The PiRates Are Hard At Work For Football Season

Hello Mates.

This is the head PiRate telling you that we have set sail and are on our way out to the green sea, otherwise known as the Football Field.

We have already begun to update our college football ratings for the 2018 season.  We have a unique way of updating our ratings from the end of the previous season to the beginning of the new season.  We have point values assigned to every starting and backup position on offense and defense plus an overall rating for the components of special teams.

For instance, as it should be obvious, the Quarterback is the most important position in college football.  So, we take special care in determining how many points better or worse each of the 130 teams is in week one compared to their final game of the year before by adding or subtracting points based on the QB.  We look at certain analytics data, just like baseball teams look at advanced statistics.  We actually have our own version of WAR for college football.  Instead of Batting, Fielding, and Pitching WAR, we have offense, defense, and special teams WAR, only instead of putting the final numbers into wins above average, we use points per game above average.  In the PiRate Ratings, a rating of 100.0 is average.  If a quarterback is worth 6.3 points better than an average QB, then before we look at the reserves, a team that is totally average at every other position would begin the season at 106.3 for this particular piece of the ratings’ puzzle.  If a quarterback has been determined to be 3.8 points below average, it would reduce the average team from 100.0 to 96.2.

On offense, the receiving corps is the next most important part of the equation, while the offensive line and running back corps are equal in importance as the last two parts.

Defensively, we look at all three units as they play against the run and the pass.  Stopping the pass is more important these days than stopping the run.  Interceptions, Passes Broken Up, Sacks, and Hurries are all parts of the Pass defense stats we look at.  We also have special ratings for nose guards that have the responsibility of taking up space and keeping blockers away from the linebackers, as these heroes of the trenches rarely show up in box scores, until one of the behemoths gets injured, and his replacement prevents the star will linebacker from making his usual 14 tackles with 2 for loss.

We have an intangible part of this equation as well.  Say a team has a change in coaches.  The old coach was a spread option or flexbone disciple, while the new coach is an air raid disciple.  It’s going to take 2-4 years to fully implement the changes, as that five foot nine inch triple option QB is not going to work as a dropback passer.

Another example in an intangible is the team that had 9 key injuries the year before, and 8 of the 9 return at 100% after missing parts or all of the year before.

In 2018, there will be a case where a potential all-star junior quarterback will transfer from one Power 5 school to another and be immediately eligible.  This will have major effects on his new team, much more than if he were the top incoming freshman in the nation.  This QB has already proven himself in a power conference, while the top incoming freshman only proved himself in Georgia high school action.  There is a difference as deep as the Grand Canyon in comparing the two, even though the incoming freshman might eventually become the next John Elway.  The seasoned starter showed what he could do when he passed for close to 350 yards against Auburn, while the freshman threw for 220 yards against Troup County High School.

This is just one piece of a 5-prong process.  We rate each team against every other team using 5 different processes.  Once we are done, we use three different algorithms to come up with a PiRate, Mean, and Bias rating for each of the 130 teams.  The PiRate and Bias differ by very little, so they will frequently be highly correlated, while the Mean rating is somewhat different than the other two, because it takes the equally-weighted average of the five ratings, while the other two apply heavier weights to some of the five components.  Because they share the exact same weighting of the prong we showed you above, these two tend to stay correlated.

We know we have a lot of advanced mathematicians reading our blog, and we are grateful for your patronage.  We try to make this more analytically dominated than you might get from other sports rating sites and even break down the fourth wall from time to time to show you what we do.

If you are not a math fan and just love football, then fear not.  We still hope to have computer ratings that are as accurate as possible, and we still will make fools of ourselves weekly to issue free picks that you can then take and gift to Las Vegas if you are foolish enough to not realize that these picks are worth exactly what you pay for them.

We have 10 weeks to go.  With a lot of late night work, we hope to have the ratings ready for you in 9 weeks max.

Thanks,

The Captain

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PiRate Ratings Conference Tournament Update–March 10 , 2018

Today’s PiRate Rating Spreads For Conference Tournament Games

Higher Seed	Lower Seed	Spread
Vermont	UMBC	12.4
Cincinnati	Memphis	17.5
Wichita St.	Houston	0.1
Rhode Island	St. Joseph’s	6.7
St. Bonaventure	Davidson	-0.9
Virginia	North Carolina	1.0
Kansas	West Virginia	0.1
Villanova	Providence	13.7
Montana	Eastern Washington	4.2
UC-Irvine	Cal. St. Fullerton	2.0
Western Kentucky	Marshall	5.1
Harvard	Cornell	6.6
Penn	Yale	6.9
Buffalo	Toledo	3.9
Hampton	UNC-Central	3.8
New Mexico	San Diego St.	-4.9
Arizona	USC	1.9
Kentucky	Alabama	3.0
Tennessee	Arkansas	3.0
SE Louisiana	Stephen F. Austin	-5.6
Arkansas-Pine Bluff	Texas Southern	-5.2
UL-Lafayette	Texas-Arlington	5.8
Georgia St.	Georgia Southern	3.1
New Mexico St.	Grand Canyon	4.9

Games in Blue are Semifinal Contests

Games in Red are Championship Games

Today’s Schedules With Approximate Tip Times and TV

All Times are Eastern Standard (Remember Daylight Savings Time Begins Sunday at 2 AM)

America East Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Home	Visitors	TV
11:00 AM	#1 Vermont	#2 UMBC	ESPN2

Vermont is the home team in this tournament played on campus sites.  Because the rounds are spaced out, both teams had ample time to prepare for this game.  The Catamounts won handily in the two regularly-scheduled games.

UMBC’s only hope is to try to contain Vermont’s dominating power forward Payton Henson and be able to hit a lot of contested shots.  In the two previous games, Vermont held the Retrievers to well under 40% from the field.

Henson, the former Tulane bench warmer who became a star when he transferred to Vermont, controlled the boards in both games and led Vermont in scoring both times.

 

American Athletic Conference Tournament
Semifinals–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	#1 Cincinnati	#5 Memphis	CBS
3:30 PM	#2 Wichita St.	#3 Houston	CBS
Championship–March 11
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
3:00 PM	Cinti or Memphis	Wichita or Houston	CBS

Tubby Smith lives to see another day as head coach of Memphis.  Two nail-biting wins into the tournament, Memphis finds itself taking on the top seed for a chance to play for an automatic bid and steal a bid for the AAC.

Memphis failed to tally 50 points in either meeting with the Bearcats, and neither game was close.  If Cincinnati does not come out flat, and it is hard to imagine a team that hustles like the Bearcats coming out flat, there is little chance the Tigers will pull the upset.

The other semifinal game should be very interesting, and there is a possibility that this game could come down to the 40th, or maybe the 45th minute before a winner is assured.  Houston’s defense has been improving all year long, while Wichita State’s defense is still somewhat of a work in progress.  The Cougars have not been this good in 25 years, and they look poised to make another step forward, maybe even to the Sweet 16.

 

Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament
Semifinals–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	#1 Rhode Island	#4 St. Joseph’s	CBSSN
3:30 PM	#2 St. Bonaventure	#3 Davidson	CBSSN
Championship–March 11
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	Rhode Island or St. Joe’s	St. Bona. or Davidson	CBS

The two lower seeded teams move into serious bid-stealer territory.  Of the two, we believe Davidson has a rather good chance of pulling off back-to-back upsets of the top two seeds and steal a bid from a Louisville, Oklahoma, or Arizona St.

When Davidson ventured up to Olean, NY, to face St.  Bonaventure less than two weeks ago, it produced one of the most exciting games of the NCAA season.  The Bonnies eventually won in triple overtime 117-113, and the stat sheet was a masterpiece.  Three St. Bonaventure players topped 30 points, combining for 14 made three-pointers, while Davidson’s Peyton Aldridge had 45 points, and Kellian Grady had 39.  Today’s game may be decided by the three-point shot.  Both teams are strong defensively inside the paint.

Rhode Island is the class of this league, but the Rams are beatable, and St. Joe’s knows how to beat them.  How about a 30-point pasting by the Hawks over the Rams in Kingstown?  If they could win at URI, then St. Joe’s should surely be able to win on a neutral court in the nation’s capital.  Something tells us that Rhode Island will play with multiple chips on multiple shoulders today and get revenge.

 

Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
8:30 PM	#1 Virginia	#6 North Carolina	ESPN

There seldom is need to give a lot of PR to the ACC Tournament.  The ACC Tournament is like football’s Rose Bowl.  It is the grandaddy of conference tournaments (aplogies to the Southern Conference Tournament, but the ACC is a bit more prestigious).

This should be a fantastic game tonight.  North Carolina didn’t fare all that well against the top-seeded and nationally top-ranked team this year.  The Tar Heels thought they had the Cavaliers Pack-line defense figured out in the first half, and it looked like this game would go down to the buzzer.  Then, a couple of fine-tuning adjustments totally stopped North Carolina for about 10 minutes, while Virginia’s offense slowly extended the lead out to double-digits.  The Tar Heels missed all of their shots in the second half of the second half.  UVa won by a dozen points, holding UNC under 50.

The mandatory statement that North Carolina is a much better team since that loss is required to be inserted here.  However, equal time forces us to state additionally that Virginia’s offense has improved almost as much in that time frame.

In other words, this game has the potential to be rivoting entertainment for you.  We expect the score to be around 60-60 with three minutes to play.  Then, who knows what might happen.  Past ACC Tournament history could help us predict something well worth watching.  We are excited about this game just writing these words!

 

Big 12 Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
6:00 PM	#1 Kansas	#3 West Virginia	ESPN

Do we even need to hype this game?  In our opinion, the rivalry between KU and WVU is approaching that of the Yankees and Red Sox.  The contrast in styles between two A-1 coaches, and the talent level on the floor tonight will make this a game full of movement and spurts.  Kansas handled the Mountaineers press rather easily in both games, and WVU did not get many transition points.  In a half-court game, the Jayhawks are about 10 points better than the Mountaineers, so the question is, can Coach Bob Huggins find a new wrinkle that will force Kansas to commit an extra five turnovers tonight?  If so, then this game is a toss-up.  If not, then the Jayhawks cut down the nets yet again.

 

Big East Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
6:30 PM	#2 Villanova	#5 Providence	Fox

Usually, there is a tendency for the average generic sports fan to develop a temporary rooting interest for one generic team against another generic team–a game in which he or she has no ties to either team.  When a fan in Florida watches Oregon play USC, he or she might temporarily become a fan of one of the schools.  For instance, a typical guy in Orlando might cheer for USC solely because Trojan coach Andy Enfield married a former supermodel.

If you are one of the generic superfans, like all of us here on the PiRate ship, you are in a quandary tonight with these two teams.  Why is that?  It is because Villanova coach Jay Wright and Providence coach Ed Cooley are two of the best gentlemen in the game.  They are more than coaches to their players; they are second fathers, the type that dote over their children.

As for the game tonight, Villanova better not feel any overconfidence, because Providence has put all of its pieces together and has seen the finished puzzle of success.  The Friars are possibly still sitting on their best game of the season, and for that reason, we believe that at the least, Providence will cover in this game, and quite possibly win outright.  However, and this is a big however, the Friars have had to go to overtime the last two nights to get to this point.  Their legs may be a tad fatigued in the second half, while Villanova has won by comfortable margins and has rested their starters.  So, for that reason, the rest of the PiRates say the Wildcats are going to come out and be a bit too much for the underdog Friars.

What does this tell you?  Lay off this game if you like to invest in college basketball and just watch it for fun.

 

Big Sky Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
8:00 PM	#1 Montana	#3 Eastern Washington	ESPNU

This is one of those tricky games.  Montana would appear to be the favorite, but in our opinion, the Grizzlies will have to play at the top of their talent level tonight to have a chance to win this game.  EWU lost a game at Idaho in early February that they should have won.  Since then, they have played like the king of the league, reeling off eight victories in a row by an average margin of more than 10 points per game.  The Eagles roster is a United Nations of basketball with players from Australia, Serbia, Lithuania, The Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic on the roster.

Montana has the best guard duo in the league, and in tournament play, strong guards lead to championships as long as there is adequate support in the front-court players, just enough to force defenses to stay honest.  Montana’s hopes for the NCAA Tournament rest on the shoulders of Ahmaad Rorie and Michael Oguine.  They were a combined 8 of 21 in the regular season loss to EWU.  Expect a 70-75 possession game tonight, and we believe Eastern Washington will send Montana to an automatic NIT berth.

 

Big West Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
11:59 PM	#3 UC-Irvine	#4 Cal St. Fullerton	ESPN2

What did we tell you about this league?  The top four seeds were basically dead even in talent, and we believed that any of the four could advance and win the dancing invitation.  So, what happened late last night?  The two lower seeds advanced to the championship game.

If you live on the East Coast, you better get the coffee pot brewing after supper tonight if you want to see the last automatic bid of the day be handed out.  Tonight’s game is a great contrast in playing styles.  UC-Irvine wins by playing tough defense and controlling the boards, while Fullerton has a great passing offense that leads to taking open shots and not rushing the offense.

The two teams split the season series with both winning on the other team’s home floor.  This looks like a game where one team will jump for joy in the final few seconds of a closely contested game.  You may have to stay awake until after 2 AM on the East Coast if you want to know who got the bid.

 

Conference USA Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
8:30 PM	#3 Western Kentucky	#4 Marshall	CBSSN

If you don’t have a dog left in the fight today, and you just want to watch a potentially incredible game in the evening, you might want to tune into this one.  All we have to say about Marshall is mention the coach’s name.  He is Dan D’Antoni, the brother of Houston Rocket coach Mike D’Antoni.  Houston is 51-14 in the NBA using the same type of playing style that Marshall uses.  The D’Antoni brothers are the Billy Beane’s of basketball.  They are high on analytics, and they believe that the offense has the best chance of scoring quickly before the defense can force a bad shot as the clock winds down.  It’s all about three-pointers and high percentage two-point shots, and the belief is that if your guards get the ball up the floor quickly, an open opportunity will develop in one of those two locations.

Of course, this works a lot better when one of your guards is James Harden.  Marshall has two guards that play at the collegiate level like Harden does in the NBA.  Jon Elmore and C.J. Burks can fill it up, and they both average in excess of 20 points per game.  Keeping defenses honest, the Thundering Herd have Ajdin Penava inside, but the offense itself creates close open shots for a host of average players, and any average player at this level can hit from three feet away.

What about Western Kentucky?  The Hilltoppers are notorious for playing their best ball in March.  This goes back for decades and decades through a who’ who of great coaches and players.  WKU is much like their big brother up in Lexington.  They go into tournament championship games with the prestige of the New York Yankees.  They expect to win, but they do not consider it a foregone conclusion, and the red uniform makes them put out an effort like every player is Enos Slaughter.  Both the good news and the not-so-good news about WKU is that they are a very balanced team with any of the five starters capable of scoring 20-25 points in a game.  However, sometimes, none of the five will take over and will the team to a victory.

Western swept the season series with Marshall, but we do not particularly love the Hilltoppers chance to get a three-peat in today’s championship game.  Marshall will come out loose and ready to play 75-possession basketball.  Western better be ready and not only come expecting to play 65-possession basketball.

 

Ivy League Tournament
Philadelphia (Ivy Madness)
Top 4 Teams Qualify
Semifinals EST Championship Game EDT
Semifinals–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
12:30 PM	#1 Harvard	#4 Cornell	ESPNU
3:00 PM	#2 Penn	#3 Yale	ESPN2
Championship–March 11
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
9:00 PM	Harvard or Cornell	Penn or Yale	ESPN2

The final conference tournament begins play today.  The Ivy League only sends its top four to the Palestra, so in theory the winner should usually be able to avoid a trip to Dayton.  If Penn or Harvard win Ivy Madness, they should be 16-seeds but avoid Dayton.  If Cornell wins, they are almost assuredly headed to Dayton, and if Yale wins, it would be a 50-50 guess.

Penn has the advantage of playing on their home floor, and the Quakers went 7-0 at home in Ivy League play.  Their two conference losses came at Harvard and at Yale, so the championship game should provide a bit of excitement.  Of course, Penn has to get past a Cornell team that gave the Quakers two close games in the regular season.

 

Mid-American Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
7:00 PM	#1 Buffalo	#2 Toledo	ESPN2

The top two seeds found their way to the championship game, and we are returning to becoming confident in the Bulls.  Buffalo has the talent that if they can play with confidence and not become deer in the headlights, they could sneak past an opening round favorite in the NCAA Tournament.  We do not believe Toledo can do the same, but in the conference tournament, the Rockets could easily blast their way to victory.

These two teams played only once in the regular season, and it seems like it was a year ago.  Buffalo won on their home floor in an offensive shootout 104-94.  The difference in the game was the Buffalo ball-hawking defense.  The Bulls gave up a few easy baskets when their gambling defense did not force a turnover, but they forced Toledo into numerous turnovers that led to easy Buffalo scores.

This won’ be an 81-possession game like the first time, and if Toledo can take care of the basketball, they have the backcourt advantage with a couple of tall, sharp-shooting perimeter players in Tre’Shaun Fletcher and Jaelen Sanford.

If Buffalo is to hold serve and claim both the regular season and conference tournament titles, we believe that forward Nick Perkins needs to have a 20-point, 8-rebound game, and the Bulls need to force the tempo and not let Toledo slow the game down.

 

Mideastern Athletic Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	#1 Hampton	#6 UNC-Central	ESPN2

Two teams with recent success in the MEAC will face off for the automatic bid.  Hampton has won the tournament title three of the last seven seasons under Coach Edward Joyner, while UNC-Central has claimed two of the last four under Coach LeVelle Moton.

Once again, this game presents an excellent study in different styles of play.  Hampton is more of a finesse team with better shooters, while UNC-Central has the superior power game and can control the action inside.  Finesse won out in the lone regular season game between the two teams, as Hampton shot lights out in a blowout win.

 

Mountain West Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
6:00 PM	#3 New Mexico	#5 San Diego St.	CBS

The two defensive behemoths easily advanced to the championship game, giving the Mountain West a second bid that came at the expense of a Louisville, Notre Dame, or Arizona St.

Either of these two teams will become a fierce, pesty opponent to a favored team in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.  New Mexico faced a major transition this year.  They raided in-state rival New Mexico State to hire Coach Paul Weir away from las Cruces.  Weir brought his tenacious, full-court press defense to Albuquerque, and the Lobos had growing pains for the first half of the season.

Since a rough start at 8-11, the Lobos improved by going 11-3 since mid-January.  The press began to pay dividends as the players obtained the needed live experience to see it work.  A much-improved up-tempo offense took off about the same time, as the Lobos gained confidence and went from a passive to a very aggressive team.

San Diego State basketball is all about outstanding pressure man-to-man defense and an inside power offense.  It’s much like the same offense that Aztec coach Steve Fisher used with the Fabulous Five at Michigan in the 1990’s.  Like New Mexico, SDSU had a slow start to the season, but they closed in a rush with eight consecutive wins by an average score of 78-64.  What they did to regular season champ Nevada last night should put a scare into any potential four or five seed team from a power conference.  The Aztecs looked like the UCLA team of 1970 in the semifinal trouncing of Nevada.  They controlled the boards like they had Sydney Wicks, Steve Patterson, and Curtis Rowe pounding the glass, as the former top team in the league trailed by 30 points in the first half!

Don’t expect New Mexico to be intimidated.  This game is going to be rough and tumble for 40 minutes, and if we had to pick one game where the referees may have to step in and separate the combatants in this war, this would be the game.

 

Pacific 12 Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
10:00 PM	#1 Arizona	#2 USC	FS1

Usually, the Pac-12 Tournament Championship Game is the key college basketball game on the West Coast, but it won’t even be the best game in the host city.  It won’t even be the second best game in that city.  Las Vegas hosts both the Mountain West and Western Athletic championships tonight, and unfortunately for the “League of Champions,” this will be the third best game in sin city tonight.

The outcome of the game will matter very little, as both teams have now secured spots in the field of 68, and neither will move much by winning or losing.  We do not particularly feel like either the Wildcats or Trojans will make much of a dent in the NCAA Tournament, as the Pac-12 needs a transfusion, with an infusion of better talent.  Sorry Pac-12 fans, but your league is suffering somewhat of a malaise.

