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

 

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PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for November 9-11, 2017

The Captain has regained control of the helm, and he is steering the PiRate ship once again.  Actually, the lasses suffered a loss last week, and they were too shy to come up with any parlays this week.  The Captain on short notice was only able to create two parlays, as he believes this may be a week to look at other wagering philosophies with several key games being played.

If you are new to this site, this weekly feature picks money line parlays that go off at better than +120 odds.  As a general rule, we look for 3-game parlays, but in some cases (like today), we will combine four or more games, and in fact, we once issued a 7-game parlay at +225 odds and won the wager.

Here are this week’s two parlay selections.  As always, consider this when deciding how you will make use of this publication: No PiRate booty has been jeopardized in the making of this feature.  We only play with pretend currency when selecting our parlays.

#1 @ +170
Must Win	Must Lose
Northwestern	Purdue
South Carolina	Florida
Southern Miss.	Rice

#2 @ +157
Must Win	Must Lose
Pittsburgh	North Carolina
Florida Int’l.	Old Dominion
Missouri	Tennessee
Middle Tenn.	Charlotte

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for November 2-6, 2017

The PiRate Captain had to send up the white flag after his lasses staged a successful mutiny two weeks ago. Much to his chagrin and ego, the ladies proceeded to come up with back-to-back weeks of pillaging of the Vegas vessels.

Last week, they brought in enough booty to send the SS Fortune into the black for the season. They proceeded to return a profit on the investment of a whopping 147%, missing out on going a perfect 4 for 4 by one play in overtime in the Appy State-U Mass game.  For the season, the PiRate Account is now in the black with a very modest 1% ROI.

The Captain will note that in the previous two seasons, the period from the last of October to the first of December followed the same MO–the selection results went from red numbers to black numbers and clinched a profit for the overall seasons.
Now, the lasses are lobbying to change the name of the PiRate ship to Queen Anne’s Revenge. The Captain is worried that five swollen heads on the lovely ladies could lead to a return of some booty to the Nevada books, but the ladies are overly confident that they have zeroed in using their superior female intuition.

Once again, the ladies picked the teams they thought had the best chance of winning outright but at the same time went off as small favorites, total tossups, or even slight underdogs. The Captain merely served as their accountant, putting together the best possible parlays as far as favorable odds go, thanks to his knowing which of the 2 dozen reputable books had the best overall odds.

 
The PiRate lasses selected four money line parlays, each going off at better than +120 odds, which is the unwritten rule for this weekly feature. Actually, there are just three parlays this week, as the fourth selection is a single game where the ladies believe the underdog should be favored by at least a touchdown.

Enjoy the picks, but remember, neither the ladies nor the Captain ever wager real money on the outcomes of these games. The goal here is to have fun with math.

#1 @ +155
Must Win	Must Lose
North Texas	Louisiana Tech

#2 @ +144
Must Win	Must Lose
Georgia St.	Georgia Southern
Kentucky	Ole Miss

#3 @ +167
Must Win	Must Lose
Navy	Temple
Northwestern	Nebraska

#4 @ +204
Must Win	Must Lose
Missouri	Florida
UAB	Rice
Tulane	Cincinnati

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for October 26-28, 2017

Oh brother!  I leave my ladies in charge of the website for a few days, and when I return from a nice long weekend, they have rearranged all the e-furniture.  Worse, they exchanged the Money Line picks I had left with their own, and they actually enjoyed a winning week.  They issued four selections (totally different than what I had left to be published), and they won two of the four for a return on investment of 28%.

Believe me, I have not heard the end of this.  Mrs. Captain, of course, sided with her gender, and so this week, I must defer to the ladies to pick the parlays yet again.  All I have done is to organize their picks into the best possible parlay odds by sourcing the best odds from the available books.  What you have as a result are four more parlays, each returning greater than +120 odds (actually this week better than +150) while playing no more than three games per parlay.

Because the ladies selected to teams to win outright as underdogs, and to minimize risk, I have combined these two underdogs in one parlay that, if it wins, it would return an incredible payoff at +375 (a $100 investment would return $475).

One preface to this before you look at the parlays.  Two of the ladies here bleed scarlet and gray and believe that the Giant Horseshoe is a basilica, tabernacle, shrine, and temple.  They believe that script Ohio is akin to the holy scriptures.  Their key pick this week is Ohio State over Penn State, and to add to their partiality, they refer to the opponent at State Pen, and they believe James Franklin was set on Earth by Lucifer.

Personally, I see the Buckeyes ready to get their revenge, but I know Coach Franklin and have seen him work miracles at Vanderbilt.  If he could win at Georgia and Florida as a bigger underdog than his Nittany Lions will be tomorrow, then he can certainly channel his inner Tom Lasorda and get his team ready to run through the walls at said horseshoe.  I would not have selected this game as part of a parlay, but then I have ceded control of this submission to the lasses.

#1 @ +152
Must Win	Must Lose
Northern Illinois	Eastern Michigan
Appalachian St.	Marshall
Georgia	Florida

#2 @ +162
Must Win	Must Lose
South Carolina	Vanderbilt
Notre Dame	NC State
Texas	Baylor

#3 @ +152
Must Win	Must Lose
SMU	Tulsa
Iowa	Minnesota
Ohio St.	Penn St.

#4 @ +375
Must Win	Must Lose
Northwestern	Michigan St.
Wyoming	New Mexico

Money Line Parlay Tutorial for newcomers to this site

If you are new to Money Lines and Parlays, hopefully this will explain it well enough for you to understand what is going on above.

When two sports teams play, the more familiar way to provide options for wagering is a pointspread.  For instance, say that Notre Dame is playing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.  Alabama might be favored to win by 6 1/2 points.  In order for Alabama to win the game for those that bet on the Crimson Tide, they would have to win by 7 or more points.  If Notre Dame won or lost by 6 points or less, then those that wagered on Notre Dame would win their bets.

There is another way to bet on this game.  It is called the “Money Line.”  Pointspreads are not used.  Instead, you simply pick either Alabama or Notre Dame to win the game.  If you can bet on Alabama to win this game, even by one point, it sounds too good to be true.  Yes, there is a catch here.  In order to bet on Alabama, you must put up more money than the sports book, but if you bet on the underdog Irish to win the game, the book puts up more money than you.  This is why the wager is called a “money line.”

When you look at money line odds, the favorite will have a minus number, and the underdog will have a plus number, although there are times when a tossup game will have two minus numbers.  The reason for this is that the sports books must get their cut or vigorish.

Let’s look at a couple games to be played tonight.  Northern Illinois hosts Eastern Michigan, and NIU is a modest favorite.  The Money Line is available at about 15 sports books where one could make a wager in one’s home via the Internet.  The line may vary from site to sire, so it is best to shop around to find the best odds.

For our purposes in this tutorial, we will use one famous online sports book, Five Dimes.  At the present time, the Money Line odds at 5D for the NIU-EMU game is listed at:   Northern Illinois -275, Eastern Michigan +235.

If you want to wager on NIU, you must put up $275 for every $100 5 Dimes puts up.  If you wager $100 on NIU to win, you will $36.36 profit and receive back $136.36 if NIU wins, and you will be out $100 if they lose.  If you wager $100 on EMU to win, you will receive $275 profit and receive back $375 if EMU wins, and you will be out $100 if they lose.

When you combine two or more games into one money line wager, your odds improve, but your chances of winning all the games in the one wager go down.  Let’s say you want to combine three favorites into one betting wager.  Let’s say you are going to play a parlay that includes Favorite #1 at -250, Favorite #2 at -225, and Favorite #3 at -180.

How do yo determine what the odds would be on this parlay of three favorites, all of whom would have to win their games for you to win your wager?  I won’t bore you with the mathematical formula.  There is an easy way to figure the odds, and it is called a parlay calculator.  You don’t have to buy this from a Las Vegas book store.  They are available for free in many places online.  In our opinion, the parlay calculator at Vegasinsider.com is the easiest one to use.  You can find this calculator at: http://www.vegasinsider.com/parlay-calculator/

First, we select $100 for the bet amount (you can put any other amount in this spot, but all of the PiRate Rating parlays are played at $100 per wager.  We simply input -250, -225-, and -180 adjacent to Team #1 Money Line, Team #2 Money Line, and Team #3 Money Line.  Then we click on “Calculate”, and we see the number $214.57 returned.  This means that if these three favorites we have selected all win their games, we will make a $214.57 profit and receive $314.57 in our account (The profit plus what we wagered).  If the three teams do not all win their games, we will be out the $100 we invested on this game.  It can be a headache to see two teams win their games, and then your final favored team loses in an upset due to a fourth quarter field goal, but it happens, and you have to live with it.

Our goal at the PiRate Ratings is to select parlays that return better than +120 odds, while betting mostly on favored teams.  We prefer to play no more than three games in a parlay, but there are times when we might play 6 or 7 prohibitive favorites when the odds look preferable.  We won a 7-team parlay once that returned +200 odds, and all 7 teams won by double-digits.  Of course, this is a rare event.  Every week, some big underdog will upset a favorite.  In recent weeks, we had some considerable underdogs pulling off big upsets.  Syracuse surprised Clemson.  Arizona State beat up on Washington, Arizona took out Washington State, Tulsa whipped Houston, Iowa State beat Oklahoma, and Troy beat LSU.  These sure things that could have been included on parlays destroyed the selections.

As usual, read this and understand it: The PiRates never wager real currency on our selections.  We enjoy the fun that mathematics married to athletics brings a group of math geeks.  We only wager imaginary money on these games, and thus we have no worries about issuing these picks.  They are strictly for the fun of it, and enjoying a winning week is a win for mathematics and not our bank accounts.

Enjoy the games, but be just as wealthy on Sunday morning as you are on Saturday morning.

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for October 26-28, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Ball St.	Toledo	-29.0	-26.8	-29.3
Georgia St.	South Alabama	-0.7	-3.5	-1.1
Northern Illinois	Eastern Michigan	1.1	1.3	1.6
Oregon St.	Stanford	-25.0	-23.9	-25.8
Boston College	Florida St.	-11.7	-10.5	-10.5
Memphis	Tulane	12.3	11.5	11.9
SMU	Tulsa	4.6	4.9	5.2
Purdue	Nebraska	5.4	4.3	7.0
Kentucky	Tennessee	6.4	6.9	7.7
South Carolina	Vanderbilt	8.8	8.6	9.2
Akron	Buffalo	4.2	4.3	2.7
South Florida	Houston	13.5	12.7	14.7
Wake Forest	Louisville	-3.4	-3.8	-3.6
North Carolina	Miami (Fla.)	-19.1	-17.9	-19.6
Michigan	Rutgers	20.0	20.2	19.5
Marshall	Florida Int’l.	13.2	14.2	14.3
Massachusetts	Appalachian St.	-4.6	-3.5	-4.3
Pittsburgh	Virginia	6.2	6.9	5.1
Clemson	Georgia Tech	14.0	13.8	14.7
Connecticut	Missouri	-9.8	-5.3	-8.6
West Virginia	Oklahoma St.	-11.3	-9.7	-12.0
Maryland	Indiana	-0.9	0.4	-1.6
Virginia Tech	Duke	18.5	18.7	20.2
Illinois	Wisconsin	-30.8	-26.5	-30.8
Coastal Carolina	Texas St.	3.9	2.4	6.4
Deleted	Game	0	0	0
Kansas	Kansas St.	-29.6	-26.4	-30.5
Iowa	Minnesota	9.5	8.5	10.0
Wyoming	New Mexico	7.2	6.1	5.5
New Mexico St.	Arkansas St.	-3.1	-6.4	-4.3
BYU	San Jose St.	15.0	14.8	15.1
UTEP	UTSA	-18.4	-17.3	-19.5
Idaho	Louisiana-Monroe	1.8	2.5	3.3
Colorado St.	Air Force	15.8	14.0	15.6
Southern Miss.	UAB	17.4	15.2	15.8
Colorado	California	3.9	4.7	3.2
Arizona St.	USC	-5.0	-5.3	-4.7
Rice	Louisiana Tech	-10.8	-11.4	-11.3
Oregon	Utah	5.3	1.8	3.9
Notre Dame	N. Carolina St.	5.7	4.9	6.3
Washington	UCLA	23.7	21.8	24.7
Troy	Georgia Southern	23.8	22.5	24.0
Northwestern	Michigan St.	10.4	7.1	9.5
Deleted	Game	0	0	0
North Texas	Old Dominion	3.4	2.7	3.9
Baylor	Texas	-12.9	-11.7	-13.7
Iowa St.	TCU	-6.6	-4.1	-6.1
Florida (n)	Georgia	-12.3	-13.6	-13.5
Western Kentucky	Florida Atlantic	0.6	-2.3	0.1
Arizona	Washington St.	-10.0	-8.7	-10.7
Oklahoma	Texas Tech	20.3	19.3	21.5
Ole Miss	Arkansas	6.4	5.5	5.6
Ohio St.	Penn St.	9.0	8.4	7.8
Texas A&M	Mississippi St.	1.4	-1.5	0.5
Utah St.	Boise St.	-6.4	-5.5	-6.4
Fresno St.	UNLV	16.4	12.9	17.4
Hawaii	San Diego St.	-7.1	-6.2	-8.0

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Central Florida	Austin Peay	41.0

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Retrodictive Ratings

Ranks teams based on what they have done this season (like AP and Coaches Polls)

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

Predictive Ratings

Rates teams so that you can compare ratings (add home field advantage and subtract visiting team disadvantage) and determine a predicted spread

