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

College Football Preview: October 8-10, 2015

Note: South Carolina – LSU game has been moved from USC to LSU.  We have updated the spreads for that game below.

Deja vu in the Big Ten?

We have stated it earlier in the season, but at this point in the season, the Big Ten race looks eerily similar to the 1969 Big Ten season. Of course, there are differences, especially in the way the game is played today as compared to 46 seasons ago, but there are enough similarities that it has heightened our enthusiasm toward watching the Big Ten games.

For a little background, our PiRate Ratings began about this time 46 years ago. It was about four games into the season (10-game seasons for most, 9-game season still for Ohio St.), that we looked in the newspaper to discover the entire top ten was undefeated and untied. Our founder thought, “how can you determine which of these 10 teams is really the best?”

He began looking at comparative scores and how easily or difficult each win was. That is how the PiRate Ratings started. At first, no numerical rating was awarded; it was strictly who is better than who.
Ohio State entered the 1969 season after becoming the surprise 1968 National Champion. The Buckeyes had knocked off unbeaten USC with Heisman Trophy winner O.J. Simpson the previous year. Coach Woody Hayes’ team was predominately a group of sensational sophomores. Beginning the 1969 season, the Buckeyes were the clear-cut number one team.

Purdue was also a pre-season top 10 team entering 1969. The Boilermakers were coming off three consecutive 8-2 regular seasons (with a Rose Bowl win in 1966-67 to make it a ninth win). Purdue had the top quarterback in the conference in Mike Phipps, and many experts believed he was the best passer in the nation and certain first QB to be picked in the next NFL Draft.

Michigan had finished the 1968 season with a 50-14 pasting by Ohio State. Worse than the final score was that the Buckeyes led the Wolverines 44-14 late in the fourth quarter when outstanding fullback Jim Otis barreled his way into the end zone for a touchdown. Up 50-14, Hayes decided to punish the hated rival to the north and go for two points. Bill Long, the 1967 starter who lost his QB job to Buckeye great Rex Kern attempted to pass to Bill Pollitt but overthrew him, and the try was unsuccessful. The Wolverines had to deal with this defeat for a year, and they vowed to get their revenge.
Michigan began 1969 with a new head coach in fiery Bo Schembechler, who had already enjoyed success as a 6-year head coach at Miami of Ohio. Schembechler favored shortening games with a tough defense that stopped the run and rushed the quarterback, while grinding it out with a power running game and play-action passing game on offense.
By now, you should be able to see the similarities. The 1969 Ohio State team began the season as the obvious number one team with a group of more than two dozen junior stars. Purdue figured to be the top challenger to Ohio State with a great quarterback and an exceptional coach in Jack Mollenkopf, who had built the Boilermaker program up to national prominence, even taking PU to the top spot in the polls for a couple weeks in the past.
Michigan was not picked to contend for the top three spots in the Big Ten with a new coach, with a new philosophy, and a lot of new personnel.

The one substitute in this similarity to 2015 is to change Purdue to Michigan St. Here is what you have in 2015.
Ohio State is the runaway number one choice as the season begins and continues. Michigan State with outstanding coach Mark Dantonio and top quarterback Connor Cook has risen to national prominence and is the top contender. Michigan with fiery new coach Jim Harbaugh with years of past experience is the team nobody picked to contend, coming in behind Penn State in the preseason pecking order for number four in the East Division.

Now, add another little fact to the similarity. The 1969 Wolverine team fell early to a team from another power conference, said team then going on to win that conference and play in the Orange Bowl. Missouri beat the 1969 Wolverines. UM was written off after that defeat, but Missouri won the Big 8 title and played in the Orange Bowl.
2015 Michigan lost at Utah to begin the season. With the Utes now 4-0 and nationally ranked after winning by four touchdowns at Oregon, that UM loss in Salt Lake City does not look so bad. With consecutive shutout wins, the Wolverines surely look like a Schembechler team. Harbaugh did play for Bo in Ann Arbor.

The Wolverines have a tough game this week against unbeaten Northwestern. This one could see less than 20 total points scored, and a 0-0 score late in the game would not be surprising. It is homecoming in Ann Arbor. Michigan better not be looking ahead to the next game for the Paul Bunyan Trophy against the Spartans, because this NU team owns a win over Stanford, and they do not fear the Wolverines.

The Big Ten is going to continue to be the most interesting conference until things play out. With Iowa still undefeated, the races in both divisions will be fun to watch.

Next Coaches to move to Power 5 Conference Teams

There appears to be future openings at teams in Power 5 Conferences. Depending on who you believe, there could be a half-dozen openings in the big time.

Illinois figures to look for a new full-time coach, but if interim Bill Cubit continues to perform well, this job may not be open. Paul Rhoads is in serious jeopardy at Iowa State. Virginia’s Mike London faced a much too difficult schedule, and he has virtually no chance of guiding the Cavaliers to a winning record. Darrell Hazell might have secured his spot at Purdue had the Boilermakers been able to close the deal and upset Michigan State, but Hazell is likely to be fired at the end of this season if Purdue finishes in the West Division basement again.

Then, there are some big name coaches at big name schools that have the fans, alums, and boosters complaining. Charlie Strong at Texas is probably safe because the Longhorns have a long list of folks still on the payroll and no longer. If the Longhorns lose by 30 points this week to Oklahoma and then lose to either Iowa State or Kansas, Strong could find himself in some trouble.

Maryland’s Randy Edsall has never really endeared himself to the Terrapin community, and the Terps could seek a new coach next year, especially if UM loses to Rutgers and finishes last in the Big Ten East.

