PiRate Ratings College Football–October 28-30, 2021

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Coastal Carolina	Troy	22.9	20.8	22.8
East Carolina	South Florida	12.1	12.0	13.3
Tulsa	Navy	9.9	10.3	9.4
Nevada	UNLV	17.0	19.2	18.1
Wisconsin	Iowa	-2.0	-1.6	-1.8
Buffalo	Bowling Green	24.9	23.9	25.7
Wake Forest	Duke	24.5	23.1	25.8
Michigan St.	Michigan	-2.3	-3.3	-3.6
North Carolina St.	Louisville	10.2	9.8	8.7
Syracuse	Boston College	1.1	1.1	1.0
Georgia Southern	Georgia St.	-6.4	-5.5	-6.4
West Virginia	Iowa St.	-5.6	-5.9	-7.7
Maryland	Indiana	3.5	2.5	1.2
Florida Atlantic	UTEP	13.8	14.2	15.5
Pittsburgh	Miami (Fla.)	2.8	4.6	3.5
Illinois	Rutgers	3.8	2.3	4.2
Northwestern	Minnesota	-6.9	-7.4	-9.0
Temple	Central Florida	-16.2	-14.2	-17.2
Georgia Tech	Virginia Tech	0.0	1.3	1.4
Clemson	Florida St.	12.3	12.1	13.3
Liberty	Massachusetts	33.8	34.9	37.3
Rice	North Texas	3.4	3.4	3.5
Utah St.	Hawaii	1.4	2.5	2.0
BYU	Virginia	4.2	2.5	4.1
Utah	UCLA	7.1	6.6	6.2
Arizona St.	Washington St.	15.5	15.1	15.7
California	Oregon St.	-8.5	-4.9	-6.2
USC	Arizona	24.7	25.0	25.9
San Jose St.	Wyoming	7.5	7.0	5.1
Oregon	Colorado	15.4	16.8	18.3
Marshall	Florida Int’l.	20.1	19.4	19.5
Oklahoma St.	Kansas	32.9	35.0	37.4
Old Dominion	Louisiana Tech	-8.7	-8.3	-6.8
Louisiana	Texas St.	26.4	26.7	27.7
Middle Tennessee	Southern Miss.	12.8	12.1	13.8
Nebraska	Purdue	6.9	7.6	5.8
Vanderbilt	Missouri	-18.6	-19.6	-19.2
Kansas St.	TCU	-0.8	0.3	-0.7
Mississippi St.	Kentucky	-0.6	-2.2	-1.9
Oklahoma	Texas Tech	21.9	20.0	21.8
Ohio St.	Penn St.	19.9	19.3	19.3
Houston	SMU	2.8	1.3	2.2
Baylor	Texas	-2.4	-1.2	-2.4
Auburn	Ole Miss	3.3	2.7	3.3
Florida (N)	Georgia	-17.7	-16.7	-18.5
Tulane	Cincinnati	-23.8	-24.7	-25.3
Appalachian St.	Louisiana-Monroe	26.2	25.5	29.0
South Alabama	Arkansas St.	8.9	8.4	8.5
Western Kentucky	Charlotte	10.9	11.4	10.9
Colorado St.	Boise St.	-6.4	-5.9	-6.6
Notre Dame	North Carolina	7.4	8.0	7.3
Stanford	Washington	1.7	1.3	0.5
San Diego St.	Fresno St.	5.1	3.2	2.7

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Georgia	134.8
2	Alabama	131.6
3	Ohio St.	130.9
4	Oklahoma	121.2
5	Iowa St.	120.7
6	Cincinnati	120.2
7	Texas A&M	118.6
8	Auburn	117.4
9	Ole Miss	117.2
10	Florida	117.1
11	Iowa	116.2
12	Texas	116.1
13	Michigan	114.9
14	Notre Dame	114.8
15	Penn St.	114.4
16	Clemson	114.2
17	Arizona St.	114.0
18	Utah	113.6
19	Oklahoma St.	113.5
20	Arkansas	113.0
21	Kentucky	112.9
22	Oregon	112.4
23	Baylor	112.1
24	U S C	111.6
25	Wisconsin	111.4
26	Oregon St.	111.3
27	West Virginia	111.3
28	NC State	111.1
29	Coastal Carolina	110.8
30	T C U	110.6
31	Pittsburgh	110.4
32	Michigan St.	110.3
33	North Carolina	110.3
34	L S U	110.2
35	Nebraska	110.0
36	Wake Forest	110.0
37	U C L A	109.9
38	Miami (Fla.)	109.8
39	Tennessee	108.8
40	Mississippi St.	108.4
41	Minnesota	108.1
42	BYU	107.6
43	Louisiana	107.3
44	Kansas St.	107.2
45	Virginia	107.0
46	Washington	106.7
47	Purdue	106.2
48	Stanford	104.9
49	Florida St.	104.6
50	Louisville	104.5
51	SMU	104.4
52	Appalachian St.	104.2
53	Houston	104.0
54	Boise St.	103.6
55	Texas Tech	103.0
56	San Diego St.	102.9
57	Virginia Tech	102.4
58	Indiana	102.4
59	Fresno St.	102.2
60	Liberty	101.8
61	California	101.8
62	Maryland	101.8
63	Nevada	101.7
64	Boston College	101.7
65	Washington St.	101.6
66	U T S A	101.6
67	Air Force	101.1
68	Missouri	100.4
69	Georgia Tech	100.4
70	Army	100.1
71	Syracuse	99.8
72	UCF	99.5
73	East Carolina	98.6
74	Colorado	98.6
75	Northwestern	97.8
76	Miami (Ohio)	97.8
77	Toledo	97.5
78	South Carolina	97.1
79	Illinois	96.6
80	U A B	96.3
81	Ball St.	96.3
82	Rutgers	96.2
83	Tulsa	95.5
84	Buffalo	95.4
85	Florida Atlantic	95.0
86	Colorado St.	94.8
87	Eastern Michigan	94.6
88	Western Michigan	94.5
89	Central Michigan	94.3
90	Marshall	94.2
91	San Jose St.	94.0
92	Georgia St.	93.8
93	Memphis	93.3
94	Tulane	93.1
95	Hawaii	92.8
96	Troy	91.7
97	Kent St.	91.3
98	South Alabama	90.9
99	Utah St.	90.7
100	Wyoming	90.5
101	Northern Illinois	89.8
102	Western Kentucky	89.7
103	Arizona	89.3
104	USF	89.1
105	Navy	88.7
106	Middle Tennessee	88.6
107	Duke	87.5
108	Ohio	86.3
109	Georgia Southern	86.2
110	Louisiana Tech	85.2
111	U N L V	85.1
112	Arkansas St.	84.8
113	U T E P	83.5
114	Texas St.	83.4
115	New Mexico	82.4
116	Rice	81.8
117	Kansas	81.4
118	Charlotte	81.1
119	Temple	81.1
120	North Texas	80.3
121	UL-Monroe	80.3
122	Vanderbilt	79.2
123	Southern Miss.	78.2
124	Florida Int’l.	77.5
125	Old Dominion	75.2
126	Akron	74.6
127	Bowling Green	73.6
128	New Mexico St.	72.0
129	UMass	69.0
130	Connecticut	68.3

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Cincinnati	119.7	119.3	121.7	120.2
SMU	104.0	104.4	104.9	104.4
Houston	104.3	103.2	104.6	104.0
UCF	99.3	98.3	100.9	99.5
East Carolina	98.3	97.8	99.6	98.6
Tulsa	95.6	95.6	95.4	95.5
Memphis	92.9	93.2	93.8	93.3
Tulane	93.4	92.0	93.8	93.1
USF	89.2	88.8	89.4	89.1
Navy	88.7	88.3	89.1	88.7
Temple	80.6	81.6	81.1	81.1
AAC Averages	96.9	96.6	97.7	97.0

Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	113.7	113.7	115.0	114.2
NC State	111.2	110.8	111.2	111.1
Wake Forest	110.0	109.5	110.4	110.0
Florida St.	104.4	104.6	104.7	104.6
Louisville	104.0	103.9	105.5	104.5
Boston College	101.6	101.7	101.8	101.7
Syracuse	99.7	99.9	99.8	99.8
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Pittsburgh	110.0	110.8	110.6	110.4
North Carolina	109.7	109.8	111.3	110.3
Miami (Fla.)	110.2	109.2	110.1	109.8
Virginia	106.6	107.7	106.7	107.0
Virginia Tech	103.2	102.1	102.0	102.4
Georgia Tech	100.2	100.5	100.4	100.4
Duke	87.5	88.4	86.6	87.5
ACC Averages	105.1	105.2	105.4	105.3

Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	122.2	120.3	121.1	121.2
Iowa St.	121.2	119.8	120.9	120.7
Texas	117.0	115.3	116.0	116.1
Oklahoma St.	113.7	113.5	113.3	113.5
Baylor	112.6	112.1	111.6	112.1
West Virginia	112.7	111.0	110.2	111.3
T C U	111.4	110.0	110.4	110.6
Kansas St.	107.6	107.3	106.7	107.2
Texas Tech	103.2	103.4	102.3	103.0
Kansas	83.8	81.5	78.9	81.4
Big 12 Averages	110.5	109.4	109.1	109.7

Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	130.3	130.3	132.0	130.9
Michigan	114.1	115.1	115.4	114.9
Penn St.	113.4	114.0	115.7	114.4
Michigan St.	110.3	110.3	110.4	110.3
Indiana	102.3	102.0	102.7	102.4
Maryland	102.8	101.5	100.9	101.8
Rutgers	95.4	97.2	95.8	96.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Iowa	115.9	115.5	117.2	116.2
Wisconsin	110.9	110.8	112.3	111.4
Nebraska	109.6	110.0	110.3	110.0
Minnesota	107.2	108.0	109.1	108.1
Purdue	105.7	105.4	107.5	106.2
Northwestern	97.8	98.1	97.6	97.8
Illinois	96.2	96.5	97.1	96.6
Big Ten Averages	108.0	108.2	108.9	108.4

Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	94.2	95.6	95.2	95.0
Marshall	94.1	94.0	94.6	94.2
Western Kentucky	88.6	90.2	90.3	89.7
Middle Tennessee	88.2	88.3	89.2	88.6
Charlotte	80.2	81.2	81.9	81.1
Florida Int’l.	77.0	77.6	78.0	77.5
Old Dominion	74.8	75.5	75.4	75.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	101.2	101.9	101.7	101.6
U A B	96.2	96.4	96.4	96.3
Louisiana Tech	85.5	85.8	84.2	85.2
U T E P	83.4	84.4	82.6	83.5
Rice	81.8	81.8	81.8	81.8
North Texas	80.4	80.4	80.2	80.3
Southern Miss.	77.9	78.6	77.9	78.2
CUSA Averages	86.0	86.5	86.4	86.3

FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	114.1	114.7	115.6	114.8
BYU	107.8	107.2	107.8	107.6
Liberty	101.4	101.9	102.0	101.8
Army	100.2	100.1	99.9	100.1
New Mexico St.	72.3	73.0	70.8	72.0
UMass	70.1	69.5	67.3	69.0
Connecticut	68.9	69.4	66.7	68.3
Indep. Averages	90.7	90.8	90.0	90.5

Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (Ohio)	99.3	97.6	96.6	97.8
Buffalo	96.1	95.2	95.0	95.4
Kent St.	91.0	92.3	90.7	91.3
Ohio	85.9	86.8	86.3	86.3
Akron	76.0	74.5	73.5	74.6
Bowling Green	74.1	74.3	72.3	73.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	98.0	97.6	96.9	97.5
Ball St.	97.1	96.8	94.9	96.3
Eastern Michigan	96.0	94.6	93.3	94.6
Western Michigan	94.6	95.0	93.7	94.5
Central Michigan	95.4	94.0	93.5	94.3
Northern Illinois	90.9	89.5	89.0	89.8
MAC Averages	91.2	90.7	89.6	90.5

Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	103.4	103.2	104.0	103.6
Air Force	100.8	101.0	101.6	101.1
Colorado St.	94.6	94.8	95.0	94.8
Utah St.	90.4	91.2	90.6	90.7
Wyoming	90.1	90.5	90.9	90.5
New Mexico	82.8	82.9	81.4	82.4
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	103.1	102.7	102.8	102.9
Fresno St.	101.1	102.5	103.1	102.2
Nevada	101.0	102.4	101.7	101.7
San Jose St.	94.5	94.5	93.0	94.0
Hawaii	93.0	92.7	92.5	92.8
U N L V	85.5	84.7	85.2	85.1
MWC Averages	95.0	95.3	95.1	95.1

Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oregon	111.4	112.5	113.4	112.4
Oregon St.	111.1	111.2	111.6	111.3
Washington	106.0	107.1	107.1	106.7
Stanford	104.6	105.4	104.6	104.9
California	99.7	103.3	102.4	101.8
Washington St.	101.1	102.1	101.6	101.6
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Arizona St.	113.6	114.2	114.3	114.0
Utah	113.6	113.6	113.5	113.6
U S C	111.3	111.2	112.1	111.6
U C L A	109.5	110.0	110.2	109.9
Colorado	98.9	98.7	98.1	98.6
Arizona	89.6	89.2	89.2	89.3
Pac-12 Averages	105.9	106.5	106.5	106.3

Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	134.3	134.5	135.6	134.8
Florida	116.5	117.8	117.1	117.1
Kentucky	112.0	113.7	113.1	112.9
Tennessee	108.8	108.5	109.0	108.8
Missouri	100.5	100.8	99.8	100.4
South Carolina	97.6	97.2	96.6	97.1
Vanderbilt	79.9	79.2	78.6	79.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	131.6	130.9	132.4	131.6
Texas A&M	118.2	118.9	118.6	118.6
Auburn	117.5	116.8	117.8	117.4
Ole Miss	117.1	117.1	117.4	117.2
Arkansas	113.2	113.1	112.7	113.0
L S U	109.7	110.5	110.5	110.2
Mississippi St.	108.4	108.5	108.2	108.4
SEC Averages	111.8	112.0	112.0	111.9

Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Coastal Carolina	111.4	109.6	111.4	110.8
Appalachian St.	103.8	103.3	105.4	104.2
Georgia St.	94.2	93.5	93.8	93.8
Troy	91.6	91.8	91.7	91.7
Georgia Southern	86.3	86.6	85.9	86.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana	107.9	106.4	107.7	107.3
South Alabama	91.2	91.1	90.3	90.9
Arkansas St.	84.9	85.2	84.3	84.8
Texas St.	84.5	82.7	83.0	83.4
UL-Monroe	80.6	80.8	79.4	80.3
Sun Averages	93.6	93.1	93.3	93.3

Conference Ratings

Rank	Conference	Rating
1	Southeastern	111.9
2	Big 12	109.7
3	Big Ten	108.4
4	Pac-12	106.3
5	Atlantic Coast	105.3
6	American Athletic	97.0
7	Mountain West	95.1
8	Sun Belt	93.3
9	Independents	90.5
10	Mid-American	90.5
11	Conference USA	86.3

Playoff and Bowl Projections

Bowl	Team	Team
Bahamas	Marshall	Toledo
Cure	SMU	Coastal Carolina
Boca	Louisiana Tech	Air Force
New Mexico	UTEP	Northern Illinois
Independence	BYU	Florida Atlantic
Lending Tree	Western Michigan	Appalachian St.
L. A.	San Diego St.	UCLA
New Orleans	UTSA	Louisiana
Myrtle Beach	Central Michigan	Charlotte
Famous Idaho Potato	Eastern Michigan	Boise St.
Frisco	Nevada	UL-Monroe
Armed Forces	Army	UAB
Gasparilla	Middle Tennessee	Buffalo
Hawaii	Central Florida	Fresno St.
Camellia	Kent St.	Troy
Quick Lane	Ball St.	Wyoming
Military	North Carolina	Tulsa
Birmingham	Memphis	Liberty
First Responder	Western Kentucky	Texas Tech
Liberty	Texas	LSU
Holiday	Miami (Fla.)	USC
Guaranteed Rate	Purdue	West Virginia
Fenway	Houston	Boston College
Pinstripe	North Carolina St.	Penn St.
Cheez-It	Wake Forest	Iowa St.
Alamo	Baylor	Arizona St.
Duke’s Mayo	Clemson	Tennessee
Music City	Maryland	Arkansas
Las Vegas	Wisconsin	Oregon St.
Tax Slayer Gator	Virginia	Florida
Tony The Tiger Sun	Louisville	Utah
Arizona	Miami (O)	Utah St.
Citrus	Iowa	Ole Miss
Outback	Minnesota	Texas A&M
Texas	Kansas St.	Auburn
Peach	Pittsburgh	Kentucky
Fiesta	Notre Dame	Michigan
Rose	Oregon	Michigan St.
Sugar	Oklahoma St.	Alabama
Cotton	Oklahoma	Ohio St.
Orange	Georgia	Cincinnati
Championship	Georgia	Ohio St.

NCAA Strikes Out On New Overtime Rule

Did you watch the Penn State-Illinois game Saturday?  It was tied 10-10 after 60 minutes of excellent defensive football.  The Illini shut down the Penn State passing game while controlling the clock by running and running and more running.

Both teams scored field goals in the first two overtimes to make the score 16-16.  The new overtime rule states that starting with the third overtime, both teams get a two-point conversion attempt.  If the score remains tied, then successive two-point conversion attempts are taken until one team scores and the other team does not.

Additionally, after the first overtime, there are no more coin flips.  The teams rotate the choice.  And, what happens is the home team always wants to play on the side of the field where the student body cheers in the end zone, while the opponent wants to play at the other end of the field.  After each overtime, the players, officials, chain gang, and hundreds of fans must make the 100-yard walk to the other end of the field.

It’s no longer much of a secret that making two-point conversions is about as difficult as making 55-yard field goals.  That became a huge problem yesterday in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania.  Penn State and Illinois could not convert their two-point conversion attempts.  Overtimes three, four, five, six, and seven produced 10 consecutive botched conversions.  As each overtime ended, everybody had to move to the other end of the field, and the longer into this mess it continued, the big tubby linemen began to walk at a snail’s pace to get back.

Illinois finally scored in the eighth overtime, but then Penn State did the same forcing a ninth overtime.  The game was finally decided when the Nittany Lions missed their ninth overtime attempt, while Illinois scored to win the game 20-18.

In the amount of time it took to play the nine overtimes, another game that kicked off at the same time as the first overtime began the second quarter of their game just before the nine-overtime game concluded.  In other words, it took a little longer than one full quarter to play the nine overtimes.

Imagine a game in late November with sloppy playing conditions where regulation ends in a tie game, and nobody can score in the overtimes for 10 or more of these ridiculous two-point conversion attempts.  If it took nine yesterday, there is a possibility that somebody else will need 10 or more.

The NCAA must re-evaluate this fiasco of a rule.  In fact, the NCAA needs to have a constitutional convention and modify a lot of the rules to get into the 21st century.  Here is our suggestion for rules changes–use the same rules the NFL uses.  To wit:

1. Overtime should be one, 10-minute period with a touchdown on the first possession winning the game, but a field goal allowing the other team to have a possession.  If the game is still tied after 10 minutes, it stands as a tie game.

2. Intentional pass interference is now a definite defensive option to stop a big gain.  Players will even deliver cheap shots knowing that giving up 15 yards beats giving up 50 or a touchdown.  Because passing the ball is tantamount to winning, the pass interference penalty needs to go back to giving the offense the ball at the spot of interference, be it 12 yards past the line or 50.

3. The clock should not stop on first downs.  That rule was in effect when chain gangs were the only way to spot the ball.  In today’s world, the ball can be spotted quickly via computerization and an extra referee.  Let the clock move on first downs.

4. Add the two-minute warning.  In lieu of the clock stopping on first downs, add a two-minute warning to both halves.  That is when teams need the clock to stop, and the networks can get an extra commercial break before halftime or the end of the game.

5. Allow a player that falls to the ground with the ball but having been untouched by the defense to get up and advance.  Why should poor playing conditions be responsible for making a defensive stop?  

Here’s one additional rule change that should be considered.  Targeting happens too much these days when the ball carrier lowers his head to invite the targeting penalty.  This is almost like the flop in basketball.  The rule needs to be changed so that when the ball carrier initiates the targeting by putting himself into position for any tackle to become a potential targeting penalty, the offense should be penalized 15 yards for a personal foul.

Additionally, ejection is much too harsh of a penalty.  How about making targeting a 20-yard penalty and automatic first down, and also allowing it to supersede the half the distance to the goal and be allowed to go all the way to the 1-yard line if the offense is in the Red Zone?  A penalty in one game shouldn’t be allowed to stay in effect for a half of another game.  This may be the most ridiculous rule in college football history.  Think of a basketball game where a Syracuse player commits an intentional foul on a Connecticut player late in the second half of a game, and then three days later when Syracuse plays Duke, Duke gets to start the game with 2 foul shots from the intentional foul three days back.

