PiRate College Football Ratings: November 17, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

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

 

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

 

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

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

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

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

 

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

 

This Week’s Playoffs and Bowl Projections

 

The Bowl Conundrum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Athletic

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

Still Alive: South Florida

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

Atlantic Coast (+ Notre Dame)

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

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

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

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

Big 12

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

Still Alive: TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia

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

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

Big Ten

Bowl Eligible: 7

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

Still Alive: Michigan St., Nebraska, Purdue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gator Bowl will not invite Iowa or Penn St.

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

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

The Quick Lane Bowl will not invite Minnesota

Conference USA

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

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

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

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

Independents (not Notre Dame)

Bowl Eligible: 2
BYU, Liberty

Still Alive: Army

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

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

Mid-American

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

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

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

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

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

Mountain West

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

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

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

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

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

Pac-12

Bowl Eligible: 4
Oregon, Washington, USC, Utah

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

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

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

Southeastern

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

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

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

Sunbelt

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

Still Alive: Coastal Carolina, Troy, UL-Monroe

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

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

This Week’s Projections

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: November 10, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

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

 

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

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

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

 

This Week’s Playoff and Bowl Projections

 

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

 

Questions and Answers

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

Q2. What is your home field advantage for football?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q10. Who is the best team of all time?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Picks For November 7-11, 2019

Welcome to Thursday Comedy Relief.  It’s official now: this is the worst season in the 21st Century for PiRate Picks.  As we always tell you, these picks are free and maybe not worth what you pay for them.  In past years, we have had better access to information that has been unavailable to us, and so these picks are not going to be as reliable as when we were actually winning consistently.

We know that some of you reading this have discovered the little “secret” system in our regular weekly ratings that through super computer programming, you can come up with a half-dozen or so picks that are rewarding you with better than 62% wins.  It’s so secret, that we do not know the real particulars, and we unwisely recommended that you not tell us how you are doing it, because it might be too tempting to try it ourselves and then lose our mortgage payments (figuratively, since we burned our mortgage some time ago).

This is the absolute best week for college football to date.  This week’s games between Alabama and LSU, preceded by Minnesota and Penn State, and including Baylor-TCU, Iowa State-Oklahoma, and even including the best FCS game of the year and the celebration of the 150th anniversary of college football–undefeated Princeton versus undefeated Dartmouth at Yankee Stadium, we know that a lot of you love to add a little excitement when watching these top games.

Please, please, please, disregard our selections when considering whether or not you will wager on these games.  We are hitting 48% in our selections this year.  That’s total crappy status.  You cannot win at 48%, because even if you wager the exact opposite, at 52% you still lose.  None of your reading this feature are one of those folks with the supercomputer winning on 63+% of the wagers that our ratings somehow pop up 6-10 games per week, and our selections below are not part of that system.

 

This Week’s PiRate Picks

College Games

10-point Teasers

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Florida St.	Boston College	11	Boston College
Ohio St.	Maryland	32	Ohio St.
Michigan St.	Illinois	24.5	Illinois
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Florida	Vanderbilt	16.5	Florida
Ole Miss	N. Mexico St.	38.5	N. Mexico St.
Kentucky	Tennessee	11	Tennessee
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Georgia	Ole Miss	6.5	Georgia
Virginia	Georgia Tech	26	Georgia Tech
BYU	Liberty	27	Liberty

 

13-Point Teasers

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Texas Tech	West Virginia	15.5	West Virginia
Miami (Fla.)	Louisville	19.5	Louisville
Wake Forest	Virginia Tech	15.5	Virginia Tech
Penn St.	Minnesota	20	Minnesota
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Northwestern	Purdue	15.5	Purdue
Charlotte	UTEP	Pk	Charlotte
Baylor	TCU	10.5	TCU
Oklahoma	Iowa St.	1.5	Oklahoma

 

College Money Line Parlay –4 games at +268

 

Winner	Loser
Louisiana Tech	North Texas
Fresno St.	Utah St.
Notre Dame	Duke
Washington	Oregon St.

 

NFL Games

13-Point Teasers

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
LA Chargers	Oakland	14.5	Oakland
New Orleans	Atlanta	Pk	New Orleans
Cincinnati	Baltimore	3	Baltimore
Carolina	Green Bay	8	Green Bay
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Chicago	Detroit	15.5	Detroit
Miami	Indianapolis	2.5	Indianapolis
N.Y. Jets	N.Y. Giants	10.5	N.Y. Giants
Tampa Bay	Arizona	17.5	Arizona

 

Money Line Parlay –2 Games at +149

 

Winner	Loser
N.Y. Giants	N.Y. Jets
Green Bay	Carolina

 

 

Davey19 Experimental Picks

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Louisiana	Coastal Carolina	14.5	Coastal Carolina
Michigan St.	Illinois	15	Illinois
Boise St.	Wyoming	13.5	Wyoming
Alabama	LSU	5.5	Alabama
Troy	Georgia Southern	3	Georgia Southern
Kentucky	Tennessee	1	Tennessee
Louisiana Tech	North Texas	5	Louisiana Tech

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: October 28, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

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

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

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

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

This Week’s Playoffs and Bowl Projections

American Athletic

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Atlantic Coast

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 12 (includes Notre Dame)

 

Big 12

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Big Ten

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 10

 

Conference USA

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 6

 

Independents

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 2

 

Mid-American

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

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

 

Mountain West

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Pac-12

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 7

 

Southeastern

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

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

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 8

 

Sun Belt

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

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

Expected Bowl Eligible Teams: 5

 

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

 

PiRate Ratings Picks For October 24-28, 2019

It couldn’t last.  Our winning streak ended soon after it began, and both the PiRate Picks and Experimental Davey19 picks fell to the losing side last week.  We’re back at it again hoping that maybe if you see a game you have thought about wagering real money on the outcome, you will see that we agree with you, and you will quickly forget playing that game.

Remember, the PiRates do not wager real money on football games, and we encourage you not to use our picks as handicapping aids if you happen to play for real.  These picks are free and are priced exactly where they need to be.

PiRate Picks

This week, we add a new twist that hasn’t been shown here in several years.  We are going to make a few 6-point teaser picks (2-game parlays @ 10-11 odds)

College 6-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Connecticut	Massachusetts	4	UConn
Memphis	Tulsa	4.5	Memphis

 

College 6-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Texas A&M	Mississippi St.	4.5	Texas A&M
Iowa	Northwestern	4	Iowa

 

College 6-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Miami (Fla.)	Pittsburgh	0.5	Pittsburgh
Arkansas St.	Texas St.	5.5	Arkansas St.

 

College 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
SMU	Houston	4	SMU
Central Michigan	Buffalo	7.5	Buffalo
Purdue	Illinois	20	Illinois

 

College 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Liberty	Rutgers	17	Rutgers
Rice	Southern Miss.	0.5	Southern Miss
Wyoming	Nevada	4	Wyoming

 

College 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Fresno St.	Colorado St.	4.5	Fresno St
Georgia Southern	N. Mexico St.	4.5	Ga. Southern
Iowa St.	Oklahoma St.	0.5	Iowa St.

 

College 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Ohio	Ball St.	7.5	Ball St.
Oklahoma	Kansas St.	13.5	Oklahoma
Minnesota	Maryland	6.5	Minnesota

 

College 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Texas	TCU	11.5	TCU
Ohio St.	Wisconsin	4.5	Ohio St.
LSU	Auburn	0.5	LSU

 

College 13-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Troy	Georgia St.	12	Georgia St.
Penn St.	Michigan St.	19.5	Michigan St.
Middle Tennessee	Florida Int’l.	10.5	Fla. Intl
South Carolina	Tennessee	17.5	Tennessee

 

NFL 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Minnesota	Washington	6.5	Minnesota
N.Y. Giants	Detroit	3	Detroit
Tampa Bay	Tennessee	7.5	Tennessee

 

NFL 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
LA Chargers	Chicago	6	Chicago
N.Y. Jets	Jacksonville	4	Jacksonville
Philadelphia	Buffalo	8.5	Buffalo

 

NFL 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
LA Rams	Cincinnati	3	LA Rams
New Orleans	Arizona	0.5	New Orleans
Oakland	Houston	3	Houston

 

NFL 10-point Teaser

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Denver	Indianapolis	4.5	Indianapolis
New England	Cleveland	3	New England
Miami	Pittsburgh	4.5	Pittsburgh

 

Davey19 Selections

College Picks Against The Spread

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Connecticut	Massachusetts	10	UMass
Purdue	Illinois	10	Illinois
Central Florida	Temple	11	Temple
Buffalo	Central Michigan	2.5	Buffalo
Liberty	Rutgers	7.5	Rutgers
Marshall	Western Kentucky	5	Western Kentucky
Iowa St.	Oklahoma St.	10.5	Oklahoma St.
Ball St.	Ohio	2.5	Ball St.
North Texas	Charlotte	4.5	Charlotte

 

Note: For those of you that play for real, please be aware that in both college and pro football this weekend, Miami is playing Pittsburgh at Heinz Stadium.  Don’t confuse the games on the card.

The Pitt Panthers and Miami of Florida Hurricanes face off Saturday at Noon Eastern Daylight Time.  The Steelers host the Dolphins on Monday Night at 8:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

 

And, as a reminder, next Sunday’s NFL games will kick off in Standard Time.  Daylight Savings Time goes to bed Sunday morning at 2 AM, November 3.  It never ceases to amaze us as to how many 9 to 5 workers fail to notice that one of their car’s headlights, taillights, brake lights, or signal lights is not working, until after the clocks are set back in the Fall, and they drive home from work in the dark. 

