THE POWER RANK

College Football Wrap Up

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With the conclusion of bowl season, two thing stand out. First, the National Championship game was absolutely unpredictable. Auburn’s much maligned defense dominated Oregon’s high powered running game. Oregon’s defense held quarterback Cam Newton in check. In the end, Auburn won by 3 as the SEC took home its 5th straight national championship. With Oregon as an almost 10 point favorite, The Power Rank got this one wrong.

Second, Black New Year’s for the Big Ten. The powers from the Midwest went 0-5 in New Year’s Day games, including an embarassing loss by co-champion Michigan State to Alabama. While The Power Rank missed the championship game, we were more accurate on the Big Ten. Ohio State and Wisconsin are good; everyone else is mediocre. Ohio State won a dramatic Sugar Bowl against Arkansas, while there’s no shame in Wisconsin’s close loss to TCU in the Rose Bowl. (OK, Badgers fans might disagree, but TCU is a solid program). Four other Big Ten teams lost, while Iowa needed a late interception returned for a touchdown to beat Missouri.

Overall, The Power Rank predictions went 16 for 29 against the line for a 55% win percentage. In addition, there was a push in the Auburn Oregon game and 5 games in which our system would not bet because our predictions were too close to the line. Not bad for an algorithm that doesn’t have any information about injuries or even understands the rules of American tackle football. In arriving at these results, we took lines from USA Today the night before each game. A hypothetical bet was made against the most favorable line. For example, Auburn was both a 2.5 and 3 point favorite against Oregon. Since we had Oregon winning by almost 10, we took Auburn -3. The game was a push. Strangely, the line moved to Oregon by 1 by the time the game kicked off.

Bowl Predictions

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Auburn should be a ten point underdog to Oregon, says The Power Rank. It’s a prediction that doesn’t seem to make sense given recent history. In the SEC championship, Auburn devastated a very good South Carolina team 56-17. Heisman trophy winning quarterback Cam Newton ran over a South Carolina defender on his way to the endzone, adding to his aura of invincibility. Meanwhile, on the same day up in Corvalis, Oregon put away rival Oregon State 37-20 in the Civil War but arguably didn’t play the greatest game. Oregon State provided competition late into the game, pulling to within 10 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

This situation is reminscent of last season’s Super Bowl. Indianapolis won their first 14 games of the season before resting their starters down the stretch. In the playoffs, the Colts handily dispatched of Baltimore and the New York Jets by double digits to reach the Super Bowl. In the NFC, New Orleans started the season on fire only to sputter late in the season. The Saints needed a Brett Farve interception late in the 4th quarter of the NFC championship to force overtime and squeak by with a 3 point win. Intuitively, everyone had the Colts by a field goal in the Super Bowl. But, The Power Rank, which considers all games in the current season, had the Saints by 1. New Orleans won the Super Bowl 31-17.

In this current college season, Oregon has been dominant, only allowing Cal to come within 10 points of beating them. The Vegas line sees this strength and has settled on the Ducks as a 3 point favorite. The Power Rank’s predicted margin of victory is considerably larger because the algorithm thinks highly of the Pac 10. Teams from the Pac 10 had wins over Iowa (Arizona), Hawaii (USC), and Notre Dame (Stanford) as well as close losses to TCU (Oregon State) and Wisconsin (Arizona State). Oregon beat all of 5 of these Pac 10 teams by at least 11 points.

Here are predictions for all 35 bowl games:

