SportsRatings: College Football

Monster moves: Wisconsin win boosts Big Ten, Florida loss sinks SEC

There are 130 FBS teams, and 127 have played games this season. Before yesterday, almost 100 were "connected" in the diagram of who played who. But 28 teams—14 in the Big Ten, 14 more in the SEC—were isolated in their own grouping. The Big Ten only played the Big Ten, the SEC played within the SEC. So technically, there was no way to know how these teams related to the other 99.

Yesterday the Big Ten and SEC were connected to the rest of the FBS college football world, and due to the "power" of a small sample size—n=1, in each case—the results were dramatic, and obviously misleading.

Wisconsin beat Wake Forest 42-28, not an incredible outcome but one that boosted the Big Ten to being the best-rated conference in our power ratings. The Badgers were rated the 5th-best team in the Big Ten, meaning Ohio State, Iowa, Indiana, and Northwestern were pushed up the ranks. Wisconsin jumped from #42 to #6, and Ohio State moved into the very top spot.

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Ohio State                  6-0   43.27   56.45 [  1]   13.17 [  6]
  2. Clemson                    10-1   37.04   50.73 [  2]   13.69 [  7]
  3. Iowa                        6-2   35.43   43.52 [  5]    8.08 [  4]
  4. Indiana                     6-1   32.80   39.86 [ 12]    7.05 [  2]
  5. Northwestern                6-2   30.35   34.68 [ 36]    4.32 [  1]
  6. Wisconsin                   4-3   29.68   36.99 [ 23]    7.31 [  3]
  7. Brigham Young              11-1   25.64   42.95 [  7]   17.31 [ 15]
  8. Oklahoma                    9-2   24.59   42.76 [  9]   18.17 [ 17]
  9. Notre Dame                 10-1   24.49   36.75 [ 26]   12.26 [  5]
 10. Penn State                  4-5   23.79   39.70 [ 14]   15.90 [  9]

The Buckeyes jumped from #6 to #1, and 5 other Big Ten teams moved into the top ten, even 4-5 Penn State. In our All Division ranking it was even more dramatic, as Wisconsin jumped #92 to #6 and Ohio State #41 to #1. 

Meanwhile, Florida was blown out of the water against Oklahoma, 55-20. Being the only comparison between the SEC and the rest of college football, guess what happened to Alabama? They fell from #2 to a ridiculous #40. But that's what you get if you assume Oklahoma is 35 points better than Florida, because it's all the ratings have to go by. Remember, Alabama only beat Florida by 6 points.

These 1-game comparisons determining the inter-conference pecking order is something you normally won't see after Week 2 of the season, but in this crazy year we're getting it during the bowl games. Seismic shifts in the first few weeks don't mean anything because the ratings don't look orderly (unless you use priors, of course) but right now, with most of the pecking order determined—and a good idea of who the best teams are within each conference—it makes the ratings a strange combination of very accurate and terribly random. 

Unfortunately another bowl was cancelled that would have given us a direct comparison between the SEC and Big Ten and probably brought both back to reality, at least somewhat. Iowa was set to play Missouri but the game was called off. Iowa was a 14 point favorite by the oddsmakers, a 20 point favorite by our power ratings yesterday, and today? The Hawkeyes would have to win by 63 to keep the Big Ten as far ahead of the SEC as it is now. Undoubtedly the rift between the conferences would have closed a bit following that game.

The SEC plays another bowl game today as 3-7 Mississippi State takes on 6-2 Tulsa. With the Bulldogs ranking among the worst in the SEC and #118 in the FBS, and Tulsa at #44, it's a good opportunity for the SEC to move up. Mississippi State is a 1-point underdog by the oddsmakers but a 36 point underdog by our power rating (they were a 17 point dog before yesterday's Florida debacle).