PiRate College Football Ratings: December 1, 2019

This Week’s Conference Championships Spreads

All times given are Eastern Standard

Friday, December 6

Conference	Pac-12
North Division	Oregon 10-2
South Division	Utah 11-1
Site:	Santa Clara
Time:	8:00 PM
TV:	ABC
PiRate:	Utah by 7.1
Mean:	Utah by 6.3
Bias:	Utah by 6.8
Predicted Score:	Utah 27
	Oregon 20

 

 

Saturday, December 7

 

Conference	Sun Belt
East Division	Appalachian St. 11-1
West Division	Louisiana 10-2
Site:	Boone, NC (Appy St.)
Time:	12 Noon
TV:	ESPN
PiRate:	Appy St. by 9.2
Mean:	Appy St. by 8.4
Bias:	Appy St. by 9.1
Predicted Score:	Appalachian St. 35
	Louisiana 26

 

 

Conference	Mid-American
East Division	Miami (O) 7-5
West Division	Central Michigan 8-4
Site:	Detroit
Time:	12 Noon
TV:	ESPN 2
PiRate:	CMU by 2.0
Mean:	CMU by 3.9
Bias:	CMU by 3.1
Predicted Score:	Central Mich. 31
	Miami (O) 28

 

 

Conference	Big 12
1st Place	Oklahoma 11-1
2nd Place	Baylor 11-1
Site:	Arlington, TX
Time:	12 Noon
TV:	ABC
PiRate:	Oklahoma by 5.2
Mean:	Oklahoma by 4.6
Bias:	Oklahoma by 5.4
Predicted Score:	Oklahoma 38
	Baylor 33

 

 

Conference	Conference USA
East Division	Florida Atlantic 9-3
West Division	UAB 9-3
Site:	Boca Raton, FL (FAU)
Time:	1:30 PM
TV:	CBSSN
PiRate:	FAU by 11.9
Mean:	FAU by 10.0
Bias:	FAU by 12.2
Predicted Score:	Florida Atlantic 28
	UAB 17

 

 

Conference	American Athletic
East Division	Cincinnati 10-2
West Division	Memphis 11-1
Site:	Memphis
Time:	3:30 PM
TV:	ABC
PiRate:	Memphis by 6.9
Mean:	Memphis by 7.8
Bias:	Memphis by 8.1
Predicted Score:	Memphis 35
	Cincinnati 27

 

 

Conference	Mountain West
Mountain Division	Boise St. 11-1
West Division	Hawaii 9-4
Site:	Boise, ID
Time:	4:00 PM
TV:	ESPN
PiRate:	Boise St. by 16.9
Mean:	Boise St. by 15.7
Bias:	Boise St. by 18.0
Predicted Score:	Boise St. 48
	Hawaii 31

 

 

Conference	Southeastern
East Division	Georgia 11-1
West Division	LSU 12-0
Site:	Atlanta
Time:	4:00 PM
TV:	CBS
PiRate:	LSU by 5.6
Mean:	LSU by 5.3
Bias:	LSU by 5.5
Predicted Score:	LSU 35
	Georgia 30

 

 

Conference	Atlantic Coast
Atlantic Division	Clemson 12-0
Coastal Division	Virginia 9-3
Site:	Charlotte
Time:	7:30 PM
TV:	ABC
PiRate:	Clemson by 30.2
Mean:	Clemson by 28.3
Bias:	Clemson by 30.9
Predicted Score:	Clemson 40
	Virginia 10

 

 

Conference	Big Ten
East Division	Ohio St. 12-0
West Division	Wisconsin 10-2
Site:	Indianapolis
Time:	8:00 PM
TV:	Fox
PiRate:	Ohio St. by 19.4
Mean:	Ohio St. by 18.8
Bias:	Ohio St. by 20.5
Predicted Score:	Ohio St. 44
	Wisconsin 24

 

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

 

#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	141.9	141.1	143.0	142.0
2	Clemson	138.8	137.0	140.0	138.6
3	L S U	135.5	133.5	135.7	134.9
4	Georgia	128.4	126.7	128.7	127.9
5	Alabama	128.8	125.7	129.1	127.9
6	Utah	126.8	125.9	127.5	126.7
7	Michigan	125.6	124.3	125.9	125.3
8	Florida	125.9	123.5	125.8	125.0
9	Oklahoma	122.9	122.4	122.5	122.6
10	Wisconsin	122.5	122.3	122.6	122.5
11	Auburn	122.9	121.1	122.7	122.2
12	Penn St.	121.4	120.5	121.4	121.1
13	Notre Dame	120.8	119.9	121.0	120.6
14	Oregon	119.5	119.4	120.2	119.7
15	Iowa	118.4	116.9	118.0	117.8
16	Baylor	117.7	117.8	117.1	117.5
17	Minnesota	117.2	116.8	116.5	116.8
18	Texas A&M	115.1	112.5	113.3	113.7
19	Washington	113.1	112.8	114.0	113.3
20	Iowa St.	112.9	113.2	112.7	112.9
21	Kansas St.	112.4	112.3	112.3	112.3
22	Kentucky	112.4	111.3	111.6	111.8
23	Central Florida	111.6	111.1	112.1	111.6
24	U S C	111.0	111.6	111.8	111.5
25	Texas	111.1	111.4	111.0	111.2
26	Memphis	110.2	110.6	111.4	110.7
27	Virginia Tech	110.5	110.5	111.2	110.7
28	Tennessee	110.7	110.4	110.1	110.4
29	Oklahoma St.	110.3	110.8	109.7	110.3
30	Mississippi St.	109.8	106.6	113.3	109.9
31	Washington St.	110.0	109.2	110.0	109.7
32	Indiana	109.9	108.9	109.5	109.4
33	Appalachian St.	109.6	109.1	109.0	109.2
34	Virginia	108.6	108.7	109.1	108.8
35	Missouri	109.9	107.5	108.5	108.6
36	T C U	107.7	109.7	107.9	108.4
37	Boise St.	107.9	108.2	108.0	108.0
38	South Carolina	109.0	107.1	108.0	108.0
39	North Carolina	107.7	107.6	108.4	107.9
40	Arizona St.	107.9	107.3	108.1	107.8
41	Ole Miss	107.8	106.9	108.1	107.6
42	Michigan St.	107.7	106.8	106.7	107.1
43	Nebraska	106.3	106.5	105.6	106.1
44	Cincinnati	105.8	105.3	105.8	105.6
45	Air Force	104.6	106.4	105.6	105.5
46	SMU	104.8	104.7	105.4	105.0
47	Florida St.	104.8	104.6	104.9	104.8
48	Miami (Fla.)	104.5	104.0	105.1	104.5
49	Texas Tech	104.6	104.9	103.7	104.4
50	Purdue	104.1	103.9	103.7	103.9
51	California	103.7	103.5	104.2	103.8
52	Wake Forest	103.1	102.4	103.3	102.9
53	Louisiana	102.9	103.2	102.4	102.8
54	Northwestern	103.4	102.6	102.1	102.7
55	West Virginia	102.7	102.7	102.3	102.5
56	Illinois	102.2	102.8	101.8	102.3
57	Pittsburgh	102.4	101.8	102.3	102.2
58	BYU	102.1	102.3	101.6	102.0
59	Boston College	101.9	101.4	102.0	101.8
60	Oregon St.	101.2	102.1	101.5	101.6
61	Navy	100.3	102.6	101.6	101.5
62	Stanford	101.6	100.6	100.8	101.0
63	Louisville	100.2	99.8	99.9	100.0
64	Tulane	99.6	100.2	100.0	99.9
65	Temple	99.4	99.3	100.5	99.7
66	Wyoming	98.6	100.3	98.9	99.3
67	Syracuse	99.7	98.9	98.9	99.2
68	Duke	99.4	98.6	99.1	99.0
69	Georgia Southern	99.0	99.1	98.7	99.0
70	Florida Atlantic	98.5	98.5	99.6	98.9
71	Colorado	98.6	98.5	98.7	98.6
72	U C L A	98.7	98.3	98.2	98.4
73	Ohio	98.4	97.6	98.9	98.3
74	San Diego St.	97.6	99.2	97.6	98.1
75	Hawaii	97.0	98.4	96.4	97.3
76	Western Michigan	97.6	96.6	97.1	97.1
77	Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.8	96.9
78	Utah St.	96.8	96.5	97.1	96.8
79	Western Kentucky	95.3	95.9	96.5	95.9
80	Houston	94.8	95.7	96.4	95.6
81	Buffalo	94.8	95.4	96.2	95.4
82	Tulsa	94.1	95.1	95.4	94.9
83	Kansas	93.7	94.7	93.8	94.1
84	Army	94.1	94.3	93.4	94.0
85	Louisiana Tech	93.9	94.1	93.7	93.9
86	Southern Miss.	93.7	92.6	93.9	93.4
87	Central Michigan	92.3	93.1	93.5	92.9
88	Maryland	93.5	92.6	92.0	92.7
89	Fresno St.	92.4	93.4	92.2	92.7
90	Marshall	92.0	91.7	92.5	92.1
91	North Carolina St.	92.3	91.4	91.6	91.8
92	Vanderbilt	92.5	90.9	90.9	91.4
93	Ball St.	91.0	90.7	91.2	91.0
94	Nevada	89.8	91.3	89.1	90.1
95	Arkansas St.	90.0	90.4	89.7	90.0
96	Liberty	89.5	90.8	89.8	90.0
97	U A B	89.1	91.0	89.9	90.0
98	Miami (Ohio)	90.3	89.2	90.4	90.0
99	Georgia Tech	90.2	88.9	90.2	89.8
100	Kent St.	89.0	89.1	89.8	89.3
101	Colorado St.	88.0	91.2	88.7	89.3
102	Georgia St.	89.3	90.1	88.4	89.3
103	Troy	89.6	89.8	88.1	89.2
104	Florida Int’l.	89.1	89.0	89.3	89.1
105	South Florida	88.8	89.3	88.9	89.0
106	Middle Tennessee	88.9	88.5	89.2	88.9
107	San Jose St.	87.9	89.7	88.1	88.6
108	Charlotte	87.9	88.3	88.6	88.3
109	Eastern Michigan	87.8	88.0	88.2	88.0
110	Arkansas	88.0	87.8	87.3	87.7
111	Northern Illinois	87.5	86.9	87.8	87.4
112	Coastal Carolina	86.9	87.8	86.3	87.0
113	Louisiana-Monroe	86.7	87.4	86.4	86.9
114	North Texas	86.3	86.0	86.2	86.2
115	Rutgers	85.1	84.6	83.6	84.4
116	U N L V	83.7	85.4	83.5	84.2
117	Toledo	84.0	83.9	84.1	84.0
118	Rice	82.4	83.7	82.4	82.8
119	East Carolina	82.4	83.6	82.3	82.8
120	New Mexico	79.7	81.7	78.6	80.0
121	Texas St.	79.2	79.9	78.9	79.3
122	South Alabama	77.0	79.5	77.0	77.8
123	Texas-San Antonio	76.1	77.9	76.5	76.8
124	New Mexico St.	75.6	77.3	75.2	76.0
125	Old Dominion	73.5	73.5	73.2	73.4
126	Connecticut	71.3	73.9	70.8	72.0
127	U T E P	68.5	71.8	68.6	69.6
128	Bowling Green	68.1	67.5	67.8	67.8
129	Akron	62.8	62.5	61.7	62.3
130	Massachusetts	56.7	58.2	55.7	56.9

 

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	111.6	111.1	112.1	111.6	6-2	9-3
Cincinnati	105.8	105.3	105.8	105.6	7-1	10-2
Temple	99.4	99.3	100.5	99.7	5-3	8-4
South Florida	88.8	89.3	88.9	89.0	2-6	4-8
East Carolina	82.4	83.6	82.3	82.8	1-7	4-8
Connecticut	71.3	73.9	70.8	72.0	0-8	2-10
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Memphis	110.2	110.6	111.4	110.7	7-1	11-1
SMU	104.8	104.7	105.4	105.0	6-2	10-2
Navy	100.3	102.6	101.6	101.5	7-1	9-2
Tulane	99.6	100.2	100.0	99.9	3-5	6-6
Houston	94.8	95.7	96.4	95.6	2-6	4-8
Tulsa	94.1	95.1	95.4	94.9	2-6	4-8
AAC Averages	96.9	97.6	97.6	97.4
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	138.8	137.0	140.0	138.6	8-0	12-0
Florida St.	104.8	104.6	104.9	104.8	4-4	6-6
Wake Forest	103.1	102.4	103.3	102.9	4-4	8-4
Boston College	101.9	101.4	102.0	101.8	4-4	6-6
Louisville	100.2	99.8	99.9	100.0	5-3	7-5
Syracuse	99.7	98.9	98.9	99.2	2-6	5-7
North Carolina St.	92.3	91.4	91.6	91.8	1-7	4-8
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Virginia Tech	110.5	110.5	111.2	110.7	5-3	8-4
Virginia	108.6	108.7	109.1	108.8	6-2	9-3
North Carolina	107.7	107.6	108.4	107.9	4-4	6-6
Miami (Fla.)	104.5	104.0	105.1	104.5	4-4	6-6
Pittsburgh	102.4	101.8	102.3	102.2	4-4	7-5
Duke	99.4	98.6	99.1	99.0	3-5	5-7
Georgia Tech	90.2	88.9	90.2	89.8	2-6	3-9
ACC Averages	104.6	104.0	104.7	104.4
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	122.9	122.4	122.5	122.6	8-1	11-1
Baylor	117.7	117.8	117.1	117.5	8-1	11-1
Iowa St.	112.9	113.2	112.7	112.9	5-4	7-5
Kansas St.	112.4	112.3	112.3	112.3	5-4	8-4
Texas	111.1	111.4	111.0	111.2	5-4	7-5
Oklahoma St.	110.3	110.8	109.7	110.3	5-4	8-4
T C U	107.7	109.7	107.9	108.4	3-6	5-7
Texas Tech	104.6	104.9	103.7	104.4	2-7	4-8
West Virginia	102.7	102.7	102.3	102.5	3-6	5-7
Kansas	93.7	94.7	93.8	94.1	1-8	3-9
Big 12 Averages	109.6	110.0	109.3	109.6
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	141.9	141.1	143.0	142.0	9-0	12-0
Michigan	125.6	124.3	125.9	125.3	6-3	9-3
Penn St.	121.4	120.5	121.4	121.1	7-2	10-2
Indiana	109.9	108.9	109.5	109.4	5-4	8-4
Michigan St.	107.7	106.8	106.7	107.1	4-5	6-6
Maryland	93.5	92.6	92.0	92.7	1-8	3-9
Rutgers	85.1	84.6	83.6	84.4	0-9	2-10
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	122.5	122.3	122.6	122.5	7-2	10-2
Iowa	118.4	116.9	118.0	117.8	6-3	9-3
Minnesota	117.2	116.8	116.5	116.8	7-2	10-2
Nebraska	106.3	106.5	105.6	106.1	3-6	5-7
Purdue	104.1	103.9	103.7	103.9	3-6	4-8
Northwestern	103.4	102.6	102.1	102.7	1-8	3-9
Illinois	102.2	102.8	101.8	102.3	4-5	6-6
Big Ten Averages	111.4	110.8	110.9	111.0
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	98.5	98.5	99.6	98.9	7-1	9-3
Western Kentucky	95.3	95.9	96.5	95.9	6-2	8-4
Marshall	92.0	91.7	92.5	92.1	6-2	8-4
Florida Int’l.	89.1	89.0	89.3	89.1	4-4	6-6
Middle Tennessee	88.9	88.5	89.2	88.9	3-5	4-8
Charlotte	87.9	88.3	88.6	88.3	5-3	7-5
Old Dominion	73.5	73.5	73.2	73.4	0-8	1-11
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Louisiana Tech	93.9	94.1	93.7	93.9	6-2	9-3
Southern Miss.	93.7	92.6	93.9	93.4	5-3	7-5
U A B	89.1	91.0	89.9	90.0	6-2	9-3
North Texas	86.3	86.0	86.2	86.2	3-5	4-8
Rice	82.4	83.7	82.4	82.8	3-5	3-9
Texas-San Antonio	76.1	77.9	76.5	76.8	3-5	4-8
U T E P	68.5	71.8	68.6	69.6	0-8	1-11
CUSA Averages	86.8	87.3	87.2	87.1
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	120.8	119.9	121.0	120.6	x	10-2
BYU	102.1	102.3	101.6	102.0	x	7-5
Army	94.1	94.3	93.4	94.0	x	5-7
Liberty	89.5	90.8	89.8	90.0	x	7-5
New Mexico St.	75.6	77.3	75.2	76.0	x	2-10
Massachusetts	56.7	58.2	55.7	56.9	x	1-11
Indep. Averages	89.8	90.5	89.4	89.9
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Ohio	98.4	97.6	98.9	98.3	5-3	6-6
Buffalo	94.8	95.4	96.2	95.4	5-3	7-5
Miami (Ohio)	90.3	89.2	90.4	90.0	6-2	7-5
Kent St.	89.0	89.1	89.8	89.3	5-3	6-6
Bowling Green	68.1	67.5	67.8	67.8	2-6	3-9
Akron	62.8	62.5	61.7	62.3	0-8	0-12
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	97.6	96.6	97.1	97.1	5-3	7-5
Central Michigan	92.3	93.1	93.5	92.9	6-2	8-4
Ball St.	91.0	90.7	91.2	91.0	4-4	5-7
Eastern Michigan	87.8	88.0	88.2	88.0	3-5	6-6
Northern Illinois	87.5	86.9	87.8	87.4	4-4	5-7
Toledo	84.0	83.9	84.1	84.0	3-5	6-6
MAC Averages	87.0	86.7	87.2	87.0
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	107.9	108.2	108.0	108.0	8-0	11-1
Air Force	104.6	106.4	105.6	105.5	7-1	10-2
Wyoming	98.6	100.3	98.9	99.3	4-4	7-5
Utah St.	96.8	96.5	97.1	96.8	6-2	7-5
Colorado St.	88.0	91.2	88.7	89.3	3-5	4-8
New Mexico	79.7	81.7	78.6	80.0	0-8	2-10
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
San Diego St.	97.6	99.2	97.6	98.1	5-3	9-3
Hawaii	97.0	98.4	96.4	97.3	5-3	9-4
Fresno St.	92.4	93.4	92.2	92.7	2-6	4-8
Nevada	89.8	91.3	89.1	90.1	4-4	7-5
San Jose St.	87.9	89.7	88.1	88.6	2-6	5-7
U N L V	83.7	85.4	83.5	84.2	2-6	4-8
MWC Averages	93.7	95.1	93.6	94.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	119.5	119.4	120.2	119.7	8-1	10-2
Washington	113.1	112.8	114.0	113.3	4-5	7-5
Washington St.	110.0	109.2	110.0	109.7	3-6	6-6
California	103.7	103.5	104.2	103.8	4-5	7-5
Oregon St.	101.2	102.1	101.5	101.6	4-5	5-7
Stanford	101.6	100.6	100.8	101.0	3-6	4-8
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	126.8	125.9	127.5	126.7	8-1	11-1
U S C	111.0	111.6	111.8	111.5	7-2	8-4
Arizona St.	107.9	107.3	108.1	107.8	4-5	7-5
Colorado	98.6	98.5	98.7	98.6	3-6	5-7
U C L A	98.7	98.3	98.2	98.4	4-5	4-8
Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.8	96.9	2-7	4-8
Pac-12 Averages	107.4	107.2	107.7	107.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	128.4	126.7	128.7	127.9	7-1	11-1
Florida	125.9	123.5	125.8	125.0	6-2	10-2
Kentucky	112.4	111.3	111.6	111.8	3-5	7-5
Tennessee	110.7	110.4	110.1	110.4	5-3	7-5
Missouri	109.9	107.5	108.5	108.6	3-5	6-6
South Carolina	109.0	107.1	108.0	108.0	3-5	4-8
Vanderbilt	92.5	90.9	90.9	91.4	1-7	3-9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
L S U	135.5	133.5	135.7	134.9	8-0	12-0
Alabama	128.8	125.7	129.1	127.9	6-2	10-2
Auburn	122.9	121.1	122.7	122.2	5-3	9-3
Texas A&M	115.1	112.5	113.3	113.7	4-4	7-5
Mississippi St.	109.8	106.6	113.3	109.9	3-5	6-6
Ole Miss	107.8	106.9	108.1	107.6	2-6	4-8
Arkansas	88.0	87.8	87.3	87.7	0-8	2-10
SEC Averages	114.1	112.2	113.8	113.4
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	109.6	109.1	109.0	109.2	7-1	11-1
Georgia Southern	99.0	99.1	98.7	99.0	5-3	7-5
Georgia St.	89.3	90.1	88.4	89.3	4-4	7-5
Troy	89.6	89.8	88.1	89.2	3-5	5-7
Coastal Carolina	86.9	87.8	86.3	87.0	2-6	5-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	102.9	103.2	102.4	102.8	7-1	10-2
Arkansas St.	90.0	90.4	89.7	90.0	5-3	7-5
Louisiana-Monroe	86.7	87.4	86.4	86.9	4-4	5-7
Texas St.	79.2	79.9	78.9	79.3	2-6	3-9
South Alabama	77.0	79.5	77.0	77.8	1-7	2-10
SBC Averages	91.0	91.6	90.5	91.1

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	Southeastern	113.4
2	Big Ten	111.0
3	Big 12	109.6
4	Pac-12	107.4
5	Atlantic Coast	104.4
6	American	97.4
7	Mountain West	94.2
8	Sun Belt	91.1
9	Independents	89.9
10	Conference USA	87.1
11	Mid-American	87.0

 

 

Our Guess at Top 6
1	Ohio St.
2	LSU
3	Clemson
4	Georgia
5	Utah
6	Oklahoma

 

 

Top 5 Group of 5
1	Memphis
2	Boise St.
3	Appalachian St.
4	Cincinnati
5	Louisiana

 

PiRate Bowl Projections

One is the loneliest team that you’ll ever know–79 Bowl Eligible Teams For 78 Spots

 