 

Southeastern Conference Tournament
Semifinals–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	#4 Kentucky	#9 Alabama	ESPN
3:30 PM	#2 Tennessee	#6 Arkansas	ESPN
Championship–March 4
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
1:00 PM	Kentucky or Alabama	Tennessee or Arkansas	ESPN

Once Missouri fell, we called this tournament the Kentucky Invitational, as that is what we knew it would look like once the Blue Mist fans bought up all the Mizzou fans tickets.

Arkansas bested Florida, and that made Kentucky’s path to the title all that easier.  Today the Wildcats basically need to put an extra half-body on Colin Sexton and then control the boards like they should to advance to the title game tomorrow for the umpteenth time in their history.

The other game should be much more interesting, as Arkansas and Tennessee match up evenly well.  Arkansas won the regular season game in Fayetteville 95-93 in overtime in a game before New Year’s Day.  The Razorbacks then went 9-8 the rest of the regular season, while the Vols went on to share the conference title with Auburn.

This tournament is screaming for a game between bitter rivals in blue and orange.  Tennessee has always been the principle rival for Kentucky in all sports, while Tennessee considers Kentucky its chief basketball rival.

 

Southland Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
10:00 PM	#1 SE Louisiana	#3 Stephen F. Austin	ESPN2

We hope you read our preview of this conference tournament the last two days.  If not, we referred to #3 Stephen F. Austin as the champion thoroughbred horse that stumbled and lost the 2017 race but still figured to be the great champion of the past, while Southeast Louisiana and Nicholls State were the two currently sexy horses vying for the finish line.

The crowd at the race track watches the two new hot contenders sharing a four furlong lead over the champion horse, and all in attendance feverishly focus their eyes on the champion waiting for him to make that patented closing move to win the race from three-wide.

Last night, Stephen F. Austin began to move, and when they did, they looked like Whirlaway at the Kentucky Derby.  The Lumberjacks just ran past Nicholls State, putting the game away handily in the first half.  Now, they have Southeast Louisiana in their sights, and the Lions better be ready to roar in the Championship Game, because SFA doesn’t look to be losing any speed at the finish line.

 

Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
4:00 PM	#1 Arkansas-Pine Bluff	#3 Texas Southern	ESPN2

Our heart says Texas Southern tonight, because our leader has a past friendly relationship with TSU coach Mike Davis, but our brain says that Arkansas-Pine Bluff will become the first team ever to begin a season 0-14 and make the NCAA Tournament.

These two teams could play 100 times, and we would pick UAPB to win about 55-60 of those games.  The Golden Lions won two very close games over the Tigers in the regular season, and they seem to have their number.

The winner of this game is already put in the First Four in Dayton in permanent marker.  There is no need to pencil the winner this year.  Either a 19-loss or 20-loss team will earn an automatic bid.

 

Sun Belt Conference Tournament
Semifinals–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
12:30 PM	#1 UL-Lafayette	#4 UT-Arlington	ESPN3
3:00 PM	#2 Georgia St.	#3 Georgia Southern	ESPN3
Championship–March 11
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
2:00 PM	ULL or UTA	Ga St. or Ga. Sou.	ESPN2

Louisiana-Lafayette may be the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament with a coach (Bob Marlin) that has taken the Ragin’ Cajuns and formerly Sam Houston to the NCAA Tournament, but Georgia State also has the tournament experience coach on their sideline, as Ron Hunter has taken GSU and IUPUI to the Dance in the past.

What does this mean for UT-Arlington and Georgia Southern?    Ten years ago, Scott Cross guided UTA to a conference tournament title, while Georgia Southern coach Mark Byington has been slowly upgrading the program at Hanner Fieldhouse.

Don’t expect the two favorite to easily coast to the finals tomorrow, but the chances are better than 50-50 that both teams win tonight.

 

Western Athletic Conference Tournament
Championship–March 10
Time	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	TV
10:00 PM	#1 New Mexico St.	#3 Grand Canyon	ESPNU

There’s nothing more to say about this tournament than what we previously stated.  This just might be the best Championship Game of the entire lot this weekend.  New Mexico State has been tournament savvy since November, when the Aggies beat Davidson and Miami (Fla.) in Hawaii and almost knocked off USC for the championship.  After NMSU completed the regular season sweep of GCU, their record stood at 22-3, and the Aggies were on the verge of cracking the top 25.  But, playing an overly physical team like GCU can take its toll, and NMSU suffered by losing consecutive road games against the other top two teams of the four in this league.  The team recovered and since then has won five games in a row by an average of 16.8 points per game.

Grand Canyon has made great strides moving into Division 1.  The only for-profit university playing Division 1 basketball, the Antelopes have a student base from all over the country, as they have both a real campus and an online presence.  Of course, John Doe, a GCU online-only student in Augusta, Maine, is not eligible to play on the team, but his tuition might help the school fund the athletic program a little bit.  This could be the start of something big if the Antelopes make the Dance.  Imagine the University of Phoenix or Devry University trying this out.   And, what happens when Penn State or Alabama discover that they must begin to have an online university in addition to a real campus?  The NCAA might have to eventually establish some ground rules, when Dunkin’ Bill Duncan and Henry Hoopshot decide to attend classes at home but play on the basketball team, because they both live just 10 miles away.  Who will really be doing the homework???

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings 2017-18 College Football Final Polls

Congratulations go to Coach Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide for winning the National Championship in a thrilling overtime victory over the Georgia Bulldogs.  Alabama wins the top spot in all three ratings, plus the retro rankings.  Here’s how the final numbers crunched.

Retrodictive Rankings

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Georgia
3	Ohio St.
4	Wisconsin
5	Central Florida
6	Penn St.
7	Clemson
8	Oklahoma
9	Notre Dame
10	Auburn
11	TCU
12	Michigan St.
13	Miami (Fla)
14	USC
15	Washington
16	Oklahoma St.
17	Northwestern
18	North Carolina St.
19	Iowa
20	Stanford
21	Virginia Tech
22	Mississippi St.
23	LSU
24	Memphis
25	Boise St.
26	Michigan
27	Iowa St.
28	Wake Forest
29	South Florida
30	Louisville
31	South Carolina
32	Washington St.
33	Toledo
34	Florida Atlantic
35	Boston College
36	Florida St.
37	Texas
38	Purdue
39	Kansas St.
40	San Diego St.
41	Fresno St.
42	Troy
43	Army
44	Navy
45	Texas A&M
46	Duke
47	Georgia Tech
48	Oregon
49	Utah
50	West Virginia
51	Missouri
52	Arizona St.
53	Houston
54	Texas Tech
55	Kentucky
56	Arizona
57	UCLA
58	Appalachian St.
59	Ohio
60	Indiana
61	Ole Miss
62	Pittsburgh
63	California
64	Northern Illinois
65	Temple
66	SMU
67	Minnesota
68	Marshall
69	North Texas
70	Virginia
71	Wyoming
72	Florida
73	Syracuse
74	Maryland
75	Central Michigan
76	Colorado
77	Colorado St.
78	Nebraska
79	Western Michigan
80	Louisiana Tech
81	Tulane
82	Vanderbilt
83	Arkansas St.
84	Southern Miss.
85	Florida Int’l.
86	Arkansas
87	Akron
88	Buffalo
89	Middle Tennessee
90	Utah St.
91	Tennessee
92	North Carolina
93	UAB
94	Eastern Michigan
95	Rutgers
96	Air Force
97	New Mexico St.
98	UTSA
99	Miami (O)
100	Cincinnati
101	Tulsa
102	UNLV
103	Western Kentucky
104	Baylor
105	BYU
106	East Carolina
107	Nevada
108	Georgia St.
109	Massachusetts
110	Connecticut
111	Illinois
112	Old Dominion
113	UL-Monroe
114	Bowling Green
115	New Mexico
116	Idaho
117	South Alabama
118	UL-Lafayette
119	Oregon St.
120	Hawaii
121	Coastal Carolina
122	Georgia Southern
123	Kansas
124	Kent St.
125	Ball St.
126	Rice
127	Charlotte
128	Texas St.
129	San Jose St.
130	UTEP

The PiRate, Mean, and Bias Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	136.9	133.5	135.8	135.4
2	Ohio St.	132.3	130.2	132.6	131.7
3	Georgia	130.8	130.0	131.4	130.7
4	Clemson	131.3	128.6	130.9	130.3
5	Penn St.	129.4	128.1	129.8	129.1
6	Oklahoma	128.2	126.7	129.4	128.1
7	Auburn	127.0	125.2	127.2	126.5
8	Washington	126.2	124.2	126.1	125.5
9	Wisconsin	126.4	123.9	125.5	125.3
10	Oklahoma St.	121.2	120.4	121.6	121.1
11	Stanford	120.6	119.0	119.9	119.8
12	U S C	120.1	119.2	119.8	119.7
13	L S U	118.5	116.3	118.8	117.9
14	Virginia Tech	118.1	117.6	117.9	117.8
15	Miami	118.6	117.4	117.5	117.8
16	T C U	118.0	116.5	118.2	117.6
17	N. Carolina St.	117.1	116.2	117.0	116.8
18	Central Florida	116.0	116.9	117.2	116.7
19	Louisville	116.8	116.0	116.5	116.4
20	Notre Dame	116.6	115.4	116.8	116.2
21	Florida St.	116.9	116.0	115.7	116.2
22	Northwestern	115.4	114.2	115.5	115.0
23	Iowa	114.3	114.5	113.6	114.2
24	Michigan	114.2	114.0	113.4	113.9
25	Mississippi St.	113.5	113.3	113.3	113.4
26	Memphis	113.2	112.5	114.0	113.2
27	Iowa State	112.8	112.8	113.9	113.2
28	Texas	112.9	112.9	113.5	113.1
29	Kansas St.	112.9	112.7	113.0	112.9
30	Boston College	112.6	112.3	112.6	112.5
31	Michigan St.	111.0	111.6	112.1	111.6
32	Wake Forest	112.1	110.4	112.2	111.6
33	Duke	111.1	110.0	110.4	110.5
34	Utah	109.9	109.9	110.1	110.0
35	Oregon	110.5	108.6	109.9	109.7
36	Georgia Tech	110.2	108.4	108.7	109.1
37	Washington St.	109.8	107.7	109.3	108.9
38	South Florida	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
39	S. Carolina	109.1	108.3	108.2	108.5
40	Pittsburgh	108.8	108.1	108.7	108.5
41	Missouri	108.5	107.1	107.8	107.8
42	Boise St.	107.5	106.1	107.6	107.1
43	Texas A&M	107.9	106.0	107.0	107.0
44	West Virginia	106.7	107.4	106.7	106.9
45	Arizona St.	106.4	105.3	106.0	105.9
46	Kentucky	106.4	105.7	105.0	105.7
47	Purdue	105.6	105.4	106.1	105.7
48	Indiana	105.5	105.6	105.9	105.7
49	Ole Miss	106.3	105.0	105.4	105.6
50	Florida	105.7	105.4	105.1	105.4
51	Arizona	106.0	104.9	104.9	105.3
52	Texas Tech	105.2	104.9	104.8	105.0
53	Florida Atlantic	103.4	104.9	105.3	104.5
54	California	105.3	103.2	103.8	104.1
55	Navy	103.5	104.1	103.7	103.8
56	Colorado	104.5	103.4	102.4	103.4
57	U C L A	103.0	102.4	102.3	102.6
58	N. Carolina	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
59	San Diego St.	101.5	101.5	102.5	101.8
60	Houston	101.4	101.1	101.5	101.3
61	Syracuse	102.0	100.8	101.1	101.3
62	Army	100.9	100.8	101.3	101.0
63	Appalachian St.	101.2	100.0	101.4	100.9
64	Toledo	100.1	100.1	102.1	100.8
65	Minnesota	100.3	101.2	99.2	100.2
66	Vanderbilt	100.8	99.8	99.7	100.1
67	Troy	99.7	99.8	99.9	99.8
68	Fresno St.	99.9	98.6	100.8	99.8
69	Colo. State	99.8	99.1	99.7	99.5
70	Virginia	99.6	98.6	99.9	99.4
71	Ohio U	98.3	99.6	99.3	99.1
72	Arkansas	99.4	98.5	99.2	99.1
73	Baylor	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
74	Temple	98.2	98.5	98.8	98.5
75	Wyoming	97.8	96.9	97.2	97.3
76	Tennessee	97.3	95.9	95.3	96.2
77	Western Michigan	95.8	95.2	96.5	95.8
78	Northern Illinois	95.0	95.0	95.8	95.2
79	Nebraska	94.9	95.4	94.4	94.9
80	Eastern Michigan	94.7	94.8	95.1	94.9
81	Maryland	94.5	95.8	93.9	94.7
82	Arkansas St.	93.8	95.0	94.7	94.5
83	Tulane	94.2	94.4	94.6	94.4
84	SMU	94.0	94.5	94.3	94.3
85	Utah St.	94.0	93.3	93.7	93.7
86	Marshall	92.4	93.5	93.8	93.3
87	Central Michigan	92.8	93.1	93.4	93.1
88	Tulsa	93.1	92.8	92.7	92.9
89	Air Force	92.2	92.5	92.2	92.3
90	Louisiana Tech	90.8	92.4	91.6	91.6
91	Middle Tennessee	90.4	91.4	91.6	91.1
92	Rutgers	91.1	91.1	90.7	91.0
93	BYU	90.0	89.9	89.9	89.9
94	Nevada	88.9	90.5	90.0	89.8
95	Miami (O)	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
96	Oregon St.	90.0	89.9	88.4	89.4
97	Massachusetts	88.9	88.4	89.0	88.8
98	U T S A	87.6	90.0	88.4	88.6
99	Buffalo	87.3	89.3	89.3	88.6
100	Florida Int’l.	87.6	88.0	88.4	88.0
101	Illinois	87.9	89.0	86.8	87.9
102	Southern Miss.	87.5	88.4	87.8	87.9
103	N. Texas	86.4	87.8	86.9	87.0
104	U N L V	86.2	87.7	86.3	86.8
105	N. Mexico St.	86.8	85.7	86.9	86.5
106	W. Kentucky	85.7	86.2	86.1	86.0
107	Connecticut	84.5	86.3	84.8	85.2
108	Akron	84.2	86.1	84.9	85.1
109	Cincinnati	83.9	85.7	84.6	84.7
110	New Mexico	84.4	84.4	84.9	84.6
111	East Carolina	83.2	84.5	83.3	83.7
112	Georgia St.	82.7	82.7	82.5	82.7
113	Kansas	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
114	Bowling Green	81.5	82.6	81.8	82.0
115	Hawaii	81.8	82.9	81.1	81.9
116	UL-Monroe	81.9	82.8	81.0	81.9
117	S. Alabama	81.1	83.0	81.3	81.8
118	Idaho	80.8	81.6	81.7	81.3
119	Old Dominion	80.3	82.7	80.5	81.2
120	UAB	79.6	79.9	81.3	80.3
121	UL-Lafayette	79.3	80.5	79.0	79.6
122	Georgia Southern	79.1	80.4	78.5	79.3
123	Coastal Carolina	74.5	75.7	75.3	75.2
124	Kent St.	73.9	75.4	74.2	74.5
125	Rice	72.6	74.1	73.0	73.2
126	San Jose St.	72.3	72.4	71.6	72.1
127	Texas St.	70.3	72.5	69.4	70.7
128	Charlotte	69.5	71.8	69.7	70.3
129	U T E P	67.9	70.7	67.9	68.9
130	Ball St.	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6
PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.7	111.6	112.2	112.2
2	SEC	112.0	110.7	111.4	111.4
3	B12	109.8	109.9	110.0	109.9
4	P-12	109.4	108.1	108.6	108.7
5	BTEN	108.8	108.6	108.5	108.6
6	IND	99.1	98.6	99.2	99.0
7	AAC	97.9	98.3	98.2	98.1
8	MWC	92.2	92.2	92.3	92.2
9	MAC	88.2	89.1	89.0	88.8
10	CUSA	84.4	85.8	85.2	85.1
11	SBC	84.3	85.0	84.3	84.5

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings 2017-18 College Football National Championship Game Preview

2017-18 College Football National Championship Game

#3 Georgia Bulldogs (13-1) vs. #4 Alabama Crimson Tide (12-1)

Date: Monday, January 8, 2018

Time: 8:00 PM Eastern Standard

Location: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta

TV: ESPN

Announcers: Chris Fowler–Play-by-play, Kirk Herbstreit–Color commentary, Maria Taylor–Sideline, Tom Rinaldi–Sideline

Radio: ESPN

Announcers: Sean McDonough–Play-by-play, Todd Blackledge–Color commentary, Holly Rowe–Sideline, Ian Fitzsimmons–Sideline

Officiating: Big Ten Staff

Las Vegas Line (as of Tuesday, January 2, 2018, 4:00 PM EST

Spread: Alabama by 4 1/2

Money line: Alabama -200,  Georgia +170

Total: 45 1/2

PiRate Ratings

PiRate: Alabama by 6.5

Mean: Alabama by 3.7

Bias: Alabama by 4.8

Reasonable Expected Score: Alabama 31  Georgia 26

100 Computer Simulations

Wins: Alabama 68  Georgia 32

Average Score: Alabama 33  Georgia 27

Outlier ALA: Alabama 38  Georgia 9

Outlier GA: Georgia 27  Alabama 16 

 

 

PiRate Ratings 2017-18 College Football Bowls & Playoffs Preview

2017-18 Bowls & Playoffs Schedule

All times are EST

Saturday, December 16

New Orleans Bowl: 1:00 PM on ESPN

North Texas (9-4) vs. Troy (10-2)

 

Cure Bowl: 2:30 PM on CBSSN

Western Kentucky (6-6) vs. Georgia St. (6-5)

 

Las Vegas Bowl: 3:30 PM on ABC

Boise St. (10-3) vs. Oregon (7-5)

 

New Mexico Bowl: 4:30 PM on ESPN

Marshall (7-5) vs. Colorado St. (7-5)

 

Camellia Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Middle Tennessee (6-6) vs. Arkansas St. (7-4)

 

Tuesday, December 19

Boca Raton Bowl: 7:00 PM on ESPN

Akron (7-6) vs. Florida Atlantic (10-3)

 

Wednesday, December 20

Frisco Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

SMU (7-5) vs. Louisiana Tech (6-6)

 

Thursday, December 21

Gasparilla Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Temple (6-6) vs. Florida Int’l. (8-4)

 

Friday, December 22

Bahamas Bowl: 12:30 PM on ESPN

UAB (8-4) vs. Ohio U. (8-4)

 

Idaho Potato Bowl: 4:00 PM on ESPN

Central Michigan (8-4) vs. Wyoming (7-5)

 

Saturday, December 23

Birmingham Bowl: 12:00 PM on ESPN

South Florida (9-2) vs. Texas Tech (6-6)

 

Armed Forces Bowl: 3:30 PM on ESPN

Army (9-3) vs. San Diego St. (10-2)

 

Dollar General Bowl: 7:00 PM on ESPN

Toledo (11-2) vs. Appalachian St. (8-4)

 

Sunday, December 24

Hawaii Bowl: 8:30 PM on ESPN

Houston (7-4) vs. Fresno St. (9-4)

 

Tuesday, December 26

Heart of Dallas Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

West Virginia (7-5) vs. Utah (6-6)

 

Quick Lane Bowl: 5:00 PM on ESPN

Duke (6-6) vs. Northern Illinois (8-4)

 

Cactus Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

Kansas St. (7-5) vs. UCLA (6-6)

 

Wednesday, December 27

Independence Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

Florida St. (6-6) vs. Southern Miss. (8-4)

 

Pinstripe Bowl: 5:15 PM on ESPN

Boston College (7-5) vs. Iowa (7-5)

 

Foster Farms: 8:30 PM on Fox

Purdue (6-6) vs. Arizona (7-5)

 

Texas Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

Texas (6-6) vs. Missouri (7-5)

 

Thursday, December 28

Military Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

Navy (6-6) vs. Virginia (6-6)

 

Camping World Bowl: 5:15 PM on ESPN

Oklahoma St. (9-3) vs. Virginia Tech (9-3)

 

