Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Boise St Screwed

So Boise State is ending up in the Las Vegas Bowl, which is a relatively mediocre game. They will probably crush Utah, and have no financial motivation to care what game they go to this year (http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/12/06/1444809/boise-state-to-play-utah-on-dec.html).

The argument comes down to Arkansas being given the bid over the Broncos. Wouldn't it be delicious to actually have Boise St vs Ohio St in a BCS Bowl, with Ohio State's President E. Gordon Gee's commentary about the superiority of BCS teams hanging in the air? This one could be hyped up like a boxing match. A classic Drago vs Rocky affair. I think the BCS missed out on a great opportunity to do justice and score awesome ratings.

It seems they were more interested in avoiding future contention if the game wasn't a blowout by the Buckeyes.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

TopoRank Bowl Predictions

Time to handicap all the bowl games!:

VisitorHomePredictSpreadActual
BYUUTEP17.011.5-1228
Northern IllinoisFresno St1.12.5-323
OhioTroy4.4-(1-1.5)-27
S.MississippiLouisville7.73.53
UtahBoise St17.316-1723
NavySan Diego State5.6----
HawaiiTulsa10.512-12.5-27
Florida IntlToledo6.81.5-22
Air ForceGeorgia Tech4.42-2.57
West VirginiaNorth Carolina St7.12.516
MissouriIowa6.10-1-3
East CarolinaMaryland16.47.5-831
IllinoisBaylor5.7-(1.5-2)24
Oklahoma StArizona1.6626
ArmySMU3.2----
Kansas StSyracuse12.32-3-2
North CarolinaTennessee6.9-(1.5-2.5)-3
NebraskaWashington15.313-13.5-12
South FloridaClemson3.24-4.5-5
Notre DameMiami2.03-16
Georgia UCF11.37-4
South CarolinaFlorida St0.13-9
NorthwesternTexas Tech5.29-9.57
FloridaPenn St7.6713
AlabamaMichigan St13.610.5-1142
Mississippi StMichigan3.0638
WisconsinTCU8.62.5-32
ConnecticutOklahoma18.217-1828
StanfordVirginia Tech14.53-3.528
Ohio StArkansas7.63-3.55
Middle TennesseeMiami (OH)6.31.5-214
LSUTexas A&M1.7-1-17
PittsburghKentucky4.82.5-317
NevadaBoston College21.19.5-107
OregonAuburn16.7-(2.5-3)-3

Boise State is the clear Bowl placement loser here, and Connecticut is a questionable choice for the Fiesta Bowl. Swapping those two would do them justice and avoid a couple of ho-hum blowout games.

TopoRank finishes the bowl season 17 of 33, which loses just short of 2%.
I'll have to take a long hard look at the theory behind it, and perhaps change it up for next year.

NCAA 2010 Rankings, pre-bowl

The final regular season games have been played, and the bowl games are posted. Time to start with the new TopoRankings, out to the top 100 to include all the bowl contestants. Each team also has its TopoRanking value listed. Every point differential correlates with a team being '7 points better':

1. 22.135 Oregon
2. 21.270 Boise St
3. 21.254 Stanford
4. 20.738 Ohio State
5. 20.439 TCU
6. 20.153 Alabama
7. 19.983 Nebraska
8. 19.754 Auburn
9. 19.725 Oklahoma
10. 19.717 Missouri
11. 19.703 Oklahoma St
12. 19.654 Arkansas
13. 19.469 Arizona
14. 19.346 Nevada
15. 19.287 Texas A&M
16. 19.270 Oregon St
17. 19.214 Wisconsin
18. 19.178 Virginia Tech
19. 19.112 Arizona St
20. 19.093 Southern Cal
21. 19.042 LSU
22. 18.849 South Carolina
23. 18.843 Iowa
24. 18.841 Florida St
25. 18.831 West Virginia
26. 18.794 Utah
27. 18.760 Georgia
28. 18.516 Miami FL
29. 18.504 California
30. 18.373 Florida
31. 18.234 Notre Dame
32. 18.211 Michigan St
33. 18.150 Hawai`i
34. 18.044 Kansas St
35. 18.006 Mississippi St
36. 18.000 Tennessee
37. 17.902 Northern Illinois
38. 17.899 Illinois
39. 17.886 Clemson
40. 17.810 North Carolina St
41. 17.804 Washington
42. 17.762 San Diego St
43. 17.708 Texas
44. 17.700 Pittsburgh
45. 17.651 Maryland
46. 17.606 Louisville
47. 17.572 Michigan
48. 17.509 UCLA
49. 17.424 South Florida
50. 17.414 Air Force
51. 17.289 Penn State
52. 17.262 Texas Tech
53. 17.151 Brigham Young
54. 17.142 Central Florida
55. 17.122 Connecticut
56. 17.081 Baylor
57. 17.016 Kentucky
58. 17.013 North Carolina
59. 16.968 Navy
60. 16.889 Colorado
61. 16.793 Temple
62. 16.787 Cincinnati
63. 16.783 Georgia Tech
64. 16.758 Fresno St
65. 16.686 Mississippi
66. 16.646 Tulsa
67. 16.552 Iowa St
68. 16.544 Houston
69. 16.517 Northwestern
70. 16.509 Southern Miss
71. 16.457 Louisiana Tech
72. 16.406 SMU
73. 16.377 Villanova
74. 16.334 Boston College
75. 16.307 Western Michigan
76. 16.285 Syracuse
77. 16.045 Washington St
78. 16.030 Toledo
79. 15.956 Army
80. 15.918 Idaho
81. 15.886 Purdue
82. 15.880 Ohio U.
83. 15.852 Minnesota
84. 15.749 Delaware
85. 15.736 Northern Arizona
86. 15.668 William & Mary
87. 15.665 Duke
88. 15.639 Rutgers
89. 15.623 Virginia
90. 15.552 Wake Forest
91. 15.539 Eastern Washington
92. 15.526 Sacramento St
93. 15.503 Central Michigan
94. 15.481 Vanderbilt
95. 15.440 Kent St
96. 15.420 Utah St
97. 15.419 NW Missouri St
98. 15.367 Western Illinois
99. 15.321 New Hampshire
100. 15.320 Appalachian St

The next post will handicap all bowl game, and we can debate which teams got short-changed in the selection process.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Looking Back: BCS conference games

To cover a few games we might not otherwise hit, I'm looking at all the BCS conference games for this week. In the future, I think I'll post all BCS and Top 25 games.

Pac-10
VisitorHomePredictSpreadActual
ACC
21. Florida St15. Virginia Tech0.93.5-4.511
Big 12
9. Oklahoma13. Nebraska3.84-6.53
Big East
Rutgers24. West Virginia19.119.5-20.521
PittsburghCincinnati2.60-218
ConnecticutSouth Florida32-2.5-3
Big Ten
IllinoisFresno St12.2?skip
Pac-10
2. OregonOregon St25.215.5-16.517
Arizona St23. Arizona3.35-6.5-1
WashingtonWashington St1.85.5-87
USCUCLA7.16.5-8skip
SEC
1. Auburn19. South Carolina1.45-639

I can no longer find reliable spread numbers for the Illinois-Fresno St game, so I won't count it. TopoRank hits 5 of 10 BCS conference games. There were a number of close calls, but this week comes out to a slight loss.

I'm looking forward to the bowl season!


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