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	138.7	134.5	137.5	136.9
2	Ohio St.	135.9	133.3	135.8	135.0
3	Penn St.	129.9	127.9	131.0	129.6
4	Georgia	126.3	126.7	126.7	126.6
5	Washington	127.3	124.6	127.7	126.5
6	Clemson	127.5	124.9	127.0	126.5
7	Auburn	126.1	124.0	126.2	125.4
8	Oklahoma St.	124.3	123.2	125.1	124.2
9	Virginia Tech	122.2	121.6	122.5	122.1
10	Oklahoma	121.6	120.6	122.0	121.4
11	Miami	121.7	119.7	121.0	120.8
12	Notre Dame	121.0	119.5	121.8	120.7
13	Wisconsin	122.0	118.9	120.7	120.6
14	Stanford	121.2	119.8	120.6	120.5
15	T C U	120.9	118.6	121.4	120.3
16	Florida St.	120.7	119.5	119.3	119.9
17	N. Carolina St.	118.3	117.6	118.4	118.1
18	Washington St.	118.1	115.5	117.7	117.1
19	U S C	116.0	115.4	115.7	115.7
20	L S U	115.9	114.0	116.4	115.4
21	Georgia Tech	116.5	114.1	115.3	115.3
22	Texas	114.1	114.5	114.8	114.5
23	Central Florida	113.0	114.4	114.3	113.9
24	Florida	114.0	113.1	113.2	113.4
25	Louisville	113.4	112.4	113.3	113.0
26	Michigan	112.5	112.6	111.5	112.2
27	Kansas St.	112.2	112.2	112.1	112.2
28	South Florida	112.0	110.8	113.1	112.0
29	Iowa State	111.2	111.5	112.3	111.7
30	Mississippi St.	111.4	112.0	111.6	111.7
31	Syracuse	111.8	110.1	111.2	111.0
32	Northwestern	111.2	109.6	111.3	110.7
33	West Virginia	109.9	110.5	110.1	110.2
34	Iowa	110.1	110.2	109.9	110.1
35	Texas A&M	109.8	107.5	109.1	108.8
36	Arizona St.	108.1	107.1	108.0	107.7
37	S. Carolina	108.3	107.3	107.4	107.7
38	Kentucky	107.7	106.5	107.0	107.1
39	Wake Forest	107.6	106.1	107.2	106.9
40	U C L A	106.6	105.8	106.0	106.1
41	Boston College	106.0	106.0	105.9	106.0
42	Duke	106.7	105.9	105.3	106.0
43	Colo. State	105.8	104.6	105.9	105.4
44	Colorado	106.5	105.0	104.2	105.2
45	Oregon	106.2	104.1	104.9	105.1
46	Indiana	104.8	104.9	105.2	105.0
47	Pittsburgh	105.0	105.0	104.5	104.8
48	Michigan St.	103.7	105.5	104.8	104.7
49	Memphis	104.8	104.2	105.0	104.6
50	Utah	103.9	105.3	103.9	104.4
51	Arizona	105.1	103.8	104.0	104.3
52	California	105.6	103.3	103.9	104.3
53	Texas Tech	104.3	104.2	103.5	104.0
54	Minnesota	103.7	104.7	102.9	103.8
55	Ole Miss	104.7	103.2	103.1	103.7
56	Purdue	103.1	103.1	103.6	103.3
57	Boise St.	103.9	102.2	103.7	103.3
58	Tennessee	104.3	102.6	102.3	103.1
59	Toledo	102.2	102.2	103.7	102.7
60	Vanderbilt	102.5	101.7	101.2	101.8
61	Virginia	101.8	101.1	102.3	101.8
62	Navy	101.4	102.1	101.6	101.7
63	Houston	101.5	101.0	101.4	101.3
64	Maryland	100.9	102.3	100.6	101.2
65	Arkansas	101.3	100.7	100.5	100.9
66	Nebraska	100.7	101.8	99.6	100.7
67	Baylor	99.2	100.9	99.2	99.8
68	Western Michigan	99.4	98.2	100.5	99.4
69	N. Carolina	99.6	98.8	98.4	98.9
70	SMU	98.1	98.5	98.4	98.3
71	San Diego St.	97.8	97.9	98.5	98.1
72	Army	97.8	97.9	98.3	98.0
73	Missouri	98.8	96.7	97.8	97.8
74	Fresno St.	97.7	96.3	98.6	97.6
75	Tulsa	96.5	96.6	96.1	96.4
76	Eastern Michigan	95.9	95.5	96.3	95.9
77	Florida Atlantic	94.5	96.9	95.9	95.8
78	Tulane	95.5	95.6	96.1	95.7
79	Troy	95.7	95.8	95.2	95.6
80	Ohio U	94.8	95.9	95.8	95.5
81	Rutgers	95.5	95.4	95.0	95.3
82	Arkansas St.	94.3	95.6	95.8	95.2
83	Marshall	94.0	95.2	95.8	95.0
84	Appalachian St.	95.5	93.9	95.5	95.0
85	Wyoming	95.6	94.3	94.5	94.8
86	Northern Illinois	94.0	93.9	94.9	94.2
87	Utah St.	94.5	93.7	94.3	94.2
88	U T S A	92.4	94.4	93.7	93.5
89	Air Force	92.5	93.1	92.8	92.8
90	W. Kentucky	92.5	92.1	93.5	92.7
91	Temple	92.5	93.0	92.5	92.7
92	Oregon St.	93.2	92.9	91.8	92.6
93	Central Michigan	91.2	92.1	91.6	91.6
94	New Mexico	91.4	91.2	92.0	91.5
95	Miami (O)	88.4	90.5	89.7	89.5
96	Louisiana Tech	88.4	90.1	89.2	89.3
97	BYU	88.9	88.8	88.3	88.6
98	Massachusetts	88.5	87.9	88.6	88.3
99	Cincinnati	87.1	89.1	88.4	88.2
100	Illinois	88.2	89.5	86.9	88.2
101	N. Mexico St.	88.7	86.7	89.0	88.1
102	Southern Miss.	87.4	88.6	87.9	87.9
103	Akron	86.9	89.3	87.4	87.9
104	S. Alabama	86.6	89.0	86.8	87.5
105	Nevada	86.2	88.2	87.7	87.3
106	Connecticut	86.0	88.3	86.2	86.8
107	Buffalo	85.2	87.5	87.2	86.6
108	Hawaii	86.2	87.2	86.0	86.5
109	U N L V	84.3	86.4	84.2	85.0
110	Middle Tennessee	84.3	85.5	84.9	84.9
111	Florida Int’l.	83.7	84.0	84.5	84.1
112	N. Texas	82.9	84.6	83.4	83.6
113	Old Dominion	82.4	85.0	82.5	83.3
114	Georgia St.	83.4	83.0	83.2	83.2
115	East Carolina	82.1	83.7	81.9	82.6
116	UL-Lafayette	80.9	82.3	80.9	81.4
117	Kansas	80.6	83.7	79.6	81.3
118	UL-Monroe	80.9	81.7	80.0	80.9
119	Idaho	79.7	81.2	80.4	80.4
120	Bowling Green	78.7	79.6	79.1	79.1
121	Kent St.	77.0	78.6	77.3	77.6
122	San Jose St.	76.9	77.0	76.2	76.7
123	Rice	75.1	76.2	75.4	75.6
124	Georgia Southern	74.3	75.8	73.7	74.6
125	UAB	72.5	75.8	74.5	74.3
126	U T E P	72.0	75.0	72.2	73.1
127	Charlotte	72.0	74.3	72.3	72.9
128	Coastal Carolina	71.9	73.0	73.3	72.8
129	Ball St.	70.7	72.9	71.9	71.8
130	Texas St.	70.6	73.0	69.4	71.0

PiRate  Ratings by Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	4-0	6-0	113.0	114.4	114.3	113.9
South Florida	4-0	7-0	112.0	110.8	113.1	112.0
Temple	1-3	3-5	92.5	93.0	92.5	92.7
Cincinnati	0-4	2-6	87.1	89.1	88.4	88.2
Connecticut	2-3	3-4	86.0	88.3	86.2	86.8
East Carolina	1-3	2-6	82.1	83.7	81.9	82.6
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	3-1	6-1	104.8	104.2	105.0	104.6
Navy	3-2	5-2	101.4	102.1	101.6	101.7
Houston	2-2	4-3	101.5	101.0	101.4	101.3
SMU	2-1	5-2	98.1	98.5	98.4	98.3
Tulsa	1-3	2-6	96.5	96.6	96.1	96.4
Tulane	1-2	3-4	95.5	95.6	96.1	95.7
AAC Averages			97.5	98.1	97.9	97.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	4-1	6-1	127.5	124.9	127.0	126.5
Florida St.	2-3	2-4	120.7	119.5	119.3	119.9
N. Carolina St.	4-0	6-1	118.3	117.6	118.4	118.1
Louisville	2-3	5-3	113.4	112.4	113.3	113.0
Syracuse	2-2	4-4	111.8	110.1	111.2	111.0
Wake Forest	1-3	4-3	107.6	106.1	107.2	106.9
Boston College	2-3	4-4	106.0	106.0	105.9	106.0
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Virginia Tech	2-1	6-1	122.2	121.6	122.5	122.1
Miami	4-0	6-0	121.7	119.7	121.0	120.8
Georgia Tech	3-1	4-2	116.5	114.1	115.3	115.3
Duke	1-4	4-4	106.7	105.9	105.3	106.0
Pittsburgh	1-3	3-5	105.0	105.0	104.5	104.8
Virginia	2-1	5-2	101.8	101.1	102.3	101.8
N. Carolina	0-5	1-7	99.6	98.8	98.4	98.9
ACC Averages			112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma St.	3-1	6-1	124.3	123.2	125.1	124.2
Oklahoma	3-1	6-1	121.6	120.6	122.0	121.4
T C U	4-0	7-0	120.9	118.6	121.4	120.3
Texas	2-2	3-4	114.1	114.5	114.8	114.5
Kansas St.	1-3	3-4	112.2	112.2	112.1	112.2
Iowa State	3-1	5-2	111.2	111.5	112.3	111.7
West Virginia	3-1	5-2	109.9	110.5	110.1	110.2
Texas Tech	1-3	4-3	104.3	104.2	103.5	104.0
Baylor	0-4	0-7	99.2	100.9	99.2	99.8
Kansas	0-4	1-6	80.6	83.7	79.6	81.3
Big 12 Averages			109.8	110.0	110.0	109.9
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	4-0	6-1	135.9	133.3	135.8	135.0
Penn St.	4-0	7-0	129.9	127.9	131.0	129.6
Michigan	2-2	5-2	112.5	112.6	111.5	112.2
Indiana	0-4	3-4	104.8	104.9	105.2	105.0
Michigan St.	4-0	6-1	103.7	105.5	104.8	104.7
Maryland	1-3	3-4	100.9	102.3	100.6	101.2
Rutgers	2-2	3-4	95.5	95.4	95.0	95.3
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	4-0	7-0	122.0	118.9	120.7	120.6
Northwestern	2-2	4-3	111.2	109.6	111.3	110.7
Iowa	1-3	4-3	110.1	110.2	109.9	110.1
Minnesota	1-3	4-3	103.7	104.7	102.9	103.8
Purdue	1-3	3-4	103.1	103.1	103.6	103.3
Nebraska	2-2	3-4	100.7	101.8	99.6	100.7
Illinois	0-4	2-5	88.2	89.5	86.9	88.2
Big Ten Averages			108.7	108.5	108.5	108.6
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida Atlantic	3-0	4-3	94.5	96.9	95.9	95.8
Marshall	3-0	6-1	94.0	95.2	95.8	95.0
W. Kentucky	3-1	5-2	92.5	92.1	93.5	92.7
Middle Tennessee	1-3	3-5	84.3	85.5	84.9	84.9
Florida Int’l.	2-1	4-2	83.7	84.0	84.5	84.1
Old Dominion	0-3	2-5	82.4	85.0	82.5	83.3
Charlotte	1-3	1-7	72.0	74.3	72.3	72.9
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	1-2	4-2	92.4	94.4	93.7	93.5
Louisiana Tech	1-2	3-4	88.4	90.1	89.2	89.3
Southern Miss.	3-1	5-2	87.4	88.6	87.9	87.9
N. Texas	3-1	4-3	82.9	84.6	83.4	83.6
Rice	1-2	1-6	75.1	76.2	75.4	75.6
UAB	2-1	4-2	72.5	75.8	74.5	74.3
U T E P	0-3	0-7	72.0	75.0	72.2	73.1
CUSA Averages			83.9	85.6	84.7	84.7
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		6-1	121.0	119.5	121.8	120.7
Army		6-2	97.8	97.9	98.3	98.0
BYU		1-7	88.9	88.8	88.3	88.6
Massachusetts		1-6	88.5	87.9	88.6	88.3
Indep. Averages			99.0	98.5	99.2	98.9
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	3-1	6-2	94.8	95.9	95.8	95.5
Miami (O)	2-2	3-5	88.4	90.5	89.7	89.5
Akron	3-1	4-4	86.9	89.3	87.4	87.9
Buffalo	1-3	3-5	85.2	87.5	87.2	86.6
Bowling Green	1-3	1-7	78.7	79.6	79.1	79.1
Kent St.	1-3	2-6	77.0	78.6	77.3	77.6
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	3-0	6-1	102.2	102.2	103.7	102.7
Western Michigan	3-1	5-3	99.4	98.2	100.5	99.4
Eastern Michigan	0-3	2-5	95.9	95.5	96.3	95.9
Northern Illinois	3-0	5-2	94.0	93.9	94.9	94.2
Central Michigan	2-2	4-4	91.2	92.1	91.6	91.6
Ball St.	0-3	2-5	70.7	72.9	71.9	71.8
MAC Averages			88.7	89.7	89.6	89.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	4-0	6-2	105.8	104.6	105.9	105.4
Boise St.	3-0	5-2	103.9	102.2	103.7	103.3
Wyoming	2-1	4-3	95.6	94.3	94.5	94.8
Utah St.	2-2	4-4	94.5	93.7	94.3	94.2
Air Force	2-2	3-4	92.5	93.1	92.8	92.8
New Mexico	1-3	3-4	91.4	91.2	92.0	91.5
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	2-2	6-2	97.8	97.9	98.5	98.1
Fresno St.	4-0	5-2	97.7	96.3	98.6	97.6
Nevada	1-3	1-7	86.2	88.2	87.7	87.3
Hawaii	1-3	3-4	86.2	87.2	86.0	86.5
U N L V	1-3	2-5	84.3	86.4	84.2	85.0
San Jose St.	0-4	1-7	76.9	77.0	76.2	76.7
MWC Averages			92.7	92.7	92.9	92.8
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	3-1	6-1	127.3	124.6	127.7	126.5
Stanford	4-1	5-2	121.2	119.8	120.6	120.5
Washington St.	3-1	6-1	118.1	115.5	117.7	117.1
Oregon	1-4	4-4	106.2	104.1	104.9	105.1
California	1-4	4-4	105.6	103.3	103.9	104.3
Oregon St.	0-4	1-6	93.2	92.9	91.8	92.6
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	4-1	6-2	116.0	115.4	115.7	115.7
Arizona St.	3-1	4-3	108.1	107.1	108.0	107.7
U C L A	2-2	4-3	106.6	105.8	106.0	106.1
Colorado	1-4	4-4	106.5	105.0	104.2	105.2
Utah	1-3	4-3	103.9	105.3	103.9	104.4
Arizona	3-1	5-2	105.1	103.8	104.0	104.3
Pac-12 Averages			109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	4-0	7-0	126.3	126.7	126.7	126.6
Florida	3-2	3-3	114.0	113.1	113.2	113.4
S. Carolina	3-2	5-2	108.3	107.3	107.4	107.7
Kentucky	2-2	5-2	107.7	106.5	107.0	107.1
Tennessee	0-4	3-4	104.3	102.6	102.3	103.1
Vanderbilt	0-4	3-4	102.5	101.7	101.2	101.8
Missouri	0-4	2-5	98.8	96.7	97.8	97.8
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	5-0	8-0	138.7	134.5	137.5	136.9
Auburn	4-1	6-2	126.1	124.0	126.2	125.4
L S U	3-1	6-2	115.9	114.0	116.4	115.4
Mississippi St.	2-2	5-2	111.4	112.0	111.6	111.7
Texas A&M	3-1	5-2	109.8	107.5	109.1	108.8
Ole Miss	1-3	3-4	104.7	103.2	103.1	103.7
Arkansas	0-4	2-5	101.3	100.7	100.5	100.9
SEC Averages			112.1	110.7	111.4	111.4
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Troy	2-1	5-2	95.7	95.8	95.2	95.6
Arkansas St.	3-0	4-2	94.3	95.6	95.8	95.2
Appalachian St.	4-0	5-2	95.5	93.9	95.5	95.0
N. Mexico St.	1-2	3-4	88.7	86.7	89.0	88.1
S. Alabama	2-1	3-4	86.6	89.0	86.8	87.5
Georgia St.	2-1	3-3	83.4	83.0	83.2	83.2
UL-Lafayette	2-2	3-4	80.9	82.3	80.9	81.4
UL-Monroe	3-2	3-4	80.9	81.7	80.0	80.9
Idaho	1-2	2-5	79.7	81.2	80.4	80.4
Georgia Southern	0-2	0-6	74.3	75.8	73.7	74.6
Coastal Carolina	0-4	1-6	71.9	73.0	73.3	72.8
Texas St.	0-3	1-6	70.6	73.0	69.4	71.0
Sun Belt Averages			83.5	84.3	83.6	83.8

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
2	SEC	112.1	110.7	111.4	111.4
3	BIG 12	109.8	110.0	110.0	109.9
4	PAC-12	109.8	108.5	109.0	109.1
5	BIG TEN	108.7	108.5	108.5	108.6
6	INDEP.	99.0	98.5	99.2	98.9
7	AAC	97.5	98.1	97.9	97.9
8	MWC	92.7	92.7	92.9	92.8
9	MAC	88.7	89.7	89.6	89.3
10	CUSA	83.9	85.6	84.7	84.7
11	Sun Belt	83.5	84.3	83.6	83.8

Playoff & Bowl Projections

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

Stay Home in Front of Multiple TVs

Get your work done in time to be home at Noon Eastern Time this Saturday.  This is the week to move your TVs into the same room, have your laptop ready to stream, and watch yet another game on your phone.  We’ve seen New Year’s Days that don’t feature as many important games.  Let’s take a look at the top games.  Of course, you will also want to watch your favorite team as well, but these are the games of national interest with starting times and TV stations.

NOON EDT

Oklahoma State at West Virginia on ABC

3:30 PM EDT

Penn State at Ohio State on Fox

Georgia vs. Florida (@Jacksonville) on CBS

Michigan State at Northwestern on ESPN

North Carolina State at Notre Dame on NBC

TCU at Iowa State on ESPN2

8:00 PM EDT

Georgia Tech at Clemson on ABC or ESPN2 (depending on your location)

WORLD SERIES Game 4–Los Angeles Dodgers at Houston Astros

9:30 PM EDT

Washington State at Arizona on Pac-12 Network

Note: Alabama is off this week.  The Crimson Tide return to action November 4 with their big game against LSU.  The Tigers are also off this week

The World Series

This World Series may not be the sexy matchup baseball fans clamored for, as a Dodgers-Yankees, Cubs-Yankees, or a Cubs-Indians rematch would have been quite a lot more exciting, but this is a very special World Series for stats-geeks like the PiRates.

Aside from the fact that we have two 100-win teams facing off in the Fall Classic for the first time since 108-54 Baltimore played 102-60 Cincinnati in 1970, the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers are the top two analytics teams in baseball.  Houston has the absolute best analytics department in all of professional sports, and Los Angeles is not too far behind.  Both teams have taken starting pitching to the next evolution in the game.  Neither team, outside of their aces, lets their starting pitchers go deep into games.  It would not suprise us to see the starting pitchers go 3 to 5 innings even if they are pitching effectively.  It is a new dawn in pitching.  Teams may soon start to pencil more than one name in their future starting lineup for first and second pitcher scheduled to appear in games.  A pitching rotation one day in the future could feature an 8-man rotation, with two pitchers scheduled to throw 3 to 5 innings per game, pitching on 3-days rest, rarely going past 75 pitches per appearance, and then leaving four relievers to fill in the gaps.  Iron Man Joe McGinnity would not recognize today’s brand of baseball, but then ole Joe only lasted 10 years in the Bigs and was basically washed up after the eighth season.

