the country right now, 5 of the top 12 and another at #21.

Not be lost in my Pac-10 rantings, the SEC has been no slouch, also improved from last year (.701 to .714).

Please click the read more link to see the up to date conference ratings.

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Games of the Week – Week 5

One of the best games of the weekend is tonight, Texas A&M at Oklahoma State. WASEAN likes the Aggies by a point, despite their being a 2.5-3.5 point underdog, depending on where you look.

So each week I’ll put together a list of WASEAN’s top 20-25 games, based on something I wrote up last week called "Game Watchability Score". Essentially it weighs quality and closeness of teams (adjusted for HFA) 50/50. I'll include WASEAN's rankings of the teams so far too. Times are EDT. Thanks to lsufootball.net for the TV network info. They do a great job providing TV info for all games.

Game of the year, let alone game of the week
3.87 Stanford (3) @ Oregon (1) 8 p.m. ABC/ESPN2

Great matchups
3.15 Florida (11) @ Alabama (2) 8 p.m. CBS
3.10 Texas A&M (15) @ Oklahoma State (30) 9/30, 7:30 p.m. ESPN
3.01 Virginia Tech (19) @ NC State (18) 3:30 p.m. ABC/ESPNGP
2.90 Arizona State (17) @ Oregon State (36) 6:30 p.m. FSAZ/FSNW
2.83 Penn State (23) @ Iowa (11) 8 p.m. ESPN

Should be entertaining
2.24 Wisconsin (16) @ Michigan State (59) 3:30 p.m. ABC/ESPN
2.09 Delaware (33/2 FCS) @ James Madison (9/1) noon Comcast
2.08 Miami (FL) (5) @ Clemson (51) noon ESPN2/ESPN3D
2.00 Florida State (46) @ Virginia (69) noon ESPNGP/ACC Network
1.89 Navy (50) @ Air Force (71) 2:30 p.m. Versus
1.80 Texas (68) vs. Oklahoma (45) 3:30 p.m. ABC/ESPN/ESPNGP

Hey, at least it's football and not the NBA or something
1.66 FIU (64) @ Pitt (57) 3:30 espn3.com
1.64 Georgia (52) @ Colorado (84) 7 p.m. FSN
1.53 Ohio State (4) @ Illinois (62) noon BTN
1.52 Western Illinois (74/9) @ North Dakota State (94/15) no TV
1.46 Vanderbilt (63) @ UConn (40) noon SNY/ESPNGP
1.44 Notre Dame (53) @ Boston College (87) 8 p.m. ABC/ESPNGP
1.41 Villanova (44/4) @ William & Mary (85/13) 3:30 p.m. Comcast
1.37 Temple (28) @ Army (81) noon CBSC
1.31 Kentucky (65) @ Mississippi (96) 12:21 SEC Network/ESPNGP
1.26 Kent State (92) @ Miami (OH) (106) noon no TV

The least interesting games of the week:
-4.66 Savannah State (241/121) @ Liberty (38/3) no TV
-3.50 Valparaiso (240/120) @ Dayton (86/14) no TV
-3.26 Boise State (7) @ New Mexico State (207) 7 p.m. ESPNGP/WAC Network

Note the NM State is 3rd worst team in the FBS.

Last week's least interesting game was Austin Peay @ Wisconsin and the
final was 70-3.

2010 WASEAN Team Ratings – Week 4

There’s a new sheriff in town this week, and if it walks like a Duck, and talks like a Duck, it must be a Duck, right?

Clichés aside, after Alabama’s near loss at Arkansas, the Oregon Ducks take over the top stop this week. WASEAN sees Arizona State as the #17 team in the country, Arkansas as the #20. Oregon was quite a bit more impressive, and so they move to the top of the heap.

This sets up the game of the year (so far) this Saturday night. While everyone on the East Coast is asleep #1 Oregon hosts #3 Stanford, at 11:15 p.m. EDT. EDIT 9/27: This game has been moved to prime time (8 p.m. EDT) on ABC. Good job ABC!

There were some huge shifts this week. The game that shifted the rankings more than any wasn’t one you would expect.