While we don’t believe it is possible, there are no rumblings to replace Butch Jones at Tennessee, after the Volunteers blew their third 14-point lead of the season in a loss to Arkansas. Losses to Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Alabama would leave the Vols at 5-7, and in the same boat they were when they fired Derek Dooley after three seasons.

Al Golden is in some hot water at Miami, even though he has had to deal with a lot of sanctions from the previous regime. The Hurricanes should be bowl eligible this year, but this school has not traveled to bowls in large numbers in recent years. Golden probably keeps his job unless the ‘Canes collapse and finish below .500.

Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer may be sent out to pasture in a manner similar to Bobby Bowden. The Hokies have not contended for ACC honors in recent years, and the fans in Blacksburg are ready for something new. They may get it.

The ole ball coach is not completely safe at South Carolina. Steve Spurrier’s Gamecocks fell from 11-2 to 7-6 last year and could drop below .500 this year. A homecoming loss to Vanderbilt in two weeks could seal his fate.

With a lot of possible job openings, which Group of 5 coaches appear to be ready to move up to the big time? Let’s take a look league by league.

American Athletic Conference
Justin Fuente is the current darling of the mid-major football world. The Memphis coach has won 12 consecutive games, and the Tigers are now more of a football than basketball school. Fuente comes from the Garry Patterson coaching tree, and he could be the leading candidate should the Iowa State job become available. Memphis fans like to believe that their team can move up to the Big 12 and become big-time, thus being able to keep Fuente, but that is not likely to happen in the next six months, and job openings with his name at the top of the list will be available.

Tommy Tuberville is 61 years old, so a little bit of age discrimination could creep into his attempts to move back to the big time. He begged to get out of Lubbock and took the Cincinnati job as somewhat of a step down from Texas Tech. We could see where Virginia might have an interest in him, after David Cutcliffe has done so well at Duke.
Matt Rhule has done wonders at Temple. Several schools could look toward him. Rhule has NFL experience and could also become a candidate for a couple pro jobs.

East Carolina’s Ruffin McNeill creates a lot of excitement with his wide open offense. The Pirates have consistently averaged 35-40 points per game and have been bowling four of his five seasons in Greenville. ECU is in contention in the East Division this year, and if they win the crown, McNeill could vault above many others for job openings, like at Virginia Tech or Maryland.

Houston’s Tom Herman is a first year head coach. It would be a major surprise to see Herman leave after one year, but if the Cougars run the table and earn the New Year’s Six Bowl allocated to a Group of Five member, he might not ever be this hot of a commodity. The former Urban Meyer assistant could be on the radar of several schools.

Conference USA
Maybe the best recruiter in the land resides in CUSA. Marshall’s Doc Holliday would draw interest from any Big Ten or ACC school with an opening. Holliday might prefer to stay in West Virginia, but the job in Mogantown does not appear to have any openings in the near future.

Jeff Brohm is just in his second season at Western Kentucky, but the Hilltoppers are fun to watch, and they win. WKU went should earn back-to-back bowl games, and Brohm could field multiple offers at the end of the season.
With a last name of “Holtz,” if the team you coach has consistent success, you are going to eventually get an offer to move up. Skip Holtz has produced winners at East Carolina and now at Louisiana Tech. His dad started out small at William & Mary before moving on to five big time schools.

Mid-American Conference
The MAC tends to produce more Power 5 head coaches than any other league, mostly ascending to the Big Ten. There is no shortage of future Power 5 possibiities here. Let’s start with Toledo’s Matt Campbell, who has guided the Rockets to wins over Arkansas and Iowa State this year. He may be the first option at the first Big Ten opening this year.

Rod Carey has done quite well at Northern Illinois despite the Huskies not faring so well this year. Still, Carey has produced 12 and 11-win seasons in Dekalb, and NIU has become the new “Cradle of Coaches.”

Dino Babers is already 2-0 in the Big Ten this year, and Bowling Green hopes to go undefeated in the MAC as well. Babers’ offense is another one of those wide-open high-scoring outfits that fans love to watch.

Mountain West Conference
The Boise State coach is always going to be a hot commodity. Bryan Harsin guided the Broncos to the Fiesta Bowl in his first season in Potatoland, and the Broncos are in contention for another New Year’s Six Bowl again this year.

Former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie has slowly built the New Mexico program up to where the Lobos could sneak into a bowl this year. Davie’s teams have consistently led the nation in rushing among teams not using the triple-option offense. He could be an option at an Iowa State, Virginia, Maryland, or Purdue.

Sun Belt Conference
There are no real candidates in this league at the current time, but should Paul Johnson retire at Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern’s Willie Fritz could be the best option, and we do mean to use “option” as a double entendre. Fritz’s option offense is totally different than the option offenses used at Tech, Army, Navy, or Air Force. He likely will never be a serious candidate at any successful Power 5 program, but at a Georgia Tech, Purdue, Vanderbilt, or Kansas, this type of philosophy could turn things around.