Bowl	Conf	Conf	Team	Team
Bahamas	MAC	CUSA	Buffalo	Charlotte
Frisco	AAC	At-large	SMU	[Louisiana Tech]
Cure	AAC	SBC	Navy	Georgia St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	UAB	Air Force
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Central Florida	Miami (O)
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Western Michigan	Arkansas St.
Las Vegas	MWC #1	Pac-12	Boise St.	Washington St.
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC #1	Western Kentucky	Appalachian St.
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Cincinnati	Florida Atlantic
Hawaii	BYU/MWC	AAC/MWC	BYU	Hawaii
Independence	ACC	SEC	North Carolina	[Florida Int’l.]
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	Florida St.	Michigan St.
Military	ACC	AAC	Boston College	Temple
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	Pittsburgh	Michigan
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas	Texas A&M
Holiday	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington	Iowa
Cheez-It	Big 12	Pac-12	[Liberty]	[Nevada]
Camping World	ACC	Big 12	Notre Dame	Iowa St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Oklahoma	Memphis
First Responder	CUSA	Big 12	Southern Miss.	[Kent St.]
Redbox	Pac-12	Big Ten	Arizona St.	Illinois
Music City	SEC	ACC	Kentucky	Indiana
Orange	ACC	BTen/SEC	Virginia	Alabama
Belk	ACC	SEC	Wake Forest	[Marshall]
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	Virginia Tech	California
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	Kansas St.	Mississippi St.
Arizona	SBC	MWC	Louisiana	San Diego St.
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Oklahoma St.	USC
Citrus	SEC	BTen/ACC	Florida	Wisconsin
Outback	Big Ten	SEC	Minnesota	Auburn
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Penn St.	Oregon
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	Baylor	Georgia
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	Tulane	[Miami (Fla.)]
Taxslayer/Gator	SEC	Big Ten	Tennessee	Louisville
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Toledo	Utah St.
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	[Ohio]	Wyoming
Lending Tree	MAC	SBC	Central Michigan	Georgia Southern
FBS PLAYOFFS
Fiesta	Top 4	Top 4	LSU	Clemson
Peach	Top 4	Top 4	Ohio St.	Utah
Championship	Fiesta	Peach	Clemson	Ohio St.
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: November 24, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Tuesday	November 26
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Akron	Ohio	-27.7	-27.1	-29.3
Northern Illinois	Western Michigan	-9.4	-9.2	-9.0
Thursday	November 28
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Mississippi St.	Ole Miss	3.7	1.2	7.5
Friday	November 29
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Arkansas	Missouri	-20.0	-17.5	-19.7
Ball St.	Miami (O)	1.4	2.0	1.1
Buffalo	Bowling Green	27.4	28.6	29.1
Central Florida	South Florida	24.1	22.7	24.1
Central Michigan	Toledo	5.0	5.7	5.7
Colorado St.	Boise St.	-18.1	-15.0	-18.0
Eastern Michigan	Kent St.	3.3	3.6	3.3
Memphis	Cincinnati	7.2	7.9	8.2
Nebraska	Iowa	-9.5	-7.8	-10.2
South Alabama	Arkansas St.	-13.9	-11.7	-14.0
TCU	West Virginia	10.3	12.6	11.2
Texas	Texas Tech	6.6	6.5	7.0
Troy	Appalachian St.	-13.8	-12.7	-14.5
Virginia	Virginia Tech	-1.7	-1.8	-2.5
Washington	Washington St.	2.2	2.4	2.6
Saturday	November 30
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Air Force	Wyoming	7.8	7.7	8.3
Arizona St.	Arizona	12.6	12.5	13.6
Auburn	Alabama	-5.0	-3.7	-5.9
Coastal Carolina	Texas St.	10.9	11.6	11.3
Duke	Miami (Fla.)	-4.6	-5.0	-6.1
East Carolina	Tulsa	-6.6	-5.9	-7.9
Florida	Florida St.	22.5	20.0	22.1
Florida Atlantic	Southern Miss.	6.6	7.7	7.3
Georgia Southern	Georgia St.	7.3	6.2	7.5
Georgia Tech	Georgia	-34.6	-34.0	-34.5
Hawaii	Army	4.6	5.7	4.3
Houston	Navy	0.9	-0.5	1.8
Illinois	Northwestern	4.6	6.4	6.1
Kansas	Baylor	-14.0	-13.1	-13.3
Kansas St.	Iowa St.	-0.4	-1.2	-0.7
Kentucky	Louisville	9.2	8.1	8.1
Liberty	New Mexico St.	16.5	15.7	16.8
Louisiana	UL-Monroe	19.5	19.3	19.7
Louisiana Tech	Texas-San Antonio	20.7	19.1	20.5
LSU	Texas A&M	16.0	15.2	16.6
Marshall	Florida Int’l.	6.3	6.3	7.2
Michigan	Ohio St.	-9.6	-9.9	-10.1
Michigan St.	Maryland	18.6	18.8	19.7
Minnesota	Wisconsin	1.3	1.3	0.9
Nevada	UNLV	8.8	8.8	8.7
New Mexico	Utah St.	-14.8	-12.0	-16.7
North Carolina St.	North Carolina	-10.4	-11.2	-11.6
North Texas	UAB	0.3	-2.1	-0.4
Oklahoma St.	Oklahoma	-10.2	-8.8	-10.0
Old Dominion	Charlotte	-12.0	-12.2	-12.6
Oregon	Oregon St.	20.2	19.2	21.2
Penn St.	Rutgers	42.0	41.6	43.5
Pittsburgh	Boston College	5.9	6.0	6.1
Purdue	Indiana	-4.7	-3.9	-5.1
San Diego St.	BYU	-2.5	-1.0	-2.4
San Jose St.	Fresno St.	-3.4	-2.6	-3.4
SMU	Tulane	6.7	5.9	6.5
South Carolina	Clemson	-27.0	-26.9	-29.2
Stanford	Notre Dame	-15.5	-15.4	-16.3
Syracuse	Wake Forest	-0.6	-0.7	-1.8
Temple	Connecticut	30.4	27.2	32.2
Tennessee	Vanderbilt	19.4	20.7	20.4
UCLA	California	-1.9	-1.9	-2.7
Utah	Colorado	31.2	30.4	31.8
UTEP	Rice	-12.2	-9.6	-11.5
Western Kentucky	Middle Tennessee	8.1	9.5	9.6

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	139.8	138.9	140.7	139.8
2	Clemson	138.0	136.1	139.2	137.8
3	L S U	131.3	129.1	131.3	130.6
4	Alabama	129.1	126.0	129.6	128.2
5	Michigan	127.2	126.0	127.7	127.0
6	Utah	126.8	125.9	127.5	126.7
7	Georgia	127.2	125.4	127.3	126.6
8	Florida	125.9	123.3	125.7	124.9
9	Penn St.	123.5	122.6	123.5	123.2
10	Oklahoma	122.3	121.6	121.7	121.9
11	Auburn	122.6	120.8	122.2	121.9
12	Wisconsin	120.7	120.4	120.6	120.6
13	Oregon	119.7	119.6	120.7	120.0
14	Notre Dame	120.3	119.3	120.4	120.0
15	Minnesota	119.0	118.7	118.5	118.7
16	Iowa	118.6	117.1	118.4	118.0
17	Texas A&M	118.3	116.9	117.7	117.7
18	Iowa St.	114.2	114.7	114.2	114.3
19	Baylor	113.7	113.8	113.1	113.5
20	Washington	112.0	111.6	112.7	112.1
21	Virginia Tech	111.3	111.4	112.3	111.7
22	U S C	111.0	111.6	111.8	111.5
23	Central Florida	111.5	110.8	111.8	111.4
24	Washington St.	111.4	110.7	111.6	111.2
25	Oklahoma St.	110.6	111.3	110.2	110.7
26	Kansas St.	110.8	110.5	110.5	110.6
27	Memphis	110.1	110.4	111.2	110.6
28	Tennessee	110.7	110.4	110.1	110.4
29	Mississippi St.	109.9	106.6	113.7	110.1
30	Texas	109.9	110.1	109.6	109.9
31	Indiana	110.1	109.1	109.9	109.7
32	T C U	108.8	111.0	109.2	109.7
33	Kentucky	110.0	108.7	108.9	109.2
34	Missouri	110.2	107.7	109.0	109.0
35	Boise St.	108.5	108.7	108.8	108.7
36	South Carolina	109.5	107.7	108.5	108.6
37	Michigan St.	108.9	108.1	108.2	108.4
38	Virginia	108.1	108.1	108.3	108.2
39	Arizona St.	108.0	107.5	108.5	108.0
40	Ole Miss	107.7	106.9	107.7	107.4
41	Appalachian St.	107.5	106.8	106.8	107.0
42	North Carolina	106.1	106.0	106.7	106.3
43	Miami (Fla.)	106.0	105.6	106.9	106.2
44	Nebraska	106.1	106.3	105.2	105.9
45	Cincinnati	105.9	105.5	106.0	105.8
46	Texas Tech	105.8	106.2	105.1	105.7
47	Air Force	104.1	105.8	105.0	105.0
48	Florida St.	104.8	104.8	105.0	104.9
49	Illinois	104.6	105.4	104.5	104.8
50	SMU	104.3	104.1	104.7	104.4
51	Louisiana	103.8	104.2	103.5	103.8
52	Purdue	103.9	103.7	103.3	103.6
53	Pittsburgh	103.6	103.1	103.7	103.5
54	California	103.4	103.1	103.8	103.4
55	Wake Forest	103.2	102.5	103.5	103.1
56	BYU	102.6	102.8	102.3	102.6
57	Louisville	102.3	102.1	102.3	102.2
58	West Virginia	101.6	101.4	101.0	101.3
59	Oregon St.	101.0	101.9	101.0	101.3
60	Stanford	101.8	100.9	101.1	101.3
61	Northwestern	101.5	100.5	99.9	100.7
62	Tulane	100.1	100.8	100.7	100.5
63	Boston College	100.7	100.1	100.6	100.5
64	Navy	98.6	100.9	99.6	99.7
65	Temple	99.3	99.0	100.5	99.6
66	Wyoming	98.8	100.6	99.2	99.5
67	Syracuse	99.6	98.8	98.7	99.0
68	U C L A	99.0	98.7	98.6	98.8
69	Colorado	98.6	98.5	98.7	98.6
70	Florida Atlantic	97.9	97.9	98.9	98.2
71	Western Michigan	98.5	97.6	98.2	98.1
72	Duke	98.4	97.5	97.8	97.9
73	San Diego St.	97.1	98.7	96.9	97.6
74	Houston	96.5	97.4	98.4	97.4
75	Kansas	96.7	97.7	96.8	97.1
76	Utah St.	96.9	96.4	97.5	96.9
77	Arizona	96.9	96.6	96.4	96.6
78	Georgia Southern	96.7	96.6	96.2	96.5
79	Western Kentucky	95.4	96.2	96.9	96.2
80	Ohio	95.9	95.1	96.4	95.8
81	Hawaii	95.6	97.0	94.8	95.8
82	Army	95.5	95.7	95.0	95.4
83	Buffalo	93.7	94.3	95.1	94.3
84	Louisiana Tech	94.1	94.3	94.1	94.1
85	Southern Miss.	94.3	93.2	94.6	94.0
86	North Carolina St.	94.2	93.3	93.6	93.7
87	Tulsa	92.8	93.6	94.0	93.5
88	Fresno St.	92.6	93.6	92.6	92.9
89	Marshall	92.2	92.0	93.0	92.4
90	Maryland	93.3	92.3	91.5	92.4
91	Arkansas St.	91.7	92.1	91.6	91.8
92	Vanderbilt	92.8	91.2	91.2	91.7
93	Georgia St.	90.9	91.9	90.2	91.0
94	Miami (Ohio)	91.2	90.2	91.5	91.0
95	Troy	91.2	91.6	89.8	90.9
96	Georgia Tech	91.1	89.9	91.3	90.8
97	Nevada	90.4	92.0	89.9	90.8
98	Ball St.	90.1	89.7	90.1	90.0
99	Central Michigan	89.2	89.9	90.2	89.7
100	U A B	88.8	90.8	89.5	89.7
101	Liberty	89.3	90.4	89.4	89.7
102	South Florida	88.9	89.6	89.2	89.2
103	Eastern Michigan	88.8	89.1	89.4	89.1
104	Florida Int’l.	88.9	88.7	88.8	88.8
105	Colorado St.	87.4	90.7	87.9	88.7
106	Middle Tennessee	88.8	88.2	88.8	88.6
107	San Jose St.	87.7	89.5	87.7	88.3
108	Kent St.	88.0	88.0	88.6	88.2
109	Charlotte	87.7	88.0	88.2	88.0
110	Coastal Carolina	87.3	88.4	87.0	87.6
111	Arkansas	87.7	87.6	86.8	87.4
112	Toledo	86.7	86.7	87.0	86.8
113	North Texas	86.6	86.2	86.6	86.5
114	Northern Illinois	86.6	85.9	86.7	86.4
115	Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.4	85.3	85.9
116	East Carolina	83.7	85.1	83.7	84.2
117	Rutgers	84.5	84.0	83.0	83.8
118	U N L V	83.1	84.7	82.7	83.5
119	Rice	82.3	83.3	82.0	82.5
120	New Mexico	79.6	81.8	78.2	79.9
121	Texas St.	78.8	79.3	78.2	78.8
122	Texas-San Antonio	75.9	77.7	76.1	76.5
123	New Mexico St.	75.8	77.7	75.6	76.3
124	South Alabama	75.3	77.8	75.1	76.1
125	Old Dominion	73.7	73.8	73.6	73.7
126	Connecticut	71.4	74.2	70.8	72.1
127	U T E P	68.6	72.2	69.0	69.9
128	Bowling Green	69.2	68.6	68.9	68.9
129	Akron	66.8	66.5	65.7	66.3
130	Massachusetts	56.7	58.2	55.7	56.9

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	111.5	110.8	111.8	111.4
Cincinnati	105.9	105.5	106.0	105.8
Temple	99.3	99.0	100.5	99.6
South Florida	88.9	89.6	89.2	89.2
East Carolina	83.7	85.1	83.7	84.2
Connecticut	71.4	74.2	70.8	72.1
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	110.1	110.4	111.2	110.6
SMU	104.3	104.1	104.7	104.4
Tulane	100.1	100.8	100.7	100.5
Navy	98.6	100.9	99.6	99.7
Houston	96.5	97.4	98.4	97.4
Tulsa	92.8	93.6	94.0	93.5
AAC Averages	96.9	97.6	97.6	97.4
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	138.0	136.1	139.2	137.8
Florida St.	104.8	104.8	105.0	104.9
Wake Forest	103.2	102.5	103.5	103.1
Louisville	102.3	102.1	102.3	102.2
Boston College	100.7	100.1	100.6	100.5
Syracuse	99.6	98.8	98.7	99.0
North Carolina St.	94.2	93.3	93.6	93.7
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Virginia Tech	111.3	111.4	112.3	111.7
Virginia	108.1	108.1	108.3	108.2
North Carolina	106.1	106.0	106.7	106.3
Miami (Fla.)	106.0	105.6	106.9	106.2
Pittsburgh	103.6	103.1	103.7	103.5
Duke	98.4	97.5	97.8	97.9
Georgia Tech	91.1	89.9	91.3	90.8
ACC Averages	104.8	104.2	105.0	104.7
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	122.3	121.6	121.7	121.9
Iowa St.	114.2	114.7	114.2	114.3
Baylor	113.7	113.8	113.1	113.5
Oklahoma St.	110.6	111.3	110.2	110.7
Kansas St.	110.8	110.5	110.5	110.6
Texas	109.9	110.1	109.6	109.9
T C U	108.8	111.0	109.2	109.7
Texas Tech	105.8	106.2	105.1	105.7
West Virginia	101.6	101.4	101.0	101.3
Kansas	96.7	97.7	96.8	97.1
Big 12 Averages	109.4	109.8	109.1	109.5
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	139.8	138.9	140.7	139.8
Michigan	127.2	126.0	127.7	127.0
Penn St.	123.5	122.6	123.5	123.2
Indiana	110.1	109.1	109.9	109.7
Michigan St.	108.9	108.1	108.2	108.4
Maryland	93.3	92.3	91.5	92.4
Rutgers	84.5	84.0	83.0	83.8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	120.7	120.4	120.6	120.6
Minnesota	119.0	118.7	118.5	118.7
Iowa	118.6	117.1	118.4	118.0
Nebraska	106.1	106.3	105.2	105.9
Illinois	104.6	105.4	104.5	104.8
Purdue	103.9	103.7	103.3	103.6
Northwestern	101.5	100.5	99.9	100.7
Big Ten Averages	111.6	110.9	111.1	111.2
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	97.9	97.9	98.9	98.2
Western Kentucky	95.4	96.2	96.9	96.2
Marshall	92.2	92.0	93.0	92.4
Florida Int’l.	88.9	88.7	88.8	88.8
Middle Tennessee	88.8	88.2	88.8	88.6
Charlotte	87.7	88.0	88.2	88.0
Old Dominion	73.7	73.8	73.6	73.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana Tech	94.1	94.3	94.1	94.1
Southern Miss.	94.3	93.2	94.6	94.0
U A B	88.8	90.8	89.5	89.7
North Texas	86.6	86.2	86.6	86.5
Rice	82.3	83.3	82.0	82.5
Texas-San Antonio	75.9	77.7	76.1	76.5
U T E P	68.6	72.2	69.0	69.9
CUSA Averages	86.8	87.3	87.2	87.1
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	120.3	119.3	120.4	120.0
BYU	102.6	102.8	102.3	102.6
Army	95.5	95.7	95.0	95.4
Liberty	89.3	90.4	89.4	89.7
New Mexico St.	75.8	77.7	75.6	76.3
Massachusetts	56.7	58.2	55.7	56.9
Indep. Averages	90.0	90.7	89.7	90.1
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio	95.9	95.1	96.4	95.8
Buffalo	93.7	94.3	95.1	94.3
Miami (Ohio)	91.2	90.2	91.5	91.0
Kent St.	88.0	88.0	88.6	88.2
Bowling Green	69.2	68.6	68.9	68.9
Akron	66.8	66.5	65.7	66.3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	98.5	97.6	98.2	98.1
Ball St.	90.1	89.7	90.1	90.0
Central Michigan	89.2	89.9	90.2	89.7
Eastern Michigan	88.8	89.1	89.4	89.1
Toledo	86.7	86.7	87.0	86.8
Northern Illinois	86.6	85.9	86.7	86.4
MAC Averages	87.1	86.8	87.3	87.1
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	108.5	108.7	108.8	108.7
Air Force	104.1	105.8	105.0	105.0
Wyoming	98.8	100.6	99.2	99.5
Utah St.	96.9	96.4	97.5	96.9
Colorado St.	87.4	90.7	87.9	88.7
New Mexico	79.6	81.8	78.2	79.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	97.1	98.7	96.9	97.6
Hawaii	95.6	97.0	94.8	95.8
Fresno St.	92.6	93.6	92.6	92.9
Nevada	90.4	92.0	89.9	90.8
San Jose St.	87.7	89.5	87.7	88.3
U N L V	83.1	84.7	82.7	83.5
MWC Averages	93.5	95.0	93.4	94.0
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oregon	119.7	119.6	120.7	120.0
Washington	112.0	111.6	112.7	112.1
Washington St.	111.4	110.7	111.6	111.2
California	103.4	103.1	103.8	103.4
Oregon St.	101.0	101.9	101.0	101.3
Stanford	101.8	100.9	101.1	101.3
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Utah	126.8	125.9	127.5	126.7
U S C	111.0	111.6	111.8	111.5
Arizona St.	108.0	107.5	108.5	108.0
U C L A	99.0	98.7	98.6	98.8
Colorado	98.6	98.5	98.7	98.6
Arizona	96.9	96.6	96.4	96.6
Pac-12 Averages	107.5	107.2	107.7	107.5
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	127.2	125.4	127.3	126.6
Florida	125.9	123.3	125.7	124.9
Tennessee	110.7	110.4	110.1	110.4
Kentucky	110.0	108.7	108.9	109.2
Missouri	110.2	107.7	109.0	109.0
South Carolina	109.5	107.7	108.5	108.6
Vanderbilt	92.8	91.2	91.2	91.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
L S U	131.3	129.1	131.3	130.6
Alabama	129.1	126.0	129.6	128.2
Auburn	122.6	120.8	122.2	121.9
Texas A&M	118.3	116.9	117.7	117.7
Mississippi St.	109.9	106.6	113.7	110.1
Ole Miss	107.7	106.9	107.7	107.4
Arkansas	87.7	87.6	86.8	87.4
SEC Averages	113.8	112.0	113.5	113.1
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	107.5	106.8	106.8	107.0
Georgia Southern	96.7	96.6	96.2	96.5
Georgia St.	90.9	91.9	90.2	91.0
Troy	91.2	91.6	89.8	90.9
Coastal Carolina	87.3	88.4	87.0	87.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana	103.8	104.2	103.5	103.8
Arkansas St.	91.7	92.1	91.6	91.8
Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.4	85.3	85.9
Texas St.	78.8	79.3	78.2	78.8
South Alabama	75.3	77.8	75.1	76.1
SBC Averages	90.9	91.5	90.4	90.9

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	Southeastern	113.1
2	Big Ten	111.2
3	Big 12	109.5
4	Pac-12	107.5
5	Atlantic Coast	104.7
6	American	97.4
7	Mountain West	94.0
8	Sun Belt	90.9
9	Independents	90.1
10	Conf. USA	87.1
11	Mid-American	87.1

 

 

PiRate Guess at Top 6
1	Ohio St.
2	LSU
3	Clemson
4	Georgia
5	Utah
6	Alabama

 

 

Top 5 Group of 5
1	Memphis
2	Cincinnati
3	Boise St.
4	Appalachian St.
5	Navy

 

The Conference Races

With one week to go before conference championship week, there are still some conference division races yet to be clinched. Here at PiRate Central, we will make it easy for you.

American Athletic Conference

Cincinnati has clinched the East Division, no matter what they do at Memphis.

Memphis clinches the West Division, if they beat Cincinnati, or Navy loses to Houston.

The winner of this week’s Cincinnati – Memphis game will host the AAC Championship Game.

Atlantic Coast

Clemson has clinched the Atlantic Division.

The winner of this week’s Virginia – Virginia Tech game wins the Coastal Division. 

If Clemson beats Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship Game, Virginia Tech has about a 95% chance of getting the Orange Bowl bid.

If Clemson beats Virginia in the ACC Championship Game, Virginia has about an 80% chance of getting the Orange Bowl bid.

Should Clemson be upset in the ACC Championship Game, either Virginia or Virginia Tech would get the Orange Bowl bid, and Clemson would likely knock out a team from the Southwest or West for the Cotton Bowl bid.

Big 12

Oklahoma and Baylor have already clinched the top two spots and will play in the Big 12 Championship Game.

If Baylor beats Kansas, and Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, then BU will be the top seed. Under any other scenario, Oklahoma will be the top seed.

If Oklahoma beats Oklahoma State and Baylor, the Sooners have a 30% chance of making it to the Playoffs, and at worst would be the Sugar Bowl representative for the league.

If Baylor beats Kansas and Oklahoma, there is only a 5% chance that BU would make the playoffs.

If the loser of the Big 12 Championship Game has two losses, that team has a 70% chance to earn the Cotton Bowl bid.

Big Ten

Ohio State has already clinched the East Division title even if Michigan upsets them in the Big House like they did in the big upset 50 years ago.

The winner of the Minnesota-Wisconsin game wins the West Division and has a better than 50-50 chance to earn the Rose Bowl bid if they lose to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game.

If Minnesota beats a 12-0 Ohio State team in the Big Ten Championship, the Gophers have a 30% chance to earn a Playoff bid.

Conference USA

This is the most difficult tie-breaker with one week to go, as both divisions are still up for grabs.

In the East, Florida Atlantic has a one-game lead over Marshall and Western Kentucky, but WKU has been eliminated from the race.

If FAU beats Southern Miss, or Marshall loses to Florida International, then FAU wins the division and hosts the CUSA Championship Game.

If FAU loses to Southern Miss, and Marshall beats FIU, then Marshall wins the East and has a chance to host the CUSA Championship Game.

