THE POWER RANK

College Football Rankings, Week 13

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Imagine a nonsense world in which only two teams qualify for the tournament to crown a national champion in college football. A silly place for sure, but The Power Rank still has an opinon on these matters.

Oregon stays at number one in the rankings this week. After getting a scare in the game at California, the Ducks stormed back this week with a solid win at home over a good Arizona team. Oregon has over a 7 point lead over all other teams, which means they should be at least a touchdown point favorite against any other team on a neutral site. The Ducks easily qualify for our hypothetical tournament of two.

The remaining team to qualify is more nebulous, as TCU, Stanford and Boise State form a tight pack in the 2 through 4 slots. TCU finished a perfect 12-0 season with a big win over a woeful New Mexico. They looked particularly good a few weeks ago after beating highly ranked Utah, but Utah went on to lose to Notre Dame the following week. Stanford trails TCU by less than half a point, so a game between these two teams would be a dead heat destined for overtime. While Stanford lost to top ranked Oregon, their body of work keeps them close to TCU.

The third contender for the second playoff slot is Boise State, a team that lost to rival Nevada in the most dramatic fashion on Friday. The entire fourth quarter was a storyline that you just can’t make up. In the end, Boise State’s kicker missed two short field goals that allowed Nevada to win the game in overtime by 3. But Boise State was only a 6 point favorite in the game according to our system, and a 9 point deviation is quite common. Boise State ends up fourth this week, barely behind Stanford. There’s no shame in a road loss to a good Nevada team that jumps to 10th in the rankings.

Three teams, one slot. It’s a cruel world. Moreover, The Power Rank doesn’t assign a team’s value with absolute certainty. A vast range of elements affect the outcome of games, from a lucky bounce off the turf to pulling the starters in the middle of the third quarter. Just like it’s impossible to measure the position and velocity of an atom precisely, there is an error in a team’s value. In an ideal world, The Power Rank would quantify this error. For now, it’s reasonable to assume TCU, Stanford, and Boise State are all equally worthy competitors to Oregon.

If a hypothetical media ran its mouth in this nonsense world, there might be chatter about two other teams: Auburn and Wisconsin. Auburn squeaked out a one point win over Alabama this weekend. Some may view Auburn’s inability to win decisively as a failure. However, both our system and the Vegas line had Auburn as a 4 point underdog in this game, so the Tigers actually overachieved. Still, Auburn doesn’t qualify for the 2 team tourney as they trail Boise State by more than 3 points.

Finally, Wisconsin put up another big number on a Big Ten opponent, scoring 70 points on Northwestern in a 47 point win. A few weeks ago, they beat Indiana by 63 points only to move up one place in The Power Rank. This week, they actually dropped one place, as Nevada passed them with their win over Boise State. This clearly demonstrates the diminishing returns in The Power Rank for running up the score. We’re all in favor of piling on the points, but it’s not necessarily going to help your rank. Wisconsin comes in at 12th in the latest rankings.

College Football Rankings, Week 12

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Nevada head coach Chris Ault is in the Hall of Fame. He’s only one of three active college football coaches in the Hall, and you may have heard of one of the others: Joe Paterno. The Hall of Fame inducted Ault based on consistent success at Nevada that allowed the Wolfpack to rise from Division II to the top subdivision of Division I. After his induction in 2002, Ault could have rested on his laurels and enjoyed the perks of being the athletic director at his alma mater Nevada. Instead, he hires himself as the head coach again in 2004. After a tough opening 5-7 season, Ault decides to revamp the offense. Frustrated with all the sideline to sideline running in the fashionable spread offensive of the day, Ault and his staff start working on plays suited for running the ball downfield. In the spread offense, the quarterback lines up the “shotgun” 6 yards behind the center with a running back to his side. Ault found it was easier to run the ball up the middle if the quarterback stood 4 yards behind the center with the running back behind him. The Pistol offense was born.

At first, the Pistol was a disaster. The center spent spring practice hiking the ball over the quarterback’s head, while the assistant coaches worked on their resumes in anticipation of unemployment. But the Wolfpack slowly made it work. Finally, in 2009, Nevada led to nation in rushing offense and had 3 players rush for more than 1000 yards. The Pistol offense has spread to Arkansas, Indiana and UCLA among other programs. It’s remarkable that a college football coach finds the time to innovate a new offense. The modern coach is the CEO of a multi-million dollar business. He spends his time fund raising, dealing with the media and bailing players out of jail. Chris Ault found time to think about football too. Nice work.

The Pistol wielding Wolfpack of Nevada are currently 12th in The Power Rank. They face 2nd ranked Boise State on Friday in a game that not only decides the conference title but also has huge national championship consequences. While The Power Rank has them as 6 point underdogs, don’t count the Wolfpack out. Two weekends ago, Nevada trailed Fresno State late in the 4th quarter. The Bulldogs were effectively stuffing the Pistol offense and celebrating after each play like they had won the Super Bowl. It was a youthful display of energy that seems productive but perhaps puts a bit too much emphasis on a single play in a long game. Nevada ignored these theatrics and kept plugging away. Finally, calmly, they ran the ball up the middle again out of the Pistol. This time, Vai Taua ran untouched into the endzone for the go ahead score. Moments later, when the defense stopped Fresno State on fourth down, the Nevada players finally celebrated.