In our opinion, this has the chance to be the best World Series in many years, and the public should hope it can go seven games with Clayton Kerhsaw and Justin Verlander facing off in the final game.

When the two teams face off in Game 1 Tuesday night, there will be a third 100 in the equation.  The expected temperature in Chavez Ravine for the first pitch could be 100 degrees.  Pitching in heat like this will force both managers to go to their bullpens early and often.  The starting catchers may have a difficult time being ready for Game 2.  Most of all, in heat like this, expect fly balls to travel quite a bit farther than they normally would in the late afternoon at Dodger Stadium.  It may make the game look and feel like it is at Coors Field in Denver.

Pitching matchups for the first two games are:

Game 1–Clayton  Kershaw for LA and Dallas Keuchel for Hou

Game 2–Rich Hill for LA and Justin Verlander for Hou

Yu Darvish is set to pitch Game 3 for LA, but Houston has yet to decide on its starter.

World Series Schedule

All Games on Fox at 8:00 PM EDT (7 PM in Houston, 5 PM in Los Angeles)

Game 1: Tuesday, October 24

Game 2: Wednesday, October 25

Game 3: Friday, October 27

Game 4: Saturday, October 28

Game 5 (if necessary): Sunday, October 29

Game 6 (if necessary): Tuesday, October 31

Game 7 (if necessary): Wednesday, November 1

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for October 5-9, 2017

Finally, the PiRates had a week to celebrate.  Playing strictly college games, it was quite a profitable week, albeit in imaginary currency.

Three of our five selections won, returning us $718 on our $500 invested for an ROI of 44%  The weekly success almost squared us for the season, as we are now just $83 down on $1,700 invested.  We are one additional successful week from possibly going from red to black figures for the season.

We have selected four parlays this week, all consisting of three-games apiece.  We will be experimenting with additional options this week to test a theory put forth by a mathematics department head of a local university, and if this theory shows some merit, we will discuss it at length in the near future.  For now, we will continue posting only money line parlays that give us better than +120 odds.

Every year, we look to see which games tend to give us the most success, and it is uncanny that two leagues tend to lead the way.  Would you ever guess that the Sun Belt Conference and Mid-American Conference have given us more winners than any of the Power 5 leagues?  Is it because these two leagues are more predictable, or is it because maybe the books do not always have the best gauge on these two conferences, and the numbers produce more favorable odds?  Unfortunately, we do not have enough data saved to give us a factual answer.  However, the percentages that we have saved tell us that we have a statistically important advantage when playing games among the MAC and SBC, so these two leagues will remain in the PiRate diet.

We will preface our picks for this week with the mild warning that we were not in 100% agreement on any of the picks this week, while we were solidly behind the three winning plays last week.  In actuality, we were not in 100% agreement on any potential 3-team parlay that produced greater than +120 odds.  The only parlay we all agreed on involved SIX games, at +205 odds.  Six sure things are seldom 100% sure.  It is most likely that one of the six could be upset, and our leader actually believes one of the six might be a great sides pick at +11 (off the record, he likes New Mexico State +11 vs. Appalachian State).

Here are our four parlays for the week.

#1@ +145
Must Win	Must Lose
Florida	LSU
TCU	West Virginia
Notre Dame	North Carolina

 

#2@ +138
Must Win	Must Lose
Syracuse	Pittsburgh
Michigan	Michigan St.
Marshall	Charlotte

 

#3@ +176
Must Win	Must Lose
Miami	Florida St.
UTSA	Southern Miss
Navy	Air Force

 

#4@ +130
Must Win	Must Lose
Akron	Ball St.
Idaho	UL-Lafayette
Ohio U	Central Mich.

 

Note–Once again, we are not issuing any NFL selections for the obvious reasons and the not-so-obvious reason that our NFL ratings have taken a 50%+ drop in readership.  This speaks loudly, and I hope the NFL brass are paying attention at the mass media with similar drops in patronage.

It is our editorial opinion that the NFL needs to instate a rule outlawing all publicly political opinions and statements during their games, just like most other retail establishments.  When you or we go to the grocery store to buy food, or go to your local insurance agent to renew your policies, none of us would expect to be issued any political litmus tests from either side of an issue, and we would quickly look elsewhere for our groceries or insurance if we did have to hear the employees and management deliver one-sided editorials, whether it was our identical belief or opposing belief. 

The NFL will only continue to lose patronage if they allow politicization in any way, on any side.  Football is just one of many avenues of entertainment.  The NFL has fallen behind trail hiking, reading good books, going shopping with our loved ones, visiting friends, and doing inventory (ugh) in the households of the Pirates.  The TVs have remained silent on Sundays and Monday nights.  Worse for the NFL, we all have discovered a much more enjoyable end to our weekends by not watching the games, something that may become addictive long after the impasse has been retired.  It takes a lot to win customers back after they have made the decision to leave.  Many companies never succeed in returning to what they once were once they experienced a large migration away from their establishment.

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for October 4-7, 2017

PiRate Rating Spreads For This Week

October 4-7
Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Georgia Southern	Arkansas St.	-6.5	-6.9	-8.7
North Carolina St.	Louisville	2.5	3.0	2.3
Connecticut	Memphis	-13.7	-9.8	-13.8
BYU	Boise St.	-0.5	0.7	0.0
East Carolina	Temple	-7.2	-6.0	-7.2
Oklahoma	Iowa St.	26.2	23.2	26.3
Clemson	Wake Forest	27.0	25.1	26.8
Toledo	Eastern Michigan	6.7	6.8	8.0
Kansas	Texas Tech	-14.6	-10.7	-14.5
Iowa	Illinois	22.9	21.6	23.8
Vanderbilt	Georgia	-14.5	-16.4	-15.8
Auburn	Ole Miss	27.0	26.3	29.0
Northwestern	Penn St.	-14.2	-14.0	-14.9
Virginia	Duke	-2.3	-1.1	0.5
Syracuse	Pittsburgh	5.9	4.0	5.9
Ohio U	Central Michigan	4.8	5.5	5.7
Miami (O)	Bowling Green	15.8	16.8	16.7
Texas St.	Louisiana-Monroe	-7.5	-5.5	-7.4
Middle Tennessee	Florida Int’l.	10.6	11.2	10.3
Appalachian St.	New Mexico St.	13.3	12.9	13.4
Purdue	Minnesota	-3.1	-1.7	-2.2
North Carolina	Notre Dame	-5.9	-5.9	-8.6
Northern Illinois	Kent St.	13.6	11.9	13.5
Navy	Air Force	12.4	12.6	12.4
Florida	LSU	7.3	7.5	6.3
Buffalo	Western Michigan	-15.1	-11.0	-14.5
TCU	West Virginia	13.0	9.7	13.4
Akron	Ball St.	10.7	11.8	9.3
Florida St.	Miami (Fla.)	4.6	5.3	4.2
Oregon	Washington St.	-1.9	-2.6	-2.3
Tulane	Tulsa	-1.5	-1.0	-0.9
Ohio St.	Maryland	31.8	27.1	31.0
USC	Oregon St.	29.9	29.5	31.1
UAB	Louisiana Tech	-22.5	-19.2	-21.4
South Carolina	Arkansas	1.7	1.6	1.0
Utah St.	Colorado St.	-11.6	-11.3	-12.4
Idaho	Louisiana-Lafayette	3.0	3.8	4.1
Old Dominion	Florida Atlantic	4.3	3.6	3.4
Charlotte	Marshall	-13.5	-12.6	-14.7
Coastal Carolina	Georgia St.	-11.6	-9.7	-10.1
Rice	Army	-14.8	-13.8	-15.3
UTSA	Southern Miss.	13.4	13.6	15.6
Texas	Kansas St.	2.6	3.6	2.9
Houston	SMU	8.0	7.3	7.3
Texas A&M	Alabama	-32.6	-29.8	-32.7
Boston College	Virginia Tech	-17.0	-16.0	-18.0
Kentucky	Missouri	17.8	19.0	18.6
San Jose St.	Fresno St.	-10.2	-8.8	-11.4
Michigan	Michigan St.	18.4	15.4	17.0
UTEP	Western Kentucky	-19.4	-15.3	-20.3
Nebraska	Wisconsin	-17.4	-12.1	-16.4
Cincinnati	Central Florida	-20.6	-19.9	-20.3
Colorado	Arizona	14.7	13.4	13.9
Utah	Stanford	-7.5	-4.3	-6.5
Nevada	Hawaii	-0.8	0.9	0.8
Washington	California	31.7	31.0	34.1
UNLV	San Diego St.	-11	-8.4	-11.3

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Indiana	Charleston Sou.	29

 

This Week’s PiRate Retrodictive Ratings 

Retrodictive Ratings are like rankings, rating teams based on what they have done so far this season without trying to predict the outcome of future games

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team	Rating
1	Alabama	132.4
2	Clemson	130.8
3	Washington	129.6
4	Oklahoma	129.2
5	Penn St.	127.7
6	Georgia	127.5
7	Michigan	123.8
8	Ohio St.	123.6
9	Wisconsin	123.5
10	Miami (Fla)	123.0
11	TCU	122.9
12	Washington St.	122.2
13	USC	120.7
14	Louisville	120.4
15	San Diego St.	117.9
16	Florida	117.6
17	Virginia Tech	116.5
18	Oklahoma St.	116.1
19	Central Florida	115.8
20	South Florida	115.6
21	Auburn	115.5
22	Notre Dame	115.5
23	Utah	115.2
24	Stanford	115.1
25	North Carolina St.	115.0
26	Texas Tech	114.9
27	Navy	114.9
28	Wake Forest	114.8
29	Mississippi St.	114.7
30	Kansas St.	114.7
31	Minnesota	114.2
32	Oregon	114.0
33	Duke	113.9
34	Iowa	113.5
35	Kentucky	113.4
36	Georgia Tech	113.2
37	Maryland	112.9
38	Florida St.	112.5
39	Houston	112.0
40	Texas A&M	111.8
41	West Virginia	111.4
42	Michigan St.	111.1
43	LSU	110.6
44	Colorado	110.2
45	Tennessee	109.7
46	Toledo	109.3
47	Vanderbilt	108.5
48	South Carolina	108.2
49	Texas	107.7
50	California	107.6
51	Memphis	107.2
52	UCLA	106.9
53	Western Michigan	106.6
54	Nebraska	106.0
55	Boise St.	105.6
56	Northwestern	105.0
57	Indiana	104.7
58	Purdue	104.4
59	Arizona St.	103.9
60	Colorado St.	103.7
61	Virginia	103.4
62	Troy	102.9
63	UTSA	102.0
64	SMU	101.8
65	Arkansas	101.7
66	Appalachian St.	101.5
67	Ole Miss	100.9
68	Northern Illinois	100.7
69	Marshall	100.0
70	Pittsburgh	99.6
71	Ohio	98.9
72	Louisiana Tech	98.4
73	Tulane	98.2
74	Boston College	98.0
75	Arizona	97.8
76	Iowa St.	97.0
77	Utah St.	96.6
78	Air Force	96.2
79	Army	95.9
80	Wyoming	95.3
81	North Carolina	94.5
82	Western Kentucky	94.1
83	Arkansas St.	93.7
84	Southern Miss.	93.3
85	Temple	92.9
86	New Mexico	92.8
87	Fresno St.	92.2
88	Syracuse	91.5
89	North Texas	91.1
90	Tulsa	90.6
91	Florida Int’l.	90.4
92	Eastern Michigan	89.9
93	Buffalo	89.4
94	Illinois	89.3
95	Cincinnati	88.7
96	Miami (O)	88.1
97	Florida Atlantic	88.0
98	Idaho	87.2
99	BYU	86.9
100	Middle Tennessee	86.5
101	Old Dominion	86.1
102	Baylor	85.8
103	New Mexico St.	85.0
104	UNLV	84.9
105	Akron	84.7
106	Missouri	84.7
107	Oregon St.	84.1
108	UL-Monroe	83.6
109	Rutgers	82.9
110	Hawaii	82.5
111	Central Michigan	82.2
112	UL-Lafayette	82.0
113	Ball St.	81.8
114	East Carolina	81.3
115	South Alabama	80.8
116	Connecticut	79.6
117	UAB	79.1
118	Georgia St.	78.3
119	Coastal Carolina	77.9
120	Georgia Southern	77.8
121	Kansas	77.8
122	Kent St.	75.1
123	Rice	75.0
124	Nevada	74.4
125	Massachusetts	73.8
126	Bowling Green	73.3
127	San Jose St.	73.2
128	UTEP	73.1
129	Texas St.	72.6
130	Charlotte	72.2

PiRate Predictive Ratings

Predictive Ratings only look forward to the next week’s games played.  They do not rate teams based on what they have done so far, and in many cases, a higher-rated team may have lost to a lower-rated team (like Ohio State being rated higher than Oklahoma).

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	141.1	136.3	140.1	139.2
2	Ohio St.	132.6	129.9	132.1	131.5
3	Clemson	130.7	127.8	130.3	129.6
4	Washington	130.0	126.9	130.7	129.2
5	Penn St.	127.7	125.7	128.5	127.3
6	Auburn	126.8	124.6	126.9	126.1
7	Oklahoma	125.9	124.0	126.6	125.5
8	Georgia	123.6	124.3	123.9	123.9
9	Florida St.	124.1	122.6	123.1	123.3
10	Oklahoma St.	122.5	121.1	123.3	122.3
11	Miami	121.5	119.3	121.0	120.6
12	Wisconsin	122.4	118.4	120.7	120.5
13	U S C	119.5	118.8	119.3	119.2
14	Virginia Tech	118.9	118.2	119.4	118.8
15	T C U	119.5	116.9	119.9	118.7
16	Washington St.	118.3	116.1	117.8	117.4
17	Stanford	117.5	116.1	116.7	116.8
18	Michigan	116.9	116.5	116.2	116.5
19	Louisville	116.3	115.2	116.4	116.0
20	N. Carolina St.	115.8	115.2	115.7	115.6
21	Notre Dame	115.7	114.5	116.5	115.5
22	Florida	116.0	114.9	115.5	115.5
23	Georgia Tech	116.0	113.7	114.3	114.7
24	Texas	113.5	114.3	113.9	113.9
25	Kansas St.	113.9	113.8	114.0	113.9
26	Oregon	113.4	110.5	112.6	112.2
27	South Florida	112.2	110.8	113.3	112.1
28	Central Florida	110.7	112.3	111.8	111.6
29	L S U	111.8	110.3	112.2	111.4
30	Kentucky	111.4	110.2	110.9	110.8
31	Colorado	111.5	109.5	109.4	110.1
32	Northwestern	110.6	108.6	110.6	109.9
33	West Virginia	109.4	110.2	109.5	109.7
34	Iowa	109.6	109.8	109.3	109.6
35	U C L A	108.5	107.8	107.9	108.1
36	Utah	107.0	108.8	107.2	107.7
37	Mississippi St.	107.2	108.0	107.2	107.5
38	Duke	108.4	107.0	107.0	107.5
39	Minnesota	107.3	107.5	106.9	107.2
40	Syracuse	107.8	106.2	107.1	107.0
41	Colo. State	107.2	105.8	107.5	106.8
42	Wake Forest	106.8	105.7	106.5	106.3
43	Vanderbilt	106.6	105.4	105.6	105.9
44	Arkansas	106.2	105.6	105.7	105.9
45	N. Carolina	106.8	105.6	104.9	105.8
46	Indiana	104.6	104.7	105.0	104.8
47	Pittsburgh	104.9	105.2	104.2	104.8
48	Maryland	103.9	105.8	104.1	104.6
49	Texas A&M	105.5	103.5	104.4	104.5
50	S. Carolina	104.9	104.2	103.7	104.3
51	Houston	104.5	103.8	104.4	104.2
52	Texas Tech	104.5	103.9	103.7	104.0
53	Tennessee	104.7	103.0	102.8	103.5
54	Virginia	103.1	102.9	104.4	103.5
55	Iowa State	102.6	103.8	103.3	103.3
56	Western Michigan	102.7	101.0	104.2	102.6
57	Nebraska	102.0	103.4	101.3	102.2
58	San Diego St.	101.9	102.0	102.8	102.2
59	Purdue	101.1	102.8	101.7	101.9
60	Baylor	101.1	103.0	101.2	101.8
61	Arizona St.	102.1	101.5	101.5	101.7
62	Ole Miss	102.8	101.3	100.9	101.7
63	Navy	101.4	102.1	101.5	101.6
64	Memphis	101.7	100.8	101.8	101.4
65	Michigan St.	100.0	102.5	100.7	101.1
66	Toledo	99.6	99.5	101.0	100.0
67	California	101.3	98.9	99.6	99.9
68	Boston College	99.4	99.7	98.9	99.3
69	SMU	99.0	99.1	99.6	99.2
70	Arizona	99.8	99.1	98.4	99.1
71	Tulsa	98.8	98.7	98.6	98.7
72	Boise St.	99.0	97.2	98.5	98.2
73	Appalachian St.	98.6	96.3	98.9	97.9
74	U T S A	95.7	97.3	97.8	96.9
75	Troy	96.6	96.6	96.1	96.4
76	Army	95.5	95.6	96.2	95.8
77	Missouri	96.6	94.3	95.3	95.4
78	Eastern Michigan	95.5	95.1	95.5	95.4
79	BYU	95.5	94.9	95.5	95.3
80	New Mexico	95.0	94.7	95.8	95.2
81	Tulane	94.4	94.6	94.8	94.6
82	Wyoming	95.4	94.2	94.2	94.6
83	Miami (O)	92.7	94.7	94.2	93.9
84	W. Kentucky	93.6	92.8	94.7	93.7
85	Rutgers	93.9	94.0	93.1	93.7
86	Temple	92.7	93.1	92.6	92.8
87	Air Force	91.9	92.5	92.1	92.2
88	Louisiana Tech	91.4	92.5	92.4	92.1
89	Utah St.	92.6	91.5	92.1	92.1
90	Oregon St.	92.6	92.4	91.1	92.0
91	Ohio U	91.1	92.5	92.1	91.9
92	Northern Illinois	90.2	90.0	90.7	90.3
93	Illinois	89.7	91.2	88.5	89.8
94	Marshall	88.7	90.0	90.3	89.7
95	U N L V	88.7	91.1	89.0	89.6
96	Fresno St.	89.8	88.5	90.3	89.6
97	Old Dominion	88.6	91.1	88.9	89.5
98	Middle Tennessee	89.0	89.8	89.4	89.4
99	Arkansas St.	88.2	89.9	89.8	89.3
100	Central Michigan	88.7	89.5	88.9	89.0
101	Cincinnati	87.6	89.9	89.1	88.9
102	Kansas	87.4	90.7	86.7	88.3
103	Florida Atlantic	86.9	89.9	88.1	88.3
104	Hawaii	87.6	88.4	87.4	87.8
105	N. Mexico St.	88.3	86.4	88.5	87.7
106	Buffalo	85.1	87.5	87.2	86.6
107	Connecticut	84.9	88.0	85.0	86.0
108	Southern Miss.	85.3	86.7	85.2	85.7
109	Massachusetts	85.4	84.7	85.3	85.1
110	Akron	83.9	87.0	84.0	85.0
111	Georgia St.	84.9	84.2	84.9	84.7
112	N. Texas	84.0	85.6	84.3	84.6
113	Idaho	83.5	85.6	84.4	84.5
114	UL-Lafayette	84.0	85.3	83.8	84.4
115	S. Alabama	83.2	86.0	83.3	84.2
116	Nevada	82.8	85.3	84.2	84.1
117	East Carolina	82.5	84.1	82.4	83.0
118	Florida Int’l.	80.8	81.1	81.6	81.2
119	UL-Monroe	81.1	81.7	79.9	80.9
120	Kent St.	79.6	81.1	80.2	80.3
121	Bowling Green	79.5	80.4	79.9	79.9
122	Georgia Southern	79.2	80.5	78.6	79.4
123	Rice	77.7	78.8	77.9	78.1
124	San Jose St.	77.1	77.2	76.4	76.9
125	Ball St.	75.7	77.7	77.2	76.9
126	Charlotte	72.7	75.0	73.1	73.6
127	U T E P	71.7	75.0	71.9	72.9
128	Coastal Carolina	70.8	72.1	72.3	71.8
129	Texas St.	71.1	73.7	70.0	71.6
130	UAB	66.5	70.8	68.5	68.6

