2022 Conference USA Preview

Conference USA has been the weakest FBS league the last few years, and it looks to be on the verge of getting even weaker.  When the league sponsored its first football season, the football members were Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, South Florida, Southern Miss., Tulane, and UAB.  Over the course of its early years, Central Florida, East Carolina, SMU, TCU, and Tulsa were members.

Of the original teams, only UAB remains, but the Blazers are leaving the league to join the American Athletic Conference in 2023.  Going with UAB will be Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice and UTSA.  Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky almost made the move to the Mid-American Conference.  The league stayed alive by getting Liberty and New Mexico State to come in from the ranks of the independents while inviting current FCS members Jacksonville State and Sam Houston to enter next year.

CUSA lost Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss. to the Sun Belt, and thus the league will have just one division of 11 teams this year.  The top two in the conference standings will meet in the Conference Championship Game.

The CUSA Media poll did not record total vote numbers, just first place votes and predicted order of finish.  Here is how the media picked the race in 2022.

Conference USA
		Votes
#	Team	1st Place	Overall
1	UTSA	14
2	UAB	8
3	Western Ky.	0
4	Fla. Atlantic	0
5	North Texas	0
6	UTEP	0
7	Charlotte	0
8	Middle Tenn.	0
9	Louisiana Tech	0
10	Rice	0
11	Fla. Int’l.	0

The opening PiRate Ratings differ minimally.

Conference USA
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U A B	97.3	97.5	99.1	98.0
W. Kentucky	96.4	96.0	99.0	97.1
U T S A	97.1	95.3	96.6	96.4
North Texas	88.6	87.8	89.9	88.8
U T E P	86.9	86.4	87.1	86.8
Middle Tennessee	85.6	86.7	86.8	86.4
Florida Atlantic	85.3	87.2	85.6	86.0
Charlotte	82.9	83.9	82.3	83.0
Rice	81.2	80.6	80.1	80.6
Louisiana Tech	80.2	81.9	78.7	80.3
Florida Int’l.	67.0	70.1	65.3	67.5
CUSA	86.2	86.7	86.4	86.4

If you are new to the PiRate Ratings, there are three different power ratings and an average of the three.  All three ratings, PiRate, Mean, and Bias, are calculated using the same statistical data but with different algorithmic formulas.  The PiRate and Bias are closely related, while the Mean is somewhat different.  Each of the three different ratings accentuate certain statistical events that have proven at times to be more essential than the other two.  Thus, in some years, the PiRate has more success.  In some years, the Bias has more success, and in some years the Mean has more success.
The PiRate Ratings are meant to predict the next week’s games on the schedule, so using them to predict the entire season’s results is unwarranted.  Nevertheless, here are the predicted won-loss records prior to the postseason.

Team	CUSA	Overall
Western Kentucky *	7-1	11-2
UAB	7-1	9-4
UTSA	7-1	8-4
UTEP	6-2	8-4
North Texas	4-4	5-7
Middle Tenn.	4-4	5-7
Florida Atlantic	3-5	4-8
Charlotte	3-5	4-8
Louisiana Tech	2-6	3-9
Rice	1-7	2-10
Florida Int’l.	0-8	1-11

* Western Kentucky picked to defeat UAB in the CUSA Championship Game

Note: UAB head coach Bill Clark retired due to health issues this Summer, and offensive coordinator Bryant Vincent has been named interim head coach.

Coming tomorrow: The Mid-American Conference

2021 College Football Season Historically Before It Happens

Hello out there in Pigskinville, especially all of our super fans of the Southeastern Conference. The PiRates have left the harbor in our vessel for 2021, hoping it will get us out into the shipping lanes for the 2021-2022 football season.

Needless to say, this has been the most difficult Spring for updating college football ratings in the 52 years that the ratings have existed. To be more exact, the PiRate Ratings have been utilizing the same formulas with off-season updates since 1996, as pre-Internet, our system was quite a bit more spartan in calculations. Since 1996, off-season updating has been a mechanical process that involved about 8 weeks of working an average of 20 hours per week in the early mornings and evenings, or roughy 160 hours to update 130 teams.

That dastardly little virus totally fouled up the process last year. At first, just a few dozen teams committed to playing a season. Then, it jumped to 76 then 90-something, and finally 127 of the 130 teams played football, even if they only played five games. Then, in the Spring the FCS played a season, but FBS Independent New Mexico State played two FCS games, getting blown out by Tarleton State and barely edging a fledgling program in Dixie State.

The question became, “How do we update teams that played between 0 and 12 games, including three teams that did not play, one of which played two FCS Spring games and trailed one of those teams 40-7 less than a minute into the second half?

Just coming up with an alternate one-year re-calculation that could be applied to our mechanical updating system took most of the Month of April, and applying the one-year substitute formulas in a process that maintained a level statistical playing field gobbled up all of May through Memorial Day weekend.

Alas, by June 5, we had the process finalized. However, acquiring the stats from all 130 FBS schools took another 10 days, with the acquisition of team #130, U Mass, coming this morning.

Now, the hard work begins today in earnest. At two teams per weekday, one in the early morning and one in the evening and four teams per weekend day, it will take a little over 7 weeks to finalize the preseason ratings for the 2021 college football season. Thus, we expect to be ready by August 10 and should begin our previews around Saturday, August 14 through 24. The season kicks off Saturday, August 28, with what is being called, “Week 0.”

The 2021 season is going to be somewhat like the 1946-1949 seasons. World War II led to many war veterans playing college football well into their 20’s. Oklahoma’s 1949 had more war veterans over the age of a normal college senior than they had correct age underclassmen. The Sooners won 31 games in a row during this era, and multiple players commented that playing football was much easier than fighting a war. That 1949 Sooner team could have had a speedy back from Commerce, OK, on the roster, but Mickey Mantle chose to play baseball after visiting Norman on a recruiting trip and discovering that there were men in the locker room, meaning he would see little action until they finally graduated about the time their children were entering grade school.

Because the NCAA granted an extra year for all college football players, the teams will be considerably more mature, both physically and mentally. Add into this equation the rule that has allowed all players a free transfer, and all of a sudden, the transfer list is more important than the freshmen recruiting list and maybe more important than the two year old recruiting list, or players ready to contribute. A relatively new stat that sort of mimics what we have been doing for several years is the returning production ratings made by Billy Connelly, now at ESPN. We don’t know how Billy plans to adjust his ratings, but the PiRates are giving considerable weight to transfers that expect to see extensive playing time. For instance, in less than 48 hours, Georgia picked up two transfers that figure to be major contributors. They previously had two other top-rated transfers. These four players make Georgia almost a full touchdown better than they would be using just returning production. Now, toss into this equation that a couple of point-changing transfers are still undecided on a 2021 team, and the possibility probability that some player or players will make an eleventh hour decision to transfer just before August practices commence, and we will be updating the updated ratings all summer. Our ratings are based on 100.0 being par. With 130 teams playing, the total for each of our three different ratings adds to 13,000. If a team is adjusted, then 129 other teams must adjust by a minute amount. By August, usually 15-20 teams have to be adjusted due to players leaving or entering programs at the last minute. That leads not to 15-20 updates but 15-20 updates of 130 teams.

We hope that our ratings continue to be as accurate as possible. In the past five years, our ratings have remained in the top 10% of all computer football ratings at the Prediction Tracker. Almost every year since we have been part of the Prediction Tracker, our ratings have finished in the top 5 against the Spread and for the all-important Mean Square Error, which basically calculates how close our spreads came to the actual margins. However, we suspect that the opening month of the college football season this year is going to be much more unpredictable than past seasons. We expect many of the computer ratings to begin the season behind the eight ball as the incredible amount of variables affect the game. Hopefully, our unique way of updating our ratings, with the extra attention to the transfer market along with the overall experience of teams that will have multiple six-year personnel, will allow us to get off to a fast start.

Through the years, we have given you our best advice toward football wagering–just don’t do it! At least, we ask that you do not use the PiRate Ratings as your source for gambling your mortgage payment away to corporations that build castles to the clouds in Nevada. We expect the underdogs to cover the spread more than typical in the first two weeks of the college season, unless the books lower lines and find enough people to wrongly choose the favorite. If you have the ability to wager early before the season commences and then play the other side in games where the lines appreciably move, you might be able to find some hot middles to play. Unless you know in advance which lines are likely to move by more than three points, it isn’t going to help you. But, if you have State U at -6 1/2 against Tech and wager on State U on August 12, and then on game week three weeks later, the line has moved to 9 1/2, and you can put the same wager amount on Tech, if you can find three or more of these games, this might be the year to play middles on the opening weekend. Still, we ask you to use some other means as your research if you must donate to Nevada corporations.

There is a group in the Caribbean that uses our ratings as a major part of their gaming selections. However, they have a large computer program that analyzes the spreads and our ratings, knowing when to play a minimal number of games that their program says to wager. They hit over 60% success against the spread, but their method is not possible to utilize unless you can immediately wager on certain line movements at an offshore book. There is also the issue of not just winning from an offshore book; you have to be able to collect from them as well, and some of them are hesitant to allow this.

We look forward to providing you with weekly entertainment. Expect the first conference ratings, preview, and predictions to publish around August 14. Thank you for your support.

If you are a tabletop baseball fan, our Sabertooth Baseball Games have been bases-clearing doubles down the line this Spring. We have an advanced version of great teams of all 16 franchises between 1920 and 1959, and we have a simpler, quicker playing game of all 20 franchises in existence in the early and mid-60’s, with teams between 1959 and 1972. Click on the link below for more information.

Sabertooth Baseball

PiRate Ratings Special Report: 2020 Iowa Caucuses

The PiRates here at the PiRate Ratings do not believe in editorializing or expressing political opinions.  When we publicize political events, this is an extension of our application of statistical calculation.

If you ask us which candidates we ally with, our answer is “none.”  Our alliance is trying to be as accurate as possible and to have the best predictions of the outcomes of the races in question.  We do not want to influence any voter in any way.  That said, here is our mathematical look at the first in the nation Democrat’s Iowa Caucus.

First, for those of you that don’t closely follow the Iowa Caucuses, it is an interestingly unique form of choosing candidate preference.  In 2020, there are 1,681 caucus sites.  Unlike normal polling precincts, these sites are more localized.  Some of the sites are in peoples’ homes.  In other areas, libraries, churches, schools, social halls, and community centers may host a caucus site.

Caucus goers sign in and usually have the opportunity for refreshments, much like a school PTA meeting.  Representatives from within the caucus footprint for each candidate (sometimes not all candidates have a representative at a caucus site) speak briefly about their candidate.

After speaking, the caucus-goers are then directed to a certain location to show their support for their chosen candidate.  For example, at a West Des Moines school cafeteria, the candidates may be divided into each of the four corners, the stage, the tray return area, and in the middle of the room.  Let’s say the candidate you support has a sign above a table in the Northwest corner of the Cafeteria.  When the time comes, you simply walk over to that table and stand or take a seat in a chair.

After the time period given to make your first choice, multiple officials (of different candidates) come around to count and verify the number of caucus-goers that chose each candidate.

