The PiRates Are Hard At Work For Football Season

Hello Mates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks,

The Captain

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PiRate Ratings Spreads For NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 Games of Friday, March 23

Sweet 16–Friday, March 23

Higher Seed	Lower Seed	Spread
Kansas	Clemson	1.7
Villanova	West Virginia	6.4
Duke	Syracuse	5.1
Purdue	Texas Tech	3.3

Friday Night’s Schedule

Friday, Mar 23, 2018
TIME (EDT)	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	City	TV
7:07 PM	1 Kansas	5 Clemson	Omaha	CBS
7:27 PM	1 Villanova	5 West Virginia	Boston	TBS
9:37 PM	2 Duke	11 Syracuse	Omaha	CBS
9:57 PM	2 Purdue	3 Texas Tech	Boston	TBS

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Spreads For NCAA Tournament Games of Sunday, March 18

Sunday’s PiRate Rating Spreads For NCAA Tournament Games

Higher Seed	Lower Seed	Spread
Purdue	Butler	5.4
Michigan St.	Syracuse	8.5
North Carolina	Texas A&M	5.9
Cincinnati	Nevada	4.9
Auburn	Clemson	1.4
Kansas St.	MD-Baltimore Co.	9.8
Xavier	Florida St.	3.7
West Virginia	Marshall	10.2

Sunday’s TV Schedule

All times Eastern Daylight

Sunday, Mar 18, 2018
TIME	Higher Seed	Lower Seed	City	TV
12:10 PM	2 Purdue	10 Butler	Detroit	CBS
2:40 PM	3 Michigan St.	11 Syracuse	Detroit	CBS
5:15 PM	2 North Carolina	7 Texas A&M	Charlotte	CBS
6:10 PM	2 Cincinnati	7 Nevada	Nashville	TNT
7:10 PM	4 Auburn	5 Clemson	San Diego	TBS
7:45 PM	9 Kansas St.	16 MD-Baltimore Co.	Charlotte	TruTV
8:40 PM	1 Xavier	9 Florida St.	Nashville	TNT
9:40 PM	5 West Virginia	13 Marshall	San Diego	TBS

Bracket-Picking Criteria Results

Of the eight teams in the Sweet 16 as of Saturday night, we still have six teams alive.  Our picks went 6-2 and were within a half-second of going 8-0, as our two losses came on last-second shots in the Loyola-Tennessee and Michigan-Houston games.

For the tournament, our picks are now 32-12.

The New PiRate Ratings Bracketology Criteria have performed on par with the traditional criteria that we used for over 20 years.  We will wait until the championship before deciding if the new criteria was worth discarding the old method.

Here is a look at today’s games as the criteria applies to each of the eight contests.

Purdue vs. Butler
The big question is, “Will Isaac Haas play?” The next biggest question is, “If he plays, can he be anywhere near 100%?”

If Haas is able to give anything close to his regular contribution, Purdue is too strong for Butler. But, as we have already seen in this tournament, Virginia not having its best defender, and Tennessee not having one of its key big men available were contributing factors in losses. If Haas is not able to play, then Butler gains a major advantage in this game. The Boilermakers rely on Haas more for his offense than his defense, and it is true shooting percentage margin where Purdue is so superior in this contest. Remove Haas and his 66% TS%, and this advantage melts away somewhat.

PiRate Pick: Purdue

Michigan St. vs. Syracuse
This will be an interesting contest. The schedule strengths are identical, so we can look at the stats as if the two teams have played the same exact schedules. Michigan State has a clear true shooting percentage margin advantage and the Spartans also enjoy a modest R+T rating advantage.
The interest in this game comes from Michigan State’s issue against zone defenses. The Syracuse 2-3 matchup zone is tough to face the first time, and the Spartans had all of a day to study it and then implement a strategy against it.
It’s a different zone entirely, but Michigan State fared poorly twice against Michigan’s 1-3-1 trapping zone. Syracuse will trap out of their matchup zone as well.
On paper, Miles Bridges and Cassius Winston should thrive against zone defenses, but they did not hit from outside in one of the two games, and they turned the ball over against the traps the other. Maybe, the third time’s the charm? Or then maybe Syracuse is primed to make another surprise run to the Final Four? We’ll stick with Sparty.

PiRate Pick: Michigan St.

North Carolina vs. Texas A&M
North Carolina is almost playing at home, but Kansas just showed that having an in-state regional doesn’t guarantee two easy victories. However, the Jayhawks advanced, so the Tar Heels should get a little extra help with maybe a point or point and a half for playing so close to home as the state school where the tournament will be played.
The Tar Heels don’t need all that much extra oomph in the Big Dance. They are the defending champions, and they appear to be nearing peak performance at the right time.
Texas A&M is not going to be the weak victim. The Aggies will have the power to keep the inside game honest. A&M actually has a slightly better true shooting percentage margin than the Tar Heels, but North Carolina enjoys the R+T advantage. Down the road, North Carolina might struggle against a team that can force turnovers, but A&M isn’t one of those teams.