Holiday Bowl: 9:00 PM on FS1

Michigan St. (9-3) vs. Washington St. (9-3)

 

Alamo Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

TCU (10-3) vs. Stanford (9-4)

 

Friday, December 29

Belk Bowl: 1:00 PM on ESPN

Wake Forest (7-5) vs. Texas A&M (7-5)

 

Sun Bowl: 3:00 PM on CBS

North Carolina St. (8-4) vs. Arizona St. (7-5)

 

Music City Bowl: 4:30 PM on ESPN

Kentucky (7-5) vs. Northwestern (9-3)

 

Arizona Bowl: 5:30 PM on CBSSN

Utah St. (6-6) vs. New Mexico St. (6-6)

 

Cotton Bowl: 8:30 PM on ESPN

Ohio St. (11-2) vs. USC (11-2)

 

Saturday, December 30

Taxslayer Bowl: 12:00 PM on ESPN

Louisville (8-4) vs. Mississippi St. (8-4)

 

Liberty Bowl: 12:30 PM on ABC

Iowa St. (7-5) vs. Memphis (10-2)

 

Fiesta Bowl: 4:00 PM on ESPN

Penn St. (10-2) vs. Washington (10-2)

 

Orange Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Wisconsin (12-1) vs. Miami (Fla.) (10-2)

 

Monday, January 1

Outback Bowl: 12:00 OM on ESPN2

Michigan (8-4) vs. South Carolina (8-4)

 

Peach Bowl: 12:30 PM on ESPN

Auburn (10-3) vs. Central Florida (12-0)

 

Citrus Bowl: 1:00 PM on ABC

Notre Dame (9-3) vs. LSU (9-3)

 

New Year’s Day Playoffs

Rose Bowl: 5:00 PM on ESPN

Oklahoma (12-1) vs. Georgia (12-1)

 

Sugar Bowl: 8:45 PM on ESPN

Clemson (12-1) vs. Alabama (11-1)

 

Monday, January 8

National Championship Game: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Rose Bowl Winner vs. Sugar Bowl Winner

 

PiRate Rating Spreads for Bowls/Playoffs

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
North Texas	Troy	-12.5	-11.2	-11.8
Georgia St.	Western Kentucky	-6.6	-6.9	-7.3
Boise St.	Oregon	-6.6	-5.7	-5.9
Marshall	Colorado St.	-10.4	-8.0	-8.7
Middle Tennessee	Arkansas St.	-5.9	-5.7	-5.7
Florida Atlantic	Akron	15.2	14.8	16.4
SMU	Louisiana Tech	11.7	10.5	11.1
Florida Int’l.	Temple	-5.8	-6.1	-5.2
UAB	Ohio U	-14.7	-16.3	-13.6
Wyoming	Central Michigan	0.4	-0.8	-1.4
South Florida	Texas Tech	3.8	3.2	4.5
San Diego St.	Army	2.4	2.3	3.2
Appalachian St.	Toledo	-5.9	-7.1	-7.7
Fresno St.	Houston	-3.5	-4.5	-2.7
West Virginia	Utah	0.2	0.7	0.2
Northern Illinois	Duke	-14.7	-13.8	-12.8
UCLA	Kansas St.	-7.7	-8.5	-8.4
Southern Miss.	Florida St.	-29.4	-27.4	-27.3
Boston College	Iowa	-0.3	-1.0	0.5
Arizona	Purdue	0.8	-0.3	-0.8
Texas	Missouri	4.2	6.3	5.5
Navy	Virginia	-1.1	0.5	-1.2
Oklahoma St.	Virginia Tech	1.9	1.8	2.6
TCU	Stanford	-1.3	-1.2	-0.6
Washington St.	Michigan St.	5.8	3.1	4.2
Wake Forest	Texas A&M	6.4	6.6	7.4
Arizona St.	North Carolina St.	-8.3	-8.7	-8.4
Kentucky	Northwestern	-8.4	-7.9	-9.9
New Mexico St.	Utah St.	-9.1	-9.6	-8.8
Ohio St.	USC	11.6	10.4	12.2
Mississippi St.	Louisville	-5.6	-4.5	-5.8
Memphis	Iowa St.	4.0	3.1	3.9
Washington	Penn St.	-2.4	-3.5	-2.7
Miami (Fla.)	Wisconsin	-3.4	-2.1	-3.6
South Carolina	Michigan	-8.3	-8.6	-8.6
Auburn	Central Florida	15.8	12.5	14.8
Notre Dame	LSU	-3.1	-1.8	-3.6
Oklahoma	Georgia	-2.4	-3.2	-1.8
Alabama	Clemson	2.8	2.4	1.7

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Final Regular Season Polls

The PiRate Poll has been updated after the Conference Championship Games, and our ratings show something different from what the Playoff Committee will decide later today.

Our Retrodictive Ratings are our closest approximation to merit based rewards.  It only factors who you beat, where you beat them, when you beat them, and in minimal fashion how you beat them.  Here are our final Retro Ratings prior to the bowls and playoffs.

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Clemson
2	Georgia
3	Oklahoma
4	Alabama
5	Ohio St.
6	Wisconsin
7	Central Florida
8	Penn St.
9	Auburn
10	Washington
11	Miami (Fla)
12	USC
13	Notre Dame
14	TCU
15	Virginia Tech
16	Oklahoma St.
17	Stanford
18	Michigan St.
19	Michigan
20	Washington St.
21	Northwestern
22	Memphis
23	LSU
24	North Carolina St.
25	Iowa
26	Louisville
27	Mississippi St.
28	Boston College
29	South Florida
30	Iowa St.
31	Boise St.
32	Toledo
33	Wake Forest
34	South Carolina
35	San Diego St.
36	Oregon
37	Florida Atlantic
38	Florida St.
39	Arizona St.
40	Texas A&M
41	Texas
42	West Virginia
43	Purdue
44	Georgia Tech
45	Kansas St.
46	Missouri
47	Arizona
48	Fresno St.
49	UCLA
50	Navy
51	Troy
52	Houston
53	Texas Tech
54	Utah
55	Army
56	Kentucky
57	Duke
58	SMU
59	Northern Illinois
60	Indiana
61	Virginia
62	North Texas
63	California
64	Ole Miss
65	Ohio
66	Pittsburgh
67	Central Michigan
68	Minnesota
69	Florida
70	Syracuse
71	Maryland
72	Wyoming
73	Marshall
74	Appalachian St.
75	Colorado
76	Colorado St.
77	Temple
78	Nebraska
79	Western Michigan
80	Tulane
81	Arkansas St.
82	Florida Int’l.
83	Akron
84	Southern Miss.
85	Vanderbilt
86	Buffalo
87	Arkansas
88	UAB
89	Tennessee
90	Utah St.
91	North Carolina
92	Eastern Michigan
93	Rutgers
94	Air Force
95	Louisiana Tech
96	Middle Tennessee
97	UTSA
98	Miami (O)
99	Cincinnati
100	Western Kentucky
101	Tulsa
102	UNLV
103	Baylor
104	New Mexico St.
105	BYU
106	East Carolina
107	Nevada
108	Georgia St.
109	Massachusetts
110	Connecticut
111	Illinois
112	Old Dominion
113	UL-Monroe
114	Bowling Green
115	New Mexico
116	Idaho
117	South Alabama
118	UL-Lafayette
119	Oregon St.
120	Hawaii
121	Coastal Carolina
122	Georgia Southern
123	Kansas
124	Kent St.
125	Ball St.
126	Rice
127	Charlotte
128	Texas St.
129	San Jose St.
130	UTEP

While our ratings show that Alabama should be chosen ahead of Ohio State, we believe there will be too much pressure to take two SEC teams and leave out the Big Ten and Pac-12, especially when the Rose Bowl is one of the semifinal games.

Our ratings reflect a 34-point loss by Ohio State at a mediocre Iowa team combined with a home loss to Oklahoma, which slightly offsets their wins over Michigan State, Penn State, and Wisconsin.  Alabama’s best wins were not as impressive as the Buckeyes, but as a whole, they did beat more decent teams, and the SEC is several points better than the Big Ten.  Plus, their one loss was at Auburn, a team that had just blown Georgia off the Jordan-Hare Field.  Truth be told, if the Committee deferred to the smart guys in Nevada, Alabama would be the number one seed in the playoffs.

Our Predictive ratings back us up on this point.  However, the predictive ratings show that Ohio State is one of the four best teams at this point of the season.  We are scratching our heads on why Oklahoma is so low in the predictive ratings, because they have been improving week by week.  Unfortunately, they may have fallen between the cracks in how we update.  We have a mechanical update based on statistics and the point in which an easy win was already guaranteed, and maybe OU kept missing out on extra points due to a few yards here or there.

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	135.6	132.3	134.3	134.1
2	Clemson	132.8	129.9	132.6	131.8
3	Ohio St.	132.0	129.9	132.3	131.4
4	Georgia	130.6	129.9	131.2	130.6
5	Auburn	129.4	127.3	129.6	128.8
6	Penn St.	129.0	127.9	129.3	128.7
7	Oklahoma	128.2	126.7	129.4	128.1
8	Washington	126.6	124.4	126.6	125.9
9	Wisconsin	125.7	123.2	124.8	124.6
10	Oklahoma St.	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
11	U S C	120.4	119.5	120.1	120.0
12	Stanford	120.7	119.1	120.1	120.0
13	Miami	119.3	118.1	118.2	118.5
14	L S U	119.1	116.7	119.6	118.5
15	Virginia Tech	118.7	118.1	118.5	118.4
16	Louisville	117.9	116.9	117.8	117.5
17	T C U	117.9	116.4	118.0	117.4
18	Florida St.	116.9	115.9	115.4	116.1
19	Notre Dame	116.0	115.0	116.0	115.6
20	N. Carolina St.	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
21	Michigan	115.8	115.5	115.1	115.5
22	Northwestern	115.6	114.4	115.7	115.2
23	Central Florida	113.6	114.8	114.8	114.4
24	Iowa	114.1	114.4	113.3	114.0
25	Memphis	113.5	112.7	114.4	113.5
26	Iowa State	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
27	Boston College	112.8	112.4	112.9	112.7
28	Washington St.	113.3	111.2	112.8	112.4
29	Mississippi St.	112.4	112.4	112.0	112.3
30	Texas	111.8	112.1	112.4	112.1
31	Kansas St.	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
32	Wake Forest	112.2	110.5	112.3	111.7
33	Oregon	112.3	110.2	111.7	111.4
34	Duke	110.4	109.4	109.5	109.8
35	Georgia Tech	110.2	108.4	108.7	109.1
36	South Florida	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
37	Missouri	109.6	107.9	108.9	108.8
38	West Virginia	108.4	109.0	108.5	108.6
39	Pittsburgh	108.8	108.1	108.7	108.5
40	Utah	108.2	108.3	108.3	108.3
41	Michigan St.	107.5	108.1	108.6	108.1
42	Arizona St.	107.6	106.4	107.3	107.1
43	S. Carolina	107.5	106.8	106.5	106.9
44	Texas A&M	107.8	105.9	106.9	106.9
45	Indiana	105.5	105.6	105.9	105.7
46	Ole Miss	106.3	105.0	105.4	105.6
47	Purdue	105.4	105.3	105.9	105.5
48	Kentucky	106.2	105.5	104.8	105.5
49	Arizona	106.2	105.0	105.1	105.4
50	Florida	105.7	105.4	105.1	105.4
51	Boise St.	105.7	104.5	105.8	105.3
52	Texas Tech	105.2	104.9	104.8	105.0
53	Toledo	103.6	103.6	105.6	104.3
54	California	105.3	103.2	103.8	104.1
55	U C L A	104.1	103.3	103.5	103.6
56	Colorado	104.5	103.4	102.4	103.4
57	Virginia	103.1	102.1	103.4	102.9
58	San Diego St.	102.4	102.3	103.5	102.7
59	Houston	102.4	102.1	102.5	102.3
60	N. Carolina	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
61	Syracuse	102.0	100.8	101.1	101.3
62	Florida Atlantic	99.9	101.4	101.8	101.0
63	Colo. State	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
64	Navy	100.2	100.8	100.4	100.4
65	Minnesota	100.3	101.2	99.2	100.2
66	Vanderbilt	100.8	99.8	99.7	100.1
67	Army	99.8	99.8	100.1	99.9
68	Troy	99.3	99.4	99.3	99.3
69	Arkansas	99.4	98.5	99.2	99.1
70	Fresno St.	98.9	97.6	99.8	98.8
71	Baylor	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
72	SMU	97.5	98.0	97.8	97.8
73	Appalachian St.	97.7	96.5	97.9	97.4
74	Ohio U	96.3	97.9	97.1	97.1
75	Temple	96.3	96.8	96.7	96.6
76	Tennessee	97.3	95.9	95.3	96.2
77	Northern Illinois	95.7	95.6	96.7	96.0
78	Western Michigan	95.8	95.2	96.5	95.8
79	Arkansas St.	95.0	96.1	96.0	95.7
80	Central Michigan	95.1	95.4	96.0	95.5
81	Nebraska	94.9	95.4	94.4	94.9
82	Wyoming	95.5	94.6	94.6	94.9
83	Eastern Michigan	94.7	94.8	95.1	94.9
84	Maryland	94.5	95.8	93.9	94.7
85	Utah St.	95.0	94.3	94.7	94.7
86	Tulane	94.2	94.4	94.6	94.4
87	Tulsa	93.1	92.8	92.7	92.9
88	Air Force	92.2	92.5	92.2	92.3
89	Marshall	90.9	92.3	92.4	91.9
90	Rutgers	91.1	91.1	90.7	91.0
91	Middle Tennessee	89.2	90.3	90.3	89.9
92	BYU	90.0	89.9	89.9	89.9
93	Florida Int’l.	89.5	89.7	90.5	89.9
94	Nevada	88.9	90.5	90.0	89.8
95	Miami (O)	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
96	Oregon St.	90.0	89.9	88.4	89.4
97	Massachusetts	88.9	88.4	89.0	88.8
98	U T S A	87.6	90.0	88.4	88.6
99	Buffalo	87.3	89.3	89.3	88.6
100	Akron	87.7	89.6	88.4	88.6
101	Louisiana Tech	87.3	88.9	88.1	88.1
102	Southern Miss.	87.5	88.5	88.1	88.0
103	Illinois	87.9	89.0	86.8	87.9
104	W. Kentucky	87.5	87.9	88.0	87.8
105	N. Texas	86.8	88.2	87.5	87.5
106	U N L V	86.2	87.7	86.3	86.8
107	N. Mexico St.	85.8	84.7	85.9	85.5
108	Connecticut	84.5	86.3	84.8	85.2
109	Cincinnati	83.9	85.7	84.6	84.7
110	New Mexico	84.4	84.4	84.9	84.6
111	East Carolina	83.2	84.5	83.3	83.7
112	Kansas	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
113	UAB	81.6	81.6	83.5	82.2
114	Bowling Green	81.5	82.6	81.8	82.0
115	Hawaii	81.8	82.9	81.1	81.9
116	UL-Monroe	81.9	82.8	81.0	81.9
117	S. Alabama	81.1	83.0	81.3	81.8
118	Idaho	80.8	81.6	81.7	81.3
119	Old Dominion	80.3	82.7	80.5	81.2
120	Georgia St.	80.9	81.0	80.6	80.9
121	UL-Lafayette	79.3	80.5	79.0	79.6
122	Georgia Southern	79.1	80.4	78.5	79.3
123	Coastal Carolina	74.5	75.7	75.3	75.2
124	Kent St.	73.9	75.4	74.2	74.5
125	Rice	72.6	74.1	73.0	73.2
126	San Jose St.	72.3	72.4	71.6	72.1
127	Texas St.	70.3	72.5	69.4	70.7
128	Charlotte	69.5	71.8	69.7	70.3
129	U T E P	67.9	70.7	67.9	68.9
130	Ball St.	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6