#4 Fresno State lost 55-38 to #142 Mississippi. The same Rebel squad that lost to Jacksonville State in OT. My friends, isn’t losing to James Madison. Jacksonville State is ranked #27 in the FCS right now. This loss dropped Fresno from #4 to #72.

This sent some shockwaves through the top of the charts. This makes Cincinnati look a lot worse in retrospect, which now makes Oklahoma look bad – the Sooners dropped from #18 to #45. NC State, who also beat Fresno, drops from #5 to #18, despite an impressive win at Georgia Tech.

This just shows how volatile the early ratings can be. Things should stabilize in a few weeks.

According to WASEAN the most impressive performance of the week was the first one. Miami’s  31-3 win at Pitt scored a .945.

If you are an FCS fan, your game of the year is also this weekend, as #9 overall and #1 FCS James Madison hosts #33 overall and #2 FCS Delaware.

Please click to ‘read more’ link to see the ratings.

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2010 WASEAN Conference Ratings – Week 4

The cream is starting to rise to the top, and this year it looks like the Pac-10 and the SEC.

UCLA, probably the 8th best team in the Pac-10, 35-0 losers to Stanford - went out and destroyed Texas, 34-12. Stanford, one of the best teams in the country - pummeled a decent Notre Dame team. The league’s 6th best team, Oregon State hung in with Boise State, one of the best teams in the country. All three of these games were on the road.

The SEC is down a bit from the last few years, but is still a force to be reckoned with. Florida is finally starting to flex their muscles after a slow start, they moved up from #25 to #12 this week. The worst team in the league, Mississippi, blew out Fresno State (55-38), who had looked pretty strong before that game.

The ACC showed itself to be pretenders for the top spot this week. Which is strange, with Miami blowing out Pitt and UNC beating Rutgers, both on the road.

The bigger problem for the ACC was that several of the teams they played in earlier weeks showed themselves to be not as good as advertised, especially Fresno State. Right now I would say that Miami is the class of the league, with NC State and Virginia Tech as the only other viable contenders.

2010 looks it will be the year the Big East really became as bad as everyone has been saying it was for the last few years. There are some signs of live, as Cincinnati nearly knocked off Oklahoma and West Virginia played LSU tough before losing 20-14 on the road.

That being said, this league is still better than the WAC or the MWC, and if there are going to be six leagues with BCS automatic bids, WASEAN doesn’t see any reason to change that just yet.

If you are fan of FCS, the Colonial has 3 of the top 4, 4 of the top 8 and 5 of the top 13 teams right now.

Please click the “read more” link to see the ratings.

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Game Watchability Score – 2010 Week 4

I came up with a method that weighs the quality of teams and closeness of teams equally (with a home field adjustment thrown in). Games will score well if the teams are ranked high and the teams are closely matched.

The list is ranked by the ‘Game Watchability Score’, with the teams and their rankings. Remember it's early, the ratings used for this are based on 2-3 games per team. Still a fun method to look at it objectively. I’ll post these each week.

I’ll explain the methodology below in case you are interested.

Please click the “read more” link to see the scores. The rankings listed do not include games from Thursday/Friday and they combine FBS and FCS.

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2010 WASEAN Team Ratings – Week 3

Finally, the first ratings of the new season. As I said in the conference post, remember it’s early.

Even though it’s early, it’s pretty obvious Alabama is the best team in the country. But after that it is anyone’s game. Note that WASEAN doesn’t see VA Tech’s loss to JMU as a killer for Boise State at all.

A few notes . . .

Wagner and Cornell are not included, since they’ve only played each other, it’s impossible to tell how they compare with everyone else.

Also there were 5 applications of the ‘formulas are not perfect rule’. What this rule does is automatically bump undefeated/untied teams (remember that WASEAN does not count overtime) above the best team they beat. It also drops winless/tieless teams below the worst team they lost to.

Those situations this week are: Ohio State over Miami (FL), Wisconsin over Arizona State, USC over Virginia, Montana below Cal Poly, and Eastern Illinois below Tennessee-Martin.

Please click the ‘read more’ link to see the ratings.