That’s not the end of the festivities.  After this first go around, there is a period of time where everybody can then change and choose a different candidate.  At this time, a lot of lobbying is done by supporters of other candidates trying to get people to change their minds.  This is not an exercise in futility, as many people do change their support.

In order to receive any delegates, a candidate must receive 15% of the count in the location in order to be considered “viable.”  If a candidate does not reach 15%, then his/her supporters can then choose to caucus with a candidate that has already reached 15%, or they can simply leave the site and not be counted at all.  The lobbying by the supporters of the viable candidates get to play like they are back room brokers.  It is an interesting real life game.

Now that you know  a little about the process, let us tell you a few facts that we use to predict the outcome.  First, past performances in prior years offer minimal bias for this year.  In other words, just because something happened in 1972, or 2004, or 2016, it does not hold as much weight as the somethings happening in 2019 and 2020.  Past situations in Iowa marginally affect the polling bias we apply to the raw numbers.

To be more specific, the Iowa Caucuses have been a little biased toward the more vociferous voter.  In many cases, the elderly, overly shy, and others did not necessarily attend.  Bitter cold and inclement weather also has kept people away.  This isn’t like an election day in another state, where the polls are open from 7AM to 8PM.  They begin at precise times, and you must be there or not participate.  In 2020, there has been an added element to allow people unable to attend for valid reasons (like being old like our Captain) to participate electronically via computer.  This could slightly affect the outcome, but the prior bias is still there.

How do we predict the outcome of the Iowa Caucus?  By no means do the PiRates conduct their own polling.  We’re too small to poll our own local council race.   We rely on multiple polls by polling companies that have consistency.  Notice, we did not say accuracy; we said consistency.  If the John Smith National Poll chose Candidate X to beat Y and Z with a predicted percentage of 45 to 35 to 20, and the actual vote count was 42 to 34 to 24, this creates a bias.  In this case, the poll bias slightly favored X and discounted Z.  If Smith polls consistently overstates the favorite and understates the underdog, we can see the bias.  We call that a positive bias.  FWIW, The PiRate Football and Basketball Ratings have historically consistently had a small negative bias–we give underdogs a little better credit than we give favorites.  Because in sports the underdog covers the spread more than the favorite, the PiRate Ratings have numerous times finished at the top versus the spread.

What we do is to find the most consistent polls.  If they are off by a percentage with a low standard deviation, they are consistent.  All we have to do is adjust their polling data to erase their bias.  So, if Smith consistently has a bias of 1 percent in favor of the third place candidate at the expense of the fourth place candidate, we can factor that into a more accurate prediction.

We aim to find multiple polling sites so that we can form raw percentages every week during the election cycle.  The most important cycle to us is the one that encompasses the polls taken in the final month of the race.  It is during this time where large numbers of undecided voters make their decision. 

What we end up with is a 30-day Moving Average.  We can perform simple linear regression and to make it easier  simply draw a straight line that best represents the candidate’s support.

For instance, let’s say that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt jump off the rocks at Mount Rushmore and come back to life.  They all decide to run for President in the Granite Party.  Polls on January 1 after smoothing for bias show Washington with 29, Jefferson with 27, Lincoln with 25, and Roosevelt with 19.  On January 8, it’s Washington 28, Jefferson 27, Lincoln 24, and Roosevelt 21.  On January 15, it is Washington 28, Jefferson 26, Lincoln, 23, and Roosevelt 23.  On January 22, it is Washington 29, Roosevelt 25, Jefferson 24, and Lincoln 22.  On January 29, it is Washington 30, Roosevelt 28, Jefferson 23, and Lincoln 19.

Washington has led the polling for the entire month, but Roosevelt would be our pick to win that poll that mattered on February 3.  Looking at his last 30 days in the polls, he has risen 22%, while Washington has risen  3.4%. Between that January 29 poll and Caucus night, it’s not just five days later.  The poll released on 1/29 was calculated from data obtained between January 22 and January 26.  In actuality, the poll is eight to 12 days old.  Since Teddy has been steadily gaining the entire last 30 days of the race, he will win the night with 31 to 32 percent.  Washington will be just behind at 30-31 percent.  Poor Abe might have to worry about viability in a lot of precincts, and he might perform worse than his polling indicates, when his supporters choose another candidate or go home in precincts where he polls at 10-14%.

Now that you’ve seen how we work, here is how we predict the Iowa Caucus results will finish in statewide percentage in six nights.

Candidate	%
Bernie Sanders	28
Joe Biden	20
Pete Buttigieg	16
Amy Klobuchar	13
Elizabeth Warren	12
All Others	11

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for October 12-14, 2017

Ouch!  We took it on the chin and everywhere else last week, as all four of our parlays went down in flames.  It wasn’t even close, as we were 0-4 quite quickly.

About all we accomplished in the last two weeks is that we now have two of our followers experimenting with their own formulas.  One is using IF bets, while the other is going with single games.  Neither of them accomplished what they hoped so far, but both are mathematically sound.  The issue is that there is a bit more parity in football this season, and the teams that you and we just know will win for sure go off at Money Line odds of -1000 or worse.  If you are totally sure that Ohio State will beat Nebraska, Mississippi State will beat BYU, Alabama will beat Arkansas, Oklahoma State will beat Baylor, Georgia will beat Missouri, South Florida will beat Cincinnati, Clemson will beat Syracuse, and Iowa State will beat Kansas, you can put down a wager on this parlay and feel about 85% confident you will win this wager.  And guess what you will receive for every $1 you wager on this “sure thing”?  If you bet $1 and win, you will receive $1.35 in winnings, which includes your original buck invested.  Yes, it would be a 35% return on your investment, and even Warren Buffett and Seth Klarman would accept a 35% ROI over 3 days in the investment.  But, they would still hold off on this one, because the Margin of Safety would not be there, and the chances of losing all of the investment would outweigh the chance to make a 35% profit in 3 days.

This week our little ship of buccaneers and queens of the sea were not in agreement on many supposed sure-thing winners that would allow us to construct parlays with odds of +120 or better.  We only came up with two parlays, one of which forced us to go four-deep in games.  We are in the hole a bit too much to risk additional funds on games we do not all believe can win.

We almost made a decision to double our investment on this week’s games, but the Captain warned us that doubling down almost always ballooned into something out of control.  If you lose $100 this week, bet $200 next week; if you lose again, then bet $400 the next week; then $800, $1,600, $3,200, etc.  If you get on a really cold streak, soon you are betting your house and car, and your family, and your kidney, etc.  So, we stick with equal unit wagers on all games.

REMEMBER THIS: We are playing with imaginary currency.  So, we actually could double down, because $200 of fake dough is equal to $100 of fake dough.  We do know that a large number of you reading this use the real stuff, so we are going to approach this weekly feature as if it was real.  Also, there are more than one of you that have told us that you modify our selections and our Ratings’ Spreads and actually do quite well with the data.  One of you has even told us about how you have been ultra successful, but we did not press this issue in order for you to keep your method private.  Any method that really works quickly doesn’t work once the world discovers the secret, because the odds then change, making the system worthless.

Here are our picks for this week.  We hope they are a tad better than worthless, but we have our doubts.

#1@ +170
Must Win	Must Lose
UL-Lafayette	Texas St.
South Carolina	Tennessee
San Diego St.	Boise St.

 

#2 @ +137
Must Win	Must Lose
Miami (O)	Kent St.
Temple	Connecticut
Tulane	Florida Int’l.
Houston	Tulsa

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for September 21-23, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
South Florida	Temple	18.3	15.9	19.4
Boise St.	Virginia	5.1	3.0	3.2
Arizona	Utah	-3.6	-6.7	-5.6
Appalachian St.	Wake Forest	-6.1	-7.6	-5.5
North Carolina	Duke	2.7	2.8	2.6
Purdue	Michigan	-11.7	-9.6	-10.2
Georgia Tech	Pittsburgh	10.8	8.0	9.5
Iowa	Penn St.	-14.3	-12.2	-15.6
Clemson	Boston College	36.5	31.9	36.8
Florida St.	North Carolina St.	16.5	14.8	16.1
Georgia	Mississippi St.	7.7	8.2	7.3
South Carolina	Louisiana Tech	22.1	20.1	20.2
Tennessee	Massachusetts	31.5	30.3	29.8
Kansas	West Virginia	-18.4	-15.9	-19.0
Kentucky	Florida	0.5	-0.1	1.0
Maryland	Central Florida	5.9	6.0	5.1
Louisville	Kent St.	37.5	34.8	36.7
Eastern Michigan	Ohio U	6.9	4.7	6.0
Central Michigan	Miami (O)	1.3	-0.8	-0.4
Virginia Tech	Old Dominion	31.1	27.6	31.1
Charlotte	Georgia St.	-6.7	-3.4	-6.1
Indiana	Georgia Southern	28.1	26.8	28.9
Buffalo	Florida Atlantic	2.1	1.5	3.0
Nebraska	Rutgers	6.9	8.6	6.4
Miami (Fla.)	Toledo	22.0	19.7	19.5
Colorado	Washington	-12.3	-10.9	-15.2
New Mexico St.	UTEP	18.0	11.4	16.8
Navy	Cincinnati	11.2	9.9	9.4
Ohio St.	UNLV	44.7	39.0	43.5
Michigan St.	Notre Dame	-11.7	-6.4	-11.1
Wyoming	Hawaii	11.2	7.5	9.8
Tulsa	New Mexico	14.0	13.2	13.6
LSU	Syracuse	11.2	11.2	12.7
Troy	Akron	14.1	10.5	13.6
Middle Tennessee	Bowling Green	14.3	14.4	14.0
Missouri	Auburn	-21.3	-21.8	-22.2
Houston	Texas Tech	4.6	3.7	5.6
SMU	Arkansas St.	10.8	9.4	9.4
Vanderbilt	Alabama	-18.3	-15.4	-17.8
Tulane	Army	0.7	1.5	0.1
Oklahoma St.	TCU	14.2	15.1	15.7
Western Kentucky	Ball St.	17.8	14.3	17.4
North Texas	UAB	20.3	17.0	18.3
Texas St.	UTSA	-19.2	-18.0	-22.4
Air Force	San Diego St.	-6.3	-6.0	-7.2
Texas A&M	Arkansas	1.1	-0.5	-0.1
Rice	Florida Int’l.	0.1	0.9	-0.7
South Alabama	Idaho	4.9	5.6	4.1
UL-Lafayette	UL-Monroe	5.4	6.3	6.7
Baylor	Oklahoma	-25.9	-21.3	-27.2
California	USC	-16.4	-18.4	-18.2
Washington St.	Nevada	36.0	30.2	33.2
Arizona St.	Oregon	-11.0	-7.1	-11.2
Stanford	UCLA	9.8	9.2	9.3
San Jose St.	Utah St.	0.3	0.8	0.5
Connecticut	East Carolina	6.6	7.9	7.5

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Coastal Carolina	Western Illinois	5
Western Michigan	Wagner	40
Memphis	Southern Illinois	26

Same Two Again?
With Clemson’s dominating win at Louisville, our ratings now show the top two teams from last year resuming the top two spots again this season. For now, Alabama stays ahead of Clemson in our ratings, but internally, our Retrodictive Ratings show that Clemson is less than .2 point behind the Tide and just .5 point behind ‘Bama in the Predictive Ratings.