Ratings by Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	8-0	12-0	113.6	114.8	114.8	114.4
South Florida	6-2	9-2	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
Temple	4-4	6-6	96.3	96.8	96.7	96.6
Connecticut	2-6	3-9	84.5	86.3	84.8	85.2
Cincinnati	2-6	4-8	83.9	85.7	84.6	84.7
East Carolina	2-6	3-9	83.2	84.5	83.3	83.7
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	7-1	10-2	113.5	112.7	114.4	113.5
Houston	5-3	7-4	102.4	102.1	102.5	102.3
Navy	4-4	6-5	100.2	100.8	100.4	100.4
SMU	4-4	7-5	97.5	98.0	97.8	97.8
Tulane	3-5	5-7	94.2	94.4	94.6	94.4
Tulsa	1-7	2-10	93.1	92.8	92.7	92.9
AAC Averages			97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	7-1	12-1	132.8	129.9	132.6	131.8
Louisville	4-4	8-4	117.9	116.9	117.8	117.5
Florida St.	3-5	6-6	116.9	115.9	115.4	116.1
N. Carolina St.	6-2	8-4	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
Boston College	4-4	7-5	112.8	112.4	112.9	112.7
Wake Forest	4-4	7-5	112.2	110.5	112.3	111.7
Syracuse	2-6	4-8	102.0	100.8	101.1	101.3
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	7-1	10-2	119.3	118.1	118.2	118.5
Virginia Tech	5-3	9-3	118.7	118.1	118.5	118.4
Duke	3-5	6-6	110.4	109.4	109.5	109.8
Georgia Tech	4-4	5-6	110.2	108.4	108.7	109.1
Pittsburgh	3-5	5-7	108.8	108.1	108.7	108.5
Virginia	3-5	6-6	103.1	102.1	103.4	102.9
N. Carolina	1-7	3-9	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
ACC Averages			113.1	112.0	112.6	112.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	8-1	12-1	128.2	126.7	129.4	128.1
Oklahoma St.	6-3	9-3	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
T C U	7-2	10-3	117.9	116.4	118.0	117.4
Iowa State	5-4	7-5	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
Texas	5-4	6-6	111.8	112.1	112.4	112.1
Kansas St.	5-4	7-5	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
West Virginia	5-4	7-5	108.4	109.0	108.5	108.6
Texas Tech	3-6	6-6	105.2	104.9	104.8	105.0
Baylor	1-8	1-11	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
Kansas	0-9	1-11	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
Big 12 Averages			109.6	109.8	109.8	109.8
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	8-1	11-2	132.0	129.9	132.3	131.4
Penn St.	7-2	10-2	129.0	127.9	129.3	128.7
Michigan	5-4	8-4	115.8	115.5	115.1	115.5
Michigan St.	7-2	9-3	107.5	108.1	108.6	108.1
Indiana	2-7	5-7	105.5	105.6	105.9	105.7
Maryland	2-7	4-8	94.5	95.8	93.9	94.7
Rutgers	3-6	4-8	91.1	91.1	90.7	91.0
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	9-0	12-1	125.7	123.2	124.8	124.6
Northwestern	7-2	9-3	115.6	114.4	115.7	115.2
Iowa	4-5	7-5	114.1	114.4	113.3	114.0
Purdue	4-5	6-6	105.4	105.3	105.9	105.5
Minnesota	2-7	5-7	100.3	101.2	99.2	100.2
Nebraska	3-6	4-8	94.9	95.4	94.4	94.9
Illinois	0-9	2-10	87.9	89.0	86.8	87.9
Big Ten Averages			108.5	108.3	108.3	108.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	8-0	10-3	99.9	101.4	101.8	101.0
Marshall	4-4	7-5	90.9	92.3	92.4	91.9
Middle Tennessee	4-4	6-6	89.2	90.3	90.3	89.9
Florida Int’l.	5-3	8-4	89.5	89.7	90.5	89.9
W. Kentucky	4-4	6-6	87.5	87.9	88.0	87.8
Old Dominion	3-5	5-7	80.3	82.7	80.5	81.2
Charlotte	1-7	1-11	69.5	71.8	69.7	70.3
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	3-5	6-5	87.6	90.0	88.4	88.6
Louisiana Tech	4-4	6-6	87.3	88.9	88.1	88.1
Southern Miss.	6-2	8-4	87.5	88.5	88.1	88.0
N. Texas	7-1	9-4	86.8	88.2	87.5	87.5
UAB	6-2	8-4	81.6	81.6	83.5	82.2
Rice	1-7	1-11	72.6	74.1	73.0	73.2
U T E P	0-8	0-12	67.9	70.7	67.9	68.9
CUSA Averages			84.2	85.6	85.0	84.9
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		9-3	116.0	115.0	116.0	115.6
Army		8-3	99.8	99.8	100.1	99.9
Massachusetts		4-8	88.9	88.4	89.0	88.8
BYU		4-9	90.0	89.9	89.9	89.9
Indep. Averages			98.7	98.3	98.7	98.6
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	5-3	8-4	96.3	97.9	97.1	97.1
Miami (O)	4-4	5-7	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
Buffalo	4-4	6-6	87.3	89.3	89.3	88.6
Akron	6-2	7-6	87.7	89.6	88.4	88.6
Bowling Green	2-6	2-10	81.5	82.6	81.8	82.0
Kent St.	1-7	2-10	73.9	75.4	74.2	74.5
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	7-1	11-2	103.6	103.6	105.6	104.3
Northern Illinois	6-2	8-4	95.7	95.6	96.7	96.0
Western Michigan	4-4	6-6	95.8	95.2	96.5	95.8
Central Michigan	6-2	8-4	95.1	95.4	96.0	95.5
Eastern Michigan	3-5	5-7	94.7	94.8	95.1	94.9
Ball St.	0-8	2-10	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6
MAC Averages			88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	7-1	10-3	105.7	104.5	105.8	105.3
Colo. State	5-3	7-5	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
Wyoming	5-3	7-5	95.5	94.6	94.6	94.9
Utah St.	4-4	6-6	95.0	94.3	94.7	94.7
Air Force	4-4	5-7	92.2	92.5	92.2	92.3
New Mexico	1-7	3-9	84.4	84.4	84.9	84.6
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	6-2	10-2	102.4	102.3	103.5	102.7
Fresno St.	7-1	9-4	98.9	97.6	99.8	98.8
Nevada	3-5	3-9	88.9	90.5	90.0	89.8
U N L V	4-4	5-7	86.2	87.7	86.3	86.8
Hawaii	1-8	3-9	81.8	82.9	81.1	81.9
San Jose St.	1-7	2-11	72.3	72.4	71.6	72.1
MWC Averages			92.0	92.0	92.1	92.1
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	7-2	10-2	126.6	124.4	126.6	125.9
Stanford	7-2	9-4	120.7	119.1	120.1	120.0
Washington St.	6-3	9-3	113.3	111.2	112.8	112.4
Oregon	4-5	7-5	112.3	110.2	111.7	111.4
California	2-7	5-7	105.3	103.2	103.8	104.1
Oregon St.	0-9	1-11	90.0	89.9	88.4	89.4
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	8-1	11-2	120.4	119.5	120.1	120.0
Utah	3-6	6-6	108.2	108.3	108.3	108.3
Arizona St.	6-3	7-5	107.6	106.4	107.3	107.1
Arizona	5-4	7-5	106.2	105.0	105.1	105.4
U C L A	4-5	6-6	104.1	103.3	103.5	103.6
Colorado	2-7	5-7	104.5	103.4	102.4	103.4
Pac-12 Averages			109.9	108.6	109.2	109.3
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	7-1	12-1	130.6	129.9	131.2	130.6
Missouri	4-4	7-5	109.6	107.9	108.9	108.8
S. Carolina	5-3	8-4	107.5	106.8	106.5	106.9
Kentucky	4-4	7-5	106.2	105.5	104.8	105.5
Florida	3-5	4-7	105.7	105.4	105.1	105.4
Vanderbilt	1-7	5-7	100.8	99.8	99.7	100.1
Tennessee	0-8	4-8	97.3	95.9	95.3	96.2
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	7-1	11-1	135.6	132.3	134.3	134.1
Auburn	7-1	10-3	129.4	127.3	129.6	128.8
L S U	6-2	9-3	119.1	116.7	119.6	118.5
Mississippi St.	4-4	8-4	112.4	112.4	112.0	112.3
Texas A&M	4-4	7-5	107.8	105.9	106.9	106.9
Ole Miss	3-5	6-6	106.3	105.0	105.4	105.6
Arkansas	1-7	4-8	99.4	98.5	99.2	99.1
SEC Averages			112.0	110.7	111.3	111.3
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Troy	7-1	10-2	99.3	99.4	99.3	99.3
Appalachian St.	7-1	8-4	97.7	96.5	97.9	97.4
Arkansas St.	6-2	7-4	95.0	96.1	96.0	95.7
N. Mexico St.	4-4	6-6	85.8	84.7	85.9	85.5
UL-Monroe	4-4	4-8	81.9	82.8	81.0	81.9
S. Alabama	3-5	4-8	81.1	83.0	81.3	81.8
Idaho	3-5	4-8	80.8	81.6	81.7	81.3
Georgia St.	5-3	6-5	80.9	81.0	80.6	80.9
UL-Lafayette	4-4	5-7	79.3	80.5	79.0	79.6
Georgia Southern	2-6	2-10	79.1	80.4	78.5	79.3
Coastal Carolina	2-6	3-9	74.5	75.7	75.3	75.2
Texas St.	1-7	2-10	70.3	72.5	69.4	70.7
Sun Belt Averages			83.8	84.5	83.8	84.1

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	113.1	112.0	112.6	112.6
2	SEC	112.0	110.7	111.3	111.3
3	BIG 12	109.6	109.8	109.8	109.8
4	PAC-12	109.9	108.6	109.2	109.3
5	BIG TEN	108.5	108.3	108.3	108.4
6	INDEP.	98.7	98.3	98.7	98.6
7	AAC	97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
8	MWC	92.0	92.0	92.1	92.1
9	MAC	88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
10	CUSA	84.2	85.6	85.0	84.9
11	Sun Belt	83.8	84.5	83.8	84.1

Look for our bowl and playoff spreads following next week’s Army – Navy game.

If you didn’t see our Army-Navy spread last week, it is:

Philadelphia	PA	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Army (n)	Navy	-0.4	-1.0	-0.3

Why the unique color purple?

This is what we call Love Purple.  You can replicate it with the RGB of 69-0-169 and the Hex Code of 4500A9.

Love purple is the official logo color of our mom and pop company in Nashville.  We are highly appreciative of all our supporters here, and we wish you a loving and joyous holiday season.

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for December 1-2 & 9, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads (+Army-Navy for next week)

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
USC (n)	Stanford	-0.7	0.2	-0.6
Central Florida	Memphis	3.5	5.5	4.0
Florida St.	UL-Monroe	38.0	36.1	37.4
Toledo (n)	Akron	16.0	13.5	17.2
Florida Atlantic	North Texas	14.3	14.8	15.0
Oklahoma (n)	TCU	6.5	6.9	7.2
Coastal Carolina	Georgia Southern	-6.2	-5.9	-5.0
Georgia St.	Idaho	7.5	6.3	6.5
Appy St.	UL-Lafayette	15.7	13.2	15.6
Arkansas St.	Troy	-0.8	0.0	0.5
Georgia (n)	Auburn	-3.1	-1.1	-3.1
New Mexico St.	South Alabama	7.9	4.7	7.8
Boise St.	Fresno St.	10.6	10.5	10.0
Miami (Fla.) (n)	Clemson	-7.9	-6.4	-8.6
Wisconsin (n)	Ohio St.	-6.3	-6.7	-7.5
Army (n)	Navy	-0.4	-1.0	-0.3

(n) means neutral site game

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Retrodictive Rankings (Based on past results and not predictive of the future)

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Clemson
2	Wisconsin
3	Alabama
4	Oklahoma
5	Georgia
6	Auburn
7	Ohio St.
8	Central Florida
9	Penn St.
10	Miami (Fla)
11	Washington
12	USC
13	Notre Dame
14	TCU
15	Virginia Tech
16	Stanford
17	Oklahoma St.
18	Michigan St.
19	Memphis
20	Michigan
21	Washington St.
22	Northwestern
23	LSU
24	North Carolina St.
25	Iowa
26	Louisville
27	Mississippi St.
28	Boston College
29	South Florida
30	Iowa St.
31	Boise St.
32	Wake Forest
33	Toledo
34	South Carolina
35	San Diego St.
36	Oregon
37	Florida Atlantic
38	Florida St.
39	Arizona St.
40	Texas A&M
41	Texas
42	West Virginia
43	Purdue
44	Georgia Tech
45	Kansas St.
46	Missouri
47	Arizona
48	Fresno St.
49	UCLA
50	Navy
51	Troy
52	Houston
53	Texas Tech
54	Utah
55	Army
56	Kentucky
57	Duke
58	SMU
59	Northern Illinois
60	Indiana
61	Virginia
62	North Texas
63	California
64	Ole Miss
65	Ohio
66	Pittsburgh
67	Central Michigan
68	Minnesota
69	Florida
70	Syracuse
71	Maryland
72	Wyoming
73	Marshall
74	Colorado
75	Colorado St.
76	Temple
77	Nebraska
78	Western Michigan
79	Tulane
80	Arkansas St.
81	Akron
82	Appalachian St.
83	Southern Miss.
84	Florida Int’l.
85	Vanderbilt
86	Buffalo
87	Arkansas
88	UAB
89	Tennessee
90	Utah St.
91	North Carolina
92	Eastern Michigan
93	Rutgers
94	Air Force
95	Louisiana Tech
96	Middle Tennessee
97	UTSA
98	Miami (O)
99	Georgia St.
100	Cincinnati
101	Western Kentucky
102	Tulsa
103	UNLV
104	Baylor
105	Massachusetts
106	East Carolina
107	New Mexico St.
108	BYU
109	Nevada
110	Connecticut
111	UL-Monroe
112	Illinois
113	Old Dominion
114	UL-Lafayette
115	Bowling Green
116	South Alabama
117	New Mexico
118	Idaho
119	Oregon St.
120	Hawaii
121	Georgia Southern
122	Kansas
123	Kent St.
124	Coastal Carolina
125	Ball St.
126	Rice
127	Charlotte
128	Texas St.
129	San Jose St.
130	UTEP

Predictive Ratings (Forward looking for the next game on the schedule)

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	135.6	132.3	134.3	134.1
2	Ohio St.	132.0	129.9	132.3	131.4
3	Auburn	131.3	128.9	131.7	130.6
4	Clemson	130.0	127.2	129.7	129.0
5	Penn St.	129.0	127.9	129.3	128.7
6	Georgia	128.2	127.8	128.6	128.2
7	Oklahoma	126.3	125.0	127.3	126.2
8	Washington	126.6	124.4	126.6	125.9
9	Wisconsin	125.7	123.2	124.8	124.6
10	Miami	122.1	120.8	121.1	121.3
11	Oklahoma St.	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
12	Stanford	120.9	119.2	120.4	120.2
13	U S C	120.2	119.4	119.8	119.8
14	T C U	119.8	118.1	120.1	119.3
15	L S U	119.1	116.7	119.6	118.5
16	Virginia Tech	118.7	118.1	118.5	118.4
17	Louisville	117.9	116.9	117.8	117.5
18	Florida St.	117.1	116.1	115.7	116.3
19	Notre Dame	116.0	115.0	116.0	115.6
20	N. Carolina St.	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
21	Michigan	115.8	115.5	115.1	115.5
22	Northwestern	115.6	114.4	115.7	115.2
23	Central Florida	113.8	115.0	115.1	114.6
24	Iowa	114.1	114.4	113.3	114.0
25	Memphis	113.3	112.5	114.1	113.3
26	Iowa State	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
27	Boston College	112.8	112.4	112.9	112.7
28	Washington St.	113.3	111.2	112.8	112.4
29	Mississippi St.	112.4	112.4	112.0	112.3
30	Texas	111.8	112.1	112.4	112.1
31	Kansas St.	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
32	Wake Forest	112.2	110.5	112.3	111.7
33	Oregon	112.3	110.2	111.7	111.4
34	Duke	110.4	109.4	109.5	109.8
35	Georgia Tech	110.2	108.4	108.7	109.1
36	South Florida	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
37	Missouri	109.6	107.9	108.9	108.8
38	West Virginia	108.4	109.0	108.5	108.6
39	Pittsburgh	108.8	108.1	108.7	108.5
40	Utah	108.2	108.3	108.3	108.3
41	Michigan St.	107.5	108.1	108.6	108.1
42	Arizona St.	107.6	106.4	107.3	107.1
43	S. Carolina	107.5	106.8	106.5	106.9
44	Texas A&M	107.8	105.9	106.9	106.9
45	Boise St.	106.1	104.8	106.3	105.7
46	Indiana	105.5	105.6	105.9	105.7
47	Ole Miss	106.3	105.0	105.4	105.6
48	Purdue	105.4	105.3	105.9	105.5
49	Kentucky	106.2	105.5	104.8	105.5
50	Arizona	106.2	105.0	105.1	105.4
51	Florida	105.7	105.4	105.1	105.4
52	Texas Tech	105.2	104.9	104.8	105.0
53	Toledo	103.6	103.4	105.6	104.2
54	California	105.3	103.2	103.8	104.1
55	U C L A	104.1	103.3	103.5	103.6
56	Colorado	104.5	103.4	102.4	103.4
57	Virginia	103.1	102.1	103.4	102.9
58	San Diego St.	102.4	102.3	103.5	102.7
59	Houston	102.4	102.1	102.5	102.3
60	N. Carolina	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
61	Syracuse	102.0	100.8	101.1	101.3
62	Colo. State	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
63	Navy	100.2	100.8	100.4	100.4
64	Minnesota	100.3	101.2	99.2	100.2
65	Florida Atlantic	99.0	100.7	100.7	100.1
66	Vanderbilt	100.8	99.8	99.7	100.1
67	Army	99.8	99.8	100.1	99.9
68	Troy	99.1	99.2	98.9	99.1
69	Arkansas	99.4	98.5	99.2	99.1
70	Baylor	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
71	Fresno St.	98.5	97.3	99.3	98.4
72	SMU	97.5	98.0	97.8	97.8
73	Ohio U	96.3	97.9	97.1	97.1
74	Temple	96.3	96.8	96.7	96.6
75	Tennessee	97.3	95.9	95.3	96.2
76	Northern Illinois	95.7	95.6	96.7	96.0
77	Arkansas St.	95.2	96.3	96.4	96.0
78	Western Michigan	95.8	95.2	96.5	95.8
79	Central Michigan	95.1	95.4	96.0	95.5
80	Nebraska	94.9	95.4	94.4	94.9
81	Wyoming	95.5	94.6	94.6	94.9
82	Eastern Michigan	94.7	94.8	95.1	94.9
83	Maryland	94.5	95.8	93.9	94.7
84	Utah St.	95.0	94.3	94.7	94.7
85	Appalachian St.	94.8	93.6	94.8	94.4
86	Tulane	94.2	94.4	94.6	94.4
87	Tulsa	93.1	92.8	92.7	92.9
88	Air Force	92.2	92.5	92.2	92.3
89	Marshall	90.9	92.3	92.4	91.9
90	Rutgers	91.1	91.1	90.7	91.0
91	Massachusetts	90.8	90.0	91.1	90.6
92	Middle Tennessee	89.2	90.3	90.3	89.9
93	BYU	90.0	89.9	89.9	89.9
94	Nevada	88.9	90.5	90.0	89.8
95	Miami (O)	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
96	Oregon St.	90.0	89.9	88.4	89.4
97	U T S A	87.6	90.0	88.4	88.6
98	Buffalo	87.3	89.3	89.3	88.6
99	Akron	87.7	89.8	88.4	88.6
100	N. Texas	87.7	88.9	88.6	88.4
101	Louisiana Tech	87.3	88.9	88.1	88.1
102	Florida Int’l.	87.6	88.1	88.4	88.1
103	Southern Miss.	87.5	88.5	88.1	88.0
104	Illinois	87.9	89.0	86.8	87.9
105	W. Kentucky	87.5	87.9	88.0	87.8
106	U N L V	86.2	87.7	86.3	86.8
107	N. Mexico St.	85.9	84.7	86.0	85.5
108	Connecticut	84.5	86.3	84.8	85.2
109	Cincinnati	83.9	85.7	84.6	84.7
110	New Mexico	84.4	84.4	84.9	84.6
111	East Carolina	83.2	84.5	83.3	83.7
112	Georgia St.	83.1	82.9	82.9	83.0
113	UL-Lafayette	82.2	83.4	82.1	82.6
114	Kansas	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
115	UAB	81.6	81.6	83.5	82.2
116	UL-Monroe	82.1	83.0	81.3	82.1
117	Bowling Green	81.5	82.6	81.8	82.0
118	Hawaii	81.8	82.9	81.1	81.9
119	S. Alabama	81.0	83.0	81.2	81.7
120	Old Dominion	80.3	82.7	80.5	81.2
121	Georgia Southern	80.9	82.0	80.4	81.1
122	Idaho	79.1	80.2	79.9	79.7
123	Kent St.	73.9	75.4	74.2	74.5
124	Coastal Carolina	72.7	74.1	73.4	73.4
125	Rice	72.6	74.1	73.0	73.2
126	San Jose St.	72.3	72.4	71.6	72.1
127	Texas St.	70.3	72.5	69.4	70.7
128	Charlotte	69.5	71.8	69.7	70.3
129	U T E P	67.9	70.7	67.9	68.9
130	Ball St.	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6

