PiRate Picks–November 11-13, 2021

We almost made it, but a small miss is as good as a long mile. Last week, with a fourth consecutive winning week looking promising, a couple of fourth quarters went against us, and alas we suffered a tiny loss of 0.9%, or less than $5 on $500 invested in imaginary currency.

For the year, our net profit is now 4.88%, so we are still in the black, just barely. This week, we delayed by a day putting this feature online. The reason is that we did not like the overall numbers and wanted the betting public to help us out by moving the money lines just enough for our program to show the parlays to have an edge by finding the best lines. After looking at 11 different books, we still could only find three wagers to play. Four more were monitored closely and might have eventually moved to make them playable, but we like to publish this before Noon on Thursday, and the movements aren’t moving this morning (Thursday at 9:30 AM EST).

These next two weeks historically have seen monumental upsets in college football when teams that appear to be superior to the opponents they are playing have hidden depth issues. It’s not just players that don’t dress out. By this point in the schedule most college teams have 10-20 players that are playing with minor injuries and are not the same as they were four weeks ago. We look for teams that win consistently through the first week in November but tend to lose power ratings while winning, because instead of producing a statistics box that looks like a 20-point win, they produce a statistics box of 15-17 points, and then 10-14 points. We do not update our ratings by final score. We look at the statistics and make a score adjustment based on the domination or lack thereof and then update. A team that wins by 28 points and is out-gained by 50 yards where the opponent lost fumbles in the Red Zone may actually receive credit for a 14-point “effective win.” A team that wins by 11 points but ends the game at the opponent’s five yard line and chooses to take a knee may receive credit for an 18-point effective win.

You will also notice that since early in the season, we have stopped playing NFL parlays in this feature. The variance in the games is making it impossible for our method to isolate on enough games to make a favorable parlay. We think there are two reasons for this. First, even though there are lousy teams like Detroit, there are no dominant teams that can be counted on to win when they are favored by less than a touchdown. Second, now that many millions more people can legally wager, the odds no longer move by large enough amounts to create favorable odds. There are 60+ college games to find favorable numbers, and the public may not find a Mountain West Conference game worth much, while we do. There are 13-16 NFL games per week, and even Detroit, San Francisco, and Miami get heavy action. We’d like to play three underdogs this week, but the numbers are not favorable according to our program.

Here are our three selections for this week. Remember, we never wager real money on these picks. If we don’t, do you think you should?

Odds:	+185
Must Win	Opponent
East Carolina	Memphis
Odds:	+205.47
Must Win	Opponent
Kansas St.	West Virginia
Air Force	Colorado St.
Oklahoma St.	TCU
Odds:	+152.71
Must Win	Opponent
Louisiana	Troy
Oklahoma	Baylor
Oregon	Washington St.

PiRate Picks–October 28-30, 2021

Back To Back Winning Weeks

Usually, the middle of October to the middle of November has been the period where our college football parlay picks have made their move into positive territory, and this year has been another example of that. After going north and south of the break-even line, in the last two weeks, a couple of big wins with fat payouts has taken our imaginary bankroll and turned it from red to black numbers.

We won two of the four parlays, one paying out at +187 and the other at +147.40. That comes to a 33.6% return on investment for the weekend. For the year, $3,500 in imaginary funds have been wagered with the sports books, and $3,704.28 in imaginary funds have been returned for an ROI of 5.84%.

Last week, we did not particularly like the games overall. It was difficult finding suitable parlays with payouts better than +120 that our “system” said had a better chance than the minimum needed to show a profit. The week before, too many games presented themselves as playable, and we had to limit the ones we wanted.

This week, it is somewhere in between. We selected to underdogs to win outright with rather fat payout odds. Our methods say these two games are virtual tossup games, so if we can get better than +120 on these games, we feel compelled to take the ‘dogs.

However, after the two straight up upset selections, we spent an extra hour plus trying to combine games into suitable odds while remaining confident that the teams would win.

So, without further adieu, here are our five selections for this week.

Note: Corrected Parlay after astute football guru Dustdog spotted an error.

Date:	October 28-30
Odds:	+360
Must Win	Opponent
UTEP	Florida Atlantic
Odds:	+170
Must Win	Opponent
Michigan St.	Michigan
Odds:	+225.59
Must Win	Opponent
Illinois	Rutgers
Notre Dame	North Carolina
Odds:	+269.54
Must Win	Opponent
Central Florida	Temple
Kansas St.	TCU
Rice	North Texas
Odds:	+150
Must Win	Opponent
Utah St.	Hawaii
San Jose St.	Wyoming

PiRate Picks–October 21-23, 2021

What a minor difference a week made! After just missing on three big-payout parlays two weeks ago, we played the same strategy last week and made a minor splash thanks to the help of one long shot parlay that won and returned better than 3 to 1 odds. With another win at +187, we made a small profit last week, but large enough to turn our minor net loss for the season into a net gain of 2.3%.

Of course, as we say every week, our financial loss or gain is merely imaginary, as we are playing with imaginary funds that never run out but never accrue. This feature is presented just for fun, and we strongly urge you not to wager real money on what you read here, unless it merely validates your research.

This week presents the fewest number of games that met our criteria this year in any week. We could only go with four parlays of two teams apiece. None are major long shots, but they all top +120, which is the minimum odds we will play. Enjoy!

Date:	October 21-25
Odds:	+187
Must Win	Opponent
Central Florida	Memphis
Notre Dame	USC
Odds:	+147.40
Must Win	Opponent
Eastern Michigan	Bowling Green
Kent St.	Ohio U
Odds:	+138.99
Must Win	Opponent
San Jose St.	UNLV
Ball St.	Miami (O)
Odds:	+131.08
Must Win	Opponent
Minnesota	Maryland
TCU	West Virginia

PiRate Picks For September 9-13, 2021

Last week’s opening picks missed, as Virginia Tech made Sam Howell look like Thurston Howell. Duke then failed to show up against Charlotte, and poof, our two picks were destroyed. Such is life when you wager on parlays that return the odds we look for when we place our imaginary wagers.

We have two more picks returning some fat odds this week, and maybe we’ll get lucky and hit on one. We will also tell you a week 1 tip for the NFL. Although we are here just for Money Line Parlays this year, it doesn’t mean we cannot give out a little interesting information.

Here are our two Money Line Parlays for Week two of the college season. We will eventually pick some NFL games, but Week one is not the time and place for that.

Parlay 1

Odds:	+224
Must Win	Opponent
Virginia	Illinois
Rutgers	Syracuse
Michigan	Washington

Parlay 2

Odds:	+180.56
Must Win	Opponent
Mississippi St.	North Carolina St.
TCU	California

Here’s our tip for Week 1 of the NFL season. Underdogs of 1 to 3 points tend to win outright 50% of the time, but they also lose by less than 3 points another 8-10% of the time. That’s 58-60% success for wagering on 3-point Underdogs.

There are seven games as of this writing with a 3-point spread. The Dogs are:

Houston against Jacksonville

Arizona against Tennessee

Philadelphia against Atlanta

Indianapolis against Seattle

Cincinnati against Minnesota

Miami against New England

N.Y. Giants against Denver

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads For December 30-31, 2017

Saturday’s Games
Home Team	Visitor	Spread
Connecticut	Wichita St.	-10.0
Houston	Temple	8.6
North Carolina	Wake Forest	14.0
Duke	Florida St.	10.6
Virginia	Boston College	16.2
Notre Dame	Georgia Tech	16.5
Pittsburgh	Miami (Fla.)	-11.8
Clemson	N. C. State	8.5
TCU	Oklahoma	1.4
Xavier	DePaul	16.1
Butler	Villanova	-7.9
Marquette	Georgetown	8.3
Nevada	New Mexico	15.7
San Diego St.	Utah St.	10.1
UNLV	Boise St.	4.0
Arizona	Arizona St.	2.5
Stanford	California	7.1
Arkansas	Tennessee	5.2
Florida	Vanderbilt	9.1
Alabama	Texas A&M	-4.1
BYU	Saint Mary’s	0.2
Gonzaga	Santa Clara	25.2

Sunday’s Games
Home Team	Visitor	Spread
Tulane	Tulsa	2.0
Cincinnati	Memphis	20.1
East Carolina	Central Florida	-10.9
SMU	South Florida	22.3
Syracuse	Virginia Tech	0.1
Creighton	Providence	10.2
Seton Hall	St. John’s	8.1
Oregon St.	Utah	-4.0
UCLA	Washington	9.0
USC	Washington St.	14.1
Oregon	Colorado	11.4
Kentucky	Georgia	9.8
Ole Miss	South Carolina	2.0

 

 

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

This Week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

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

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

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Retrodictive Ratings

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

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

Predictive Ratings

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

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

PiRate  Ratings by Conference

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

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

Playoff & Bowl Projections

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

Stay Home in Front of Multiple TVs

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

NOON EDT

Oklahoma State at West Virginia on ABC

3:30 PM EDT

Penn State at Ohio State on Fox

Georgia vs. Florida (@Jacksonville) on CBS

Michigan State at Northwestern on ESPN

North Carolina State at Notre Dame on NBC

TCU at Iowa State on ESPN2

8:00 PM EDT

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

WORLD SERIES Game 4–Los Angeles Dodgers at Houston Astros

9:30 PM EDT

Washington State at Arizona on Pac-12 Network

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

The World Series

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

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

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

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

Pitching matchups for the first two games are:

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

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

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

World Series Schedule

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

Game 1: Tuesday, October 24

Game 2: Wednesday, October 25

Game 3: Friday, October 27

Game 4: Saturday, October 28

Game 5 (if necessary): Sunday, October 29

Game 6 (if necessary): Tuesday, October 31

Game 7 (if necessary): Wednesday, November 1

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Football Forecast for October 19-21, 2017