Who at this point looks like the best contenders for the other two Playoff spots? Oklahoma figures in as a high contender, but then so does Oklahoma State. If either runs the table, they are in. Out west, Washington and USC hold the top two spots, but Washington State, Utah, and Colorado are still in contention, as is a Dark Horse Cal Bears team.

In the Big Ten, Penn State has the look of a team that can go into the Horseshoe and do the same thing to Ohio State that Oklahoma did. Michigan is chugging along but looks to be missing something and probably cannot run the table. Ohio State is still in the Big Ten race, but to make the Playoffs now, the Buckeyes must start winning consistently and take out all Big Ten foes. In the West, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota are in contention but any of these teams will have to run the table to make it to the Final Four.

Aside from the Crimson Tide, Georgia and Mississippi State have chances to earn a playoff spot. The two Bulldogs face off in what has become a very important contest on Saturday.

Top Group of 5 Teams
Two teams appear to be at the top of the list for the Group of 5 Automatic New Year’s 6 Bowl Bid, but there are plenty of contenders, and it is much too early to call any one team convincingly ahead of the rest.

South Florida has had a little difficulty early in their games, but once the Bulls get on track, they play competently enough to run the table and earn that NY6 Bowl. San Diego State actually has a bigger win, having just knocked off Stanford, but the Aztecs still have a difficult couple of games to take the bid. Memphis, Houston, Central Florida, Toledo, and Navy are the top contenders for now.

PiRate Retrodictive Ratings

(like a poll based on what they have done to date)

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

PiRate Predictive Ratings

(tries to predict the outcome of the next game on each team’s schedule)

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	132.2	127.6	131.0	130.3
2	Clemson	131.2	127.6	130.7	129.8
3	Ohio St.	129.2	126.5	128.5	128.1
4	Oklahoma	128.1	125.9	129.1	127.7
5	Washington	128.4	125.0	129.1	127.5
6	Penn St.	127.7	125.5	128.5	127.2
7	Oklahoma St.	126.1	124.4	127.6	126.0
8	Florida St.	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
9	Auburn	122.7	120.6	122.5	121.9
10	Wisconsin	122.8	118.6	121.0	120.8
11	U S C	120.8	120.3	120.9	120.7
12	Virginia Tech	118.3	117.5	118.9	118.2
13	Miami	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
14	Georgia	116.7	117.9	116.8	117.1
15	Stanford	116.6	115.2	115.8	115.9
16	Washington St.	117.0	114.3	116.1	115.8
17	Michigan	116.2	115.8	115.4	115.8
18	Louisville	116.0	114.7	116.0	115.6
19	L S U	115.5	113.7	116.2	115.1
20	Florida	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
21	Kansas St.	114.1	113.8	114.3	114.1
22	T C U	114.9	112.3	114.9	114.0
23	Texas	113.2	114.0	113.4	113.6
24	N. Carolina St.	113.4	113.1	113.1	113.2
25	Oregon	114.3	110.8	113.6	112.9
26	Notre Dame	113.3	111.5	113.6	112.8
27	Mississippi St.	112.1	112.7	112.5	112.4
28	Kentucky	113.0	111.5	112.7	112.4
29	Colorado	113.1	111.1	110.9	111.7
30	Georgia Tech	113.1	110.6	111.1	111.6
31	Tennessee	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
32	Iowa	110.4	110.3	109.9	110.2
33	Vanderbilt	110.9	109.2	110.2	110.1
34	N. Carolina	110.8	109.7	109.3	109.9
35	South Florida	109.9	108.2	110.9	109.7
36	Northwestern	110.2	108.4	110.3	109.6
37	U C L A	109.8	109.0	109.5	109.4
38	West Virginia	109.1	109.9	109.1	109.4
39	Minnesota	109.5	109.3	109.3	109.4
40	Duke	109.6	108.4	108.2	108.7
41	Utah	106.6	108.7	107.0	107.4
42	S. Carolina	107.6	106.8	106.6	107.0
43	Arkansas	106.7	106.2	106.5	106.5
44	Syracuse	107.2	105.6	106.5	106.4
45	Maryland	105.6	107.7	105.7	106.3
46	Wake Forest	106.7	105.8	106.3	106.2
47	Indiana	105.0	105.1	105.4	105.2
48	Pittsburgh	105.3	105.6	104.6	105.2
49	Memphis	105.3	104.1	105.5	104.9
50	Ole Miss	105.9	104.4	104.1	104.8
51	Houston	105.0	103.9	104.9	104.6
52	Colo. State	105.0	103.4	105.1	104.5
53	Texas A&M	104.8	102.7	103.4	103.6
54	Iowa State	102.9	104.1	103.8	103.6
55	Central Florida	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
56	San Diego St.	103.1	103.0	104.2	103.4
57	Texas Tech	102.9	102.7	101.8	102.5
58	Tulsa	102.6	102.0	102.7	102.4
59	Purdue	101.5	103.2	102.2	102.3
60	Nebraska	100.6	102.3	99.6	100.8
61	Virginia	100.2	100.3	101.6	100.7
62	Boise St.	101.4	99.3	100.8	100.5
63	Arizona St.	100.4	100.7	99.4	100.2
64	Toledo	99.6	99.6	101.3	100.2
65	Michigan St.	98.6	102.0	99.5	100.0
66	California	101.4	98.9	99.6	100.0
67	Baylor	99.2	101.6	98.9	99.9
68	Navy	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
69	Arizona	100.0	99.0	98.4	99.1
70	Western Michigan	99.2	97.4	100.5	99.0
71	BYU	98.9	98.1	99.4	98.8
72	Boston College	97.7	98.7	96.9	97.8
73	Appalachian St.	98.0	95.7	98.3	97.3
74	SMU	97.1	97.3	97.4	97.3
75	Missouri	98.4	95.9	97.2	97.2
76	Army	96.5	96.0	97.4	96.6
77	Rutgers	96.7	96.7	96.2	96.5
78	U T S A	94.4	96.1	96.6	95.7
79	Temple	94.6	95.3	94.5	94.8
80	Wyoming	95.8	93.7	94.4	94.6
81	Eastern Michigan	94.6	94.2	94.5	94.4
82	Tulane	94.2	94.5	94.5	94.4
83	W. Kentucky	94.1	93.0	95.3	94.1
84	Air Force	93.7	94.1	94.0	93.9
85	Miami (O)	92.1	94.6	94.0	93.6
86	Troy	93.7	93.8	92.9	93.5
87	Middle Tennessee	92.2	92.7	92.7	92.5
88	Cincinnati	90.7	93.1	92.5	92.1
89	Oregon St.	92.6	92.6	91.1	92.1
90	New Mexico	91.6	91.8	92.1	91.8
91	Illinois	91.6	92.9	90.6	91.7
92	Central Michigan	90.9	91.3	91.1	91.1
93	Ohio U	90.2	92.0	91.0	91.1
94	Arkansas St.	89.3	90.9	91.0	90.4
95	Old Dominion	89.2	91.9	89.7	90.3
96	Northern Illinois	89.4	89.3	89.8	89.5
97	Louisiana Tech	88.5	89.7	89.4	89.2
98	Hawaii	88.6	90.2	88.6	89.1
99	Kansas	87.7	91.0	87.1	88.6
100	U N L V	87.5	90.4	87.9	88.6
101	Fresno St.	88.6	87.0	88.8	88.2
102	Southern Miss.	87.7	88.9	87.7	88.1
103	Connecticut	86.4	89.5	87.0	87.6
104	Marshall	85.9	87.1	87.2	86.8
105	N. Mexico St.	87.1	84.7	86.6	86.1
106	Nevada	84.0	87.1	86.0	85.7
107	Florida Atlantic	84.1	87.4	85.2	85.6
108	S. Alabama	84.5	87.4	84.7	85.5
109	Utah St.	86.0	85.1	85.0	85.4
110	Buffalo	83.2	85.9	85.2	84.8
111	UL-Lafayette	84.2	85.5	84.0	84.6
112	Idaho	83.2	85.3	84.1	84.2
113	Akron	82.6	86.3	82.4	83.8
114	N. Texas	82.7	84.1	82.8	83.2
115	Massachusetts	83.5	82.7	83.4	83.2
116	San Jose St.	83.3	82.9	82.5	82.9
117	East Carolina	82.3	84.2	82.0	82.8
118	Georgia St.	83.0	82.2	82.8	82.7
119	Kent St.	81.5	82.9	82.3	82.2
120	Florida Int’l.	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
121	UL-Monroe	81.2	81.7	79.8	80.9
122	Bowling Green	80.4	80.9	81.1	80.8
123	Georgia Southern	79.9	81.2	79.5	80.2
124	Ball St.	78.8	81.2	80.4	80.1
125	Rice	78.8	79.8	79.0	79.2
126	Charlotte	74.3	76.9	74.7	75.3
127	Coastal Carolina	73.5	74.9	75.2	74.6
128	Texas St.	73.2	76.0	72.2	73.8
129	U T E P	71.6	75.8	72.2	73.2
130	UAB	65.4	70.1	67.5	67.7