PiRate Rating by Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	8-0	11-0	113.8	115.0	115.1	114.6
South Florida	6-2	9-2	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
Temple	4-4	6-6	96.3	96.8	96.7	96.6
Connecticut	2-6	3-9	84.5	86.3	84.8	85.2
Cincinnati	2-6	4-8	83.9	85.7	84.6	84.7
East Carolina	2-6	3-9	83.2	84.5	83.3	83.7
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	7-1	10-1	113.3	112.5	114.1	113.3
Houston	5-3	7-4	102.4	102.1	102.5	102.3
Navy	4-4	6-5	100.2	100.8	100.4	100.4
SMU	4-4	7-5	97.5	98.0	97.8	97.8
Tulane	3-5	5-7	94.2	94.4	94.6	94.4
Tulsa	1-7	2-10	93.1	92.8	92.7	92.9
AAC Averages			97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	7-1	11-1	130.0	127.2	129.7	129.0
Louisville	4-4	8-4	117.9	116.9	117.8	117.5
Florida St.	3-5	5-6	117.1	116.1	115.7	116.3
N. Carolina St.	6-2	8-4	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
Boston College	4-4	7-5	112.8	112.4	112.9	112.7
Wake Forest	4-4	7-5	112.2	110.5	112.3	111.7
Syracuse	2-6	4-8	102.0	100.8	101.1	101.3
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	7-1	10-1	122.1	120.8	121.1	121.3
Virginia Tech	5-3	9-3	118.7	118.1	118.5	118.4
Duke	3-5	6-6	110.4	109.4	109.5	109.8
Georgia Tech	4-4	5-6	110.2	108.4	108.7	109.1
Pittsburgh	3-5	5-7	108.8	108.1	108.7	108.5
Virginia	3-5	6-6	103.1	102.1	103.4	102.9
N. Carolina	1-7	3-9	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
ACC Averages			113.2	112.0	112.6	112.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	8-1	11-1	126.3	125.0	127.3	126.2
Oklahoma St.	6-3	9-3	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
T C U	7-2	10-2	119.8	118.1	120.1	119.3
Iowa State	5-4	7-5	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
Texas	5-4	6-6	111.8	112.1	112.4	112.1
Kansas St.	5-4	7-5	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
West Virginia	5-4	7-5	108.4	109.0	108.5	108.6
Texas Tech	3-6	6-6	105.2	104.9	104.8	105.0
Baylor	1-8	1-11	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
Kansas	0-9	1-11	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
Big 12 Averages			109.6	109.8	109.8	109.8
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	8-1	10-2	132.0	129.9	132.3	131.4
Penn St.	7-2	10-2	129.0	127.9	129.3	128.7
Michigan	5-4	8-4	115.8	115.5	115.1	115.5
Michigan St.	7-2	9-3	107.5	108.1	108.6	108.1
Indiana	2-7	5-7	105.5	105.6	105.9	105.7
Maryland	2-7	4-8	94.5	95.8	93.9	94.7
Rutgers	3-6	4-8	91.1	91.1	90.7	91.0
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	9-0	12-0	125.7	123.2	124.8	124.6
Northwestern	7-2	9-3	115.6	114.4	115.7	115.2
Iowa	4-5	7-5	114.1	114.4	113.3	114.0
Purdue	4-5	6-6	105.4	105.3	105.9	105.5
Minnesota	2-7	5-7	100.3	101.2	99.2	100.2
Nebraska	3-6	4-8	94.9	95.4	94.4	94.9
Illinois	0-9	2-10	87.9	89.0	86.8	87.9
Big Ten Averages			108.5	108.3	108.3	108.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	8-0	9-3	99.0	100.7	100.7	100.1
Marshall	4-4	7-5	90.9	92.3	92.4	91.9
Middle Tennessee	4-4	6-6	89.2	90.3	90.3	89.9
Florida Int’l.	5-3	7-4	87.6	88.1	88.4	88.1
W. Kentucky	4-4	6-6	87.5	87.9	88.0	87.8
Old Dominion	3-5	5-7	80.3	82.7	80.5	81.2
Charlotte	1-7	1-11	69.5	71.8	69.7	70.3
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	3-5	6-5	87.6	90.0	88.4	88.6
N. Texas	7-1	9-3	87.7	88.9	88.6	88.4
Louisiana Tech	4-4	6-6	87.3	88.9	88.1	88.1
Southern Miss.	6-2	8-4	87.5	88.5	88.1	88.0
UAB	6-2	8-4	81.6	81.6	83.5	82.2
Rice	1-7	1-11	72.6	74.1	73.0	73.2
U T E P	0-8	0-12	67.9	70.7	67.9	68.9
CUSA Averages			84.0	85.5	84.8	84.8
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		9-3	116.0	115.0	116.0	115.6
Army		8-3	99.8	99.8	100.1	99.9
Massachusetts		4-7	90.8	90.0	91.1	90.6
BYU		4-9	90.0	89.9	89.9	89.9
Indep. Averages			99.1	98.7	99.3	99.0
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	5-3	8-4	96.3	97.9	97.1	97.1
Miami (O)	4-4	5-7	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
Akron	6-2	7-5	87.7	89.8	88.4	88.6
Buffalo	4-4	6-6	87.3	89.3	89.3	88.6
Bowling Green	2-6	2-10	81.5	82.6	81.8	82.0
Kent St.	1-7	2-10	73.9	75.4	74.2	74.5
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	7-1	10-2	103.6	103.4	105.6	104.2
Northern Illinois	6-2	8-4	95.7	95.6	96.7	96.0
Western Michigan	4-4	6-6	95.8	95.2	96.5	95.8
Central Michigan	6-2	8-4	95.1	95.4	96.0	95.5
Eastern Michigan	3-5	5-7	94.7	94.8	95.1	94.9
Ball St.	0-8	2-10	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6
MAC Averages			88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	7-1	9-3	106.1	104.8	106.3	105.7
Colo. State	5-3	7-5	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
Wyoming	5-3	7-5	95.5	94.6	94.6	94.9
Utah St.	4-4	6-6	95.0	94.3	94.7	94.7
Air Force	4-4	5-7	92.2	92.5	92.2	92.3
New Mexico	1-7	3-9	84.4	84.4	84.9	84.6
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	6-2	10-2	102.4	102.3	103.5	102.7
Fresno St.	7-1	9-3	98.5	97.3	99.3	98.4
Nevada	3-5	3-9	88.9	90.5	90.0	89.8
U N L V	4-4	5-7	86.2	87.7	86.3	86.8
Hawaii	1-8	3-9	81.8	82.9	81.1	81.9
San Jose St.	1-7	2-11	72.3	72.4	71.6	72.1
MWC Averages			92.0	92.0	92.1	92.1
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	7-2	10-2	126.6	124.4	126.6	125.9
Stanford	7-2	9-3	120.9	119.2	120.4	120.2
Washington St.	6-3	9-3	113.3	111.2	112.8	112.4
Oregon	4-5	7-5	112.3	110.2	111.7	111.4
California	2-7	5-7	105.3	103.2	103.8	104.1
Oregon St.	0-9	1-11	90.0	89.9	88.4	89.4
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	8-1	10-2	120.2	119.4	119.8	119.8
Utah	3-6	6-6	108.2	108.3	108.3	108.3
Arizona St.	6-3	7-5	107.6	106.4	107.3	107.1
Arizona	5-4	7-5	106.2	105.0	105.1	105.4
U C L A	4-5	6-6	104.1	103.3	103.5	103.6
Colorado	2-7	5-7	104.5	103.4	102.4	103.4
Pac-12 Averages			109.9	108.6	109.2	109.3
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	7-1	11-1	128.2	127.8	128.6	128.2
Missouri	4-4	7-5	109.6	107.9	108.9	108.8
S. Carolina	5-3	8-4	107.5	106.8	106.5	106.9
Kentucky	4-4	7-5	106.2	105.5	104.8	105.5
Florida	3-5	4-7	105.7	105.4	105.1	105.4
Vanderbilt	1-7	5-7	100.8	99.8	99.7	100.1
Tennessee	0-8	4-8	97.3	95.9	95.3	96.2
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	7-1	11-1	135.6	132.3	134.3	134.1
Auburn	7-1	10-2	131.3	128.9	131.7	130.6
L S U	6-2	9-3	119.1	116.7	119.6	118.5
Mississippi St.	4-4	8-4	112.4	112.4	112.0	112.3
Texas A&M	4-4	7-5	107.8	105.9	106.9	106.9
Ole Miss	3-5	6-6	106.3	105.0	105.4	105.6
Arkansas	1-7	4-8	99.4	98.5	99.2	99.1
SEC Averages			111.9	110.6	111.3	111.3
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Troy	6-1	9-2	99.1	99.2	98.9	99.1
Arkansas St.	6-1	7-3	95.2	96.3	96.4	96.0
Appalachian St.	6-1	7-4	94.8	93.6	94.8	94.4
N. Mexico St.	3-4	5-6	85.9	84.7	86.0	85.5
Georgia St.	5-2	6-4	83.1	82.9	82.9	83.0
UL-Lafayette	4-3	5-6	82.2	83.4	82.1	82.6
UL-Monroe	4-4	4-7	82.1	83.0	81.3	82.1
S. Alabama	3-4	4-7	81.0	83.0	81.2	81.7
Georgia Southern	2-5	2-9	80.9	82.0	80.4	81.1
Idaho	2-5	3-8	79.1	80.2	79.9	79.7
Coastal Carolina	1-6	2-9	72.7	74.1	73.4	73.4
Texas St.	1-7	2-10	70.3	72.5	69.4	70.7
Sun Belt Averages			83.9	84.6	83.9	84.1

Pirate Conference Ratings

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	113.2	112.0	112.6	112.6
2	SEC	111.9	110.6	111.3	111.3
3	BIG 12	109.6	109.8	109.8	109.8
4	PAC-12	109.9	108.6	109.2	109.3
5	BIG TEN	108.5	108.3	108.3	108.4
6	INDEP.	99.1	98.7	99.3	99.0
7	AAC	97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
8	MWC	92.0	92.0	92.1	92.1
9	MAC	88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
10	CUSA	84.0	85.5	84.8	84.8
11	Sun Belt	83.9	84.6	83.9	84.1

For the second year in a row, the ACC finishes the regular season ranked number one.

Bowl Projections

Bowl	Conferences		Team 1	Team 2
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC	Louisiana Tech	Arkansas St.
Cure	AAC	SBC	SMU	Appalachian St.
Las Vegas	MWC 1	PAC-12 5	Boise St.	Arizona St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	North Texas	Colorado St.
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Central Mich.	Georgia St.
Boca Raton	AAC	CUSA	South Florida	Florida Atlantic
Frisco	AAC	MAC	Houston	Northern Illinois
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Temple	Florida Int’l.
Bahamas	CUSA 1	MAC	UAB	Ohio U
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Akron	Wyoming
Birmingham	AAC	SEC 8-9	[Duke]	[Iowa St.]
Armed Forces	Army	BIG TEN 8	ARMY	[Marshall]
Dollar General	MAC	SBC	Toledo	Troy
Hawaii	AAC	MWC	Central Florida	San Diego St.
Heart of Dallas	BIG 12 6	CUSA	Texas Tech	Southern Miss.
Quick Lane	ACC 7-9	BIG TEN 7	Boston College	[Western Mich.]
Cactus	BIG 12 5	PAC-12 6	Kansas St.	Utah
Independence	ACC 7-9	SEC 8-9	Florida St.	[UTSA]
Pinstripe	ACC 3-6	BIG TEN 5	North Carolina St.	Purdue
Foster Farms	BIG TEN 6	PAC-12 8	[Utah St.]	Oregon
Texas	BIG 12 3	SEC 2-7	Texas	Missouri
Military	AAC 7-9	ACC 7-9	Navy	Virginia
Camping World	ACC 2	BIG 12 2	Notre Dame	Oklahoma St.
Holiday	BIG TEN 3	PAC-12 2	Northwestern	Stanford
Alamo	BIG 12 1	PAC-12 1	TCU	Washington St.
Belk	ACC 3-6	SEC 2-7	Virginia Tech	Kentucky
Sun	ACC 3-6	Pac-12	Wake Forest	Arizona
Music City	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Iowa	[UCLA]
Arizona	MWC	SBC	Fresno St.	New Mexico St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Washington	Ohio St.
Taxslayer	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Louisville	South Carolina
Liberty	BIG 12 4	SEC 2-7	West Va.	Texas A&M
Fiesta	At-large	At-large	USC	Penn St.
Orange	ACC 1	SEC 1/B10 1	Miami (Fla.)	Alabama
Outback	BIG TEN 2	SEC 2-7	Michigan	LSU
Peach	At-large	At-large	Auburn	Memphis
Citrus	B10 1/ACC 2	SEC 1	Michigan St.	Mississippi St.
Rose	Playoff	Semi-final	Wisconsin	Oklahoma
Sugar	Playoff	Semi-final	Clemson	Georgia
Nat’l Champ.	Semifinal	Winners	Oklahoma	Clemson
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

It’s Championship Week, and there are a flood of interesting games, but perhaps the more interesting aspect of the college game on this last Sunday of November is the coaching carousel.

UCLA is quite happy today with their new hire.  Texas A&M and Nebraska fans believe their status is about to improve with hires that can be considered knock out of the park hires.  Arkansas thinks it can find somebody that will move the needle.  Arizona State might look to the SEC to fill its vacancy, and then there is Tennessee.

The Vols aimed high for a former Tampa Bay Buc coach, dangling possibly $10 million, but instead, the fans believe they have lured in a carp–the wrong ex-Tampa Bay coach.

If rumors are true that the Volunteers have hired Greg Schiano as their next head coach, he of the .500 record at Rutgers when the State U of New Jersey was still a Big East school, and he of many negative intangibles, the Vol Navy may decide to scuttle the boats.

With Dan Mullen, Chris Petersen, Mike Leach, Dana Holgersen, Mike Gundy, Bobby Petrino, Matt Campbell, Jeff Brohm, and even Jim Bob Cooter available (among others), settling for a much maligned ex-head coach that comes with more baggage than Thurston Howell III and Lovie Howell brought with them to that three-hour tour.  The results in Knoxville are likely to be no better than the sailing of the S.S. Minnow.

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for November 21-25, 2017

Ugh!  After a nice streak of winning weeks to get us into the black, albeit by a sliver, our picks wore the collar last week.  Now, we are 9% in the red with just a couple weeks left to go to try to make it three consecutive winning seasons.  Boycotting the NFL picks has really hurt us this year, but that had to be done.

Maybe with 5 picks this week, we can hit on something that we have not been able to do well in the last few years–hit big on rivalry week.  In past years, we have played it safe and issued only one or two parlays on this week.  When a 2-9 team plays its 9-2 rival, the outcome isn’t as cut and dry as the week before when 2-8 played 8-2 in a non-rivalry game.

We only went with five games to throw a lot of darts on the board and hope we can somehow come out with a high enough score to win.  We need to win any three of these parlays to put us back in the black for the year, but winning three of five during rivalry week is crazy.  So, if we do, it is more pure dumb luck than our strategy.

As always, this is just an exercise for fun among one PiRate Captain and his 5 lasses.

Date	Nov 21-25
#1 @ +147
Must Win	Must Lose
Akron	Kent St.
Florida Int’l.	Western Ky.
#2 @ +137
Must Win	Must Lose
Texas	Texas Tech
Tennessee	Vanderbilt
#3 @ +155
Must Win	Must Lose
La.-Lafayette	Georgia Southern
Florida St.	Florida
Clemson	South Carolina
#4 @ +154
Must Win	Must Lose
North Texas	Rice
Middle Tenn.	Old Dominion
Alabama	Auburn
Wisconsin	Minnesota
#5 @ +156
Must Win	Must Lose
Eastern Mich.	Bowling Green
Georgia	Georgia Tech
Northwestern	Illinois
Virginia Tech	Virginia
San Diego St.	New Mexico

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for November 21-25, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Akron	Kent St.	16.2	16.9	16.6
Eastern Michigan	Bowling Green	17.7	16.8	17.7
Ball St.	Miami (O)	-20.5	-20.5	-21.0
Mississippi St.	Ole Miss	11.6	12.9	12.7
TCU	Baylor	24.2	21.2	24.4
Toledo	Western Michigan	7.5	8.1	8.3
Virginia	Virginia Tech	-13.7	-14.2	-13.2
Central Michigan	Northern Illinois	1.1	1.8	0.8
Buffalo	Ohio U	-9.4	-8.6	-8.4
Arkansas	Missouri	-7.9	-6.6	-7.6
San Diego St.	New Mexico	20.5	20.7	21.2
Houston	Navy	4.2	3.6	3.9
Pittsburgh	Miami (Fla.)	-16.3	-14.9	-15.8
Nebraska	Iowa	-9.3	-9.1	-9.0
Troy	Texas St.	24.9	23.0	25.2
Central Florida	South Florida	6.8	8.8	7.8
Florida Int’l.	Western Kentucky	-2.7	-2.2	-2.7
Texas	Texas Tech	12.5	12.7	13.8
UCLA	California	1.6	3.1	2.6
Cincinnati	Connecticut	2.6	2.6	3.2
Syracuse	Boston College	-1.6	-3.0	-2.2
Rutgers	Michigan St.	-8.2	-9.5	-9.5
Purdue	Indiana	-0.2	-0.2	-0.3
Michigan	Ohio St.	-13.6	-11.4	-14.8
North Carolina St.	North Carolina	14.0	14.1	14.7
Wake Forest	Duke	5.9	4.8	7.1
Georgia St.	Appalachian St.	-6.8	-5.8	-6.5
Tennessee	Vanderbilt	4.4	3.6	3.9
Kansas St.	Iowa St.	2.3	2.1	1.3
Kentucky	Louisville	-6.0	-5.9	-7.1
Georgia Tech	Georgia	-13.3	-15.3	-15.0
Maryland	Penn St.	-24.0	-21.5	-24.8
Illinois	Northwestern	-21.9	-20.0	-23.1
Rice	North Texas	-12.7	-12.6	-13.2
Charlotte	Florida Atlantic	-27.1	-26.5	-28.5
Air Force	Utah St.	-0.3	0.9	-0.3
Marshall	Southern Miss.	8.0	8.3	9.2
Nevada	UNLV	3.8	4.0	4.7
Washington	Washington St.	11.8	11.8	12.1
San Jose St.	Wyoming	-26.8	-25.4	-27.0
Utah	Colorado	2.7	4.6	4.7
Louisiana-Monroe	Arkansas St.	-8.3	-8.7	-10.3
Middle Tennessee	Old Dominion	6.9	5.8	7.7
Minnesota	Wisconsin	-19.4	-16.0	-19.2
Stanford	Notre Dame	5.3	4.8	4.3
South Carolina	Clemson	-18.2	-16.7	-18.4
LSU	Texas A&M	11.2	11.1	12.2
Fresno St.	Boise St.	-8.2	-7.7	-8.0
SMU	Tulane	6.9	7.1	6.8
Oklahoma St.	Kansas	41.7	37.8	43.5
Arizona St.	Arizona	0.6	1.2	1.3
Oklahoma	West Virginia	18.4	16.8	19.0
Oregon	Oregon St.	16.6	14.9	17.3
New Mexico St.	Idaho	9.9	7.5	9.1
Louisiana-Lafayette	Georgia Southern	8.3	7.9	9.0
Tulsa	Temple	5.1	3.9	4.7
Louisiana Tech	UTSA	-0.2	-0.5	-0.5
Memphis	East Carolina	27.0	24.9	27.7
UAB	UTEP	16.1	13.1	17.8
Auburn	Alabama	-7.3	-5.9	-6.0
Florida	Florida St.	-8.9	-8.4	-7.9
Hawaii	BYU	-3.4	-2.2	-3.6

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Retro Rankings

Based on what the teams have done for the entire season and not forward looking

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Miami (Fla)
3	Clemson
4	Wisconsin
5	Oklahoma
6	Georgia
7	Ohio St.
8	Central Florida
9	Notre Dame
10	Penn St.
11	Auburn
12	USC
13	TCU
14	Washington
15	Mississippi St.
16	Virginia Tech
17	Washington St.
18	Michigan
19	Oklahoma St.
20	Memphis
21	Michigan St.
22	Stanford
23	Northwestern
24	North Carolina St.
25	Boise St.
26	LSU
27	Wake Forest
28	Iowa St.
29	Iowa
30	South Florida
31	South Carolina
32	Boston College
33	Texas A&M
34	Louisville
35	Toledo
36	San Diego St.
37	Texas
38	Florida Atlantic
39	Oregon
40	Georgia Tech
41	West Virginia
42	Arizona
43	Navy
44	Florida St.
45	Arizona St.
46	Purdue
47	Kentucky
48	Northern Illinois
49	Missouri
50	Fresno St.
51	Kansas St.
52	Indiana
53	UCLA
54	Troy
55	Houston
56	Army
57	Ohio
58	Texas Tech
59	Virginia
60	SMU
61	Utah
62	California
63	North Texas
64	Duke
65	Florida
66	Wyoming
67	Syracuse
68	Maryland
69	Minnesota
70	Marshall
71	Ole Miss
72	Colorado
73	Western Michigan
74	Nebraska
75	Colorado St.
76	Central Michigan
77	Tulane
78	Pittsburgh
79	Utah St.
80	Arkansas St.
81	Temple
82	Tennessee
83	Akron
84	Arkansas
85	Southern Miss.
86	Florida Int’l.
87	Appalachian St.
88	North Carolina
89	Rutgers
90	UAB
91	Vanderbilt
92	UTSA
93	Georgia St.
94	Eastern Michigan
95	Buffalo
96	Air Force
97	Western Kentucky
98	Louisiana Tech
99	Middle Tennessee
100	Miami (O)
101	UNLV
102	Tulsa
103	Cincinnati
104	Connecticut
105	East Carolina
106	Massachusetts
107	Old Dominion
108	UL-Monroe
109	UL-Lafayette
110	New Mexico St.
111	Baylor
112	South Alabama
113	Illinois
114	BYU
115	Nevada
116	New Mexico
117	Idaho
118	Oregon St.
119	Bowling Green
120	Hawaii
121	Kent St.
122	Kansas
123	Coastal Carolina
124	Georgia Southern
125	Ball St.
126	Rice
127	Charlotte
128	Texas St.
129	San Jose St.
130	UTEP