4. Stanford (10-1), 31.33. Stewart Mandel led off his College Football Overtime with the sad story about how Stanford will most likely get stiffed by the BS Cartel Series (BCS). If you’re a Stanford fan, root hard for Alabama to win the Iron Bowl over Auburn.

1. Oregon, 10-0, 41.18
2. Boise State, 10-0, 35.12
3. TCU, 11-0, 33.12
4. Stanford, 10-1, 31.33
5. Auburn, 11-0, 28.06
6. Virginia Tech, 9-2, 27.80
7. Alabama, 9-2, 27.71
8. Ohio State, 10-1, 27.34
9. Arkansas, 9-2, 25.46
10. Nebraska, 9-2, 24.93
11. Wisconsin, 10-1, 24.65
12. South Carolina, 8-3, 24.35
13. Oregon State, 5-5, 23.68
14. Arizona State, 4-6, 23.55
15. Nevada, 10-1, 23.41
16. Missouri, 9-2, 23.38
17. Oklahoma State, 10-1, 23.33
18. USC, 7-4, 23.01
19. Oklahoma, 9-2, 22.74
20. LSU, 10-1, 22.60
21. California, 5-6, 22.41
22. Iowa, 7-4, 21.87
23. Texas A&M, 8-3, 21.45
24. Arizona, 7-3, 20.46
25. Miami (FL), 7-4, 20.40

College Football Rankings, Week 4

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Eleven months ago, it was easy to doubt Stanford. Despite obvious improvement under coach Jim Harbaugh and a 5-3 record, many unanswered questions remained. The biggest worries stemmed from late game losses at Wake Forest and Arizona, bringing up questions about the team’s fitness and ability to close out games. For a program that hadn’t been to a bowl game since 2001, six wins would be a huge accomplishment. But, Oregon and USC loomed on the schedule in November.

All doubts were eliminated when Stanford beat eventual conference champion Oregon before thrashing perennial power USC 55-21 on the road. Stanford football was back. After a disappointing loss to Oklahoma in the Sun Bowl, the Cardinal has charged out of the gate this season with lopsided victories over UCLA (+35), Wake Forest (+44) and Notre Dame (+23), earning the top spot in the Power Rank. The media has presented two way star Owen Marecic, who plays both fullback and middle linbacker for the Cardinal, as the essence of this team. On Saturday in South Bend, he scored a touchdown on offense and defense within a span of 13 seconds. But what happened before those touchdowns truly epitomizes this Stanford team. With the ball on the Notre Dame 23 yard line, Stanford ran the ball eight straight times. On many of these run plays, there was an extra tackle and no receivers, the jumbo package. The last of these eight runs was Marecic’s touchdown.

And no, these rankings are not fixed. Yes, I did get my Ph.D. from Stanford. Yes, my advisor Hans Andersen (yes, my advisor’s name really is Hans C. Andersen) taught me all the math and physics I needed to develop this ranking system. Yes, I did meet my beautiful wife, a rabid Cardinal fan, there. But, no, the rankings are not fixed. Stanford has earned the number one rank on the field. Enjoy the first college football rankings, but don’t take the point spreads too seriously. It’s very early in the season, and there should be lots of movement in the next few weeks. Moreover, the records are against Football Bowl Subdivision opponents only. In the meantime, start following these teams.

3. Nevada (3-0), 30.99. The Wolfpack have racked up huge wins against Colorado State (+45), Cal (+21) and at BYU (+14). The last win in Provo is particularly impressive since BYU has won 43 games over the last 4 years. The Nevada versus Boise St. game in late November just gets more and more interesting.

12. San Diego St. (2-1), 18.37. The Aztecs have climbed high based on a big win over Utah St. (+34) and a close loss to 16th ranked Missouri (-3). Not bad for a team that finished 4-8 last year and 98th in the Power Rank. The Aztecs will get tested on the road in Provo against an angry BYU team that has started 1-3.

20. Virginia Tech (2-1), 15.19. At this point, it’s hard to truly gauge the Hokies since the Power Rank does not account for their dramatic home loss to James Madison, a Football Championship Subdivision team and supposedly inferior opponent. And since we can’t really evaluate Virigina Tech, we can’t determine the true value of Boise St., a team that beat the Hokies to begin the season.

24. Air Force (2-1) 11.91. With a big win over BYU (+21) and a close loss to Oklahoma (-3) in Norman, the Falcons are flying high again this season. Air Force can make life really difficult for Mountain West foes TCU and Utah to go undefeated this season.

120. (out of 120) New Mexico (0-4), -47.11. With a point value so low, the Lobos make me wait double the time for my code that generates these rankings to converge. Coach Mike Lockley is 1-15 with the Lobos and is luckly to still have a job after hitting an assitant coach last year. Can you guys try not to be 19 points worse than the next worst team?