This week’s PiRate Ratings Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Arkansas St.	Louisiana-Lafayette	9.0	8.7	10.4
Houston	Memphis	0.4	0.6	0.1
Old Dominion	Western Kentucky	-8.3	-5.2	-9.3
Middle Tennessee	Marshall	-1.8	-2.2	-3.0
Nevada	Air Force	-2.8	-1.4	-1.4
New Mexico	Colorado St.	-12.0	-11.0	-11.5
Army	Temple	8.3	7.8	9.1
Wisconsin	Maryland	24.0	18.8	22.7
Texas Tech	Iowa St.	0.7	-0.1	-1.0
Toledo	Akron	15.0	12.3	15.4
Missouri	Idaho	16.4	12.4	14.6
Northwestern	Iowa	4.2	2.4	4.6
Connecticut	Tulsa	-11.3	-8.5	-10.9
Florida St.	Louisville	13.9	13.3	13.1
Rutgers	Purdue	-6.2	-5.9	-7.4
Duke	Pittsburgh	7.3	5.9	6.8
Virginia	Boston College	6.3	5.6	7.0
Georgia St.	Troy	-5.0	-5.9	-4.3
Eastern Michigan	Western Michigan	-0.7	0.0	-1.6
Ohio U	Kent St.	14.1	14.2	14.5
Bowling Green	Northern Illinois	-5.6	-4.4	-5.4
Miami (O)	Buffalo	7.3	6.8	6.2
Ball St.	Central Michigan	-12.4	-11.0	-11.7
Minnesota	Illinois	19.7	19.1	20.7
Virginia Tech	North Carolina	18.4	18.7	20.0
Michigan St.	Indiana	1.5	3.5	1.6
Alabama	Tennessee	37.4	34.7	38.2
Appalachian St.	Coastal Carolina	30.8	27.5	29.5
Navy	Central Florida	-11.4	-12.6	-12.5
Miami (Fla.)	Syracuse	13.7	13.3	13.9
Massachusetts	Georgia Southern	10.5	8.3	10.9
Utah	Arizona St.	4.4	7.0	4.9
Kansas St.	Oklahoma	-6.6	-5.6	-7.0
TCU	Kansas	42.5	37.0	44.1
Texas	Oklahoma St.	-7.9	-6.1	-8.5
UCLA	Oregon	0.1	2.1	0.5
Cincinnati	SMU	-9.3	-7.2	-8.5
Mississippi St.	Kentucky	-0.3	1.4	0.6
South Alabama	Louisiana-Monroe	8.0	9.8	9.2
Florida Atlantic	North Texas	8.7	10.0	9.3
UNLV	Utah St.	-3.1	0.0	-2.4
Charlotte	UAB	1.7	0.5	-0.2
Tulane	South Florida	-14.1	-12.5	-14.8
UTSA	Rice	19.8	20.7	21.2
Louisiana Tech	Southern Miss.	3.6	4.0	4.2
East Carolina	BYU	-9.0	-6.7	-9.0
Ole Miss	LSU	-6.3	-6.1	-8.6
Arkansas	Auburn	-18.6	-17.2	-19.1
Georgia Tech	Wake Forest	11.7	10.6	10.5
Penn St.	Michigan	18.2	15.9	19.9
Notre Dame	USC	2.3	1.5	3.2
Baylor	West Virginia	-8.3	-7.0	-8.7
California	Arizona	3.9	2.7	3.3
Boise St.	Wyoming	11.3	10.9	12.4
San Diego St.	Fresno St.	9.4	11.0	9.7
Washington St.	Colorado	10.7	9.8	12.6

This Week’s PiRate Ratings 

Retrodictive Ratings–Ranks the teams based on what they have done to date.  This rating is better to gauge what the teams have done so far rather than how they might fare going forward.

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team	Rating
1	Alabama	132.7
2	Penn St.	130.8
3	Georgia	130.6
4	TCU	129.3
5	Clemson	128.7
6	Ohio St.	128.5
7	Wisconsin	127.9
8	Miami (Fla)	127.0
9	Notre Dame	126.7
10	USC	126.4
11	Central Florida	126.2
12	Washington	125.8
13	Oklahoma St.	125.1
14	Oklahoma	124.9
15	Stanford	124.2
16	Michigan St.	123.7
17	Michigan	123.3
18	North Carolina St.	123.0
19	Washington St.	122.2
20	Virginia Tech	121.6
21	South Florida	121.5
22	Texas A&M	121.2
23	Auburn	120.8
24	Iowa	119.9
25	San Diego St.	119.4
26	Mississippi St.	118.9
27	Florida St.	118.8
28	Memphis	118.6
29	Wake Forest	117.3
30	Texas Tech	116.8
31	West Virginia	116.4
32	LSU	116.3
33	Kentucky	116.1
34	Boise St.	115.9
35	Navy	115.2
36	South Carolina	114.7
37	Virginia	113.8
38	Toledo	113.1
39	Iowa St.	112.0
40	Utah	110.9
41	Oregon	110.5
42	California	110.1
43	Texas	110.0
44	Arizona St.	109.8
45	Georgia Tech	109.5
46	Florida	109.2
47	Louisville	108.7
48	Arizona	108.5
49	Purdue	107.7
50	Northwestern	107.4
51	Houston	106.9
52	Duke	106.3
53	Colorado St.	105.8
54	Indiana	104.6
55	Syracuse	103.9
56	UCLA	103.4
57	Marshall	103.2
58	Western Michigan	103.1
59	Fresno St.	103.0
60	Colorado	102.8
61	Minnesota	102.1
62	SMU	101.8
63	Maryland	101.6
64	Northern Illinois	101.5
65	Boston College	100.9
66	Appalachian St.	100.4
67	Troy	100.0
68	Kansas St.	99.7
69	Army	98.6
70	Ole Miss	97.2
71	North Texas	97.1
72	Tennessee	96.7
73	Nebraska	96.4
74	Louisiana Tech	96.3
75	Vanderbilt	95.6
76	Southern Miss.	95.2
77	Florida Atlantic	95.0
78	Tulane	94.8
79	Akron	94.6
80	Wyoming	94.5
81	Arkansas	92.9
82	Ohio	92.8
83	Western Kentucky	92.6
84	Air Force	92.0
85	Arkansas St.	91.8
86	Tulsa	91.7
87	Pittsburgh	91.3
88	New Mexico	91.1
89	UTSA	90.7
90	Temple	90.2
91	Utah St.	89.9
92	North Carolina	89.5
93	Buffalo	89.3
94	Florida Int’l.	88.7
95	UAB	88.1
96	Middle Tennessee	87.0
97	Cincinnati	85.7
98	Rutgers	85.1
99	New Mexico St.	84.2
100	Eastern Michigan	83.9
101	UL-Monroe	83.6
102	Georgia St.	83.4
103	UL-Lafayette	81.9
104	Illinois	81.2
105	UNLV	81.0
106	Central Michigan	80.7
107	Miami (O)	80.5
108	Baylor	80.4
109	Missouri	80.4
110	South Alabama	80.3
111	Oregon St.	79.9
112	Hawaii	79.7
113	BYU	79.6
114	Connecticut	79.5
115	Idaho	79.4
116	Nevada	78.9
117	Kent St.	78.7
118	Old Dominion	78.1
119	East Carolina	77.8
120	Bowling Green	77.5
121	Ball St.	77.0
122	Kansas	76.2
123	Rice	75.7
124	Georgia Southern	75.3
125	Massachusetts	75.1
126	Coastal Carolina	74.6
127	San Jose St.	74.2
128	UTEP	73.5
129	Texas St.	72.6
130	Charlotte	71.9

Predictive Ratings–This rating is a forward-looking rating trying to predict the outcome of future games.  Unlike other predictive ratings, ours are geared toward only each teams’ next game, because we adjust our ratings based on many factors that cannot be reflected just from the score of the games.  A team that is predicted to win by 14 points that wins by exactly 14 points might be expected to retain an identical rating the following week, but we adjust for things like depth, how the score became a 14-point victory, how the teams’ past opponents fared during the week (more weight given to recent games than early games), etc.

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	138.7	134.4	137.5	136.9
2	Ohio St.	135.6	133.0	135.5	134.7
3	Penn St.	128.7	126.6	129.6	128.3
4	Washington	127.0	124.3	127.4	126.2
5	Clemson	127.2	124.6	126.7	126.2
6	Georgia	125.5	125.9	125.9	125.8
7	Oklahoma St.	124.7	123.4	125.7	124.6
8	Auburn	124.7	122.7	124.7	124.0
9	Florida St.	122.8	121.4	121.6	122.0
10	Oklahoma	121.9	120.8	122.3	121.7
11	Miami	121.9	119.8	121.3	121.0
12	Wisconsin	121.9	118.5	120.5	120.3
13	Stanford	120.9	119.5	120.3	120.2
14	T C U	120.8	118.4	121.3	120.1
15	U S C	119.1	118.4	118.9	118.8
16	Virginia Tech	118.9	118.3	119.2	118.8
17	N. Carolina St.	118.1	117.4	118.2	117.9
18	Notre Dame	117.9	116.5	118.6	117.6
19	Washington St.	116.3	113.8	115.9	115.3
20	Georgia Tech	116.4	113.9	115.0	115.1
21	L S U	114.8	113.0	115.4	114.4
22	Texas	113.7	114.3	114.2	114.1
23	Central Florida	112.9	114.3	114.3	113.9
24	Michigan	114.0	114.2	113.2	113.8
25	Florida	113.8	112.9	113.0	113.2
26	South Florida	112.3	111.0	113.5	112.3
27	Kansas St.	112.3	112.2	112.2	112.2
28	Louisville	111.9	111.1	111.6	111.5
29	Northwestern	111.3	109.6	111.4	110.8
30	Kentucky	111.2	110.0	110.5	110.6
31	West Virginia	110.2	110.7	110.5	110.5
32	Syracuse	111.1	109.5	110.4	110.3
33	Iowa	110.0	110.2	109.8	110.0
34	Iowa State	108.9	109.4	109.9	109.4
35	Texas A&M	109.5	107.2	108.8	108.5
36	Mississippi St.	107.9	108.5	108.1	108.2
37	S. Carolina	108.1	107.1	107.2	107.5
38	Utah	106.7	108.3	106.9	107.3
39	Colorado	108.6	107.0	106.3	107.3
40	Duke	108.0	106.9	106.8	107.2
41	Wake Forest	107.7	106.3	107.5	107.1
42	Oregon	107.8	105.4	106.7	106.6
43	Texas Tech	106.6	106.3	105.9	106.3
44	Colo. State	106.1	104.9	106.2	105.7
45	Indiana	105.1	105.0	105.7	105.3
46	Virginia	105.3	104.6	105.8	105.3
47	Arizona St.	105.3	104.3	105.0	104.9
48	Minnesota	104.7	105.5	104.1	104.8
49	U C L A	105.0	104.5	104.2	104.6
50	California	105.8	103.4	104.1	104.4
51	Michigan St.	103.6	105.4	104.3	104.4
52	Ole Miss	105.5	103.9	103.8	104.4
53	Arizona	104.9	103.7	103.8	104.1
54	Memphis	104.3	103.7	104.5	104.1
55	Purdue	103.9	103.7	104.5	104.0
56	Pittsburgh	103.7	104.0	103.0	103.6
57	Boise St.	103.9	102.2	103.8	103.3
58	Tennessee	104.3	102.7	102.3	103.1
59	Arkansas	103.2	102.5	102.5	102.8
60	N. Carolina	103.4	102.6	102.2	102.7
61	Boston College	102.0	102.0	101.9	102.0
62	Vanderbilt	102.3	101.5	101.0	101.6
63	Houston	101.7	101.2	101.6	101.5
64	Maryland	101.0	102.7	100.8	101.5
65	Navy	101.2	101.9	101.3	101.4
66	San Diego St.	101.0	101.1	101.9	101.3
67	Nebraska	100.5	101.6	99.4	100.5
68	Toledo	99.4	99.4	100.6	99.8
69	Baylor	98.9	100.7	98.8	99.5
70	Western Michigan	99.4	98.2	100.5	99.4
71	SMU	98.5	98.7	98.9	98.7
72	Army	98.1	98.1	98.7	98.3
73	Tulsa	98.4	98.2	98.1	98.2
74	Appalachian St.	98.1	96.2	98.2	97.5
75	Eastern Michigan	95.7	95.2	95.9	95.6
76	Missouri	96.6	94.3	95.5	95.5
77	Tulane	95.2	95.4	95.7	95.4
78	Wyoming	95.6	94.3	94.4	94.7
79	Rutgers	94.7	94.8	94.1	94.5
80	Fresno St.	94.5	93.1	95.2	94.3
81	U T S A	92.9	94.9	94.4	94.0
82	Troy	93.3	93.6	92.6	93.2
83	W. Kentucky	92.6	92.1	93.7	92.8
84	Florida Atlantic	91.4	94.1	92.7	92.7
85	Oregon St.	93.0	92.7	91.6	92.4
86	Marshall	91.3	92.7	93.1	92.4
87	Air Force	92.1	92.7	92.3	92.4
88	Temple	92.2	92.8	92.1	92.4
89	BYU	92.1	91.7	91.7	91.8
90	Arkansas St.	90.8	92.1	92.3	91.7
91	Utah St.	92.2	91.3	91.7	91.7
92	Ohio U	90.9	92.3	91.6	91.6
93	New Mexico	91.1	90.9	91.7	91.2
94	Northern Illinois	90.6	90.4	91.3	90.7
95	Miami (O)	89.6	91.6	90.8	90.7
96	Louisiana Tech	88.7	90.3	89.6	89.6
97	Central Michigan	88.9	89.7	89.4	89.3
98	Akron	88.0	90.5	88.7	89.1
99	N. Mexico St.	88.5	86.5	88.8	87.9
100	Illinois	87.9	89.4	86.4	87.9
101	Cincinnati	86.7	88.9	87.9	87.8
102	Southern Miss.	87.1	88.4	87.5	87.6
103	Middle Tennessee	87.0	88.0	87.6	87.5
104	Nevada	86.3	88.3	87.9	87.5
105	S. Alabama	86.5	89.0	86.8	87.4
106	U N L V	86.6	88.8	86.8	87.4
107	Buffalo	85.4	87.7	87.6	86.9
108	N. Texas	85.7	87.1	86.3	86.4
109	Hawaii	86.0	87.0	85.8	86.3
110	Georgia St.	85.8	85.2	85.8	85.6
111	UL-Lafayette	84.9	86.3	84.9	85.4
112	Massachusetts	85.6	84.9	85.5	85.3
113	Connecticut	84.1	86.7	84.2	85.0
114	Idaho	83.2	84.9	84.0	84.0
115	Florida Int’l.	83.5	83.8	84.3	83.9
116	Old Dominion	82.3	85.0	82.3	83.2
117	Bowling Green	82.6	83.5	83.3	83.1
118	Kansas	81.2	84.4	80.2	82.0
119	UL-Monroe	81.0	81.7	80.0	80.9
120	East Carolina	79.6	81.5	79.2	80.1
121	Kent St.	79.2	80.7	79.6	79.8
122	Georgia Southern	77.5	79.1	77.1	77.9
123	San Jose St.	76.7	76.8	76.0	76.5
124	Rice	75.1	76.2	75.2	75.5
125	Ball St.	74.0	76.2	75.2	75.1
126	UAB	72.4	75.8	74.5	74.2
127	Charlotte	72.1	74.3	72.3	72.9
128	U T E P	71.8	74.8	72.0	72.9
129	Texas St.	70.4	72.8	69.2	70.8
130	Coastal Carolina	69.8	71.2	71.1	70.7