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2010 WASEAN Conference Ratings – Week 3

Here we go, the first look at Conference Ratings for 2010! Just remember, it’s early. While a pecking order has been established, things move fast this early in the season.

Right now the Pac-10 and the ACC are off to the early lead, followed closely by the SEC and Big Ten. The Big East and Big 12 bring up the rear for the BCS conferences.

Note that two FCS conferences are ahead of the MWC, MAC, C-USA and the Sun Belt. The gap between FBS and FCS is much closer than most think.

To see the rankings, please click the “read more” link.

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Final 2009 Conference Ratings

Here are the final 2009 Conference Ratings. Note just how good the Colonial is. All FCS teams are not alike.

The average Colonial team was about as good as SMU, who went 8-3-2 (WASEAN doesn’t count overtime) playing in Conference USA.

The average FCS team was about as good as Toledo, who went 5-7 in the MAC. The FCS is not nearly as bad as most think.

Please click the "read more" link to see the rankings.

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Final 2009 WASEAN Ratings

Just realized I never posted the final ratings for 2009. I did post them along the sidebar, but never the full list. My apologies.

The first 2010 rankings will be out Sunday morning, but here’s a chance to reflect on 2009 . . .

Please click the “read more” link to see the projections.

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WASEAN Projects the Bowls

Time to get the projections for the bowls on record . . . here’s how WASEAN sees things shaking out. Remember, if WASEAN projects a tie, I don’t break it. I just show the game as going to OT, call it a ‘pick-em’. Let’s just say it looks like the bowl organizers did a good job of matching up teams that are close . . .

Please click the “read more” link to see the projections.

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Final Regular Season WASEAN Ratings

Not too much to say this week, as there were only 4 D-I games (Army/Navy, the FCS Semis and the SWAC Championship), and all went pretty much as expected. So here are the final 2009 regular season ratings, the only games left are the FCS Championship Game and the bowls.

I’ll post projections for the bowls this week.

Please click the ‘read more’ link for the ratings. Note that instead of “Last Week”, I have “Week 13” since nearly everyone is the same as they were last week . . .

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2009 Bowls, Using Merit to Determine Placement

While almost all bowls are filled by contracts between the games and the conferences, the order within the conference that bowls use to select teams is not determined by merit. It’s determined by a mix of merit, TV appeal, travelability (new word?) of teams and ‘stories’, like a coach or player’s last game.

This doesn’t seem very fair. What would the bowl matchups look like if they were forced to take the best available team? How do you determine the best available team?

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2009 BCS Bowls According to WASEAN

Selection Sunday kicks off at 8 p.m. EST Sunday. What would the bowls look like WASEAN were used to pick who goes where? WASEAN doesn’t care about how well teams travel. It would assume that each bowl selects the best available team it is allowed to take.

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2009 WASEAN Ratings, Week 14

The SEC Championship was a bust, but the rest of Championship Weekend was one of the best couple of days of college football that I can remember.

The defacto Pac 10 championship game got the weekend off to a great start Thursday night as Oregon won a very entertaining 37-33 match-up in the 2009 edition of The Civil War. The #9 Ducks converted a couple of 4th downs late and is headed to Pasadena to take on #12 Ohio State New Year’s Day.

Saturday Cincinnati and Pitt got the day off to a great start with one of the most entertaining games of the season. The #7 Bearcats found themselves down 21 points with an undefeated season in jeopardy, but came from behind and won the game 45-44. The #14 Panthers missed a PAT after a mishandled snap with 1:36 to go gave them a 44-38 lead. Cincy finished unbeaten and will return to the BCS, most likely against Florida in the Sugar Bowl.

Boise State was not as impressive as expected in a 42-7 win over #115 New Mexico State. This caused this to slip behind Virginia Tech to #6. Tech’s opponents (Alabama & Georgia Tech) had a great weekend.

#2 Alabama got of a to a great start and never let Florida come up for air, leading start to finish in a 32-13 rout. Florida got the game within 12-10 in the 2nd quarter, but the Tide outscored them 20-3 the rest of the way. The Gators dropped from #1 to #4 with the loss.