Please check all your lights before you turn your clock back an hour.  Darkness at 4:30 PM always leads to increased traffic accidents in large cities, so play it safe and prepare by becoming a better defensive driver.  The life you save, may be mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: October 21, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads

 

Thursday	October 24
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Houston	SMU	-8.1	-7.1	-7.5
Friday	October 25
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Colorado	USC	-11.1	-12.2	-12.3
Saturday	October 26
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Massachusetts	Connecticut	-7.6	-9.3	-7.6
Purdue	Illinois	11.4	10.5	11.8
Army	San Jose St.	13.6	11.4	13.3
Georgia St.	Troy	-2.2	-1.3	-1.6
Clemson	Boston College	33.5	30.9	33.7
Tulsa	Memphis	-12.8	-12.0	-12.5
Toledo	Eastern Michigan	3.5	3.7	3.8
Texas A&M	Mississippi St.	9.6	11.6	3.9
Temple	Central Florida	-7.0	-7.0	-6.7
Western Michigan	Bowling Green	25.8	24.9	25.5
Nebraska	Indiana	-2.1	0.0	-2.1
Buffalo	Central Michigan	5.9	5.6	6.0
Northwestern	Iowa	-9.7	-8.8	-10.7
East Carolina	South Florida	-2.0	-1.2	-2.0
Florida St.	Syracuse	3.0	3.9	3.4
Rutgers	Liberty	-2.4	-4.2	-3.9
Rice	Southern Miss.	-11.8	-8.8	-12.5
Utah	California	20.2	19.4	20.2
Wyoming	Nevada	12.9	13.5	13.7
Air Force	Utah St.	0.0	2.5	-0.1
New Mexico	Hawaii	-12.2	-10.6	-12.4
Marshall	Western Kentucky	2.8	1.2	2.1
Stanford	Arizona	7.6	6.7	7.1
Oregon	Washington St.	10.1	11.2	11.2
Fresno St.	Colorado St.	19.2	16.3	19.4
Kentucky	Missouri	-5.0	-4.0	-6.2
North Carolina	Duke	1.7	2.2	3.0
Michigan St.	Penn St.	-5.4	-5.3	-5.8
Kent St.	Miami (O)	2.2	3.7	2.5
South Alabama	Appalachian St.	-32.1	-28.5	-32.7
Georgia Southern	New Mexico St.	18.2	15.2	16.8
Iowa St.	Oklahoma St.	10.3	10.6	11.2
Middle Tennessee	Florida Int’l.	0.2	-0.8	0.1
Old Dominion	Florida Atlantic	-13.0	-12.1	-13.9
Ball St.	Ohio U	1.1	1.7	0.8
Alabama	Arkansas	43.1	39.2	44.5
Tennessee	South Carolina	-3.3	-2.0	-4.7
Kansas St.	Oklahoma	-14.6	-14.0	-14.8
Minnesota	Maryland	12.7	13.2	13.3
Navy	Tulane	-1.3	0.6	-1.2
TCU	Texas	-4.5	-2.0	-4.4
Pittsburgh	Miami (Fla.)	4.8	5.4	4.4
Louisville	Virginia	-8.1	-8.7	-8.5
Northern Illinois	Akron	22.3	21.0	23.4
Kansas	Texas Tech	-7.7	-6.7	-6.8
Charlotte	North Texas	-5.1	-4.1	-5.6
Ohio St.	Wisconsin	18.7	18.0	19.8
Arkansas St.	Texas St.	8.8	8.0	8.7
LSU	Auburn	9.0	8.4	9.4
UTEP	Louisiana Tech	-23.1	-18.4	-22.6
Michigan	Notre Dame	1.5	1.4	1.6
UCLA	Arizona St.	-6.2	-5.7	-7.7
UNLV	San Diego St.	-11.6	-12.1	-12.1

 

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

 

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	137.4	136.4	138.4	137.4
2	Alabama	135.3	132.0	136.0	134.4
3	Clemson	132.6	130.0	133.4	132.0
4	L S U	129.4	127.1	129.5	128.7
5	Oklahoma	125.8	125.1	125.7	125.5
6	Georgia	126.2	124.3	126.1	125.5
7	Auburn	123.4	121.7	123.2	122.8
8	Penn St.	122.7	121.8	122.8	122.5
9	Wisconsin	121.7	121.4	121.7	121.6
10	Florida	122.7	119.8	122.3	121.6
11	Utah	121.6	120.4	122.2	121.4
12	Notre Dame	120.5	118.8	120.4	119.9
13	Oregon	119.1	119.2	120.5	119.6
14	Michigan	118.9	117.2	119.0	118.4
15	Iowa	117.7	115.8	117.5	117.0
16	Iowa St.	115.9	116.6	116.2	116.2
17	Texas A&M	116.7	115.0	115.3	115.7
18	Washington	114.0	113.7	115.0	114.2
19	Minnesota	114.2	113.9	113.7	113.9
20	Baylor	114.0	114.2	113.6	113.9
21	Michigan St.	114.3	113.5	114.0	113.9
22	Missouri	114.2	111.8	114.0	113.3
23	South Carolina	113.6	111.9	113.4	113.0
24	Texas	111.7	111.9	111.9	111.8
25	Washington St.	112.0	111.1	112.3	111.8
26	U S C	109.9	110.7	110.6	110.4
27	Central Florida	110.4	109.6	111.0	110.3
28	Mississippi St.	110.1	106.4	114.5	110.3
29	Virginia	108.8	109.0	108.9	108.9
30	Oklahoma St.	108.6	109.0	108.0	108.5
31	Arizona St.	108.4	107.7	109.2	108.5
32	Appalachian St.	108.8	107.8	108.6	108.4
33	Cincinnati	108.3	107.1	108.9	108.1
34	Kansas St.	108.3	108.1	107.9	108.1
35	Indiana	108.5	107.2	107.9	107.9
36	SMU	107.2	107.0	108.5	107.6
37	Memphis	106.8	106.8	107.5	107.0
38	Pittsburgh	106.6	106.4	106.9	106.6
39	Tennessee	107.3	106.9	105.7	106.6
40	Purdue	106.8	106.6	106.3	106.6
41	T C U	105.2	108.0	105.5	106.2
42	Boise St.	106.1	105.8	106.4	106.1
43	North Carolina	105.7	105.7	106.9	106.1
44	Texas Tech	105.8	106.0	105.0	105.6
45	Duke	105.6	104.9	105.3	105.3
46	Kentucky	106.2	104.8	104.8	105.3
47	Utah St.	104.9	104.0	105.9	104.9
48	Miami (Fla.)	104.8	104.1	105.5	104.8
49	Ole Miss	105.2	104.2	104.9	104.8
50	Northwestern	105.4	104.5	104.3	104.7
51	Florida St.	104.5	104.6	104.5	104.6
52	California	104.3	104.0	105.0	104.4
53	Syracuse	104.5	103.8	104.1	104.1
54	Maryland	104.5	103.7	103.3	103.8
55	Nebraska	103.4	104.2	102.8	103.5
56	Wake Forest	103.5	102.9	103.8	103.4
57	Stanford	103.6	102.7	103.1	103.1
58	Air Force	101.9	103.4	102.8	102.7
59	Boston College	102.2	102.1	102.7	102.3
60	West Virginia	102.1	101.5	101.2	101.6
61	Virginia Tech	101.0	101.1	101.4	101.2
62	Temple	100.8	100.1	101.8	100.9
63	Louisiana	100.9	101.0	100.8	100.9
64	Tulane	99.8	100.5	100.4	100.2
65	Fresno St.	99.0	99.8	99.5	99.4
66	BYU	99.3	99.3	99.3	99.3
67	North Carolina St.	99.3	99.0	99.4	99.2
68	Arizona	99.0	99.0	98.9	99.0
69	U C L A	99.2	99.0	98.5	98.9
70	San Diego St.	98.3	100.1	98.3	98.9
71	Illinois	98.3	99.1	97.5	98.3
72	Wyoming	97.3	99.4	97.6	98.1
73	Houston	96.6	97.5	98.5	97.5
74	Oregon St.	97.3	98.3	96.8	97.5
75	Louisville	97.7	97.3	97.4	97.4
76	Western Michigan	97.5	96.4	97.2	97.0
77	Navy	95.5	98.1	96.2	96.6
78	Vanderbilt	97.0	95.7	95.7	96.1
79	Hawaii	95.7	97.0	94.9	95.9
80	Army	96.0	95.9	95.2	95.7
81	Colorado	95.9	95.5	95.4	95.6
82	Kansas	95.2	96.2	95.2	95.5
83	Arkansas	95.2	95.7	94.5	95.2
84	Georgia Tech	94.6	92.9	95.0	94.2
85	Troy	94.3	94.8	93.4	94.2
86	Louisiana Tech	94.0	94.0	94.3	94.1
87	Southern Miss.	94.2	92.6	94.3	93.7
88	Georgia Southern	93.3	92.7	92.2	92.8
89	Ohio	92.9	91.9	93.3	92.7
90	Florida Atlantic	91.9	91.4	92.8	92.0
91	Northern Illinois	92.2	91.1	92.3	91.9
92	Tulsa	91.0	91.8	92.0	91.6
93	Western Kentucky	90.6	91.8	92.4	91.6
94	Florida Int’l.	91.4	91.4	91.6	91.5
95	Ball St.	91.5	91.1	91.6	91.4
96	North Texas	91.2	90.5	91.7	91.1
97	U A B	89.9	91.8	90.8	90.9
98	Marshall	90.4	90.0	91.5	90.6
99	Georgia St.	89.6	91.0	89.3	90.0
100	Buffalo	89.3	89.8	90.4	89.8
101	Arkansas St.	89.7	89.8	89.2	89.6
102	Liberty	89.0	90.3	89.3	89.5
103	Middle Tennessee	89.1	88.1	89.2	88.8
104	South Florida	88.3	89.3	88.5	88.7
105	Toledo	88.3	88.6	89.0	88.6
106	Kent St.	88.2	88.2	88.7	88.4
107	Miami (Ohio)	88.5	87.0	88.7	88.1
108	Nevada	87.5	88.9	86.9	87.8
109	Eastern Michigan	87.2	87.4	87.7	87.5
110	Coastal Carolina	86.8	87.9	86.2	87.0
111	Central Michigan	85.9	86.7	86.9	86.5
112	Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.5	85.6	86.0
113	San Jose St.	85.4	87.5	85.0	86.0
114	U N L V	84.2	85.6	83.7	84.5
115	East Carolina	83.8	85.6	84.0	84.5
116	Colorado St.	82.8	86.6	83.1	84.2
117	Charlotte	83.6	83.9	83.6	83.7
118	Texas St.	83.4	84.2	83.0	83.5
119	Rutgers	84.1	83.6	82.9	83.5
120	New Mexico	80.0	82.8	79.0	80.6
121	Rice	79.9	81.3	79.2	80.2
122	New Mexico St.	78.2	80.6	78.5	79.1
123	Old Dominion	76.4	76.8	76.4	76.5
124	Texas-San Antonio	74.5	76.8	74.3	75.2
125	South Alabama	74.2	76.8	73.3	74.8
126	Bowling Green	74.1	74.0	74.2	74.1
127	Connecticut	71.9	75.4	70.8	72.7
128	Akron	72.5	72.6	71.4	72.1
129	U T E P	68.4	73.1	69.2	70.2
130	Massachusetts	62.3	64.1	61.2	62.5