PiRate Pick: North Carolina

Cincinnati vs. Nevada
This game could be interesting for awhile, but Cincinnati is a bit too physical for the underdog Wolf Pack. The Bearcats’ R+T rating advantage is considerable here, and they enjoy a small true shooting percentage advantage as well. Eventually, Cinti will dominate on the glass, and this should lead to a run of several points, where the Bearcats send the Wolf Pack back to Reno, and that’s no gamble saying so.

PiRate Pick: Cincinnati

Auburn vs. Clemson
This is another one of those games where one key injury makes a huge difference in one team’s statistics. Auburn just narrowly escaped a first round upset bid by Charleston, and without a dominating or even contributing big man, the Tigers just aren’t the same team they were before Anfernee McLemore was lost for the season.

Clemson is not going to just show up and win this game, and they may not win even if they produce an A+ effort. Auburn still has a tough pressure defense on the perimeter, and Clemson has a negative turnover margin, so the War Eagles should get a couple extra scoring opportunities with steals.

However, when it comes down to it, Clemson has a decidedly better true shooting percentage margin and should be able to score inside enough times to win this battle again. CU enjoys a slightly better stength of schedule, and this should be the final nail in the coffin in this game.

PiRate Pick: Clemson

Kansas St. vs. MD-Baltimore Co.
Can they do it again? Is there any way a Number 16 seed can be one of the last 16 in the field? Here’s the funny thing about this game: Kansas State is precariously on the minimum R+T margin line to be picked against anybody in the tournament. Teams that rebound as poorly as Kansas State seldom make it very far in the NCAA Tournament. There are just a handful of teams in the last 50 years that won twice in one NCAA Tournament when their rebounding margin was worse than -3.
Maryland-Baltimore County would have been our pick in this game if the Terriers had a positive rebounding margin of 1.5 or better, but UMBC also has a negative rebounding margin. The Terriers might have been our pick if they held the true shooting percentage margin advantage in this game, but Kansas State has the better numbers here as well. Throw in the fact that the Wildcats’ schedule strength is about 15 points stronger than that of UMBC, and we just cannot pull the trigger on this one and take the most incredible long shot to ever make the Sweet 16.

PiRate Pick: Kansas St.

Xavier vs. Florida St.
This game should be the second most exciting game of the day. The Seminoles match up well with the top-seeded Musketeers, and this game should remain close for at least all of the first half and a good bit of the second half. Xavier has a slightly stronger schedule strength which makes their true shooting percentage margin and R+T rating advantages enough to matter. The margin of safety in this game is rather small, almost nonexistent, so a cold shooting day by Xavier could be enough to turn this game the other way.

PiRate Pick: Xavier

West Virginia vs.Marshall
We saved the best for last. In case you didn’t know, there is more than just a Round of 32 game here. These two in-state rivals don’t get along, and it’s almost as hated as Xavier and Cincinnati. It carries over to the two coaches, as they don’t really like each other.
When there is a game like this, the smaller school almost always benefits in some way.

Marshall is a woman scorned as these teams prepare to face off in a foreign land known as San Diego. West Virginia refuses to play Marshall in basketball (and football), unless the Mountaineers get two home games for every Thundering Herd home game.
What about the game itself? This will be the most interesting game of the day. Press Virginia’s defense may not exploit much in the way Marshall attacks it. The Herd had no difficulty facing Middle Tennessee’s trapping defense, as they pasted the CUSA regular season champions both times they faced them.

Alas, there is one important rule that we always follow at the PiRate Ratings. Whenever a team in the NCAA Tournament had a negative R+T Rating, we select the other team as long as that team has a positive R+T Rating. Marshall’s R+T Rating is -4.8, while the Mountaineers have a 16.6 R+T, and that is enough to give WVU about 18 more scoring opportunities. Marshall would have to hit about 18 three-pointers to neutralize that advantage.

PiRate Pick: West Virginia

Original PiRate Ratings Bracketology Sunday Teams Picked for Sweet 16
All 8 of our original picks are still alive today.
Cincinnati
Xavier
North Carolina
West Virginia
Texas Tech
Purdue
Clemson
Michigan St.