PiRate Ratings For This Week

Forward Looking Predictive Ratings totally unrelated to rankings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	137.9	134.3	136.7	136.3
2	Ohio St.	132.2	129.9	132.6	131.6
3	Auburn	128.5	126.4	128.8	127.9
4	Clemson	128.6	126.1	128.1	127.6
5	Georgia	126.2	126.1	126.5	126.3
6	Oklahoma	125.1	123.9	125.9	125.0
7	Penn St.	125.2	124.1	125.5	124.9
8	Miami	125.4	123.7	124.6	124.6
9	Washington	125.0	122.9	124.9	124.3
10	Wisconsin	124.2	121.7	123.1	123.0
11	Oklahoma St.	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
12	T C U	119.8	118.1	120.1	119.3
13	U S C	119.4	118.6	119.0	119.0
14	Stanford	119.6	118.0	118.8	118.8
15	Virginia Tech	118.8	118.2	118.6	118.5
16	L S U	117.7	115.5	118.0	117.1
17	Notre Dame	117.3	116.2	117.6	117.0
18	Florida St.	116.7	115.8	115.2	115.9
19	N. Carolina St.	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
20	Louisville	115.8	114.9	115.6	115.4
21	Michigan	115.6	115.5	114.8	115.3
22	Central Florida	113.8	115.0	115.1	114.6
23	Washington St.	115.2	113.0	114.8	114.3
24	Mississippi St.	114.3	114.3	114.2	114.3
25	Texas	113.9	114.0	114.6	114.2
26	Northwestern	114.0	112.9	114.0	113.6
27	Wake Forest	113.5	111.6	113.7	112.9
28	Iowa State	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
29	Kansas St.	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
30	Iowa	110.9	111.2	110.1	110.8
31	Georgia Tech	111.9	109.8	110.5	110.7
32	Memphis	110.0	109.2	110.8	110.0
33	West Virginia	109.6	110.1	109.9	109.9
34	Boston College	109.7	109.6	109.6	109.6
35	Missouri	109.7	107.8	109.1	108.9
36	South Florida	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
37	Texas A&M	109.5	107.4	108.8	108.6
38	Duke	109.1	108.3	108.1	108.5
39	S. Carolina	108.9	107.9	108.1	108.3
40	Oregon	108.7	106.7	108.0	107.8
41	Kentucky	108.3	107.5	107.0	107.6
42	Boise St.	107.9	106.4	108.3	107.5
43	Arizona	107.3	105.9	106.3	106.5
44	Indiana	106.3	106.3	106.8	106.5
45	Utah	106.2	106.6	106.2	106.3
46	Arizona St.	106.5	105.5	106.1	106.0
47	Florida	106.3	105.9	105.8	106.0
48	Pittsburgh	106.1	105.8	105.8	105.9
49	Michigan St.	104.9	105.8	105.9	105.5
50	Colorado	106.5	105.1	104.5	105.3
51	Purdue	104.6	104.6	105.0	104.7
52	Syracuse	105.1	103.6	104.4	104.4
53	California	105.4	103.2	103.8	104.1
54	Ole Miss	104.7	103.4	103.5	103.9
55	U C L A	104.0	103.3	103.5	103.6
56	Texas Tech	103.4	103.3	102.9	103.2
57	Virginia	103.0	102.0	103.3	102.8
58	San Diego St.	102.2	102.2	103.3	102.6
59	Toledo	101.9	101.9	103.7	102.5
60	N. Carolina	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
61	Houston	101.9	101.7	101.9	101.8
62	Minnesota	101.8	102.7	100.9	101.8
63	Navy	100.7	101.2	101.0	100.9
64	Colo. State	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
65	Florida Atlantic	99.3	101.0	101.0	100.4
66	Army	99.5	99.5	99.8	99.6
67	Tennessee	99.9	98.3	98.1	98.8
68	Ohio U	98.0	99.4	98.9	98.8
69	Wyoming	99.3	98.2	98.6	98.7
70	Nebraska	98.6	99.1	98.1	98.6
71	Baylor	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
72	Maryland	98.3	99.6	97.7	98.5
73	Arkansas	98.8	98.1	98.5	98.5
74	SMU	97.8	98.3	98.1	98.1
75	Vanderbilt	98.5	97.7	97.2	97.8
76	Western Michigan	97.5	96.7	98.4	97.5
77	Fresno St.	96.7	95.7	97.3	96.6
78	Northern Illinois	96.1	95.9	97.2	96.4
79	Eastern Michigan	95.7	95.8	96.1	95.9
80	Tulsa	95.9	95.4	95.7	95.7
81	Troy	95.5	95.7	95.1	95.4
82	Central Michigan	94.7	95.1	95.5	95.1
83	Arkansas St.	94.3	95.5	95.5	95.1
84	Utah St.	95.3	94.4	95.1	94.9
85	Tulane	93.9	94.1	94.3	94.1
86	Temple	93.8	94.5	94.0	94.1
87	Oregon St.	94.1	93.9	92.6	93.5
88	Rutgers	93.7	93.4	93.4	93.5
89	Appalachian St.	93.6	92.4	93.4	93.1
90	Marshall	91.7	93.0	93.3	92.7
91	Air Force	91.9	92.4	91.8	92.0
92	W. Kentucky	90.4	90.6	91.1	90.7
93	Massachusetts	90.5	89.7	90.8	90.3
94	U T S A	89.2	91.4	90.2	90.2
95	Miami (O)	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
96	Nevada	88.7	90.4	89.8	89.6
97	Illinois	89.5	90.5	88.5	89.5
98	BYU	89.6	89.5	89.3	89.4
99	Akron	87.9	90.0	88.6	88.8
100	N. Texas	87.5	88.8	88.4	88.2
101	Middle Tennessee	86.6	87.7	87.6	87.3
102	Southern Miss.	86.7	87.8	87.2	87.2
103	Buffalo	85.6	87.8	87.5	87.0
104	U N L V	86.4	87.8	86.5	86.9
105	Louisiana Tech	86.0	87.8	86.6	86.8
106	East Carolina	86.0	87.3	86.1	86.5
107	N. Mexico St.	85.9	84.7	86.0	85.5
108	Florida Int’l.	84.7	85.4	85.3	85.2
109	Connecticut	84.4	86.2	84.6	85.1
110	Cincinnati	84.0	85.8	84.8	84.9
111	New Mexico	84.6	84.5	85.1	84.7
112	UL-Lafayette	84.0	84.9	84.0	84.3
113	Georgia St.	84.3	84.1	84.3	84.3
114	Old Dominion	82.6	85.0	82.9	83.5
115	UL-Monroe	83.0	83.8	82.2	83.0
116	Kansas	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
117	Hawaii	82.2	83.3	81.7	82.4
118	UAB	81.3	81.2	83.1	81.9
119	S. Alabama	80.7	82.7	80.9	81.4
120	Bowling Green	80.5	81.6	80.8	81.0
121	Idaho	79.1	80.2	79.9	79.7
122	Georgia Southern	78.6	80.0	78.0	78.9
123	Kent St.	73.7	75.2	74.0	74.3
124	Texas St.	73.6	75.7	72.9	74.1
125	Rice	72.8	74.2	73.2	73.4
126	Coastal Carolina	72.4	73.8	73.1	73.1
127	Charlotte	69.2	71.5	69.4	70.0
128	San Jose St.	69.5	69.8	68.6	69.3
129	U T E P	68.2	71.1	68.3	69.2
130	Ball St.	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	7-0	10-0	113.8	115.0	115.1	114.6
South Florida	6-1	9-1	109.0	108.2	109.3	108.8
Temple	3-4	5-6	93.8	94.5	94.0	94.1
East Carolina	2-5	3-8	86.0	87.3	86.1	86.5
Connecticut	2-5	3-8	84.4	86.2	84.6	85.1
Cincinnati	1-6	3-8	84.0	85.8	84.8	84.9
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	6-1	9-1	110.0	109.2	110.8	110.0
Houston	4-3	6-4	101.9	101.7	101.9	101.8
Navy	4-3	6-4	100.7	101.2	101.0	100.9
SMU	3-4	6-5	97.8	98.3	98.1	98.1
Tulsa	1-6	2-9	95.9	95.4	95.7	95.7
Tulane	3-4	5-6	93.9	94.1	94.3	94.1
AAC Averages			97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	7-1	10-1	128.6	126.1	128.1	127.6
Florida St.	3-5	4-6	116.7	115.8	115.2	115.9
N. Carolina St.	5-2	7-4	115.9	115.1	115.7	115.6
Louisville	4-4	7-4	115.8	114.9	115.6	115.4
Wake Forest	4-3	7-4	113.5	111.6	113.7	112.9
Boston College	3-4	6-5	109.7	109.6	109.6	109.6
Syracuse	2-5	4-7	105.1	103.6	104.4	104.4
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	7-0	10-0	125.4	123.7	124.6	124.6
Virginia Tech	4-3	8-3	118.8	118.2	118.6	118.5
Georgia Tech	4-4	5-5	111.9	109.8	110.5	110.7
Duke	2-5	5-6	109.1	108.3	108.1	108.5
Pittsburgh	2-5	4-7	106.1	105.8	105.8	105.9
Virginia	3-4	6-5	103.0	102.0	103.3	102.8
N. Carolina	1-6	3-8	102.9	102.0	102.0	102.3
ACC Averages			113.0	111.9	112.5	112.5
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	7-1	10-1	125.1	123.9	125.9	125.0
Oklahoma St.	5-3	8-3	120.6	119.9	121.0	120.5
T C U	6-2	9-2	119.8	118.1	120.1	119.3
Texas	5-3	6-5	113.9	114.0	114.6	114.2
Iowa State	5-3	7-4	112.5	112.6	113.5	112.9
Kansas St.	4-4	6-5	111.8	111.8	111.8	111.8
West Virginia	5-3	7-4	109.6	110.1	109.9	109.9
Texas Tech	2-6	5-6	103.4	103.3	102.9	103.2
Baylor	1-7	1-10	98.1	99.4	98.2	98.6
Kansas	0-8	1-10	81.8	85.1	80.5	82.5
Big 12 Averages			109.7	109.8	109.9	109.8
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	7-1	9-2	132.2	129.9	132.6	131.6
Penn St.	6-2	9-2	125.2	124.1	125.5	124.9
Michigan	5-3	8-3	115.6	115.5	114.8	115.3
Indiana	2-6	5-6	106.3	106.3	106.8	106.5
Michigan St.	6-2	8-3	104.9	105.8	105.9	105.5
Maryland	2-6	4-7	98.3	99.6	97.7	98.5
Rutgers	3-5	4-7	93.7	93.4	93.4	93.5
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	8-0	11-0	124.2	121.7	123.1	123.0
Northwestern	6-2	8-3	114.0	112.9	114.0	113.6
Iowa	3-5	6-5	110.9	111.2	110.1	110.8
Purdue	3-5	5-6	104.6	104.6	105.0	104.7
Minnesota	2-6	5-6	101.8	102.7	100.9	101.8
Nebraska	3-5	4-7	98.6	99.1	98.1	98.6
Illinois	0-8	2-9	89.5	90.5	88.5	89.5
Big Ten Averages			108.6	108.4	108.3	108.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	7-0	8-3	99.3	101.0	101.0	100.4
Marshall	4-3	7-4	91.7	93.0	93.3	92.7
W. Kentucky	4-3	6-5	90.4	90.6	91.1	90.7
Middle Tennessee	3-4	5-6	86.6	87.7	87.6	87.3
Florida Int’l.	4-3	6-4	84.7	85.4	85.3	85.2
Old Dominion	3-4	5-6	82.6	85.0	82.9	83.5
Charlotte	1-6	1-10	69.2	71.5	69.4	70.0
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	3-4	6-4	89.2	91.4	90.2	90.2
N. Texas	6-1	8-3	87.5	88.8	88.4	88.2
Southern Miss.	5-2	7-4	86.7	87.8	87.2	87.2
Louisiana Tech	3-4	5-6	86.0	87.8	86.6	86.8
UAB	5-2	7-4	81.3	81.2	83.1	81.9
Rice	1-6	1-10	72.8	74.2	73.2	73.4
U T E P	0-7	0-11	68.2	71.1	68.3	69.2
CUSA Averages			84.0	85.5	84.8	84.8
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		9-2	117.3	116.2	117.6	117.0
Army		8-3	99.5	99.5	99.8	99.6
Massachusetts		4-7	90.5	89.7	90.8	90.3
BYU		3-9	89.6	89.5	89.3	89.4
Indep. Averages			99.2	98.7	99.4	99.1
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	5-2	8-3	98.0	99.4	98.9	98.8
Miami (O)	3-4	4-7	88.7	90.7	89.9	89.8
Akron	5-2	6-5	87.9	90.0	88.6	88.8
Buffalo	3-4	5-6	85.6	87.8	87.5	87.0
Bowling Green	2-5	2-9	80.5	81.6	80.8	81.0
Kent St.	1-6	2-9	73.7	75.2	74.0	74.3
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	6-1	9-2	101.9	101.9	103.7	102.5
Western Michigan	4-3	6-5	97.5	96.7	98.4	97.5
Northern Illinois	6-1	8-3	96.1	95.9	97.2	96.4
Eastern Michigan	2-5	4-7	95.7	95.8	96.1	95.9
Central Michigan	5-2	7-4	94.7	95.1	95.5	95.1
Ball St.	0-7	2-9	65.7	67.7	66.4	66.6
MAC Averages			88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	7-0	9-2	107.9	106.4	108.3	107.5
Colo. State	5-3	7-5	101.3	100.3	101.1	100.9
Wyoming	5-2	7-4	99.3	98.2	98.6	98.7
Utah St.	4-3	6-5	95.3	94.4	95.1	94.9
Air Force	3-4	4-7	91.9	92.4	91.8	92.0
New Mexico	1-6	3-8	84.6	84.5	85.1	84.7
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	5-2	9-2	102.2	102.2	103.3	102.6
Fresno St.	6-1	8-3	96.7	95.7	97.3	96.6
Nevada	2-5	2-9	88.7	90.4	89.8	89.6
U N L V	4-3	5-6	86.4	87.8	86.5	86.9
Hawaii	1-7	3-8	82.2	83.3	81.7	82.4
San Jose St.	0-7	1-11	69.5	69.8	68.6	69.3
MWC Averages			92.2	92.1	92.3	92.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	6-2	9-2	125.0	122.9	124.9	124.3
Stanford	7-2	8-3	119.6	118.0	118.8	118.8
Washington St.	6-2	9-2	115.2	113.0	114.8	114.3
Oregon	3-5	6-5	108.7	106.7	108.0	107.8
California	2-6	5-6	105.4	103.2	103.8	104.1
Oregon St.	0-8	1-10	94.1	93.9	92.6	93.5
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	8-1	10-2	119.4	118.6	119.0	119.0
Arizona	5-3	7-4	107.3	105.9	106.3	106.5
Utah	2-6	5-6	106.2	106.6	106.2	106.3
Arizona St.	5-3	6-5	106.5	105.5	106.1	106.0
Colorado	2-6	5-6	106.5	105.1	104.5	105.3
U C L A	3-5	5-6	104.0	103.3	103.5	103.6
Pac-12 Averages			109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	7-1	10-1	126.2	126.1	126.5	126.3
Missouri	3-4	6-5	109.7	107.8	109.1	108.9
S. Carolina	5-3	8-3	108.9	107.9	108.1	108.3
Kentucky	4-4	7-4	108.3	107.5	107.0	107.6
Florida	3-5	4-6	106.3	105.9	105.8	106.0
Tennessee	0-7	4-7	99.9	98.3	98.1	98.8
Vanderbilt	0-7	4-7	98.5	97.7	97.2	97.8
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	7-0	11-0	137.9	134.3	136.7	136.3
Auburn	6-1	9-2	128.5	126.4	128.8	127.9
L S U	5-2	8-3	117.7	115.5	118.0	117.1
Mississippi St.	4-3	8-3	114.3	114.3	114.2	114.3
Texas A&M	4-3	7-4	109.5	107.4	108.8	108.6
Ole Miss	2-5	5-6	104.7	103.4	103.5	103.9
Arkansas	1-6	4-7	98.8	98.1	98.5	98.5
SEC Averages			112.1	110.8	111.5	111.4
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Troy	5-1	8-2	95.5	95.7	95.1	95.4
Arkansas St.	5-1	6-3	94.3	95.5	95.5	95.1
Appalachian St.	5-1	6-4	93.6	92.4	93.4	93.1
N. Mexico St.	2-4	4-6	85.9	84.7	86.0	85.5
UL-Lafayette	4-2	5-5	84.0	84.9	84.0	84.3
Georgia St.	5-1	6-3	84.3	84.1	84.3	84.3
UL-Monroe	4-3	4-6	83.0	83.8	82.2	83.0
S. Alabama	3-4	4-7	80.7	82.7	80.9	81.4
Idaho	2-4	3-7	79.1	80.2	79.9	79.7
Georgia Southern	1-5	1-9	78.6	80.0	78.0	78.9
Texas St.	1-6	2-9	73.6	75.7	72.9	74.1
Coastal Carolina	1-6	2-9	72.4	73.8	73.1	73.1
Sun Belt Averages			83.8	84.5	83.8	84.0

Conference Ratings

#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	113.0	111.9	112.5	112.5
2	SEC	112.1	110.8	111.5	111.4
3	BIG 12	109.7	109.8	109.9	109.8
4	PAC-12	109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
5	BIG TEN	108.6	108.4	108.3	108.4
6	INDEP.	99.2	98.7	99.4	99.1
7	AAC	97.6	98.1	98.0	97.9
8	MWC	92.2	92.1	92.3	92.2
9	MAC	88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
10	CUSA	84.0	85.5	84.8	84.8
11	Sun Belt	83.8	84.5	83.8	84.0

Bowl Projections

Bowl	Conferences		Team 1	Team 2
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC	La. Tech	UL-Lafayette
Cure	AAC	SBC	Houston	Troy
Las Vegas	MWC 1	PAC-12 5	Boise St.	Stanford
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	North Texas	Colorado St.
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Northern Illinois	Georgia St.
Boca Raton	AAC	CUSA	South Florida	Florida Atlantic
Frisco	AAC	MAC	SMU	Ohio U
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	[Utah St.]	Marshall
Bahamas	CUSA 1	MAC	Florida Int’l.	Toledo
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Central Mich.	Wyoming
Birmingham	AAC	SEC 8-9	[UAB]	[UNLV]
Armed Forces	Army	BIG TEN 8	ARMY	[Middle Tenn.]
Dollar General	MAC	SBC	Akron	Appalachian St.
Hawaii	AAC	MWC	Central Florida	San Diego St.
Heart of Dallas	BIG 12 6	CUSA	[UCLA]	UTSA
Quick Lane	ACC 7-9	BIG TEN 7	[Utah]	[Western Mich.]
Cactus	BIG 12 5	PAC-12 6	Kansas St.	Arizona
Independence	ACC 7-9	SEC 8-9	Florida St.	[Western Ky.]
Pinstripe	ACC 3-6	BIG TEN 5	Boston College	Iowa
Foster Farms	BIG TEN 6	PAC-12 8	[Southern Miss.]	Oregon
Texas	BIG 12 3	SEC 2-7	Texas	Missouri
Military	AAC 7-9	ACC 7-9	Navy	Virginia
Camping World	ACC 2	BIG 12 2	Virginia Tech	Iowa St.
Holiday	BIG TEN 3	PAC-12 2	Michigan	Washington
Alamo	BIG 12 1	PAC-12 1	Oklahoma St.	Washington St.
Belk	ACC 3-6	SEC 2-7	Wake Forest	South Carolina
Sun	ACC 3-6	Pac-12	Louisville	Arizona St.
Music City	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Indiana	Kentucky
Arizona	MWC	SBC	Fresno St.	Arkansas St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Georgia	Ohio St.
Taxslayer	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	NC St.	Miss. St.
Liberty	BIG 12 4	SEC 2-7	West Virginia	Texas A&M
Fiesta	At-large	At-large	Penn St.	USC
Orange	ACC 1	SEC 1/B10 1	Clemson	Notre Dame
Outback	BIG TEN 2	SEC 2-7	Michigan St.	LSU
Peach	At-large	At-large	Memphis	TCU
Citrus	B10 1/ACC 2	SEC 1	Northwestern	Auburn
Rose	Playoff	Semi-final	Miami (Fla.)	Oklahoma
Sugar	Playoff	Semi-final	Alabama	Wisconsin
Nat’l Champ.	Semifinal	Winners	Alabama	Oklahoma
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

Championship Games and Bowl Eligibles By Conference

If you are a fan of a team that will finish 5-6 or 5-7, you can forget your team playing in a bowl with a losing record this season.  In fact, we project two bowl eligible teams to miss out on all the fun this year, as we project 80 teams to be bowl eligible this season.