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	110.4	109.6	111.0	110.3	2-1	5-2
Cincinnati	108.3	107.1	108.9	108.1	3-0	6-1
Temple	100.8	100.1	101.8	100.9	2-1	5-2
South Florida	88.3	89.3	88.5	88.7	1-2	3-4
East Carolina	83.8	85.6	84.0	84.5	0-3	3-4
Connecticut	71.9	75.4	70.8	72.7	0-4	1-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
SMU	107.2	107.0	108.5	107.6	3-0	7-0
Memphis	106.8	106.8	107.5	107.0	2-1	6-1
Tulane	99.8	100.5	100.4	100.2	2-1	5-2
Houston	96.6	97.5	98.5	97.5	1-2	3-4
Navy	95.5	98.1	96.2	96.6	3-1	5-1
Tulsa	91.0	91.8	92.0	91.6	0-3	2-5
AAC Averages	96.7	97.4	97.3	97.1
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	132.6	130.0	133.4	132.0	5-0	7-0
Florida St.	104.5	104.6	104.5	104.6	2-3	3-4
Syracuse	104.5	103.8	104.1	104.1	0-3	3-4
Wake Forest	103.5	102.9	103.8	103.4	2-1	6-1
Boston College	102.2	102.1	102.7	102.3	2-2	4-3
North Carolina St.	99.3	99.0	99.4	99.2	1-2	4-3
Louisville	97.7	97.3	97.4	97.4	2-2	4-3
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Virginia	108.8	109.0	108.9	108.9	3-1	5-2
Pittsburgh	106.6	106.4	106.9	106.6	2-1	5-2
North Carolina	105.7	105.7	106.9	106.1	2-2	3-4
Duke	105.6	104.9	105.3	105.3	2-2	4-3
Miami (Fla.)	104.8	104.1	105.5	104.8	1-3	3-4
Virginia Tech	101.0	101.1	101.4	101.2	3-2	5-2
Georgia Tech	94.6	92.9	95.0	94.2	1-3	2-5
ACC Averages	105.1	104.6	105.4	105.0
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	125.8	125.1	125.7	125.5	4-0	7-0
Iowa St.	115.9	116.6	116.2	116.2	3-1	5-2
Baylor	114.0	114.2	113.6	113.9	4-0	7-0
Texas	111.7	111.9	111.9	111.8	3-1	5-2
Oklahoma St.	108.6	109.0	108.0	108.5	1-3	4-3
Kansas St.	108.3	108.1	107.9	108.1	1-2	4-2
T C U	105.2	108.0	105.5	106.2	1-2	3-3
Texas Tech	105.8	106.0	105.0	105.6	1-3	3-4
West Virginia	102.1	101.5	101.2	101.6	1-3	3-4
Kansas	95.2	96.2	95.2	95.5	0-4	2-5
Big 12 Averages	109.3	109.7	109.0	109.3
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	137.4	136.4	138.4	137.4	4-0	7-0
Penn St.	122.7	121.8	122.8	122.5	4-0	7-0
Michigan	118.9	117.2	119.0	118.4	3-2	5-2
Michigan St.	114.3	113.5	114.0	113.9	2-2	4-3
Indiana	108.5	107.2	107.9	107.9	2-2	5-2
Maryland	104.5	103.7	103.3	103.8	1-3	3-4
Rutgers	84.1	83.6	82.9	83.5	0-5	1-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	121.7	121.4	121.7	121.6	3-1	6-1
Iowa	117.7	115.8	117.5	117.0	2-2	5-2
Minnesota	114.2	113.9	113.7	113.9	4-0	7-0
Purdue	106.8	106.6	106.3	106.6	1-3	2-5
Northwestern	105.4	104.5	104.3	104.7	0-4	1-5
Nebraska	103.4	104.2	102.8	103.5	2-2	4-3
Illinois	98.3	99.1	97.5	98.3	1-3	3-4
Big Ten Averages	111.3	110.6	110.9	110.9
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	91.9	91.4	92.8	92.0	2-1	4-3
Western Kentucky	90.6	91.8	92.4	91.6	4-0	5-2
Florida Int’l.	91.4	91.4	91.6	91.5	2-2	4-3
Marshall	90.4	90.0	91.5	90.6	2-1	4-3
Middle Tennessee	89.1	88.1	89.2	88.8	1-2	2-5
Charlotte	83.6	83.9	83.6	83.7	0-3	2-5
Old Dominion	76.4	76.8	76.4	76.5	0-3	1-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Louisiana Tech	94.0	94.0	94.3	94.1	3-0	6-1
Southern Miss.	94.2	92.6	94.3	93.7	2-1	4-3
North Texas	91.2	90.5	91.7	91.1	2-1	3-4
U A B	89.9	91.8	90.8	90.9	3-1	6-1
Rice	79.9	81.3	79.2	80.2	0-3	0-7
Texas-San Antonio	74.5	76.8	74.3	75.2	2-2	3-4
U T E P	68.4	73.1	69.2	70.2	0-3	1-5
CUSA Averages	86.1	86.7	86.5	86.4
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	120.5	118.8	120.4	119.9	x	5-1
BYU	99.3	99.3	99.3	99.3	x	3-4
Army	96.0	95.9	95.2	95.7	x	3-4
Liberty	89.0	90.3	89.3	89.5	x	5-2
New Mexico St.	78.2	80.6	78.5	79.1	x	0-7
Massachusetts	62.3	64.1	61.2	62.5	x	1-6
Indep. Averages	90.9	91.5	90.6	91.0
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Ohio	92.9	91.9	93.3	92.7	2-1	3-4
Buffalo	89.3	89.8	90.4	89.8	1-2	3-4
Kent St.	88.2	88.2	88.7	88.4	2-1	3-4
Miami (Ohio)	88.5	87.0	88.7	88.1	2-1	3-4
Bowling Green	74.1	74.0	74.2	74.1	1-2	2-5
Akron	72.5	72.6	71.4	72.1	0-3	0-7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	97.5	96.4	97.2	97.0	2-2	4-4
Northern Illinois	92.2	91.1	92.3	91.9	1-2	2-5
Ball St.	91.5	91.1	91.6	91.4	3-0	4-3
Toledo	88.3	88.6	89.0	88.6	1-2	4-3
Eastern Michigan	87.2	87.4	87.7	87.5	1-2	4-3
Central Michigan	85.9	86.7	86.9	86.5	3-1	5-3
MAC Averages	87.3	87.1	87.6	87.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	106.1	105.8	106.4	106.1	3-0	6-1
Utah St.	104.9	104.0	105.9	104.9	3-0	4-2
Air Force	101.9	103.4	102.8	102.7	3-1	5-2
Wyoming	97.3	99.4	97.6	98.1	2-1	5-2
Colorado St.	82.8	86.6	83.1	84.2	1-2	2-5
New Mexico	80.0	82.8	79.0	80.6	0-3	2-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Fresno St.	99.0	99.8	99.5	99.4	1-1	3-3
San Diego St.	98.3	100.1	98.3	98.9	3-1	6-1
Hawaii	95.7	97.0	94.9	95.9	1-2	4-3
Nevada	87.5	88.9	86.9	87.8	1-2	4-3
San Jose St.	85.4	87.5	85.0	86.0	1-3	3-4
U N L V	84.2	85.6	83.7	84.5	1-3	2-5
MWC Averages	93.6	95.1	93.6	94.1
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	119.1	119.2	120.5	119.6	4-0	6-1
Washington	114.0	113.7	115.0	114.2	2-3	5-3
Washington St.	112.0	111.1	112.3	111.8	1-3	4-3
California	104.3	104.0	105.0	104.4	1-3	4-3
Stanford	103.6	102.7	103.1	103.1	2-3	3-4
Oregon St.	97.3	98.3	96.8	97.5	2-2	3-4
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	121.6	120.4	122.2	121.4	3-1	6-1
U S C	109.9	110.7	110.6	110.4	3-1	4-3
Arizona St.	108.4	107.7	109.2	108.5	2-2	5-2
Arizona	99.0	99.0	98.9	99.0	2-2	4-3
U C L A	99.2	99.0	98.5	98.9	2-2	2-5
Colorado	95.9	95.5	95.4	95.6	1-3	3-4
Pac-12 Averages	107.0	106.8	107.3	107.0
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	126.2	124.3	126.1	125.5	3-1	6-1
Florida	122.7	119.8	122.3	121.6	5-1	7-1
Missouri	114.2	111.8	114.0	113.3	2-1	5-2
South Carolina	113.6	111.9	113.4	113.0	2-3	3-4
Tennessee	107.3	106.9	105.7	106.6	1-3	2-5
Kentucky	106.2	104.8	104.8	105.3	1-4	3-4
Vanderbilt	97.0	95.7	95.7	96.1	1-3	2-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Alabama	135.3	132.0	136.0	134.4	4-0	7-0
L S U	129.4	127.1	129.5	128.7	3-0	7-0
Auburn	123.4	121.7	123.2	122.8	3-1	6-1
Texas A&M	116.7	115.0	115.3	115.7	2-2	4-3
Mississippi St.	110.1	106.4	114.5	110.3	1-3	3-4
Ole Miss	105.2	104.2	104.9	104.8	2-3	3-5
Arkansas	95.2	95.7	94.5	95.2	0-4	2-5
SEC Averages	114.5	112.7	114.3	113.8
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	108.8	107.8	108.6	108.4	3-0	6-0
Troy	94.3	94.8	93.4	94.2	1-1	3-3
Georgia Southern	93.3	92.7	92.2	92.8	2-1	3-3
Georgia St.	89.6	91.0	89.3	90.0	2-1	5-2
Coastal Carolina	86.8	87.9	86.2	87.0	0-3	3-4
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	100.9	101.0	100.8	100.9	2-1	5-2
Arkansas St.	89.7	89.8	89.2	89.6	1-2	3-4
Louisiana-Monroe	85.8	86.5	85.6	86.0	2-1	3-4
Texas St.	83.4	84.2	83.0	83.5	1-1	2-4
South Alabama	74.2	76.8	73.3	74.8	0-3	1-6
SBC Averages	90.7	91.3	90.2	90.7