PiRate Ratings by Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	0-0	3-0	109.9	108.2	110.9	109.7
Central Florida	0-0	1-0	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
Temple	0-0	2-1	94.6	95.3	94.5	94.8
Cincinnati	0-0	2-1	90.7	93.1	92.5	92.1
Connecticut	0-0	1-1	86.4	89.5	87.0	87.6
East Carolina	0-0	0-3	82.3	84.2	82.0	82.8
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	0-0	2-0	105.3	104.1	105.5	104.9
Houston	0-0	2-0	105.0	103.9	104.9	104.6
Tulsa	0-0	1-2	102.6	102.0	102.7	102.4
Navy	1-0	2-0	99.0	100.0	98.9	99.3
SMU	0-0	2-1	97.1	97.3	97.4	97.3
Tulane	0-1	1-2	94.2	94.5	94.5	94.4
AAC Averages			97.5	98.1	97.9	97.8
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	1-0	3-0	131.2	127.6	130.7	129.8
Florida St.	0-0	0-1	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
Louisville	1-1	2-2	116.0	114.7	116.0	115.6
N. Carolina St.	0-0	2-1	113.4	113.1	113.1	113.2
Syracuse	0-0	2-1	107.2	105.6	106.5	106.4
Wake Forest	1-0	3-0	106.7	105.8	106.3	106.2
Boston College	0-1	1-2	97.7	98.7	96.9	97.8
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Virginia Tech	0-0	3-0	118.3	117.5	118.9	118.2
Miami	0-0	1-0	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
Georgia Tech	0-0	1-1	113.1	110.6	111.1	111.6
N. Carolina	0-1	1-2	110.8	109.7	109.3	109.9
Duke	0-0	3-0	109.6	108.4	108.2	108.7
Pittsburgh	0-0	1-2	105.3	105.6	104.6	105.2
Virginia	0-0	2-1	100.2	100.3	101.6	100.7
ACC Averages			112.5	111.3	111.9	111.9
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	0-0	3-0	128.1	125.9	129.1	127.7
Oklahoma St.	0-0	3-0	126.1	124.4	127.6	126.0
Kansas St.	0-0	2-1	114.1	113.8	114.3	114.1
T C U	0-0	3-0	114.9	112.3	114.9	114.0
Texas	0-0	1-2	113.2	114.0	113.4	113.6
West Virginia	0-0	2-1	109.1	109.9	109.1	109.4
Iowa State	0-0	2-1	102.9	104.1	103.8	103.6
Texas Tech	0-0	2-0	102.9	102.7	101.8	102.5
Baylor	0-0	0-3	99.2	101.6	98.9	99.9
Kansas	0-0	1-2	87.7	91.0	87.1	88.6
Big 12 Averages			109.8	110.0	110.0	109.9
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	1-0	2-1	129.2	126.5	128.5	128.1
Penn St.	0-0	3-0	127.7	125.5	128.5	127.2
Michigan	0-0	3-0	116.2	115.8	115.4	115.8
Maryland	0-0	2-0	105.6	107.7	105.7	106.3
Indiana	0-1	1-1	105.0	105.1	105.4	105.2
Michigan St.	0-0	2-0	98.6	102.0	99.5	100.0
Rutgers	0-0	1-2	96.7	96.7	96.2	96.5
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	0-0	3-0	122.8	118.6	121.0	120.8
Iowa	0-0	3-0	110.4	110.3	109.9	110.2
Northwestern	0-0	2-1	110.2	108.4	110.3	109.6
Minnesota	0-0	3-0	109.5	109.3	109.3	109.4
Purdue	0-0	2-1	101.5	103.2	102.2	102.3
Nebraska	0-0	1-2	100.6	102.3	99.6	100.8
Illinois	0-0	2-1	91.6	92.9	90.6	91.7
Big Ten Averages			109.0	108.9	108.7	108.9
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	0-1	1-2	94.1	93.0	95.3	94.1
Middle Tennessee	0-0	1-2	92.2	92.7	92.7	92.5
Old Dominion	0-0	2-1	89.2	91.9	89.7	90.3
Marshall	0-0	2-1	85.9	87.1	87.2	86.8
Florida Atlantic	0-0	1-2	84.1	87.4	85.2	85.6
Florida Int’l.	0-0	1-1	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
Charlotte	0-0	0-3	74.3	76.9	74.7	75.3
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-0	2-0	94.4	96.1	96.6	95.7
Louisiana Tech	1-0	2-1	88.5	89.7	89.4	89.2
Southern Miss.	0-0	2-1	87.7	88.9	87.7	88.1
N. Texas	0-0	1-2	82.7	84.1	82.8	83.2
Rice	1-0	1-2	78.8	79.8	79.0	79.2
U T E P	0-1	0-3	71.6	75.8	72.2	73.2
UAB	0-0	2-1	65.4	70.1	67.5	67.7
CUSA Averages			83.6	85.4	84.4	84.5
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		2-1	113.3	111.5	113.6	112.8
BYU		1-3	98.9	98.1	99.4	98.8
Army		2-1	96.5	96.0	97.4	96.6
Massachusetts		0-4	83.5	82.7	83.4	83.2
Indep. Averages			98.0	97.1	98.4	97.8
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (O)	0-0	1-2	92.1	94.6	94.0	93.6
Ohio U	0-0	2-1	90.2	92.0	91.0	91.1
Buffalo	0-0	1-2	83.2	85.9	85.2	84.8
Akron	0-0	1-2	82.6	86.3	82.4	83.8
Kent St.	0-0	1-2	81.5	82.9	82.3	82.2
Bowling Green	0-0	0-3	80.4	80.9	81.1	80.8
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	0-0	3-0	99.6	99.6	101.3	100.2
Western Michigan	0-0	1-2	99.2	97.4	100.5	99.0
Eastern Michigan	0-0	2-0	94.6	94.2	94.5	94.4
Central Michigan	0-0	2-1	90.9	91.3	91.1	91.1
Northern Illinois	0-0	2-1	89.4	89.3	89.8	89.5
Ball St.	0-0	2-1	78.8	81.2	80.4	80.1
MAC Averages			88.5	89.6	89.5	89.2
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	0-0	2-2	105.0	103.4	105.1	104.5
Boise St.	1-0	2-1	101.4	99.3	100.8	100.5
Wyoming	0-0	1-2	95.8	93.7	94.4	94.6
Air Force	0-0	1-1	93.7	94.1	94.0	93.9
New Mexico	0-1	1-2	91.6	91.8	92.1	91.8
Utah St.	0-0	1-2	86.0	85.1	85.0	85.4
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	0-0	3-0	103.1	103.0	104.2	103.4
Hawaii	0-0	2-1	88.6	90.2	88.6	89.1
U N L V	0-0	1-1	87.5	90.4	87.9	88.6
Fresno St.	0-0	1-2	88.6	87.0	88.8	88.2
Nevada	0-0	0-3	84.0	87.1	86.0	85.7
San Jose St.	0-0	1-3	83.3	82.9	82.5	82.9
MWC Averages			92.4	92.3	92.4	92.4
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	0-0	3-0	128.4	125.0	129.1	127.5
Stanford	0-1	1-2	116.6	115.2	115.8	115.9
Washington St.	1-0	3-0	117.0	114.3	116.1	115.8
Oregon	0-0	3-0	114.3	110.8	113.6	112.9
California	0-0	3-0	101.4	98.9	99.6	100.0
Oregon St.	0-1	1-3	92.6	92.6	91.1	92.1
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	1-0	3-0	120.8	120.3	120.9	120.7
Colorado	0-0	3-0	113.1	111.1	110.9	111.7
U C L A	0-0	2-1	109.8	109.0	109.5	109.4
Utah	0-0	3-0	106.6	108.7	107.0	107.4
Arizona St.	0-0	1-2	100.4	100.7	99.4	100.2
Arizona	0-0	2-1	100.0	99.0	98.4	99.1
Pac-12 Averages			110.1	108.8	109.3	109.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	0-0	3-0	116.7	117.9	116.8	117.1
Florida	1-0	1-1	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
Kentucky	1-0	3-0	113.0	111.5	112.7	112.4
Tennessee	0-1	2-1	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
Vanderbilt	0-0	3-0	110.9	109.2	110.2	110.1
S. Carolina	1-1	2-1	107.6	106.8	106.6	107.0
Missouri	0-1	1-2	98.4	95.9	97.2	97.2
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	0-0	3-0	132.2	127.6	131.0	130.3
Auburn	0-0	2-1	122.7	120.6	122.5	121.9
L S U	0-1	2-1	115.5	113.7	116.2	115.1
Mississippi St.	1-0	3-0	112.1	112.7	112.5	112.4
Arkansas	0-0	1-1	106.7	106.2	106.5	106.5
Ole Miss	0-0	2-1	105.9	104.4	104.1	104.8
Texas A&M	0-0	2-1	104.8	102.7	103.4	103.6
SEC Averages			112.4	111.0	111.8	111.7
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	1-0	2-1	98.0	95.7	98.3	97.3
Troy	1-0	2-1	93.7	93.8	92.9	93.5
Arkansas St.	0-0	1-1	89.3	90.9	91.0	90.4
N. Mexico St.	0-1	1-2	87.1	84.7	86.6	86.1
S. Alabama	0-0	1-2	84.5	87.4	84.7	85.5
UL-Lafayette	0-0	1-2	84.2	85.5	84.0	84.6
Idaho	0-0	1-2	83.2	85.3	84.1	84.2
Georgia St.	0-0	0-2	83.0	82.2	82.8	82.7
UL-Monroe	0-0	0-2	81.2	81.7	79.8	80.9
Georgia Southern	0-0	0-2	79.9	81.2	79.5	80.2
Coastal Carolina	0-0	1-1	73.5	74.9	75.2	74.6
Texas St.	0-1	1-2	73.2	76.0	72.2	73.8
Sun Belt Averages			84.2	85.0	84.3	84.5

Conference Ratings
Thanks to Wake Forest, Virgnia Tech, Syracuse, and North Carolina State improving with non-conference wins, while Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Missouri sunk after so-so non-conference performances, the ACC overtook the SEC by a tiny bit for top conference. There are only three points separating the Power 5 conferences after three weeks of the season.

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.5	111.3	111.9	111.9
2	SEC	112.4	111.0	111.8	111.7
3	BIG 12	109.8	110.0	110.0	109.9
4	PAC-12	110.1	108.8	109.3	109.4
5	BIG TEN	109.0	108.9	108.7	108.9
6	INDEP.	98.0	97.1	98.4	97.8
7	AAC	97.5	98.1	97.9	97.8
8	MWC	92.4	92.3	92.4	92.4
9	MAC	88.5	89.6	89.5	89.2
10	Sun Belt	84.2	85.0	84.3	84.5
11	CUSA	83.6	85.4	84.4	84.5

Bowl Projections Debut in October

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlays for September 14-18, 2017

Yuck!  You could say that about the weather in recent weeks.  You could say that about there not being enough “United” in the United States in recent months.  You could say that about being a Dodgers’ fan during the last fortnight or being a fan of a team that has a 4-game set with the Cleveland Indians.  You could say that about prime-time TV for the last 40+ years.  But, most of all, you can sum up our money line parlay selections through two weeks of the football season with that one word.

We usually start each season off a bit weak and then begin to succeed around the first week of October, culminating in a big couple of weeks in the second half that brings us a positive return on investment for the season.  We have to admit that so far this year, there seems to be just enough added parity in college football along with the usual uncertainty at the start of the NFL season to make this downright difficult to find parlays that return the type of odds we look for.  Sure, we could take Alabama at minus one zillion and win a dollar, and we could even put together a parlay of 10 favorites like Penn State over Georgia State and maybe get a parlay at -500, where for every 500 we put up we can win another 100.  But, that isn’t our style.  We are on the lookout only for parlays that give us +120 or higher odds.

We selected 5 parlays last week.  Each had excellent payout odds, and we were still alive in some of the really good ones with just one game left.  We selected Oklahoma to win at Ohio State and could have returned a nice chunk of cash playing that game as a singleton.  No, we had to add Stanford to that game to get +1010 odds, and when Stanford began the game looking like they could possibly win, we were pumped with the possibility that we could get far ahead on the plus side for the season.  Alas, USC started to look like the prognosticators believed they would look, and the Cardinal went back to Palo Alto with a huge loss on their slate.

So, for the week, we invested $500 of imaginary bankroll and received back $278 for a loss of $222 or -44% Return on Investment.  For the season, the numbers worsen to $600 invested and $278 returned for a -55.6% ROI.

As bad as the above sounds, it will sound even worse when we tell you that we didn’t really like 90% of the possible money lines this week.  We couldn’t find much value in this week’s college schedule, and the NFL still looks mysterious.  At this point of the season, and with two teams not even playing a game in week one, the NFL wars leave us trapped in a giant minefield.  Is there a new Dallas Cowboys team out there destined to go from last place in 2016 to the best record in the league?  What do we make of the LA Rams looking like the New England Patriots in week one, or the Patriots’ defense looking more like the 49ers defense?  What about the anemic offenses in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Houston, and New York (pick your poison with the Giants or Jets)?  What about the AFC West?  Could it be that four of the top 10 teams or at least three of the top five teams in the AFC come from that division?  The Chiefs and Raiders dominated in week one like it was 1966 through 1969 in the old AFL.