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Central Florida	3-0	5-0	112.9	114.3	114.3	113.9
South Florida	3-0	6-0	112.3	111.0	113.5	112.3
Temple	1-3	3-4	92.2	92.8	92.1	92.4
Cincinnati	0-3	2-5	86.7	88.9	87.9	87.8
Connecticut	1-3	2-4	84.1	86.7	84.2	85.0
East Carolina	1-3	1-6	79.6	81.5	79.2	80.1
West Division
Team	AAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	2-1	5-1	104.3	103.7	104.5	104.1
Houston	2-1	4-2	101.7	101.2	101.6	101.5
Navy	3-1	5-1	101.2	101.9	101.3	101.4
SMU	1-1	4-2	98.5	98.7	98.9	98.7
Tulsa	1-2	2-5	98.4	98.2	98.1	98.2
Tulane	1-1	3-3	95.2	95.4	95.7	95.4
AAC Averages			97.3	97.8	97.6	97.6
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	4-1	6-1	127.2	124.6	126.7	126.2
Florida St.	2-2	2-3	122.8	121.4	121.6	122.0
N. Carolina St.	4-0	6-1	118.1	117.4	118.2	117.9
Louisville	1-3	4-3	111.9	111.1	111.6	111.5
Syracuse	2-1	4-3	111.1	109.5	110.4	110.3
Wake Forest	1-2	4-2	107.7	106.3	107.5	107.1
Boston College	1-3	3-4	102.0	102.0	101.9	102.0
Coastal Division
Team	ACC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	3-0	5-0	121.9	119.8	121.3	121.0
Virginia Tech	1-1	5-1	118.9	118.3	119.2	118.8
Georgia Tech	2-1	3-2	116.4	113.9	115.0	115.1
Duke	1-3	4-3	108.0	106.9	106.8	107.2
Virginia	2-0	5-1	105.3	104.6	105.8	105.3
Pittsburgh	0-3	2-5	103.7	104.0	103.0	103.6
N. Carolina	0-4	1-6	103.4	102.6	102.2	102.7
ACC Averages			112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
Big 12 Conference
Team	B12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma St.	2-1	5-1	124.7	123.4	125.7	124.6
Oklahoma	2-1	5-1	121.9	120.8	122.3	121.7
T C U	3-0	6-0	120.8	118.4	121.3	120.1
Texas	2-1	3-3	113.7	114.3	114.2	114.1
Kansas St.	1-2	3-3	112.3	112.2	112.2	112.2
West Virginia	2-1	4-2	110.2	110.7	110.5	110.5
Iowa State	2-1	4-2	108.9	109.4	109.9	109.4
Texas Tech	1-2	4-2	106.6	106.3	105.9	106.3
Baylor	0-3	0-6	98.9	100.7	98.8	99.5
Kansas	0-3	1-5	81.2	84.4	80.2	82.0
Big 12 Averages			109.9	110.1	110.1	110.0
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	4-0	6-1	135.6	133.0	135.5	134.7
Penn St.	3-0	6-0	128.7	126.6	129.6	128.3
Michigan	2-1	5-1	114.0	114.2	113.2	113.8
Indiana	0-3	3-3	105.1	105.0	105.7	105.3
Michigan St.	3-0	5-1	103.6	105.4	104.3	104.4
Maryland	1-2	3-3	101.0	102.7	100.8	101.5
Rutgers	1-2	2-4	94.7	94.8	94.1	94.5
West Division
Team	BTen	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	3-0	6-0	121.9	118.5	120.5	120.3
Northwestern	1-2	3-3	111.3	109.6	111.4	110.8
Iowa	1-2	4-2	110.0	110.2	109.8	110.0
Minnesota	0-3	3-3	104.7	105.5	104.1	104.8
Purdue	1-2	3-3	103.9	103.7	104.5	104.0
Nebraska	2-2	3-4	100.5	101.6	99.4	100.5
Illinois	0-3	2-4	87.9	89.4	86.4	87.9
Big Ten Averages			108.8	108.6	108.5	108.6
Conference USA
East Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
W. Kentucky	2-1	4-2	92.6	92.1	93.7	92.8
Florida Atlantic	2-0	3-3	91.4	94.1	92.7	92.7
Marshall	2-0	5-1	91.3	92.7	93.1	92.4
Middle Tennessee	1-2	3-4	87.0	88.0	87.6	87.5
Florida Int’l.	2-1	4-2	83.5	83.8	84.3	83.9
Old Dominion	0-2	2-4	82.3	85.0	82.3	83.2
Charlotte	0-3	0-7	72.1	74.3	72.3	72.9
West Division
Team	CUSA	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U T S A	0-2	3-2	92.9	94.9	94.4	94.0
Louisiana Tech	1-1	3-3	88.7	90.3	89.6	89.6
Southern Miss.	2-1	4-2	87.1	88.4	87.5	87.6
N. Texas	3-0	4-2	85.7	87.1	86.3	86.4
Rice	1-1	1-5	75.1	76.2	75.2	75.5
U T E P	0-3	0-7	71.8	74.8	72.0	72.9
UAB	2-1	4-2	72.4	75.8	74.5	74.2
CUSA Averages			83.9	85.5	84.7	84.7
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		5-1	117.9	116.5	118.6	117.6
Army		5-2	98.1	98.1	98.7	98.3
BYU		1-6	92.1	91.7	91.7	91.8
Massachusetts		0-6	85.6	84.9	85.5	85.3
Indep. Averages			98.4	97.8	98.6	98.3
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio U	2-1	5-2	92.0	93.3	92.8	92.7
Miami (O)	1-2	2-5	88.2	90.3	89.3	89.3
Akron	3-0	4-3	88.0	90.5	88.7	89.1
Buffalo	1-2	3-4	85.4	87.7	87.6	86.9
Bowling Green	1-2	1-6	81.5	82.5	82.1	82.0
Kent St.	1-2	2-5	80.3	81.7	80.8	80.9
West Division
Team	MAC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	2-0	5-1	100.6	100.5	101.9	101.0
Western Michigan	2-1	4-3	99.4	98.2	100.5	99.4
Eastern Michigan	0-2	2-4	95.9	95.5	96.3	95.9
Northern Illinois	2-0	4-2	90.9	90.7	91.6	91.0
Central Michigan	1-2	3-4	87.7	88.6	88.1	88.1
Ball St.	0-2	2-4	74.2	76.4	75.4	75.3
MAC Averages			88.7	89.7	89.6	89.3
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Colo. State	3-0	5-2	106.1	104.9	106.2	105.7
Boise St.	2-0	4-2	103.9	102.2	103.8	103.3
Wyoming	2-0	4-2	95.6	94.3	94.4	94.7
Air Force	1-2	2-4	92.1	92.7	92.3	92.4
Utah St.	1-2	3-4	92.2	91.3	91.7	91.7
New Mexico	1-2	3-3	91.1	90.9	91.7	91.2
West Division
Team	MWC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	2-1	6-1	101.0	101.1	101.9	101.3
Fresno St.	3-0	4-2	94.5	93.1	95.2	94.3
Nevada	1-2	1-6	86.3	88.3	87.9	87.5
U N L V	1-2	2-4	86.6	88.8	86.8	87.4
Hawaii	1-3	3-4	86.0	87.0	85.8	86.3
San Jose St.	0-4	1-7	76.7	76.8	76.0	76.5
MWC Averages			92.7	92.6	92.8	92.7
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	3-1	6-1	127.0	124.3	127.4	126.2
Stanford	4-1	5-2	120.9	119.5	120.3	120.2
Washington St.	3-1	6-1	116.3	113.8	115.9	115.3
Oregon	1-3	4-3	107.8	105.4	106.7	106.6
California	1-3	4-3	105.8	103.4	104.1	104.4
Oregon St.	0-4	1-6	93.0	92.7	91.6	92.4
South Division
Team	P12	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U S C	4-1	6-1	119.1	118.4	118.9	118.8
Utah	1-2	4-2	106.7	108.3	106.9	107.3
Colorado	1-3	4-3	108.6	107.0	106.3	107.3
Arizona St.	2-1	3-3	105.3	104.3	105.0	104.9
U C L A	1-2	3-3	105.0	104.5	104.2	104.6
Arizona	2-1	4-2	104.9	103.7	103.8	104.1
Pac-12 Averages			110.0	108.8	109.3	109.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	4-0	7-0	125.5	125.9	125.9	125.8
Florida	3-2	3-3	113.8	112.9	113.0	113.2
Kentucky	2-1	5-1	111.2	110.0	110.5	110.6
S. Carolina	3-2	5-2	108.1	107.1	107.2	107.5
Tennessee	0-3	3-3	104.3	102.7	102.3	103.1
Vanderbilt	0-4	3-4	102.3	101.5	101.0	101.6
Missouri	0-4	1-5	96.6	94.3	95.5	95.5
West Division
Team	SEC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	4-0	7-0	138.7	134.4	137.5	136.9
Auburn	3-1	5-2	124.7	122.7	124.7	124.0
L S U	2-1	5-2	114.8	113.0	115.4	114.4
Texas A&M	3-1	5-2	109.5	107.2	108.8	108.5
Mississippi St.	1-2	4-2	107.9	108.5	108.1	108.2
Ole Miss	1-2	3-3	105.5	103.9	103.8	104.4
Arkansas	0-3	2-4	103.2	102.5	102.5	102.8
SEC Averages			111.9	110.5	111.2	111.2
Sunbelt Conference
Team	SBC	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	3-0	4-2	98.1	96.2	98.2	97.5
Troy	1-1	4-2	93.3	93.6	92.6	93.2
Arkansas St.	2-0	3-2	90.8	92.1	92.3	91.7
N. Mexico St.	1-2	3-4	88.5	86.5	88.8	87.9
S. Alabama	1-1	2-4	86.5	89.0	86.8	87.4
Georgia St.	2-0	3-2	85.8	85.2	85.8	85.6
UL-Lafayette	2-1	3-3	84.9	86.3	84.9	85.4
Idaho	1-2	2-4	83.2	84.9	84.0	84.0
UL-Monroe	3-1	3-3	81.0	81.7	80.0	80.9
Georgia Southern	0-2	0-5	77.5	79.1	77.1	77.9
Texas St.	0-3	1-6	70.4	72.8	69.2	70.8
Coastal Carolina	0-3	1-5	69.8	71.2	71.1	70.7
Sun Belt Averages			84.2	84.9	84.2	84.4