 

 

Conference Ratings

 

#	League	Average
1	Southeastern	113.8
2	Big Ten	110.9
3	Big 12	109.3
4	Pac-12	107.0
5	Atlantic Coast	105.0
6	American	97.1
7	Mountain West	94.1
8	Independents	91.0
9	Sun Belt	90.7
10	Mid-American	87.3
11	Conference USA	86.4

 

 

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

 

 

This Week’s Bowl and Playoff Projections

 

There was considerable shuffling of the bowl projections this week, with these teams being affected the most (by alphabetical conference).

AAC: With Boise St. losing, the likelihood of the AAC Champion making it to the Cotton Bowl went way up.  SMU is the leader at the moment, but the Mustangs will have to win at Memphis more than likely if they are to stay home for a NY6 Bowl.  Memphis has the most favorable schedule, while Cincinnati and Navy are still in the race.

ACC: Clemson cannot afford to lose a game, and most every so-called college football expert believes this is so.  There is no strong number two in this league, but Notre Dame caucuses here for bowl invitation, so the Irish look like a sure thing to garner one of the NY6 Bowl bids.  Boston College, Louisville,  and Syracuse appear to be on the outside looking in from the Atlantic Division, while Miami now drops into our predicted 5-7 teams and falls out of the bowl picture for now.  The Coastal is still a wide open race, but we think Pittsburgh has the best chance to become fodder for Clemson in the Title Game.

Big 12: Baylor keeps surprising a lot of folks, as even the folks in Nevada were a bit surprised at how they handles Oklahoma State in Stillwater.  Can the Bears beat Oklahoma, or to put it more accurately beat them once in two tries?  If Oklahoma runs the table, the Sooners are in the Playoffs.  If Baylor runs the table, they will most likely make the playoffs.  If they split two games, then the LSU-Alabama loser at 11-1 will be in the Playoffs.  Texas and Iowa State appear to be jostling for third place as of now.  Meanwhile, a group that included Oklahoma State, Kansas State, TCU, and Texas Tech all have shots a bowl eligibility, and we believe three of the four will make it.

Big Ten: Wisconsin’s loss to Illinois, makes the Penn State-Ohio State game in Columbus a Playoff Qualifier.  The winner of that game has a great shot at being 13-0 and Playoff bound.  Michigan and Michigan State are now fighting it out for third in the East, while Indiana virtually locked up a fifth bowl eligible spot in the division.  Minnesota still gets no respect, and the Gophers will host Penn State in two weeks with a chance to get that respect.  If they upset the Nittany Lions, Roses could be in Minnesota’s future for the first time since January 1, 1962.  With the Big Ten having the most specific bowl rules, it appears that in order to keep teams out of making repeat bowl appearances, some teams with two fewer wins may jump over others for more prestigious bowls.

Conference USA: This league has no chance to earn the NY6 Bowl bid as too many teams would have to lose before a Louisiana Tech or UAB would even enter the contention picture.  Marshall will host Western Kentucky this weekend, and the winner will just about wrap up the East Division flag.  The West is still a four-team mess, but Louisiana Tech has the upper hand.  UAB hosts the Bulldogs in November, and the winner of that game will most likely take the West Division crown.

Independents: Since Notre Dame figures in the ACC bowl, we don’t include them here.  The big change here was removing Army from bowl contention and placing BYU back into bowl contention.  If BYU goes 6-6 or better, they are guaranteed the Hawaii Bowl bid.  Keep an eye on Liberty.  If Liberty can win at Rutgers this Saturday, the Flames are looking at an eight-win season.  Liberty has a secondary bowl agreement with the Cure, but we see that bowl being filled by the regular tie-ins.  Still, this school could make its first bowl appearance, because a lot of Southern bowls are going to need at-large teams.

MAC: This conference uses the work “MACtion” to describe its excitement, but Wacky MAC might be a more accurate theme in the Midwest.  Almost all the craziness is in the West Division, where Ball State has come from out of nowhere to take a commanding lead in the division.  The Cardinals were picked to finish last or second to last by most preseason predictions.  The other team picked to finish last or second to last may be chief competition.  Central Michigan plays Ball State in Muncie in November, and the winner is probably the Division champion.  In the East, Ohio won a big game over Kent State this past Saturday, and the Bobcats need only beat Buffalo to guarantee another East Division crown.  Mainstays at the top, Western Michigan and Toledo, are hurting right now, and Toledo must get quarterback Mitchell Guadagni back from injury, as they have no offense without him.

Mountain West: Boise State is now on the outside looking in for the Cotton Bowl.  The Broncos have two or three more games where the opponent could be talented enough to pin another loss on them.  Utah State hosts BSU in November, and if quarterback Jordan Love is 100% healthy, the Aggies might be the better team.  With Hawaii losing at home to Air Force, the San Diego State-Fresno State winner is going to take the West Division title.  This league will have one or two extra teams to fill at-large bowls, and we believe one of the two will get in.  Wyoming did not get an invitation last year, so the Cowboys could be heading Southeast of Laramie.

Pac-12: Oregon is one play away from being squarely in the Playoff picture, but then the Donner Party was just one mountain away from getting to the Pacific Coast safely.  The Ducks may have seen their hopes dashed by an Auburn snowstorm.  Utah’s loss to USC prevents the Utes from having a chance to make it to the Playoffs.  The only unsure thing in this conference is if California can get to 6-6 without Chase Garbers at QB.

SEC: Georgia looks quite vulnerable all of a sudden.  If the Bulldogs couldn’t pass or score versus South Carolina and Kentucky, how will they do so against Florida and Auburn.  Short of a major quick fix, it would not be shocking if Georgia lost twice more, giving Florida the East title.  With Missouri ineligible, that leaves South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt fighting for two bowl bids.  USC and Vandy have too much to conquer to get to six wins, while Kentucky may have to beat rival Louisville to make it to bowl eligibility.  Tennessee has four winnable games left on their schedule, so for now, we are picking the Vols to sneak in at 6-6.  In the West, we believe Mississippi State is in big trouble and likely headed to 5-7 with Ole Miss.  Arkansas is the #14 team in the league and may finish 0-8.  The SEC is going to come up four to six bowl spots short.