This Week’s Ratings

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

PiRate Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	128.8	121.3	129.7	126.6
2	Alabama	127.4	125.3	126.8	126.5
3	TCU	129.1	120.0	130.2	126.4
4	Baylor	126.4	122.7	127.3	125.5
5	USC	124.9	121.5	125.3	123.9
6	Utah	125.7	119.9	125.1	123.6
7	Oklahoma	122.8	120.0	123.3	122.0
8	Notre Dame	123.0	119.4	123.3	121.9
9	Ole Miss	124.4	117.8	122.3	121.5
10	Stanford	121.2	120.0	121.2	120.8
11	LSU	122.0	118.6	121.6	120.7
12	Texas A&M	120.9	118.7	120.0	119.9
13	UCLA	121.5	115.0	119.3	118.6
14	Georgia	121.3	113.8	120.4	118.5
15	Tennessee	118.7	114.1	118.1	117.0
16	Clemson	116.1	117.0	116.2	116.4
17	Georgia Tech	117.7	114.7	116.9	116.4
18	Michigan	117.3	113.6	117.1	116.0
19	Oregon	118.6	111.3	118.0	116.0
20	Arkansas	118.2	112.4	117.4	116.0
21	Florida	116.9	113.6	116.8	115.8
22	North Carolina	115.9	115.8	115.7	115.8
23	Boise St.	117.1	112.0	117.0	115.4
24	California	116.7	111.6	116.6	115.0
25	Michigan St.	116.4	112.3	115.7	114.8
26	West Virginia	115.6	110.2	115.0	113.6
27	Florida St.	113.8	114.3	112.4	113.5
28	Arizona St.	115.3	110.3	114.2	113.3
29	Mississippi St.	114.3	110.3	114.2	112.9
30	Auburn	113.3	111.1	112.1	112.2
31	Oklahoma St.	112.3	110.5	112.5	111.8
32	North Carolina St.	110.5	112.3	109.4	110.7
33	Louisville	109.3	112.1	109.9	110.4
34	Wisconsin	109.9	110.9	109.1	110.0
35	Virginia Tech	110.4	108.5	110.5	109.8
36	Missouri	110.7	107.8	110.0	109.5
37	Northwestern	108.7	109.6	108.9	109.1
38	Temple	107.1	109.1	108.2	108.1
39	Iowa	106.4	109.5	107.3	107.7
40	Texas Tech	110.8	101.6	110.7	107.7
41	Nebraska	108.9	106.2	108.1	107.7
42	Miami	106.9	107.3	107.2	107.1
43	Arizona	110.1	102.9	107.9	107.0
44	Pittsburgh	105.1	106.5	106.4	106.0
45	Duke	105.7	105.4	106.3	105.8
46	Kansas St.	109.9	98.7	108.8	105.8
47	Illinois	106.9	104.4	105.7	105.7
48	Western Kentucky	104.8	104.1	106.3	105.1
49	South Carolina	106.9	103.3	105.2	105.1
50	Memphis	104.4	104.8	105.5	104.9
51	BYU	105.1	103.6	105.9	104.9
52	Cincinnati	104.2	104.8	105.5	104.8
53	Houston	101.1	109.2	103.9	104.7
54	Kentucky	105.8	102.4	105.1	104.4
55	Penn St.	103.5	106.1	103.6	104.4
56	Minnesota	105.0	103.5	104.2	104.2
57	Colorado	105.7	100.9	104.8	103.8
58	Washington	104.0	102.0	104.5	103.5
59	Texas	104.3	101.7	103.7	103.2
60	Boston College	101.4	105.8	99.9	102.4
61	Toledo	101.5	100.2	102.8	101.5
62	Louisiana Tech	101.6	99.7	102.7	101.3
63	Navy	99.6	103.0	100.1	100.9
64	Virginia	100.6	97.5	99.7	99.3
65	Vanderbilt	100.9	95.8	100.5	99.1
66	Bowling Green	96.8	101.1	98.6	98.8
67	Purdue	99.3	98.9	98.1	98.8
68	Indiana	98.1	99.3	98.2	98.5
69	Middle Tennessee	98.3	97.3	97.9	97.8
70	Washington St.	99.6	94.7	98.3	97.5
71	Appalachian St.	95.6	99.1	97.6	97.4
72	East Carolina	95.8	99.1	96.4	97.1
73	Syracuse	96.0	99.7	95.6	97.1
74	Georgia Southern	96.0	98.3	96.8	97.0
75	Wake Forest	95.6	99.5	94.7	96.6
76	Utah St.	96.8	95.3	96.9	96.3
77	Western Michigan	96.0	95.3	97.2	96.2
78	San Diego St.	93.9	99.2	94.8	96.0
79	San Jose St.	94.3	97.5	94.7	95.5
80	Rutgers	97.3	94.0	95.1	95.5
81	Marshall	95.1	95.6	95.4	95.4
82	Air Force	93.7	98.7	93.4	95.3
83	Ohio	93.2	97.6	94.9	95.2
84	Iowa St.	95.9	92.6	95.1	94.5
85	Northern Illinois	92.7	95.5	93.0	93.7
86	Tulsa	90.9	96.7	92.2	93.3
87	Colorado St.	93.5	91.4	91.9	92.3
88	Oregon St.	93.0	91.4	92.1	92.2
89	Maryland	92.0	89.4	90.5	90.6
90	South Florida	88.6	94.9	88.3	90.6
91	Massachusetts	88.5	91.9	90.3	90.2
92	Nevada	89.0	93.0	88.4	90.1
93	New Mexico	90.1	90.8	89.2	90.0
94	Southern Mississippi	89.6	90.5	89.3	89.8
95	Florida International	88.4	90.8	90.0	89.7
96	Tulane	89.1	91.7	87.8	89.5
97	Central Florida	87.7	91.0	88.5	89.1
98	Central Michigan	86.9	90.9	89.0	88.9
99	Arkansas St.	88.6	88.5	89.3	88.8
100	Hawaii	88.0	89.9	88.2	88.7
101	Akron	85.5	91.8	87.2	88.2
102	Buffalo	84.1	91.3	86.6	87.3
103	Ball St.	85.9	88.6	87.0	87.2
104	SMU	85.3	89.1	85.2	86.5
105	Fresno St.	84.8	90.6	83.1	86.2
106	Rice	83.9	87.6	84.3	85.3
107	Army	81.0	91.6	82.9	85.2
108	Connecticut	83.1	88.5	83.7	85.1
109	Kent St.	83.3	86.1	84.0	84.5
110	UL-Lafayette	82.6	86.0	82.6	83.7
111	UNLV	82.2	84.6	83.1	83.3
112	Florida Atlantic	81.7	85.7	82.1	83.2
113	Texas St.	81.2	85.1	80.9	82.4
114	UT-San Antonio	80.6	83.8	82.0	82.1
115	UL-Monroe	81.9	79.1	81.5	80.8
116	UTEP	79.2	81.8	78.8	79.9
117	South Alabama	76.1	83.2	77.9	79.1
118	Wyoming	78.4	80.4	77.0	78.6
119	Old Dominion	76.5	82.2	75.4	78.0
120	Eastern Michigan	74.7	84.2	74.3	77.7
121	Miami (O)	75.3	80.4	75.4	77.0
122	North Texas	74.9	80.6	75.0	76.8
123	Kansas	78.6	72.3	76.3	75.7
124	Troy	74.6	75.0	76.1	75.2
125	Georgia St.	75.4	74.1	75.1	74.9
126	New Mexico St.	73.9	75.2	74.1	74.4
127	Idaho	70.7	78.2	72.0	73.6
128	Charlotte	69.2	71.3	69.1	69.9