What we are trying to say is that we are only risking $200 of imaginary bankroll this week.  We are selecting one college and one NFL parlay, and we admit up front, we do not particularly like either selection, because they both required too many games to get the odds we like.  If we win one of the two, it will be a profitable week, but we are telling you before you see the two picks that we have little faith in either one this week.  As we said before, if you want a guaranteed winner to about 96% possibility, then you can come up with a parlay of about 10 sure things and still have to play them at ridiculous odds so that one upset would empty your account.

For instance, you could make a parlay of Penn State over Georgia State, Virginia Tech over East Carolina, Oklahoma over Tulane, Ohio State over Army, Alabama over Colorado State, Utah over San Jose State, Washington over Fresno State, and Michigan over Air Force.  All eight teams are prohibitive favorites, and it is an almost certain possibility that all eight favorites will win, making this almost a sure thing.  The problem is that for every $100 you put into a parlay like this, you can win a whopping $18.37 profit on your investment.  It is actually a sucker bet, because out of those eight sure things, at this point in the season, one of those games is not the sure thing it looks to be, and we don’t really know which one it is, but rest assured one of these sure thing games will turn out not to be that way.

With that in mind, here are our two official selections for the week.

#1 @ +179
Must Win	Must Lose
Temple	U Mass
South Carolina	Kentucky
Duke	Baylor
Wake Forest	Utah St.
Oregon	Wyoming

Having to go five games deep to get a decent potential ROI, we would expect to get better favorites than this quintet.  We went with Temple mainly because this is a selection against U Mass.  South Carolina and Kentucky look like it should be close to a tossup, but in Columbia, we believe the Gamecocks are a touchdown better, and they are coming off a semi-impressive win over Missouri, while the Wildcats have been close to clawless through two lackluster wins.  We are taking Duke over Baylor for the same reason we took Temple; Baylor has looked anemic in two games under Matt Rhule, and the transition to his style of play could be really tough.  Wake Forest looks to have something going this year under Dave Clawson,  The Demon Deacons took Boston College to the woodshed last week, and at home against a so-so Utah State team, they “appear” to be ready to start the season at 3-0.  Oregon looks like one of those sure things against Wyoming, but you never know what might happen in Laramie.  That is a subtle home field advantage for the Cowboys, and an improving Duck team may be walking into an ambush.

 

#2 @ +276
Must Win	Must Lose
Baltimore	Cleveland
Carolina	Buffalo
New England	New Orleans
Kansas City	Philadelphia
Oakland	NY Jets

The Ravens looked more like the Baltimore teams of 4 to 5 years ago last week when they punished Andy Dalton and Cincinnati.  The Bengals score after 60 minutes was the same as their score before the game kicked off.  The Ravens now get Cleveland for their home-opener, but the Browns looked like they were a force to be reckoned with against Pittsburgh in week one.  It could be that “Money Ball” is about to start paying off near Lake Erie.  But, we believe the Ravens will be up to the task this Sunday.  Is Carolina going to look more like the 2015 team than the 2016 team?  Did Buffalo really look that bad against the 32nd best team in the NFL and really have to worry about beating the Jets?  If so, then the Panthers should win by double digits this week.  New England playing New Orleans should never be allowed to happen again.  No, we don’t mean the two teams should never be scheduled, but how do you give one team and extra three days off while making the other team have to play on the road on Monday Night?  4 extra days to prepare for a game, coming off the debacle in Foxboro on opening night against the Chiefs?  We’ll take the road team in this one.  In taking Kansas City and Oakland at home against the Eagles and Jets, we are going under the assumption that the two bitter rivals are possibly the two best teams in the NFL.

So, there you have it for this week.  Remember that the PiRates never wager real money on our selections.  It is just a mathematical exercise for fun.  Please do not wager real money on our just-for-fun selections.  That even goes for the five or six of you who are real professionals who claim that you have a unique way of playing our ratings that makes your weekends very profitable.  It reminds us of the football handicapper with a system that consistently won 26% of his single sides wagers and never realized that if he just took the other side every week, he’d be the most successful guy in Vegas.

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

This Week’s PiRate Rating Spreads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Regular Predictive Ratings

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

PiRate Ratings By Conference

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

The Conferences Rated

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

Bowl Projections begin in October

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for September 7-9, 2017

This Week’s PiRate Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Purdue	Ohio U	8.3	8.7	8.1
South Alabama	Oklahoma St.	-34.5	-30.2	-36.1
Wisconsin	Florida Atlantic	44.7	37.0	42.2
Army	Buffalo	16.7	12.9	15.6
Michigan St.	Western Michigan	-5.2	2.7	-6.3
Rutgers	Eastern Michigan	7.1	6.5	6.2
Massachusetts	Old Dominion	-4.5	-8.3	-5.3
Duke	Northwestern	-2.7	-2.0	-4.0
Connecticut	South Florida	-20.3	-15.3	-20.9
West Virginia	East Carolina	24.3	24.0	24.2
Michigan	Cincinnati	32.3	28.4	30.0
North Carolina	Louisville	-3.8	-4.4	-5.8
Kansas St.	Charlotte	42.2	38.9	42.1
Iowa St.	Iowa	-9.3	-7.3	-8.3
Boston College	Wake Forest	2.3	3.7	2.5
New Mexico	New Mexico St.	8.6	11.8	10.4
UTEP	Rice	-0.6	2.9	0.4
Colorado	Texas St.	47.4	40.6	46.6
Ball St.	UAB	17.2	13.8	16.4
Syracuse	Middle Tennessee	23.7	20.4	21.7
Virginia	Indiana	-2.4	-2.5	-1.4
Penn St.	Pittsburgh	19.4	17.1	20.9
Alabama	Fresno St.	48.8	45.5	47.8
Navy	Tulane	8.1	8.6	7.6
Illinois	Western Kentucky	-7.0	-2.5	-10.4
Baylor	UTSA	12.6	13.3	10.3
UCLA	Hawaii	23.3	20.5	22.6
Kansas	Central Michigan	5.4	8.6	4.3
Oregon	Nebraska	10.2	5.1	9.8
Arkansas St.	Miami (Fla.)	-26.1	-22.2	-23.6
Texas	San Jose St.	25.8	28.0	26.5
Arkansas	TCU	0.8	3.3	1.1
Tulsa	UL-Lafayette	21.5	18.4	21.6
North Carolina St.	Marshall	35.2	32.7	33.8
Nevada	Toledo	-10.5	-6.8	-9.8
Florida St.	UL-Monroe	48.1	45.8	48.9
Missouri	South Carolina	1.3	-1.9	0.8
SMU	North Texas	17.6	16.1	17.9
Clemson	Auburn	7.4	5.7	6.6
Notre Dame	Georgia	-2.2	-5.4	-2.2
Louisiana Tech	Mississippi St.	-12.0	-11.0	-11.4
Ohio St.	Oklahoma	11.6	10.5	9.8
Central Florida	Memphis	0.8	3.8	1.3
USC	Stanford	2.9	5.0	4.2
Idaho	UNLV	5.9	5.3	6.3
Oregon St.	Minnesota	-4.1	-4.5	-5.4
Arizona St.	San Diego St.	5.9	4.9	3.0
BYU	Utah	-2.8	-6.6	-2.6
Arizona	Houston	-2.3	-2.4	-4.6
Washington St.	Boise St.	23.4	21.8	23.3

FBS vs. FCS Games

This Week’s FBS vs. FCS Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Utah St.	Idaho St.	25
Florida	Northern Colorado	40
Kentucky	Eastern Kentucky	30
LSU	Chattanooga	40
Ole Miss	UT-Martin	30
Tennessee	Indiana St.	37
Vanderbilt	Alabama A&M	45
Colorado St.	Abilene Christian	37
Wyoming	Gardner-Webb	29
Florida Int’l.	Alcorn St.	15
Maryland	Towson	33
Georgia Tech	Jacksonville St.	18
Temple	Villanova	19
Appalachian St.	Savannah St.	46
Miami (O)	Austin Peay	24
Northern Illinois	Eastern Illinois	20
Kent St.	Howard	22
Virginia Tech	Delaware	41
California	Weber St.	29
Georgia Southern	New Hampshire	11
Troy	Alabama St.	35
Bowling Green	South Dakota	5
Southern Miss.	Southern U	23
Texas A&M	Nicholls St.	38
Akron	Ark.-Pine Bluff	42
Washington	Montana	41

Is this really just week two of the college football season? Normally, in week two, you get 40 FBS vs. FCS games on the schedule. You get the Big Ten playing the MAC; other Power 5 teams playing the weakest Group of 5 teams they can schedule if they didn’t get a FCS patsy. At best, you might get one or two marquee matchups and maybe a couple of okay conference games.
There are 26 FBS vs. FCS contests this week, but even a couple of those might now be interesting after Howard upset UNLV, Liberty knocked off Baylor, Tennessee State beat Georgia State, and James Madison took out East Carolina. There are a half dozen FCS teams this week that have a legitimate chance to beat an FBS team, led by South Dakota, which might even be favored over Bowling Green when the extra lines are released later this week.
There are some Power 5 vs. Group of 5 patsy games on the schedule, but there are a few that could become upsets, like Ohio at Purdue, Western Michigan at Michigan State, Eastern Michigan at Rutgers, Western Kentucky at Illinois, Central Michigan at Kansas, San Diego State at Arizona State, Houston at Arizona, and Boise State at Washington State. There are actually two Group of 5 teams hosting Power 5 teams. Mississippi State risks humility at tough Louisiana Tech, while Utah plays at rival BYU.
Ah, but now we get to the marquee games. There are enough to make this look more like the Saturday before Thanksgiving than week two. We have broken the slate down into great expectation contests and important other contests to preview this week.
Great Expectations
Pittsburgh at Penn State: We know James Franklin. We know that James Franklin has been reminding his Nittany Lions what Pitt did to PSU last year. We know Penn State has the talent to run the table and earn a playoff spot this year, while Pittsburgh may be about the same as last year. The Panthers also knocked off Clemson, so Coach Pat Narduzzi may be the new giant killer in college football, along the lines of Jack Curtice and Al Onofrio and Warren Powers at Missouri in past times. While the Nittany Lions should be considered rather heavy favorites in this one, it will be worth watching.

TCU at Arkansas: This was a great game last year, with Arkansas winning by 3 in overtime. The Big 12 needs a signature win in a hurry, and the league will get multiple opportunities to pull off a big win. Both teams looked dominant in wins over FCS foes last week, and those games served as fine dress rehearsals for this one. TCU’s Kenny Hill could be the difference in this one if his team is to win. Arkansas looks similar to the last two years, maybe a tad stronger, so this game should be close once again.