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	2-0	5-0	112.2	110.8	113.3	112.1
Central Florida	1-0	3-0	110.7	112.3	111.8	111.6
Temple	0-2	2-3	92.7	93.1	92.6	92.8
Cincinnati	0-1	2-3	87.6	89.9	89.1	88.9
Connecticut	0-2	1-3	84.9	88.0	85.0	86.0
East Carolina	1-1	1-4	82.5	84.1	82.4	83.0
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Houston	1-0	3-1	104.5	103.8	104.4	104.2
Navy	3-0	4-0	101.4	102.1	101.5	101.6
Memphis	0-1	3-1	101.7	100.8	101.8	101.4
SMU	1-0	4-1	99.0	99.1	99.6	99.2
Tulsa	0-1	1-4	98.8	98.7	98.6	98.7
Tulane	0-1	2-2	94.4	94.6	94.8	94.6
AAC Averages			97.5	98.1	97.9	97.8
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	3-0	5-0	130.7	127.8	130.3	129.6
Florida St.	1-1	1-2	124.1	122.6	123.1	123.3
Louisville	1-1	4-1	116.3	115.2	116.4	116.0
N. Carolina St.	2-0	4-1	115.8	115.2	115.7	115.6
Syracuse	0-1	2-3	107.8	106.2	107.1	107.0
Wake Forest	1-1	4-1	106.8	105.7	106.5	106.3
Boston College	0-2	2-3	99.4	99.7	98.9	99.3
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	1-0	3-0	121.5	119.3	121.0	120.6
Virginia Tech	0-1	4-1	118.9	118.2	119.4	118.8
Georgia Tech	2-0	3-1	116.0	113.7	114.3	114.7
Duke	1-1	4-1	108.4	107.0	107.0	107.5
N. Carolina	0-3	1-4	106.8	105.6	104.9	105.8
Pittsburgh	0-1	2-3	104.9	105.2	104.2	104.8
Virginia	0-0	3-1	103.1	102.9	104.4	103.5
ACC Averages			112.9	111.7	112.4	112.3
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	1-0	4-0	125.9	124.0	126.6	125.5
Oklahoma St.	1-1	4-1	122.5	121.1	123.3	122.3
T C U	1-0	4-0	119.5	116.9	119.9	118.7
Texas	1-0	2-2	113.5	114.3	113.9	113.9
Kansas St.	1-0	3-1	113.9	113.8	114.0	113.9
West Virginia	1-0	3-1	109.4	110.2	109.5	109.7
Texas Tech	0-1	3-1	104.5	103.9	103.7	104.0
Iowa State	0-1	2-2	102.6	103.8	103.3	103.3
Baylor	0-2	0-5	101.1	103.0	101.2	101.8
Kansas	0-1	1-3	87.4	90.7	86.7	88.3
Big 12 Averages			110.0	110.2	110.2	110.1
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	2-0	4-1	132.6	129.9	132.1	131.5
Penn St.	2-0	5-0	127.7	125.7	128.5	127.3
Michigan	1-0	4-0	116.9	116.5	116.2	116.5
Indiana	0-2	2-2	104.6	104.7	105.0	104.8
Maryland	1-0	3-1	103.9	105.8	104.1	104.6
Michigan St.	1-0	3-1	100.0	102.5	100.7	101.1
Rutgers	0-2	1-4	93.9	94.0	93.1	93.7
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	1-0	4-0	122.4	118.4	120.7	120.5
Northwestern	0-1	2-2	110.6	108.6	110.6	109.9
Iowa	0-2	3-2	109.6	109.8	109.3	109.6
Minnesota	0-1	3-1	107.3	107.5	106.9	107.2
Nebraska	2-0	3-2	102.0	103.4	101.3	102.2
Purdue	0-1	2-2	101.1	102.8	101.7	101.9
Illinois	0-1	2-2	89.7	91.2	88.5	89.8
Big Ten Averages			108.8	108.6	108.5	108.6
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	0-1	2-2	93.6	92.8	94.7	93.7
Marshall	0-0	3-1	88.7	90.0	90.3	89.7
Old Dominion	0-0	2-2	88.6	91.1	88.9	89.5
Middle Tennessee	0-1	2-3	89.0	89.8	89.4	89.4
Florida Atlantic	1-0	2-3	86.9	89.9	88.1	88.3
Florida Int’l.	2-0	3-1	80.8	81.1	81.6	81.2
Charlotte	0-1	0-5	72.7	75.0	73.1	73.6
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-0	3-0	95.7	97.3	97.8	96.9
Louisiana Tech	1-0	3-2	91.4	92.5	92.4	92.1
Southern Miss.	0-1	2-2	85.3	86.7	85.2	85.7
N. Texas	2-0	3-2	84.0	85.6	84.3	84.6
Rice	1-1	1-4	77.7	78.8	77.9	78.1
U T E P	0-1	0-5	71.7	75.0	71.9	72.9
UAB	0-1	2-2	66.5	70.8	68.5	68.6
CUSA Averages			83.8	85.5	84.6	84.6
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		4-1	115.7	114.5	116.5	115.5
Army		3-2	95.5	95.6	96.2	95.8
BYU		1-4	95.5	94.9	95.5	95.3
Massachusetts		0-6	85.4	84.7	85.3	85.1
Indep. Averages			98.0	97.4	98.4	97.9
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (O)	1-0	2-3	92.7	94.7	94.2	93.9
Ohio U	1-0	4-1	91.1	92.5	92.1	91.9
Buffalo	1-0	3-2	85.1	87.5	87.2	86.6
Akron	1-0	2-3	83.9	87.0	84.0	85.0
Kent St.	0-1	1-4	79.6	81.1	80.2	80.3
Bowling Green	0-1	0-5	79.5	80.4	79.9	79.9
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	1-0	3-2	102.7	101.0	104.2	102.6
Toledo	0-0	3-1	99.6	99.5	101.0	100.0
Eastern Michigan	0-1	2-2	95.5	95.1	95.5	95.4
Northern Illinois	0-0	2-2	90.2	90.0	90.7	90.3
Central Michigan	0-1	2-3	88.7	89.5	88.9	89.0
Ball St.	0-1	2-3	75.7	77.7	77.2	76.9
MAC Averages			88.7	89.7	89.6	89.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	1-0	3-2	107.2	105.8	107.5	106.8
Boise St.	1-0	2-2	99.0	97.2	98.5	98.2
New Mexico	1-1	3-2	95.0	94.7	95.8	95.2
Wyoming	1-0	3-2	95.4	94.2	94.2	94.6
Air Force	0-2	1-3	91.9	92.5	92.1	92.2
Utah St.	1-0	3-2	92.6	91.5	92.1	92.1
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	1-0	5-0	101.9	102.0	102.8	102.2
U N L V	1-0	2-2	88.7	91.1	89.0	89.6
Fresno St.	1-0	2-2	89.8	88.5	90.3	89.6
Hawaii	0-2	2-3	87.6	88.4	87.4	87.8
Nevada	0-1	0-5	82.8	85.3	84.2	84.1
San Jose St.	0-2	1-5	77.1	77.2	76.4	76.9
MWC Averages			92.4	92.4	92.5	92.4
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	2-0	5-0	130.0	126.9	130.7	129.2
Washington St.	2-0	5-0	118.3	116.1	117.8	117.4
Stanford	2-1	3-2	117.5	116.1	116.7	116.8
Oregon	1-1	4-1	113.4	110.5	112.6	112.2
California	0-2	3-2	101.3	98.9	99.6	99.9
Oregon St.	0-2	1-4	92.6	92.4	91.1	92.0
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	2-1	4-1	119.5	118.8	119.3	119.2
Colorado	0-2	3-2	111.5	109.5	109.4	110.1
U C L A	1-1	3-2	108.5	107.8	107.9	108.1
Utah	1-0	4-0	107.0	108.8	107.2	107.7
Arizona St.	1-1	2-3	102.1	101.5	101.5	101.7
Arizona	0-1	2-2	99.8	99.1	98.4	99.1
Pac-12 Averages			110.1	108.9	109.4	109.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	2-0	5-0	123.6	124.3	123.9	123.9
Florida	3-0	3-1	116.0	114.9	115.5	115.5
Kentucky	1-1	4-1	111.4	110.2	110.9	110.8
Vanderbilt	0-2	3-2	106.6	105.4	105.6	105.9
S. Carolina	1-2	3-2	104.9	104.2	103.7	104.3
Tennessee	0-2	3-2	104.7	103.0	102.8	103.5
Missouri	0-2	1-3	96.6	94.3	95.3	95.4
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	2-0	5-0	141.1	136.3	140.1	139.2
Auburn	2-0	4-1	126.8	124.6	126.9	126.1
L S U	0-1	3-2	111.8	110.3	112.2	111.4
Mississippi St.	1-2	3-2	107.2	108.0	107.2	107.5
Arkansas	0-1	2-2	106.2	105.6	105.7	105.9
Texas A&M	2-0	4-1	105.5	103.5	104.4	104.5
Ole Miss	0-1	2-2	102.8	101.3	100.9	101.7
SEC Averages			111.8	110.4	111.1	111.1
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	1-0	2-2	98.6	96.3	98.9	97.9
Troy	1-0	4-1	96.6	96.6	96.1	96.4
Arkansas St.	0-0	1-2	88.2	89.9	89.8	89.3
N. Mexico St.	0-1	2-3	88.3	86.4	88.5	87.7
Georgia St.	0-0	1-2	84.9	84.2	84.9	84.7
Idaho	1-0	2-2	83.5	85.6	84.4	84.5
UL-Lafayette	0-1	1-3	84.0	85.3	83.8	84.4
S. Alabama	0-1	1-4	83.2	86.0	83.3	84.2
UL-Monroe	2-0	2-2	81.1	81.7	79.9	80.9
Georgia Southern	0-0	0-3	79.2	80.5	78.6	79.4
Coastal Carolina	0-1	1-3	70.8	72.1	72.3	71.8
Texas St.	0-1	1-4	71.1	73.7	70.0	71.6
Sun Belt Averages			84.1	84.9	84.2	84.4

Ratings By Conference

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.9	111.7	112.4	112.3
2	SEC	111.8	110.4	111.1	111.1
3	BIG 12	110.0	110.2	110.2	110.1
4	PAC-12	110.1	108.9	109.4	109.4
5	BIG TEN	108.8	108.6	108.5	108.6
6	INDEP.	98.0	97.4	98.4	97.9
7	AAC	97.5	98.1	97.9	97.8
8	MWC	92.4	92.4	92.5	92.4
9	MAC	88.7	89.7	89.6	89.3
10	CUSA	83.8	85.5	84.6	84.6
11	Sun Belt	84.1	84.9	84.2	84.4

Playoff and Bowl Projections

Bowl	Conferences		Team 1	Team 2
N. Orleans	CUSA	SBC	Louisiana Tech	Arkansas St.
Cure	AAC	SBC	[W. Kentucky]	Appalachian St.
Las Vegas	MWC 1	PAC-12 5	Colorado St.	Stanford
New Mexico	CUSA	MWC	North Texas	Boise St.
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Ohio U	New Mexico St.
Boca Raton	AAC	CUSA	South Florida	Marshall
Frisco	AAC	MAC	SMU	Buffalo
Gasparilla	AAC	CUSA	[Fresno St.]	Florida Int’l.
Bahamas	CUSA 1	MAC	Florida Atlantic	Western Mich.
Potato	MAC	MWC	Miami (O)	Wyoming
B’ham	AAC	SEC 8-9	Memphis	Tennessee
Arm. Forces	Army	BIG TEN 8	Army	Nebraska
$ General	MAC	SBC	Northern Illinois	Troy
Hawaii	AAC	MWC	Houston	Hawaii
Ht. of Dallas	BIG 12 6	CUSA	Kansas St.	UTSA
Quick Lane	ACC 7-9	BIG TEN 7	[Toledo]	Michigan St.
Cactus	BIG 12 5	PAC-12 6	Texas	Colorado
Independ.	ACC 7-9	SEC 8-9	[Old Dominion]	[UNLV]
Pinstripe	ACC 3-6	BIG TEN 5	Virginia	Maryland
F. Farms	BIG TEN 6	PAC-12 8	Purdue	Oregon
Texas	BIG 12 3	SEC 2-7	Texas Tech	Arkansas
Military	AAC 7-9	ACC 7-9	Navy	[Middle Tenn.]
Camp.Wrld	ACC 2	BIG 12 2	Virginia Tech	Oklahoma St.
Holiday	BIG TEN 3	PAC-12 2	Northwestern	UCLA
Alamo	BIG 12 1	PAC-12 1	TCU	USC
Belk	ACC 3-6	SEC 2-7	N. Carolina St.	Florida
Sun	ACC 3-6	Pac-12	Duke	Utah
Music City	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Georgia Tech	Mississippi St.
Arizona	MWC	SBC	San Diego St.	[Iowa]
Cotton	At-large	At-large	Penn St.	Georgia
Taxslayer	ACC 3-6/B10 4	SEC 2-7	Minnesota	South Carolina
Liberty	BIG 12 4	SEC 2-7	West Virginia	Kentucky
Fiesta	At-large	At-large	Washington St.	Wisconsin
Orange	ACC 1	SEC 1/B10 1	Louisville	Ohio St.
Outback	BIG TEN 2	SEC 2-7	Michigan	Texas A&M
Peach	At-large	At-large	Notre Dame	Central Florida
Citrus	B10 1/ACC 2	SEC 1	Miami (Fla.)	Auburn
Rose	Playoff	Semi-final	Clemson	Oklahoma
Sugar	Playoff	Semi-final	Alabama	Washington
Champ.	Semifinal	Winners	Alabama	Clemson
Teams in [Brackets] are at-large selections

It’s Bowl Contention/Elimination Season
Welcome to real Autumn. As the calendar page flips to October, college football season is in full bloom. Many schools will reach the halfway point of their schedule this weekend. Another sign that Autumn is here in earnest–college football picks up another day, as the Wednesday night scheduling begins this week.