American Athletic

The UCF-USF winner this week will face Memphis for the conference championship.  It looks like UCF and Memphis will meet in Orlando in a rematch game.  UCF won the first one convincingly, but Memphis is several points better now than then.  The winner of this game almost assuredly plays in the New Year’s Six Bowl as the Group of 5 Representative, and it will more than likely be at the Peach Bowl.

Bowl Eligible: 6 (UCF, USF, Memphis, Navy, Houston, SMU)

5-Wins: Temple and Tulane

Temple must win at Tulsa, which is doable but less than 50-50.

Tulane must win at SMU, which is also doable but less than 50-50 and less then Temple’s chances.

Atlantic Coast 

Clemson will play Miami (Fla.) in Charlotte.  The winner has about a 92% chance of gaining a Playoff spot, while the loser will most likely get an Orange Bowl bid.

Bowl Eligible: 8 (Clemson, Wake Forest, Louisville, NC St., Boston College, Miami, Va. Tech, Virginia

5-Wins: Georgia Tech and Duke

Georgia Tech would have to pull off the monumental upset of Georgia, which they may have about a 3-5% chance of doing.

Duke must win at Wake Forest, and the Demon Deacons are playing like a top 20 team.  The Blue Devils beat Georgia Tech, so they could be peaking at the right time.

4-Wins: Florida St.

The Seminoles were able to reschedule their cancelled hurricane game with UL-Monroe, and now they can become bowl eligible by beating Florida and ULM.  We believe their chances to get to 6-6 are about 70-75% in their favor.

Big 12

Oklahoma has clinched the top seed in the renewal of the Big 12 Championship Game.  TCU needs to beat Baylor this week to get the number two seed.  If the Horn Frogs croak against the Bears, then Oklahoma St. will get the bid with a win over hapless Kansas.  There is a very remote chance that Iowa St. could still get in, but it would require too many things to take place.

Bowl Eligible: 7 (Oklahoma, TCU, Okla. St., Iowa St., Texas, West Virginia, Kansas St.)

5-Wins: Texas Tech

Texas Tech closes the season at Texas, and we believe the Longhorns will handle the Red Raiders and most likely end the Kliff Kingsbury era in Lubbock.

Big Ten

Wisconsin and Ohio State have clinched their divisions and will face off in the Big Ten Championship Game.  The Badgers’ defense may be up to the task to handle an inconsistent Buckeye offense.  If so, UW is Playoff-bound.  A Buckeye win opens the door for a one-loss Miami or one-loss Alabama team to get this bid, or if Miami and Alabama are unbeaten, there will be a big controversy over the #4 seed between a 2-loss Ohio State, Georgia, USC, and Notre Dame, and maybe even an undefeated UCF if they win their last two games.

Bowl Eligible: 7 (but guaranteed to have 8) (Ohio St., Penn St., Michigan St., Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Iowa)

5-Wins: Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota.

Indiana and Purdue play for the Old Oaken Bucket and a bowl bid, as the winner will be 6-6.

Minnesota must beat undefeated Wisconsin to finish 6-6.  With the Gophers’ offense struggling, and the Badgers defense peaking, UW could win this won in an ugly fashion in the neighborhood of 20-6.

Conference USA

This conference is going to strike it rich this bowl season with a possible 10 teams playing in December.

First, Florida Atlantic and North Texas will square off in one of the potentially best championship games in this league’s history.  Win or lose, we are hearing from sources that the Boca Raton Bowl would love to invite hometown team FAU.

Bowl Eligible: 8 (guaranteed to have 9) (Florida Atlantic, Florida Int’l., Marshall, Western Kentucky, North Texas, UAB, Southern Miss, UTSA)

5-Wins: Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech

Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion play each other in Murfreesboro this week, so the winner will become bowl eligible.

Louisiana Tech hosts UTSA with a slumping offense, and we give the Bulldogs a 70% chance of winning this game and becoming the 10th bowl eligible CUSA team.  There will be slots available possibly for all 10 teams, and it is possible that two CUSA could face off in a bowl.

Independents

Army is 8-3 with the Navy game remaining.  The Black Knights are Armed Forces Bowl bound.

Notre Dame actually counts with the ACC teams, so they are part of the ACC package, and we believe the Irish will  be enjoying Oranges this year, but only if they get by Stanford this week,.

Mid-American

Akron beat Ohio to win the Eastern Division title.  The Zips will play Toledo or Northern Illinois.  TU can clinch the Western Division title with a win at home against Western Michigan or a Northern Illinois loss at Central Michigan.  NIU can win if they beat CMU and WMU beats Toledo.

This league will receive an extra bid and possibly two extra bids.  See Below

Bowl Eligible: 6 (Akron, Ohio, Toledo, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, Central Michigan)

5-Wins: Buffalo

Buffalo hosts Ohio U this week, and a Bulls win will give them a 6-6 record.  There is a catch.  Buffalo most likely needs Louisiana Tech or Florida State to lose this week to guarantee a decent shot at a bowl.  We have the Bulls as team #79 in a 78-team bowl field.  There is another little possibility that could help Buffalo get over the top ahead of another bowl eligible team.  The MAC has two secondary bowl agreements, with the Quick Lane and the Foster Farms bowls.

Toledo at 10-2 might be attractive enough for the Foster Farms Bowl to invite the Rockets west to face Oregon, Stanford, Washington, or California.  The Quick Lane is most likely going to need a MAC team as well, so Buffalo could sneak in to a bowl through this back door ahead of a 10th CUSA team.

Mountain West

Here is where a conference championship game will not be as exciting as it should be, unless something really interesting takes place this week.  Boise State and Fresno State have clinched berths in the MWC Championship Game, but the two teams close out the regular season facing each other, so it will be an immediate rematch.  The Las Vegas Bowl bid goes to the winner of the second game.  Even if the Conference Champion loses by 50 points this week and wins by 1 next week, that team gets the Las Vegas Bowl bid.

Bowl Eligible: 6 (Boise St., Colorado St., Wyoming, Utah St., Fresno St., San Diego St.)

5-Wins: UNLV

The Runnin’ Rebels must win their rivalry game against Nevada, and they must do it in Reno.  UNLV has about a 50-50 shot at pulling it off, giving the MWC 7 bowl teams for 5 bowls.  Two at-large slots will be waiting for the 6th and 7th teams.

Pac-12

USC has clinched the South Division, and the Trojans hold a very minute chance of sneaking into the Playoffs.  More than likely, they are playing in the Pac-12 Championship Game for a berth in the Fiesta Bowl.

The North Division is still up for grabs between Washington State and Stanford.  If Washington State wins the Apple Cup, then the Pirate Mike Leach will have his team in the Championship Game.  If Washington wins, then Stanford takes the treasure away from the Pirate.

The bigger news in the Pac-12 is the firing of UCLA coach Jim Mora, Jr.  The Bruins still have a game to go at home against California, and the winner will be bowl eligible.  UCLA is actually hoping it can win the Chip Kelly Bowl.  Kelly is rumored to be headed to Westwood, but it is not confirmed.

Bowl Eligible: 7 (but guaranteed to have 9) (Washington St., Stanford, Washington, Oregon, USC, Arizona St., Arizona)

5-Win Teams: California, UCLA, Utah, Colorado

Cal plays at UCLA, and the Bears hope they can swim with the Fisch’s.  Jedd Fisch will be UCLA coach for one or two games.

Colorado visits Utah, so the winner of that game will also be bowl eligible.

Look for the Pac-12 to place 2 at-large teams in bowls back east, most likely the two winners this week.

Southeastern

Normally a league with double digit bowl participants, the SEC is only going to have 9 teams playing in the postseason.

Georgia is waiting for the winner of the Iron Bowl to face off in the SEC Championship Game.  Auburn has become the sexy choice to knock off the number one Crimson Tide, but us old Buccaneers believe this just won’t happen.  We have Alabama set to be the top seed in the Playoffs, hosting team number four in the Sugar Bowl.

Bowl Eligible: 9 (Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi St., Texas A&M)

5-Wins: None

Sun Belt

They have 12 teams in this league, but there is no championship game in the SBC.  The Sun Belt is most likely to have extra teams, including team number 80, or the second bowl eligible team left out of all the fun.

There are two weeks left in the SBC regular season, so there are some 4-6 teams still alive in the bowl hunt.

Bowl Eligible: 4 (Troy, Georgia St., Arkansas St., Appalachian St.)

5-Wins: UL-Lafayette

The Ragin’ Cajuns have two games left and need to win just one to most likely get their New Orleans Bowl bid that they always seem to get whenever they are bowl eligible.  ULL hosts 1-9 Georgia Southern this week and should secure their sixth win.  They finish at Appy State, where they are most likely to lose.

4-Wins: UL-Monroe and New Mexico St.

UL-Monroe has less than 0.5% chance of beating Arkansas St. at home this week and then winning at Florida St. the week after.  So, the Warhawks are basically out of the picture.

New Mexico St. has at least a 50-50 chance of finishing the season with wins over Idaho and South Alabama, both games in Las Cruces.  However, the Aggies do not have a great shot at getting into their first bowl since the 1960 Sun Bowl.  NMSU is leaving the Sun Belt and will become an independent next year.  The SBC has a history of being a tad bush league by shunning teams leaving their conference.  The Aggies have already told the league they can only accept bids to bowls close to home, and we believe they will get to spend the holidays very close to home, because they will not be invited to a bowl if they finish 6-6.  Of course, if two from Louisiana Tech, Buffalo, and Florida State lose, and if Duke loses to Wake Forest and Minnesota loses to Wisconsin, then the Aggies will get an invitation at 6-6.  Whether or not they accept it, we cannot predict.

We here at the PiRate Ratings hope you have a festive Thanksgiving holiday.  Don’t let your tummy be the biggest loser this week.  Pace yourself and try to get some exercise.

Our schedule will be a little different this week.  We are putting out our Monday edition today on Sunday.  We will have both the NFL ratings and Money Line picks on Tuesday, and then we will return next Sunday night or Monday morning.

Thank You to all our followers.  You have made 2017 a record year for PiRate Rating readership.  A lot of you came on board back during March Madness, because we were very lucky to successfully pick all 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament.  Our basketball coverage will return just after New Year’s, as our ratings need all the teams to play 8 games before they make any sense.

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for November 14-18, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Akron	Ohio	-10.3	-9.0	-10.9
Kent St.	Central Michigan	-18.5	-17.4	-19.0
Bowling Green	Toledo	-17.1	-16.1	-18.2
Miami (O)	Eastern Michigan	-4.6	-2.7	-3.9
Northern Illinois	Western Michigan	1.2	1.9	1.4
Ball St.	Buffalo	-16.9	-17.1	-18.3
South Florida	Tulsa	18.3	17.4	19.4
Western Kentucky	Middle Tennessee	7.0	5.8	6.8
New Mexico	UNLV	1.8	0.1	2.4
Indiana	Rutgers	8.3	9.0	8.7
Georgia	Kentucky	19.6	20.5	20.7
East Carolina	Cincinnati	-3.0	-3.2	-4.3
Duke	Georgia Tech	-7.3	-5.2	-7.3
Virginia Tech	Pittsburgh	17.3	16.8	17.6
Temple	Central Florida	-15.1	-16.0	-15.9
Wake Forest	North Carolina St.	-2.4	-3.5	-2.5
Louisville	Syracuse	6.2	6.8	6.7
Northwestern	Minnesota	7.8	5.8	8.5
Michigan St.	Maryland	9.6	9.2	11.4
West Virginia	Texas	2.3	2.3	2.3
Kansas	Oklahoma	-40.0	-35.4	-42.2
Wyoming	Fresno St.	8.6	8.2	7.4
Boise St.	Air Force	17.1	15.2	17.3
Utah St.	Hawaii	12.0	10.2	11.9
Old Dominion	Rice	14.6	15.6	14.7
Southern Miss.	Charlotte	15.0	13.8	15.2
BYU	Massachusetts	3.3	4.0	2.7
UTEP	Louisiana Tech	-14.5	-13.4	-15.0
Georgia Southern	South Alabama	-9.1	-9.7	-9.9
Texas Tech	TCU	-11.5	-9.8	-12.3
Iowa	Purdue	13.0	12.9	12.2
Oregon	Arizona	0.6	0.5	0.4
Ohio St.	Illinois	46.7	43.4	48.1
Florida	UAB	27.3	23.8	24.4
Oregon St.	Arizona St.	-7.9	-7.5	-9.1
Memphis	SMU	13.2	12.2	13.4
Miami (Fla.)	Virginia	27.4	26.4	26.8
Baylor	Iowa St.	-11.6	-10.3	-12.7
Arkansas	Mississippi St.	-12.9	-13.5	-13.5
Vanderbilt	Missouri	-6.6	-5.4	-7.2
Washington	Utah	25.1	21.7	25.4
Auburn	UL-Monroe	49.5	46.6	50.5
Oklahoma St.	Kansas St.	16.5	15.4	17.3
Colorado St.	San Jose St.	35.2	33.9	35.9
Penn St.	Nebraska	32.1	29.9	33.3
Tennessee	LSU	-14.4	-13.8	-16.5
Notre Dame	Navy	20.9	18.7	21.3
Tulane	Houston	-7.7	-6.9	-7.7
UL-Lafayatte	New Mexico St.	-2.4	0.6	-2.7
Idaho	Coastal Carolina	13.8	13.6	13.9
North Texas	Army	-12.1	-10.2	-11.8
Arkansas St.	Texas St.	24.2	23.1	26.0
Florida Atlantic	Florida Int’l.	13.4	15.1	14.2
Boston College (n)	Connecticut	26.7	24.4	26.5
UTSA	Marshall	0.3	1.3	-0.5
Ole Miss	Texas A&M	-1.0	-0.4	-1.3
Wisconsin	Michigan	11.1	8.6	10.6
USC	UCLA	17.8	17.5	18.3
Stanford	California	16.9	17.3	18.3
San Diego St.	Nevada	16.1	14.2	15.8

FBS vs. FCS Games

Home	Visitor	PiRate
Clemson	Citadel	50.0
Alabama	Mercer	49.0
Florida St.	Delaware St.	50.0
North Carolina	Western Carolina	24.0
South Carolina	Wofford	27.0

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

PiRate Retrodictive Rankings
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Miami (Fla)
3	Clemson
4	Wisconsin
5	Oklahoma
6	Georgia
7	Ohio St.
8	Central Florida
9	Notre Dame
10	Penn St.
11	Auburn
12	USC
13	Oklahoma St.
14	Michigan
15	TCU
16	Washington
17	Washington St.
18	Mississippi St.
19	North Carolina St.
20	Memphis
21	Virginia Tech
22	Michigan St.
23	Stanford
24	Iowa
25	Boise St.
26	LSU
27	Northwestern
28	Wake Forest
29	Iowa St.
30	South Florida
31	Arizona
32	South Carolina
33	West Virginia
34	Georgia Tech
35	Boston College
36	San Diego St.
37	Toledo
38	Houston
39	Louisville
40	Texas A&M
41	Texas
42	Navy
43	Florida Atlantic
44	Kentucky
45	Army
46	Arizona St.
47	Ohio
48	Oregon
49	Florida St.
50	Northern Illinois
51	SMU
52	UCLA
53	Texas Tech
54	Troy
55	Missouri
56	Utah
57	California
58	Syracuse
59	Fresno St.
60	Wyoming
61	Marshall
62	Purdue
63	Virginia
64	Minnesota
65	Ole Miss
66	Kansas St.
67	Indiana
68	North Texas
69	Maryland
70	Western Michigan
71	Florida
72	Colorado
73	Nebraska
74	Colorado St.
75	Duke
76	Central Michigan
77	Pittsburgh
78	Temple
79	Tennessee
80	Arkansas St.
81	Rutgers
82	Utah St.
83	Arkansas
84	Florida Int’l.
85	UAB
86	Vanderbilt
87	Tulane
88	Akron
89	Southern Miss.
90	Appalachian St.
91	North Carolina
92	Georgia St.
93	Air Force
94	Middle Tennessee
95	Eastern Michigan
96	Buffalo
97	Miami (O)
98	UTSA
99	Cincinnati
100	Louisiana Tech
101	Western Kentucky
102	Tulsa
103	UNLV
104	New Mexico St.
105	South Alabama
106	Connecticut
107	Old Dominion
108	BYU
109	UL-Monroe
110	Baylor
111	Massachusetts
112	Illinois
113	Nevada
114	UL-Lafayette
115	New Mexico
116	Idaho
117	Oregon St.
118	East Carolina
119	Bowling Green
120	Hawaii
121	Kent St.
122	Kansas
123	Ball St.
124	Rice
125	Charlotte
126	Texas St.
127	Coastal Carolina
128	Georgia Southern
129	San Jose St.
130	UTEP

 

 

