Week 1: Best/Worst Performances

Week one, 2014, is in the history books and as usual we're going to looks at who did the best, who did the worst, both relative to expectations and in absolute terms. Let's get right into it:

Best Performances Relative to Expectations

1. Western Kentucky Hilltoppers: We didn't even think the Hilltoppers would beat Bowling Green, let alone destroy them. The oddsmakers had the Falcons a 7 1/2 point favorite and we figured on something closer to 15 points as Bowling Green was #58 in our pre-season Top 128 while Western Kentucky was #112. Hence, WKU's 59-31 dismantling of the Falcons was huge. The Hilltoppers had an astounding 569 passing yards and jumped to a 21-0 lead, after which the teams basically traded scores. We projected WKU would have a top 25 passing attack but 569 yards is ridiculous; we also saw a big decline in Bowling Green's defense but not this bad.
2. New Mexico State Aggies: Every year in our pre-season rankings there is an outlier team at the bottom, for whom the stats have gone a bit awry. This year it was New Mexico State, who clocked in at 10 points worse than the #127 team. Obviously that's not too realistic, and the Aggies proved that by beating Cal Poly 28-10. Not an amazing achievement by most standards, but it far outpaces the 24 point loss our ratings predicted! Some of this might be due to Cal Poly being worse than last year, since we used last year's unmodified rating for the Mustangs. But it's probably safe to say that most of this performance is New Mexico State finding their true ranking, and they could be as good as an average team this year if they keep this up.
3. Texas San-Antonio Roadrunners: At lot of UTSA's ranking here is due to our overranking of Houston at #16 in our pre-season top 128. But who know, maybe this is the Roadrunners' year to really break out. They sure did against Houston—on the road—dominating the Cougars 27-7 in a game very reminiscent of Houston's opener two years ago against Texas State. We figured UTSA's defense would be a lot better and they were, holding Houston scoreless until the 4th quarter; they also intercepted John O'Korn 4 times. Two years ago Houston finished 5-7 and Texas State was just a mediocre teams that caught the Cougars on a really bad day. This time there's a lot more chance that the winner is actually a strong team.
4. Temple Owls: Coming off a 2-10 finish last year no one expected the Owls to beat Vanderbilt in the opener, or if they did, didn't expect a 37-7 rout. Vanderbilt had an amazing 7 turnovers and that pretty much explains everything. Since the Owls only had 3 picks last year and matched that in one game, you have to assume it's more on Vanderbilt than Temple, but give the Owls much credit for winning on the road.
5. Alabama-Birmingham Blazers: UAB didn't just beat Troy, they beat them down, 48-10. Now, it's true we didn't expect much from the Trojans, ranking them just #113, but since we had UAB #115 a 38-point win is very significant. With home field advantage we did expect a 2 point win, and the oddsmakers concurred. This result points to good things for UAB as their running game was strong (they ran the ball 70% of the time), but it might also point to big problems for Troy's defense.

Naturally, the five worse-than-expected teams are the losers from above, for the most part.

Worst Performances Relative to Expectations

1. Bowling Green, lost 59-31 at Western Kentucky
2. Houston, lost 27-7 to UTSA
3. Vanderbilt, lost 37-7 to Temple
4. Troy, lost 48-10 to UAB
5. South Carolina, lost 52-28 to Texas A&M. The Gamecocks were dominated by the Aggies, and most are focusing on A&M's great performance and not South Carolina's defensive misfortunes. Though it is certainly believable that the Aggie offense is just as good as last year, there is a chance that South Carolina just doesn't have it on D anymore without Jadeveon Clowney, and that losing Connor Shaw was a hit on offense they haven't overcome yet.

The South Carolina game helps lead us into the other set of lists: The best performances, in absolute terms. Theoretically this should be populated with the very best teams, but as we noted a few days ago, the top teams underperformed.

Best Performances from Week One (Absolute terms):

1. Texas A&M 52, South Carolina 28: This is the most newsworthy game of the first week, as the 10-point underdog Aggies took control of the game on the road. Kenny Hill passed for 511 yards and broke several of Johnny Manziel's records. How good can this team be? Potentially the best team in the country, if this performance is any indication.
2. Southern Cal 52, Fresno State 13: Everyone figured Fresno State would be a bit worse without Derek Carr and there was potential for a worse blowout than last year's bowl game (45-20). But the Bulldogs don't figure to be a bad team and beating them by 39 puts USC on the short list of teams with lots of potential. The new up-tempo offense seems to be working.
3. Georgia 45, Clemson 21: Like the game above, the losing team here is without their star quarterback from last year. Still, beating Clemson 45-21, winning the 2nd half 24-0. Todd Gurley established himself as the Heisman front-runner with 198 yards rushing and a touchdown return on a kickoff.
4. Baylor 45, SMU 0: This wasn't at all unexpected; the Bears were 33 point favorites and we projected a 40-point win. But Baylor was our pre-season #5 team so meeting expectations should put their win in the top five. This one could have been a lot worse—after Bryce Petty was hurt the team only added 14 points in well over two quarters, and Shock Lindood fumbled into the end zone on one occasion.
5. Auburn 45, Arkansas 21: This was almost a carbon-copy of Georgia's win, with Arkansas as the opponent (and so ranks lower than beating Clemson). The score was tied at 21 all at the half but the Tigers won the 2nd half 24-0.

And last but not least (well, they are least I suppose), the worst performances:

Worst Performances (Absolute terms)

1. Troy 10, UAB 48: We covered this one above; it doesn't look good for Troy unless UAB is a surprise power.
2. Eastern Michigan 31, Morgan State 28: We expected a 14-point win by the Eagles, who are #126 in our pre-season rankings. This performance ranked #127.
3. Massachusetts 7, Boston College 30: UMass was #124 in our pre-season, and losing to Boston College by 23 is even worse but pretty close to our 17-point projection.
4. Georgia State 38, Abilene Christian 37 - Though this is one of the worst performances—beating new FCS team Abilene Christian by a last-second field goal—it's a big win for the Panthers who went 0-12 last year. We had them as 3 point underdogs so they exceeded our expectations with the home win. We projected the Panthers to win 3 games this year and it looks like they're on their way.
5. Southern Miss 0, Mississippi State 49: This was only a little worse than we expected, but it doesn't do anything to make us think our #120 pre-season ranking was off.