If it’s October, then it is time to start looking at bowl eligibility. Obviously, there are dynasties like Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, and others that are going to a bowl with 100% certainty, and there are teams like Charlotte, Kansas, and Oregon State that are definitely not going to a bowl.

There are about 80 teams in position to become bowl eligible, and maybe 55 to 60 of these schools will earn it, while the other 20 to 25 will fall short. We call this time of year, Bowl Contention/Elimination Season (BCES). Each week, there will be games where the winner will stay in contention for a bowl, while the loser will either be severely damaged or outright eliminated from bowl contention. Let’s take a look at some of the early BCES games in October.

Illinois (2-2) at Iowa (3-2). The loser of this game cannot find a path to 6-6. Illinois must win this game and then defeat Rutgers, and then two from Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana, and Northwestern. If the Illini cannot beat Iowa, they cannot win four others. Iowa’s offense is struggling with new a new quarterback, receivers, and running backs. They will have to squeak by three more opponents and have a tough closing schedule.

Duke (4-1) at Virginia (3-1). This is not a bowl elimination game. The winner of this one is in very good shape to become bowl eligible, in fact close to 100% likely with just one loss.

Pittsburgh (2-3) at Syracuse (2-3). This is a true bowl eliminator. The winner moves to 3-3 and stays in contention for a bowl at probably 6-6, while the loser is not going to win four more games.

Florida International (3-1) at Middle Tennessee (2-3). This was not how it was supposed to be this year in CUSA. Western Kentucky, Old Dominion, and Middle Tennessee are struggling, while FIU is in contention for the East Division title. For Middle, they have serious injury issues on offense, namely their quarterback and top two receivers. FIU has improved each week under Butch Davis, and a win this week probably gives the Panthers anywhere from 85-90% chance of getting to six wins.

Minnesota (3-1) at Purdue (2-2). This is a trap game for Minnesota. After losing a tough home game to Maryland, the Gophers travel to West Lafayette to take on a much-improved, confident Boilermaker team that will be coming off a bye week and will be playing in the memory of former great PU coach Joe Tiller, who recently passed away. Jeff Brohm will have Purdue fired up to win this game, and at 3-2, Purdue will be more than Spoilermakers; they will be serious bowl contenders.

Tulsa (1-4) at Tulane (2-2). The winner still has a chance to make a bowl this year. The loser has no chance. Green Wave second year coach Willie Fritz will start getting noticed by the big schools if he guides Tulane to a bowl in his second year in New Orleans. Fritz worked wonders at Georgia Southern, and before that, he turned programs around at Sam Houston State and Central Missouri. Fritz’s offense is unique in college football. It may look a lot like Army, Navy, and Georgia Tech’s triple option offense, but it is nothing like those three. It is more similar to the old Nebraska offense with zone blocking rules and regular (double) options with power running and quick passing. His style of play might work in the Big 12 or even the SEC. He might get a chance to interview at an SEC school in December if TU can make a run to a bowl.

Arkansas (2-2) at South Carolina (3-2). If Arkansas loses this game, the Razorbacks are in serious jeopardy of not getting to six wins this year, and it could be one of three or four SEC schools looking to replace a coach. South Carolina coach Will Muschamp is okay to stay if he goes 5-7, but Brett Bielema may have a tough time keeping the job in Fayetteville if he doesn’t get the Razorbacks to eight wins.

UL-Lafayette (1-3) at Idaho (2-2). It is hard to beat Idaho in the Kibbie Dome in Moscow. There will be very little chance that ULL will recover to 6-6 if they lose to the Vandals this week. On the other side of the field, Idaho must get to seven wins to have a legitimate chance at a bowl. The Sun Belt will not go to bat for the Vandals unless they force the issue, because Idaho is dropping to FCS at the end of this year and will no longer be a SBC member. Only if the SBC has no other options, will Idaho get a fair shake.

Florida Atlantic (2-3) at Old Dominion (2-2). The winner of this one moves into decent contention for a bowl. It is our opinion that CUSA will end up with more bowl eligible teams than bowl contracts, but there are always other leagues that cannot fill their allotment of bowl bids. Due to geography, this league has an advantage in placing at-large teams in bowls.

Arizona (2-2) at Colorado (3-2). Rich Rodriguez is in serious trouble in Tucson, and anything short of a bowl invitation should be the end of his tenure in the desert. The Wildcats would need three more wins if they beat the Buffaloes at Folsom Field this week, but finding three more wins is still a tough task. Colorado would need just two more wins if they hold off the Wildcats in Boulder, and Mike MacIntyre has job security in the Rockies.

The Playoff Race, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love A Threepeat
At this point in the season, it might be insane to think that any team other than Alabama or Clemson has a chance to make it to the College Football National Championship Game. Sure, there are a lot of really good teams, some that might run the table and enter the playoffs at 13-0. But, at this point of the season, the two powers look to be in a league of their own, headed to a rubber match in Atlanta, which would be the perfect neutral site.
How rare is it for the same two teams to play for the Championship of a sport three years in a row? In one word–Very! College football has only had a playoff for a couple years, and before that a BCS Championship, so the chances have not been there for it to happen. It could be argued that from 1944 to 1946, Army and Notre Dame played in essence the National Championship Game when they faced off at Yankee Stadium, but those games were in-season, and there was no guarantee that the winner would be the champion.
In the NFL, no two Super Bowl teams have every played each other three years in a row. Prior to the Super Bowl era, The Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns played for the NFL title in 1952, 1953, and 1954.

The New York Giants and New York Yankees squared off in three consecutive World Series in 1921, 1922, and 1923. In the NBA, the Warriors and Cavaliers have played each other for the title the last three years, and in the NHL, even though for many years there were not even 10 total teams (just 6 for many of those years), it has still been rare. Detroit and Montreal met for the Stanley Cup in 1954, 1955, and 1956.

 

Is It Time For The Professional University Football League?

Many times in the last quarter century, multiple sports professionals have bantered about having one super conference in college sports. Media members, former athletic administrators and others have discussed what might happen if the largest financially successful athletic programs drop all pretenses and secede from the NCAA, forming their own professional college league.

The PiRates have always believed in amateur athletics, but at this point, it is hard to keep the amateur in high school athletics, where you have football and basketball factory high schools all over the country.

Maybe the time has come for the big boys to leave the supposedly amateur NCAA and form a new entity. The time may be the most ideal since the thought first became public.

With the NFL potentially crippled for the near term and maybe never again to experience the heights it enjoyed since it surpassed baseball circa 1969, when the Major Leagues divided into divisions, meaning the two best teams did not always play in the World Series, and when Joe Namath made that Super Bowl III guarantee.

Add to this the current FBI probe that has already brought down Rick Pitino and many assistant coaches and may eventually lead to some top schools landing in serious trouble. Recruiting the 5-star athletes leads to all sorts of dirty underhanded dealing.

The fix would be for the 32 biggest football factories to leave the NCAA and form their own professional league of universities.

What we call the PUFL (Professional University Football League) could take these 32 great teams with the gragantuan football stadiums and divide into eight divisions of four teams each. The league could play a 16-game schedule with a couple of pre-season games, and then 12 teams would make the playoffs, leading up to the College Super Bowl, or whatever they might call it.

Instead of recruiting and signing players who would enroll in college as students, the players would be reclassified as employees and would not go to school as students. There would be a draft similar to the early days of the American Football League. Certain players living near a campus could be reserved and signed by the school in their area, but only a small amount. The remainder of the top talent could be drafted and signed to a 3-year contract. The draft would run for 16 rounds, and each drafted player would be guaranteed a 3-year contract.  After the third year, players could move on to the NFL or sign a new 1-year contract and remain employed with the college.  An option could be that the player could become a free agent after three years and sign with another college.

After 16 rounds, the schools could then sign free agent high school talents in order to fill out a 60-man roster. With 60 players under contract for 3-year contracts, each school would then have a salary cap of $6 million. That would mean the average player would make $100,000 per year. There would be no need to have boosters paying recruits to receive under the table payments, because the top 512 players would belong to the team that drafted them (16 draft rounds of 32 teams).

The $6 million in salaries would more than be made up by added revenue from a television contract that would dwarf today’s current NCAA contract. All the major networks might want to participate. With 16 games a week, all 16 games could be televised nationally. The ratings would go through the roof, and the schools could make much more money than they currently do.

The Big Ten and SEC schools currently receive around $30-40 million from their networks.  According to the Green Bay Packers’ financial records, each NFL team received $244 million in TV revenue in 2016. We believe the PUFL teams could top that and maybe receive $300-500 million a year! The college game has the potential to do to the NFL what the NFL did to all other sports. This might be the time to strike, while the NFL has a serious wound that worsens daily, and while some current basketball personnel may be soon wearing a uniform with stripes for 2 to 5 years.

This is our offering for the 32 teams

Eastern Division
Maryland
Penn St.
Virginia Tech
West Virginia

Mideast Division
Michigan
Michigan St.
Notre Dame
Ohio St.

Midwest Division
Iowa
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Wisconsin

Lower South Division
Clemson
Florida
Florida St.
Miami

Upper South Division
Alabama
Auburn
Georgia
Tennessee

Southwest Division
Arkansas
LSU
Texas
Texas A&M

Upper West Division
California
Oregon
Utah
Washington

Lower West Division
Arizona St.
San Diego St.
UCLA
USC

Imagine it is Thanksgiving Day. In the early morning, Ohio State and Michigan can play. A little later, Alabama and Auburn would square off. After this game kicks off, Nebraska and Oklahoma would begin, followed by Texas and Texas A&M. Then in the late afternoon, Washington and Oregon would play, followed by UCLA and USC in the late game. Because teams in the same division would play twice a year, you could easily stage the second game on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Or, you could add other potential bonanza games like USC-Notre Dame, Texas-Arkansas, Penn State-West Virginia, LSU-Alabama, Florida-Florida State, or Clemson-Georgia.

If fans will pay $50+ to see Alabama and Fresno State or Ohio State and UNLV in non-conference games, how much might an Alabama-Oklahoma or a Ohio State-USC game command?

Think about TV ratings. Rather than have to stick with a 59-0 massacre, CBS would not have to worry about a terrible mismatch like Alabama pasting Vanderbilt. With an annual draft of the top players, Alabama or anybody else would not be 59 points better than another opponent. In fact, Alabama fans would have to deal with seasons where 12-4 records might be the best they can expect. Some current power might be hung with a string of losing seasons rather than suffer through a 7-win rebuilding season with three or four wins over the little sisters of the poor.

What would happen to all the other schools? Do you really think these big behemoths would care all that much? The other schools would have to make do with what was left over. Maybe, they could return to educating first with athletics becoming more of a real amateur competition. Would a leftover school really try to go after the 700th best athlete by throwing money at him? Would the shoe companies or some Nationwide Ned try to broker players to schools, when all the 4 and 5-star athletes would be off limits to them?

It could lead to new Ivy League type conferences. Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, Army, Navy, Air Force, Vanderbilt, Tulane, and Rice could form a league and bring back some of the former football greats of the past that once played major college football, like Fordham. These schools could team up with the current Ivy League and Patriot League and form their own alliance of teams that put academics first ahead of athletics.

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for September 28-30, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads

September 28-30
Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Iowa St.	Texas	-7.3	-6.9	-6.6
Duke	Miami (Fla.)	-5.4	-4.4	-6.1
Illinois	Nebraska	-6.7	-7.0	-6.8
Utah St.	BYU	-7.2	-7.3	-8.7
Washington St.	USC	0.3	-1.6	-0.2
Georgia Tech	North Carolina	7.3	5.8	6.9
Temple	Houston	-8.4	-6.7	-8.4
Minnesota	Maryland	10.8	8.3	10.6
Florida	Vanderbilt	11.4	12.1	11.5
Pittsburgh	Rice	28.8	28.0	27.9
Arkansas	New Mexico St.	21.4	23.0	21.3
Wisconsin	Northwestern	15.7	13.2	13.7
East Carolina	South Florida	-24.4	-20.8	-25.4
North Carolina St.	Syracuse	11.5	12.5	12.2
Boston College	Central Michigan	12.0	11.7	11.0
Army	UTEP	28.3	24.2	29.1
Tulsa	Navy	6.7	5.0	6.8
Penn St.	Indiana	24.5	22.4	24.5
Wake Forest	Florida St.	-15.7	-14.8	-15.2
Massachusetts	Ohio U	-3.1	-5.6	-4.0
Tennessee	Georgia	-7.7	-10.5	-9.9
Kansas St.	Baylor	16.2	13.8	16.5
Kent St.	Buffalo	0.6	-1.0	-0.7
SMU	Connecticut	14.4	11.5	14.4
Kentucky	Eastern Michigan	21.4	20.2	21.3
Stanford	Arizona St.	19.3	17.9	19.4
Michigan St.	Iowa	-10.4	-7.1	-9.4
Wyoming	Texas St.	25.7	21.2	25.2
Notre Dame	Miami (O)	23.1	19.5	21.8
Bowling Green	Akron	-0.6	-3.7	0.4
Auburn	Mississippi St.	17.5	14.2	17.0
Louisiana Tech	South Alabama	9.2	7.3	10.0
Southern Miss.	North Texas	9.2	8.4	8.8
Western Michigan	Ball St.	23.4	19.5	23.0
Florida Int’l.	Charlotte	12.8	10.3	13.5
Louisiana-Monroe	Coastal Carolina	13.4	12.5	10.3
LSU	Troy	25.1	23.0	26.6
Florida Atlantic	Middle Tennessee	-4.9	-2.1	-4.3
Cincinnati	Marshall	7.3	8.5	7.8
New Mexico	Air Force	2.3	2.0	2.5
Central Florida	Memphis	0.4	3.6	1.1
Rutgers	Ohio St.	-30.5	-27.7	-30.3
Texas A&M	South Carolina	2.6	1.1	2.3
Virginia Tech	Clemson	-7.9	-5.5	-6.4
Texas Tech	Oklahoma St.	-16.3	-14.8	-18.5
Oregon St.	Washington	-34.4	-31.1	-36.6
Alabama	Ole Miss	34.6	31.3	35.3
Fresno St.	Nevada	7.6	3.2	6.2
UCLA	Colorado	-0.6	0.9	1.1
UNLV	San Jose St.	10.7	14.0	11.9
Oregon	California	14.3	14.0	14.9
San Diego St.	Northern Illinois	17.0	17.3	17.7
Hawaii	Colorado St.	-11.2	-8.6	-11.3

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Louisville	Murray St.	47

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

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

The Predictive Ratings–These concentrate on the future and do not always reflect what the teams have done in the past.  Thus, a team can be rated higher than another team that beat them earlier this season.

PiRate Rating–Our oldest rating is based on analysis of statistical data against the strength of schedule to date.  It is more concerned with yards per point and predicting how many yards each team will gain and surrender rather than prior points scored and surrendered.

Mean Rating–This is a more conservative statistical rating, using the mean (average) of five separate statistical and scoring data points.  Updating this rating takes up most of our time on Sundays.  Of the three ratings we submit, this one is the most independent of the other two.

Bias Rating–This rating differs from the PiRate Rating only in how the algorithm is calculated.  We give a bias to certain factors, giving these more weight than others.  It is the most liberal rating in that our updating for this one allows teams to rise and fall by more points each week than in our other two ratings.