Auburn at Clemson: Trivia question with an obvious answer: In last year’s national championship run, only one opponent held Clemson under 20 points. Obviously, since it is brought up here, the answer is Auburn. That Auburn team did not have a lot of offense, and they kept it close, losing 19-13. This Auburn team has a powerful offense, and the defense is about as good as it was last year. Meanwhile, Clemson looks to have reloaded rather than rebuilt. This game could be more like a “quarterfinal round” game in the NCAA Playoffs. If you watch just one game this week, we’d select this one by a hair over a couple others. But, hey, you are going to take care of your Saturday chores and errands really early, so you can watch every single one of these games, aren’t you? We know you. We know your kind–we see it when we look in the mirror.

Georgia at Notre Dame: For a short time Saturday, it looked like Georgia had moved from a co-favorite to win the SEC East to the outright favorite after Florida’s offense forgot the object of the game is to move the ball toward the other team’s goal. Then, quarterback Jacob Eason took a beating near the sideline and was lost for the remainder of the game with a knee sprain. He is definitely out this week, and it isn’t a sure thing he will be back by September 23, when the Bulldogs play their first SEC game against the other Bulldogs, Mississippi State. Notre Dame easily dismissed Temple last week, which means they are better this year than last. How much better is still to be determined. If they are considerably better, the Irish need to win this big home game. If they are only a little better, they will look like Florida looked against Michigan last week.

Oklahoma at Ohio State: This is the second best game of the week, but it could easily become the better of the top two games. Ohio State might beat Indiana by 7 touchdowns if they played again, but Oklahoma might also beat Indiana by “half a hundred,” as former Coach Barry Switzer wanted every week. Which team has the better secondary? Oklahoma wins here. Who has the better offensive and defensive lines? Offensive lines are about equal, but the Buckeyes have the better defensive line. The offensive skill positions for both teams are top flight. We could see this one still to be decided late in the fourth quarter, or maybe after the fourth quarter.

Stanford at USC: Okay, maybe USC overlooked Western Michigan. Maybe WMU is still just as good as last year. Or, maybe the Trojan defense isn’t quite up to championship standards just yet. Stanford didn’t let down in their game against Rice “down under,” in Sydney, Australia. The Cardinal steamrolled the Owls, who definitely are not in Western Michigan’s class. This game should be interesting. Sam Darnold should be able to pass the ball with enough efficiency to put up 250 passing yards and 24 or more points, but can the USC defense contain a Stanford offense that looked very similar to the 2010 team that had Andrew Luck and Stepfan Taylor.

Important Other Games of Interest
Western Michigan at Michigan State: The Spartans disappointed greatly last year, and their opening win over Bowling Green did nothing to prove they were back. Western Michigan gave USC all it could handle for 3 quarters, and the Broncos look to be very good again this year under new head coach Tim Lester. This game should give Spartan fans a realistic look at whether their team is coming back. A win in East Lansing could propel the Spartans to a .500 or better season and a bowl bid. A loss, followed by another to Notre Dame next week, and MSU could finish under .500 again.

Northwestern at Duke: Stanford and Vanderbilt looked terrific in their first games. Duke and Northwestern looked okay, but this could be a year where all four brainy schools become bowl eligible. The winner of this game will be 2-0 with an almost guarantee of moving to 3-0 the following week.

Iowa at Iowa St.: Both teams looked better than decent in game one, but neither set the woods on fire. However, like the previous game, the winner of this rivalry emerges at 2-0 with an almost certain 3-0 start after next week. Matt Campbell may be about ready to take the Cyclones up a notch or two in the Big 12 standings, and we will be monitoring this one closely. If Iowa wins by double digits, then the Hawkeyes move to the top contender spot to Wisconsin in the Big Ten West.

Wake Forest at Boston College: Yet another game where the winner will be 2-0, this game should be a nice defensive showcase with the possibility that defense and special teams will be the deciding factor in a 17-14 type of score (BC won 17-14 last year). BC won in Winston-Salem last year, and the Eagles should be considered a mild favorite. Wake Forest has more experience and maybe a little better depth, so this game should be very close.

Nebraska at Oregon: Willie Taggart needed two years of rebuilding at his two previous stops in the coaching profession. Western Kentucky and South Florida both performed poorly in season one of their Taggart eras. Oregon opened the 2017 season with a 77-point offensive barrage against Southern Utah. Nebraska struggled with an Arkansas State team that could win 10 games this year and will almost assuredly earn a bowl bid. This game will give us a lot more information about whether Oregon can turn the corner in Taggart’s first year in Eugene, and whether Coach Mike Riley can get Nebraska back to the high echelon in college football, or whether 7-9 wins is the new norm in Lincoln.

South Carolina at Missouri: After watching Florida and Tennessee play in week one, there is clearly a chance for South Carolina, Missouri, Vanderbilt, and Kentucky to move up to number two behind Georgia, and if Eason is out long in Athens, who knows? Any of the current back four could sneak up and take the East Division flag. Because it is the first conference game of the season for the SEC, the winner will take the early lead in the East. South Carolina looked mighty impressive in their win over North Carolina State, while Missouri’s offense looked fantastic against Missouri State. The Tigers’ defense made MSU’s offense look great. As we mentioned in our preseason preview, it would not shock us if Missouri became the first major college team to both score and surrender 40 points per game in a season. The Tigers should score a lot of points again this week. If the Gamecocks don’t play too conservatively, USC can put up 50 on the Tiger defense. Missouri might win if Coach Will Muschamp tries to sustain a lot of long drives and keeps the ball out of Drew Lock’s hands.

Boise State at Washington State: This will be an interesting late game in the Palouse. Washington State’s defense pitched a shutout against Montana State in game one, while the Cougar offense was a lot more potent than the 31 points scored showed. This could be the best Mike Leach-coached team ever or a close second best to his 2008 team at Texas Tech.

The PiRate Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	133.5	128.7	132.5	131.6
2	Ohio St.	132.6	129.5	131.8	131.3
3	Washington	128.4	124.8	129.2	127.5
4	Clemson	128.5	124.7	127.6	126.9
5	Florida St.	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
6	Penn St.	126.2	123.9	126.9	125.7
7	Oklahoma	124.0	122.0	125.0	123.7
8	Auburn	124.1	122.0	124.0	123.4
9	Oklahoma St.	121.2	119.8	122.8	121.3
10	Wisconsin	122.9	118.8	121.4	121.1
11	U S C	120.2	119.8	120.6	120.2
12	L S U	120.4	118.6	121.1	120.0
13	Stanford	120.3	117.9	119.3	119.2
14	Washington St.	119.5	116.2	118.7	118.1
15	Michigan	118.3	117.3	117.5	117.7
16	Miami	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
17	Georgia	116.4	117.7	116.5	116.9
18	Virginia Tech	116.7	116.3	117.1	116.7
19	Louisville	116.7	115.8	117.1	116.5
20	Florida	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
21	N. Carolina St.	115.2	114.5	114.9	114.9
22	Kansas St.	114.1	113.6	114.5	114.1
23	Colorado	114.8	112.1	112.7	113.2
24	Iowa	112.0	111.4	111.7	111.7
25	Northwestern	112.1	110.0	111.8	111.3
26	Georgia Tech	112.8	110.3	110.8	111.3
27	Kentucky	111.8	110.3	111.3	111.1
28	Tennessee	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
29	T C U	111.7	108.9	111.4	110.6
30	Notre Dame	111.2	109.3	111.3	110.6
31	Texas	109.5	110.7	109.5	109.9
32	Oregon	111.2	107.8	110.2	109.7
33	Arkansas	109.5	109.1	109.5	109.4
34	Vanderbilt	110.2	108.5	109.2	109.3
35	South Florida	109.5	107.7	110.7	109.3
36	Syracuse	110.3	108.1	109.3	109.2
37	N. Carolina	109.9	108.4	108.3	108.9
38	Pittsburgh	108.8	108.8	108.0	108.5
39	U C L A	108.9	107.8	108.3	108.3
40	West Virginia	107.8	108.8	107.7	108.1
41	Ole Miss	107.6	106.2	106.0	106.6
42	Texas A&M	107.6	105.2	106.2	106.3
43	Utah	105.2	107.9	105.4	106.2
44	S. Carolina	106.4	106.1	105.6	106.0
45	Maryland	105.3	107.4	105.4	106.0
46	Duke	106.3	105.1	104.9	105.4
47	Mississippi St.	104.4	105.1	104.6	104.7
48	Memphis	104.9	103.9	105.3	104.7
49	Nebraska	104.0	105.8	103.3	104.4
50	Minnesota	104.4	104.6	104.0	104.3
51	Indiana	104.1	104.3	104.1	104.2
52	Colo. State	104.2	102.8	104.1	103.7
53	Houston	104.1	102.9	104.0	103.7
54	Central Florida	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
55	Missouri	104.7	101.3	103.4	103.1
56	Baylor	101.9	104.4	101.8	102.7
57	Tulsa	102.7	101.7	102.7	102.4
58	Texas Tech	102.8	102.5	101.6	102.3
59	Wake Forest	102.7	102.2	102.0	102.3
60	Boston College	102.0	102.9	101.5	102.1
61	Western Michigan	102.7	99.1	104.4	102.1
62	Iowa State	101.2	102.6	101.9	101.9
63	Arizona St.	102.3	102.3	101.0	101.9
64	BYU	100.9	99.8	101.3	100.6
65	San Diego St.	99.4	100.4	101.0	100.3
66	Toledo	99.3	99.1	100.9	99.8
67	Navy	99.2	100.2	99.1	99.5
68	Virginia	98.7	98.8	99.7	99.1
69	California	100.6	98.0	98.6	99.1
70	Appalachian St.	99.7	96.9	100.2	98.9
71	W. Kentucky	98.6	96.1	100.4	98.4
72	Boise St.	98.6	96.9	97.9	97.8
73	Michigan St.	96.0	100.3	96.6	97.6
74	Arizona	98.8	97.6	96.4	97.6
75	Wyoming	98.7	96.3	97.5	97.5
76	SMU	97.0	97.3	97.4	97.2
77	Purdue	96.1	98.4	96.9	97.1
78	Rutgers	97.0	96.6	96.3	96.6
79	Army	96.3	95.9	97.2	96.5
80	Oregon St.	96.7	96.6	95.1	96.1
81	Temple	95.7	96.4	95.8	96.0
82	Miami (O)	92.9	95.3	95.1	94.4
83	Tulane	94.1	94.5	94.5	94.4
84	Troy	93.9	94.1	93.1	93.7
85	Air Force	93.3	94.0	93.6	93.6
86	New Mexico	92.7	93.2	93.6	93.2
87	Eastern Michigan	93.0	93.0	93.1	93.0
88	U T S A	91.3	93.1	93.5	92.6
89	Kansas	91.1	94.5	90.4	92.0
90	Ohio U	90.9	92.6	91.8	91.8
91	Old Dominion	90.4	93.4	90.9	91.6
92	Middle Tennessee	90.2	91.1	91.1	90.8
93	Louisiana Tech	89.8	91.6	90.7	90.7
94	Arkansas St.	89.5	91.1	91.2	90.6
95	Cincinnati	89.0	91.8	90.5	90.4
96	Hawaii	89.6	91.3	89.7	90.2
97	Illinois	89.1	91.2	87.5	89.3
98	Central Michigan	88.7	88.9	89.1	88.9
99	Connecticut	86.7	89.9	87.3	88.0
100	Idaho	86.2	88.9	87.0	87.3
101	Nevada	85.4	88.8	87.6	87.2
102	Fresno St.	87.6	86.2	87.7	87.2
103	East Carolina	86.5	87.8	86.5	86.9
104	Southern Miss.	86.1	87.5	86.2	86.6
105	Utah St.	87.1	86.0	86.3	86.5
106	Northern Illinois	86.2	86.2	86.4	86.2
107	San Jose St.	86.7	85.7	86.0	86.1
108	UL-Lafayette	84.3	86.2	84.1	84.9
109	Akron	83.5	87.3	83.5	84.8
110	S. Alabama	83.6	86.6	83.8	84.7
111	U N L V	83.3	86.5	83.7	84.5
112	N. Mexico St.	85.6	82.9	84.7	84.4
113	Georgia St.	84.5	83.7	84.4	84.2
114	Marshall	83.0	84.8	84.1	84.0
115	Kent St.	83.2	84.4	84.2	83.9
116	Buffalo	81.6	84.9	83.6	83.4
117	Massachusetts	83.4	82.6	83.1	83.0
118	Florida Atlantic	81.3	84.8	82.2	82.8
119	Bowling Green	81.8	82.4	82.7	82.3
120	N. Texas	81.5	83.1	81.4	82.0
121	Florida Int’l.	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
122	Georgia Southern	81.2	82.5	80.8	81.5
123	UL-Monroe	81.8	82.1	80.3	81.4
124	Ball St.	78.9	81.0	80.3	80.1
125	Rice	77.8	78.8	78.1	78.2
126	U T E P	74.7	79.2	76.0	76.7
127	Charlotte	74.9	77.7	75.4	76.0
128	Coastal Carolina	74.8	75.7	76.6	75.7
129	Texas St.	70.4	74.4	69.1	71.3
130	UAB	64.2	69.7	66.4	66.8