In the West, there is currently a three-way tie with multiple possible outcomes.
Southern Miss plays Florida Atlantic in the key game. Louisiana Tech plays UTSA, and UAB plays North Texas.

If all three West co-leaders win or they all lose, Southern Miss will win the tiebreaker.

If Southern Miss loses and UAB wins, then UAB wins the West.

If Louisiana Tech wins and Southern Miss loses, then Louisiana Tech wins the division even if Southern Miss beats FAU.

If Southern Miss beats FAU and Louisiana Tech loses to UTSA, then Southern Miss wins the West even if UAB beats North Texas.

All five teams still alive can host the CUSA Championship Game based on a myriad of tiebreakers between multiple teams with 6-2 league records.

Independents (Not Including Notre Dame)

BYU has clinched the Hawaii Bowl Bid.

Liberty is bowl eligible

 

Mid-American

Miami of Ohio has already clinched the East Division.

Western Michigan will clinch the West Division with a win over Northern Illinois OR a loss by Central Michigan to Toledo.

Central Michigan will clinch the West Division with a win over Toledo AND a loss by Western Michigan.

Mountain West

Boise State has already clinched the Mountain Division Championship and has clinched the home field for the Championship Game.

Hawaii has already clinched the West Division Championship and will play at Boise State in the Championship Game.

Boise State still has a chance to make the Cotton Bowl by winning out, while the AAC champion has two overall losses.

Pac-12

Even after a disappointing upset loss to Arizona State, Oregon has already clinched the North Division Championship and still has a chance to go to the Rose Bowl with a slight chance to go to the Cotton Bowl.

Utah will win the South by beating a Colorado team that will be playing for bowl eligibility when the Buffs visit Salt Lake City. Should Utah lose this game, USC will win the South Division Championship.

Utah still has a less than 50-50 chance to make the Playoffs by beating Colorado and Oregon, but the Utes are most likely looking at a Rose Bowl bid. Should they lose to Oregon, Utah still has a 50-50 shot at the Cotton Bowl.

Southeastern

The SEC Championship Game is set between LSU and Georgia. See the feature below on sleuthing the SEC Bowl Tie-Ins and all the open spots.

Sun Belt

Appalachian State will play Louisiana in the Sun Belt Championship Game.

If both teams win this week or both teams lose, Appy State will be the host team based on their regular season win over the Ragin’ Cajuns. UL can only host if Appy State loses to Troy, while Louisiana beats UL-Monroe.

Appalachian State still has a minute chance to earn the Cotton Bowl bid. The Mountaineers must win out; Boise State must lose to Hawaii; and the AAC Champion must have two losses.

————————————–

The SEC Bowl Issue

With the possibility that two SEC teams will make the Playoffs, and then two more will earn New Year’s Six Bowl Games (Sugar and Orange), there is a chance that as many as five SEC tie-in bowls will not have bowl eligible SEC teams and will have to look elsewhere for at-large teams.

Two issues will affect the final week of the regular season. Currently, there are just eight bowl eligible teams–Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky in the East and LSU, Alabama, Auburn, and Texas A&M in the West.

Mississippi State and Missouri can become bowl eligible with wins this week. Missouri has a much easier final regular season game against 0-7 Arkansas, while Mississippi State must beat rival Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. Missouri can also be eliminated if the NCAA rules negatively on an appeal between tomorrow and December 8.

The PiRates are old buckaroos, so we know that politics play a part in decisions. The SEC has no doubt twisted the NCAA’s arm to not decide on Missouri’s appeal until after the bowls have been played. The SEC needs as many bowl eligible teams as possible.

We wouldn’t be totally surprised if all the close calls in the Egg Bowl go in favor of Mississippi State. If the game is called without any bias, we actually believe Ole Miss is playing better football at this point of the season.

Being that the law of averages tends to side on the side of a split with two 5-6 teams playing to get to 6-6, we will say that one team makes it. For argument purposes, we will award Missouri the 6-6 record and Ole Miss the Egg Bowl Trophy.

At this point, there would be nine SEC Bowl Eligible teams.

Let’s say that LSU wins out and takes one Playoff spot, while Alabama beats Auburn and gets Playoff spot number two–once again politics playing a large part as the Committee can always come up with a reason to include a one-loss Tide team even if the entire first team is out with injuries.

Now, let’s slot Georgia into the Sugar Bowl and Florida into the Orange Bowl. That’s four teams with just five bowl eligible teams left.

The Citrus Bowl gets the next best team, and Auburn would be the logical choice here.

The Independence and Birmingham Bowls can already start looking for at-large teams at this point, as they are the bottom two in the contractual agreement.

That leaves the Outback, Gator, Texas, Belk, Music City, and Liberty Bowls hoping to get Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas A&M. Six bowls and four teams mean that two will be left at the conference altar.

The Outback and Gator Bowls are New Year’s Day Bowls. The SEC isn’t about to allow a 7-5 or 6-6 at-large team from 1,000-2,000 miles away take one of these prized spots. Put Tennessee in the Outback and Kentucky in the Gator.

With Texas A&M still available, it is obvious which bowl would be best for all. The Aggies would head to Houston to play in the Texas Bowl, which sort of has a gentleman’s agreement to get a better draw this year after taking Vanderbilt last year. A Texas A&M-Texas game could be arranged for the Texas Bowl, and it would be a sellout with tickets getting scalped.

That leaves Missouri as the last bowl team. Missouri played in the Liberty Bowl last year, so they would not return to Memphis. The Tigers already played in Nashville against Vanderbilt, and even though Nashville is the hottest destination in the South if not the entire nation, I don’t see the Music City Bowl getting an opportunity to invite the Tigers for their second trip of the season. Put Missouri in the Belk Bowl.

This would leave the Music City and Liberty Bowls out in the cold as the two bowls that would have to find at-large opponents. There will be extra Mountain West, Conference USA, and Mid-American teams that are bowl eligible. The ACC could send Virginia, Wake Forest, or Louisville to Nashville, while the Big 12 could send Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas, or TCU to the Liberty Bowl. We believe that Kansas State or Iowa State is the most likely team to go to Memphis.

If the Mountain West has extra teams, there is a chance that the league would arrange for one of their better teams to come Southeast to one of the two Volunteer State bowls. Air Force, San Diego State, or Utah State might be where the Liberty Bowl can look.

The Music City Bowl will then likely need a Mid-American Conference team, and likewise, a deal could be struck with the MAC to send a 6-6 team to a regular contracted bowl, while bringing the MAC Champion to Nashville. The organizers of the Music City Bowl would probably like to pay Tom Brady to suit up for Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl.

 

This Week’s Playoff and Bowl Projections

Note:  This Section Has Been Edited Late Sunday Night.  It was brought to our attention that the Hawaii Bowl slightly changes their tie-ins.  We originally had this bowl featuring BYU if they were bowl eligible or a Mountain West team or basically a Bowl Eligible Hawaii team versus a team from the American Athletic Conference.  The bowl changed to BYU if bowl eligible versus either an AAC or Mountain West team, but if Hawaii is bowl eligible and not the MWC Champion, then Hawaii gets this bid.

Thus, it started a chain reaction where we had to move about 20 teams from one bowl to another.  Here is the latest version of our Bowl Projections.

 

Bowl	Conf	Conf	Team	Team
Bahamas	MAC	CUSA	Buffalo	Charlotte
Frisco	AAC	At-large	SMU	[UAB]
Cure	AAC	SBC	Navy	Georgia St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	Southern Miss.	San Diego St.
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Central Florida	Miami (O)
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Western Michigan	Arkansas St.
Las Vegas	MWC #1	Pac-12	Boise St.	Washington St.
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC #1	Louisiana Tech	Appalachian St.
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Cincinnati	Florida Atlantic
Hawaii	BYU/MWC	AAC/MWC	BYU	Hawaii
Independence	ACC	SEC	Florida St.	[Marshall]
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	Miami (Fla.)	Michigan St.
Military	ACC	AAC	North Carolina	Temple
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	Pittsburgh	Illinois
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas	Texas A&M
Holiday	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington	Michigan
Cheez-It	Big 12	Pac-12	Kansas St.	[Nevada]
Camping World	ACC	Big 12	Notre Dame	Oklahoma St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Memphis	Utah
First Responder	CUSA	Big 12	Western Ky.	TCU
Redbox	Pac-12	Big Ten	Arizona St.	Iowa
Music City	SEC	ACC	[Central Michigan]	Louisville
Orange	ACC	BTen/SEC	Virginia Tech	Florida
Belk	ACC	SEC	Wake Forest	Missouri
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	Virginia	California
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	Iowa St.	[Liberty]
Arizona	SBC	MWC	Louisiana	Air Force
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Baylor	USC
Citrus	SEC	BTen/ACC	Auburn	Wisconsin
Outback	Big Ten	SEC	Penn St.	Tennessee
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Minnesota	Oregon
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	Oklahoma	Georgia
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	Tulane	[Florida Int’l.]
Taxslayer/Gator	SEC	Big Ten	Kentucky	Indiana
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Toledo	Wyoming
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	Nebraska	Utah St.
Mobile Alabama	MAC	SBC	Eastern Michigan	Georgia Southern
FBS PLAYOFFS
Fiesta	Top 4	Top 4	Georgia	Ohio St.
Peach	Top 4	Top 4	Clemson	LSU
Championship	Fiesta	Peach	Georgia	Clemson
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: November 17, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Tuesday	November 19
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Bowling Green	Ohio	-19.2	-18.6	-19.6
Northern Illinois	Eastern Michigan	7.8	7.0	7.7
Wednesday	November 20
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Buffalo	Toledo	7.2	7.6	7.9
Miami (O)	Akron	28.6	27.9	30.7
Thursday	November 21
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Georgia Tech	North Carolina St.	-1.4	-2.0	-0.8
Friday	November 22
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Wyoming	Colorado St.	13.6	12.2	13.5
Saturday	November 23
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Appalachian St.	Texas St.	32.6	31.4	33.0
Arizona	Utah	-26.6	-25.9	-27.9
Arizona St.	Oregon	-12.5	-13.4	-13.7
Arkansas St.	Georgia Southern	-3.2	-3.0	-3.3
Baylor	Texas	4.9	4.7	4.3
Charlotte	Marshall	-5.1	-4.4	-5.6
Cincinnati	Temple	10.3	10.4	9.5
Colorado	Washington	-14.7	-14.5	-15.9
Connecticut	East Carolina	-10.7	-9.3	-12.1
Florida Int’l.	Miami (Fla.)	-21.9	-21.8	-23.4
Fresno St.	Nevada	9.6	8.9	10.1
Georgia	Texas A&M	12.9	12.8	14.3
Georgia St.	South Alabama	18.7	17.2	18.5
Hawaii	San Diego St.	1.8	1.5	1.0
Indiana	Michigan	-11.4	-10.9	-11.7
Iowa	Illinois	17.8	15.2	18.0
Iowa St.	Kansas	22.7	22.2	23.3
Kent St.	Ball St.	0.0	0.4	0.5
Louisiana	Troy	9.2	8.9	9.8
Louisville	Syracuse	0.9	1.5	1.6
LSU	Arkansas	47.1	45.0	48.0
Maryland	Nebraska	-2.8	-4.4	-3.4
Massachusetts	BYU	-43.3	-42.0	-44.6
Middle Tennessee	Old Dominion	17.3	16.1	16.8
Missouri	Tennessee	3.4	1.0	3.2
Navy	SMU	-4.8	-2.2	-4.6
New Mexico	Air Force	-22.0	-21.4	-24.2
New Mexico St.	UTEP	8.7	6.8	8.1
Northwestern	Minnesota	-14.6	-15.4	-16.0
Notre Dame	Boston College	19.4	18.6	19.2
Ohio St.	Penn St.	19.8	20.0	21.3
Oklahoma	TCU	18.4	15.3	17.6
Rice	North Texas	-4.9	-3.6	-5.7
Rutgers	Michigan St.	-21.5	-20.8	-21.9
South Florida	Memphis	-13.6	-12.8	-14.3
Southern Miss.	Western Kentucky	6.8	4.8	5.6
Stanford	California	0.0	-0.6	-1.0
Texas Tech	Kansas St.	-1.6	-1.1	-2.3
Tulane	Central Florida	-9.5	-8.1	-9.6
Tulsa	Houston	0.6	0.7	0.1
UAB	Louisiana Tech	-4.4	-2.6	-4.1
UL-Monroe	Coastal Carolina	1.4	0.5	0.9
UNLV	San Jose St.	-2.5	-3.0	-3.3
USC	UCLA	12.2	12.9	13.2
Utah St.	Boise St.	-3.6	-4.3	-2.9
UTSA	Florida Atlantic	-19.8	-18.1	-21.3
Virginia	Liberty	18.6	17.4	18.3
Virginia Tech	Pittsburgh	5.0	5.3	5.6
Wake Forest	Duke	6.2	6.2	6.5
Washington St.	Oregon St.	15.1	13.3	15.7
West Virginia	Oklahoma St.	-5.8	-6.7	-6.0
Wisconsin	Purdue	19.5	19.4	20.0

 

FBS vs.	FCS	PiRate
Alabama	Western Carolina	56
Auburn	Samford	49
Kentucky	UT-Martin	29
Mississippi St.	Abilene Christian	35
North Carolina	Mercer	38
Vanderbilt	East Tennessee	21

 

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	140.0	139.2	141.3	140.2
2	Clemson	137.6	135.7	138.9	137.4
3	L S U	131.5	129.3	131.6	130.8
4	Alabama	128.9	125.7	129.4	128.0
5	Georgia	127.9	126.2	128.3	127.5
6	Utah	126.6	125.6	127.5	126.6
7	Michigan	125.6	124.3	126.0	125.3
8	Florida	125.6	123.0	125.4	124.6
9	Penn St.	123.2	122.2	123.0	122.8
10	Oklahoma	123.1	122.3	122.6	122.7
11	Oregon	121.5	121.6	122.8	122.0
12	Auburn	122.5	120.7	122.1	121.8
13	Wisconsin	120.5	120.2	120.5	120.4
14	Minnesota	118.8	118.5	118.5	118.6
15	Iowa	118.9	117.3	119.0	118.4
16	Notre Dame	118.8	117.6	118.8	118.4
17	Texas A&M	117.9	116.4	117.0	117.1
18	Iowa St.	115.4	116.0	115.8	115.7
19	Washington	114.1	113.8	115.1	114.3
20	Baylor	113.0	113.0	112.3	112.8
21	Washington St.	112.1	111.3	112.5	112.0
22	Central Florida	111.8	111.1	112.3	111.7
23	U S C	110.6	111.1	111.3	111.0
24	Indiana	111.3	110.4	111.3	111.0
25	Texas	110.5	110.8	110.5	110.6
26	Oklahoma St.	110.4	111.1	110.1	110.5
27	Kansas St.	110.6	110.4	110.4	110.5
28	Mississippi St.	109.8	106.5	113.7	110.0
29	Tennessee	110.2	110.0	109.5	109.9
30	Missouri	110.6	108.0	109.7	109.4
31	Kentucky	109.8	108.5	108.7	109.0
32	Miami (Fla.)	108.6	108.3	109.8	108.9
33	Virginia Tech	108.4	108.4	109.3	108.7
34	T C U	107.7	110.0	108.0	108.6
35	South Carolina	109.2	107.4	108.2	108.3
36	Michigan St.	108.7	107.7	107.9	108.1
37	Memphis	107.5	107.6	108.6	107.9
38	Appalachian St.	107.9	107.2	107.5	107.5
39	Virginia	107.4	107.3	107.4	107.4
40	Ole Miss	107.3	106.6	107.4	107.1
41	Cincinnati	106.7	106.2	106.9	106.6
42	Boise St.	106.2	106.4	106.3	106.3
43	North Carolina	105.8	105.6	106.5	106.0
44	Pittsburgh	105.9	105.5	106.2	105.9
45	Texas Tech	105.9	106.3	105.2	105.8
46	Arizona St.	105.9	105.2	106.1	105.8
47	SMU	105.5	105.2	106.2	105.6
48	Air Force	104.1	105.7	105.0	104.9
49	Florida St.	104.5	104.5	104.7	104.6
50	Illinois	104.1	105.0	103.9	104.4
51	Purdue	104.0	103.8	103.4	103.7
52	Nebraska	103.3	103.7	102.4	103.1
53	BYU	102.8	103.0	102.8	102.9
54	California	102.7	102.4	103.2	102.8
55	Wake Forest	102.9	102.1	103.0	102.7
56	Boston College	102.4	102.0	102.6	102.3
57	Syracuse	102.1	101.3	101.4	101.6
58	West Virginia	101.7	101.4	101.1	101.4
59	Stanford	101.8	100.9	101.2	101.3
60	Northwestern	101.6	100.6	100.0	100.7
61	Louisiana	100.5	100.8	100.1	100.5
62	Oregon St.	100.0	101.0	99.8	100.3
63	Tulane	99.8	100.5	100.2	100.2
64	Louisville	100.0	99.8	100.0	99.9
65	Utah St.	99.6	99.1	100.5	99.7
66	Wyoming	98.9	100.7	99.3	99.6
67	U C L A	99.4	99.2	99.1	99.3
68	Temple	98.8	98.4	99.9	99.0
69	Navy	97.7	100.0	98.5	98.8
70	Florida Atlantic	98.0	98.0	99.4	98.5
71	Duke	98.7	97.9	98.4	98.3
72	Western Michigan	98.3	97.3	98.0	97.9
73	San Diego St.	97.2	98.8	97.1	97.7
74	Georgia Southern	97.3	97.3	97.0	97.2
75	Houston	96.0	96.8	97.8	96.8
76	Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.5	96.8
77	Maryland	97.5	96.3	95.9	96.6
78	Southern Miss.	96.7	95.5	97.1	96.4
79	Colorado	96.5	96.3	96.3	96.3
80	Kansas	95.7	96.7	95.6	96.0
81	Hawaii	95.5	96.9	94.6	95.7
82	Army	95.3	95.5	94.8	95.2
83	Louisiana Tech	94.9	95.1	95.2	95.0
84	Fresno St.	94.6	95.6	94.7	95.0
85	North Carolina St.	94.7	94.0	94.3	94.3
86	Tulsa	93.6	94.5	94.9	94.3
87	Troy	94.4	94.9	93.3	94.2
88	Marshall	93.5	93.3	94.5	93.8
89	Western Kentucky	92.9	93.8	94.5	93.7
90	Buffalo	92.7	93.2	93.9	93.2
91	Ohio	93.4	92.4	93.7	93.2
92	Miami (Ohio)	92.5	91.5	93.2	92.4
93	South Florida	91.4	92.3	91.8	91.8
94	Vanderbilt	92.5	90.9	90.9	91.4
95	Georgia St.	91.2	92.2	90.7	91.4
96	Arkansas St.	91.1	91.4	90.8	91.1
97	Liberty	90.3	91.4	90.6	90.7
98	Georgia Tech	90.8	89.5	91.0	90.4
99	Ball St.	90.3	89.9	90.4	90.2
100	Northern Illinois	90.1	89.5	90.4	90.0
101	Central Michigan	89.0	89.6	90.0	89.5
102	San Jose St.	88.3	90.2	88.5	89.0
103	U A B	87.9	89.9	88.5	88.8
104	Colorado St.	87.3	90.6	87.8	88.6
105	Nevada	88.1	89.7	87.6	88.5
106	Middle Tennessee	88.6	87.8	88.4	88.3
107	Toledo	88.0	88.1	88.5	88.2
108	Kent St.	87.8	87.8	88.4	88.0
109	North Texas	88.0	87.6	88.3	88.0
110	Coastal Carolina	87.4	88.6	87.2	87.7
111	Arkansas	87.4	87.3	86.6	87.1
112	Charlotte	86.0	86.4	86.4	86.3
113	Louisiana-Monroe	85.7	86.1	85.1	85.6
114	Eastern Michigan	85.3	85.5	85.7	85.5
115	Florida Int’l.	85.7	85.4	85.4	85.5
116	East Carolina	83.9	85.3	84.3	84.5
117	Rutgers	84.7	84.4	83.5	84.2
118	U N L V	82.8	84.3	82.2	83.1
119	Rice	81.1	82.0	80.6	81.3
120	New Mexico	79.6	81.8	78.2	79.9
121	Texas St.	78.3	78.8	77.5	78.2
122	New Mexico St.	75.8	77.6	75.6	76.3
123	Texas-San Antonio	75.7	77.5	75.6	76.2
124	South Alabama	75.0	77.5	74.7	75.8
125	Old Dominion	73.9	74.2	74.0	74.0
126	Bowling Green	72.2	71.8	72.1	72.1
127	Connecticut	71.2	74.0	70.2	71.8
128	U T E P	68.6	72.3	69.0	69.9
129	Akron	65.9	65.6	64.5	65.3
130	Massachusetts	56.5	58.0	55.2	56.6