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	137.5	132.7	136.4	135.5
2	Washington	130.0	126.7	130.7	129.1
3	Clemson	130.1	127.1	129.4	128.9
4	Ohio St.	130.0	127.3	129.3	128.9
5	Penn St.	126.9	124.9	127.5	126.4
6	Oklahoma	125.9	124.0	126.6	125.5
7	Florida St.	124.5	122.8	123.6	123.7
8	Auburn	124.2	121.9	124.1	123.4
9	Oklahoma St.	123.0	121.3	124.1	122.8
10	Wisconsin	122.8	118.6	121.0	120.8
11	Georgia	119.5	120.4	119.8	119.9
12	U S C	120.0	119.5	119.9	119.8
13	Virginia Tech	119.2	118.6	120.0	119.2
14	T C U	119.5	116.9	119.9	118.7
15	Miami	118.9	116.6	118.3	117.9
16	Stanford	117.9	116.3	117.3	117.2
17	Michigan	116.9	116.5	116.2	116.5
18	Washington St.	117.3	114.9	116.7	116.3
19	Louisville	116.1	115.0	116.2	115.8
20	N. Carolina St.	115.8	115.2	115.7	115.6
21	L S U	115.4	113.6	116.1	115.0
22	Florida	115.5	114.7	114.8	115.0
23	Kansas St.	114.1	113.8	114.3	114.1
24	Notre Dame	114.1	112.7	114.6	113.8
25	Texas	113.2	114.0	113.4	113.6
26	Kentucky	112.9	111.5	112.6	112.3
27	Georgia Tech	113.7	111.2	111.7	112.2
28	Oregon	113.0	110.2	112.1	111.8
29	South Florida	111.7	110.0	112.7	111.5
30	Iowa	111.5	111.2	111.2	111.3
31	Colorado	111.8	109.7	109.6	110.3
32	Mississippi St.	109.8	110.7	110.0	110.2
33	Duke	111.0	109.7	109.7	110.1
34	West Virginia	109.4	110.2	109.5	109.7
35	Northwestern	110.2	108.4	110.3	109.6
36	Minnesota	109.5	109.3	109.3	109.4
37	N. Carolina	109.4	108.4	107.8	108.5
38	Central Florida	107.0	108.9	108.0	108.0
39	U C L A	108.2	107.6	107.7	107.8
40	Utah	107.0	108.8	107.2	107.7
41	Tennessee	108.8	106.9	106.9	107.5
42	Syracuse	107.3	105.7	106.6	106.5
43	Vanderbilt	107.1	105.6	106.3	106.3
44	Arkansas	106.5	106.0	106.2	106.3
45	Wake Forest	106.4	105.5	106.0	105.9
46	Indiana	105.4	105.5	106.0	105.6
47	S. Carolina	105.4	104.8	104.4	104.9
48	Ole Miss	105.9	104.4	104.1	104.8
49	Memphis	105.1	103.9	105.3	104.7
50	Pittsburgh	104.7	105.0	104.0	104.6
51	Colo. State	105.0	103.4	105.1	104.5
52	Houston	104.7	103.7	104.6	104.3
53	Texas A&M	105.0	102.9	103.7	103.9
54	Iowa State	102.9	104.1	103.8	103.6
55	Virginia	103.1	102.9	104.4	103.5
56	San Diego St.	103.0	103.0	104.0	103.3
57	Texas Tech	103.7	103.4	102.6	103.2
58	Maryland	101.7	104.0	101.7	102.4
59	Purdue	101.1	102.8	101.7	101.9
60	Baylor	100.9	103.0	100.9	101.6
61	Arizona St.	101.7	101.3	100.9	101.3
62	Nebraska	100.8	102.4	99.9	101.0
63	Tulsa	100.7	100.3	100.7	100.6
64	California	101.7	99.2	100.1	100.3
65	Toledo	99.6	99.5	101.0	100.0
66	Michigan St.	98.1	101.1	98.8	99.3
67	Navy	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
68	Western Michigan	99.4	97.6	100.7	99.2
69	Arizona	99.8	99.1	98.4	99.1
70	BYU	98.9	98.1	99.4	98.8
71	Boston College	98.8	99.2	98.2	98.7
72	SMU	98.2	98.3	98.6	98.4
73	Boise St.	99.0	97.2	98.5	98.2
74	Appalachian St.	98.6	96.3	98.9	97.9
75	U T S A	95.7	97.3	97.8	96.9
76	Army	96.3	95.9	97.1	96.4
77	Rutgers	96.5	96.6	95.9	96.3
78	Missouri	96.6	94.3	95.3	95.4
79	Miami (O)	94.0	96.2	95.8	95.3
80	Tulane	94.4	94.6	94.8	94.6
81	Air Force	93.8	94.1	94.2	94.0
82	Eastern Michigan	94.0	93.8	93.8	93.9
83	W. Kentucky	93.6	92.8	94.7	93.7
84	Wyoming	94.6	93.1	93.2	93.6
85	New Mexico	93.1	93.1	93.7	93.3
86	Troy	93.3	93.6	92.5	93.1
87	Temple	92.5	93.2	92.4	92.7
88	Middle Tennessee	91.9	92.4	92.4	92.2
89	Cincinnati	90.7	93.1	92.5	92.1
90	Oregon St.	92.6	92.6	91.1	92.1
91	Illinois	91.6	92.9	90.6	91.7
92	Ohio U	90.8	92.4	91.7	91.6
93	Louisiana Tech	90.4	91.4	91.3	91.1
94	Hawaii	89.8	90.8	89.8	90.1
95	Central Michigan	89.3	90.0	89.6	89.6
96	Utah St.	90.2	89.3	89.2	89.6
97	Old Dominion	88.6	91.1	88.9	89.5
98	Northern Illinois	89.4	89.3	89.8	89.5
99	Arkansas St.	88.2	89.9	89.8	89.3
100	Kansas	87.4	90.7	86.7	88.3
101	Fresno St.	88.6	87.0	88.8	88.2
102	U N L V	87.0	89.9	87.4	88.1
103	Southern Miss.	87.7	88.9	87.7	88.1
104	N. Mexico St.	88.0	86.0	88.0	87.3
105	Connecticut	85.7	88.8	86.0	86.8
106	Marshall	85.9	87.1	87.2	86.8
107	Nevada	84.0	86.8	85.7	85.5
108	Florida Atlantic	84.0	87.3	85.1	85.5
109	Massachusetts	85.7	84.8	85.7	85.4
110	S. Alabama	84.2	87.1	84.4	85.2
111	Buffalo	83.3	86.0	85.3	84.9
112	Georgia St.	84.9	84.2	84.9	84.7
113	Idaho	83.5	85.6	84.4	84.5
114	UL-Lafayette	84.0	85.3	83.8	84.4
115	Akron	83.0	86.5	82.8	84.1
116	East Carolina	83.0	84.9	83.0	83.6
117	N. Texas	81.6	83.4	81.8	82.3
118	Kent St.	81.4	82.6	82.1	82.0
119	Florida Int’l.	81.6	81.7	82.6	82.0
120	UL-Monroe	81.4	81.9	80.0	81.1
121	Bowling Green	80.4	80.9	81.1	80.8
122	Ball St.	79.0	81.1	80.7	80.3
123	Georgia Southern	79.2	80.5	78.6	79.4
124	Rice	78.4	79.5	78.6	78.8
125	San Jose St.	78.8	78.4	78.0	78.4
126	Charlotte	71.9	74.4	72.1	72.8
127	Texas St.	71.9	74.8	71.0	72.6
128	U T E P	70.9	74.7	71.0	72.2
129	Coastal Carolina	70.5	71.9	72.2	71.6
130	UAB	66.5	70.8	68.5	68.6

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	1-0	4-0	111.7	110.0	112.7	111.5
Central Florida	0-0	2-0	107.0	108.9	108.0	108.0
Temple	0-1	2-2	92.5	93.2	92.4	92.7
Cincinnati	0-1	2-2	90.7	93.1	92.5	92.1
Connecticut	0-1	1-2	85.7	88.8	86.0	86.8
East Carolina	1-0	1-3	83.0	84.9	83.0	83.6
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	0-0	3-0	105.1	103.9	105.3	104.7
Houston	0-0	2-1	104.7	103.7	104.6	104.3
Tulsa	0-0	1-3	100.7	100.3	100.7	100.6
Navy	2-0	3-0	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
SMU	0-0	3-1	98.2	98.3	98.6	98.4
Tulane	0-1	2-2	94.4	94.6	94.8	94.6
AAC Averages			97.7	98.3	98.1	98.0
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	2-0	4-0	130.1	127.1	129.4	128.9
Florida St.	0-1	0-2	124.5	122.8	123.6	123.7
Louisville	1-1	3-2	116.1	115.0	116.2	115.8
N. Carolina St.	1-0	3-1	115.8	115.2	115.7	115.6
Syracuse	0-0	2-2	107.3	105.7	106.6	106.5
Wake Forest	1-0	4-0	106.4	105.5	106.0	105.9
Boston College	0-2	1-3	98.8	99.2	98.2	98.7
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Virginia Tech	0-0	4-0	119.2	118.6	120.0	119.2
Miami	0-0	2-0	118.9	116.6	118.3	117.9
Georgia Tech	1-0	2-1	113.7	111.2	111.7	112.2
Duke	1-0	4-0	111.0	109.7	109.7	110.1
N. Carolina	0-2	1-3	109.4	108.4	107.8	108.5
Pittsburgh	0-1	1-3	104.7	105.0	104.0	104.6
Virginia	0-0	3-1	103.1	102.9	104.4	103.5
ACC Averages			112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	1-0	4-0	125.9	124.0	126.6	125.5
Oklahoma St.	0-1	3-1	123.0	121.3	124.1	122.8
T C U	1-0	4-0	119.5	116.9	119.9	118.7
Kansas St.	0-0	2-1	114.1	113.8	114.3	114.1
Texas	0-0	1-2	113.2	114.0	113.4	113.6
West Virginia	1-0	3-1	109.4	110.2	109.5	109.7
Iowa State	0-0	2-1	102.9	104.1	103.8	103.6
Texas Tech	0-0	3-0	103.7	103.4	102.6	103.2
Baylor	0-1	0-4	100.9	103.0	100.9	101.6
Kansas	0-1	1-3	87.4	90.7	86.7	88.3
Big 12 Averages			110.0	110.1	110.2	110.1
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	1-0	3-1	130.0	127.3	129.3	128.9
Penn St.	1-0	4-0	126.9	124.9	127.5	126.4
Michigan	1-0	4-0	116.9	116.5	116.2	116.5
Indiana	0-1	2-1	105.4	105.5	106.0	105.6
Maryland	0-0	2-1	101.7	104.0	101.7	102.4
Michigan St.	0-0	2-1	98.1	101.1	98.8	99.3
Rutgers	0-1	1-3	96.5	96.6	95.9	96.3
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	0-0	3-0	122.8	118.6	121.0	120.8
Iowa	0-1	3-1	111.5	111.2	111.2	111.3
Northwestern	0-0	2-1	110.2	108.4	110.3	109.6
Minnesota	0-0	3-0	109.5	109.3	109.3	109.4
Purdue	0-1	2-2	101.1	102.8	101.7	101.9
Nebraska	1-0	2-2	100.8	102.4	99.9	101.0
Illinois	0-0	2-1	91.6	92.9	90.6	91.7
Big Ten Averages			108.8	108.7	108.5	108.7
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	0-1	2-2	93.6	92.8	94.7	93.7
Middle Tennessee	0-0	2-2	91.9	92.4	92.4	92.2
Old Dominion	0-0	2-2	88.6	91.1	88.9	89.5
Marshall	0-0	2-1	85.9	87.1	87.2	86.8
Florida Atlantic	0-0	1-3	84.0	87.3	85.1	85.5
Florida Int’l.	1-0	2-1	81.6	81.7	82.6	82.0
Charlotte	0-0	0-4	71.9	74.4	72.1	72.8
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-0	3-0	95.7	97.3	97.8	96.9
Louisiana Tech	1-0	2-2	90.4	91.4	91.3	91.1
Southern Miss.	0-0	2-1	87.7	88.9	87.7	88.1
N. Texas	1-0	2-2	81.6	83.4	81.8	82.3
Rice	1-1	1-3	78.4	79.5	78.6	78.8
U T E P	0-1	0-4	70.9	74.7	71.0	72.2
UAB	0-1	2-2	66.5	70.8	68.5	68.6
CUSA Averages			83.5	85.2	84.3	84.3
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		3-1	114.1	112.7	114.6	113.8
BYU		1-3	98.9	98.1	99.4	98.8
Army		2-2	96.3	95.9	97.1	96.4
Massachusetts		0-5	85.7	84.8	85.7	85.4
Indep. Averages			98.7	97.9	99.2	98.6
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (O)	1-0	2-2	94.0	96.2	95.8	95.3
Ohio U	1-0	3-1	90.8	92.4	91.7	91.6
Buffalo	0-0	2-2	83.3	86.0	85.3	84.9
Akron	0-0	1-3	83.0	86.5	82.8	84.1
Kent St.	0-0	1-3	81.4	82.6	82.1	82.0
Bowling Green	0-0	0-4	80.4	80.9	81.1	80.8
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	0-0	3-1	99.6	99.5	101.0	100.0
Western Michigan	0-0	2-2	99.4	97.6	100.7	99.2
Eastern Michigan	0-1	2-1	94.0	93.8	93.8	93.9
Central Michigan	0-1	2-2	89.3	90.0	89.6	89.6
Northern Illinois	0-0	2-1	89.4	89.3	89.8	89.5
Ball St.	0-0	2-2	79.0	81.1	80.7	80.3
MAC Averages			88.6	89.7	89.5	89.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	0-0	2-2	105.0	103.4	105.1	104.5
Boise St.	1-0	2-2	99.0	97.2	98.5	98.2
Air Force	0-1	1-2	93.8	94.1	94.2	94.0
Wyoming	1-0	2-2	94.6	93.1	93.2	93.6
New Mexico	0-1	2-2	93.1	93.1	93.7	93.3
Utah St.	1-0	2-2	90.2	89.3	89.2	89.6
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	1-0	4-0	103.0	103.0	104.0	103.3
Hawaii	0-1	2-2	89.8	90.8	89.8	90.1
Fresno St.	0-0	1-2	88.6	87.0	88.8	88.2
U N L V	0-0	1-2	87.0	89.9	87.4	88.1
Nevada	0-0	0-4	84.0	86.8	85.7	85.5
San Jose St.	0-1	1-4	78.8	78.4	78.0	78.4
MWC Averages			92.2	92.2	92.3	92.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	1-0	4-0	130.0	126.7	130.7	129.1
Stanford	1-1	2-2	117.9	116.3	117.3	117.2
Washington St.	1-0	4-0	117.3	114.9	116.7	116.3
Oregon	0-1	3-1	113.0	110.2	112.1	111.8
California	0-1	3-1	101.7	99.2	100.1	100.3
Oregon St.	0-1	1-3	92.6	92.6	91.1	92.1
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	2-0	4-0	120.0	119.5	119.9	119.8
Colorado	0-1	3-1	111.8	109.7	109.6	110.3
U C L A	0-1	2-2	108.2	107.6	107.7	107.8
Utah	1-0	4-0	107.0	108.8	107.2	107.7
Arizona St.	1-0	2-2	101.7	101.3	100.9	101.3
Arizona	0-1	2-2	99.8	99.1	98.4	99.1
Pac-12 Averages			110.1	108.8	109.3	109.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	1-0	4-0	119.5	120.4	119.8	119.9
Florida	2-0	2-1	115.5	114.7	114.8	115.0
Kentucky	1-1	3-1	112.9	111.5	112.6	112.3
Tennessee	0-1	3-1	108.8	106.9	106.9	107.5
Vanderbilt	0-1	3-1	107.1	105.6	106.3	106.3
S. Carolina	1-1	3-1	105.4	104.8	104.4	104.9
Missouri	0-2	1-3	96.6	94.3	95.3	95.4
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	1-0	4-0	137.5	132.7	136.4	135.5
Auburn	1-0	3-1	124.2	121.9	124.1	123.4
L S U	0-1	3-1	115.4	113.6	116.1	115.0
Mississippi St.	1-1	3-1	109.8	110.7	110.0	110.2
Arkansas	0-1	1-2	106.5	106.0	106.2	106.3
Ole Miss	0-0	2-1	105.9	104.4	104.1	104.8
Texas A&M	1-0	3-1	105.0	102.9	103.7	103.9
SEC Averages			112.1	110.7	111.5	111.5
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	1-0	2-2	98.6	96.3	98.9	97.9
Troy	1-0	3-1	93.3	93.6	92.5	93.1
Arkansas St.	0-0	1-2	88.2	89.9	89.8	89.3
N. Mexico St.	0-1	2-2	88.0	86.0	88.0	87.3
S. Alabama	0-1	1-3	84.2	87.1	84.4	85.2
Georgia St.	0-0	1-2	84.9	84.2	84.9	84.7
Idaho	1-0	2-2	83.5	85.6	84.4	84.5
UL-Lafayette	0-1	1-3	84.0	85.3	83.8	84.4
UL-Monroe	1-0	1-2	81.4	81.9	80.0	81.1
Georgia Southern	0-0	0-3	79.2	80.5	78.6	79.4
Texas St.	0-1	1-3	71.9	74.8	71.0	72.6
Coastal Carolina	0-0	1-2	70.5	71.9	72.2	71.6
Sun Belt Averages			84.0	84.8	84.0	84.3

How The Conferences Rate

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
2	SEC	112.1	110.7	111.5	111.5
3	BIG 12	110.0	110.1	110.2	110.1
4	PAC-12	110.1	108.8	109.3	109.4
5	BIG TEN	108.8	108.7	108.5	108.7
6	INDEP.	98.7	97.9	99.2	98.6
7	AAC	97.7	98.3	98.1	98.0
8	MWC	92.2	92.2	92.3	92.2
9	MAC	88.6	89.7	89.5	89.3
10	CUSA	83.5	85.2	84.3	84.3
11	Sun Belt	84.0	84.8	84.0	84.3

Alabama Takes Commanding Lead
Alabama’s most recent victory, a 59-0 pasting of Vanderbilt, propelled the top-ranked Tide into a rather lofty status this week. With the win, accompanied by unimpressive wins by Clemson and Oklahoma, Alabama has now opened a better than six-point cushion in the PiRate Ratings over the number two team. It is not often in PiRate Ratings’ history that a number one team has been rated more than six points ahead of the number two team. It puts ‘Bama in esteemed company. Since our ratings started in 1969, only two other number one teams held a greater than six-point edge over the number two team at the end of a season. Unfortunately, we do not have in-season information on our ratings prior to 1989.