PiRate Rating By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Temple	1-0	4-0	107.1	109.1	108.2	108.1
Cincinnati	0-2	3-2	104.2	104.8	105.5	104.8
East Carolina	1-1	3-2	95.8	99.1	96.4	97.1
South Florida	0-1	1-3	88.6	94.9	88.3	90.6
Central Florida	0-1	0-5	87.7	91.0	88.5	89.1
Connecticut	0-1	2-3	83.1	88.5	83.7	85.1
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Memphis	2-0	5-0	104.4	104.8	105.5	104.9
Houston	1-0	4-0	101.1	109.2	103.9	104.7
Navy	2-0	4-0	99.6	103.0	100.1	100.9
Tulsa	0-1	2-2	90.9	96.7	92.2	93.3
Tulane	1-0	2-2	89.1	91.7	87.8	89.5
SMU	0-1	1-4	85.3	89.1	85.2	86.5
AAC Averages			94.7	98.5	95.4	96.2
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	1-0	4-0	116.1	117.0	116.2	116.4
Florida St.	2-0	4-0	113.8	114.3	112.4	113.5
North Carolina St.	0-1	4-1	110.5	112.3	109.4	110.7
Louisville	1-1	2-3	109.3	112.1	109.9	110.4
Boston College	0-2	3-2	101.4	105.8	99.9	102.4
Syracuse	1-0	3-1	96.0	99.7	95.6	97.1
Wake Forest	0-2	2-3	95.6	99.5	94.7	96.6
Coastal Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia Tech	0-2	2-3	117.7	114.7	116.9	116.4
North Carolina	1-0	4-1	115.9	115.8	115.7	115.8
Virginia Tech	0-1	2-3	110.4	108.5	110.5	109.8
Miami	0-0	3-1	106.9	107.3	107.2	107.1
Pittsburgh	1-0	3-1	105.1	106.5	106.4	106.0
Duke	2-0	4-1	105.7	105.4	106.3	105.8
Virginia	0-0	1-3	100.6	97.5	99.7	99.3
ACC Averages			107.5	108.3	107.2	107.7
Big 12 Conference
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
TCU	2-0	5-0	129.1	120.0	130.2	126.4
Baylor	1-0	4-0	126.4	122.7	127.3	125.5
Oklahoma	1-0	4-0	122.8	120.0	123.3	122.0
West Virginia	0-1	3-1	115.6	110.2	115.0	113.6
Oklahoma St.	2-0	5-0	112.3	110.5	112.5	111.8
Texas Tech	0-2	3-2	110.8	101.6	110.7	107.7
Kansas St.	0-1	3-1	109.9	98.7	108.8	105.8
Texas	0-2	1-4	104.3	101.7	103.7	103.2
Iowa St.	1-0	2-2	95.9	92.6	95.1	94.5
Kansas	0-1	0-4	78.6	72.3	76.3	75.7
Big 12 Averages			110.6	105.0	110.3	108.6
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	1-0	5-0	128.8	121.3	129.7	126.6
Michigan	1-0	4-1	117.3	113.6	117.1	116.0
Michigan St.	1-0	5-0	116.4	112.3	115.7	114.8
Penn St.	1-0	4-1	103.5	106.1	103.6	104.4
Indiana	0-1	4-1	98.1	99.3	98.2	98.5
Rutgers	0-1	2-2	97.3	94.0	95.1	95.5
Maryland	0-1	2-3	92.0	89.4	90.5	90.6
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	0-1	3-2	109.9	110.9	109.1	110.0
Northwestern	1-0	5-0	108.7	109.6	108.9	109.1
Iowa	1-0	5-0	106.4	109.5	107.3	107.7
Nebraska	0-1	2-3	108.9	106.2	108.1	107.7
Illinois	1-0	4-1	106.9	104.4	105.7	105.7
Minnesota	0-1	3-2	105.0	103.5	104.2	104.2
Purdue	0-1	1-4	99.3	98.9	98.1	98.8
Big Ten Averages			107.0	105.6	106.5	106.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Kentucky	2-0	4-1	104.8	104.1	106.3	105.1
Middle Tennessee	1-0	2-3	98.3	97.3	97.9	97.8
Marshall	1-0	4-1	95.1	95.6	95.4	95.4
Florida International	0-1	2-3	88.4	90.8	90.0	89.7
Florida Atlantic	1-0	2-3	81.7	85.7	82.1	83.2
Old Dominion	0-1	2-3	76.5	82.2	75.4	78.0
Charlotte	0-2	2-3	69.2	71.3	69.1	69.9
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana Tech	1-1	3-2	101.6	99.7	102.7	101.3
Southern Mississippi	1-0	3-2	89.6	90.5	89.3	89.8
Rice	1-1	2-3	83.9	87.6	84.3	85.3
UT-San Antonio	1-0	1-4	80.6	83.8	82.0	82.1
UTEP	0-1	2-3	79.2	81.8	78.8	79.9
North Texas	0-2	0-4	74.9	80.6	75.0	76.8
CUSA Averages			86.4	88.5	86.8	87.3
FBS Independents
Team		Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame		4-1	123.0	119.4	123.3	121.9