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	ACC	112.8	111.6	112.2	112.2
2	SEC	111.9	110.5	111.2	111.2
3	BIG 12	109.9	110.1	110.1	110.0
4	PAC-12	110.0	108.8	109.3	109.4
5	BIG TEN	108.8	108.6	108.5	108.6
6	INDEP.	98.4	97.8	98.6	98.3
7	AAC	97.3	97.8	97.6	97.6
8	MWC	92.7	92.6	92.8	92.7
9	MAC	88.6	89.6	89.5	89.3
10	CUSA	83.9	85.5	84.7	84.7
11	Sun Belt	84.2	84.9	84.2	84.4

Bowl Projections

You probably see bowl projections from many sites, and from what we have learned, many of them just throw teams into the slots based on how they think in their head without really looking at the remaining schedules and then plotting how the committees will allot teams.

The PiRates project the won-loss records of all 130 teams every week, and then look at the bowls as the committees and leagues would look at them.  Thus, ours are always going to be a bit unique and will not follow in lockstep with the big sites where they really do not have a lot of time to devote to this task.  This feature actually takes up more time than anything else we do other than our college basketball March Madness submissions.

Thus, rather than just state the bowl projections this week, how about we explain our selections.  Also, we apologize for all the abbreviations, but apparently many of you that use your phone to access our site cannot read this feature unless we do so.  Tabular data can be difficult at times to display in an aesthetically brilliant manner.

American Athletic Conference

Central Florida and South Florida could be heading to an incredible final regular season game, where the winner not only takes the East Division title, but they enter AAC Championship play undefeated as the odds-on favorite to snag the New Year’s 6 Bowl invitation.  If by some strange possibility that there are less than three one-loss or undefeated Power 5 conference teams, then an undefeated UCF or USF might have an outside shot at making the playoffs.

In the West, Houston, Memphis, and Navy look to vie for the division flag, with SMU also an outside possibility.  We like the Cougars to cop that flag, mostly because they host Memphis this week and should bounce back with their best game of the month.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 6

Result: With the AAC Champion predicted to make the NY6 bowl, this league needs 8 bowl eligible teams to fill its contracts, so having just 6 bowl eligible teams will open up two bowls (Birmingham & Gasparilla) to at-large entries.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Clemson’s loss to Syracuse doesn’t end the Tigers’ shot at defending their national title, as this loss was about on par with last year’s loss to Pittsburgh.  However, in order to get there, CU must win out, and that includes having to beat NC State in Raleigh and then the Coastal Division champion in the ACC Championship Game.  At this point, our belief is that it will not happen for the Tigers this season.

Miami has survived close games against Florida State and Georgia Tech the last two weeks.  The Hurricanes have to fend off Virginia Tech and the up and coming Virginia Cavaliers, and we think Mark Richt’s team will be able to make it to the ACC Championship Game.

For the time being, our belief is that North Carolina State will hold off Clemson and then take out Miami to win the ACC Championship, but we also believe the Wolf Pack will lose one conference game, leaving them with a record of 11-2, which will keep them out of the playoffs.

Notre Dame figures in the ACC Bowl Tie-ins, as the Irish can trump any ACC team that has just one more victory than they do.  In other words, if Virginia goes 10-2, and Notre Dame goes 9-3, the Irish can jump over the Cavs in the bowl pecking order.

As of today, we have Notre Dame pegged for a 10-2 finish, which will not give them a good enough slate to make the playoffs, but it will put them in the NY6 Bowl group.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 11 (which includes Notre Dame)

Result: Under this scenario, NC State would earn the Orange Bowl bid as the ACC Champion.  Notre Dame and one other team (Miami is our choice this week) would receive NY6 Bowls, while Clemson would fall to the Citrus Bowl.  Under this scenario, the ACC-Notre Dame alliance would actually need 12 bowl eligible teams, while they would have just 11 bowl eligible teams.  This would open up the Quick Lane Bowl for an at-large team.

Big 12

This is going to be highly ironic for this league.  The Big 12 kept losing out in the playoff picture due to a lack of having a conference championship game like the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC.  This year, there will be a Big 12 Championship Game, but unlike the others, it will pit the number one versus the number two team in the standings.  Since the Big 12 teams all play each other, it guarantees a rematch for the title game.  There is just enough parity in this league this year that the number one team can sweep the number two team or vice versa.  Thus, the conference championship game could be the one factor that keeps the Big 12 out of the playoffs.  Yes, ironic indeed.

TCU is the lone unbeaten left in the league, but the Horned Frogs would have to win at Oklahoma and then beat one of the Oklahoma teams a second time in order to make the playoffs.  There are scenarios were TCU could lose to Oklahoma in the regular season and then win the Big 12 Championship Game and squeak into the playoffs, but for now, we believe there might be another scenario.  We currently project Oklahoma State to win out, including beating Oklahoma and then taking TCU in the rematch for the conference title.  At 12-1, we show Oklahoma State to be the #4 team entering the playoffs.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 7

Result: With Oklahoma State going to the Playoffs, and with the possibility that both Oklahoma and TCU could have two losses at the end of the season, we project no other conference team to receive a bid to a NY6 bowl.  With 7 projected bowl eligible teams, the league would have exactly the number needed to furnish its bowl obligations.

We came up with 7 bowl eligible teams, because we believe that two teams from among Iowa State, Kansas State, and Texas Tech will get to 6 wins, while one finishes 5-7.  For now, we believe there will be exactly 78 bowl eligible teams to fill the 78 slots, so no 5-7 teams will be needed to fill spots.

Big Ten

This is perhaps the most interesting league this year.  Ohio State lost early at home to Oklahoma, and the Buckeyes were dismissed as a potential title-contender.  Remember that Ohio State lost to Virginia Tech the year they won the national championship in the very first playoff season.  Since losing at home to the Sooners, Urban Meyer’s team has done exactly what his Florida team did in 2008 after losing at home to Ole Miss.

Penn State is the darling team in this league at the present time, and the Nittany Lions should handle Michigan this week.  However, James Franklin’s squad has road dates against Michigan State and Ohio State lurking.  We believe Penn State can win in East Lansing, but Ohio State will be almost impossible to beat in Columbus.  The Buckeyes have been looking forward to getting revenge over last year’s upset loss in Happy Valley, and we believe Ohio State will win convincingly and then run the table.

The end of that table could be the demise of an undefeated season for Wisconsin, much like Iowa falling to Penn State in last year’s Big Ten Championship Game.  If this happens, then both Penn State and Wisconsin will be one loss teams that both lost to a playoff team.  That, along with the huge fan bases, would be enough to propel both one-loss teams into NY6 bowls.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 9

Result: Putting Ohio State into the playoffs, and both Penn State and Wisconsin into NY6 bowls, the Big Ten would need 10 bowl eligible teams, while we project just 9 to make it.  Thus, the Armed Forces Bowl would need to find an at-large replacement.

Conference USA

Up to now, you have seen multiple bowls that will need at-large replacements for conferences that will not supply enough bowl-eligible teams, yet you have not seen us list a league with extra teams available.  CUSA is going to strike it rich this year, as this league should have quite an excess of bowl eligible teams after fulfilling the allotted contracts.

There is no overwhelming favorite in the league, even at the halfway point of the season.  Because of this, CUSA should produce double digit teams with at least 6 wins.

In the East, Western Kentucky is nothing like the 2016 Hilltopper team.  They are just starting to play good football, but it may be too late to win the division.  Middle Tennessee’s chances to win the division ended when star quarterback Brent Stockstill went down with an injury.  If he returns in time, the Blue Raiders can still salvage a 6-6 season.  Florida Atlantic and Florida International have shots at taking the division title, and both should become bowl eligible.

The team that the PiRates believe will win the East is Marshall.  Coach Doc Holliday is hands-down the best recruiter in the division and probably about equal with UTSA’s Frank Wilson for tops in the league.  Holliday could be on the radar of bigger schools if the Mountaineers take the conference title this year.

The West race is just as interesting.  North Texas and Louisiana Tech are the top two contenders, and the two teams play in Ruston on November 4.  We give LT the edge due to the home field advantage.

We have to mention possibly the most incredible feat of all, one that is going virtually unnoticed outside of the league.  UAB, a team that did not play for the past two years, returned to FBS football.  This was akin to SMU’s death penalty.  Nobody expected the Blazers to compete for bowl eligibility in their return to college football, with a 3-9 season considered the ceiling.  UAB not only figures to become bowl eligible, they are still in contention for the West Division title.  Coach Bill Clark needs to receive some National Coach of the Year votes for doing the almost impossible.  This is like a pro sports team expansion franchise making the playoffs in their first season.  Did you hear that Las Vegas Golden Knights fans?