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	111.8	111.1	112.3	111.7	4-2	7-3
Cincinnati	106.7	106.2	106.9	106.6	6-0	9-1
Temple	98.8	98.4	99.9	99.0	4-2	7-3
South Florida	91.4	92.3	91.8	91.8	2-4	4-6
East Carolina	83.9	85.3	84.3	84.5	0-6	3-7
Connecticut	71.2	74.0	70.2	71.8	0-6	2-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Memphis	107.5	107.6	108.6	107.9	5-1	9-1
SMU	105.5	105.2	106.2	105.6	5-1	9-1
Tulane	99.8	100.5	100.2	100.2	3-3	6-4
Navy	97.7	100.0	98.5	98.8	5-1	7-2
Houston	96.0	96.8	97.8	96.8	1-5	3-7
Tulsa	93.6	94.5	94.9	94.3	1-5	3-7
AAC Averages	97.0	97.7	97.6	97.4
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	137.6	135.7	138.9	137.4	8-0	11-0
Florida St.	104.5	104.5	104.7	104.6	4-4	6-5
Wake Forest	102.9	102.1	103.0	102.7	3-3	7-3
Boston College	102.4	102.0	102.6	102.3	3-4	5-5
Syracuse	102.1	101.3	101.4	101.6	1-5	4-6
Louisville	100.0	99.8	100.0	99.9	4-3	6-4
North Carolina St.	94.7	94.0	94.3	94.3	1-5	4-6
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Miami (Fla.)	108.6	108.3	109.8	108.9	4-3	6-4
Virginia Tech	108.4	108.4	109.3	108.7	5-2	7-3
Virginia	107.4	107.3	107.4	107.4	5-2	7-3
North Carolina	105.8	105.6	106.5	106.0	3-4	4-6
Pittsburgh	105.9	105.5	106.2	105.9	4-2	7-3
Duke	98.7	97.9	98.4	98.3	2-5	4-6
Georgia Tech	90.8	89.5	91.0	90.4	1-6	2-8
ACC Averages	105.0	104.4	105.3	104.9
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	123.1	122.3	122.6	122.7	6-1	9-1
Iowa St.	115.4	116.0	115.8	115.7	4-3	6-4
Baylor	113.0	113.0	112.3	112.8	6-1	9-1
Texas	110.5	110.8	110.5	110.6	4-3	6-4
Oklahoma St.	110.4	111.1	110.1	110.5	4-3	7-3
Kansas St.	110.6	110.4	110.4	110.5	3-4	6-4
T C U	107.7	110.0	108.0	108.6	3-4	5-5
Texas Tech	105.9	106.3	105.2	105.8	2-5	4-6
West Virginia	101.7	101.4	101.1	101.4	2-5	4-6
Kansas	95.7	96.7	95.6	96.0	1-6	3-7
Big 12 Averages	109.4	109.8	109.1	109.4
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	140.0	139.2	141.3	140.2	7-0	10-0
Michigan	125.6	124.3	126.0	125.3	5-2	8-2
Penn St.	123.2	122.2	123.0	122.8	6-1	9-1
Indiana	111.3	110.4	111.3	111.0	4-3	7-3
Michigan St.	108.7	107.7	107.9	108.1	2-5	4-6
Maryland	97.5	96.3	95.9	96.6	1-6	3-7
Rutgers	84.7	84.4	83.5	84.2	0-7	2-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	120.5	120.2	120.5	120.4	5-2	8-2
Minnesota	118.8	118.5	118.5	118.6	6-1	9-1
Iowa	118.9	117.3	119.0	118.4	4-3	7-3
Illinois	104.1	105.0	103.9	104.4	4-3	6-4
Purdue	104.0	103.8	103.4	103.7	3-4	4-6
Nebraska	103.3	103.7	102.4	103.1	2-5	4-6
Northwestern	101.6	100.6	100.0	100.7	0-7	2-8
Big Ten Averages	111.6	111.0	111.2	111.2
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	98.0	98.0	99.4	98.5	5-1	7-3
Marshall	93.5	93.3	94.5	93.8	5-1	7-3
Western Kentucky	92.9	93.8	94.5	93.7	4-2	6-4
Middle Tennessee	88.6	87.8	88.4	88.3	2-4	3-7
Charlotte	86.0	86.4	86.4	86.3	3-3	5-5
Florida Int’l.	85.7	85.4	85.4	85.5	3-4	5-5
Old Dominion	73.9	74.2	74.0	74.0	0-6	1-9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Southern Miss.	96.7	95.5	97.1	96.4	5-1	7-3
Louisiana Tech	94.9	95.1	95.2	95.0	5-1	8-2
U A B	87.9	89.9	88.5	88.8	4-2	7-3
North Texas	88.0	87.6	88.3	88.0	3-3	4-6
Rice	81.1	82.0	80.6	81.3	1-5	1-9
Texas-San Antonio	75.7	77.5	75.6	76.2	3-3	4-6
U T E P	68.6	72.3	69.0	69.9	0-7	1-9
CUSA Averages	86.5	87.1	86.9	86.8
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	118.8	117.6	118.8	118.4	x	8-2
BYU	102.8	103.0	102.8	102.9	x	6-4
Army	95.3	95.5	94.8	95.2	x	5-6
Liberty	90.3	91.4	90.6	90.7	x	6-4
New Mexico St.	75.8	77.6	75.6	76.3	x	1-9
Massachusetts	56.5	58.0	55.2	56.6	x	1-10
Indep. Averages	89.9	90.5	89.6	90.0
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Buffalo	92.7	93.2	93.9	93.2	3-3	5-5
Ohio	93.4	92.4	93.7	93.2	3-3	4-6
Miami (Ohio)	92.5	91.5	93.2	92.4	5-1	6-4
Kent St.	87.8	87.8	88.4	88.0	3-3	4-6
Bowling Green	72.2	71.8	72.1	72.1	2-4	3-7
Akron	65.9	65.6	64.5	65.3	0-6	0-10
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	98.3	97.3	98.0	97.9	5-2	7-4
Ball St.	90.3	89.9	90.4	90.2	3-3	4-6
Northern Illinois	90.1	89.5	90.4	90.0	3-3	4-6
Central Michigan	89.0	89.6	90.0	89.5	5-2	7-4
Toledo	88.0	88.1	88.5	88.2	3-3	6-4
Eastern Michigan	85.3	85.5	85.7	85.5	2-4	5-5
MAC Averages	87.1	86.9	87.4	87.1
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	106.2	106.4	106.3	106.3	6-0	9-1
Air Force	104.1	105.7	105.0	104.9	5-1	8-2
Utah St.	99.6	99.1	100.5	99.7	5-1	6-4
Wyoming	98.9	100.7	99.3	99.6	3-3	6-4
Colorado St.	87.3	90.6	87.8	88.6	3-3	4-6
New Mexico	79.6	81.8	78.2	79.9	0-6	2-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
San Diego St.	97.2	98.8	97.1	97.7	5-2	8-2
Hawaii	95.5	96.9	94.6	95.7	4-3	7-4
Fresno St.	94.6	95.6	94.7	95.0	2-4	4-6
San Jose St.	88.3	90.2	88.5	89.0	1-5	4-6
Nevada	88.1	89.7	87.6	88.5	3-3	6-4
U N L V	82.8	84.3	82.2	83.1	1-6	2-8
MWC Averages	93.5	95.0	93.5	94.0
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	121.5	121.6	122.8	122.0	7-0	9-1
Washington	114.1	113.8	115.1	114.3	3-4	6-4
Washington St.	112.1	111.3	112.5	112.0	2-5	5-5
California	102.7	102.4	103.2	102.8	2-5	5-5
Stanford	101.8	100.9	101.2	101.3	3-5	4-6
Oregon St.	100.0	101.0	99.8	100.3	4-3	5-5
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	126.6	125.6	127.5	126.6	6-1	9-1
U S C	110.6	111.1	111.3	111.0	6-2	7-4
Arizona St.	105.9	105.2	106.1	105.8	2-5	5-5
U C L A	99.4	99.2	99.1	99.3	4-3	4-6
Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.5	96.8	2-5	4-6
Colorado	96.5	96.3	96.3	96.3	2-5	4-6
Pac-12 Averages	107.3	107.1	107.6	107.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	127.9	126.2	128.3	127.5	6-1	9-1
Florida	125.6	123.0	125.4	124.6	7-2	9-2
Tennessee	110.2	110.0	109.5	109.9	3-3	5-5
Missouri	110.6	108.0	109.7	109.4	2-4	5-5
Kentucky	109.8	108.5	108.7	109.0	3-5	5-5
South Carolina	109.2	107.4	108.2	108.3	3-5	4-7
Vanderbilt	92.5	90.9	90.9	91.4	1-6	2-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
L S U	131.5	129.3	131.6	130.8	6-0	10-0
Alabama	128.9	125.7	129.4	128.0	6-1	9-1
Auburn	122.5	120.7	122.1	121.8	4-3	7-3
Texas A&M	117.9	116.4	117.0	117.1	4-2	7-3
Mississippi St.	109.8	106.5	113.7	110.0	2-5	4-6
Ole Miss	107.3	106.6	107.4	107.1	2-5	4-7
Arkansas	87.4	87.3	86.6	87.1	0-6	2-8
SEC Averages	113.7	111.9	113.5	113.0
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	107.9	107.2	107.5	107.5	5-1	9-1
Georgia Southern	97.3	97.3	97.0	97.2	4-2	6-4
Troy	94.4	94.9	93.3	94.2	3-3	5-5
Georgia St.	91.2	92.2	90.7	91.4	3-3	6-4
Coastal Carolina	87.4	88.6	87.2	87.7	1-5	4-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	100.5	100.8	100.1	100.5	5-1	8-2
Arkansas St.	91.1	91.4	90.8	91.1	4-2	6-4
Louisiana-Monroe	85.7	86.1	85.1	85.6	3-3	4-6
Texas St.	78.3	78.8	77.5	78.2	2-4	3-7
South Alabama	75.0	77.5	74.7	75.8	0-6	1-9
SBC Averages	90.9	91.5	90.4	90.9

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	Southeastern	113.0
2	Big Ten	111.2
3	Big 12	109.4
4	Pac-12	107.4
5	Atlantic Coast	104.9
6	American	97.4
7	Mountain West	94.0
8	Sun Belt	90.9
9	Independents	90.0
10	Mid-American	87.1
11	Conference USA	86.8
Our Guess at Top 6
1	LSU
2	Ohio St.
3	Clemson
4	Georgia
5	Utah
6	Alabama
Top 5 Group of 5
1	Cincinnati
2	Memphis
3	Boise St.
4	SMU
5	Navy

 

This Week’s Playoffs and Bowl Projections

 

The Bowl Conundrum

The 2019-2020 bowl season is potentially going to present many mismatches with at-large teams having to fill spots left not taken by Power 5 Conference teams.

The chief problem this season will be the SEC. There will most likely be nine bowl eligible teams, but there could be as few as seven.

Let’s take a look at the most likely scenarios coming from the supposedly premier conference in college football.

LSU and Georgia could be headed to the playoffs if they both win out, and then Georgia pulls off a mild upset in the SEC Championship Game. There is also a small chance that Alabama could sneak back into the picture if LSU beats Georgia, and then Alabama thrashes Auburn on The Plains to show the Committee that losing Tua Tagovailoa didn’t weaken the Tide enough to knock them out of the Playoff picture. Either way, there is a decent chance that the SEC gets two teams in the Playoffs, especially if Oklahoma loses another game and Utah beats Oregon in the Pac-12.

Alabama and Florida are almost assured of receiving New Year’s Six Bowl Bids, and if Alabama sneaks into the Playoffs, then Georgia will replace the Tide in a New Year’s Six Bowl.

The Citrus bowl would then take Auburn. Texas A&M is almost a cinch to go to the Texas Bowl this year, where some backroom deals are being made to place Texas in there as a dream match-up. Tennessee is one win away from a possible destination in Jacksonville in the Gator Bowl, while Kentucky needs only to beat UT-Martin this week to earn a trip to a possible Outback Bowl game against a possible neighboring rival.

At this point, there are no more happy guarantees for the great SEC. Mississippi State is going to beat Abilene Christian this weekend to get to 5-6, but then they must turn around and face Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving Day, while the Rebels get this week off to prepare an extra few days. The way the two teams are playing presently, Ole Miss looks like the superior team, so we will count out Mississippi State at 5-7.

Missouri is 5-5, and the Tigers still have to play Arkansas, so even though they have lost four consecutive games, Mizzou is going to be 6-6. The Tigers are still in limbo with the NCAA. While Missouri is on probation and has a bowl ban, their legal team has filed an appeal, and the NCAA has yet to rule on it and might not rule on it until after bowl bids have been issued. It looks like the NCAA is going to turn the other cheek to help the SEC out, and then rule after the bowl season on the matter, or they could rule that Missouri has done enough in-house corrections to get a reprieve. Then, again, there is a lot of dissension going on in Columbia, and the school may choose to close up shop after the Arkansas game and self-impose on taking a meaningless bowl game at 6-6.

The SEC has agreements with 11 bowls not including the Playoffs. If two SEC teams make the Playoffs, then the SEC will have the need for 13 bowl eligible teams and will most likely have eight or nine bowl eligible teams. If Maalox wants to create a nice promotion, they will send free cases of their product to the members of the Music City, Liberty, Birmingham, and Independence Bowls, and possibly the Belk Bowl.

With the possibility of some really weak bowl match-ups, you can expect this season to produce at least one if not two or three “backroom” deals to place better at-large teams in the bowls where the opponent is a Power Five team. A 9-3 Power Conference team playing a 6-6 Group of 5 team just cannot be allowed.

What you see in our Bowl Projections are the raw projections strictly following the bowl rules. As information leaks about potential back-room deals, we will try to stay on top of all the news and rumors.

Here is a conference by conference look at the bowl eligible teams and those that can still become bowl eligible.

American Athletic

Bowl Eligible: 7
Memphis, SMU, Navy, Tulane, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Temple

Still Alive: South Florida

If either Memphis or Cincinnati win out to capture the AAC Title, that team will head to the Cotton Bowl as the Group of 5 best champion. SMU could also earn this bid if Cincinnati beats Memphis in the regular season, while the Mustangs win out, including beating Cincinnati in the AAC Championship Game. Navy has a remote chance at getting to the Cotton Bowl. Memphis and SMU would both have to lose in the regular season, while Navy wins out and beats Cincinnati in the AAC Championship Game, and Boise State would have to lose in the Mountain West.
South Florida merely has to beat Memphis and Central Florida to earn a bowl, so it isn’t going to be a Bulls Market this year.

Atlantic Coast (+ Notre Dame)

Bowl Eligible: 9
Clemson, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Louisville, Florida St., Virginia Tech, Virginia, Miami (Fla.), Pittsburgh

Still Alive: Boston College, Duke, North Carolina, N. Carolina St., and Syracuse

Clemson has the best chance of any team of going 13-0 before the Playoffs, but we are starting to see just a little extra possibility that if Virginia Tech takes care of Pittsburgh and Virginia, the Hokies will be a little more formidable than the experts are given them credit for being. Va. Tech was dismissed for dead earlier in the season, but Justin Fuente has done an incredible job re-shaping the Hokie team to where they look like the second best team in the league. If Tech beats Pitt and Virginia, they will most likely be the Orange Bowl representative even if Clemson pounds them in the ACC Championship Game.

At this point, our forecast calls for North Carolina to top Mercer and NC State to finish 6-6 and grab the last bowl spot that goes to the ACC. We don’t see a path to 6-6 for the other teams still alive.

Big 12

Bowl Eligible: 6
Oklahoma, Baylor, Oklahoma St., Iowa St., Texas, Kansas St.

Still Alive: TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia

The PiRate Ratings do not forecast Oklahoma to win out and sneak into the Playoffs, but don’t assume we are picking Baylor to get revenge in the Big 12 Championship Game. The Sooners have to go to Stillwater to face the much-improved Cowboys, and we believe Oklahoma St. has a very decent chance to pull off the upset and ruin the league’s chances to get into the Playoffs.

Of the teams still fighting for bowl eligibility, we believe TCU can beat West Virginia in Fort Worth to get their sixth win, but Tech and the Mountaineers might both be staring at 5-7 seasons.

Big Ten

Bowl Eligible: 7

Ohio St., Penn St., Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois

Still Alive: Michigan St., Nebraska, Purdue

This is the most interesting race for the Playoffs and Bowl seeding. First, Ohio State must now close with wins against Penn State, Michigan, and the Western Division Champion in the Conference Championship Game to guarantee a Playoff spot. Only the Penn State game is in the Giant Horseshoe. We remember 50 years ago quite well, when an 8-0 Ohio State team that many were calling the greatest college football team since Army in 1945, went to the Big House to play a two-loss Michigan team that remembered being thrashed in Columbus the previous year. That Ohio State team was a double-digit favorite and got thrashed by a Michigan defense that played well over its potential that day.

Assuming Ohio State handles Penn State this weekend, could history repeat itself 50 years later? Of course, James Franklin has a history of getting underdog teams psyched up to win big road games, so the Nittany Lions could still be in the Big Ten Championship picture.

On the other side, Minnesota still controls its own destiny, but then so does Wisconsin. The Gophers did everything but beat Iowa in Iowa City, as the Hawkeyes frequently win games at home with final stats that on paper look like they lost by a couple of touchdowns. The Gophers get Wisconsin in Minneapolis.

There is even a bizarre scenario where Illinois could win the West Division flag. This requires Minnesota to lose to Northwestern and Wisconsin; for Wisconsin to lose to Purdue, while the Illini beat Iowa and Northwestern. The chances for this to happen are about the same as Lovie Smith taking over Alabama for Nick Saban in 2020.

Michigan State is now 4-6, and the Spartans look like an offense from the days of one platoon football. Their defense has fallen apart with all the extra snaps it has had to face, but now Sparty catches a break. MSU closes with Rutgers and Maryland, so the Green and White have about a 95% chance of improving to 6-6 and getting a bottom tier bowl bid.

Nebraska is 4-6 with games remaining against Maryland and Iowa. We have a suspicion that Scott Frost will have his team prepared to face the Hawkeyes at Memorial Stadium and will pull off the upset to close at 6-6 and get the final bowl bid in this league.

Purdue must beat both Wisconsin and Indiana to get to 6-6, and by the time they play for the Old Oaken Bucket, their long snapper might be the backup quarterback. Better luck next year Boilermakers.

Because the Big Ten has the most strict bowl tie-ins, certain teams cannot go to certain bowls if they have been to them in the last five years. What this means is:

The Citrus Bowl will not invite Michigan, Minnesota, or Penn State

The Outback Bowl will not invite Iowa, Michigan, Northwestern, or Wisconsin

The Holiday Bowl will not invite Michigan St., Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, or Wisconsin

The Gator Bowl will not invite Iowa or Penn St.

The Pinstripe Bowl will not invite Indiana, Iowa, Northwestern, Penn State, or Wisconsin

The Redbox Bowl will not invite Indiana, Maryland, Michigan St., Nebraska, or Purdue

The Quick Lane Bowl will not invite Minnesota

Conference USA

Bowl Eligible: 6
Florida Atlantic, Marshall, Western Kentucky, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss., UAB

Still Alive: Charlotte, Florida Int’l., North Texas, UTSA

Marshall holds the tiebreaker over Florida Atlantic, so it the Thundering Herd beat Charlotte and FIU, they will be East Division champs. In the West, Louisiana Tech controls their destiny, but if the Bulldogs lose to UAB, then Southern Miss can win out and take the division flag.

Of the teams still alive, Charlotte and North Texas have the best chances to get to six wins, while FIU and UTSA have close to zero chances to do so. Because this league could have eight bowl eligible teams, and they have just five primary tie-ins, two or three teams will get at-large invitations, and deals could be made to send better teams to at-large spots.

Independents (not Notre Dame)

Bowl Eligible: 2
BYU, Liberty

Still Alive: Army

BYU has earned its guaranteed Hawaii Bowl bid with its sixth win. Liberty doesn’t have a primary bowl bid, but the Flames have a secondary agreement with the Cure Bowl. Since the AAC is likely to send its champion to the Cotton Bowl, the Cure Bowl bid could be there for Liberty.

Army must beat Hawaii in Hawaii and Navy to get to 7-6. We don’t see it happening this year.

Mid-American

Bowl Eligible: 4
Miami (O), Central Michigan, Toledo, Western Michigan

Still Alive: Buffalo, Kent St., Ohio, Ball St., Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois

Not having a dominating team and having to play games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays have led to MACtion being one big season-long toss-up with a lot of parity. Miami of Ohio has already clinched the East Division title, as the Red Hawks hold all potential tiebreakers over Buffalo, Ohio, and Kent St. The West is a different story as four teams are still technically alive. Western Michigan will win the division if the Broncos beat both Ohio and Northern Illinois, but both games are on the road, and we don’t believe WMU will go 2-0.

Central Michigan must win at Ball State and then beat Toledo at home and then hope that WMU loses to Northern Illinois. Northern Illinois and Toledo are still mathematically alive in the race but need multiple things to happen to sneak into the top spot in the West.

There are still six teams trying to become eligible, and by the time the regular season concludes, we believe the MAC will have eight bowl eligible teams with five teams at 6-6. Not all these 6-6 teams will have bowl spots available to them, but the MAC should receive at least one extra bowl invitation and possibly two.

Mountain West

Bowl Eligible: 7
Air Force, Boise St., Utah St., Wyoming, Hawaii, Nevada, San Diego St.

Still Alive: Colorado St., Fresno St., San Jose St.

Boise State must win out and hope for the AAC to implode and produce a two-loss league champion in order for the Broncos to ascend to the Cotton Bowl. Boise St. could be 12-1 and relegated to the Las Vegas Bowl. If that happens, and the Pac-12 has a 6-6 team available, there is a chance that a deal could be made to send the Pac-12 team east and bring a 10 or 11-win team like Appalachian State or SMU to Vegas. Or, Boise State could be sent east to play in a Liberty, Music City, or Belk Bowl where no SEC team is available.

Air Force is looking at 10-2 and another potential bad bowl match-up, and because the Falcons can basically bring the entire Academy, they can fill up a bowl stadium even if it’s 1,500 miles from Colorado Springs.

In the West, the winner of the San Diego State-Hawaii game this week gets to face Boise State with a chance for the big upset. Technically, Air Force and Utah State are still alive in the Mountain, but Boise State has to lose twice for that to happen.
Of the three teams still with a chance to become bowl eligible, Colorado State has to beat both Wyoming and Boise State, so the Rams are staying home for the holidays. Fresno State and San Jose State are looking at a season finale where they will face off in San Jose with probably 5-6 records. The Spartans look like the stronger team in November, so we’ll give SJSU the final bid.

Pac-12

Bowl Eligible: 4
Oregon, Washington, USC, Utah

Still Alive: California, Oregon St., Stanford, Washington St. Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, UCLA

The entire conference is still alive for a bowl! That’s a blessing and a curse. There is so much parity that when USC beat Utah, they severely damaged this league’s chance to sneak a team into the Playoffs. Even if either Utah or Oregon wins out to finish 12-1, they are almost assuredly relegated to Pasadena and not to the Playoffs. Oregon dominated Auburn until the final few minutes to start the season, and that game is just as important as the Utah loss to the Trojans.

Of the eight remaining teams not yet bowl eligible, we believe that three will get to six wins. Arizona, Colorado, Stanford, and UCLA don’t look like they have enough talent to win the games they must win to get to 6-6. Any 6-6 team in this league will be in a bowl.

Southeastern

Bowl Eligible: 6
Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M

Still Alive: Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi St.

See above for the explanation for the SEC. We believe nine teams will be bowl eligible, or eight if Missouri either self-imposes a bowl ban, or the NCAA denies their appeal before December.

Sunbelt

Bowl Eligible: 5
Appalachian St., Georgia Southern, Georgia St.. Arkansas St., Louisiana

Still Alive: Coastal Carolina, Troy, UL-Monroe

It will take a monumental chain of events for Appy State and Lousiana not to meet in the SBC Championship Game. Georgia St., Georgia Southern, and Troy all still hold miniscule division title hopes in the East, while Arkansas St. and UL-Monroe are still mathematically alive in the West.