BYU		3-2	105.1	103.6	105.9	104.9
Army		1-4	81.0	91.6	82.9	85.2
Independents Averages			103.0	104.9	104.0	104.0
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Bowling Green	1-0	3-2	96.8	101.1	98.6	98.8
Ohio	1-0	4-1	93.2	97.6	94.9	95.2
Massachusetts	0-0	1-3	88.5	91.9	90.3	90.2
Akron	0-1	2-3	85.5	91.8	87.2	88.2
Buffalo	0-1	2-3	84.1	91.3	86.6	87.3
Kent St.	1-0	2-3	83.3	86.1	84.0	84.5
Miami (O)	0-1	1-4	75.3	80.4	75.4	77.0
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Toledo	1-0	4-0	101.5	100.2	102.8	101.5
Western Michigan	0-0	1-3	96.0	95.3	97.2	96.2
Northern Illinois	0-1	2-3	92.7	95.5	93.0	93.7
Central Michigan	1-0	2-3	86.9	90.9	89.0	88.9
Ball St.	1-1	2-3	85.9	88.6	87.0	87.2
Eastern Michigan	0-1	1-4	74.7	84.2	74.3	77.7
MAC Averages			88.0	91.9	89.3	89.7
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	1-0	4-1	117.1	112.0	117.0	115.4
Utah St.	1-0	2-2	96.8	95.3	96.9	96.3
Air Force	1-0	2-2	93.7	98.7	93.4	95.3
Colorado St.	0-1	2-3	93.5	91.4	91.9	92.3
New Mexico	1-0	3-2	90.1	90.8	89.2	90.0
Wyoming	0-1	0-5	78.4	80.4	77.0	78.6
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	1-0	2-3	93.9	99.2	94.8	96.0
San Jose St.	1-1	2-3	94.3	97.5	94.7	95.5
Nevada	0-1	2-3	89.0	93.0	88.4	90.1
Hawaii	0-1	2-3	88.0	89.9	88.2	88.7
Fresno St.	0-2	1-4	84.8	90.6	83.1	86.2
UNLV	1-0	2-3	82.2	84.6	83.1	83.3
MWC Averages			91.8	93.6	91.5	92.3
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Stanford	3-0	4-1	121.2	120.0	121.2	120.8
Oregon	1-1	3-2	118.6	111.3	118.0	116.0
California	2-0	5-0	116.7	111.6	116.6	115.0
Washington	0-1	2-2	104.0	102.0	104.5	103.5
Washington St.	0-1	2-2	99.6	94.7	98.3	97.5
Oregon St.	0-1	2-2	93.0	91.4	92.1	92.2
South Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
USC	1-1	3-1	124.9	121.5	125.3	123.9
Utah	1-0	4-0	125.7	119.9	125.1	123.6
UCLA	1-1	4-1	121.5	115.0	119.3	118.6
Arizona St.	1-1	3-2	115.3	110.3	114.2	113.3
Arizona	0-2	3-2	110.1	102.9	107.9	107.0
Colorado	0-1	3-2	105.7	100.9	104.8	103.8
Pac-12 Averages			113.0	108.5	112.3	111.3
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	2-1	4-1	121.3	113.8	120.4	118.5
Tennessee	0-2	2-3	118.7	114.1	118.1	117.0
Florida	3-0	5-0	116.9	113.6	116.8	115.8
Missouri	1-1	4-1	110.7	107.8	110.0	109.5
South Carolina	0-3	2-3	106.9	103.3	105.2	105.1
Kentucky	2-1	4-1	105.8	102.4	105.1	104.4
Vanderbilt	0-2	2-3	100.9	95.8	100.5	99.1
West Division
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	1-1	4-1	127.4	125.3	126.8	126.5
Ole Miss	2-1	4-1	124.4	117.8	122.3	121.5
LSU	2-0	4-0	122.0	118.6	121.6	120.7
Texas A&M	2-0	5-0	120.9	118.7	120.0	119.9
Arkansas	1-1	2-3	118.2	112.4	117.4	116.0
Mississippi St.	1-2	3-2	114.3	110.3	114.2	112.9
Auburn	0-2	3-2	113.3	111.1	112.1	112.2
SEC Averages			115.8	111.8	115.0	114.2
Sunbelt Conference
Team	Conference	Overall	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	0-0	3-1	95.6	99.1	97.6	97.4
Georgia Southern	2-0	4-1	96.0	98.3	96.8	97.0
Arkansas St.	1-0	2-3	88.6	88.5	89.3	88.8
UL-Lafayette	0-0	1-3	82.6	86.0	82.6	83.7
Texas St.	0-0	1-3	81.2	85.1	80.9	82.4
UL-Monroe	0-1	1-3	81.9	79.1	81.5	80.8
South Alabama	1-0	3-2	76.1	83.2	77.9	79.1
Troy	0-1	1-3	74.6	75.0	76.1	75.2
Georgia St.	1-0	1-3	75.4	74.1	75.1	74.9
New Mexico St.	0-1	0-4	73.9	75.2	74.1	74.4
Idaho	0-2	1-4	70.7	78.2	72.0	73.6
Sun Belt Averages			81.5	83.8	82.2	82.5