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 10

Result: With no real shot at the NY6 bowl, CUSA will have to make do with its six bowl tie-ins.  However, we show 10 bowl eligible teams.  And, thanks to the fact that we show more than four bowl bids up for grabs that will need at-large teams, we believe all 10 bowl eligible teams will find spots.  It is also very possible that two CUSA teams will have to face each other in a bowl game.

Independents

With Notre Dame included in the ACC bowl picture, this really only leaves Army in this discussion, since BYU and UMass will finish on the wrong side of .500.  This is rather cut and dry.  Army needs a 6-6 record to automatically earn a bid to the Armed Forces Bowl, one of the bowls that will most likely need to find an at-large opponent, most likely from CUSA.

Mid-American Conference

There is still a chance for Toledo to ascend to the top of the Group of 5 hierarchy and earn a NY6 bowl bid.  The Rockets only loss was at undefeated Miami of Florida, and should Jason Candles’ team win out, and USF and UCF both lose, then Toledo could sneak in at the end and grab a Peach Bowl spot.  If this happens, the MAC will still have enough bowl eligible teams left to satisfy its bowl obligations, but the more likely scenario is that Toledo will have to settle for a regular MAC bowl, and the league will have one extra team ready to grab an at-large bid.  The MAC has a secondary bowl agreement with the Quick Lane Bowl, and we project this bowl to need an at-large entry, so everything should work out for the MAC to get six bowl bids instead of 5.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 6

Result: Either Buffalo or Central Michigan figures to get to 6-6, and whichever team does will be rewarded with a trip to Detroit during the holidays.

Mountain West Conference

Boise State picked a fine time to look like the Broncos teams of 2006  and 2009.  Their pasting of San Diego State put this league behind the AAC and possibly the MAC in the race for the one NY6 Bowl for Group of 5 leagues.  Boise State has two losses, both to current one-loss teams, and that might be enough to limit the league to its regular five bids.

Because the West Division figures to have just two bowl eligible teams (San Diego State and Fresno State), the Mountain Division will need to supply three bowl eligible teams from among the parity in the division.  At this time, Air Force, Utah State and New Mexico have tough roads to get to 6-6, but Colorado State and Wyoming should join Boise State with enough wins.  In fact, this is still a three-team race for the division flag, and at the moment, we project Wyoming to win.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 5

Result: It will be interesting to see how the league will send its teams to the bowls this year, especially if Boise State and San Diego State both miss out on the title.  While the New Mexico and Hawaii Bowls are just fine with always inviting the home team, the Idaho Potato Bowl has been wont to invite somebody other than the Broncos to the field of blue.  We do not project New Mexico or Hawaii to become bowl eligible, so it should be quite interesting indeed to see where each league team goes after the champion gets the automatic bid to the Las Vegas Bowl.

Pac-12 Conference

This league took the biggest hit of all this past weekend when Washington and Washington State bowed out of the playoff race.  USC might still hold a slim chance of making it into the playoffs by winning out, which would include victories over Notre Dame in South Bend, Arizona State in Tempe, and Colorado in Boulder, plus the Conference Championship Game, but we do not forecast the Trojans to win out or even win the Pac-12 Championship.

With the recent turn of events, it could be that Stanford now holds the key to the Pac-12 bowl scramble.  The Cardinal lost at USC and at San Diego State, but since then, David Shaw’s squad looks the most complete.  With a home finale against Notre Dame, the possible Pac-12 champion could be 10-3, but even at 11-2, we do not see a way that Stanford (or any other Pac-12 team could get in the playoff).

The two Arizona schools had coaches on very hot seats before this past weekend, but Arizona State’s smashing of Washington, and Arizona’s trouncing of UCLA most likely gave Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez stays of execution if not outright commutations.

UCLA looks like the team hurting the most, and for Jim Mora, Jr., the bell might soon toll for him.  Chip Kelly might be the right person for this job.  Forget the eastern schools with openings; if UCLA offers him this job, Kelly will take it before he takes jobs like Ole Miss, Tennessee, Nebraska, or possibly Auburn if there is a move there.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 9

Result: It is our belief that with no playoff teams, the league will get two teams in the NY6 bowl block.  The champion will get an automatic berth, and we believe that if Stanford wins out in the league, then either USC or Washington will get a bid to the Fiesta or Cotton Bowl.

For now, we have both UCLA and Colorado just missing out on bowl eligibility, while we move California and the two Arizona teams into bowl eligibility.  There will be one extra team available to take an at-large bowl bid back in the east.  Arizona, you look like the perfect team to spend the holiday season in some rural Southern town.

Southeastern Conference 

There will be a mini-crisis or two coming forth from the SEC race this season.  First, and most obvious, it looks like there is more than a decent chance that both Alabama and Georgia could run the table and square off in the SEC Championship games sporting identical 12-0 records, with Alabama number one and Georgia number two.  We then expect a close game with the loser remaining in the top four, thus giving the SEC two teams in the playoffs.  Since the playoffs began, this has not happened.

The other mini-crisis involves the fact that this league now looks to be short in its bowl eligibility needs.  Missouri and Arkansas are headed to losing records, which will open at least one coaching job if not two.  Ole Miss is ineligible for bowl consideration, and both Tennessee and Vanderbilt appear to be headed to a season finale where both teams could be 5-6, so the loser will be out of the bowl picture.  Throw in the distinct possibility now that Florida could very well fall to 5-6 (had a game cancelled due to Hurricane Irma) and also miss out on a bowl.  That brings the number of bowl-ineligible SEC teams to  five, leaving 9 bowl-eligible teams.

Total Bowl Eligibles Predicted: 9

Result: Start with two teams making the playoffs.  This will mean that the Orange Bowl will choose to go elsewhere with their opponent to the ACC champion.  It will leave two bowls without an SEC representative, the Birmingham and the Independence.  Unfortunately for the Birmingham Bowl, it looks like it might need two at-large teams to face off at Legion Field on December 23.

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are our four parlays for the week.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

2016 Big 12 Conference Football Preview

The Big 12 has been teetering on the brink of unplanned obsolescence for the last couple of years. As the only Power 5 Conference without a postseason Conference Championship Game, the league powers have been a little paranoid that other predators from the West Coast, the Deep South, and the Upper Midwest, might pillage them and leave them without a job. The Pac-12 is anxious to change its name to the Pac-16. The SEC and Big Ten realize that it is easier to work with 16 rather than 14 teams. The ACC has 15 in all sports except football, but even in football, Notre Dame plays basically five conference games per year.

What does a league do with just 10 members? It cannot play a conference title game until it has 12. Obviously, the league must expand by two to six teams, or else, their members will be searching for greener futures and high payouts.

In the meantime, the Big 12 continues to provide some of the most exciting football on the planet. The quasi-renegade league provides the alternative to the SEC’s and Big Ten’s blood and guts play, just like the old American Football League of the 1960’s sold itself as the more entertaining league to the NFL. The AFL had all the razzle dazzle stars like Joe Namath, Len Dawson, Daryle Lamonica, John Hadl, Cookie Gilchrist, Lance Alworth, and others, while the NFL was all about bruising fullbacks running between the tackles and halfbacks running power sweeps behind pulling guards.

The Big 12 is the pass-happy league with wide open offenses, blitzing and gambling defenses, and no game secure even if a team has scored over 50 points. Who can forget the day in 2014 when undefeated TCU led undefeated Baylor by 18 points in the fourth quarter and lost 61-58? You could have watched Alabama beat Arkansas 14-13 that day. Michigan beat Penn State 18-13.

2016 promises to be an interesting season in the Southwest. Oklahoma represented the league in the NCAA Playoffs, after two 11-1 teams failed to earn a spot the year before. The Sooners quickly bowed out in a semifinal loss to Clemson, but OU is loaded this season and in contention for the top overall spot.

The Sooners will not receive a free pass to the playoffs this year. Their schedule is tricky with a pre-conference matchups with Houston at NRG Stadium to start the season and Ohio State on September 17. Then following a bye week, OU has a road game with TCU, and the annual Red River Shootout with Texas the following Saturday. If Coach Bob Stoops can guide his squad to a 5-0 start, a 7-0 finish is very likely.

A group of four teams figure to be the main challengers to the Sooners, or in a probable case, a quartet fighting for a Sugar Bowl berth as the league runnerup. Oklahoma State, TCU, and Baylor figure to be on most pundits’ lists, but the PiRates believe that Coach Charlie Strong will bring the Texas Longhorns back to near the top of the standings this year and even give Oklahoma a run for its money. If he doesn’t, the UT alumni may be advertising for a new coach in 2017.

For the Longhorns, the season kicks off with a Sunday tilt at home against Notre Dame, and a win in the opener could give the burnt orange a shot in the arm. A road game against Oklahoma State precedes the fight with the Sooners at the Texas State Fair the following week, and pulling off back-to-back wins over their rivals to the north is most unlikely. Thus, we believe that Texas can win 10 games and vie for the Sugar Bowl bid, but they cannot win 11 or 12 and contend for a playoff spot.

TCU begins the season ranked ahead of Texas in our ratings and actually within shouting distance of Oklahoma, but the Horned Frogs have to rebuild on offense due to heavy losses, including their star quarterback, running back, and wideout. The defense is still solid, but they may be on the field for too many plays in crucial games. Road games at Baylor and Texas could eliminate any gain made by possibly upsetting Oklahoma ar Amon G. Carter Stadium.

Oklahoma State is flying a little under the radar to begin the season. The Cowboys were 10-0 last year, before losing to Baylor, Oklahoma, and Ole Miss to end the year at 10-3. Their offense could top 42 points per game this year with experience and depth returning, while the defense should be on par with last year’s defense. OSU wins games by outscoring opponents, so scores like 45-31 are frequent happenings, and this team can win double digit games again while giving up 30+ points per game.

Baylor faced a minor rebuilding project heading into this season, but off the field events have wounded the Bears enough to where second half of the season depth issues could cause a minor fold. We do not expect BU to contend for the Big 12 crown, and we would not be shocked if the losses began to mount beginning with a trip to Austin on October 29.

Kansas State, West Virginia, and Texas Tech represent the next wave. In most years, KSU plays one of the softest non-conference slates, guaranteeing themselves of three wins before taking the field, and thus needing just a 3-6 conference mark to earn a bowl bid. However, the Wildcats will begin the season 0-1 with a Friday night game at the Farm against Stanford. The likely 3-6 conference record will leave the guys from the Little Apple home for the holidays.

Texas Tech faces a similar situation. The Red Raiders are looking at 3-6 or even 2-7 in league play, as they must play Kansas State and Iowa State on the road. Playing at Arizona State in September could prevent TTU from going bowling as well.

West Virginia may actually be a tad weaker than the previous two teams, but the Mountaineers have the favorable schedule that could give them the three wins they need to pair with a 3-6 conference mark and finish 6-6.

Iowa State is not ready to compete for bowl eligibility this year, but the Cyclones are moving upwards slowly. They could even sneak into a tie for 7th if the ball bounces their way, but they should win more than one conference game this year.