Other odds were rocked by yesterday's games, too—in the most important games to come. Yesterday morning our ratings had Clemson a 15 point favorite to beat Ohio State, and Alabama a 7 point favorite over Notre Dame. This morning? Ohio State is now the favorite by 6, and Notre Dame is a 15 point favorite over Alabama. The ACC didn't move—it was all the Big Ten moving up and the SEC plunging down, dragging all the conference's teams with it.

In addition to the Mississippi State-Tulsa game, on January 1st Georgia plays Cincinnati and Northwestern plays Auburn. Both games come before the playoff games, and with so few comparisons available, each will have an outsize effect on who our power rating expects to win the Playoff games and by how much. The projected point spreads will change based on today's game, and the two early games on the 1st, especially Northwestern vs. Auburn as it will move both leagues either up or down.

And because there are so few comparisons, the dust won't settle until even then. On January 2nd the SEC plays three bowl games, and one is the SEC's Mississippi vs. the Big Ten's Indiana. If Alabama and/or Ohio State make the finals, that game will affect those leagues, too, especially if it's an Alabama-Ohio State final. By the time everything is said and done, there should be enough comparisons to accurately rate both conferences, but it's no guarantee, as the sample sizes will still be pretty small and if the games aren't representative, things will still be skewed.

The MAC, for example, will have its entire rating based on just two games, Buffalo vs. Marshall and Ball State vs. San Jose State. The Pac-12's standing in the overall pecking order is based right now on two Colorado games (vs. San Diego State and Texas) with only the upcoming Oregon game vs. Iowa State left. The Big Ten's position will be based on 4 or 5 games, the SEC's on a maximum of 9 games. Some of these games could still be cancelled.

In a normal year each team plays 3-4 non-conference FBS games, so the MAC, Pac-12, Big Ten and SEC would have a sample size of 42, not 5 or 9. RIght now Conference-USA has the most non-conference games with 33, and among the power five the ACC has 11 (4-5 bowls left) and Big Twelve has 9 (1 bowl remaining).

Normally by the bowl season the power ratings move very little, even from an unexpected blowout, since so many other games cushion the blow and all conferences have a lot of interplay. Not so in 2020. In some ways it makes 2020 the most frustrating year, in some ways it makes it the most interesting. Since we're probably lucky to have college football at all this year, let's look on the bright side and call this season interesting.

Texas 55-23 bowl win over Colorado sinks Pac-12 in power ratings

Like it has in every other way, 2020 has been a weird college football year. It's been a weird year in power rankings, because of mis-matched schedules and lack of conference interplay. So much so that we've had a disclaimer on our power ratings all year long.

This shows up most in our All-Division rankings. Normally, there is play between the FBS, FCS, Div II, Div III, and NAIA teams to make a solid pecking order. Not so this year, where FCS, D-II and D-III hardly played a game, leaving no connection to the NAIA, so that teams like Morningside rank high, disconnected from the real world.

But the real story is the conferences. Those that didn't have any non-conference schedule rank only among themselves, their rankings dropped into the rest of college football meaningless. The SEC, Big Ten, and MAC didn't play any inter-conference games. Thus Alabama and Ohio State look good, but not great. And you couldn't tell Buffalo from Alabama and Ohio State—the best teams in the MAC look about the same as the best in the SEC or Big Ten.

The Pac-12 was in the same boat—but they did play ONE non-conference game during the season. Colorado beat San Diego State in a hastily-scheduled game and won, 20-10. That win, by the team judged the 8th best in the Pac-12, boosted the entire conference to an unreasonable height.

That small sample of one game, combined with another small sample—Arizona State's 4 Pac-12 games—put the Sun Devils at #1 among all teams.