This Week’s Spreads

This Week’s Games
Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Thursday, October 8
Houston	SMU	18.3	22.6	21.2
USC	Washington	23.9	22.5	23.8
Friday, October 9
Marshall	Southern Miss.	8.5	8.1	9.1
Virginia Tech	North Carolina St.	2.9	-0.8	4.1
Saturday, October 10
Army	Duke	-22.2	-11.3	-20.9
Ole Miss	New Mexico St.	53.5	45.6	51.2
LSU	South Carolina	17.6	17.8	18.9
Florida Int’l	UTEP	11.7	11.5	13.7
Western Kentucky	Middle Tennessee	9.0	9.3	10.9
Iowa	Illinois	2.5	8.1	4.6
Kansas	Baylor	-44.8	-47.4	-48.0
Texas (N)	Oklahoma	-18.5	-18.3	-19.6
Ohio St.	Maryland	39.8	34.9	42.2
Penn St.	Indiana	8.4	9.8	8.4
Temple	Tulane	20.5	19.9	22.9
Western Michigan	Central Michigan	11.1	6.4	10.2
Pittsburgh	Virginia	7.0	11.5	9.2
Ohio	Miami (O)	19.9	19.2	21.5
Bowling Green	Massachusetts	10.8	11.7	10.8
Florida Atlantic	Rice	0.3	0.6	0.3
Boston College	Wake Forest	8.8	9.3	8.2
Eastern Michigan	Akron	-8.8	-5.6	-10.9
Toledo	Kent St.	20.2	16.1	20.8
Georgia St.	Appalachian St.	-18.2	-23.0	-20.5
Northern Illinois	Ball St.	9.3	9.4	8.5
Clemson	Georgia Tech	0.9	4.8	1.8
Tennessee	Georgia	0.4	3.3	0.7
South Florida	Syracuse	-4.4	-1.8	-4.3
Notre Dame	Navy	26.4	19.4	26.2
Michigan	Northwestern	11.6	7.0	11.2
Nebraska	Wisconsin	2.0	-1.7	2.0
Purdue	Minnesota	-3.2	-2.1	-3.6
Texas Tech	Iowa St.	17.9	12.0	18.6
Central Florida	Connecticut	7.1	5.0	7.3
Arizona	Oregon St.	20.1	14.5	18.8
Mississippi St.	Troy	42.7	38.3	41.1
Oregon	Washington St.	22.0	19.6	22.7
Tulsa	Louisiana-Monroe	12.0	20.6	13.7
Colorado St.	Boise St.	-20.6	-17.6	-22.1
Louisiana-Lafayette	Texas St.	3.9	3.4	4.2
Nevada	New Mexico	1.4	4.7	1.7
Alabama	Arkansas	12.2	15.9	12.4
Texas-San Antonio	Louisiana Tech	-18.5	-13.6	-18.2
West Virginia	Oklahoma St.	6.3	2.7	5.5
Kansas St.	TCU	-16.2	-18.3	-18.4
Missouri	Florida	-3.2	-2.8	-3.8
BYU	East Carolina	12.8	8.0	12.0
Florida St.	Miami (Fl.)	8.9	9.0	7.2
Rutgers	Michigan St.	-16.6	-15.8	-18.1
UNLV	San Jose St.	-9.6	-10.4	-9.1
Arizona St.	Colorado	12.6	12.4	12.4
Utah	California	12.0	11.3	11.5
Air Force	Wyoming	17.3	20.3	18.4
Fresno St.	Utah St.	-9.5	-2.2	-11.3
Hawaii	San Diego St.	-1.9	-5.3	-2.6
FBS vs. FCS	Week 6	PiRate
North Texas	Portland St.	-7

Bowl Projections

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

 

College Football Preview: September 24-26, 2015

It was an interesting Week 3 in the college football world with Ole Miss topping off an incredible day by topping Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  Ohio State and TCU looked very beatable in narrow wins over Northern Illinois and SMU, while Georgia and Notre Dame pulled off convincing wins.

We start to ruminate about the playoff teams for this year, and you will see our first look at who we believe are the leaders in the clubhouse.  One of our readers, Gary in Toronto, has sent us a comment asking who we believe would have been the four playoff teams in recent years before the playoffs were real.  Gary, we did this one better.  We calculated who we thought would have made the playoffs all the way back to 1969, when we first began compiling ratings.

What follows is not who WE thought should have been in the playoffs; this is who we believe the COMMITTEE of the time period would have selected based on the same criteria they use today, plus our personal belief that politics do play a part.  Thus, deserving undefeated teams like Miami of Ohio and Toledo in the 1970’s, and maybe even Dartmouth in 1970 would have been excluded for one and two-loss teams from the power leagues.  For you trivia buffs, Dartmouth was actually a ranked team in 1970, the last Ivy League team to finish the season ranked in the then top 20 (Yale was the last Ivy League team to appear in the weekly rankings in 1972).