Kansas still has basketball season to await. The Jayhawks are likely destined for yet another last place finish, but this year KU should at least win a game after finishing 0-12 in 2015. The season opener with Rhode Island is the only for sure winnable game, but the Jayhawks might be confident enough to pull off the mild upset over Ohio the following week. It looks like another 0-9 league mark for the Jayhawks, but then by the time they host Texas on November 19, all will be okay with the Rock Chalkers at Allen Fieldhouse.

Here is how the Big 12 Media predicted the 2016 order of finish.

2016 Big 12 Conference Media Poll
#	Team	1st Pl.	Total
1	Oklahoma	24	258
2	TCU	2	222
3	Oklahoma St.	0	202
4	Baylor	0	156
5	Texas	0	151
6	Texas Tech	0	141
7	West Virginia	0	126
8	Kansas St.	0	88
9	Iowa St.	0	59
10	Kansas	0	27

Here are the initial 2016 PiRate Ratings for the league.

Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	125.6	122.1	125.6	124.4
Oklahoma St.	117.5	118.8	117.5	117.9
Texas	114.4	118.0	114.4	115.6
TCU	113.3	115.6	113.2	114.0
Baylor	109.4	109.7	110.6	109.9
West Virginia	106.6	106.1	106.0	106.2
Kansas St.	103.1	107.5	102.5	104.4
Texas Tech	104.9	102.3	102.7	103.3
Iowa St.	99.8	99.2	98.7	99.2
Kansas	88.3	96.1	85.9	90.1

The PiRate Ratings are meant to be used only to predict the outcomes of the next week of games, and are not best used to predict beyond that point. Because we use algorithms that include automatic adjustments by each team based on depth and experience, two different teams can win by the exact score we predict, and their new ratings might change differently.

Thus, using our ratings to predict won-loss records and bowl projections is a bit comical, but then we all need some laughs every now and then. So, laugh away at our projected standings and bowls, and notice that this league will not provide the needed number to fill all of its obligations, thus benefiting other leagues like the Big Ten and Pac-12, who both may have extra bowl eligible teams this year.

Big 12 Conference Projected Standings
Team	Conference	Overall	Bowl
Oklahoma	9-0	12-0	Playoffs/Fiesta
Oklahoma St.	7-2	10-2	Alamo
Texas	7-2	10-2	Sugar
TCU	6-3	9-3	Russell Athletic
Baylor	6-3	9-3	Texas
West Virginia	3-6	6-6	Liberty
Kansas St.	3-6	5-7
Texas Tech	2-7	4-8
Iowa St.	2-7	4-8
Kansas	0-9	2-10

Coming Monday, August 22: The Pac-12 Conference with wide open races in both divisions.  Is there a surprise team ready to emerge as the new league beast, or is it more of the same old fare?

College Football Preview: November 3-7, 2015

The 5-Star College Football Week of the Season
This is the biggest week of the college football season so far. Many questions will be answered by this time next Sunday. The second issuing of the NCAA Playoff Committee will be much different than the first one that comes out Tuesday, as many of the contending teams face off against other contending teams this week. Additionally, there are key games that will weed out conference championship pretenders from the contenders. And, in multiple cases, there will be games where the winners take a giant step toward bowl eligibity, while the losers drop out of the picture.

This is the great Bonanza for you the fan this week.

Tuesday
Northern Illinois at Toledo: Toledo is still in the race for a New Year’s Six Bowl bid. The Rockets hold wins over Arkansas and Iowa State, and they would need for Memphis and Houston to lose before they would have a shot, but it is still possible. Northern Illinois is still in the MAC West Division race.

Wednesday
Ohio at Bowling Green: The MAC East Division title goes to Bowling Green if the Falcons win this game. If Ohio upsets BGU, the Falcons still have a one-game lead.

Thursday
Arkansas St. at Appalachian St.: The winner will hold first place to themselves in the Sun Belt Conference. Both teams are going bowling this year, and if Appy St. wins out to finish 11-1, that could set up an incredible GoDaddy.com bowl between two 11-win teams.

Saturday
Duke at North Carolina: A week after getting “hosed” by the referees, Duke must now win at its arch-rival to stay in the ACC Coastal Division race. A Tar Heel win basically puts North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game.

Florida St. at Clemson: Another impressive CU win could vault the Tigers into the upper two spots in the Playoff bracket with no remaining teams to play as strong as FSU or Notre Dame, who Clemson would have already beaten. If Florida St. can win at Clemson and then at Florida, and if they could then win the ACC Championship Game, the Seminoles would have a chance at the #4 seed.

Arkansas at Ole Miss: This could be a trap game for the Rebels. With a game coming up against LSU, Ole Miss can ill-afford to lose to Arkansas and fall below the Alabama-LSU winner. If Ole Miss can win, the Rebels stay in control in the SEC West Race.

Iowa at Indiana: The Hawkeyes can only make the Playoffs if they win out and then beat either Ohio St. or Michigan St. in the Big Ten Championship Game. Indiana was once 4-0, but they have dropped four straight games. The Hoosiers must come up with two wins in their last four games, and besides this game, they face Michigan and Maryland and Purdue on the road. Kevin Wilson’s job could be on the line.

TCU at Oklahoma St.: The winner should move into the top 4 in the following week’s poll, and Oklahoma State has come out of nowhere to be in this position. The Cowboys host the three other contenders in the league, and at this point, we have to consider them the co-favorite to win the Big 12. The other co-favorite is the team they play Saturday. We believe the winner of this game will emerge as the league champion, but if the league champion loses a game, the destination will most likely be New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl and not the Playoffs.

Cincinnati at Houston: The Cougars can smell that New Year’s 6 Bowl Bid. They have the most advantageous schedule of any of the contending teams for the one guaranteed Group of 5 teams. Cincinnati is out of the NY6 picture, but the Bearcats have an offense capable of matching UH point for point.

Utah St. at New Mexico: Bob Davie has the Lobos close to getting back to a bowl. New Mexico is 4-4 and needs two upsets in their final four games from a group that also includes Boise St., Colorado St., and Air Force. If the Lobos can get an upset in this game, we believe they will get one more. As for Utah St., the Mountain West Mountain Division flag is in their grasp with a previous win over Boise St., but the Aggies must still play at Air Force and cannot afford to slip up here.

Navy at Memphis: Memphis must keep pace with Houston and Toledo in the Group of 5 race. A win here would be considered a quality win, especially if the Tigers can win as convincingly as Notre Dame’s win over the Midshipmen. Navy is basically locked into a Military Bowl bid at this point, but if they beat Memphis and win out, while Houston and Toledo both lose a game ,the Middies could find themselves in the Peach or Fiesta Bowl.

LSU at Alabama: This is the top game of the week. How many times in recent history has this game had national championship repercussions? Can Leonard Fournette keep LSU’s offense moving against a Crimson Tide defense that will force the Tigers to throw the ball or face eight men up front? What about Alabama’s offense? It has been Jekyll and Hyde this year when the Tide has the ball. LSU’s run defense might be up to the task to slow the ‘Bama running game. It should be close and lower than average scoring.

This Week’s Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	128.9	126.7	128.5	128.0
2	Ohio St.	129.0	123.6	129.8	127.5
3	Baylor	128.3	124.8	128.8	127.3
4	TCU	129.5	121.0	130.1	126.9
5	Oklahoma	126.4	122.9	126.6	125.3
6	LSU	124.3	121.5	124.7	123.5
7	Clemson	122.6	123.8	123.3	123.2
8	Stanford	122.5	120.7	122.2	121.8
9	Notre Dame	122.8	119.7	122.8	121.8
10	USC	122.7	119.1	123.1	121.6
11	Florida	121.5	118.3	121.9	120.6
12	Ole Miss	122.7	117.7	120.8	120.4
13	Tennessee	121.4	117.3	121.4	120.0
14	Utah	121.7	116.2	120.9	119.6
15	North Carolina	117.8	118.1	117.7	117.9
16	UCLA	120.3	114.3	118.5	117.7
17	Michigan	118.5	115.4	118.1	117.3
18	Texas A&M	117.8	114.5	116.0	116.1
19	Arkansas	118.0	112.5	117.0	115.8
20	Michigan St.	116.6	113.4	116.3	115.4
21	Mississippi St.	115.8	112.5	116.2	114.8
22	Oklahoma St.	115.2	112.8	115.6	114.5
23	California	116.2	110.9	115.6	114.2
24	Florida St.	114.1	114.8	113.4	114.1
25	Georgia	116.9	109.8	115.5	114.1
26	Arizona St.	116.0	110.8	115.0	113.9
27	Oregon	116.0	109.3	115.3	113.5
28	Houston	110.2	117.0	112.9	113.4
29	Wisconsin	113.2	113.5	112.7	113.1
30	Auburn	113.8	111.2	112.8	112.6
31	Iowa	110.7	112.9	111.3	111.6
32	Georgia Tech	112.7	110.3	111.3	111.4
33	Boise St.	112.4	109.0	112.1	111.2
34	West Virginia	113.2	107.5	112.4	111.0
35	Memphis	110.3	111.2	111.1	110.9
36	Virginia Tech	110.2	109.9	110.0	110.0
37	North Carolina St.	109.8	111.2	108.6	109.9
38	Temple	108.8	110.9	109.5	109.7
39	Washington	110.3	107.7	110.9	109.6
40	Bowling Green	106.2	111.0	109.0	108.7
41	Duke	108.4	108.8	108.9	108.7
42	Missouri	109.0	105.4	108.0	107.5
43	Louisville	106.9	109.3	106.2	107.5
44	Pittsburgh	106.9	107.6	107.5	107.3
45	BYU	107.1	106.3	108.0	107.1
46	Western Kentucky	106.4	106.5	107.7	106.9
47	Penn St.	106.7	107.0	106.7	106.8
48	Nebraska	107.8	106.0	106.6	106.8
49	San Diego St.	104.0	108.4	105.5	106.0
50	Cincinnati	105.0	106.1	106.3	105.8
51	Toledo	104.6	105.6	106.3	105.5
52	South Carolina	107.2	103.7	105.5	105.5
53	Miami	104.1	104.7	105.1	104.6
54	Arizona	106.6	100.9	105.4	104.3
55	Washington St.	105.3	101.4	105.1	103.9
56	Minnesota	104.7	103.0	104.0	103.9
57	Northwestern	103.9	104.0	103.5	103.8
58	Texas Tech	106.8	98.3	106.2	103.8
59	Colorado	105.9	100.7	104.3	103.6
60	Texas	104.7	101.4	104.5	103.5
61	Louisiana Tech	102.8	102.2	103.6	102.9
62	Navy	100.3	103.8	100.9	101.7
63	Kansas St.	105.3	95.2	104.3	101.6
64	Illinois	102.6	100.7	101.4	101.6
65	Kentucky	103.3	99.4	101.8	101.5
66	Virginia	101.7	99.7	101.3	100.9
67	Appalachian St.	99.1	102.3	101.3	100.9
68	Utah St.	100.3	100.8	100.8	100.6
69	Boston College	99.8	103.0	98.4	100.4
70	Western Michigan	99.5	100.2	100.6	100.1
71	Iowa St.	99.9	96.4	100.1	98.8
72	Purdue	99.2	98.5	98.0	98.6
73	Vanderbilt	99.9	95.9	99.7	98.5
74	Air Force	96.8	100.8	96.3	98.0
75	Georgia Southern	95.9	98.7	96.8	97.1
76	Northern Illinois	95.3	99.2	96.0	96.8
77	Wake Forest	95.2	98.5	94.5	96.1
78	Indiana	96.2	96.2	95.5	96.0
79	Marshall	95.5	96.6	95.8	96.0
80	East Carolina	93.4	96.9	94.2	94.8
81	South Florida	92.5	98.4	93.3	94.7
82	Syracuse	93.9	96.6	93.3	94.6
83	Maryland	94.5	92.9	94.0	93.8
84	Rutgers	95.1	92.1	93.6	93.6
85	Central Michigan	90.7	95.0	92.8	92.8
86	Southern Mississippi	91.7	93.8	92.5	92.7
87	Middle Tennessee	93.2	92.0	92.7	92.6
88	San Jose St.	91.3	94.2	91.2	92.2
89	Tulsa	90.1	94.4	91.1	91.9
90	Colorado St.	92.2	90.8	91.0	91.3
91	Florida International	90.1	92.7	90.7	91.2
92	Oregon St.	92.6	89.3	90.8	90.9
93	Connecticut	88.6	93.4	89.5	90.5
94	Nevada	88.8	92.5	88.4	89.9
95	Arkansas St.	89.1	89.9	89.9	89.6
96	Ohio	87.0	91.3	88.6	89.0
97	New Mexico	88.2	89.0	86.9	88.0
98	Tulane	85.4	87.7	84.9	86.0
99	Buffalo	83.2	89.5	85.1	85.9
100	Massachusetts	84.6	87.2	85.4	85.7
101	Akron	83.0	88.9	84.4	85.4
102	UL-Lafayette	83.6	86.7	84.1	84.8
103	SMU	83.6	87.5	83.2	84.8
104	Rice	83.3	86.6	83.5	84.5
105	Hawaii	83.4	85.6	83.1	84.0
106	Ball St.	82.7	85.1	83.6	83.8
107	UNLV	82.6	84.6	83.2	83.5
108	Florida Atlantic	81.8	84.9	82.3	83.0
109	Troy	80.7	82.1	82.2	81.7
110	Texas St.	80.4	83.8	79.9	81.4
111	Fresno St.	80.7	84.4	78.9	81.3
112	Army	77.7	86.7	79.1	81.2
113	Wyoming	80.6	82.8	79.8	81.1
114	UT-San Antonio	79.8	82.3	80.6	80.9
115	Kent St.	79.5	82.0	80.0	80.5
116	Central Florida	79.2	82.2	79.5	80.3
117	UTEP	76.6	79.1	76.2	77.3
118	South Alabama	74.7	80.7	75.6	77.0
119	Georgia St.	76.9	76.7	77.4	77.0
120	Old Dominion	75.3	79.7	74.3	76.4
121	UL-Monroe	76.7	75.6	76.7	76.3
122	Idaho	73.1	78.5	74.4	75.3
123	North Texas	73.2	78.0	73.6	74.9
124	Miami (O)	73.1	77.6	73.5	74.7
125	Eastern Michigan	72.2	78.8	71.7	74.2
126	Kansas	76.6	70.2	74.5	73.8
127	New Mexico St.	68.8	70.3	69.0	69.4
128	Charlotte	68.1	70.1	67.7	68.6