This is the only conference where we don’t see an additional team still alive becoming bowl eligible.

This Week’s Projections

Bowl	Conf	Conf	Team	Team
Bahamas	MAC	CUSA	Miami (O)	Florida Atlantic
Frisco	AAC	At-large	SMU	[Nevada]
Cure	AAC	SBC	[Liberty]	Georgia St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	Southern Miss.	San Diego St.
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Cincinnati	Central Michigan
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Ball St.	Arkansas St.
Las Vegas	MWC #1	Pac-12	Boise St.	California
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC #1	Louisiana Tech	Appalachian St.
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Navy	Western Kentucky
Hawaii	BYU/MWC	AAC	BYU	Central Florida
Independence	ACC	SEC	Florida St.	[Charlotte]
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	North Carolina	Michigan St.
Military	ACC	AAC	Wake Forest	Temple
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	Pittsburgh	Illinois
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas	Texas A&M
Holiday	Pac-12	Big Ten	USC	Michigan
Cheez-It	Big 12	Pac-12	Kansas St.	Washington St.
Camping World	ACC	Big 12	Notre Dame	Iowa St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Memphis	Baylor
First Responder	CUSA	Big 12	Marshall	[Utah St.]
Redbox	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington	Iowa
Music City	SEC	ACC	[Eastern Michigan]	Virginia
Orange	ACC	BTen/SEC	Virginia Tech	Florida
Belk	ACC	SEC	Miami (Fla.)	Missouri
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	Louisville	Arizona St.
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	TCU	[North Texas]
Arizona	SBC	MWC	Louisiana	Hawaii
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Oklahoma St.	Oregon
Citrus	SEC	BTen/ACC	Auburn	Wisconsin
Outback	Big Ten	SEC	Minnesota	Tennessee
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Penn St.	Utah
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	Oklahoma	Alabama
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	Tulane	[UAB]
Taxslayer/Gator	SEC	Big Ten	Kentucky	Indiana
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Toledo	Wyoming
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	Nebraska	Air Force
Mobile Alabama	MAC	SBC	Western Michigan	Georgia Southern
FBS PLAYOFFS
Fiesta	Top 4	Top 4	Georgia	Ohio St.
Peach	Top 4	Top 4	Clemson	LSU
Championship	Fiesta	Peach	Georgia	Clemson
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: November 10, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Tuesday	November 12
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Ohio	Western Mich.	-2.6	-2.6	-2.0
Akron	Eastern Mich.	-14.9	-15.1	-16.4
Wednesday	November 13
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Miami (O)	Bowling Green	17.8	16.7	18.3
Toledo	Northern Illinois	1.1	2.3	1.8
Thursday	November 14
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Kent St.	Buffalo	-3.2	-4.0	-4.4
Pittsburgh	North Carolina	3.3	3.2	2.9
Friday	November 15
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Marshall	Louisiana Tech	-3.0	-3.9	-2.8
San Diego St.	Fresno St.	4.7	5.3	3.9
Saturday	November 16
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Rutgers	Ohio St.	-53.2	-52.7	-55.8
Auburn	Georgia	-1.2	-1.2	-1.7
Utah	UCLA	24.9	24.0	26.0
Nebraska	Wisconsin	-14.0	-13.1	-14.7
Michigan	Michigan St.	14.5	14.1	15.5
Iowa	Minnesota	2.9	1.1	2.9
Oklahoma St.	Kansas	17.6	17.1	17.3
California	USC	-0.6	-1.3	-0.5
Washington St.	Stanford	10.3	10.2	11.1
Oregon St.	Arizona St.	-3.9	-2.1	-4.5
Northwestern	Massachusetts	48.4	45.6	48.4
Mississippi St.	Alabama	-20.2	-20.3	-16.8
Penn St.	Indiana	15.8	15.7	16.1
Missouri	Florida	-11.4	-11.2	-11.7
Texas Tech	TCU	1.3	-1.0	0.3
Temple	Tulane	1.7	0.3	2.0
UAB	UTEP	22.0	19.9	21.8
Notre Dame	Navy	23.0	19.0	21.8
Arkansas St.	Coastal Carolina	7.2	6.2	7.4
Georgia Southern	UL-Monroe	14.1	13.4	14.0
Texas St.	Troy	-7.2	-7.3	-7.0
Clemson	Wake Forest	34.5	33.0	35.4
Kansas St.	West Virginia	15.1	15.4	15.9
Houston	Memphis	-5.9	-5.1	-4.6
Ball St.	Central Mich.	4.8	3.7	4.1
Iowa St.	Texas	8.3	8.5	8.8
Georgia Tech	Virginia Tech	-6.3	-7.8	-6.6
Vanderbilt	Kentucky	-12.3	-12.4	-12.4
Duke	Syracuse	7.7	7.8	8.1
UNLV	Hawaii	-7.5	-7.2	-6.8
Utah St.	Wyoming	2.8	-0.1	2.8
Middle Tennessee	Rice	12.8	11.1	13.6
South Alabama	Louisiana	-24.3	-22.1	-25.2
UTSA	Southern Miss.	-18.5	-15.2	-19.0
Ole Miss	LSU	-21.7	-20.1	-21.7
South Florida	Cincinnati	-13.2	-11.8	-13.4
Colorado St.	Air Force	-15.1	-12.8	-15.3
Baylor	Oklahoma	-6.3	-5.4	-6.4
Texas A&M	South Carolina	8.9	9.0	8.6
North Carolina St.	Louisville	0.5	0.1	0.4
Georgia St.	Appalachian St.	-11.6	-9.3	-11.3
Boise St.	New Mexico	28.6	26.2	29.9
Oregon	Arizona	27.5	27.9	29.2

 

FBS vs.	FCS	PiRate
Florida St.	Alabama St.	39
Army	VMI	31
BYU	Idaho St.	31
New Mexico St.	Incarnate Word	10

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

 

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	140.6	139.8	141.9	140.8
2	Clemson	135.9	133.8	137.0	135.6
3	Alabama	134.3	131.1	134.8	133.4
4	L S U	131.5	129.3	131.6	130.8
5	Georgia	127.1	125.3	127.3	126.6
6	Florida	125.3	122.6	124.9	124.2
7	Utah	124.0	122.9	124.8	123.9
8	Penn St.	123.6	122.7	123.7	123.4
9	Michigan	123.3	121.9	123.6	122.9
10	Auburn	122.8	121.1	122.6	122.2
11	Oklahoma	122.4	121.6	121.9	122.0
12	Oregon	121.5	121.6	122.8	122.0
13	Wisconsin	120.4	120.0	120.3	120.2
14	Minnesota	118.9	118.8	118.8	118.8
15	Iowa	118.8	117.0	118.7	118.1
16	Notre Dame	118.3	116.8	118.1	117.7
17	Iowa St.	115.6	116.2	116.0	115.9
18	Texas A&M	116.5	114.9	115.4	115.6
19	Washington	113.8	113.5	114.8	114.0
20	Baylor	113.2	113.2	112.5	113.0
21	Kansas St.	112.2	112.1	112.2	112.2
22	Central Florida	111.5	110.8	112.0	111.4
23	Mississippi St.	111.1	107.8	115.0	111.3
24	Indiana	110.9	109.9	110.6	110.5
25	Oklahoma St.	110.3	111.0	110.0	110.4
26	Texas	110.3	110.6	110.3	110.4
27	Washington St.	110.6	109.7	110.9	110.4
28	Missouri	110.9	108.4	110.2	109.8
29	Michigan St.	110.3	109.4	109.6	109.8
30	South Carolina	110.6	108.9	109.8	109.8
31	Tennessee	109.9	109.7	109.2	109.6
32	Miami (Fla.)	108.3	108.0	109.5	108.6
33	U S C	108.2	108.7	108.7	108.6
34	T C U	107.4	109.9	107.7	108.3
35	Kentucky	108.3	106.9	107.0	107.4
36	Cincinnati	107.3	106.8	107.7	107.3
37	Virginia	107.1	107.0	107.1	107.1
38	Ole Miss	106.8	106.1	106.9	106.6
39	Arizona St.	106.6	105.9	106.9	106.5
40	Memphis	106.2	106.2	107.0	106.5
41	Appalachian St.	106.6	105.6	106.0	106.1
42	Texas Tech	106.2	106.4	105.5	106.0
43	Pittsburgh	106.0	105.6	106.3	106.0
44	North Carolina	105.7	105.5	106.4	105.9
45	Boise St.	105.7	105.7	105.7	105.7
46	SMU	105.2	104.9	105.9	105.3
47	California	104.6	104.3	105.3	104.7
48	Air Force	104.0	105.3	104.8	104.7
49	Virginia Tech	104.4	104.5	105.1	104.7
50	Florida St.	104.4	104.4	104.6	104.5
51	Wake Forest	104.4	103.8	104.7	104.3
52	Illinois	103.8	104.7	103.6	104.1
53	Purdue	103.7	103.5	103.1	103.4
54	Nebraska	103.4	103.9	102.6	103.3
55	Duke	103.5	102.7	103.2	103.1
56	Stanford	103.3	102.5	102.8	102.9
57	BYU	102.6	102.8	102.6	102.7
58	Boston College	102.1	101.7	102.3	102.0
59	U C L A	102.0	101.9	101.8	101.9
60	Louisiana	101.3	101.6	101.4	101.4
61	Northwestern	102.1	101.0	100.7	101.3
62	Tulane	100.0	100.8	100.5	100.4
63	Wyoming	99.3	101.4	100.0	100.2
64	Oregon St.	99.8	100.8	99.5	100.0
65	West Virginia	100.1	99.7	99.3	99.7
66	Navy	98.2	100.8	99.2	99.4
67	Utah St.	99.2	98.4	99.8	99.1
68	Temple	98.6	98.1	99.6	98.8
69	Louisville	98.8	98.5	98.6	98.6
70	Syracuse	98.8	98.0	98.1	98.3
71	Florida Atlantic	97.8	97.8	99.2	98.3
72	Houston	97.3	98.2	99.4	98.3
73	Western Michigan	98.4	97.4	98.1	98.0
74	Louisiana Tech	97.1	97.5	97.6	97.4
75	San Diego St.	96.6	98.2	96.2	97.0
76	Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.5	96.8
77	Georgia Southern	96.9	96.7	96.4	96.7
78	Southern Miss.	96.7	95.3	97.1	96.4
79	Maryland	97.2	96.0	95.6	96.3
80	Kansas	95.8	96.8	95.7	96.1
81	Colorado	96.2	96.0	96.0	96.0
82	North Carolina St.	96.2	95.6	96.0	95.9
83	Fresno St.	94.9	95.9	95.3	95.4
84	Hawaii	94.9	96.2	93.8	95.0
85	Army	94.9	95.1	94.4	94.8
86	Georgia Tech	95.1	93.7	95.5	94.8
87	Tulsa	93.3	94.2	94.6	94.0
88	Buffalo	93.1	93.8	94.6	93.8
89	Vanderbilt	94.5	93.0	93.1	93.5
90	Western Kentucky	92.7	93.6	94.3	93.5
91	Ohio	93.3	92.3	93.6	93.1
92	Georgia St.	92.5	93.8	92.2	92.8
93	South Florida	91.1	92.0	91.3	91.5
94	Troy	91.6	92.1	90.5	91.4
95	Arkansas St.	91.3	91.6	91.2	91.4
96	Marshall	91.0	90.6	91.8	91.1
97	Liberty	90.1	91.2	90.4	90.5
98	Ball St.	90.6	90.2	90.8	90.5
99	Miami (Ohio)	90.1	88.9	90.7	89.9
100	Middle Tennessee	90.0	89.2	90.1	89.8
101	Northern Illinois	89.7	88.9	89.8	89.5
102	Central Michigan	88.4	89.0	89.3	88.9
103	Colorado St.	87.4	91.0	88.0	88.8
104	Toledo	88.4	88.7	89.1	88.7
105	San Jose St.	88.0	89.9	88.2	88.7
106	U A B	87.7	89.5	88.1	88.5
107	Nevada	87.8	89.4	87.3	88.2
108	North Texas	87.8	87.4	88.1	87.8
109	Coastal Carolina	87.2	88.4	86.8	87.5
110	Kent St.	87.4	87.2	87.7	87.4
111	Arkansas	87.1	87.0	86.3	86.8
112	Charlotte	85.8	86.2	86.2	86.1
113	Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.4	85.4	85.9
114	Florida Int’l.	85.5	85.2	85.2	85.3
115	Eastern Michigan	84.4	84.5	84.7	84.6
116	East Carolina	83.6	85.0	84.0	84.2
117	Rutgers	84.4	84.1	83.2	83.9
118	U N L V	83.4	85.0	83.0	83.8
119	Texas St.	81.8	82.3	81.0	81.7
120	New Mexico	80.1	82.5	78.8	80.5
121	Rice	79.7	80.6	78.9	79.8
122	Texas-San Antonio	75.7	77.7	75.6	76.3
123	New Mexico St.	75.7	77.5	75.5	76.2
124	South Alabama	74.5	77.0	73.7	75.1
125	Bowling Green	74.3	74.1	74.3	74.3
126	Old Dominion	73.7	74.0	73.8	73.8
127	Connecticut	70.9	73.7	69.9	71.5
128	U T E P	68.8	72.7	69.4	70.3
129	Akron	67.1	66.9	65.8	66.6
130	Massachusetts	56.3	57.9	54.8	56.3

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	SEC	113.4
2	BTen	111.2
3	B12	109.4
4	P12	107.3
5	ACC	105.0
6	AAC	97.4
7	MWC	93.9
8	SUN	91.0
9	Ind	89.7
10	MAC	87.1
11	CUSA	86.7

 

Our Guess at Top 6
1	LSU
2	Ohio St.
3	Clemson
4	Alabama
5	Georgia
6	Oregon

 

Top 5 Group of 5
1	Cincinnati
2	Memphis
3	Boise St.
4	Navy
5	SMU

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	111.5	110.8	112.0	111.4	4-2	7-3
Cincinnati	107.3	106.8	107.7	107.3	5-0	8-1
Temple	98.6	98.1	99.6	98.8	3-2	6-3
South Florida	91.1	92.0	91.3	91.5	2-3	4-5
East Carolina	83.6	85.0	84.0	84.2	0-6	3-7
Connecticut	70.9	73.7	69.9	71.5	0-6	2-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Memphis	106.2	106.2	107.0	106.5	4-1	8-1
SMU	105.2	104.9	105.9	105.3	5-1	9-1
Tulane	100.0	100.8	100.5	100.4	3-2	6-3
Navy	98.2	100.8	99.2	99.4	5-1	7-1
Houston	97.3	98.2	99.4	98.3	1-4	3-6
Tulsa	93.3	94.2	94.6	94.0	1-5	3-7
AAC Averages	96.9	97.6	97.6	97.4
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	135.9	133.8	137.0	135.6	7-0	10-0
Florida St.	104.4	104.4	104.6	104.5	4-4	5-5
Wake Forest	104.4	103.8	104.7	104.3	3-2	7-2
Boston College	102.1	101.7	102.3	102.0	3-4	5-5
Louisville	98.8	98.5	98.6	98.6	3-3	5-4
Syracuse	98.8	98.0	98.1	98.3	0-5	3-6
North Carolina St.	96.2	95.6	96.0	95.9	1-4	4-5
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Miami (Fla.)	108.3	108.0	109.5	108.6	4-3	6-4
Virginia	107.1	107.0	107.1	107.1	5-2	7-3
Pittsburgh	106.0	105.6	106.3	106.0	3-2	6-3
North Carolina	105.7	105.5	106.4	105.9	3-3	4-5
Virginia Tech	104.4	104.5	105.1	104.7	4-2	6-3
Duke	103.5	102.7	103.2	103.1	2-4	4-5
Georgia Tech	95.1	93.7	95.5	94.8	1-5	2-7
ACC Averages	105.1	104.5	105.3	105.0
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	122.4	121.6	121.9	122.0	5-1	8-1
Iowa St.	115.6	116.2	116.0	115.9	3-3	5-4
Baylor	113.2	113.2	112.5	113.0	6-0	9-0
Kansas St.	112.2	112.1	112.2	112.2	3-3	6-3
Oklahoma St.	110.3	111.0	110.0	110.4	3-3	6-3
Texas	110.3	110.6	110.3	110.4	4-2	6-3
T C U	107.4	109.9	107.7	108.3	2-4	4-5
Texas Tech	106.2	106.4	105.5	106.0	2-4	4-5
West Virginia	100.1	99.7	99.3	99.7	1-5	3-6
Kansas	95.8	96.8	95.7	96.1	1-5	3-6
Big 12 Averages	109.3	109.7	109.1	109.4
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	140.6	139.8	141.9	140.8	6-0	9-0
Penn St.	123.6	122.7	123.7	123.4	5-1	8-1
Michigan	123.3	121.9	123.6	122.9	4-2	7-2
Indiana	110.9	109.9	110.6	110.5	4-2	7-2
Michigan St.	110.3	109.4	109.6	109.8	2-4	4-5
Maryland	97.2	96.0	95.6	96.3	1-6	3-7
Rutgers	84.4	84.1	83.2	83.9	0-6	2-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	120.4	120.0	120.3	120.2	4-2	7-2
Minnesota	118.9	118.8	118.8	118.8	6-0	9-0
Iowa	118.8	117.0	118.7	118.1	3-3	6-3
Illinois	103.8	104.7	103.6	104.1	4-3	6-4
Purdue	103.7	103.5	103.1	103.4	3-4	4-6
Nebraska	103.4	103.9	102.6	103.3	2-4	4-5
Northwestern	102.1	101.0	100.7	101.3	0-7	1-8
Big Ten Averages	111.5	110.9	111.1	111.2
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	97.8	97.8	99.2	98.3	5-1	7-3
Western Kentucky	92.7	93.6	94.3	93.5	4-2	6-4
Marshall	91.0	90.6	91.8	91.1	4-1	6-3
Middle Tennessee	90.0	89.2	90.1	89.8	2-3	3-6
Charlotte	85.8	86.2	86.2	86.1	3-3	5-5
Florida Int’l.	85.5	85.2	85.2	85.3	3-4	5-5
Old Dominion	73.7	74.0	73.8	73.8	0-6	1-9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Louisiana Tech	97.1	97.5	97.6	97.4	5-0	8-1
Southern Miss.	96.7	95.3	97.1	96.4	4-1	6-3
U A B	87.7	89.5	88.1	88.5	3-2	6-3
North Texas	87.8	87.4	88.1	87.8	3-3	4-6
Rice	79.7	80.6	78.9	79.8	0-5	0-9
Texas-San Antonio	75.7	77.7	75.6	76.3	3-2	4-5
U T E P	68.8	72.7	69.4	70.3	0-6	1-8
CUSA Averages	86.4	87.0	86.8	86.7
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	118.3	116.8	118.1	117.7	x	7-2
BYU	102.6	102.8	102.6	102.7	x	5-4
Army	94.9	95.1	94.4	94.8	x	4-6
Liberty	90.1	91.2	90.4	90.5	x	6-4
New Mexico St.	75.7	77.5	75.5	76.2	x	0-9
Massachusetts	56.3	57.9	54.8	56.3	x	1-9
Indep. Averages	89.6	90.2	89.3	89.7
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Buffalo	93.1	93.8	94.6	93.8	3-2	5-4
Ohio	93.3	92.3	93.6	93.1	3-2	4-5
Miami (Ohio)	90.1	88.9	90.7	89.9	4-1	5-4
Kent St.	87.4	87.2	87.7	87.4	2-3	3-6
Bowling Green	74.3	74.1	74.3	74.3	2-3	3-6
Akron	67.1	66.9	65.8	66.6	0-5	0-9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	98.4	97.4	98.1	98.0	4-2	6-4
Ball St.	90.6	90.2	90.8	90.5	3-2	4-5
Northern Illinois	89.7	88.9	89.8	89.5	2-3	3-6
Central Michigan	88.4	89.0	89.3	88.9	4-2	6-4
Toledo	88.4	88.7	89.1	88.7	3-2	6-3
Eastern Michigan	84.4	84.5	84.7	84.6	1-4	4-5
MAC Averages	87.1	86.8	87.4	87.1
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	105.7	105.7	105.7	105.7	5-0	8-1
Air Force	104.0	105.3	104.8	104.7	4-1	7-2
Wyoming	99.3	101.4	100.0	100.2	3-2	6-3
Utah St.	99.2	98.4	99.8	99.1	4-1	5-4
Colorado St.	87.4	91.0	88.0	88.8	3-2	4-5
New Mexico	80.1	82.5	78.8	80.5	0-5	2-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
San Diego St.	96.6	98.2	96.2	97.0	4-2	7-2
Fresno St.	94.9	95.9	95.3	95.4	2-3	4-5
Hawaii	94.9	96.2	93.8	95.0	3-3	6-4
San Jose St.	88.0	89.9	88.2	88.7	1-5	4-6
Nevada	87.8	89.4	87.3	88.2	3-3	6-4
U N L V	83.4	85.0	83.0	83.8	1-5	2-7
MWC Averages	93.4	94.9	93.4	93.9
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	121.5	121.6	122.8	122.0	6-0	8-1
Washington	113.8	113.5	114.8	114.0	3-4	6-4
Washington St.	110.6	109.7	110.9	110.4	1-5	4-5
California	104.6	104.3	105.3	104.7	2-4	5-4
Stanford	103.3	102.5	102.8	102.9	3-4	4-5
Oregon St.	99.8	100.8	99.5	100.0	3-3	4-5
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	124.0	122.9	124.8	123.9	5-1	8-1
U S C	108.2	108.7	108.7	108.6	5-2	6-4
Arizona St.	106.6	105.9	106.9	106.5	2-4	5-4
U C L A	102.0	101.9	101.8	101.9	4-2	4-5
Arizona	97.0	96.8	96.5	96.8	2-4	4-5
Colorado	96.2	96.0	96.0	96.0	2-5	4-6
Pac-12 Averages	107.3	107.1	107.6	107.3
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	127.1	125.3	127.3	126.6	5-1	8-1
Florida	125.3	122.6	124.9	124.2	6-2	8-2
Missouri	110.9	108.4	110.2	109.8	2-3	5-4
South Carolina	110.6	108.9	109.8	109.8	3-4	4-6
Tennessee	109.9	109.7	109.2	109.6	3-3	5-5
Kentucky	108.3	106.9	107.0	107.4	2-5	4-5
Vanderbilt	94.5	93.0	93.1	93.5	1-5	2-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Alabama	134.3	131.1	134.8	133.4	5-1	8-1
L S U	131.5	129.3	131.6	130.8	5-0	9-0
Auburn	122.8	121.1	122.6	122.2	4-2	7-2
Texas A&M	116.5	114.9	115.4	115.6	3-2	6-3
Mississippi St.	111.1	107.8	115.0	111.3	2-4	4-5
Ole Miss	106.8	106.1	106.9	106.6	2-4	4-6
Arkansas	87.1	87.0	86.3	86.8	0-6	2-8
SEC Averages	114.1	112.3	113.9	113.4
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	106.6	105.6	106.0	106.1	4-1	8-1
Georgia Southern	96.9	96.7	96.4	96.7	3-2	5-4
Georgia St.	92.5	93.8	92.2	92.8	3-2	6-3
Troy	91.6	92.1	90.5	91.4	2-3	4-5
Coastal Carolina	87.2	88.4	86.8	87.5	1-4	4-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	101.3	101.6	101.4	101.4	4-1	7-2
Arkansas St.	91.3	91.6	91.2	91.4	3-2	5-4
Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.4	85.4	85.9	3-2	4-5
Texas St.	81.8	82.3	81.0	81.7	2-3	3-6
South Alabama	74.5	77.0	73.7	75.1	0-5	1-8
SBC Averages	91.0	91.6	90.5	91.0