Here they are:

2013: 1-Florida St.,  2-Auburn,  3-Michigan St., 4-Alabama
2012: 1-Alabama, 2-Notre Dame, 3-Oregon, 4-Stanford
2011: 1-LSU, 2-Alabama, 3-Oklahoma St., 4-Oregon
2010: 1-Auburn, 2-Oregon, 3-TCU, 4-Stanford
2009: 1-Alabama, 2-Texas, 3-Florida, 4-Boise St.
2008: 1-Florida, 2-Oklahoma, 3-USC, 4-Utah
2007: 1-LSU, 2-Ohio St., 3-Kansas, 4-West Virginia
2006: 1-Ohio St., 2-Florida, 3-Michigan, 4-USC
2005: 1-Texas, 2-USC, 3-Penn St., 4-Virginia Tech
2004: 1-USC, 2-Oklahoma, 3-Auburn, 4-Utah
2003: 1-LSU, 2-Oklahoma, 3-USC, 4-Michigan
2002: 1-Ohio St., 2-Miami, 3-Georgia, 4-USC
2001: 1-Miami, 2-Nebraska, 3-Oregon, 4-Colorado
2000: 1-Oklahoma, 2-Florida St., 3-Miami, 4-Washington
1999: 1-Florida St., 2-Virginia Tech, 3-Nebraska, 4-Kansas St.
1998: 1-Tennessee. 2-Florida St., 3-Ohio St., 4-Kansas St.
1997: 1-Nebraska, 2-Michigan, 3-Florida St., 4-Tennessee
1996: 1-Florida St., 2-Florida, 3-Ohio St., 4-Arizona St.
1995: 1-Nebraska, 2-Florida, 3-Tennessee, 4-Ohio St.
1994: 1-Nebraska, 2-Penn St., 3-Miami, 4-Colorado
1993: 1-Florida St., 2-Notre Dame, 3-West Virginia, 4-Nebraska
1992: 1-Alabama. 2-Miami, 3-Texas A&M, 4-Florida St.
1991: 1-Miami, 2-Washington, 3-Alabama, 4-Michigan
1990: 1: Georgia Tech, 2-Colorado, 3-Miami, 4-Washington
1989: 1-Miami, 2-Notre Dame, 3-Colorado, 4-Tennessee
1988: 1-Notre Dame, 2-West Virginia, 3-Miami, 4-Florida St.
1987: 1-Miami, 2-Oklahoma 3-Florida St., 4-Syracuse
1986: 1-Miami, 2-Penn St., 3-Oklahoma, 4-Michigan
1985: 1-Oklahoma, 2-Penn St., 3-Michigan, 4-Miami
1984: 1-BYU, 2-Washington, 3-Nebraska, 4-Boston College
1983: 1-Nebraska, 2-Texas, 3-Miami, 4-Auburn
1982: 1-Georgia, 2-Penn St., 3-Nebraska, 4-SMU
1981: 1-Clemson, 2-Pittsburgh, 3-Georgia, 4-Penn St.
1980: 1-Georgia, 2-Pittsburgh, 3-Notre Dame, 4-Nebraska
1979: 1-Alabama, 2-USC, 3-Ohio St., 4-Oklahoma
1978: 1-Penn St., 2-USC, 3-Alabama, 4-Oklahoma
1977: 1-Texas, 2-Notre Dame, 3-Alabama, 4-Michigan
1976: 1-Pittsburgh, 2-Michigan, 3-Georgia, 4-USC
1975: 1-Ohio St., 2-Alabama, 3-Oklahoma, 4-Arizona St.
1974: 1-Alabama, 2-Ohio St., 3-USC, 4-Michigan
1973: 1-Notre Dame, 2-Alabama, 3-Penn St., 4-Ohio St.
1972: 1-USC, 2-Oklahoma, 3-Texas, 4-Michigan
1971: 1-Nebraska, 2-Oklahoma, 3-Alabama, 4-Michigan
1970: 1-Texas, 2-Nebraska, 3-Tennessee, 4-Notre Dame
1969: 1-Texas, 2-Penn St., 3-USC, 4-Missouri

 