PiRate Predictive Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	137.6	134.0	136.4	136.0
2	Ohio St.	132.7	130.4	133.1	132.1
3	Auburn	129.0	126.9	129.3	128.4
4	Clemson	128.1	125.6	127.6	127.1
5	Penn St.	126.6	125.2	127.1	126.3
6	Washington	126.8	124.3	126.9	126.0
7	Georgia	125.5	125.6	125.6	125.6
8	Miami	126.3	124.4	125.7	125.5
9	Oklahoma	125.0	123.7	125.8	124.8
10	Oklahoma St.	123.1	122.2	123.7	123.0
11	Wisconsin	123.8	121.2	122.6	122.6
12	Stanford	120.2	118.5	119.7	119.5
13	U S C	119.7	118.8	119.5	119.3
14	Virginia Tech	119.6	118.9	119.5	119.3
15	T C U	118.6	116.9	118.9	118.1
16	Notre Dame	118.2	116.8	118.7	117.9
17	L S U	117.5	115.3	117.8	116.9
18	N. Carolina St.	116.9	116.1	116.9	116.6
19	Michigan	115.7	115.7	115.0	115.5
20	Florida St.	116.2	115.3	114.7	115.4
21	Mississippi St.	114.5	114.5	114.6	114.5
22	Georgia Tech	115.5	113.0	114.3	114.3
23	Washington St.	114.9	112.7	114.5	114.0
24	Central Florida	112.7	114.1	113.8	113.6
25	Iowa State	112.6	112.6	113.7	113.0
26	Iowa	112.9	113.0	112.3	112.8
27	Texas	112.1	112.4	112.6	112.4
28	Louisville	112.3	111.4	112.1	111.9
29	Wake Forest	112.5	110.6	112.5	111.8
30	West Virginia	111.4	111.7	111.9	111.7
31	Northwestern	110.4	109.3	110.3	110.0
32	South Florida	110.1	109.0	110.7	109.9
33	Boston College	109.9	109.6	109.9	109.8
34	Kansas St.	109.6	109.8	109.4	109.6
35	Memphis	108.8	108.1	109.4	108.7
36	S. Carolina	109.1	108.1	108.3	108.5
37	Arizona	109.2	107.6	108.4	108.4
38	Syracuse	109.1	107.6	108.4	108.4
39	Kentucky	109.0	108.0	107.9	108.3
40	Texas A&M	109.1	107.1	108.3	108.2
41	Missouri	108.5	106.6	107.8	107.6
42	Boise St.	107.0	105.5	107.2	106.6
43	Oregon	106.8	105.0	105.9	105.9
44	Florida	106.2	105.6	105.4	105.7
45	Minnesota	105.6	106.5	104.8	105.6
46	Michigan St.	104.9	105.8	106.0	105.6
47	Arizona St.	105.8	104.9	105.4	105.4
48	Duke	105.7	105.3	104.5	105.2
49	Pittsburgh	105.3	105.1	104.9	105.1
50	Colorado	106.2	104.8	104.2	105.0
51	Utah	104.7	105.5	104.5	104.9
52	Texas Tech	104.6	104.5	104.1	104.4
53	Ole Miss	105.1	103.7	104.0	104.3
54	California	104.8	102.7	102.9	103.5
55	Houston	103.4	103.0	103.6	103.3
56	Indiana	102.9	103.1	103.2	103.1
57	Purdue	102.9	103.1	103.1	103.0
58	U C L A	103.4	102.8	102.7	103.0
59	San Diego St.	102.0	101.9	102.9	102.3
60	Virginia	101.8	101.0	101.9	101.6
61	N. Carolina	102.1	101.2	101.2	101.5
62	Toledo	100.7	100.8	102.4	101.3
63	Colo. State	101.5	100.5	101.3	101.1
64	Army	100.9	100.6	101.4	101.0
65	Navy	100.3	101.1	100.4	100.6
66	Wyoming	100.7	99.4	100.0	100.0
67	Ohio U	99.1	100.2	100.2	99.8
68	Vanderbilt	99.9	99.1	98.7	99.2
69	Florida Atlantic	98.0	100.0	99.5	99.2
70	Tennessee	100.1	98.5	98.3	99.0
71	SMU	98.5	98.9	99.0	98.8
72	Maryland	98.3	99.6	97.6	98.5
73	Baylor	98.0	99.4	98.0	98.5
74	Arkansas	98.6	97.9	98.1	98.2
75	Western Michigan	97.7	96.8	98.6	97.7
76	Nebraska	97.5	98.3	96.8	97.5
77	Rutgers	97.6	97.1	97.5	97.4
78	Northern Illinois	95.9	95.8	97.0	96.2
79	Eastern Michigan	95.8	95.8	96.2	95.9
80	Arkansas St.	94.5	95.7	95.7	95.3
81	Troy	95.2	95.4	94.8	95.1
82	Central Michigan	94.7	95.1	95.5	95.1
83	Fresno St.	95.0	94.2	95.6	95.0
84	Temple	94.6	95.1	95.0	94.9
85	Tulsa	94.8	94.6	94.3	94.6
86	Oregon St.	94.8	94.5	93.3	94.2
87	Air Force	92.8	93.3	92.9	93.0
88	Tulane	92.7	93.1	92.9	92.9
89	Appalachian St.	93.3	92.1	93.1	92.8
90	Marshall	91.8	93.0	93.5	92.8
91	Utah St.	92.6	91.8	92.2	92.2
92	W. Kentucky	90.7	90.8	91.5	91.0
93	U T S A	89.1	91.4	90.0	90.1
94	Massachusetts	90.3	89.5	90.6	90.1
95	BYU	90.1	90.0	89.8	89.9
96	Nevada	88.9	90.7	90.2	89.9
97	Miami (O)	88.6	90.7	89.8	89.7
98	Illinois	89.0	90.0	88.0	89.0
99	Cincinnati	87.9	89.5	89.0	88.8
100	Akron	86.8	89.2	87.3	87.8
101	N. Mexico St.	87.6	86.0	87.9	87.2
102	Buffalo	85.6	87.8	87.6	87.0
103	Middle Tennessee	86.3	87.5	87.2	87.0
104	U N L V	86.1	87.6	86.1	86.6
105	N. Texas	85.8	87.4	86.5	86.6
106	S. Alabama	85.7	87.7	85.9	86.4
107	Louisiana Tech	85.6	87.4	86.2	86.4
108	Florida Int’l.	86.0	86.4	86.8	86.4
109	New Mexico	84.9	84.7	85.5	85.0
110	Connecticut	84.2	86.2	84.3	84.9
111	Hawaii	84.6	85.6	84.3	84.8
112	Southern Miss.	84.2	85.3	84.7	84.7
113	Old Dominion	83.5	85.9	83.9	84.4
114	Georgia St.	84.0	83.8	84.0	84.0
115	UAB	81.4	84.2	83.5	83.0
116	East Carolina	82.4	83.9	82.2	82.8
117	UL-Lafayette	82.3	83.6	82.1	82.7
118	Kansas	81.9	85.3	80.6	82.6
119	UL-Monroe	82.5	83.3	81.7	82.5
120	Bowling Green	81.7	82.7	82.1	82.2
121	Idaho	81.1	82.2	81.9	81.7
122	Georgia Southern	74.6	76.0	74.0	74.9
123	Kent St.	73.7	75.2	74.0	74.3
124	Texas St.	73.4	75.5	72.7	73.9
125	Charlotte	72.2	74.5	72.4	73.0
126	Rice	71.9	73.3	72.2	72.5
127	Coastal Carolina	70.7	72.1	71.4	71.4
128	U T E P	68.6	71.5	68.7	69.6
129	San Jose St.	69.3	69.6	68.4	69.1
130	Ball St.	65.7	67.7	66.3	66.6

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	6-0	9-0	112.7	114.1	113.8	113.6
South Florida	5-1	8-1	110.1	109.0	110.7	109.9
Temple	3-3	5-5	94.6	95.1	95.0	94.9
Cincinnati	1-5	3-7	87.9	89.5	89.0	88.8
Connecticut	2-5	3-7	84.2	86.2	84.3	84.9
East Carolina	1-5	2-8	82.4	83.9	82.2	82.8
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	5-1	8-1	108.8	108.1	109.4	108.7
Houston	4-2	6-3	103.4	103.0	103.6	103.3
Navy	4-3	6-3	100.3	101.1	100.4	100.6
SMU	3-3	6-4	98.5	98.9	99.0	98.8
Tulsa	1-5	2-8	94.8	94.6	94.3	94.6
Tulane	2-4	4-6	92.7	93.1	92.9	92.9
AAC Averages			97.5	98.0	97.9	97.8
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	7-1	9-1	128.1	125.6	127.6	127.1
N. Carolina St.	5-1	7-3	116.9	116.1	116.9	116.6
Florida St.	3-5	3-6	116.2	115.3	114.7	115.4
Louisville	3-4	6-4	112.3	111.4	112.1	111.9
Wake Forest	3-3	6-4	112.5	110.6	112.5	111.8
Boston College	3-4	5-5	109.9	109.6	109.9	109.8
Syracuse	2-4	4-6	109.1	107.6	108.4	108.4
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	6-0	9-0	126.3	124.4	125.7	125.5
Virginia Tech	3-3	7-3	119.6	118.9	119.5	119.3
Georgia Tech	4-3	5-4	115.5	113.0	114.3	114.3
Duke	1-5	4-6	105.7	105.3	104.5	105.2
Pittsburgh	2-4	4-6	105.3	105.1	104.9	105.1
Virginia	3-3	6-4	101.8	101.0	101.9	101.6
N. Carolina	1-6	2-8	102.1	101.2	101.2	101.5
ACC Averages			113.0	111.8	112.4	112.4
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	6-1	9-1	125.0	123.7	125.8	124.8
Oklahoma St.	5-2	8-2	123.1	122.2	123.7	123.0
T C U	5-2	8-2	118.6	116.9	118.9	118.1
Iowa State	4-3	5-5	112.6	112.6	113.7	113.0
Texas	4-3	5-5	112.1	112.4	112.6	112.4
West Virginia	5-2	7-3	111.4	111.7	111.9	111.7
Kansas St.	3-4	5-5	109.6	109.8	109.4	109.6
Texas Tech	2-5	5-5	104.6	104.5	104.1	104.4
Baylor	1-6	1-9	98.0	99.4	98.0	98.5
Kansas	0-7	1-9	81.9	85.3	80.6	82.6
Big 12 Averages			109.7	109.8	109.9	109.8
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	6-1	8-2	132.7	130.4	133.1	132.1
Penn St.	5-2	8-2	126.6	125.2	127.1	126.3
Michigan	5-2	8-2	115.7	115.7	115.0	115.5
Michigan St.	5-2	7-3	104.9	105.8	106.0	105.6
Indiana	1-6	4-6	102.9	103.1	103.2	103.1
Maryland	2-5	4-6	98.3	99.6	97.6	98.5
Rutgers	3-4	4-6	97.6	97.1	97.5	97.4
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	7-0	10-0	123.8	121.2	122.6	122.6
Iowa	3-4	6-4	112.9	113.0	112.3	112.8
Northwestern	5-2	7-3	110.4	109.3	110.3	110.0
Minnesota	2-5	5-5	105.6	106.5	104.8	105.6
Purdue	2-5	4-6	102.9	103.1	103.1	103.0
Nebraska	3-4	4-6	97.5	98.3	96.8	97.5
Illinois	0-7	2-8	89.0	90.0	88.0	89.0
Big Ten Averages			108.6	108.4	108.4	108.5
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	6-0	7-3	98.0	100.0	99.5	99.2
Marshall	4-2	7-3	91.8	93.0	93.5	92.8
W. Kentucky	3-3	5-5	90.7	90.8	91.5	91.0
Middle Tennessee	3-3	5-5	86.3	87.5	87.2	87.0
Florida Int’l.	4-2	6-3	86.0	86.4	86.8	86.4
Old Dominion	2-4	4-6	83.5	85.9	83.9	84.4
Charlotte	1-5	1-9	72.2	74.5	72.4	73.0
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	2-4	5-4	89.1	91.4	90.0	90.1
N. Texas	6-1	7-3	85.8	87.4	86.5	86.6
Louisiana Tech	2-4	4-6	85.6	87.4	86.2	86.4
Southern Miss.	4-2	6-4	84.2	85.3	84.7	84.7
UAB	5-2	7-3	81.4	84.2	83.5	83.0
Rice	1-5	1-9	71.9	73.3	72.2	72.5
U T E P	0-6	0-10	68.6	71.5	68.7	69.6
CUSA Averages			83.9	85.6	84.8	84.8
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		8-2	118.2	116.8	118.7	117.9
Army		8-2	100.9	100.6	101.4	101.0
Massachusetts		3-7	90.3	89.5	90.6	90.1
BYU		3-8	90.1	90.0	89.8	89.9
Indep. Averages			99.9	99.2	100.1	99.7
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	5-1	8-2	99.1	100.2	100.2	99.8
Miami (O)	3-3	4-6	88.6	90.7	89.8	89.7
Akron	4-2	5-5	86.8	89.2	87.3	87.8
Buffalo	2-4	4-6	85.6	87.8	87.6	87.0
Bowling Green	2-4	2-8	81.7	82.7	82.1	82.2
Kent St.	1-5	2-8	73.7	75.2	74.0	74.3
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	5-1	8-2	100.7	100.8	102.4	101.3
Western Michigan	4-2	6-4	97.7	96.8	98.6	97.7
Northern Illinois	5-1	7-3	95.9	95.8	97.0	96.2
Eastern Michigan	1-5	3-7	95.8	95.8	96.2	95.9
Central Michigan	4-2	6-4	94.7	95.1	95.5	95.1
Ball St.	0-6	2-8	65.7	67.7	66.3	66.6
MAC Averages			88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	6-0	8-2	107.0	105.5	107.2	106.6
Colo. State	4-3	6-5	101.5	100.5	101.3	101.1
Wyoming	5-1	7-3	100.7	99.4	100.0	100.0
Air Force	3-3	4-6	92.8	93.3	92.9	93.0
Utah St.	3-3	5-5	92.6	91.8	92.2	92.2
New Mexico	1-5	3-7	84.9	84.7	85.5	85.0
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	4-2	8-2	102.0	101.9	102.9	102.3
Fresno St.	5-1	7-3	95.0	94.2	95.6	95.0
Nevada	2-4	2-8	88.9	90.7	90.2	89.9
U N L V	3-3	4-6	86.1	87.6	86.1	86.6
Hawaii	1-6	3-7	84.6	85.6	84.3	84.8
San Jose St.	0-6	1-10	69.3	69.6	68.4	69.1
MWC Averages			92.1	92.1	92.2	92.1
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	5-2	8-2	126.8	124.3	126.9	126.0
Stanford	6-2	7-3	120.2	118.5	119.7	119.5
Washington St.	6-2	9-2	114.9	112.7	114.5	114.0
Oregon	2-5	5-5	106.8	105.0	105.9	105.9
California	2-5	5-5	104.8	102.7	102.9	103.5
Oregon St.	0-7	1-9	94.8	94.5	93.3	94.2
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	7-1	9-2	119.7	118.8	119.5	119.3
Arizona	5-2	7-3	109.2	107.6	108.4	108.4
Arizona St.	4-3	5-5	105.8	104.9	105.4	105.4
Colorado	2-6	5-6	106.2	104.8	104.2	105.0
Utah	2-5	5-5	104.7	105.5	104.5	104.9
U C L A	3-4	5-5	103.4	102.8	102.7	103.0
Pac-12 Averages			109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	6-1	9-1	125.5	125.6	125.6	125.6
S. Carolina	5-3	7-3	109.1	108.1	108.3	108.5
Kentucky	4-3	7-3	109.0	108.0	107.9	108.3
Missouri	2-4	5-5	108.5	106.6	107.8	107.6
Florida	3-5	3-6	106.2	105.6	105.4	105.7
Vanderbilt	0-6	4-6	99.9	99.1	98.7	99.2
Tennessee	0-6	4-6	100.1	98.5	98.3	99.0
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	7-0	10-0	137.6	134.0	136.4	136.0
Auburn	6-1	8-2	129.0	126.9	129.3	128.4
L S U	4-2	7-3	117.5	115.3	117.8	116.9
Mississippi St.	3-3	7-3	114.5	114.5	114.6	114.5
Texas A&M	3-3	6-4	109.1	107.1	108.3	108.2
Ole Miss	2-4	5-5	105.1	103.7	104.0	104.3
Arkansas	1-5	4-6	98.6	97.9	98.1	98.2
SEC Averages			112.1	110.8	111.5	111.5
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Arkansas St.	4-1	5-3	94.5	95.7	95.7	95.3
Troy	5-1	8-2	95.2	95.4	94.8	95.1
Appalachian St.	5-1	6-4	93.3	92.1	93.1	92.8
N. Mexico St.	2-3	4-5	87.6	86.0	87.9	87.2
S. Alabama	3-3	4-6	85.7	87.7	85.9	86.4
Georgia St.	5-1	6-3	84.0	83.8	84.0	84.0
UL-Lafayette	3-2	4-5	82.3	83.6	82.1	82.7
UL-Monroe	4-3	4-5	82.5	83.3	81.7	82.5
Idaho	2-3	3-6	81.1	82.2	81.9	81.7
Georgia Southern	0-5	0-9	74.6	76.0	74.0	74.9
Texas St.	1-5	2-8	73.4	75.5	72.7	73.9
Coastal Carolina	0-6	1-9	70.7	72.1	71.4	71.4
Sun Belt Averages			83.7	84.5	83.8	84.0

Conference Ratings

#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	113.0	111.8	112.4	112.4
2	SEC	112.1	110.8	111.5	111.5
3	BIG 12	109.7	109.8	109.9	109.8
4	PAC-12	109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
5	BIG TEN	108.6	108.4	108.4	108.5
6	INDEP.	99.9	99.2	100.1	99.7
7	AAC	97.5	98.0	97.9	97.8
8	MWC	92.1	92.1	92.2	92.1
9	MAC	88.8	89.8	89.7	89.5
10	CUSA	83.9	85.6	84.8	84.8
11	Sun Belt	83.7	84.5	83.8	84.0

Playoff and Bowl Projections

Bowl	Conferences		Team 1	Team 2
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC	UAB	UL-Lafayette
Cure	AAC	SBC	Navy	Georgia St.
Las Vegas	MWC 1	PAC-12 5	Boise St.	Arizona St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	North Texas	Colorado St.
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Ohio U	Troy
Boca Raton	AAC	CUSA	Houston	Marshall
Frisco	AAC	MAC	SMU	Western Mich.
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	[Boston College]	Southern Miss.
Bahamas	CUSA 1	MAC	Florida Atlantic	Toledo
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Akron	Utah St.
Birmingham	AAC	SEC 8-9	Temple	[Florida Int’l.]
Armed Forces	Army	BIG TEN 8	ARMY	[Western Ky.]
Dollar General	MAC	SBC	Miami (O)	Appalachian St.
Hawaii	AAC	MWC	Central Florida	San Diego St.
Heart of Dallas	BIG 12 6	CUSA	[Colorado]	UTSA
Quick Lane	ACC 7-9	BIG TEN 7	Virginia	[Central Mich.]
Cactus	BIG 12 5	PAC-12 6	[Fresno St.]	Oregon
Independence	ACC 7-9	SEC 8-9	Wake Forest	[Middle Tenn.]
Pinstripe	ACC 3-6	BIG TEN 5	Georgia Tech	Iowa
Foster Farms	BIG TEN 6	PAC-12 8	[Northern Illinois]	Arizona
Texas	BIG 12 3	SEC 2-7	Texas	LSU
Military	AAC 7-9	ACC 7-9	South Florida	Florida St.
Camping World	ACC 2	BIG 12 2	Notre Dame	Iowa St.
Holiday	BIG TEN 3	PAC-12 2	Michigan St.	Stanford
Alamo	BIG 12 1	PAC-12 1	West Virginia	Washington St.
Belk	ACC 3-6	SEC 2-7	Virginia Tech	South Carolina
Sun	ACC 3-6	Pac-12	Louisville	UCLA
Music City	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Northwestern	Kentucky
Arizona	MWC	SBC	Wyoming	Arkansas St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Georgia	Washington
Taxslayer	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	North Carolina St.	Missouri
Liberty	BIG 12 4	SEC 2-7	Kansas St.	Texas A&M
Fiesta	At-large	At-large	USC	TCU
Orange	ACC 1	SEC 1/B10 1	Clemson	Penn St.
Outback	BIG TEN 2	SEC 2-7	Michigan	Mississippi St.
Peach	At-large	At-large	Oklahoma St.	Memphis
Citrus	B10 1/ACC 2	SEC 1	Ohio St.	Auburn
Rose	Playoff	Semi-final	Oklahoma	Miami (Fla.)
Sugar	Playoff	Semi-final	Alabama	Wisconsin
Nat’l Champ.	Semifinal	Winners	Alabama	Oklahoma
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

Who Should Be National Coach of the Year
If Alabama wins the National Championship this year with a perfect 15-0 record, Nick Saban would be the odds-on favorite to win the National Coach of the Year Award. Playing in a very tough SEC Western Division and adding a win over Georgia, plus two in the Playoffs, it would be hard to argue with anybody that voted Saban number one on their ballots.

However, we here at the PiRate Ratings not only do not think Saban should be the National Coach of the Year, he shouldn’t be the State of Alabama Coach of the Year!
This is not a knock against Saban. In our opinion, Saban’s coaching job this year would be the same as Swen Nater as the second best center in the nation in 1972 and 1973 when he was at UCLA (unfortunately, number one was Bill Walton).

If you are over the age of 50 like so many of our readers, you remember SMU receiving the death penalty, not being allowed to play for two years. When the Mustangs returned to college football, they suffered through years and years of very weak football seasons. It was a new century before the Mustangs finally returned to a bowl.

What would you have thought of any coach that not only could have quickly taken SMU to a bowl in its first year back in football? That SMU coach that helped bring SMU back to football was none other than the greatest offensive tackle in NFL history–Forrest Gregg.  The job was too hard, and SMU won just four games in its first three years back in business.

A similar instance has presented the college football nation with another team not playing football for two seasons before returning this year. UAB dropped football for financial reasons after finishing 6-6 in 2014. The Blazers were expected to struggle mightily in their first season back in FBS football, being lucky to win a game this year. Except, nobody told Coach Bill Clark that his team was not supposed to come within one game of the CUSA West Division title and become bowl eligible, but that is exactly where UAB sits through 10 games of the season. The Blazers are 7-3, and Clark deserves serious consideration for NCOY; nobody has done a better job than Clark.
The Conference Races & Bowl Eligibility
Around the first of February every year, college basketball fans start looking in earnest at which teams appear to be in the NCAA Tournament, which are on “the bubble,” and which appear to be headed to a lesser tournament or none at all. In the Playoff era of FBS football, somebody should start something similar. So, here is a list for each conference.

Group of 5 Conferences
American Athletic Conference
Bowl Eligible: 6 — Central Florida, South Florida, Memphis, Houston, Navy, SMU
5-Win Teams: 1 — Temple
4-Win Teams: 1 — Tulane
Bowl Tie-ins: 7
Likely Bowl Eligibles: 7 (but the champion is likely to receive the NY6 Bowl bid, leaving this league one team short in its needs to fill its bowl tie-ins.

Central Florida leads the race for the one New Year’s Six Bowl slot that goes to a Group of 5 team, but Memphis has just one loss (to UCF). Should the Tigers beat UCF in a rematch at the AAC