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	0-0	2-0	109.5	107.7	110.7	109.3
Central Florida	0-0	1-0	102.6	104.7	103.5	103.6
Temple	0-0	0-1	95.7	96.4	95.8	96.0
Cincinnati	0-0	1-0	89.0	91.8	90.5	90.4
Connecticut	0-0	1-0	86.7	89.9	87.3	88.0
East Carolina	0-0	0-1	86.5	87.8	86.5	86.9
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	0-0	1-0	104.9	103.9	105.3	104.7
Houston	0-0	0-0	104.1	102.9	104.0	103.7
Tulsa	0-0	0-1	102.7	101.7	102.7	102.4
Navy	0-0	1-0	99.2	100.2	99.1	99.5
SMU	0-0	1-0	97.0	97.3	97.4	97.2
Tulane	0-0	1-0	94.1	94.5	94.5	94.4
AAC Averages			97.7	98.2	98.1	98.0
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	0-0	1-0	128.5	124.7	127.6	126.9
Florida St.	0-0	0-1	126.9	124.9	126.2	126.0
Louisville	0-0	1-0	116.7	115.8	117.1	116.5
N. Carolina St.	0-0	0-1	115.2	114.5	114.9	114.9
Syracuse	0-0	1-0	110.3	108.1	109.3	109.2
Wake Forest	0-0	1-0	102.7	102.2	102.0	102.3
Boston College	0-0	1-0	102.0	102.9	101.5	102.1
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	0-0	1-0	118.7	116.3	117.8	117.6
Virginia Tech	0-0	1-0	116.7	116.3	117.1	116.7
Georgia Tech	0-0	0-1	112.8	110.3	110.8	111.3
N. Carolina	0-0	0-1	109.9	108.4	108.3	108.9
Pittsburgh	0-0	1-0	108.8	108.8	108.0	108.5
Duke	0-0	1-0	106.3	105.1	104.9	105.4
Virginia	0-0	1-0	98.7	98.8	99.7	99.1
ACC Averages			112.5	111.2	111.8	111.8
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	0-0	1-0	124.0	122.0	125.0	123.7
Oklahoma St.	0-0	1-0	121.2	119.8	122.8	121.3
Kansas St.	0-0	1-0	114.1	113.6	114.5	114.1
T C U	0-0	1-0	111.7	108.9	111.4	110.6
Texas	0-0	0-1	109.5	110.7	109.5	109.9
West Virginia	0-0	0-1	107.8	108.8	107.7	108.1
Baylor	0-0	0-1	101.9	104.4	101.8	102.7
Texas Tech	0-0	1-0	102.8	102.5	101.6	102.3
Iowa State	0-0	1-0	101.2	102.6	101.9	101.9
Kansas	0-0	1-0	91.1	94.5	90.4	92.0
Big 12 Averages			108.5	108.8	108.7	108.7
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	1-0	1-0	132.6	129.5	131.8	131.3
Penn St.	0-0	1-0	126.2	123.9	126.9	125.7
Michigan	0-0	1-0	118.3	117.3	117.5	117.7
Maryland	0-0	1-0	105.3	107.4	105.4	106.0
Indiana	0-1	0-1	104.1	104.3	104.1	104.2
Michigan St.	0-0	1-0	96.0	100.3	96.6	97.6
Rutgers	0-0	0-1	97.0	96.6	96.3	96.6
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	0-0	1-0	122.9	118.8	121.4	121.1
Iowa	0-0	1-0	112.0	111.4	111.7	111.7
Northwestern	0-0	1-0	112.1	110.0	111.8	111.3
Nebraska	0-0	1-0	104.0	105.8	103.3	104.4
Minnesota	0-0	1-0	104.4	104.6	104.0	104.3
Purdue	0-0	0-1	96.1	98.4	96.9	97.1
Illinois	0-0	1-0	89.1	91.2	87.5	89.3
Big Ten Averages			108.6	108.5	108.2	108.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	0-0	1-0	98.6	96.1	100.4	98.4
Old Dominion	0-0	1-0	90.4	93.4	90.9	91.6
Middle Tennessee	0-0	0-1	90.2	91.1	91.1	90.8
Marshall	0-0	1-0	83.0	84.8	84.1	84.0
Florida Atlantic	0-0	0-1	81.3	84.8	82.2	82.8
Florida Int’l.	0-0	0-1	81.2	81.4	82.2	81.6
Charlotte	0-0	0-1	74.9	77.7	75.4	76.0
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-0	0-0	91.3	93.1	93.5	92.6
Louisiana Tech	0-0	1-0	89.8	91.6	90.7	90.7
Southern Miss.	0-0	0-1	86.1	87.5	86.2	86.6
N. Texas	0-0	1-0	81.5	83.1	81.4	82.0
Rice	0-0	0-1	77.8	78.8	78.1	78.2
U T E P	0-0	0-1	74.7	79.2	76.0	76.7
UAB	0-0	1-0	64.2	69.7	66.4	66.8
CUSA Averages			83.2	85.2	84.2	84.2
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		1-0	111.2	109.3	111.3	110.6
BYU		1-1	100.9	99.8	101.3	100.6
Army		1-0	96.3	95.9	97.2	96.5
Massachusetts		0-2	83.4	82.6	83.1	83.0
Indep. Averages			97.9	96.9	98.2	97.7
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (O)	0-0	0-1	92.9	95.3	95.1	94.4
Ohio U	0-0	1-0	90.9	92.6	91.8	91.8
Akron	0-0	0-1	83.5	87.3	83.5	84.8
Kent St.	0-0	0-1	83.2	84.4	84.2	83.9
Buffalo	0-0	0-1	81.6	84.9	83.6	83.4
Bowling Green	0-0	0-1	81.8	82.4	82.7	82.3
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	0-0	0-1	102.7	99.1	104.4	102.1
Toledo	0-0	1-0	99.3	99.1	100.9	99.8
Eastern Michigan	0-0	1-0	93.0	93.0	93.1	93.0
Central Michigan	0-0	1-0	88.7	88.9	89.1	88.9
Northern Illinois	0-0	0-1	86.2	86.2	86.4	86.2
Ball St.	0-0	0-1	78.9	81.0	80.3	80.1
MAC Averages			88.6	89.5	89.6	89.2
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	0-0	1-1	104.2	102.8	104.1	103.7
Boise St.	0-0	1-0	98.6	96.9	97.9	97.8
Wyoming	0-0	0-1	98.7	96.3	97.5	97.5
Air Force	0-0	1-0	93.3	94.0	93.6	93.6
New Mexico	0-0	1-0	92.7	93.2	93.6	93.2
Utah St.	0-0	0-1	87.1	86.0	86.3	86.5
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	0-0	1-0	99.4	100.4	101.0	100.3
Hawaii	0-0	2-0	89.6	91.3	89.7	90.2
Nevada	0-0	0-1	85.4	88.8	87.6	87.2
Fresno St.	0-0	1-0	87.6	86.2	87.7	87.2
San Jose St.	0-0	1-1	86.7	85.7	86.0	86.1
U N L V	0-0	0-1	83.3	86.5	83.7	84.5
MWC Averages			92.2	92.3	92.4	92.3
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	0-0	1-0	128.4	124.8	129.2	127.5
Stanford	0-0	1-0	120.3	117.9	119.3	119.2
Washington St.	0-0	1-0	119.5	116.2	118.7	118.1
Oregon	0-0	1-0	111.2	107.8	110.2	109.7
California	0-0	1-0	100.6	98.0	98.6	99.1
Oregon St.	0-0	1-1	96.7	96.6	95.1	96.1
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	0-0	1-0	120.2	119.8	120.6	120.2
Colorado	0-0	1-0	114.8	112.1	112.7	113.2
U C L A	0-0	1-0	108.9	107.8	108.3	108.3
Utah	0-0	1-0	105.2	107.9	105.4	106.2
Arizona St.	0-0	1-0	102.3	102.3	101.0	101.9
Arizona	0-0	1-0	98.8	97.6	96.4	97.6
Pac-12 Averages			110.6	109.1	109.6	109.8
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	0-0	1-0	116.4	117.7	116.5	116.9
Florida	0-0	0-1	115.4	114.7	114.7	114.9
Kentucky	0-0	1-0	111.8	110.3	111.3	111.1
Tennessee	0-0	1-0	112.0	110.0	110.2	110.7
Vanderbilt	0-0	1-0	110.2	108.5	109.2	109.3
S. Carolina	0-0	1-0	106.4	106.1	105.6	106.0
Missouri	0-0	1-0	104.7	101.3	103.4	103.1
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	0-0	1-0	133.5	128.7	132.5	131.6
Auburn	0-0	1-0	124.1	122.0	124.0	123.4
L S U	0-0	1-0	120.4	118.6	121.1	120.0
Arkansas	0-0	1-0	109.5	109.1	109.5	109.4
Ole Miss	0-0	1-0	107.6	106.2	106.0	106.6
Texas A&M	0-0	0-1	107.6	105.2	106.2	106.3
Mississippi St.	0-0	1-0	104.4	105.1	104.6	104.7
SEC Averages			113.1	111.7	112.5	112.4
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	0-0	0-1	99.7	96.9	100.2	98.9
Troy	0-0	0-1	93.9	94.1	93.1	93.7
Arkansas St.	0-0	0-1	89.5	91.1	91.2	90.6
Idaho	0-0	1-0	86.2	88.9	87.0	87.3
UL-Lafayette	0-0	1-0	84.3	86.2	84.1	84.9
S. Alabama	0-0	0-1	83.6	86.6	83.8	84.7
N. Mexico St.	0-0	0-1	85.6	82.9	84.7	84.4
Georgia St.	0-0	0-1	84.5	83.7	84.4	84.2
Georgia Southern	0-0	0-1	81.2	82.5	80.8	81.5
UL-Monroe	0-0	0-1	81.8	82.1	80.3	81.4
Coastal Carolina	0-0	1-0	74.8	75.7	76.6	75.7
Texas St.	0-0	1-0	70.4	74.4	69.1	71.3
Sun Belt Averages			84.6	85.4	84.6	84.9

