College kids like to party. Between the women and alcohol, a college campus can be a distracting place for a young man with a football game to play the next morning. Most coaches recognize this problem and tuck their players away at a local hotel the night before a home game. But not Boise State. Even the night before the recent Oregon State game, arguably the biggest in school history, quarterback Kellen Moore and his teammates slept in their own beds.
The results of Coach Chris Peterson’s trust in his players are remarkable. After going undefeated last year, the Broncos have opened this season with wins over highly regarded Virginia Tech and Oregon State teams. If they played in one of 6 Bowl Championship Series conferences and went undefeated, they would almost certainly qualify for the national championship game. But Boise State is not a part of these conferences, and that’s where the controversy starts. For teams in the BCS conferences, this conference affliation automatically disqualifies the Broncos from the championship game because of strength of schedule and body of work. Alabama coach Nick Saban lumps these concepts into the term SOSBOW, a not so subtle suggestion that these team can’t play a strong schedule or have a championship worthy body of work. SOSBOW. Say it out loud. It sounds like my 21 month son asking for a bowl of pasta sauce.
But Boise State has SOSBOW as well, and the Power Rank can quantify it. Using only the score and location of each game, the algorithm assigns each team a point value. Just like with the old school Vegas bookies, the difference in the point values of two teams is a point spread on a neutral field, much like the setting of the national championship game. It’s not a perfect system. The Power Rank predicted a 33.6 point win for Boise State this weekend over New Mexico State. The line was set at a seemingly preposterous 43.5. Boise State won by 59 and almost covered (38-0) by the end of the first half. But by the end of last season, the algorithm picked 62 percent of the bowl games against the line last year (21 of 34). Hence, it’s a decent estimator of how two teams might match up in a bowl game. Stay tuned.
1. Oregon (4-0) 36.36. The Ducks pulled away from Stanford in the fourth quarter, and the 21 point win vaulted them to the top spot in TPR. The field at Autzen Stadium appparently shakes during games, one reason it’s such a diffcult place to play for opponents. This certainly isn’t an excuse for Stanford, as the shaking didn’t seem to affect their offense in the first half when they scored all 31 of their points.
17. Arizon State (0-3), 18.64. So how can a team with no wins against Football Bowl Subdivision teams be ranked so high? Close losses at Wisconsin (-1), against Oregon (-11) and at Oregon State (-3) suggest the Sun Devils will win some games this year.
26. Utah (4-0) 9.79. The Utes pound San Jose State (+53) and move from 55 to 26 in the rankings. This seismic movement is an indication that the algorithm is still feeling things out this early in the season. Expect this excellent program who has won almost 10 games per year over the last 7 years to continue to rise.
Information about Boise State came from an Austin Murphy article in the October 4, 2010 issue of Sports Illustrated.
1. Oregon, 4-0, 36.36
2. Nevada, 4-0, 30.55
3. Ohio St., 5-0, 29.79
4. Alabama, 5-0, 28.82
5. Nebraska, 3-0, 25.48
6. TCU, 3-0, 25.24
7. Boise St., 4-0, 24.57
8. Miami (FL), 3-1, 24.14
9. San Diego St., 2-1, 22.69
10. Stanford, 3-1, 22.00
11. Missouri, 3-0, 21.94
12. Iowa, 3-1, 21.35
13. Virginia Tech, 3-1, 20.69
14. Arizona, 3-0, 20.32
15. California, 1-2, 18.87
16. Arkansas, 2-1, 18.85
17. Arizona St., 0-3, 18.64
18. Oregon St., 2-2, 15.32
19. Michigan, 4-0, 14.65
20. Florida, 4-1, 14.51
21. Auburn, 5-0, 12.45
22. Illinois, 1-2, 12.18
23. Clemson, 1-2, 11.61
24. Wisconsin, 3-1, 10.37
25. South Carolina, 2-1, 10.12
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