 

This Week’s Playoff and Bowl Projections

 

Bowl	Conf	Conf	Team	Team
Bahamas	MAC	CUSA	Miami (O)	Florida Atlantic
Frisco	AAC	At-large	SMU	[Air Force]
Cure	AAC	SBC	Memphis	Georgia Southern
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	Southern Miss.	Wyoming
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Cincinnati	Western Michigan
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Buffalo	Georgia St.
Las Vegas	MWC #1	Pac-12	Hawaii	[Toledo]
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC #1	Louisiana Tech	Louisiana
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Navy	Western Kentucky
Hawaii	BYU/MWC	AAC	BYU	Central Florida
Independence	ACC	SEC	Florida St.	[UAB]
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	North Carolina	Michigan St.
Military	ACC	AAC	Virginia	Temple
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	Pittsburgh	Illinois
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas	Texas A&M
Holiday	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington	Michigan
Cheez-It	Big 12	Pac-12	Texas Tech	[San Jose St.]
Camping World	ACC	Big 12	Notre Dame	Kansas St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Baylor	Boise St.
First Responder	CUSA	Big 12	Marshall	[Eastern Michigan]
Redbox	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington St.	Iowa
Music City	SEC	ACC	[Liberty]	Louisville
Orange	ACC	BTen/SEC	Virginia Tech	Georgia
Belk	ACC	SEC	Wake Forest	Missouri *
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	Miami (Fla.)	Arizona St.
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	Iowa St.	Kentucky
Arizona	SBC	MWC	Appalachian St.	San Diego St.
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Oklahoma St.	USC
Citrus	SEC	BTen/ACC	Florida	Wisconsin
Outback	Big Ten	SEC	Penn St.	Auburn
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Minnesota	Utah
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	Oklahoma	Alabama
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	Tulane	[Charlotte]
Taxslayer/Gator	SEC	Big Ten	Tennessee	Indiana
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Ball St.	Utah St.
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	Nebraska	[Nevada]
Mobile Alabama	MAC	SBC	Central Michigan	Arkansas St.
FBS PLAYOFFS
Fiesta	Top 4	Top 4	LSU	Clemson
Peach	Top 4	Top 4	Ohio St.	Oregon
Championship	Fiesta	Peach	Clemson	Ohio St.
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections * Missouri is on probation and technically not eligible for a bowl, but the Tigers have filed an appeal that has yet to be judged by the NCAA Infractions Committee.  If they do not issue a decision before December, then Missouri can accept a bowl bid even though they have a bowl ban in place.

 

Questions and Answers

 

Every year, we receive numerous questions from you the reader.  When we get enough, we try to answer them in one post.  The number one question we receive from people that know us is: “How do you ask a question on your site?”

So we can reduce Spam and not give a link, this is how you do it.  Go to our sister site that you can see to the side on our Blogroll under “The PiRate Ratings, ” which is the 6th one down the page.  This will take you to our sister website.  Once at this other website, click on the Contact Us link, and you can ask your question after you fill out your information.

Here are the questions we have received since the start of football season.  Some of these have been asked every year for the last five or six seasons.

 

Q1. What does PiRate, Mean, and Bias mean in your ratings?

A1. We have one basic power rating that we compile based on game statistics and strength of schedule.  We have three ways of calculating this data.  The PiRate Rating is our old formula that we have used for many years with little change in calculation.  We can also estimate FCS team power ratings with this formula.  The Mean formula takes all the data and weighs each item identically.  There are seven basic grade scores that are then divided by seven to get this rating.  The Bias formula does apply weighted grades to the parts of the game that we believe are more important than others, thus the grading is biased in favor of four of the seven grading scores.

Q2. What is your home field advantage for football?

A2. The PiRate Ratings use differing home field advantages for every game.  If Miami of Florida is hosting Florida International, the home field advantage is going to be much different than if they were to host Hawaii, Buffalo, or Washington.  Some of the time, a road team might actually receive some advantage over the home team.  Let’s say a 2-7 team with little fan support is hosting a team from an adjacent state in a conference game, when the other team is trying to get bowl eligible, and there are fans of this other team just 45 minutes away from the visiting team’s stadium.  Let’s say that about 75% of the fans at the game will be fans of the visiting team, and the home team will have to use visual signals to snap the ball.  It happens.

Q3. How come you have a 5-2 team rated ahead of a 7-0 team in the same conference, and the 5-2 team lost to the 7-0 team in September?

A3. The PiRate Ratings aren’t about what happened three, four, five, or six weeks ago.  The goal of these ratings is to try to predict the outcomes of this week’s games.  For instance, you might notice that Alabama is still rated ahead of LSU in our ratings.  We believe if the two teams were to play again this week on a neutral field, Alabama would win the game.  It might be a lot easier to see this like baseball.  The Padres might beat the Dodgers on Thursday and Friday, but the Dodgers will still be favored to beat them on Saturday and Sunday.  These ratings are meant to be used to predict the future and not rate the past. 

Q4. Why do you like Ohio State so much and always move them up to number one every year?

A4. These are mechanical power ratings.  We could teach somebody else how to calculate the ratings with maybe 3 to 4 hours of teaching.  There is no real human factor where we can say that Ohio State is our favorite team, so let’s make them number one.  Ohio State is number one because the statistical numbers make them number one.  We like Ohio State no more or less than Illinois or Michigan or Rice or San Jose St.  What we love is to be accurate.  Thus, the real thing we root to be number one is our ratings.

Q5. What does your power rating number mean for each team?

A5. Our ratings are calculated so that the average FBS team is rated 100.00.  If a team has a power rating of 106.8, this means they are 6.8 points better than the average FBS team.  If they have a rating of 87.4, this means they are 12.6 points weaker than the average team.

Q6.  Why do you only issue one spread for FBS vs. FCS games?

A6. The Mean and Bias ratings require more statistical analysis using a lot more data than the regular PiRate Rating.  We cannot calculate these ratings for FCS teams.  The regular PiRate Rating consists of data calculation that takes about 3 minutes per FCS team.  And, the PiRate Rating for FCS teams is only an approximation rating.  We do not use the same adjustment to  the ratings of FBS teams that play FCS teams. 

Q7. I noticed that Nebraska did not play this weekend, yet your rating for Nebraska went up a little.  Why is this?

A7. There are two factors at play here.  Nebraska’s opponents played to date did play this past weekend, and their ratings adjusted, which adjusted Nebraska’s rating.  Also, the week off usually helps teams.  Thus, Nebraska’s three ratings rose by about 0.6 points each.

Q8. How do you calculate your Bowl and Playoff Projections?  It does not look like you use the “if the season ended today” method.

A8. We do not use the “if the season ended today” method.  We estimate each team’s final won-loss record and then try to do the bowl committees’ work by extending invitations to the bowl teams based on the criteria set in advance.  When all of our competitors agreed 100% that Penn State was their choice for the Rose Bowl, we had Minnesota projected there.  Expect a bunch more sites to now place Minnesota in the Rose Bowl in their projections.

For what it’s worth, in this week’s projections, we only had 79 bowl eligible teams, which means just one bowl eligible team would be excluded in our mind.  Because Missouri could easily lose their appeal before December, then team #79 could become #78.  That team this week is Ohio.

Q9. What do you think about the 4-team Playoff?

A9. While we believe that in most years only four teams might be championship quality, we don’t believe that Power 5 conference champions should be left out.  At the minimum, the NCAA Playoffs should be a 6-team tournament with all Power 5 conference champions making the playoffs along with the top remaining team.  We support the 8-team or even 12-team playoff.  In a perfect world, we would support a 12- team playoff with the reduction of bowls to 30.  The opening round from 12 to 8 with the top 4 getting byes would be played on the better seeded teams’ home field.  The Quarterfinal Round would then be held at four existing bowls, one in each region.  For instance, the Pinstripe, Music City, Alamo, and Holiday Bowls could host this round.

Q10. Who is the best team of all time?

A10. We can only offer our choice from teams that we have seen in our lifetime, and then only offer up who we believe was the most dominant team in the year they played.  Our answer is the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers.  They beat teams that finished second, third, and fourth by a combined 105-44, including destroying 11-0 Alabama in the Orange Bowl 38-6.  They also beat 8-win Utah State and Iowa State and 7-win Hawaii by a combined 124-9.  This team had 8 All-Americans and 19 players that made the All Big 8 teams.  22 players on this team were taken in an NFL Draft after their senior years, including multiple reserves.

Q11. If computers are so incredible, why can’t any beat the spread more than 60% of the time?

A11. That is probably the best question we receive.  Computers may or may not be able to beat the spread 60% of the time, but when they do, none of us ever discover this, because it is never made available to the public.

At the Prediction Tracker, where the PiRate Ratings have finished number one against the spread and in picking winners multiple times, in a typical year, the top computer program beats the spread about 56% of the time.  The top geniuses in Las Vegas, the ones that are severely restricted in how much they can wager at each book (and frequently hire others to pretend to be innocent bettors with a system to place their bets for them), beat the spread 60-65% of the time.  

Before you say that the computers aren’t up to snuff when compared to the Vegas brains, you must understand something.  These brainy geniuses don’t pick every game on the board.  At the Prediction Tracker, we pick every game against the spread.  Some of the multi-millionaires winning in Vegas cannot pick every game and beat 56%.  On a typical week, the top bettors might pick as few as three games and seldom more than nine.  They tend to go with an odd number of games to avoid a .500 outcome which guarantees a loss.  Picking three games and going 2-1 or picking 9 games and going 6-3 on a semi-consistent basis will cause the books to restrict or prohibit these smarts from wagering.

Q12. Why do you withhold basketball ratings until after New Year’s Day?

A12. This isn’t a football question, but six of you have asked this of us.  Our college basketball ratings are based on weighted four factors statistics and strength of schedule.  Until teams have played about 10 games, the statistics don’t mean enough to be viable.  The variance in these stats is much too wide until every team has had 10 games to reduce it.  For instance, if we issued ratings today, Utah would be 10 points ahead of Kentucky as the best team.  When you win by 94 points over a team rated in the bottom 5, it is like beating Michigan State by 10.  Therefore, the ratings need a lot more games to be played before they are worth anything.  Starting in January is the perfect fit, since we have minimal football games remaining.

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: October 28, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Thursday	October 31
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Appalachian St.	Georgia Southern	16.9	16.3	17.3
Baylor	West Virginia	14.9	15.7	15.4
Friday	November 1
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Connecticut	Navy	-20.7	-19.8	-22.6
Saturday	November 2
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Wake Forest	North Carolina St.	6.2	5.9	6.4
Massachusetts	Liberty	-24.7	-23.9	-26.1
Florida Int’l.	Old Dominion	17.4	16.9	17.3
Coastal Carolina	Troy	-2.6	-2.1	-2.3
Georgia Tech	Pittsburgh	-7.6	-9.1	-7.4
Purdue	Nebraska	3.5	2.6	3.7
Central Florida	Houston	19.9	18.3	18.7
Maryland	Michigan	-17.1	-16.4	-18.7
Indiana	Northwestern	7.1	7.1	8.0
Bowling Green	Akron	5.9	5.7	7.0
Illinois	Rutgers	19.3	20.6	19.8
East Carolina	Cincinnati	-24.6	-21.8	-25.2
Syracuse	Boston College	6.6	6.3	5.7
Eastern Michigan	Buffalo	-0.6	-1.1	-1.5
North Carolina	Virginia	1.8	1.6	2.8
Utah St.	BYU	4.4	3.6	5.2
Notre Dame	Virginia Tech	19.2	17.4	18.5
USC	Oregon	-5.7	-5.2	-6.6
UCLA	Colorado	7.9	7.8	7.6
Kansas	Kansas St.	-12.0	-10.9	-11.7
Louisiana	Texas St.	22.1	21.5	22.6
South Carolina	Vanderbilt	17.4	16.9	18.1
Central Michigan	Northern Illinois	-7.2	-5.5	-6.5
Rice	Marshall	-8.4	-6.7	-10.0
Colorado St.	UNLV	4.3	6.5	5.1
Memphis	SMU	2.0	2.1	1.3
Texas A&M	UTSA	44.8	40.6	43.9
Air Force	Army	13.5	14.9	15.5
Arizona	Oregon St.	4.3	3.1	4.6
Tennessee	UAB	22.4	20.0	20.2
Auburn	Ole Miss	21.3	20.4	21.5
Florida (n)	Georgia	-3.5	-4.5	-3.8
Oklahoma St.	TCU	5.7	3.5	4.7
North Texas	UTEP	24.4	19.5	23.9
Tulane	Tulsa	10.9	10.8	10.1
Arkansas	Mississippi St.	-11.2	-7.3	-15.8
Charlotte	Middle Tennessee	-5.2	-4.0	-5.2
Western Kentucky	Florida Atlantic	-1.5	-0.3	-0.8
UL-Monroe	Arkansas St.	-2.6	-2.1	-2.4
Florida St.	Miami (Fla.)	2.1	2.9	1.5
Nevada	New Mexico	8.7	7.4	8.8
Washington	Utah	-6.3	-5.7	-6.2
San Jose St.	Boise St.	-16.1	-13.8	-16.7
Hawaii	Fresno St.	5.4	6.0	4.3
FBS vs.	FCS
Clemson	Wofford	48

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	138.7	137.8	139.8	138.8
2	Clemson	135.0	132.7	136.0	134.6
3	Alabama	135.3	132.2	136.0	134.5
4	L S U	129.1	126.8	129.0	128.3
5	Georgia	126.5	124.6	126.4	125.8
6	Penn St.	124.6	123.8	124.9	124.5
7	Utah	123.7	122.6	124.5	123.6
8	Auburn	123.7	122.0	123.7	123.1
9	Oklahoma	123.2	122.4	122.9	122.8
10	Florida	123.0	120.1	122.6	121.9
11	Michigan	121.5	119.9	121.8	121.1
12	Wisconsin	120.1	119.7	120.0	119.9
13	Oregon	118.4	118.4	119.6	118.8
14	Iowa	118.8	117.0	118.7	118.1
15	Minnesota	117.8	117.6	117.5	117.6
16	Notre Dame	117.6	115.8	117.3	116.9
17	Texas A&M	117.4	115.6	116.4	116.5
18	Iowa St.	114.5	115.1	114.7	114.8
19	Washington	114.3	114.0	115.3	114.5
20	Baylor	114.3	114.5	113.9	114.2
21	Central Florida	113.7	113.0	114.5	113.7
22	Washington St.	112.7	111.9	113.2	112.6
23	Michigan St.	112.4	111.5	111.9	111.9
24	South Carolina	111.7	110.0	111.1	110.9
25	Missouri	111.3	108.9	110.8	110.3
26	Kansas St.	110.4	110.3	110.2	110.3
27	Oklahoma St.	110.0	110.5	109.5	110.0
28	U S C	109.6	110.2	110.0	110.0
29	Texas	109.6	109.9	109.6	109.7
30	Mississippi St.	109.1	105.5	113.1	109.2
31	Tennessee	109.5	109.1	108.3	109.0
32	Cincinnati	108.6	107.4	109.2	108.4
33	T C U	107.3	110.0	107.8	108.4
34	Indiana	108.8	107.7	108.4	108.3
35	Appalachian St.	108.7	107.8	108.4	108.3
36	Kentucky	108.4	107.0	107.3	107.6
37	Virginia	107.2	107.2	107.1	107.2
38	SMU	106.7	106.5	107.9	107.0
39	Arizona St.	106.9	106.2	107.4	106.9
40	Boise St.	106.4	106.1	106.7	106.4
41	North Carolina	105.9	105.8	106.9	106.2
42	Memphis	105.7	105.6	106.2	105.8
43	Florida St.	105.6	105.7	105.8	105.7
44	Miami (Fla.)	105.5	104.9	106.4	105.6
45	Pittsburgh	105.6	105.3	105.7	105.5
46	Duke	105.4	104.8	105.3	105.2
47	Air Force	104.3	105.7	105.4	105.1
48	Ole Miss	105.5	104.5	105.2	105.1
49	Northwestern	104.6	103.6	103.4	103.9
50	Texas Tech	104.1	104.3	103.2	103.9
51	Wake Forest	103.8	103.2	104.1	103.7
52	Stanford	103.7	103.0	103.4	103.4
53	Purdue	103.6	103.3	102.9	103.3
54	Nebraska	103.1	103.7	102.3	103.0
55	Syracuse	103.4	102.7	102.8	103.0
56	California	102.5	102.1	103.0	102.5
57	Utah St.	102.5	101.7	103.3	102.5
58	West Virginia	102.4	101.8	101.5	101.9
59	Virginia Tech	101.3	101.4	101.7	101.5
60	Illinois	101.2	102.1	100.6	101.3
61	Louisiana	101.1	101.2	101.0	101.1
62	U C L A	101.0	100.8	100.6	100.8
63	Maryland	101.4	100.5	100.0	100.6
64	Tulane	99.7	100.5	100.1	100.1
65	Boston College	99.8	99.4	100.1	99.8
66	Wyoming	98.7	100.9	99.3	99.6
67	BYU	99.6	99.6	99.6	99.6
68	North Carolina St.	99.6	99.3	99.7	99.5
69	Louisville	99.3	99.1	99.2	99.2
70	Arizona	98.9	98.7	98.6	98.7
71	Western Michigan	98.6	97.7	98.5	98.3
72	San Diego St.	97.6	99.3	97.4	98.1
73	Temple	98.0	97.2	98.8	98.0
74	Oregon St.	97.6	98.6	97.1	97.8
75	Houston	96.8	97.7	98.8	97.7
76	Kansas	96.9	97.9	97.0	97.3
77	Navy	95.9	98.4	96.8	97.1
78	Vanderbilt	97.3	96.0	96.0	96.4
79	Colorado	96.2	96.0	96.0	96.0
80	Hawaii	95.8	97.3	95.0	96.0
81	Fresno St.	94.9	95.8	95.2	95.3
82	Arkansas	94.9	95.2	94.2	94.8
83	Florida Atlantic	94.5	94.2	95.5	94.7
84	Georgia Tech	94.9	93.2	95.3	94.5
85	Georgia Southern	94.8	94.5	94.0	94.5
86	Ohio	94.2	93.3	94.7	94.1
87	Northern Illinois	94.3	93.4	94.5	94.1
88	Southern Miss.	94.4	93.1	94.6	94.0
89	Louisiana Tech	93.8	94.2	94.1	94.0
90	Army	93.8	93.8	92.8	93.5
91	Georgia St.	92.3	93.6	92.0	92.6
92	Tulsa	91.8	92.7	93.0	92.5
93	Troy	92.1	92.7	91.2	92.0
94	Middle Tennessee	91.9	91.1	92.2	91.7
95	South Florida	91.1	92.3	91.5	91.6
96	Western Kentucky	90.5	91.5	92.2	91.4
97	Buffalo	90.5	91.1	91.8	91.1
98	U A B	90.1	92.0	91.0	91.1
99	Arkansas St.	91.1	91.3	90.8	91.1
100	Marshall	90.6	90.0	91.4	90.7
101	North Texas	90.5	89.8	90.8	90.4
102	Ball St.	90.2	89.7	90.2	90.0
103	Miami (Ohio)	89.3	88.0	89.7	89.0
104	Toledo	88.2	88.5	88.9	88.5
105	Liberty	87.9	89.0	88.0	88.3
106	Florida Int’l.	88.3	88.1	88.3	88.2
107	San Jose St.	87.3	89.3	87.1	87.9
108	Eastern Michigan	87.3	87.5	87.8	87.6
109	Kent St.	87.4	87.2	87.7	87.4
110	Colorado St.	85.9	89.6	86.4	87.3
111	Coastal Carolina	87.0	88.1	86.4	87.2
112	Nevada	86.1	87.4	85.2	86.2
113	Louisiana-Monroe	86.0	86.7	85.8	86.2
114	Central Michigan	84.7	85.4	85.5	85.2
115	U N L V	84.6	86.1	84.3	85.0
116	Charlotte	84.3	84.6	84.5	84.5
117	Rutgers	84.9	84.6	83.9	84.5
118	Texas St.	82.0	82.7	81.4	82.0
119	East Carolina	81.0	82.6	81.0	81.5
120	New Mexico	79.9	82.5	78.8	80.4
121	Rice	79.7	80.8	78.9	79.8
122	New Mexico St.	76.2	78.3	76.2	76.9
123	Texas-San Antonio	74.7	77.0	74.5	75.4
124	South Alabama	74.3	76.8	73.5	74.9
125	Connecticut	73.2	76.6	72.3	74.0
126	Old Dominion	73.5	73.7	73.4	73.5
127	Bowling Green	72.7	72.4	72.6	72.6
128	U T E P	68.6	72.9	69.4	70.3
129	Akron	69.4	69.3	68.2	68.9
130	Massachusetts	60.7	62.6	59.4	60.9