Overall Conference Ratings

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	113.1	111.7	112.5	112.4
2	ACC	112.5	111.2	111.8	111.8
3	PAC-12	110.6	109.1	109.6	109.8
4	BIG 12	108.5	108.8	108.7	108.7
5	BIG TEN	108.6	108.5	108.2	108.4
6	AAC	97.7	98.2	98.1	98.0
7	INDEP.	97.9	96.9	98.2	97.7
8	MWC	92.2	92.3	92.4	92.3
9	MAC	88.6	89.5	89.6	89.2
10	SBC	84.6	85.4	84.6	84.9
11	CUSA	83.2	85.2	84.2	84.2

 

PiRate Retrodictive Ratings

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

Note: Bowl Projections will resume in October

2017 American Athletic Conference Preview

As it did the previous two years, The American Athletic Conference once again heads the Group of 5 leagues as the top overall to begin the 2017 college football season. However, that does not mean that you can automatically place the league’s champion in a New Year’s 6 Bowl game. Last year, Houston was the favorite to win the league and certainly receive a bid to the Cotton Bowl, and after the Cougars tore Oklahoma’s defense apart, it looked like they could even get into the Playoff picture.

Alas, the league proved to be just balanced enough that UH could not run the table, and the Cougars actually finished in a third place tie in the West, after Navy, SMU, and Memphis beat them in the second half of the season. The race in the East was quite interesting, as South Florida looked to be the early equal of Houston. The Bulls gave Florida State all they could handle, and it looked like USF would go 11-1 from that point on. However, Temple played a brilliant defensive game, and the Owls pulled off the mild upset, leading the men from Philly to the Eastern Crown.
Instead of USF and UH, it was Temple and Navy in the AAC Championship Game, with the Owls solving the Midshipmen multiple option offense.

 

This year brings a lot of change to the league. The AAC Champion Owls, as well as USF and Houston break in new coaches. Former Temple coach Matt Rhule went to Baylor. Former USF coach Willie Taggart took the big pay day to go to Oregon, while Houston’s ex-coach Tom Herman took over the job he supposedly has coveted for years–at Texas.

 

The three powers brought in masterminds to replace the departed successes. Temple hired Geoff Collins, who had been Florida’s defensive coordinator the last two years. The Gators won the SEC East with very little offensive contribution after injuries riddled the attack side.
USF hopes that Charlie Strong can do what he did at Louisville and not Texas. Strong has a successful history recruiting in the Sunshine State, and it should help USF stay atop or near the top of the AAC standings in the future.
Houston stayed in-house and hired offensive coordinator Major Applewhite to become its next head coach. Applewhite will be under the gun to produce immediate results, and his honeymoon will be short.

 

Here’s how the media predicted the AAC for 2017.

American Athletic Conference–East Division
#	Team	1st Pl.	Total	Champ.
1	South Florida	30	180	26
2	Central Florida	0	126	0
3	Temple	0	119	0
4	Cincinnati	0	100	0
5	East Carolina	0	63	0
6	Connecticut	0	42	0
American Athletic Conference–West Division
#	Team	1st Pl.	Total	Champ.
1	Memphis	22	169	1
2	Houston	6	137	2
3	Navy	1	128	1
4	Tulsa	1	102	0
5	SMU	0	64	0
6	Tulane	0	30	0

 

The PiRate, Mean, and Bias ratings are very similar, matching the East predictions exactly.

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	111.1	109.0	112.3	110.8
Central Florida	99.1	101.5	99.8	100.2
Temple	97.5	98.2	97.8	97.8
Cincinnati	90.2	93.0	91.7	91.6
East Carolina	88.3	89.6	88.3	88.7
Connecticut	87.4	90.6	88.0	88.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	107.4	106.1	108.1	107.2
Tulsa	105.3	104.1	105.3	104.9
Houston	104.1	102.9	104.0	103.7
Navy	98.0	98.9	97.7	98.2
SMU	96.3	96.6	96.7	96.5
Tulane	93.9	94.3	94.3	94.2
AAC Averages	98.2	98.7	98.7	98.5

 

And, here are our not-so-scientific predictions and bowl projections for this season.

American Athletic Conference Projected Standings
Team	Conference	Overall	Bowl
East Division
South Florida	7-1	12-1	Peach
Temple	5-3	7-5	Cure
Central Florida	4-4	6-6	St. Petersburg
Cincinnati	3-5	5-7
East Carolina	1-7	2-10
Connecticut	1-7	2-10
Team	Conference	Overall	Bowl
West Division
Memphis	6-2	9-4	Hawaii
Houston	5-3	9-3	Boca Raton
Tulsa	5-3	7-5	Birmingham
SMU	4-4	7-5	Frisco
Navy	4-4	6-6	[Independence]
Tulane	3-5	5-7
South Florida to win AAC Title and automatic NY 6 Bowl Bid

Navy’s Independence Bowl Bid is an at-large bid

 

Trivia: In 1918, Georgia Tech beat North Carolina State 118-0. For half a century no Division 1 team scored 100 points on another Division 1 team. In 1949 San Jose State beat New Mexico 103-0, but the Spartans would not become a major college participant until the following season, so this one doesn’t count. The last time a Division 1 team scored 100 points on another Division 1 team was in 1968, when current AAC West member Houston beat current AAC West member Tulsa 100-6.

Here are your three trivia questions today. A Houston wide receiver caught a 25-yard pass for a touchdown in that 100-6 game that made the score 93-6. He later went on to fame in the music business.

1. Name the Wide Receiver that would become a famous music celebrity.
2. Explain how this person once performed the National Anthem for a sporting event that was postponed soon after he performed, and there was no rain or lightning.
3. Name the Tulsa lineman that became a famous TV celebrity and has used this game as a means to help advance his career.

Coming Tomorrow–We are down to just Power 5 conferences remaining to be previewed. We start with the Big Ten. Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin have the look of potential playoff teams. Which one do we think might run the table in the regular season? Can Michigan continue to impress with the biggest rebuilding job in the nation (only one starter returns on defense)? Can Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, or Northwestern challenge the Badgers? How will new coach Jeff Brohm improve Purdue, and can he lead the Boilermakers back into contention for the first time since Drew Brees led the PU attack?

2017 Independents Preview

At one point in the 1960’s and 1970’s there were in excess of 30 college football teams not affiliated with a conference. Schools did not need a conference affiliation to succeed. Penn State, Notre Dame, Florida State, Miami, and other big name schools were power teams that frequently competed for national titles. Michigan State was actually an independent that won a national title prior to becoming the final member of the original Big Ten. There was even a five-year period where Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington State left the Pacific Coast Conference and played as independents, as the forerunner to today’s Pac-12 almost dissolved.

Today, the independent ranks are close to dissolving, but they are hanging on by a thread, or should we say four threads. Army, BYU, Massachusetts, and Notre Dame are what’s left, althought New Mexico State will join this group next year, more because they are being evicted from the Sun Belt. and the MWC has no vacancies for them at this time.

Notre Dame is only a quasi-independent. They belong to the ACC in many ways–they play a five-game schedule of ACC teams, and they can qualify for any ACC Bowl, as long as they are within one win of the next available team.

BYU is a tough fit as a full member in any conference, because the Cougars will not play any athletic competition on Sunday. In basketball, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee seeds them in brackets that keep them away from a Friday-Sunday schedule. They would be a perfect fit with New Mexico State in the Mountain West or even with New Mexico or Utah State in the Big 12, with New Mexico State replacing whichever school left.

Army is okay as an independent, although the West Pointers could fit right into the American Athletic with rival Navy. Massachusetts could easily fit in this league as well, and the independents would be history.

Since there are no preseason media polls, we will start by showing you our own PiRate Retrodictive Ratings for the four schools. You might ask how there could be retrodictive ratings, when no games have been played yet. How can we rate them on their results thus far? Obviously, this is not possible, but we begin each season adjusting the previous season’s final retrodictive ratings just like we do our regular PiRate, Mean, and Bias Ratings. By the fourth week of the season, the retrodictive ratings are 100% based on the current year’s results.

PiRate Retrodictive Ratings (Independents)

Independents
#	Team
PiRate Retrodictive
1	Notre Dame
2	BYU
3	Army
4	Massachusetts

 

Here are our regular predictive PiRate, Mean, and Bias preseason ratings.

Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	109.7	107.8	109.6	109.0
B Y U	103.0	101.9	103.6	102.8
Army	94.6	94.2	95.5	94.8
Massachusetts	86.0	84.4	86.0	85.5
Independents Averages	98.3	97.1	98.7	98.0

And, here are our not-so-scientific predictions for won-loss and bowl projections.

Independents Projected Standings
Team	Conference	Overall	Bowl
BYU	x	9-4	[Military]
Notre Dame	x	8-4	Pinstripe
Army	x	8-4	Armed Forces
Massachusetts	x	3-9

BYU’s bowl bid is an at-large bid.

 

Trivia: Nobody could come up with the answer to yesterday’s trivia question. Rather than show all the incorrect replies, since we don’t want to embarrass anybody, we erased them from the responses.
Here it is again: Who are these two legendary coaches? Coach number one was a college head coach who won 70% of his games at his first Division 1 school, a team that played in a now defunct conference. He moved on to be a college head coach at two additional schools, the second of which he was replaced by a second coaching legend who won more than 200 games at the college level and more than 250 when his NFL wins were added. Four decades after winning 70% of his games at the first school, Coach number one was still coaching, now the head coach of an NFL team which he guided to the playoffs multiple times. Coach number two was still coaching four decades later after he replaced coach number one. Coach number two won a national championship during his career.
Name the two coaches. If nobody gets the answer by the time we go to press with tomorrow’s preview, we will give the answer, but we know that our readers tend to be among the most knowledgeable football fans and analytical geniuses, so we expect somebody to come up with the correct answer.

We had several guesses, and some of you actually guessed coach number two as coach number one. Nobody guessed correctly on coach number one. He is Marv Levy, who coached at New Mexico in 1958 and 1959, going 7-3 both years. New Mexico played in the defunct Border Conference, a pre-WAC establishment. Levy moved on to an unsuccessful stint at UC-Berkeley, and then to William & Mary. Levy led the Buffalo Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls four decades later.

Coach number two, who succeeded Levy at William & Mary was Lou Holtz. Holtz won 249 games at the collegiate level and another three in the NFL with the Jets.

Coming later today–The American Athletic Conference