Sunbelt: Appalachian State probably has the best overall shot of going 13-0 from a Group of 5 Conference, but can the Mountaineers jump over a 12-1 AAC champion?  Aside from that, the other news is that this league will have extra bowl eligible teams and should see at least one at-large bid come to the league.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: October 14, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Wednesday	October 16
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Troy	South Alabama	22.4	19.7	21.9
Thursday	October 17
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Arkansas St.	Louisiana	-6.5	-6.3	-6.5
Stanford	UCLA	12.6	12.2	13.5
Friday	October 18
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Florida Atlantic	Marshall	6.7	6.8	6.9
Syracuse	Pittsburgh	2.8	2.4	2.5
Northwestern	Ohio St.	-24.8	-24.4	-26.8
Fresno St.	UNLV	15.2	14.2	15.8
Saturday	October 19
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Virginia	Duke	2.0	2.7	2.0
Miami (Fla.)	Georgia Tech	15.9	16.8	16.4
Louisville	Clemson	-31.4	-28.6	-32.2
Georgia St.	Army	-6.7	-5.2	-6.6
Akron	Buffalo	-13.5	-13.7	-15.5
Maryland	Indiana	-0.6	0.3	-0.8
Connecticut	Houston	-24.5	-21.6	-28.3
Wake Forest	Florida St.	1.5	0.8	1.7
Georgia Southern	Coastal Carolina	10.7	8.9	10.5
Bowling Green	Central Michigan	-7.3	-8.2	-8.0
Central Florida	East Carolina	31.5	28.7	32.5
Cincinnati	Tulsa	21.7	19.8	21.7
Boston College	North Carolina St.	2.1	2.2	2.2
Iowa	Purdue	14.5	12.8	15.1
Ohio	Kent St.	7.2	6.2	7.1
Eastern Michigan	Western Michigan	-10.3	-9.1	-10.0
Texas	Kansas	22.5	21.6	23.0
Illinois	Wisconsin	-25.1	-23.9	-26.2
Utah St.	Nevada	19.8	16.8	21.4
BYU	Boise St.	-6.1	-6.0	-7.0
Wyoming	New Mexico	21.2	20.4	22.7
Utah	Arizona St.	16.0	15.3	15.6
Ball St.	Toledo	0.2	-0.5	-0.3
Miami (O)	Northern Illinois	-1.8	-2.6	-2.1
California	Oregon St.	13.6	12.2	15.3
Washington	Oregon	-1.4	-2.0	-1.7
USC	Arizona	10.3	10.9	10.7
Washington St.	Colorado	16.1	15.4	16.5
South Carolina	Florida	-5.4	-4.1	-4.9
Georgia	Kentucky	23.6	23.4	25.6
Kansas St.	TCU	5.8	2.5	5.2
Mississippi St.	LSU	-14.3	-15.7	-9.1
Alabama	Tennessee	32.0	29.1	34.3
Louisiana Tech	Southern Miss.	-0.9	0.6	-1.1
UAB	Old Dominion	12.9	14.3	13.5
Oklahoma	West Virginia	24.3	23.9	24.6
Oklahoma St.	Baylor	0.9	1.3	1.1
Arkansas	Auburn	-20.7	-18.1	-20.7
Ole Miss	Texas A&M	-8.8	-7.7	-7.4
Memphis	Tulane	5.3	4.2	5.0
Virginia Tech	North Carolina	-2.3	-2.2	-3.1
Rutgers	Minnesota	-25.0	-25.1	-25.3
Texas Tech	Iowa St.	-6.7	-7.0	-7.7
Navy	South Florida	5.2	6.8	5.3
Appalachian St.	Louisiana-Monroe	20.2	18.1	19.8
Vanderbilt	Missouri	-18.8	-17.6	-20.5
San Jose St.	San Diego St.	-10.4	-10.1	-10.8
Western Kentucky	Charlotte	8.0	8.5	9.5
North Texas	Middle Tennessee	4.8	5.3	5.7
UTSA	Rice	-3.9	-2.9	-3.5
SMU	Temple	5.6	6.3	5.6
Florida Int’l.	UTEP	27.8	22.9	27.5
Penn St.	Michigan	6.4	7.2	6.5
Hawaii	Air Force	4.0	4.0	2.5

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings 

Note:  We receive a lot of emails at our sister site asking us how X can be rated ahead of Y when Y beat X in September.  These are not rankings; they are ratings.  They are predictive in nature and not mean to rank the teams based on what they have done earlier in the season.  These ratings try to forecast the next week of games only.  

 

#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	135.3	134.2	136.2	135.2
2	Alabama	135.8	132.5	136.5	134.9
3	Clemson	132.2	129.3	132.9	131.5
4	L S U	128.4	126.1	128.0	127.5
5	Georgia	126.7	124.9	126.9	126.2
6	Wisconsin	124.2	123.9	124.4	124.2
7	Oklahoma	124.4	123.6	124.1	124.0
8	Penn St.	122.5	121.6	122.6	122.3
9	Utah	121.5	120.2	122.0	121.2
10	Florida	122.4	119.4	121.8	121.2
11	Auburn	121.5	119.6	121.1	120.7
12	Notre Dame	120.2	118.5	120.1	119.6
13	Oregon	118.7	118.8	120.0	119.2
14	Michigan	119.1	117.4	119.2	118.6
15	Iowa	118.0	116.1	118.0	117.3
16	Iowa St.	115.7	116.3	115.9	116.0
17	Texas A&M	116.8	115.0	115.3	115.7
18	Missouri	116.4	114.0	116.5	115.6
19	Washington	114.2	113.9	115.3	114.5
20	Michigan St.	114.0	113.2	113.7	113.6
21	Texas	113.3	113.5	113.7	113.5
22	South Carolina	113.9	112.3	113.9	113.4
23	Minnesota	112.4	112.0	111.7	112.0
24	Baylor	112.1	112.2	111.5	111.9
25	Central Florida	111.5	110.6	112.4	111.5
26	Mississipppi St.	111.1	107.4	116.0	111.5
27	Washington St.	110.5	109.5	110.6	110.2
28	Oklahoma St.	110.0	110.5	109.6	110.0
29	Cincinnati	109.0	107.8	109.8	108.9
30	Arizona St.	108.5	107.9	109.4	108.6
31	U S C	108.1	108.8	108.6	108.5
32	Kansas St.	108.2	107.8	107.8	107.9
33	Boise St.	107.5	107.3	108.1	107.6
34	Indiana	108.3	106.8	107.5	107.5
35	Duke	107.7	107.1	107.6	107.5
36	Northwestern	107.5	106.7	106.5	106.9
37	Virginia	106.7	106.8	106.6	106.7
38	Miami (Fla.)	106.4	105.7	107.2	106.4
39	California	106.2	105.9	107.2	106.4
40	T C U	105.3	108.3	105.6	106.4
41	North Carolina	106.0	106.0	107.2	106.4
42	Purdue	106.5	106.3	105.8	106.2
43	Tennessee	106.8	106.4	105.2	106.1
44	Stanford	106.4	105.6	106.2	106.1
45	Texas Tech	106.0	106.3	105.3	105.9
46	Pittsburgh	105.8	105.5	105.9	105.7
47	SMU	105.1	104.9	106.2	105.4
48	Appalachian St.	105.9	104.7	105.5	105.4
49	Syracuse	105.6	105.0	105.4	105.3
50	Kentucky	106.0	104.5	104.3	104.9
51	Ole Miss	105.1	104.2	104.9	104.7
52	Memphis	104.6	104.4	105.1	104.7
53	Florida St.	104.5	104.6	104.5	104.6
54	Utah St.	104.6	103.4	105.6	104.5
55	Maryland	104.7	104.1	103.7	104.2
56	Wake Forest	103.5	102.9	103.8	103.4
57	Nebraska	103.1	103.9	102.5	103.2
58	Tulane	102.3	103.2	103.1	102.9
59	West Virginia	103.2	102.7	102.5	102.8
60	Temple	102.4	101.7	103.6	102.6
61	North Carolina St.	101.3	101.1	101.6	101.3
62	Arizona	100.8	100.9	100.9	100.9
63	Virginia Tech	100.7	100.8	101.1	100.9
64	Boston College	100.5	100.3	100.8	100.5
65	Louisiana	99.8	99.8	99.5	99.7
66	Air Force	98.9	100.3	99.7	99.6
67	Houston	98.0	98.8	100.3	99.0
68	San Diego St.	98.3	100.1	98.3	98.9
69	Hawaii	98.4	99.8	97.7	98.6
70	Wyoming	97.7	99.8	98.2	98.6
71	Western Michigan	98.8	97.7	98.7	98.4
72	BYU	98.4	98.3	98.1	98.3
73	Fresno St.	97.7	98.3	98.0	98.0
74	Arkansas	97.8	98.5	97.3	97.9
75	Louisville	97.9	97.8	97.7	97.8
76	Army	97.4	97.3	96.8	97.2
77	Colorado	97.4	97.1	97.1	97.2
78	U C L A	96.7	96.4	95.7	96.3
79	Illinois	96.1	96.9	95.1	96.1
80	Oregon St.	95.7	96.7	94.9	95.8
81	Southern Miss.	95.8	94.2	96.1	95.4
82	Kansas	93.9	94.9	93.7	94.2
83	Vanderbilt	95.1	93.8	93.5	94.1
84	Navy	93.0	95.6	93.5	94.1
85	Troy	94.2	94.4	93.1	93.9
86	Georgia Southern	94.1	93.5	93.2	93.6
87	Florida Atlantic	93.0	92.6	94.1	93.2
88	Georgia Tech	93.5	91.8	93.8	93.0
89	Ohio	92.9	91.9	93.3	92.7
90	Florida Int’l.	92.5	92.4	92.9	92.6
91	Louisiana Tech	92.4	92.4	92.5	92.4
92	Northern Illinois	92.5	91.6	92.8	92.3
93	Toledo	91.3	91.6	92.0	91.6
94	North Texas	91.3	90.7	92.0	91.3
95	South Florida	90.8	91.8	91.2	91.3
96	Tulsa	90.3	91.1	91.1	90.8
97	Arkansas St.	90.8	91.0	90.5	90.8
98	Western Kentucky	89.8	90.9	91.5	90.7
99	Marshall	89.3	88.8	90.2	89.4
100	Buffalo	88.9	89.3	89.9	89.3
101	Liberty	88.8	90.1	89.1	89.3
102	U A B	88.3	90.2	89.1	89.2
103	Ball St.	89.0	88.6	89.1	88.9
104	Middle Tennessee	89.0	87.9	88.9	88.6
105	Louisiana-Monroe	88.2	89.1	88.2	88.5
106	Georgia St.	88.2	89.6	87.7	88.5
107	Kent St.	88.2	88.2	88.7	88.4
108	Nevada	87.8	89.5	87.2	88.2
109	Miami (Ohio)	88.2	86.5	88.2	87.6
110	Eastern Michigan	85.9	86.1	86.2	86.1
111	Coastal Carolina	86.0	87.1	85.2	86.1
112	San Jose St.	85.4	87.5	85.0	86.0
113	U N L V	85.5	87.1	85.2	85.9
114	Central Michigan	84.8	85.6	85.7	85.3
115	Charlotte	84.4	84.8	84.5	84.6
116	Rutgers	84.9	84.5	83.9	84.4
117	Colorado St.	82.5	86.3	82.8	83.9
118	East Carolina	83.0	84.9	82.9	83.6
119	Texas St.	83.2	84.0	82.8	83.3
120	Rice	80.5	81.9	79.9	80.8
121	New Mexico	79.6	82.4	78.4	80.2
122	New Mexico St.	78.0	80.4	78.3	78.9
123	Old Dominion	78.0	78.4	78.1	78.2
124	South Alabama	74.3	77.2	73.6	75.1
125	Bowling Green	74.9	74.8	75.1	75.0
126	Texas-San Antonio	74.2	76.5	73.9	74.8
127	Akron	72.9	73.1	71.9	72.6
128	Connecticut	71.0	74.6	69.5	71.7
129	U T E P	67.3	72.1	67.9	69.1
130	Massachusetts	62.1	63.9	61.0	62.3