Oregon will beat Auburn by 9.9

Ohio State will beat Arkansas by 1.9

TCU will beat Wisconsin by 7.6

Oklahoma will beat Connecticut by 13.0

Stanford will beat Virginia Tech by 5.3

Brigham Young will beat UTEP by 9.8

Northern Illinois will beat Fresno State by 2.3

Ohio will beat Troy by 0.1

Louisville will beat Southern Miss by 2.2

Boise State will beat Utah by 16.6

Hawaii will beat Tulsa by 7.0

Florida International will beat Toledo by 2.9

Air Force will beat Georgia Tech by 5.1

West Virginia will beat North Carolina State by 1.0

Missouri will beat Iowa by 2.7

Maryland will beat East Carolina by 7.4

Illinois will beat Baylor by 5.4

Oklahoma State will beat Arizona by 0.5

Kansas State will beat Syracuse by 2.6

North Carolina will beat Tennessee by 3.6

Nebraska will beat Washington by 10.9

Clemson will beat South Florida by 7.9

Miami (FL) will beat Notre Dame by 1.6

Georgia will beat UCF by 4.1

South Carolina will beat Florida State by 1.3

Texas Tech will beat Northwestern by 4.0

Florida will beat Penn State by 5.3

Alabama will beat Michigan State by 7.9

Mississippi State will beat Michigan by 6.8

Miami (OH) will beat Middle Tennessee State by 6.0

LSU will beat Texas A&M by 1.1

Pittsburgh will beat Kentucky by 2.8

Nevada will beat Boston College by 16.0

San Diego State will beat Navy by 5.8

SMU will beat Army by 4.8

College Football Rankings, Week 11

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Gene Chizik won 5 of 24 games as the head football coach at Iowa State. That kind of record usually gets a coach fired. Dan Hawkins, the recently fired head coach at Colorado, went 7-17 in his last 24 games, notching 2 more wins than Chizik. So it was shocking when Auburn hired Chizik as head coach after his two years at Iowa State. A 5-19 record seems ominous for a coach entering the Southeastern Conference, the league that has won 4 of the last 5 national championships. One fan took things to the extreme, screaming at athletic director Jay Jacobs about not wanting a loser as a coach.

Auburn hired Chizik based on his success as a defensive coordinator in college football. He led both the 2003 undefeated Auburn team that was screwed out of the national championship game as well as the 2005 Texas team that beat USC in an epic national championship game. Last year, Chizik led Auburn to an 8-5 record with a bowl win over Northwestern in his first year. This year, he’s at the helm of a 11-0 team streaking towards the SEC conference title game and possibly the BS Cartel Series (BCS) national championship game. Yet it’s quite easy to forget about the head coach when quarterback Cam Newton gets all the headlines. On the field, Newton has dazzled with his speed of his legs and the precision of his arm. Off the field, there are allegations his father asked for money in exchange for his son’s attending Mississippi State. His father has even admitted to doing it, but he says his son never knew.

Two weeks ago, Auburn was 11th in The Power Rank, much lower than any of the human polls. Our algorithm doesn’t see the superhuman athletic ability of the quarterback but does note the string of close wins. Since then, Auburn handily beat a good lower division Chattanooga team (104 in The Power Rank) and pulled away from a strong 35th ranked Georgia team. But while Auburn is 5th in the Power Rank, their next opponent Alabama is right behind in 6th, a mere 0.61 points behind. Playing on the road in Tuskaloosa, Auburn should be the underdog in the Iron Bowl against Alabama in two weeks.

1. Oregon, 10-0, 41.05
2. Boise State, 9-0, 32.86
3. TCU, 11-0, 32.38
4. Stanford, 9-1, 29.44
5. Auburn, 11-0, 27.63
6. Alabama, 8-2, 27.02
7. Ohio State, 9-1, 26.55
8. Virginia Tech, 8-2, 25.69
9. Nebraska, 9-1, 24.87
10. USC, 7-3, 24.76
11. Arkansas, 8-2, 24.26
12. Nevada, 9-1, 24.25
13. California, 5-5, 23.92
14. Wisconsin, 9-1, 23.82
15. South Carolina, 7-3, 23.23
16. Arizona State, 4-6, 23.08
17. LSU, 9-1, 22.92
18. Oklahoma State, 9-1, 22.66
19. Iowa, 7-3, 22.62
20. Missouri, 8-2, 22.53
21. Miami (FL), 7-3, 22.03
22. Oregon State, 4-5, 21.49
23. Oklahoma, 8-2, 21.46
24. San Diego State, 7-3, 20.75
25. Arizona, 7-3, 20.49