If you were wondering, the other two teams that held a better than six-point edge on the field were Miami (Fla.) in 2001 and Nebraska in 1995. This does not mean that Alabama is one of the three best teams in our history; it just means they are in line to become one of three of the most dominant in a single season when compared to others from that particular year.  Alabama’s current rating is still historically lower than many others, namely Nebraska and Oklahoma of 1971, USC of 1972, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma of 1973, Oklahoma of 1974, Miami (Fla.) of 1987, USC of 2004, and Texas of 2005.
New Number Two
Speaking of number two, there is a new team in that position yet again. To date, the number two team has changed each week. This week, that distinguished honor goes to Washington (although Clemson stayed number two in our retrodictive ratings).

Best Group of 5
South Florida and San Diego State opened a little room over most of the rest of the Group of 5 field in the quest to receive the lone automatic New Year’s 6 Bowl Bid awarded to this group.  However, one new team moved into contention to make this an interesting three-team race at this point. Central Florida not only won at Maryland, they destroyed the Terps. UCF Head Coach Scott Frost just established himself as a potential front-runner to return to his alma mater the moment Nebraska makes its next coaching change.

The Three Best Games This Week
The ACC passed the SEC in PiRate Rating superiority last week and slightly widened that lead this past weekend. Now, it showcases two of the top three games of this week.

Clemson may have been looking ahead to this week and thus failed to thrive for more than a half against Boston College. The Tigers face what is probably their stiffest test of the regular season with a trip to Blacksburg to face Virginia Tech in the Saturday night prime-time game on ABC. Virginia Tech’s defense may be strong enough to keep the Hokies in the game and give Tech a legitimate chance at the upset.

Miami visits Durham to take on Duke in a game that will go far in deciding who will contend with Virginia Tech in the Coastal Division.

The other key game this week takes place Friday Night in the Palouse, where USC invades Pullman to take on Washington State. It promises to be a game with a lot of passing yards and total points scored, and it might be one of those four-hour marathons. It just could be the most exciting game of September.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for September 14-16, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads

PiRate Ratings Spreads
September 14-16
Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Boise St.	New Mexico	12.9	10.4	11.8
Temple	Massachusetts	14.2	15.6	14.5
South Florida	Illinois	20.5	17.3	22.9
UTEP	Arizona	-23.3	-17.6	-20.1
South Carolina	Kentucky	0.5	1.2	0.2
Marshall	Kent St.	4.6	4.9	4.7
Boston College	Notre Dame	-8.1	-5.1	-8.8
Virginia	Connecticut	16.2	13.0	17.0
Michigan	Air Force	26.8	25.4	25.7
UAB	Coastal Carolina	-8.3	-3.8	-8.0
Miami (O)	Cincinnati	4.5	4.3	5.2
Penn St.	Georgia St.	45.2	43.7	46.0
Akron	Iowa St.	-15.1	-12.3	-15.7
Old Dominion	North Carolina	-16.3	-12.1	-14.3
Pittsburgh	Oklahoma St.	-9.8	-8.6	-12.3
Minnesota	Middle Tennessee	17.5	17.2	16.2
Indiana	Florida Int’l.	26.8	26.6	26.2
Memphis	UCLA	-2.3	-2.3	-1.4
Nebraska	Northern Illinois	20.7	22.3	19.7
Duke	Baylor	13.2	9.2	11.7
Ohio U	Kansas	4.0	2.8	5.7
Wake Forest	Utah St.	21.0	21.4	21.2
Louisville	Clemson	-8.2	-5.5	-7.1
Syracuse	Central Michigan	18.3	16.3	17.0
East Carolina	Virginia Tech	-28.3	-26.4	-28.7
BYU	Wisconsin	-17.3	-14.4	-15.1
Missouri	Purdue	7.8	2.8	5.7
Iowa	North Texas	33.3	31.3	33.0
Texas A&M	UL-Lafayette	23.9	19.9	22.7
Northwestern	Bowling Green	31.2	28.8	30.2
Oklahoma	Tulane	36.1	33.4	36.6
Florida	Tennessee	6.4	7.7	7.5
TCU	SMU	19.0	16.1	18.6
Western Kentucky	Louisiana Tech	11.5	7.8	12.1
Ohio St.	Army	36.2	33.7	34.5
Washington St.	Oregon St.	27.0	24.1	27.6
Texas St.	Appalachian St.	-25.8	-19.6	-27.4
Alabama	Colorado St.	32.1	28.7	31.2
Toledo	Tulsa	-0.4	0.4	1.3
Western Michigan	Idaho	21.4	15.8	22.0
UL-Monroe	Southern Miss.	-2.8	-3.9	-4.3
Wyoming	Oregon	-9.5	-8.6	-9.7
Mississippi St.	LSU	-10.3	-7.9	-10.6
Central Florida	Georgia Tech	-7.5	-2.9	-4.6
Vanderbilt	Kansas St.	-1.6	-3.0	-3.2
Houston	Rice	26.1	23.8	25.2
New Mexico St.	Troy	-3.5	-6.3	-3.4
Texas Tech	Arizona St.	5.3	4.6	5.0
USC	Texas	13.0	11.3	13.2
Utah	San Jose St.	23.9	27.2	24.9
Washington	Fresno St.	43.8	41.5	44.5
California	Ole Miss	-4.0	-5.2	-4.3
San Diego St.	Stanford	-15.0	-12.1	-12.8

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Auburn	Mercer	40
Georgia	Samford	26
UTSA	Southern	24
West Virginia	Delaware St.	55
North Carolina St.	Furman	31
Colorado	Northern Colorado	39
Ball St.	Tennessee Tech	20
Rutgers	Morgan St.	36
Charlotte	N.C. A&T	-2
Buffalo	Colgate	7
Nevada	Idaho St.	25
Arkansas St.	Ark.-Pine Bluff	51
South Alabama	Alabama A&M	28
Florida Atlantic	Bethune-Cookman	15

The Big 12 Arises Like The Phoenix
A week after Texas and Baylor suffered devastating losses, the Big 12 returned from the dead with some major victories. Oklahoma went to the Giant Horseshoe and toyed with Ohio State for most of the evening. The Sooners looked about as effective on offense as they looked back in 2008, when they had Sam Bradford, Chris Brown, Demarco Murray, Juaquin Iglesias, Jermaine Gresham. But, it was the defense that really looked dominant. Oklahoma’s effort Saturday night reminded us more of their 2001 team that featured Tommie Harris, Rocky Calmus, Derrick Strait, and Roy Williams.

TCU’s defense totally shut down Arkansas in the Horned Frogs win at Fayetteville. TCU’s defense held Arkansas to 13 first downs and 267 total yards; more importantly, they held them to just 7 points.

Oklahoma State won on the road at South Alabama, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but the Jaguars have a history of sneaking up on Power 5 conference teams.

Baylor lost once again, and Iowa State just missed against Iowa, while Texas played much better in their drubbing of San Jose St. The Longhorns get a chance to redeem themselves for the Maryland debacle when they venture to the LA Coliseum to take on USC this week. If UT keeps this game close, then watch out for the ‘Horns in Big 12 Conference play. It is a transition process into Coach Tom Herman’s offense, but Herman’s teams find a way to win, and Texas will win more than they did last year.

ACC Tilt Highlights Top Games This Week
Following Clemson’s defensive gem against Auburn, the Tigers must now face the reigning Heisman Trophy winner on his turf. Clemson’s game at Louisville tops this week’s schedule. Louisville has the horses to do to CU what they did to Florida State last year, but we believe Coach Dabo Swinney will come up with another brilliant game plan to slow down the Cardinal attack. The issue is whether the Clemson offense has enough to get to about 27 points, because even when you slow down the ‘Ville, you might still give up 24 points.

Clemson’s big rival has a big game this week. South Carolina hosts Kentucky. USC already owns a conference win and can take a major step forward toward competing with Georgia for the East Division flag. Kentucky has not looked up to the standards we thought they had the potential to be, performing so-so in wins over Southern Miss and Eastern Kentucky.

Florida hosts Tennessee in the Swamp, and the Gators got a week off after their no-show event against Michigan. Meanwhile, Tennessee is playing its third game in 12 days and has suffered a couple of injury losses. The Vols’ offense has been at the extremes. On one drive, they look like Louisville, and on the next drive they look like a college version of the New York Jets or San Francisco 49ers. Florida was very consistent offensively against Michigan–they looked like the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers on every drive against the Wolverines. Expect the Gators to play near their maximum capacity in this game. They cannot start 0-2 with a now 11-game schedule and have much chance to recover to much more than 7-4 and possibly just 6-5. A Tennessee win puts the Big Orange into the contender category in the mediocre East Division.

LSU travels north to take on an under-the-radar Mississippi State team that has circled this game on their schedule since Spring Ball. Miss State has just one win over the Tigers in the 16 games in this century, and that one win came at Baton Rouge. The last time the Bulldogs bested their Bayou Rivals in Starkville was 1999. The winner of this game has to be taken seriously as a top contender to Alabama.

Kansas State looks to prove that it belongs in the discussion in the Big 12, and the Wildcats have a tough game at Vanderbilt this week. The Commodores looked similar to Stanford and Michigan in their opening two wins, but to beat a top 15 team is a lot different than beating Middle Tennessee and Alabama A&M. This game actually features the top two passing offenses in Raw QB Ratings, as Kyle Shurmur has Vandy at #1, while Jesse Ertz has Kansas State at #2. This looks to be the best Kansas State offense since the great 1998 team almost made it to the National Championship Game.

The previously mentioned Texas-USC game should be interesting, but the Trojans should eventually win this one by two touchdowns or more. However, if the Longhorns can control the clock offensively, their questionable defense can hold on long enough to make this game close enough to be undecided until the fourth quarter.

The late game on the Coast has Stanford playing at San Diego State. If the Aztecs are to challenge for the Group of 5’s top spot and the New Year’s 6 Bowl, they must win this game. Stanford will be a tough out for the hometown team, but Rocky Long has SDSU looking like a team capable of running the table if they get past the Cardinal.

This Week’s PiRate Ratings
This happens frequently in September. A top team is upset by another team, but the top team still rates ahead of the team that beat them. That’s the liability of predictive ratings, and the strength of retrodictive ratings. We have three predictive ratings–the regular PiRate, the PiRate Mean, and the PiRate Bias. We also have one set of PiRate Retrodictive Ratings.

If you need a primer, predictive ratings take what the teams have done so far and tries to predict what they will do next week. So, if State U has a predictive rating of 113.5 and plays Tech with a rating of 110.2, then before home field advantage (and road team disadvantage) are factored in, State is expected to beat Tech by 3.3 points. Let’s say the game is at State, and our special Pirate formula shows State to have a 3.2 point home field advantage for this game. It would then be quite easy to see that State should beat teach by 6.5 points.

Our retrodictive rating does not try to predict the outcomes of the next week’s slate of games. It is only concerned with what the teams have done. If State and Tech were to have the same Retro Ratings as their predictive ratings, this would not indicate that State should win by 6.5 points. It only means that to date, State has been about 3.3 points better in their results than Tech has been (no home field advantage used because this rating does not predict outcomes).

Why are we bringing this up? Simple. Ohio State is still number two in our predictive ratings. Oklahoma is behind the Buckeyes. In our Retrodictive Ratings, Ohio State fell quite a bit, just like Florida State did after losing to Alabama.

How can our predictive ratings show Ohio State to still be number two? It is a case of methodology. Our updates to our Predictive Ratings are rather conservative, with the Mean Rating being the most conservative, and the Bias being the least conservative, but still conservative. Remember, our predictive ratings are only looking forward and not backward. It is easier to think in terms of a major upset, like when Ole Miss beat Alabama two consecutive seasons. These two wins did not jump Ole Miss over the Tide. In a similar manner, when LSU beat Alabama during the regular season in 2011, Alabama stayed ahead of LSU in the ratings. When they met again in the National Championship Game, Alabama was the favorite, and they won 21-0.

We will lead with our Retrodictive Ratings First–We have put the rating numbers in this week to show you the difference between these ratings and the Predictive Ratings.

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team	Retro
1	Alabama	127.2
2	Clemson	125.8
3	Washington	124.9
4	Oklahoma	124.6
5	USC	124.1
6	Penn St.	123.8
7	LSU	122.3
8	Ohio St.	120.8
9	Oklahoma St.	120.4
10	Wisconsin	118.8
11	Michigan	118.6
12	Miami (Fla)	116.6
13	Louisville	116.5
14	Florida St.	116.4
15	Auburn	115.9
16	Virginia Tech	115.6
17	Stanford	114.5
18	Kansas St.	114.0
19	Georgia	113.9
20	Tennessee	113.1
21	TCU	112.7
22	Washington St.	112.4
23	Utah	112.2
24	Iowa	111.9
25	Colorado	111.8
26	Florida	111.5
27	Houston	111.3
28	Mississippi St.	110.8
29	South Florida	110.3
30	San Diego St.	110.0
31	Georgia Tech	109.5
32	South Carolina	109.3
33	UCLA	109.1
34	Oregon	108.9
35	Notre Dame	108.8
36	Vanderbilt	108.6
37	West Virginia	108.3
38	Minnesota	108.0
39	Boise St.	107.7
40	Michigan St.	107.0
41	Pittsburgh	106.7
42	Toledo	106.1
43	Texas A&M	104.8
44	Wake Forest	104.3
45	Nebraska	104.0
46	Maryland	103.8
47	Duke	103.7
48	Kentucky	103.7
49	North Carolina St.	103.1
50	Memphis	103.0
51	Northwestern	101.8
52	Navy	101.6
53	Ole Miss	101.5
54	California	101.3
55	Tulsa	101.1
56	Texas	101.0
57	Arkansas	100.7
58	Air Force	100.5
59	Western Michigan	100.1
60	Colorado St.	100.0
61	Texas Tech	99.8
62	BYU	99.3
63	Appalachian St.	98.7
64	North Carolina	98.4
65	Army	98.1
66	SMU	97.9
67	Central Florida	97.7
68	Temple	97.5
69	Boston College	97.3
70	Indiana	97.1
71	Old Dominion	96.8
72	Western Kentucky	96.7
73	Troy	96.5
74	Arkansas St.	96.4
75	UTSA	96.2
76	Iowa St.	96.0
77	Purdue	95.9
78	Wyoming	95.7
79	Louisiana Tech	95.4
80	Illinois	95.3
81	Missouri	95.2
82	Eastern Michigan	95.0
83	Central Michigan	94.8
84	Arizona St.	94.4
85	Arizona	94.2
86	Middle Tennessee	94.0
87	Northern Illinois	93.8
88	Ohio	93.6
89	Syracuse	93.5
90	Tulane	93.5
91	Baylor	93.3
92	Southern Miss.	93.2
93	Oregon St.	93.1
94	New Mexico	92.9
95	Hawaii	92.7
96	Utah St.	92.2
97	Idaho	91.5
98	Cincinnati	91.2
99	Miami (O)	91.1
100	Virginia	90.9
101	UL-Lafayette	90.7
102	Coastal Carolina	90.0
103	Akron	89.6
104	Marshall	89.6
105	Nevada	89.3
106	New Mexico St.	88.8
107	Rutgers	88.5
108	Ball St.	88.3
109	South Alabama	88.0
110	Fresno St.	87.9
111	Georgia Southern	87.4
112	North Texas	87.1
113	Connecticut	86.6
114	UL-Monroe	86.3
115	San Jose St.	86.1
116	Kent St.	85.9
117	Kansas	85.5
118	Rice	85.2
119	Buffalo	84.9
120	UNLV	84.4
121	East Carolina	83.7
122	Georgia St.	83.6
123	Florida Int’l.	83.4
124	Bowling Green	83.0
125	Florida Atlantic	82.6
126	UTEP	82.1
127	UAB	80.5
128	Texas St.	79.1
129	Charlotte	77.5
130	Massachusetts	75.3