 

PiRate Ratings 2017-18 College Football Final Polls

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

Retrodictive Rankings

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

The PiRate, Mean, and Bias Ratings

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

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings 2017-18 College Football Bowls & Playoffs Preview

2017-18 Bowls & Playoffs Schedule

All times are EST

Saturday, December 16

New Orleans Bowl: 1:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Cure Bowl: 2:30 PM on CBSSN

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

 

Las Vegas Bowl: 3:30 PM on ABC

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

 

New Mexico Bowl: 4:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Camellia Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Tuesday, December 19

Boca Raton Bowl: 7:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Wednesday, December 20

Frisco Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Thursday, December 21

Gasparilla Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Temple (6-6) vs. Florida Int’l. (8-4)

 

Friday, December 22

Bahamas Bowl: 12:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Idaho Potato Bowl: 4:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Saturday, December 23

Birmingham Bowl: 12:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Armed Forces Bowl: 3:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Dollar General Bowl: 7:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Sunday, December 24

Hawaii Bowl: 8:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Tuesday, December 26

Heart of Dallas Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Quick Lane Bowl: 5:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Cactus Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Wednesday, December 27

Independence Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Pinstripe Bowl: 5:15 PM on ESPN

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

 

Foster Farms: 8:30 PM on Fox

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

 

Texas Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Thursday, December 28

Military Bowl: 1:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Camping World Bowl: 5:15 PM on ESPN

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

 

Holiday Bowl: 9:00 PM on FS1

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

 

Alamo Bowl: 9:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Friday, December 29

Belk Bowl: 1:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Sun Bowl: 3:00 PM on CBS

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

 

Music City Bowl: 4:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Arizona Bowl: 5:30 PM on CBSSN

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

 

Cotton Bowl: 8:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Saturday, December 30

Taxslayer Bowl: 12:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Liberty Bowl: 12:30 PM on ABC

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

 

Fiesta Bowl: 4:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Orange Bowl: 8:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Monday, January 1

Outback Bowl: 12:00 OM on ESPN2

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

 

Peach Bowl: 12:30 PM on ESPN

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

 

Citrus Bowl: 1:00 PM on ABC

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

 

New Year’s Day Playoffs

Rose Bowl: 5:00 PM on ESPN

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

 

Sugar Bowl: 8:45 PM on ESPN

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

 

Monday, January 8

National Championship Game: 8:00 PM on ESPN

Rose Bowl Winner vs. Sugar Bowl Winner

 

PiRate Rating Spreads for Bowls/Playoffs

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

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Final Regular Season Polls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratings by Conference

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

 

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

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

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

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

Why the unique color purple?

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

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

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for December 1-2, 2017 (with 10-point teasers)

For those of you still following this weekly feature, we’ll buy and read your book you will write dealing with masochism.  This has been a lousy year for the PiRate Picks.  This week, there are not enough college games to put together many Money Line parlays, so we are dusting off and bringing out of mothballs our former claim to fame to give us 4 plays–10-point teasers.

For those of you who are not wise to a 10-point teaser, this type of play allows the player to move the point spread or totals number by 10 points in either direction and then play a parlay at certain odds.  We like to combine either 3 teams at -110 or 4 teams at +136 odds, and this week, we have two 4-game parlays at +136.

Thus, a winning week can be had with a 2-2 record, and at 3-1, it can be a very profitable week.  At 4-0, we get out of the red and into the black.  At 1-3 or 0-4, we take more Maalox.

Remember this most important aspect to this weekly feature–all our picks are just for fun, and we never wager real coin or currency or Bitcoins on these picks. We suggest you do the same as well.

#1 @ +273
Must Win	Must Lose
USC	Stanford
New Mexico St.	South Alabama
Clemson	Miami
Oklahoma	TCU

 

#2 @ +230
Must Win	Must Lose
Wisconsin	Ohio St.

 

#3 10-point teaser	+136
Clemson	Miami	Under 57
Wisconsin	Ohio St.	Under 62
Florida St.	UL-Monroe	Under 75
Oklahoma	TCU	Under 73.5

 

#4 10-point teaser	+136
Stanford	USC	Under 69
Florida Atlantic	North Texas	Under 84
Central Florida	Memphis	Under 92
Auburn	Georgia	Under 58

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

(n) means neutral site game

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

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

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

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

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

PiRate Rating by Conference

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

Pirate Conference Ratings

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

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

Bowl Projections

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

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

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Retro Rankings

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

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

PiRate Ratings For This Week

Forward Looking Predictive Ratings totally unrelated to rankings

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

PiRate Ratings By Conference

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

Conference Ratings

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

Bowl Projections

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

Championship Games and Bowl Eligibles By Conference

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

American Athletic

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

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

5-Wins: Temple and Tulane

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

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

Atlantic Coast 

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

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

5-Wins: Georgia Tech and Duke

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

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

4-Wins: Florida St.

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

Big 12

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

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

5-Wins: Texas Tech

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

Big Ten

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

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

5-Wins: Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota.

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

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

Conference USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

Independents

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

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

Mid-American

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

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

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

5-Wins: Buffalo

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

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

Mountain West

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

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

5-Wins: UNLV

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

Pac-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Southeastern

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

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

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

5-Wins: None

Sun Belt

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

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

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

5-Wins: UL-Lafayette

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

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

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

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

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

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

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