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Ohio St.	133.4	124.0	134.3	130.6
2	Ole Miss	130.2	123.8	128.8	127.6
3	LSU	125.8	121.8	125.6	124.4
4	TCU	127.4	117.2	128.5	124.4
5	Alabama	125.0	123.3	124.6	124.3
6	Baylor	123.7	119.8	124.2	122.6
7	Notre Dame	123.4	119.4	123.9	122.2
8	Georgia	124.4	116.8	123.7	121.6
9	USC	121.5	118.2	121.9	120.5
10	Oklahoma	121.1	118.4	121.4	120.3
11	Georgia Tech	123.0	115.0	122.6	120.2
12	Oregon	122.8	114.8	122.2	119.9
13	UCLA	122.6	116.1	120.5	119.7
14	Texas A&M	120.4	118.6	119.4	119.5
15	Michigan St.	121.2	115.3	121.1	119.2
16	Tennessee	120.6	116.4	120.4	119.1
17	Stanford	118.4	117.2	118.6	118.1
18	California	118.1	113.1	118.6	116.6
19	Auburn	116.9	114.9	115.9	115.9
20	Clemson	115.3	116.5	115.2	115.7
21	Utah	117.8	112.1	117.0	115.6
22	Arkansas	117.4	111.1	116.3	114.9
23	Florida St.	114.9	115.3	113.6	114.6
24	Virginia Tech	115.4	111.8	115.8	114.3
25	North Carolina	113.7	113.7	113.3	113.6
26	West Virginia	115.0	109.6	114.4	113.0
27	Oklahoma St.	112.0	112.6	112.7	112.4
28	Arizona St.	114.7	109.4	113.2	112.4
29	Arizona	114.9	107.8	113.0	111.9
30	Mississippi St.	113.4	108.9	113.4	111.9
31	Michigan	112.8	108.9	112.1	111.3
32	Wisconsin	111.2	112.0	110.2	111.1
33	Florida	111.8	108.4	111.2	110.5
34	Missouri	111.4	108.5	110.5	110.1
35	Boise St.	112.2	106.7	111.5	110.1
36	Nebraska	110.9	108.3	110.5	109.9
37	North Carolina St.	109.3	111.4	108.3	109.7
38	Miami	109.0	109.9	109.4	109.4
39	BYU	108.9	107.0	110.3	108.7
40	Minnesota	109.3	107.5	109.1	108.6
41	Temple	107.2	109.4	108.5	108.4
42	Louisville	107.2	109.8	107.4	108.1
43	Texas Tech	111.0	101.6	110.8	107.8
44	Northwestern	106.8	107.8	106.8	107.1
45	Penn St.	105.7	107.8	105.9	106.5
46	Texas	107.1	105.8	106.6	106.5
47	Illinois	107.2	104.8	106.2	106.1
48	Memphis	105.2	105.1	106.7	105.7
49	South Carolina	107.3	103.6	105.8	105.6
50	Kentucky	106.3	102.9	105.6	104.9
51	Pittsburgh	103.7	105.8	104.9	104.8
52	Kansas St.	109.6	96.3	108.2	104.7
53	Colorado	105.8	101.5	105.1	104.1
54	Washington	103.7	101.9	104.1	103.2
55	Iowa	101.8	104.7	102.5	103.0
56	Duke	102.4	103.0	103.0	102.8
57	Cincinnati	101.8	102.9	102.8	102.5
58	Boston College	101.2	106.1	99.5	102.3
59	Virginia	103.0	100.1	102.5	101.9
60	Houston	97.7	105.8	100.4	101.3
61	Western Kentucky	100.9	98.5	102.0	100.5
62	Louisiana Tech	101.3	98.2	102.1	100.5
63	Navy	98.3	101.4	98.8	99.5
64	Toledo	99.7	97.7	100.6	99.3
65	Middle Tennessee	98.3	98.0	98.0	98.1
66	Purdue	98.8	98.2	96.8	97.9
67	Bowling Green	95.3	99.8	97.4	97.5
68	Wake Forest	95.5	100.2	94.5	96.7
69	Air Force	94.7	99.9	94.5	96.4
70	Rutgers	98.0	94.9	96.1	96.3
71	Washington St.	98.5	93.3	96.7	96.2
72	Marshall	95.8	95.6	96.4	95.9
73	Vanderbilt	98.2	92.2	97.1	95.8
74	San Diego St.	93.7	98.9	94.7	95.8
75	Syracuse	94.4	98.7	93.8	95.6
76	Georgia Southern	94.5	96.6	95.0	95.4
77	Utah St.	95.9	94.4	96.0	95.4
78	Indiana	94.8	96.4	94.6	95.3
79	Northern Illinois	94.2	96.8	94.6	95.2
80	Western Michigan	94.6	95.1	95.5	95.1
81	Colorado St.	96.3	93.8	94.8	95.0
82	Maryland	95.3	93.0	94.2	94.2
83	Iowa St.	95.7	92.4	94.6	94.2
84	Tulsa	91.5	97.4	92.9	93.9
85	Ohio	91.5	96.4	93.2	93.7
86	Appalachian St.	92.0	95.0	94.1	93.7
87	Hawaii	91.8	94.0	92.4	92.7
88	Nevada	91.4	95.3	90.9	92.5
89	Oregon St.	92.8	91.1	91.7	91.9
90	East Carolina	90.0	94.5	90.1	91.5
91	Central Florida	89.4	93.2	90.8	91.1
92	Florida International	89.3	92.1	91.2	90.9
93	San Jose St.	90.2	92.9	89.5	90.9
94	Arkansas St.	90.5	90.3	91.5	90.8
95	New Mexico	90.6	91.4	90.0	90.7
96	Fresno St.	88.1	95.1	87.4	90.2
97	South Florida	88.1	94.9	87.5	90.2
98	Rice	87.8	92.6	88.6	89.7
99	SMU	88.1	92.0	88.2	89.4
100	Massachusetts	87.5	91.1	89.1	89.2
101	Tulane	87.9	90.3	86.0	88.1
102	Buffalo	83.8	91.3	86.4	87.2
103	UL-Lafayette	85.3	89.4	85.7	86.8
104	Southern Mississippi	86.5	87.0	85.5	86.3
105	Ball St.	84.9	87.8	85.8	86.2
106	Akron	83.0	89.5	84.4	85.6
107	Central Michigan	83.0	88.9	84.9	85.6
108	Texas St.	83.8	87.6	83.5	85.0
109	Kent St.	83.2	86.0	83.9	84.4
110	Connecticut	81.8	87.9	82.0	83.9
111	Florida Atlantic	82.0	86.2	82.6	83.6
112	Old Dominion	80.7	88.0	79.8	82.8
113	UTEP	81.8	84.8	81.6	82.7
114	North Texas	79.9	86.4	80.4	82.2
115	South Alabama	77.9	85.7	79.7	81.1
116	Army	76.9	87.6	78.2	80.9
117	UL-Monroe	81.7	78.3	81.0	80.3
118	UNLV	79.2	81.6	79.9	80.2
119	Miami (O)	76.6	83.0	76.7	78.8
120	UT-San Antonio	77.2	80.7	78.3	78.7
121	Eastern Michigan	75.0	84.9	75.0	78.3