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

 

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
Central Florida	111.5	110.6	112.4	111.5	1-1	4-2
Cincinnati	109.0	107.8	109.8	108.9	2-0	5-1
Temple	102.4	101.7	103.6	102.6	2-0	5-1
South Florida	90.8	91.8	91.2	91.3	1-1	3-3
East Carolina	83.0	84.9	82.9	83.6	0-2	3-3
Connecticut	71.0	74.6	69.5	71.7	0-3	1-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	AAC	Overall
SMU	105.1	104.9	106.2	105.4	2-0	6-0
Memphis	104.6	104.4	105.1	104.7	1-1	5-1
Tulane	102.3	103.2	103.1	102.9	2-0	5-1
Houston	98.0	98.8	100.3	99.0	0-2	2-4
Navy	93.0	95.6	93.5	94.1	2-1	4-1
Tulsa	90.3	91.1	91.1	90.8	0-2	2-4
AAC Averages	96.7	97.5	97.4	97.2
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Clemson	132.2	129.3	132.9	131.5	4-0	6-0
Syracuse	105.6	105.0	105.4	105.3	0-2	3-3
Florida St.	104.5	104.6	104.5	104.6	2-2	3-3
Wake Forest	103.5	102.9	103.8	103.4	1-1	5-1
North Carolina St.	101.3	101.1	101.6	101.3	1-1	4-2
Boston College	100.5	100.3	100.8	100.5	1-2	3-3
Louisville	97.9	97.8	97.7	97.8	2-1	4-2
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	ACC	Overall
Duke	107.7	107.1	107.6	107.5	2-1	4-2
Virginia	106.7	106.8	106.6	106.7	2-1	4-2
Miami (Fla.)	106.4	105.7	107.2	106.4	1-2	3-3
North Carolina	106.0	106.0	107.2	106.4	2-1	3-3
Pittsburgh	105.8	105.5	105.9	105.7	1-1	4-2
Virginia Tech	100.7	100.8	101.1	100.9	2-2	4-2
Georgia Tech	93.5	91.8	93.8	93.0	0-3	1-5
ACC Averages	105.2	104.6	105.4	105.1
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	B12	Overall
Oklahoma	124.4	123.6	124.1	124.0	3-0	6-0
Iowa St.	115.7	116.3	115.9	116.0	2-1	4-2
Texas	113.3	113.5	113.7	113.5	2-1	4-2
Baylor	112.1	112.2	111.5	111.9	3-0	6-0
Oklahoma St.	110.0	110.5	109.6	110.0	1-2	4-2
Kansas St.	108.2	107.8	107.8	107.9	0-2	3-2
T C U	105.3	108.3	105.6	106.4	1-1	3-2
Texas Tech	106.0	106.3	105.3	105.9	1-2	3-3
West Virginia	103.2	102.7	102.5	102.8	1-2	3-3
Kansas	93.9	94.9	93.7	94.2	0-3	2-4
Big 12 Averages	109.2	109.6	109.0	109.3
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Ohio St.	135.3	134.2	136.2	135.2	3-0	6-0
Penn St.	122.5	121.6	122.6	122.3	3-0	6-0
Michigan	119.1	117.4	119.2	118.6	3-1	5-1
Michigan St.	114.0	113.2	113.7	113.6	2-2	4-3
Indiana	108.3	106.8	107.5	107.5	1-2	4-2
Maryland	104.7	104.1	103.7	104.2	1-2	3-3
Rutgers	84.9	84.5	83.9	84.4	0-4	1-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	BTen	Overall
Wisconsin	124.2	123.9	124.4	124.2	3-0	6-0
Iowa	118.0	116.1	118.0	117.3	1-2	4-2
Minnesota	112.4	112.0	111.7	112.0	3-0	6-0
Northwestern	107.5	106.7	106.5	106.9	0-3	1-4
Purdue	106.5	106.3	105.8	106.2	1-2	2-4
Nebraska	103.1	103.9	102.5	103.2	2-2	4-3
Illinois	96.1	96.9	95.1	96.1	0-3	2-4
Big Ten Averages	111.2	110.5	110.8	110.8
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Florida Atlantic	93.0	92.6	94.1	93.2	2-0	4-2
Florida Int’l.	92.5	92.4	92.9	92.6	1-2	3-3
Western Kentucky	89.8	90.9	91.5	90.7	3-0	4-2
Marshall	89.3	88.8	90.2	89.4	1-1	3-3
Middle Tennessee	89.0	87.9	88.9	88.6	1-1	2-4
Charlotte	84.4	84.8	84.5	84.6	0-2	2-4
Old Dominion	78.0	78.4	78.1	78.2	0-2	1-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	CUSA	Overall
Southern Miss.	95.8	94.2	96.1	95.4	2-0	4-2
Louisiana Tech	92.4	92.4	92.5	92.4	2-0	5-1
North Texas	91.3	90.7	92.0	91.3	1-1	2-4
U A B	88.3	90.2	89.1	89.2	2-1	5-1
Rice	80.5	81.9	79.9	80.8	0-2	0-6
Texas-San Antonio	74.2	76.5	73.9	74.8	1-2	2-4
U T E P	67.3	72.1	67.9	69.1	0-2	1-4
CUSA Averages	86.1	86.7	86.5	86.5
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	Conf.	Overall
Notre Dame	120.2	118.5	120.1	119.6	x	5-1
BYU	98.4	98.3	98.1	98.3	x	2-4
Army	97.4	97.3	96.8	97.2	x	3-3
Liberty	88.8	90.1	89.1	89.3	x	4-2
New Mexico St.	78.0	80.4	78.3	78.9	x	0-7
Massachusetts	62.1	63.9	61.0	62.3	x	1-6
Indep. Averages	90.8	91.4	90.6	90.9
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Ohio	92.9	91.9	93.3	92.7	1-1	2-4
Buffalo	88.9	89.3	89.9	89.3	0-2	2-4
Kent St.	88.2	88.2	88.7	88.4	2-0	3-3
Miami (Ohio)	88.2	86.5	88.2	87.6	1-1	2-4
Bowling Green	74.9	74.8	75.1	75.0	1-1	2-4
Akron	72.9	73.1	71.9	72.6	0-2	0-6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MAC	Overall
Western Michigan	98.8	97.7	98.7	98.4	2-1	4-3
Northern Illinois	92.5	91.6	92.8	92.3	1-1	2-4
Toledo	91.3	91.6	92.0	91.6	1-1	4-2
Ball St.	89.0	88.6	89.1	88.9	2-0	3-3
Eastern Michigan	85.9	86.1	86.2	86.1	0-2	3-3
Central Michigan	84.8	85.6	85.7	85.3	2-1	4-3
MAC Averages	87.4	87.1	87.6	87.4
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
Boise St.	107.5	107.3	108.1	107.6	3-0	6-0
Utah St.	104.6	103.4	105.6	104.5	2-0	3-2
Air Force	98.9	100.3	99.7	99.6	2-1	4-2
Wyoming	97.7	99.8	98.2	98.6	1-1	4-2
Colorado St.	82.5	86.3	82.8	83.9	1-2	2-5
New Mexico	79.6	82.4	78.4	80.2	0-2	2-4
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	MWC	Overall
San Diego St.	98.3	100.1	98.3	98.9	2-1	5-1
Hawaii	98.4	99.8	97.7	98.6	1-1	4-2
Fresno St.	97.7	98.3	98.0	98.0	0-1	2-3
Nevada	87.8	89.5	87.2	88.2	1-1	4-2
San Jose St.	85.4	87.5	85.0	86.0	1-2	3-3
U N L V	85.5	87.1	85.2	85.9	1-2	2-4
MWC Averages	93.7	95.1	93.7	94.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Oregon	118.7	118.8	120.0	119.2	3-0	5-1
Washington	114.2	113.9	115.3	114.5	2-2	5-2
Washington St.	110.5	109.5	110.6	110.2	0-3	3-3
California	106.2	105.9	107.2	106.4	1-2	4-2
Stanford	106.4	105.6	106.2	106.1	2-2	3-3
Oregon St.	95.7	96.7	94.9	95.8	1-2	2-4
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	P12	Overall
Utah	121.5	120.2	122.0	121.2	2-1	5-1
Arizona St.	108.5	107.9	109.4	108.6	2-1	5-1
U S C	108.1	108.8	108.6	108.5	2-1	3-3
Arizona	100.8	100.9	100.9	100.9	2-1	4-2
Colorado	97.4	97.1	97.1	97.2	1-2	3-3
U C L A	96.7	96.4	95.7	96.3	1-2	1-5
Pac-12 Averages	107.1	106.8	107.3	107.1
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Georgia	126.7	124.9	126.9	126.2	2-1	5-1
Florida	122.4	119.4	121.8	121.2	4-1	6-1
Missouri	116.4	114.0	116.5	115.6	2-0	5-1
South Carolina	113.9	112.3	113.9	113.4	2-2	3-3
Tennessee	106.8	106.4	105.2	106.1	1-2	2-4
Kentucky	106.0	104.5	104.3	104.9	1-3	3-3
Vanderbilt	95.1	93.8	93.5	94.1	0-3	1-5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SEC	Overall
Alabama	135.8	132.5	136.5	134.9	3-0	6-0
L S U	128.4	126.1	128.0	127.5	2-0	6-0
Auburn	121.5	119.6	121.1	120.7	2-1	5-1
Texas A&M	116.8	115.0	115.3	115.7	1-2	3-3
Mississippi St.	111.1	107.4	116.0	111.5	1-2	3-3
Ole Miss	105.1	104.2	104.9	104.7	2-2	3-4
Arkansas	97.8	98.5	97.3	97.9	0-3	2-4
SEC Averages	114.6	112.7	114.4	113.9
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Appalachian St.	105.9	104.7	105.5	105.4	2-0	5-0
Troy	94.2	94.4	93.1	93.9	0-1	2-3
Georgia Southern	94.1	93.5	93.2	93.6	1-1	2-3
Georgia St.	88.2	89.6	87.7	88.5	2-1	4-2
Coastal Carolina	86.0	87.1	85.2	86.1	0-2	3-3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average	SBC	Overall
Louisiana	99.8	99.8	99.5	99.7	1-1	4-2
Arkansas St.	90.8	91.0	90.5	90.8	1-1	3-3
Louisiana-Monroe	88.2	89.1	88.2	88.5	2-0	3-3
Texas St.	83.2	84.0	82.8	83.3	1-1	2-4
South Alabama	74.3	77.2	73.6	75.1	0-2	1-5
SBC Averages	90.5	91.0	89.9	90.5