 

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

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Temple	4-0	7-1	108.8	110.9	109.5	109.7
Cincinnati	2-2	5-3	105.0	106.1	106.3	105.8
East Carolina	2-3	4-5	93.4	96.9	94.2	94.8
South Florida	2-2	4-4	92.5	98.4	93.3	94.7
Connecticut	2-3	4-5	88.6	93.4	89.5	90.5
Central Florida	0-5	0-9	79.2	82.2	79.5	80.3
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Houston	4-0	8-0	110.2	117.0	112.9	113.4
Memphis	4-0	8-0	110.3	111.2	111.1	110.9
Navy	4-0	6-1	100.3	103.8	100.9	101.7
Tulsa	1-3	4-4	90.1	94.4	91.1	91.9
Tulane	1-4	2-6	85.4	87.7	84.9	86.0
SMU	0-4	1-7	83.6	87.5	83.2	84.8
AAC Averages			95.6	99.1	96.4	97.0
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	5-0	8-0	122.6	123.8	123.3	123.2
Florida St.	5-1	7-1	114.1	114.8	113.4	114.1
North Carolina St.	1-3	5-3	109.8	111.2	108.6	109.9
Louisville	3-2	4-4	106.9	109.3	106.2	107.5
Boston College	0-6	3-6	99.8	103.0	98.4	100.4
Wake Forest	1-5	3-6	95.2	98.5	94.5	96.1
Syracuse	1-3	3-5	93.9	96.6	93.3	94.6
Coastal Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
North Carolina	4-0	7-1	117.8	118.1	117.7	117.9
Georgia Tech	1-5	3-6	112.7	110.3	111.3	111.4
Virginia Tech	2-3	4-5	110.2	109.9	110.0	110.0
Duke	3-1	6-2	108.4	108.8	108.9	108.7
Pittsburgh	4-1	6-2	106.9	107.6	107.5	107.3
Miami	2-2	5-3	104.1	104.7	105.1	104.6
Virginia	2-2	3-5	101.7	99.7	101.3	100.9
ACC Averages			107.4	108.3	107.1	107.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Baylor	4-0	7-0	128.3	124.8	128.8	127.3
TCU	5-0	8-0	129.5	121.0	130.1	126.9
Oklahoma	4-1	7-1	126.4	122.9	126.6	125.3
Oklahoma St.	5-0	8-0	115.2	112.8	115.6	114.5
West Virginia	0-4	3-4	113.2	107.5	112.4	111.0
Texas Tech	2-4	5-4	106.8	98.3	106.2	103.8
Texas	2-3	3-5	104.7	101.4	104.5	103.5
Kansas St.	0-4	3-4	105.3	95.2	104.3	101.6
Iowa St.	2-3	3-5	99.9	96.4	100.1	98.8
Kansas	0-5	0-8	76.6	70.2	74.5	73.8
Big 12 Averages			110.6	105.1	110.3	108.7
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	4-0	8-0	129.0	123.6	129.8	127.5
Michigan	3-1	6-2	118.5	115.4	118.1	117.3
Michigan St.	4-0	8-0	116.6	113.4	116.3	115.4
Penn St.	4-1	7-2	106.7	107.0	106.7	106.8
Indiana	0-4	4-4	96.2	96.2	95.5	96.0
Maryland	0-4	2-6	94.5	92.9	94.0	93.8
Rutgers	1-4	3-5	95.1	92.1	93.6	93.6
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	4-1	7-2	113.2	113.5	112.7	113.1
Iowa	4-0	8-0	110.7	112.9	111.3	111.6
Nebraska	1-4	3-6	107.8	106.0	106.6	106.8
Minnesota	1-3	4-4	104.7	103.0	104.0	103.9
Northwestern	2-2	6-2	103.9	104.0	103.5	103.8
Illinois	1-3	4-4	102.6	100.7	101.4	101.6
Purdue	1-3	2-6	99.2	98.5	98.0	98.6
Big Ten Averages			107.1	105.7	106.5	106.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Kentucky	5-0	7-2	106.4	106.5	107.7	106.9
Marshall	5-0	8-1	95.5	96.6	95.8	96.0
Middle Tennessee	2-2	3-5	93.2	92.0	92.7	92.6
Florida International	2-3	4-5	90.1	92.7	90.7	91.2
Florida Atlantic	2-3	2-6	81.8	84.9	82.3	83.0
Old Dominion	1-3	3-5	75.3	79.7	74.3	76.4
Charlotte	0-5	2-6	68.1	70.1	67.7	68.6
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana Tech	4-1	6-3	102.8	102.2	103.6	102.9
Southern Mississippi	4-1	6-3	91.7	93.8	92.5	92.7
Rice	2-2	4-4	83.3	86.6	83.5	84.5
UT-San Antonio	1-3	1-7	79.8	82.3	80.6	80.9
UTEP	1-3	3-5	76.6	79.1	76.2	77.3
North Texas	1-4	1-7	73.2	78.0	73.6	74.9
CUSA Averages			86.0	88.0	86.2	86.8
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		7-1	122.8	119.7	122.8	121.8
BYU		6-2	107.1	106.3	108.0	107.1
Army		2-6	77.7	86.7	79.1	81.2
Independents Averages			102.5	104.2	103.3	103.4
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Bowling Green	4-0	6-2	106.2	111.0	109.0	108.7
Ohio	2-2	5-3	87.0	91.3	88.6	89.0
Buffalo	2-2	4-4	83.2	89.5	85.1	85.9
Massachusetts	0-4	1-7	84.6	87.2	85.4	85.7
Akron	1-3	3-5	83.0	88.9	84.4	85.4
Kent St.	2-2	3-5	79.5	82.0	80.0	80.5
Miami (O)	0-5	1-8	73.1	77.6	73.5	74.7
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	4-0	7-0	104.6	105.6	106.3	105.5
Western Michigan	4-0	5-3	99.5	100.2	100.6	100.1
Northern Illinois	3-1	5-3	95.3	99.2	96.0	96.8
Central Michigan	4-1	5-4	90.7	95.0	92.8	92.8
Ball St.	2-3	3-6	82.7	85.1	83.6	83.8
Eastern Michigan	0-5	1-8	72.2	78.8	71.7	74.2
MAC Averages			87.8	91.6	89.0	89.5
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	4-1	7-2	112.4	109.0	112.1	111.2
Utah St.	4-1	5-3	100.3	100.8	100.8	100.6
Air Force	4-1	5-3	96.8	100.8	96.3	98.0
Colorado St.	1-3	3-5	92.2	90.8	91.0	91.3
New Mexico	2-2	4-4	88.2	89.0	86.9	88.0
Wyoming	1-4	1-8	80.6	82.8	79.8	81.1
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	5-0	6-3	104.0	108.4	105.5	106.0
San Jose St.	3-2	4-4	91.3	94.2	91.2	92.2
Nevada	2-2	4-4	88.8	92.5	88.4	89.9
Hawaii	0-5	2-7	83.4	85.6	83.1	84.0
UNLV	1-3	2-6	82.6	84.6	83.2	83.5
Fresno St.	1-4	2-6	80.7	84.4	78.9	81.3
MWC Averages			91.8	93.6	91.4	92.3
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Stanford	6-0	7-1	122.5	120.7	122.2	121.8
California	2-3	5-3	116.2	110.9	115.6	114.2
Oregon	3-2	5-3	116.0	109.3	115.3	113.5
Washington	2-3	4-4	110.3	107.7	110.9	109.6
Washington St.	3-2	5-3	105.3	101.4	105.1	103.9
Oregon St.	0-5	2-6	92.6	89.3	90.8	90.9
South Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
USC	3-2	5-3	122.7	119.1	123.1	121.6
Utah	4-1	7-1	121.7	116.2	120.9	119.6
UCLA	3-2	6-2	120.3	114.3	118.5	117.7
Arizona St.	2-3	4-4	116.0	110.8	115.0	113.9
Arizona	2-4	5-4	106.6	100.9	105.4	104.3
Colorado	1-4	4-5	105.9	100.7	104.3	103.6
Pac-12 Averages			113.0	108.4	112.3	111.2
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Florida	5-1	7-1	121.5	118.3	121.9	120.6
Tennessee	2-3	4-4	121.4	117.3	121.4	120.0
Georgia	3-3	5-3	116.9	109.8	115.5	114.1
Missouri	1-4	4-4	109.0	105.4	108.0	107.5
South Carolina	1-5	3-5	107.2	103.7	105.5	105.5
Kentucky	2-4	4-4	103.3	99.4	101.8	101.5
Vanderbilt	1-3	3-5	99.9	95.9	99.7	98.5
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	4-1	7-1	128.9	126.7	128.5	128.0
LSU	4-0	7-0	124.3	121.5	124.7	123.5
Ole Miss	4-1	7-2	122.7	117.7	120.8	120.4
Texas A&M	3-2	6-2	117.8	114.5	116.0	116.1
Arkansas	2-2	4-4	118.0	112.5	117.0	115.8
Mississippi St.	2-2	6-2	115.8	112.5	116.2	114.8
Auburn	1-4	4-4	113.8	111.2	112.8	112.6
SEC Averages			115.8	111.9	115.0	114.2
Sunbelt Conference
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	4-0	7-1	99.1	102.3	101.3	100.9
Georgia Southern	4-1	6-2	95.9	98.7	96.8	97.1
Arkansas St.	4-0	5-3	89.1	89.9	89.9	89.6
UL-Lafayette	2-1	3-4	83.6	86.7	84.1	84.8
Troy	1-3	2-6	80.7	82.1	82.2	81.7
Texas St.	1-2	2-5	80.4	83.8	79.9	81.4
South Alabama	1-2	3-4	74.7	80.7	75.6	77.0
Georgia St.	1-2	2-5	76.9	76.7	77.4	77.0
UL-Monroe	0-4	1-7	76.7	75.6	76.7	76.3
Idaho	2-3	3-5	73.1	78.5	74.4	75.3
New Mexico St.	1-3	1-7	68.8	70.3	69.0	69.4
Sun Belt Averages			81.7	84.1	82.5	82.8