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	113.7	113.0	114.5	113.7	3-1	6-2
Cincinnati	108.6	107.4	109.2	108.4	3-0	6-1
Temple	98.0	97.2	98.8	98.0	2-2	5-3
South Florida	91.1	92.3	91.5	91.6	2-2	4-4
East Carolina	81.0	82.6	81.0	81.5	0-4	3-5
Connecticut	73.2	76.6	72.3	74.0	0-4	2-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
SMU	106.7	106.5	107.9	107.0	4-0	8-0
Memphis	105.7	105.6	106.2	105.8	3-1	7-1
Tulane	99.7	100.5	100.1	100.1	2-2	5-3
Houston	96.8	97.7	98.8	97.7	1-3	3-5
Navy	95.9	98.4	96.8	97.1	4-1	6-1
Tulsa	91.8	92.7	93.0	92.5	0-4	2-6
AAC Averages	96.8	97.5	97.5	97.3
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	135.0	132.7	136.0	134.6	6-0	8-0
Florida St.	105.6	105.7	105.8	105.7	3-3	4-4
Wake Forest	103.8	103.2	104.1	103.7	2-1	6-1
Syracuse	103.4	102.7	102.8	103.0	0-4	3-5
Boston College	99.8	99.4	100.1	99.8	2-3	4-4
North Carolina St.	99.6	99.3	99.7	99.5	1-2	4-3
Louisville	99.3	99.1	99.2	99.2	3-2	5-3
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Virginia	107.2	107.2	107.1	107.2	3-2	5-3
North Carolina	105.9	105.8	106.9	106.2	3-2	4-4
Miami (Fla.)	105.5	104.9	106.4	105.6	2-3	4-4
Pittsburgh	105.6	105.3	105.7	105.5	2-2	5-3
Duke	105.4	104.8	105.3	105.2	2-3	4-4
Virginia Tech	101.3	101.4	101.7	101.5	3-2	5-2
Georgia Tech	94.9	93.2	95.3	94.5	1-3	2-5
ACC Averages	105.2	104.6	105.4	105.1
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	123.2	122.4	122.9	122.8	4-1	7-1
Iowa St.	114.5	115.1	114.7	114.8	3-2	5-3
Baylor	114.3	114.5	113.9	114.2	4-0	7-0
Kansas St.	110.4	110.3	110.2	110.3	2-2	5-2
Oklahoma St.	110.0	110.5	109.5	110.0	2-3	5-3
Texas	109.6	109.9	109.6	109.7	3-2	5-3
T C U	107.3	110.0	107.8	108.4	2-2	4-3
Texas Tech	104.1	104.3	103.2	103.9	1-4	3-5
West Virginia	102.4	101.8	101.5	101.9	1-3	3-4
Kansas	96.9	97.9	97.0	97.3	1-4	3-5
Big 12 Averages	109.3	109.7	109.0	109.3
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	138.7	137.8	139.8	138.8	5-0	8-0
Penn St.	124.6	123.8	124.9	124.5	5-0	8-0
Michigan	121.5	119.9	121.8	121.1	3-2	6-2
Michigan St.	112.4	111.5	111.9	111.9	2-3	4-4
Indiana	108.8	107.7	108.4	108.3	3-2	6-2
Maryland	101.4	100.5	100.0	100.6	1-4	3-5
Rutgers	84.9	84.6	83.9	84.5	0-5	2-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	120.1	119.7	120.0	119.9	3-2	6-2
Iowa	118.8	117.0	118.7	118.1	3-2	6-2
Minnesota	117.8	117.6	117.5	117.6	5-0	8-0
Northwestern	104.6	103.6	103.4	103.9	0-5	1-6
Purdue	103.6	103.3	102.9	103.3	1-4	2-6
Nebraska	103.1	103.7	102.3	103.0	2-3	4-4
Illinois	101.2	102.1	100.6	101.3	2-3	4-4
Big Ten Averages	111.5	110.9	111.1	111.2
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	94.5	94.2	95.5	94.7	3-1	5-3
Middle Tennessee	91.9	91.1	92.2	91.7	2-2	3-5
Western Kentucky	90.5	91.5	92.2	91.4	4-1	5-3
Marshall	90.6	90.0	91.4	90.7	3-1	5-3
Florida Int’l.	88.3	88.1	88.3	88.2	2-3	4-4
Charlotte	84.3	84.6	84.5	84.5	1-3	3-5
Old Dominion	73.5	73.7	73.4	73.5	0-4	1-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Southern Miss.	94.4	93.1	94.6	94.0	3-1	5-3
Louisiana Tech	93.8	94.2	94.1	94.0	4-0	7-1
U A B	90.1	92.0	91.0	91.1	3-1	6-1
North Texas	90.5	89.8	90.8	90.4	2-2	3-5
Rice	79.7	80.8	78.9	79.8	0-4	0-8
Texas-San Antonio	74.7	77.0	74.5	75.4	2-2	3-4
U T E P	68.6	72.9	69.4	70.3	0-4	1-6
CUSA Averages	86.1	86.7	86.5	86.4
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	117.6	115.8	117.3	116.9	x	5-2
BYU	99.6	99.6	99.6	99.6	x	3-4
Army	93.8	93.8	92.8	93.5	x	3-5
Liberty	87.9	89.0	88.0	88.3	x	5-3
New Mexico St.	76.2	78.3	76.2	76.9	x	0-8
Massachusetts	60.7	62.6	59.4	60.9	x	1-7
Indep. Averages	89.3	89.8	88.9	89.3
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Ohio	94.2	93.3	94.7	94.1	3-1	4-4
Buffalo	90.5	91.1	91.8	91.1	2-2	4-4
Miami (Ohio)	89.3	88.0	89.7	89.0	3-1	4-4
Kent St.	87.4	87.2	87.7	87.4	2-2	3-5
Bowling Green	72.7	72.4	72.6	72.6	1-3	2-6
Akron	69.4	69.3	68.2	68.9	0-4	0-8
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	98.6	97.7	98.5	98.3	3-2	5-4
Northern Illinois	94.3	93.4	94.5	94.1	2-2	3-5
Ball St.	90.2	89.7	90.2	90.0	3-1	4-4
Toledo	88.2	88.5	88.9	88.5	2-2	5-3
Eastern Michigan	87.3	87.5	87.8	87.6	1-3	4-4
Central Michigan	84.7	85.4	85.5	85.2	3-2	5-4
MAC Averages	87.2	87.0	87.5	87.2
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	106.4	106.1	106.7	106.4	3-0	6-1
Air Force	104.3	105.7	105.4	105.1	4-1	6-2
Utah St.	102.5	101.7	103.3	102.5	3-1	4-3
Wyoming	98.7	100.9	99.3	99.6	3-1	6-2
Colorado St.	85.9	89.6	86.4	87.3	2-2	3-5
New Mexico	79.9	82.5	78.8	80.4	0-4	2-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
San Diego St.	97.6	99.3	97.4	98.1	4-1	7-1
Hawaii	95.8	97.3	95.0	96.0	2-2	5-3
Fresno St.	94.9	95.8	95.2	95.3	1-2	3-4
San Jose St.	87.3	89.3	87.1	87.9	1-3	4-4
Nevada	86.1	87.4	85.2	86.2	1-3	4-4
U N L V	84.6	86.1	84.3	85.0	1-4	2-6
MWC Averages	93.7	95.1	93.7	94.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	118.4	118.4	119.6	118.8	5-0	7-1
Washington	114.3	114.0	115.3	114.5	2-3	5-3
Washington St.	112.7	111.9	113.2	112.6	1-4	4-4
Stanford	103.7	103.0	103.4	103.4	3-3	4-4
California	102.5	102.1	103.0	102.5	1-4	4-4
Oregon St.	97.6	98.6	97.1	97.8	2-2	3-4
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	123.7	122.6	124.5	123.6	4-1	7-1
U S C	109.6	110.2	110.0	110.0	4-1	5-3
Arizona St.	106.9	106.2	107.4	106.9	2-3	5-3
U C L A	101.0	100.8	100.6	100.8	3-2	3-5
Arizona	98.9	98.7	98.6	98.7	2-3	4-4
Colorado	96.2	96.0	96.0	96.0	1-4	3-5
Pac-12 Averages	107.1	106.9	107.4	107.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	126.5	124.6	126.4	125.8	3-1	6-1
Florida	123.0	120.1	122.6	121.9	5-1	7-1
South Carolina	111.7	110.0	111.1	110.9	2-4	3-5
Missouri	111.3	108.9	110.8	110.3	2-2	5-3
Tennessee	109.5	109.1	108.3	109.0	2-3	3-5
Kentucky	108.4	107.0	107.3	107.6	2-4	4-4
Vanderbilt	97.3	96.0	96.0	96.4	1-3	2-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Alabama	135.3	132.2	136.0	134.5	5-0	8-0
L S U	129.1	126.8	129.0	128.3	4-0	8-0
Auburn	123.7	122.0	123.7	123.1	3-2	6-2
Texas A&M	117.4	115.6	116.4	116.5	3-2	5-3
Mississippi St.	109.1	105.5	113.1	109.2	1-4	3-5
Ole Miss	105.5	104.5	105.2	105.1	2-3	3-5
Arkansas	94.9	95.2	94.2	94.8	0-5	2-6
SEC Averages	114.5	112.7	114.3	113.8
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	108.7	107.8	108.4	108.3	4-0	7-0
Georgia Southern	94.8	94.5	94.0	94.5	2-1	4-3
Georgia St.	92.3	93.6	92.0	92.6	3-1	6-2
Troy	92.1	92.7	91.2	92.0	1-2	3-4
Coastal Carolina	87.0	88.1	86.4	87.2	0-3	3-4
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	101.1	101.2	101.0	101.1	2-1	5-2
Arkansas St.	91.1	91.3	90.8	91.1	2-2	4-4
Louisiana-Monroe	86.0	86.7	85.8	86.2	2-1	3-4
Texas St.	82.0	82.7	81.4	82.0	1-2	2-5
South Alabama	74.3	76.8	73.5	74.9	0-4	1-7
SBC Averages	90.9	91.5	90.5	91.0

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	Southeastern	113.8
2	Big Ten	111.2
3	Big 12	109.3
4	Pac-12	107.1
5	Atlantic Coast	105.1
6	American	97.3
7	Mountain West	94.2
8	Sun Belt	91.0
9	Independents	89.3
10	Mid-American	87.2
11	Conference USA	86.4

 

Top 5 Group of 5
1	SMU
2	Appalachian St.
3	Cincinnati
4	Navy
5	Boise St.

 

This Week’s Look At Some Key Contenders Not Getting Enough Publicity

What a difference a strange weekend of football makes!  With Kansas State beating Oklahoma, and LSU taking care of business against Auburn, the playoff picture began to swing toward the SEC getting two teams into the Playoffs.  At the moment, the Big Ten still has three undefeated teams, so there is a chance that the Big Ten could get two teams into the Playoffs if the regular season ends with a 13-0 team and a 12-1 or 11-1 team.

Minnesota will get its chance to prove whether they truly are Golden Gophers or just pests digging a hole in the ground.  If  Minny can beat Penn State, and then the Gophers follow it up with wins at Iowa and at home against Wisconsin, then the least Minnesota could get for a postseason reward would be their first trip to the Rose Bowl since January of 1962.

Having closely watched and diagnosed every scrimmage play in Minnesota’s last two games, this team looks to be legitimate.  The Gophers have an excellent inside-outside running attack.  Their running backs hit the perimeter quickly with speed.  The Gophers can get yards between the tackles as well.  Of all the teams we have seen so far this year, Minnesota’s rushing attack is the most consistent among teams that do not use the option.

The Gopher passing attack is one of the best in the nation with Tanner Morgan just a fraction behind Ohio State’s Justin Fields in league passer efficiency.

The Gophers aren’t all offense.  The Minnesota defense is surrendering just 284 yards (13th best in the nation) and 20 points per game. But, the defense is on a roll.  After giving up 119 points in their first four games, UM has given up just 41 in the last four.

Penn State and Minnesota both have the week off to prepare for this big game.  Unfortunately, this is the same day as the Alabama-LSU game, so it will be second banana to the first of many “game of the years.”

 

Baylor is still undefeated, the final team from the Big 12 that can say that now that Oklahoma has fallen.  In order for Baylor to get to the playoffs, the Bears must run the table, and that means almost assuredly having to beat Oklahoma twice.  A split puts Baylor in either the Sugar Bowl or Cotton Bowl, if that it their only loss.

 

Out in the Pac-12, Utah and Oregon face key games this week.  Utah plays at Washington, while Oregon  plays at USC.  If both division leaders win, then they must be put in contention for a playoff spot if the Conference Championship Game winner is 12-1, while the runner-up is 11-2.

 

In the Group of 5 this week, SMU plays at Memphis, and the winner will be a co-leader with Cincinnati for the Cotton Bowl bid.  Appalachian State is still undefeated, but the Mountaineers will have to win out (including winning at South Carolina), while SMU will have to lose a game, before Appy has a chance to get to the Cotton Bowl. 

 

This Week’s Playoffs and Bowl Projections

American Athletic

SMU held on to a narrow road win against Houston, so the Mustangs are the current top Group of 5 team in line to play at home in the Cotton Bowl.  Memphis is still alive only by a fluke missed chip-shot field goal by Tulsa.  Cincinnati and Navy still have shots at that Cotton Bowl bid, while Central Florida is still around with two losses should a bunch of teams lose in November.

East Carolina, Houston, and South Florida still have minute chances to get bowl eligible, but our ratings are calling for all three to miss out.  Tulane needs one more win to become bowl eligible, and they must beat Tulsa this weekend, or the Green Wave could miss out.  Their final three games are tough.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Atlantic Coast

Clemson should be able to coast home with a 13-0 record and Playoff bid.  The Tigers should win their final four regular season games by margins of 20 or more every week.  The Coastal Division will probably send a 5-3 team to the ACC Championship Game, and other than North Carolina looking for revenge, we don’t see any of the other contenders making the title game close.

Notre Dame caucuses with the ACC for bowl bids, and with no viable ACC team looking formidable, the Irish will most likely take the next bowl in the ACC pecking order.  This week, we are going with a Big Ten team in the Orange Bowl, so for now it looks like the Citrus Bowl for the number two team in this group.

Including Notre Dame, there is a good chance that the ACC will have 12 bowl eligible teams, meaning there will be room for two additional at-large bowl bids.  The ACC has secondary agreements with the Birmingham and Gasparilla Bowls.  The Birmingham Bowl will most definitely need an at-large team, so ACC #11 will get that bid.  The Gasparilla Bowl most likely will not need an at-large team, but that ACC #12 will still receive an at-large bid.  With the SEC obviously falling well short this year, that #12 ACC team could end up in Memphis in the Liberty Bowl.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 12 (includes Notre Dame)

 

Big 12

With Oklahoma losing, for now, we are keeping the Big 12 out of the Playoffs.  There is still a 20% chance that either Baylor or Oklahoma run the table to stay in contention at the end.  One team will have to sweep the other to pull it off.

TCU’s upset of Texas (wasn’t really an upset) puts the Horned Frogs back into position to become bowl eligible, while Texas Tech’s loss to Kansas knocks the Red Raiders out of contention for now.  We’re not ready to put Les Miles and his Jayhawks into contention, but if KU knocks off Kansas State this weekend, then we might be forced to give them some consideration.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Big Ten

Ohio State has an excellent chance to make the Playoffs as the top seed.  On the other hand, they might have to get there by beating an undefeated Penn State or Minnesota team, and they have to play at Michigan.  Could history from repeat itself from 50 years ago?  In 1969, the best ever Ohio State team coming off a really embarrassing blowout of Michigan the year before, went to Ann Arbor to face a two-loss Michigan team.  Michigan’s defense did the near-impossible, stopping the greatest Buckeye offense in school history.  We can hardly wait.

Indiana’s win at Nebraska virtually guarantees that the Hoosiers will become bowl eligible.  Illinois’s win over Purdue puts Lovie Smith’s Illini in strong contention for a bowl bid, while Purdue played itself out of contention.

Michigan State is struggling, but the Spartans should win six or seven games to become bowl eligible, while Nebraska is hoping the return of Adrian Martinez and games with Purdue and Maryland will get the Cornhuskers to 6-6.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 10

 

Conference USA

This is a down year for CUSA, as no team is in contention for the Group of 5 NY6 Bowl bid.  In the East, Marshall is now in control of their destiny thanks to a last-play 53-yard field goal against Western Kentucky.  Florida Atlantic and WKU are the other teams still in contention, but all three of these teams will get bowl bids.

In the West, it is looking like there could be a three-way tie between Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, and UAB.  North Texas is suffering a disappointing year, and the Mean Green have been removed from bowl contention by our ratings.

We expect CUSA to have on more bowl eligible team than it has bowl contracts, and that sixth team might be headed to Shreveport, Louisiana in late December.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 6

 

Independents

(not including Notre Dame, which counts with the ACC)

This has turned into a disappointing season for Army, and we now have the Black Knights finishing under .500.  Brigham Young has an automatic bowl bid to Hawaii if the Cougars go 6-6 or better.  6-6 is the most likely record for BYU.

Liberty has not been to a bowl in its short history in FBS football, but the Flames have a secondary agreement with the Cure Bowl should the Cure Bowl need an at-large team.  This week, for the first time, we have the Cure Bowl needing an at-large team, so Hugh Freeze might be staying quite warm in Florida in December.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 2

 

Mid-American

This is a down year in the MAC, but the parity is going to lead to many more bowl eligible teams than the MAC has bowls to place them.  The MAC has five guaranteed bowl bids plus secondary agreements with two others.  One of those other secondary agreements is the Quick Lane Bowl which will not need an at-large team.  The Frisco Bowl always needs an at-large team, since there is only one tie-in, so the MAC can expect a second consecutive bowl bid there.  This year, the MAC is likely to see at least one additional team go to a bowl that has no MACtion secondary agreement.  Because our ratings this week forecast 79 bowl eligible teams, the odd team out is likely to be a 6-6 MAC team.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 8 (But only 7 will receive bids)

 

Mountain West

The Mountain West will most likely lose its secondary chance at the Hawaii and Cheez-it Bowls, which means that the league will only have five guaranteed bowl bids.  This league will most likely have seven bowl eligible teams, so two members will be headed East and South in December.

Boise State still remains in contention for the Group of 5 NY6 bid to the Cotton Bowl, but the Broncos still have three tough tests remaining.  They must beat Utah State and Wyoming and then the West Division representative in the MWC Championship Game.  For now, we have Boise winning the championship but not getting the Cotton Bowl bid.

Air Force has a chance to finish 10-2, and the Falcons could be moved out of the MWC’s bowl tie-ins in order to fly east to a more prestigious bowl, maybe replacing the SEC in a Southern bowl game.  Air Force can fill up most stadiums with Cadets, and they don’t have problems with airline reservations.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Pac-12

Oregon and Utah still have minor chances to sneak into the Playoffs, but until teams like Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, and Penn State start losing games, we will put the league champion in Pasadena.

This week, we remove California from bowl contention and put rival Stanford back in.  We also remove Arizona for now, so there will not be extra bowl eligible teams if our scenario plays itself out.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Southeastern

It may be the strongest league in college football, but the SEC is going to be the league that causes multiple bowls to look elsewhere for at-large teams.  The Independence and Birmingham Bowls must already be looking at potential at-large teams.  The Belk, Liberty, and Music City Bowls might also wish to start looking around for potential at-large teams.

If both Alabama and LSU make the playoffs, and then Florida and Georgia (or Auburn) then receive Sugar and Orange Bowl bids, four teams are already removed before the meat of the bowls look for what’s left.

Because Missouri is ineligible for a bowl, and Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and South Carolina look to be out of bowl contention, an Ole Miss Egg Bowl win over Mississippi State will likely leave the SEC with just 8 Bowl Eligible teams.  Only four teams will remain for the nine SEC spots needed to fulfill the SEC’s bowl contracts.

The Citrus, Outback, Gator, and Texas Bowls are the bowls that the SEC will need to fill.  That leaves the Belk, Music City, Liberty, Birmingham, and Independence Bowls without SEC teams.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 8

 

Sun Belt

Congratulations go out to Georgia State for joining Appy State as teams already eligible for bowls this year.  Appy State is hoping for a miracle.  If the Mountaineers win at South Carolina and finish the regular season 13-0, there is a chance they  could get the Cotton Bowl bid.  For now, we see them coming up one game short.

Louisiana is one win away from becoming bowl eligible, while Arkansas State and Georgia Southern have legitimate paths to bowl eligibility, and UL-Monroe has a path, just not as legitimate as the other two.

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 5

 

Bowl	Conf	Conf	Team	Team
Bahamas	MAC	CUSA	Western Michigan	Marshall
Frisco	AAC	At-large	SMU	[Miami (O)]
Cure	AAC	SBC	[Liberty]	Arkansas St.
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	Louisiana Tech	San Diego St.
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Memphis	Eastern Michigan
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Central Michigan	Louisiana
Las Vegas	MWC #1	Pac-12	Boise St.	Washington St.
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC #1	Southern Miss.	Appalachian St.
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	Central Florida	Florida Atlantic
Hawaii	BYU/MWC	AAC	BYU	Navy
Independence	ACC	SEC	Florida St.	[Western Kentucky]
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	North Carolina St.	Illiois
Military	ACC	AAC	Pittsburgh	Temple
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	North Carolina	Michigan St.
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas	Texas A&M
Holiday	Pac-12	Big Ten	USC	Michigan
Cheez-It	Big 12	Pac-12	TCU	Stanford
Camping World	ACC	Big 12	Virginia Tech	Oklahoma St.
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Cincinnati	Baylor
First Responder	CUSA	Big 12	UAB	[Utah St.]
Redbox	Pac-12	Big Ten	Washington	Iowa
Music City	SEC	ACC	[Air Force]	Louisville
Orange	ACC	BTen/SEC	Georgia	Penn St.
Belk	ACC	SEC	Wake Forest	[Buffalo]
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	Virginia	Arizona St.
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	Iowa St.	[Duke]
Arizona	SBC	MWC	Georgia Southern	San Jose St.
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Kansas St.	Oregon
Citrus	SEC	BTen/ACC	Auburn	Notre Dame
Outback	Big Ten	SEC	Indiana	Tennessee
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Minnesota	Utah
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	Oklahoma	Florida
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	Tulane	[Miami (Fla.)]
Taxslayer/Gator	SEC	Big Ten	Kentucky	Wisconsin
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Toledo	Wyoming
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	Nebraska	Hawaii
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