 

 

Conference Power Ratings
#	League	Average
1	SEC	113.9
2	BTen	110.8
3	B12	109.3
4	P12	107.1
5	ACC	105.1
6	AAC	97.2
7	MWC	94.2
8	Ind	90.9
9	SUN	90.5
10	MAC	87.4
11	CUSA	86.5

 

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

 

This Week’s Bowl and Playoff Projections

 

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

 

Reverse Engineering the NCAA Playoffs

Here is our best estimate as to which teams would have qualified for the Playoffs in the years before there were playoffs.  This covers the PiRate Ratings era (1969-Present)

 

 

2013: Florida St., Auburn, Alabama, Michigan St.

Auburn and Alabama would have met in a rematch

 

2012: Notre Dame, Alabama, Florida, Oregon

Ohio State was 12-0 but ineligible that year

 

2011: LSU, Alabama, Stanford, Oklahoma St.

Andrew Luck versus the Crimson Tide and Les Myles against his old team

 

2010: Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Wisconsin

3, 12-0 teams and a possible Andy Dalton vs. Cam Newton in the Championship Game

 

2009: Alabama, Texas, TCU, Boise St.

All four teams were 12-0.  Nick Saban’s only undefeated team may have been one of his weaker teams at Alabama.  

 

2008: Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Utah

This is a year where an 8-team playoff would have been needed, as there were nine teams that could be considered playoff worthy.  Only Utah was undefeated, and the Utes slaughtered Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

 

2007: Ohio St., LSU, Kansas, Oklahoma

This would have been a difficult year for a Selection Committee with only three deserving teams.  Number four could have been Missouri, Georgia, or USC.

 

2006: Ohio St., Florida, Michigan, Louisville

Ohio State and Michigan were both 11-0 when they met in Columbus.  The Buckeyes’ home field advantage is historically between 3.5 and 4.5 points, and they only won this game by three.  Might Michigan have been a little better that year?  Florida and Michigan in a semifinal game might have set up a rematch of the bitter rivals.

 

2005: USC, Texas, Penn St., Oregon

This was definitely a year where only two teams were needed for playoffs.  It would have been ashamed if either USC or Texas had been upset in a semifinal game, robbing the nation of one of the best Championship Games ever.

 

2004: USC, Oklahoma, Auburn, Utah

All four of these teams were 12-0 at the end of the regular season.  Auburn and Utah were won impressive bowl games, and this would have been one of the best playoff years ever.

 

2003: USC, LSU, Oklahoma, Michigan

The BCS folks got this one wrong by not taking USC that year, and the AP Poll voted USC the national champion over LSU.

 

2002: Miami, Ohio St., Iowa, Georgia

Ohio State and Iowa did not play each other that year, as this pre-dates the Big Ten Championship Game.

 

2001: Miami, Oregon, Nebraska, Illinois

This was another tough year, and it didn’t need a playoff at all, as Miami was clearly 7-10 points better than anybody else in the nation.  Illinois gets the nod over Maryland and Colorado.

 

2000: Oklahoma, Washington, Miami, Florida St.

This was a year where a 6-team tournament, adding Oregon State and Virginia Tech, would have been needed.  Washington was more deserving than Florida State that year.

 

1999: Florida St., Virginia Tech, Nebraska, Kansas St.

The two teams that played for the title were the only legitimate teams that should have played for a title that year.

 

1998: Tennessee, Ohio St., Florida St., Kansas St.

UCLA might have been the best team headed into the final weeks that year, but the Bruins made a mistake playing at Miami to close out the regular season.  They were not ready for the heat and humidity, or the Miami speed.  Ohio State was more deserving of the Championship Game bid than Florida State.

1997: Nebraska, Michigan, Tennessee, Florida St.

Peyton Manning versus Charles Woodson in a battle of the top two Heisman Trophy candidates.  Then, in all likelihood, it would have been Michigan and Nebraska in one of the best Championship Games never to be played.

1996: Florida St., Arizona St., Florida, Ohio St.

John Cooper had two teams that were probably the best in the land, but his Buckeyes always found a way to lay an egg at some point during the season.  This Buckeyes’ team probably would have beaten Florida St. in a semifinal game.

1995: Nebraska, Florida, Tennessee, Northwestern

Florida, Tennessee, and Northwestern could have combined their rosters and still lost to Nebraska by 14 points.  This was the most dominant team of the last 25 years.

1994: Nebraska, Penn St., Alabama, Miami

A 10-0-1 Texas A&M team was on probation that year.  Nebraska and Penn State would have been an incredible game had they played that year.  In those days, the Big Ten champion went to the Rose Bowl, and there was no guarantee that the top two teams would play each other.

1993: Nebraska, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Florida St.

An 11-0 Auburn team may have been the best in the nation that year, but the Tigers were on probation.  Notre Dame’s upset loss at Boston College kept the Irish out of the National Championship Game, allowing a Florida State team that ND beat to sneak in to the Orange Bowl.  The Irish were probably the best team that year.

1992: Alabama, Miami, Texas A&M, Florida St.

One wide field goal attempt against Miami was all that kept Florida State from going undefeated.  Had the ball been true, there would have been four teams with no losses.  It didn’t matter that year, as ‘Bama was clearly  the best team in the nation with the best defense in modern day football (Wisconsin has a chance to take that moniker away this year if they run the table and stop Ohio State’s offense).

1991: Washington, Miami, Florida, Michigan

Washington and Miami needed to meet for the national championship that year.  The PiRate Ratings had Washington rated about two points ahead of Miami that year.

1990: Georgia Tech, Colorado, Texas, Miami

This was one of the toughest years to pick any of the teams.  At 10-2, Miami was probably the best team that year, as they pasted Texas in the Cotton Bowl 46-3, committing more yards in penalties than Texas had in offense.  Miami’s defense would have shut down Georgia Tech in the semifinals, and none of the triple option teams ever had success against the Hurricane defenses of those times.  Colorado’s I-bone would have been shut down.

 

1989: Colorado, Miami, Notre Dame, Michigan

Colorado was the only undefeated team, but they may have been the weakest of these four teams.  A Notre Dame-Michigan title game would have been a good one that year.

