It’s time to congratulate and award the Blackbeard Trophy to this year’s PiRate Rating College Football National Champion.
You probably have guessed which team gets to hoist their flag to the top of the ship. Of course, we know that they thoroughly destroyed their Big 10 opponent in the big bowl game. Of course, they did lose two times, but in the end, there was no doubt that they were the superior team in college football. Sure, they probably should have run the table with the exceptional talent they had, but this was a year where 30 teams were within eight points of each other.
Okay, so you are ready for me to state the obvious? Well, maybe you haven’t guessed which team I am talking about.
My congratulations goes to the Southern California Trojans for winning the 2008 Blackbeard Trophy. USC edged out West Virginia, LSU, Missouri, and Georgia. The Trojans’ annihilation of Illinois in the Rose Bowl was much more impressive than LSU’s win over Ohio State. Illinois beat Ohio State, and that prevented LSU from gaining enough ground in the postseason.
Before I show you the entire Final Top 25, let me give out the final PiRate results of the year.
For the Bowl Games, the PiRate successfully picked 19 of 28 winners (4 games were selected as tossups) for a 67.9% rate.
Against the spread, the picks finished 15-9 for a 62.5% success rate. The ratings ended the season with a strong finish after I instituted the rule of going with teams that both the PiRate ratings and my old “Mean Rating” agreed on the pick and differed from the Las Vegas spread by 3 or more points and by going with the money line on all occasions in which the line was 10 points or less and the two ratings agreed on the winner.
FINAL TOP 25
1. Southern California Trojans 11-2
2. West Virginia Mountaineers 11-2
3. Louisiana State Tigers 12-2
4. Missouri Tigers 12-2
5. Georgia Bulldogs 11-2
6. Kansas Jayhawks 12-1
7. Ohio State Buckeyes 11-2
8. Oklahoma Sooners 11-3
9. Texas Longhorns 10-3
10. Boston College Eagles 11-3
11. Tennessee Volunteers 10-4
12. Brigham Young Cougars 11-2
13. Virginia Tech Hokies 11-3
14. Cincinnati Bearcats 10-3
15. Arizona State Sun Devils 10-3
16. Michigan Wolverines 9-4
17. Auburn Tigers 9-4
18. Texas Tech Red Raiders 9-4
19. Florida Gators 9-4
20. Oregon Ducks 9-4
21. Wisconsin Badgers 9-4
22. Oregon State Beavers 9-4
23. Illinois Fighting Illini 9-4
24. Clemson Tigers 9-4
25. Penn State Nittany Lions 9-4
This concludes the football edition of the PiRate Ratings for this season. Beginning next week, I will begin to cover NCAA basketball. I do not rate the teams as there are too many of them and too many games. My coverage will include a look at which teams are in line for NCAA Tournament bids, which upcoming games are vital, and some other information you may or may not know. I’ll also throw in a trivia question or two along the way. Coverage will begin on January 18 and run every Friday afternoon until the conference tournaments begin. Once Championship Week begins, coverage will be daily and possibly multiple times each day depending on my schedule.
I am tentatively considering something for the 3 year old horses leading up to the triple crown races and have some ideas about running a computer simulated Major League Baseball season with great teams from the past, much like I did with the Pro Football Computer Simulation.
After the candidates have been selected for the two parties, I will begin my PiRate Presidential Predictions, a weekly look at multiple polls in each state with the goal of predicting the electoral vote instead of the national preference polls that you see in the media. Who cares if X leads Y 51 to 49 percent nationally if Y leads X in enough states to get 270 electoral votes. It’s the electoral count that matters, and that’s what I will try to predict each week. I’ll throw in some info on the Senate and House races as well.
I hope every reader had a wonderful start of the new year. Here’s hoping that 2008 is healthy and prosperous for all.
The Pi-Rate Ratings 