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	115.8	111.9	115.0	114.2
2	Pac-12	113.0	108.4	112.3	111.2
3	Big 12	110.6	105.1	110.3	108.7
4	ACC	107.4	108.3	107.1	107.6
5	Big Ten	107.1	105.7	106.5	106.4
6	Indep.	102.5	104.2	103.3	103.4
7	AAC	95.6	99.1	96.4	97.0
8	MWC	91.8	93.6	91.4	92.3
9	MAC	87.8	91.6	89.0	89.5
10	CUSA	86.0	88.0	86.2	86.8
11	SBC	81.7	84.1	82.5	82.8

 

NCAA Playoffs
1	Ohio St.
2	LSU
3	Clemson
4	Baylor

 

Group of 5 Contenders For Automatic New Year’s Six Bowl Bid
#	Team
1	Memphis
2	Houston
3	Toleo
4	Temple
5	Navy

 

Power 5 Conferences Bottom 10
#	Team
10	Iowa St.
9	Purdue
8	Vanderbilt
7	Wake Forest
6	Indiana
5	Syracuse
4	Maryland
3	Rutgers
2	Oregon St.
1	Kansas

 

FCS Top 10
#	Team	PiRate
1	Jacksonville St.	96.6
2	Dartmouth	92.8
3	Harvard	92.4
4	Chattanooga	91.3
5	Illinois St.	91.1
6	North Dakota St.	91.0
7	McNeese St.	90.7
8	Dayton	90.6
9	Richmond	90.3
10	Charleston Southern	89.4

 

This Week’s Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Tuesday, November 3
Toledo	Northern Illinois	12.3	9.4	10.1
Wednesday, November 4
Bowling Green	Ohio	21.2	21.7	22.4
Thursday, November 5
Kent St.	Buffalo	-1.2	-5.0	-2.6
Western Michigan	Ball St.	19.8	18.1	20.0
Appalachian St.	Arkansas St.	13.0	15.4	14.4
Kansas St.	Baylor	-20.0	-26.6	-21.5
Missouri	Mississippi St.	-3.8	-4.1	-5.2
Fresno St.	Nevada	-5.1	-5.1	-6.5
Friday, November 6
SMU	Temple	-22.2	-20.4	-23.3
UTEP	Rice	-4.2	-5.0	-4.8
San Jose St.	BYU	-12.8	-9.1	-13.8
Saturday, November 7
Massachusetts	Akron	4.1	0.8	3.5
Western Kentucky	Florida Atlantic	27.6	24.6	28.4
Tulsa	Central Florida	13.9	15.2	14.6
Northwestern	Penn St.	0.2	0.0	-0.2
Purdue	Illinois	-0.4	0.8	-0.4
Florida Int’l.	Charlotte	25.0	25.6	26.0
West Virginia	Texas Tech	9.4	12.2	9.2
North Carolina	Duke	10.9	10.8	10.3
Florida	Vanderbilt	24.6	25.4	25.2
Georgia	Kentucky	16.6	13.4	16.7
Pittsburgh	Notre Dame	-12.9	-9.1	-12.3
Louisville	Syracuse	16.0	15.7	15.9
Boston College	North Carolina St.	-7.0	-5.2	-7.2
Colorado	Stanford	-13.6	-17.0	-14.9
Georgia St.	Louisiana-Lafayette	-4.2	-7.5	-4.2
Miami (O)	Eastern Michigan	3.4	1.3	4.3
South Alabama	Idaho	5.1	5.7	4.7
Wyoming	Colorado St.	-9.6	-6.0	-9.2
Miami (Fla)	Virginia	4.9	7.5	6.3
Clemson	Florida St.	11.5	12.0	12.9
Ole Miss	Arkansas	7.7	8.2	6.8
Air Force	Army	22.1	17.1	20.2
Washington St.	Arizona St.	-7.7	-6.4	-6.9
Indiana	Iowa	-11.5	-13.7	-12.8
Maryland	Wisconsin	-15.7	-17.6	-15.7
Michigan	Rutgers	26.4	26.3	27.5
Oklahoma St.	TCU	-11.3	-5.2	-11.5
Louisiana Tech	North Texas	32.6	27.2	33.0
Middle Tennessee	Marshall	0.7	-1.6	-0.1
Houston	Cincinnati	8.2	13.9	9.6
Troy	Louisiana-Monroe	6.5	9.0	8.0
New Mexico	Utah St.	-9.1	-8.8	-10.9
Texas St.	New Mexico St.	13.6	15.5	12.9
Tulane	Connecticut	-2.0	-2.7	-1.6
Tennessee	South Carolina	17.2	16.6	18.9
Oregon St.	UCLA	-24.7	-22.0	-24.7
UNLV	Hawaii	3.2	3.0	4.1
Memphis	Navy	13.0	10.4	13.2
UTSA	Old Dominion	7.0	5.1	8.8
Oklahoma	Iowa St.	29.5	29.5	29.5
Nebraska	Michigan St.	-5.8	-4.4	-6.7
Washington	Utah	-8.4	-5.5	-7.0
Texas A&M	Auburn	7.0	6.3	6.2
East Carolina	South Florida	3.9	1.5	3.9
Alabama	LSU	7.6	8.2	6.8
Texas	Kansas	31.1	34.2	33.0
Ohio St.	Minnesota	27.3	23.6	28.8
Oregon	California	2.8	1.4	2.7
USC	Arizona	19.1	21.2	20.7

 

Playoff and Bowl Projections

Bowl	Conferences		Team	vs.	Team
Cure	AAC	SBC	Cincinnati	vs.	Arkansas St.
New Mexico	MWC	CUSA	Colorado St.	vs.	Old Dominion
Las Vegas	Pac-12	MWC/BYU	Washington St.	vs.	BYU
Camellia	MAC	SBC	Ohio U	vs.	Georgia Southern
New Orleans	CUSA	SBC	Southern Miss.	vs.	Louisiana-Lafayette
Miami Beach	AAC	CUSA	Memphis	vs.	Western Kentucky
Idaho Potato	MAC	MWC	Western Michigan	vs.	Utah St.
Boca Raton	AAC	MAC	Temple	vs.	Bowling Green
Poinsettia	MWC	Army	Boise St.	vs.	Washington *
GoDaddy	MAC	SBC	Toledo	vs.	Appalachian St.
Bahamas	CUSA	MAC	Louisiana Tech	vs.	Northern Illinois
Hawaii	AAC	MWC/BYU	Tulsa	vs.	San Diego St.
St. Petersburg	AAC	CUSA	South Florida	vs.	Marshall
Sun	ACC	Pac-12	North Carolina	vs.	Oregon
Heart of Dallas	Big 12	CUSA	Texas St. *	vs.	Rice
Pinstripe	ACC	Big Ten	Pittsburgh	vs.	Rutgers ^
Independence	SEC	ACC	Akron *	vs.	Virginia Tech
Foster Farms	Big Ten	Pac-12	Miami (Fla) *	vs.	California
Military	ACC	AAC	North Carolina St.	vs.	Navy
Quick Lane	ACC	Big Ten	Louisville	vs.	Buffalo *
Armed Forces	Big Ten	MWC	Central Michigan *	vs.	Air Force
Russell Athletic	ACC	Big 12	Notre Dame	vs.	Oklahoma
Arizona	CUSA	MWC	Middle Tennessee	vs.	Nevada
Texas	Big 12	SEC	Texas Tech	vs.	Mississippi St.
Birmingham	AAC	SEC	East Carolina	vs.	Auburn
Belk	ACC	SEC	Florida St.	vs.	Georgia
Music City	ACC/Big Ten	SEC	Penn St.	vs.	Kentucky
Peach	N. Y. 6	N. Y. 6	Iowa	vs.	LSU
Cotton	Playoff	Playoff	Ohio St.	vs.	Alabama
Orange	Playoff	Playoff	Clemson	vs.	Oklahoma St.
Holiday	Big Ten	Pac-12	Michigan	vs.	UCLA
Ouback	Big Ten	SEC	Northwestern	vs.	Tennessee
Citrus	Big Ten	SEC	Wisconsin	vs.	Ole Miss
Sugar	Big 12	SEC	TCU	vs.	Florida
Rose	Big Ten	Pac-12	Michigan St.	vs.	Stanford
Fiesta	N. Y. 6	N. Y. 6	Utah	vs.	Houston
TaxSlayer	ACC/Big Ten	SEC	Duke	vs.	Texas A&M
Liberty	Big 12	SEC	West Virginia	vs.	Arkansas
Alamo	Big 12	Pac-12	Baylor	vs.	USC
Cactus	Big 12	Pac-12	Kansas St.	vs.	Arizona St.
Nat’l Champ.	Semifinal	Winners	Ohio St.	vs.	Clemson
* = At-large selection due to contracted conference not having an eligible team for this slot
^ = Rutgers qualifies for a bowl at 5-7 with highest APR score of 5-7 teams