 

1988: Notre Dame, West Virginia, Miami, Auburn

This was another tough year to come up with team number four, as five or six other teams could have slid into this spot.  A third-seeded Miami team would have swept both playoff games by double digit margins.  Miami’s only loss that year was at Notre Dame by one point on one of the worst blown calls ever made in a game with championship implications.  Facing 4th down and 7 at the Notre Dame 11 yard line, Hurricane quarterback Steve Walsh threw a pass to receiver Cleveland Gary inside the five yard line.  Gary caught the ball and stretched forward.  The ball hit the goalline before any other part of Gary’s body touched the ground.  Not only did the referees not award Miami a touchdown, they at first called a fumble that was recovered by Notre Dame, after the ball was dropped just after Gary pounded it on the goalline.  Then to make a second mistake, the referees said it wasn’t a fumble and then gave the ball to Notre Dame on downs, when Miami only needed to get to the four yard line.  Miami would have beaten Notre Dame in a rematch by 14-17 points that year.

I heard a funny quip on sports radio the Monday after that game.  The host said that the referees, O’Brien, O’Malley, O’Sullivan, Kelly, Murphy,  and Ryan, decided that the goalline can cause a fumble.

 

1987: Miami, Oklahoma, Florida St., Syracuse

This was another one of those wide right years for Florida State in a one-point loss to Miami.  These two rivals would have most likely played for the title that year.

 

1986: Miami, Penn St., Oklahoma, Michigan

This would have been an interesting playoff, especially the Miami-Michigan game.  Bo Schembechler’s defense would have given Vinny Testaverde similar fits to the one Penn State gave him in the real Championship Game.  It might have been Penn State and Michigan playing for the title.

 

1985: Penn St., Oklahoma, Iowa, Miami

Florida at 9-1-1 might have been the best team at the end of the year, but the Gators were on probation.  This would have been a fairly even season with three close playoff games.

 

1984: Washington, Oklahoma, South Carolina, BYU

Yes, BYU was the real national champion that year, but they won it only because this was a down year in the major conferences.  Washington would have quickly dismissed BYU in the semifinals, while Oklahoma would have edged South Carolina.  Florida was on probation for the first of two years and went 9-1-1.  The Gators were probably the best team in the nation by the end of November, slaughtering ranked Georgia, Auburn, and Florida State teams by a combined 78-20.

 

1983: Nebraska, Texas, Auburn, Illinois

The actual national champion Miami would not have been invited to the Playoffs that year.  Illinois beat three top 10 teams that year by a combined 66-19 score.  10-1 Auburn only lost to 11-0 Texas.  Nebraska might have had trouble facing Illinois’s passing game since the Cornhuskers did not face a passing offense like this in the Big 8.  Texas beat three top 10 teams during the season and held opponents to less than 10 points per game.  This should have been an interesting Playoff season.

 

1982: Georgia, Penn St., SMU, Nebraska

SMU wasn’t yet on probation, even though this team was the one with all the violations.  The Pony Express would have given Penn State a tough game, while Georgia and Nebraska should have been a close one as well.  Any of the four teams could have won the title.  Nebraska’s lone loss was at Penn State by a field goal.

 

1981: Clemson, Georgia, Pittsburgh, Alabama

The two best teams in the nation that year were Clemson and Pittsburgh.  The Panthers were cruising along as the number one team and had a 10-0 record when they hosted Penn State in the regular season finale.  After scoring two quick touchdowns to take a 14-0 lead on the Nittany Lions.  Pitt outgained Penn State by more than 140 yards in the first quarter, and it looked like this would be a blowout win for the top-rated team.  Then, Penn State woke up and went on a scoring tear like Army in the World War II years, scoring 48 points in the last three quarters on a Pitt team that had given up just 92 points in its first ten games.  Poor Dan Marino–always a bridesmaid and never a bride. 

 

1980: Georgia, Pittsburgh, Florida St., Baylor

Hershel Walker would have rolled over Baylor in the semifinals, setting up an interesting championship game against either Pitt or FSU.  

 

1979: Alabama, Ohio State, USC, Florida St.

All four of these teams went unbeaten (USC had a tie), and this would have been an interesting playoff for sure.  This Alabama team got through the year unscathed against a rather weak schedule.  USC was probably the best team in the nation that year.  The Trojans were stacked with talent.  Both Charles White and Marcus Allen were the featured backs out of the I-formation.  Paul McDonald was one of the best passing quarterbacks the Trojans had up to that time.  Brad Budde was the best offensive lineman in the nation that year.  The USC secondary might have been the best one in college football history with Ronnie Lott, Dennis Smith, Jeff Fisher, Herb Ward, and Joey Browner.

 

1978: USC, Alabama, Oklahoma, Penn St.

Penn State was the only undefeated team that year, but their schedule included a lot of easy wins.  USC won at Alabama and were probably the best team in the nation that year.

 

1977: Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma

Actual National Champion Notre Dame would not have made the Playoffs in a year where at least eight if not 12 teams were worthy.  Michigan appeared to be the superior team in the land for the second consecutive year, but the Wolverines came up short for the second year in a row.  Alabama probably had the best team at the end of the regular season, and the Tide won at Number 1 USC earlier in the year.  

 

1976: Pittsburgh, Michigan, USC, Georgia

Johnny Majors had Tony Dorsett as his tailback, and TD was nearly unstoppable.  Throw in a stingy defense that intercepted a lot of passes and recovered a lot of fumbles, and the Panthers would have probably won this Playoffs with ease.  When on their game, Michigan was good enough to play on an even level with Pitt, but up to this point in his career, no Bo Schembechler-coached team had won its final game of the year.

 

1975: Ohio St., Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona St.

Ohio State was undefeated with Heisman Trophy running back Archie Griffin and bulldozer Pete Johnson both topping 1,000 yards rushing.  Unlike many of Woody Hayes’ teams, this one had a decent passing attack with Cornelius Greene passing to Brian Baschnagel.  The Buckeyes beat four ranked teams in the regular season by a combined 100-29 score.  However, by the end of November, Alabama was clearly the best team in the nation.  An early stumble to open the season at Missouri, a school that pulled off several major upsets during this era, pushed the Tide out to sea.  Bear’s boys were unstoppable after that loss.  Alabama gave up just 46 points after that loss in week one, winning 10 games with ease.  Washington coach Don James after losing to ‘Bama 52-0 said they were the best team he had ever seen as a coach or player.

 

1974: Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, USC

Oklahoma was the clear cut best team in the nation, but the Sooners were on probation this year.  OU would have easily beaten any of these four teams that year.  These four that weren’t on probation would have played three close games with USC likely coming out on top.

 

 

1973: Notre Dame, Alabama, Penn St., Ohio St.

This was one of the most incredible years in college football history.  Left out in this equation is a 10-0-1 Michigan team that tied 9-0-1 Ohio State but lost their quarterback for the season in the Big Game.

This group of four could have played this tournament a dozen times and each team might have won it three times each.  Our PiRate Ratings had Ohio State the number one team after the bowls that year.

 

1972: USC, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio St.

This was a time when the “haves” had a lot more than the “have nots,” and thus as many as 10 teams had playoff-worthy resumes.  In the end, it really didn’t matter this season, because USC was the best team in the nation by at least a touchdown over Oklahoma and more than 10 points over anybody else.  This was the best West Coast team ever. It had two future NFL quarterbacks in Mike Rae and Pat Haden.  Fullback Sam “Bam” Cunnigham blocked for Anthony Davis, while a trio of star receivers, Lynn Swann, J.K. McKay, and Charles Young, forced defenses to play three and four deep in the secondary.

 

1971: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Michigan

The 1971 Nebraska team ranks as the all-time best team in PiRate Ratings’ history (1969 to present).  The 1971 Oklahoma team ranks as one of the 10 best in PiRate Ratings’ history.  These two teams were so far ahead of the rest of the nation.  Oklahoma would have beaten Alabama by at least three touchdowns, while Nebraska would have likely beaten Michigan by a score like 31-0.  The rematch for the National Championship might have been the best one ever had there been Playoffs back then.

1970: Ohio St., Texas, Nebraska, Arizona St.

Arizona State didn’t get any respect in 1970, but this undefeated team might have been strong enough to knock off Ohio State.  The schedule was suspect, but if you look at the roster, it was stocked with future NFL players.  Notre Dame and Tennessee were equally qualified to make the Playoffs this year, and a Committee might have given the edge to the Fighting Irish with Joe Theismann at quarterback.

 

1969: Penn St., Texas, Arkansas, USC

This is the year that the PiRate Ratings were born (although not named the PiRate Ratings until 2001).  It was because so  many teams were really good this season that I started making ratings.   If ever a season needed a 12-team Playoff, this is the one.  A case could have been made for 16 teams that year.  

If you ask me, Penn State would have won the title had there been Playoffs.  This Nittany Lion defense and special teams were among the best ever, as they scored or set up more points than they allowed.  When your number two and number three running backs are future All-pros Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell, and when your starting quarterback went undefeated for his entire football career (Youth league to College), how can you deny this 11-0 team that finished the 1969 season riding a 22-game winning streak and 30 game unbeaten streak?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate College Football Ratings: September 30, 2019

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

 

Thursday	October 3
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
South Alabama	Georgia Southern	-19.4	-15.7	-19.6
East Carolina	Temple	-16.8	-13.6	-18.1
Friday	October 4
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Cincinnati	Central Florida	-0.5	-1.3	-1.4
San Jose St.	New Mexico	5.4	4.3	5.5
Saturday	October 5
Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Connecticut	South Florida	-11.8	-8.9	-13.2
Louisville	Boston College	-1.5	-1.7	-2.9
Georgia Tech	North Carolina	-8.7	-10.7	-9.4
West Virginia	Texas	-4.9	-5.3	-5.2
Penn St.	Purdue	18.6	17.5	19.1
Northern Illinois	Ball St.	9.4	8.9	9.9
Army	Tulane