Finally the night games . . . first the ACC. Georgia Tech blew a 33-20 lead as Clemson went up 34-33 with 6:11 remaining. But the #10 Yellow Jackets were able to put together a 13-play, 86-yard drive that consumed 4:45 to win the conference, spoiling CJ Spillers 20-carry, 233-yard, 4-TD performance.

In the Big 12 Championship, 14-point underdog Nebraska gave Texas everything they could handle. Despite managing just 106 yards of offense, the Cornhuskers, with the help of 3 interceptions, held a 12-10 lead with 1:44 to play. However, an out of bounds kickoff gave the Longhorns the ball on the 40 to start. A horse-collar tackle gave the drive a 15-yard boost. And with 1 second left Hunter Lawrence hit the game-winning 46-yard field goal.

Texas moves back into the #1 spot despite barely beating Nebraska. Their actual rating dropped from .8699 to .8617, but Florida dropped much further after getting blown out by Alabama. Alabama jumped from .8530 to .8583, and from #4 to #2, but it wasn’t quite enough to catch Texas.

TCU remains #3, Clemson’s loss didn’t help, as their rating dipped slightly from .8580 to .8557. The Army/Navy game will actually impact who finishes #3 or #4, as TCU needs a 33-20 (or better) win from Navy to maintain is razor-thin lead over Florida.

To see the ratings, please click the ‘read more’ link.

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2009 WASEAN Conference Ratings, Week 14

With only the Army/Navy game not played, the SEC has wrapped up the regular season as the top conference in the land. The ACC/Big 12/Big East follow behind very closely, with the Pac 10 and Big 10 bringing up the rear of the BCS conferences.

The Colonial had half of the Elite 8 and half of the Final Four in the FCS and placed ahead of 4 FBS conferences. I would really like to see the Ivy league in the FCS playoffs at some point as well, as WASEAN sees it as the second best FCS conference.

Please click the ‘read more’ link to see the ratings.

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Championship Saturday Projections

Big Day coming up Saturday! Here are the WASEAN projections. Remember they just assume each team will play as they have on average all season, doesn’t account for injuries, suspensions, etc..

Conference USA: Houston 34 @ East Carolina 34, OT
Big East: Cincinnati 30 @ Pittsburgh 31
SEC: Florida 22 vs. Alabama 20
ACC: Georgia Tech 28 vs. Clemson 28, OT
Big 12: Texas 30 vs. Nebraska 17

Others:
West Virginia 23 @ Rutgers 24
Fresno State 34 @ Illinois 28
San Jose State 14 @ Louisiana Tech 35
New Mexico State 6 @ Boise State 52
Arizona 24 @ USC 27
California 28 @ Washington 28, OT
Florida Atlantic 31 @ Florida International 34
South Florida 20 @ Connecticut 28
Wisconsin 33 @ Hawaii 24

FCS Playoffs:
William & Mary 23 @ Southern Illinois 23, OT
Stephen F. Austin 23 @ Montana 31
New Hampshire 17 @ Villanova 31
Appalachian State 20 @ Richmond 31

FCS non-playoffs:
Southern University 24 @ Texas Southern 27

I was too busy to get to this earlier, but these would have been the picks:
Pac 10: Oregon State 26 @ Oregon 37
MAC: Ohio 24 vs. Central Michigan 33
Arkansas State 30, Western Kentucky 21

2009 WASEAN Ratings, Week 13

Rivalry week brings a new #1 to the WASEAN ratings. Texas had been on top since a 41-7 shellacking of Missouri in week 8. But a tight 49-39 game with Texas A&M, coupled with Florida’s 37-10 blowout of Florida State was enough to move the Gators into the top spot.

Alabama, despite a close call at Auburn, closed the gap on TCU, but remains #4. The Horned Frogs suffered more because of Clemson’s loss to South Carolina than for anything they did, as they beat New Mexico 51-10 as expected.

Boise held onto the #5 spot, Virginia Tech remains ahead of unbeaten Cincinnati, who looks less impressive every week. Oklahoma rolled Oklahoma State 27-0, most likely knocking the Cowboys from BCS consideration.

Please click the 'read more' link to see the ratings.

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