Our Regular Predictive Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	133.0	128.2	132.0	131.1
2	Ohio St.	129.4	126.6	128.7	128.2
3	Washington	128.9	125.3	129.7	128.0
4	Clemson	128.9	125.1	128.1	127.4
5	Oklahoma	127.7	125.4	128.6	127.2
6	Florida St.	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
7	Penn St.	126.2	124.0	126.9	125.7
8	Auburn	124.0	121.9	123.8	123.2
9	U S C	122.0	121.3	122.3	121.9
10	Oklahoma St.	121.6	120.3	123.2	121.7
11	L S U	120.3	118.5	121.0	119.9
12	Wisconsin	121.1	117.2	119.4	119.3
13	Stanford	118.8	116.7	117.9	117.8
14	Miami	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
15	Louisville	117.7	116.6	118.0	117.4
16	Georgia	116.7	117.9	116.8	117.1
17	Michigan	117.1	116.4	116.3	116.6
18	Virginia Tech	116.2	115.8	116.6	116.2
19	Washington St.	116.8	114.0	115.9	115.6
20	Florida	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
21	Kansas St.	114.8	114.5	115.3	114.9
22	T C U	114.8	112.1	114.7	113.8
23	N. Carolina St.	113.4	113.1	113.1	113.2
24	Texas	112.0	113.0	112.0	112.4
25	Colorado	113.7	111.7	111.5	112.3
26	Georgia Tech	113.1	110.6	111.1	111.6
27	Iowa	111.5	111.2	111.2	111.3
28	Tennessee	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
29	Kentucky	111.3	109.8	110.8	110.6
30	Notre Dame	111.2	109.3	111.3	110.6
31	Oregon	111.1	107.9	110.2	109.7
32	U C L A	110.2	109.2	109.7	109.7
33	West Virginia	109.1	109.9	109.1	109.4
34	Vanderbilt	110.2	108.5	109.2	109.3
35	South Florida	109.5	107.7	110.7	109.3
36	Northwestern	109.4	107.5	109.3	108.7
37	Pittsburgh	108.8	108.7	108.0	108.5
38	Duke	109.5	108.1	107.9	108.5
39	N. Carolina	109.4	108.1	107.9	108.5
40	S. Carolina	108.8	108.0	108.0	108.3
41	Minnesota	108.0	108.0	107.5	107.8
42	Mississippi St.	107.0	107.6	107.4	107.3
43	Arkansas	106.7	106.2	106.5	106.5
44	Ole Miss	107.4	106.0	105.8	106.4
45	Utah	105.4	107.9	105.7	106.3
46	Maryland	105.6	107.7	105.7	106.3
47	Syracuse	106.7	105.1	105.8	105.9
48	Indiana	105.0	105.1	105.4	105.2
49	Memphis	104.9	103.9	105.3	104.7
50	Wake Forest	105.1	104.4	104.5	104.6
51	Nebraska	104.1	105.7	103.3	104.4
52	Texas A&M	105.1	102.7	103.7	103.8
53	Houston	104.2	103.0	103.8	103.7
54	Central Florida	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
55	Colo. State	103.9	102.5	103.8	103.4
56	Tulsa	102.8	102.1	102.8	102.6
57	Iowa State	101.7	102.8	102.4	102.3
58	Texas Tech	102.8	102.5	101.6	102.3
59	San Diego St.	100.9	101.5	102.1	101.5
60	Missouri	102.6	99.7	101.3	101.2
61	Boise St.	101.6	99.4	101.0	100.7
62	BYU	100.9	99.8	101.3	100.6
63	Virginia	99.9	99.9	101.3	100.4
64	Arizona St.	100.5	100.9	99.6	100.3
65	Boston College	100.1	101.2	99.5	100.3
66	Baylor	99.3	101.9	99.2	100.1
67	Michigan St.	98.6	102.0	99.5	100.0
68	Toledo	99.4	99.5	101.2	100.0
69	Western Michigan	100.4	97.7	101.8	100.0
70	Navy	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
71	Appalachian St.	99.7	96.9	100.2	98.9
72	Purdue	97.8	99.9	98.6	98.8
73	California	99.9	97.3	97.9	98.4
74	Arizona	98.7	97.5	96.6	97.6
75	Wyoming	98.7	96.3	97.5	97.5
76	SMU	97.2	97.5	97.6	97.4
77	Army	96.3	95.9	97.2	96.5
78	Rutgers	95.9	95.9	95.4	95.7
79	W. Kentucky	95.7	93.9	97.1	95.6
80	Temple	95.0	95.7	95.1	95.3
81	U T S A	93.9	95.6	96.1	95.2
82	Tulane	94.6	95.0	95.0	94.9
83	Eastern Michigan	94.6	94.2	94.5	94.4
84	Miami (O)	92.9	95.3	95.1	94.4
85	Middle Tennessee	93.5	93.8	94.3	93.9
86	Air Force	93.3	94.0	93.6	93.6
87	Troy	93.7	93.9	92.9	93.5
88	Oregon St.	92.8	92.9	91.3	92.3
89	Illinois	92.0	93.4	90.8	92.1
90	New Mexico	91.7	92.0	92.2	92.0
91	Old Dominion	90.6	93.5	91.1	91.7
92	Central Michigan	91.4	91.8	91.8	91.7
93	Cincinnati	89.9	92.4	91.4	91.2
94	Arkansas St.	89.5	91.1	91.2	90.6
95	Ohio U	89.5	91.4	90.4	90.4
96	Kansas	88.4	91.6	87.7	89.3
97	Hawaii	88.6	90.2	88.6	89.1
98	U N L V	87.5	90.4	87.9	88.6
99	Louisiana Tech	87.2	89.1	87.9	88.1
100	Connecticut	86.7	89.9	87.3	88.0
101	Fresno St.	88.1	86.7	88.2	87.7
102	Southern Miss.	87.1	88.5	87.2	87.6
103	Nevada	85.3	88.4	87.3	87.0
104	Utah St.	87.6	86.5	86.8	87.0
105	Northern Illinois	86.4	86.4	86.6	86.4
106	N. Mexico St.	87.1	84.6	86.6	86.1
107	East Carolina	84.9	86.4	84.8	85.4
108	Marshall	84.5	85.9	85.6	85.4
109	Akron	83.7	87.5	83.7	85.0
110	UL-Lafayette	84.2	85.8	84.0	84.7
111	Florida Atlantic	83.1	86.4	84.2	84.6
112	S. Alabama	83.5	86.4	83.7	84.5
113	Georgia St.	84.5	83.7	84.4	84.2
114	Buffalo	82.5	85.2	84.5	84.1
115	San Jose St.	84.5	83.7	83.8	84.0
116	Kent St.	82.9	84.1	83.9	83.6
117	Idaho	82.0	85.0	82.8	83.2
118	Massachusetts	83.4	82.6	83.1	83.0
119	N. Texas	81.3	82.9	81.2	81.8
120	Bowling Green	81.2	81.8	82.1	81.7
121	Florida Int’l.	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
122	UL-Monroe	81.8	82.1	80.3	81.4
123	Ball St.	79.0	81.4	80.6	80.3
124	Georgia Southern	79.9	81.2	79.5	80.2
125	Rice	79.6	80.7	80.1	80.1
126	Coastal Carolina	74.8	75.7	76.6	75.7
127	Charlotte	74.5	77.1	74.9	75.5
128	U T E P	72.9	77.3	74.0	74.8
129	Texas St.	71.5	74.8	70.3	72.2
130	UAB	64.1	69.3	66.1	66.5

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	0-0	2-0	109.5	107.7	110.7	109.3
Central Florida	0-0	1-0	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
Temple	0-0	1-1	95.0	95.7	95.1	95.3
Cincinnati	0-0	1-1	89.9	92.4	91.4	91.2
Connecticut	0-0	1-0	86.7	89.9	87.3	88.0
East Carolina	0-0	0-2	84.9	86.4	84.8	85.4
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	0-0	1-0	104.9	103.9	105.3	104.7
Houston	0-0	1-0	104.2	103.0	103.8	103.7
Tulsa	0-0	1-1	102.8	102.1	102.8	102.6
Navy	1-0	2-0	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
SMU	0-0	2-0	97.2	97.5	97.6	97.4
Tulane	0-1	1-1	94.6	95.0	95.0	94.9
AAC Averages			97.6	98.2	98.0	97.9
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	0-0	2-0	128.9	125.1	128.1	127.4
Florida St.	0-0	0-1	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
Louisville	1-0	2-0	117.7	116.6	118.0	117.4
N. Carolina St.	0-0	1-1	113.4	113.1	113.1	113.2
Syracuse	0-0	1-1	106.7	105.1	105.8	105.9
Wake Forest	1-0	2-0	105.1	104.4	104.5	104.6
Boston College	0-1	1-1	100.1	101.2	99.5	100.3
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	0-0	1-0	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
Virginia Tech	0-0	2-0	116.2	115.8	116.6	116.2
Georgia Tech	0-0	1-1	113.1	110.6	111.1	111.6
Pittsburgh	0-0	1-1	108.8	108.7	108.0	108.5
Duke	0-0	2-0	109.5	108.1	107.9	108.5
N. Carolina	0-1	0-2	109.4	108.1	107.9	108.5
Virginia	0-0	1-1	99.9	99.9	101.3	100.4
ACC Averages			112.5	111.3	111.8	111.9
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	0-0	2-0	127.7	125.4	128.6	127.2
Oklahoma St.	0-0	2-0	121.6	120.3	123.2	121.7
Kansas St.	0-0	2-0	114.8	114.5	115.3	114.9
T C U	0-0	2-0	114.8	112.1	114.7	113.8
Texas	0-0	1-1	112.0	113.0	112.0	112.4
West Virginia	0-0	1-1	109.1	109.9	109.1	109.4
Iowa State	0-0	1-1	101.7	102.8	102.4	102.3
Texas Tech	0-0	1-0	102.8	102.5	101.6	102.3
Baylor	0-0	0-2	99.3	101.9	99.2	100.1
Kansas	0-0	1-1	88.4	91.6	87.7	89.3
Big 12 Averages			109.2	109.4	109.4	109.3
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	1-0	1-1	129.4	126.6	128.7	128.2
Penn St.	0-0	2-0	126.2	124.0	126.9	125.7
Michigan	0-0	2-0	117.1	116.4	116.3	116.6
Maryland	0-0	2-0	105.6	107.7	105.7	106.3
Indiana	0-1	1-1	105.0	105.1	105.4	105.2
Michigan St.	0-0	2-0	98.6	102.0	99.5	100.0
Rutgers	0-0	0-2	95.9	95.9	95.4	95.7
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	0-0	2-0	121.1	117.2	119.4	119.3
Iowa	0-0	2-0	111.5	111.2	111.2	111.3
Northwestern	0-0	1-1	109.4	107.5	109.3	108.7
Minnesota	0-0	2-0	108.0	108.0	107.5	107.8
Nebraska	0-0	1-1	104.1	105.7	103.3	104.4
Purdue	0-0	1-1	97.8	99.9	98.6	98.8
Illinois	0-0	2-0	92.0	93.4	90.8	92.1
Big Ten Averages			108.7	108.6	108.4	108.6
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	0-0	1-1	95.7	93.9	97.1	95.6
Middle Tennessee	0-0	1-1	93.5	93.8	94.3	93.9
Old Dominion	0-0	2-0	90.6	93.5	91.1	91.7
Marshall	0-0	1-1	84.5	85.9	85.6	85.4
Florida Atlantic	0-0	0-2	83.1	86.4	84.2	84.6
Florida Int’l.	0-0	1-1	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
Charlotte	0-0	0-2	74.5	77.1	74.9	75.5
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-0	1-0	93.9	95.6	96.1	95.2
Louisiana Tech	0-0	1-1	87.2	89.1	87.9	88.1
Southern Miss.	0-0	1-1	87.1	88.5	87.2	87.6
N. Texas	0-0	1-1	81.3	82.9	81.2	81.8
Rice	1-0	1-1	79.6	80.7	80.1	80.1
U T E P	0-1	0-2	72.9	77.3	74.0	74.8
UAB	0-0	1-1	64.1	69.3	66.1	66.5
CUSA Averages			83.5	85.4	84.4	84.4
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		1-1	111.2	109.3	111.3	110.6
BYU		1-2	100.9	99.8	101.3	100.6
Army		2-0	96.3	95.9	97.2	96.5
Massachusetts		0-3	83.4	82.6	83.1	83.0
Indep. Averages			97.9	96.9	98.2	97.7
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (O)	0-0	1-1	92.9	95.3	95.1	94.4
Ohio U	0-0	1-1	89.5	91.4	90.4	90.4
Akron	0-0	1-1	83.7	87.5	83.7	85.0
Buffalo	0-0	0-2	82.5	85.2	84.5	84.1
Kent St.	0-0	1-1	82.9	84.1	83.9	83.6
Bowling Green	0-0	0-2	81.2	81.8	82.1	81.7
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	0-0	2-0	99.4	99.5	101.2	100.0
Western Michigan	0-0	0-2	100.4	97.7	101.8	100.0
Eastern Michigan	0-0	2-0	94.6	94.2	94.5	94.4
Central Michigan	0-0	2-0	91.4	91.8	91.8	91.7
Northern Illinois	0-0	1-1	86.4	86.4	86.6	86.4
Ball St.	0-0	1-1	79.0	81.4	80.6	80.3
MAC Averages			88.7	89.7	89.7	89.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	0-0	2-1	103.9	102.5	103.8	103.4
Boise St.	0-0	1-1	101.6	99.4	101.0	100.7
Wyoming	0-0	1-1	98.7	96.3	97.5	97.5
Air Force	0-0	1-0	93.3	94.0	93.6	93.6
New Mexico	0-0	1-1	91.7	92.0	92.2	92.0
Utah St.	0-0	1-1	87.6	86.5	86.8	87.0
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	0-0	2-0	100.9	101.5	102.1	101.5
Hawaii	0-0	2-1	88.6	90.2	88.6	89.1
U N L V	0-0	1-1	87.5	90.4	87.9	88.6
Fresno St.	0-0	1-1	88.1	86.7	88.2	87.7
Nevada	0-0	0-2	85.3	88.4	87.3	87.0
San Jose St.	0-0	1-2	84.5	83.7	83.8	84.0
MWC Averages			92.6	92.6	92.7	92.7
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	0-0	2-0	128.9	125.3	129.7	128.0
Stanford	0-1	1-1	118.8	116.7	117.9	117.8
Washington St.	0-0	2-0	116.8	114.0	115.9	115.6
Oregon	0-0	2-0	111.1	107.9	110.2	109.7
California	0-0	2-0	99.9	97.3	97.9	98.4
Oregon St.	0-0	1-2	92.8	92.9	91.3	92.3
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	1-0	2-0	122.0	121.3	122.3	121.9
Colorado	0-0	2-0	113.7	111.7	111.5	112.3
U C L A	0-0	2-0	110.2	109.2	109.7	109.7
Utah	0-0	2-0	105.4	107.9	105.7	106.3
Arizona St.	0-0	1-1	100.5	100.9	99.6	100.3
Arizona	0-0	1-1	98.7	97.5	96.6	97.6
Pac-12 Averages			109.9	108.5	109.0	109.2
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	0-0	2-0	116.7	117.9	116.8	117.1
Florida	0-0	0-1	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
Tennessee	0-0	2-0	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
Kentucky	0-0	2-0	111.3	109.8	110.8	110.6
Vanderbilt	0-0	2-0	110.2	108.5	109.2	109.3
S. Carolina	1-0	2-0	108.8	108.0	108.0	108.3
Missouri	0-1	1-1	102.6	99.7	101.3	101.2
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	0-0	2-0	133.0	128.2	132.0	131.1
Auburn	0-0	1-1	124.0	121.9	123.8	123.2
L S U	0-0	2-0	120.3	118.5	121.0	119.9
Mississippi St.	0-0	2-0	107.0	107.6	107.4	107.3
Arkansas	0-0	1-1	106.7	106.2	106.5	106.5
Ole Miss	0-0	2-0	107.4	106.0	105.8	106.4
Texas A&M	0-0	1-1	105.1	102.7	103.7	103.8
SEC Averages			112.9	111.4	112.2	112.2
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	0-0	1-1	99.7	96.9	100.2	98.9
Troy	0-0	1-1	93.7	93.9	92.9	93.5
Arkansas St.	0-0	0-1	89.5	91.1	91.2	90.6
N. Mexico St.	0-0	1-1	87.1	84.6	86.6	86.1
UL-Lafayette	0-0	1-1	84.2	85.8	84.0	84.7
S. Alabama	0-0	0-2	83.5	86.4	83.7	84.5
Georgia St.	0-0	0-1	84.5	83.7	84.4	84.2
Idaho	0-0	1-1	82.0	85.0	82.8	83.2
UL-Monroe	0-0	0-1	81.8	82.1	80.3	81.4
Georgia Southern	0-0	0-2	79.9	81.2	79.5	80.2
Coastal Carolina	0-0	1-0	74.8	75.7	76.6	75.7
Texas St.	0-0	1-1	71.5	74.8	70.3	72.2
Sun Belt Averages			84.4	85.1	84.4	84.6

The Conferences Rated

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	112.9	111.4	112.2	112.2
2	ACC	112.5	111.3	111.8	111.9
3	BIG 12	109.2	109.4	109.4	109.3
4	PAC-12	109.9	108.5	109.0	109.2
5	BIG TEN	108.7	108.6	108.4	108.6
6	AAC	97.6	98.2	98.0	97.9
7	INDEP.	97.9	96.9	98.2	97.7
8	MWC	92.6	92.6	92.7	92.7
9	MAC	88.7	89.7	89.7	89.3
10	Sun Belt	84.4	85.1	84.4	84.6
11	CUSA	83.5	85.4	84.4	84.4

Bowl Projections begin in October