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Arizona St                  2-2   52.98   57.05 [  1]    4.07 [  1]
  2. Clemson                    10-1   47.91   56.21 [  2]    8.29 [  7]
  3. Southern Cal                5-1   45.60   51.28 [  5]    5.68 [  3]
  4. Oregon                      4-2   43.27   51.84 [  4]    8.56 [  8]
  5. UCLA                        3-4   42.66   53.15 [  3]   10.48 [ 16]
  6. Utah                        3-2   40.61   47.12 [ 16]    6.50 [  4]
  7. Brigham Young              11-1   39.62   49.99 [ 10]   10.37 [ 14]
  8. Washington                  3-1   37.46   46.49 [ 19]    9.03 [  9]
  9. Oklahoma                    8-2   36.23   48.41 [ 14]   12.17 [ 23]
 10. Notre Dame                 10-1   35.91   42.51 [ 30]    6.60 [  5]
 11. Stanford                    4-2   35.67   46.05 [ 21]   10.37 [ 15]
 12. Colorado                    4-1   35.58   47.63 [ 15]   12.05 [ 22]

ASU's gaudy ranking was mostly the result of their 70-7 beatdown of Arizona. Things like this resolve themselves after a few more games are played but for ASU there were no more games, so that's where they stood, 2-2 and at #1. In all there were a ridiculous eight Pac-12 teams in the top 12.

When Texas played Colorado last night, it provided a 2nd comparison of the Pac-12 to the rest of the world, and the result was not in the Pac-12's favor as the Longhorns won 55-23. Small samples make for huge movements and the results were dramatic. 

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Clemson                    10-1   48.18   57.15 [  1]    8.96 [  2]
  2. Brigham Young              11-1   39.93   50.12 [  8]   10.18 [  5]
  3. Oklahoma                    8-2   39.91   52.07 [  3]   12.16 [ 14]
  4. Notre Dame                 10-1   37.15   44.05 [ 20]    6.90 [  1]
  5. Texas                       7-3   35.92   54.84 [  2]   18.91 [ 54]
  6. Arizona St                  2-2   35.53   48.04 [ 10]   12.50 [ 15]
  7. Iowa St                     8-3   35.47   44.45 [ 18]    8.98 [  3]
  8. Cincinnati                  9-0   34.42   43.73 [ 21]    9.30 [  4]
  9. Morningside                 8-0   33.51   50.74 [  5]   17.23 [ 41]
 10. North Carolina              8-3   31.04   51.25 [  4]   20.21 [ 65]
 11. Oklahoma St                 8-3   30.79   42.44 [ 27]   11.64 [ 11]
 12. Alabama                    11-0   30.58   50.25 [  7]   19.67 [ 62]

Arizona State dropped to #6, still unreasonable but not unexpected in a 4-game sample. Colorado dropped from #12 to #50. Southern Cal fell from #3 to #17. In short, things look a lot more realistic for the Pac-12's rankings.

The Pac-12 plays one more game, when Oregon faces Iowa State. That game will also have a big effect on the Pac-12's placement. Ultimately two games featuring Colorado and one with Oregon will have to tell us everything we know about the Pac-12, without using knowledge gleaned from previous years.

And it's only that previous knowledge that tells us Alabama is a top four team. Without it, nothing makes them better than any other conference leader. The SEC plays a number of bowl games, 7 so far have not been cancelled, plus Alabama's playoff games. These game, assuming the trends of previous years hold, will push the SEC up the rankings and establish it as the best conference. Alabama will rocket up from #12 to somewhere in the top few, depending on whether they beat the top teams in the playoff games.

The Big Ten is in the same boat. With no comparisons, their rankings mean nothing outside the conference, but they have three bowl games coming up, plus Ohio State's participation in the Playoff.

And the Mid-American conference. They recently joined the rest of the connected world when Buffalo beat Marshall 17-10; that single game determines every single MAC team's relative ranking, but luckily it did a pretty good job as Buffalo ended up probably about where they should, at #30. Ball State has a game with San Jose State that will raise or lower this appraisal.

Today, Wisconsin plays Wake Forest, connecting the Big Ten, and Florida plays Oklahoma, moving the SEC into the mix. Those single games could sink or boost both conferences to a ridiculous degree. But by Saturday both conferences will play several other bowl games—and the first playoff games—so the madness should average out a bit.

Both the Big Ten and SEC should see a big boost from tonight's games. Since both conferences are currently ranked as purely "average" conferences, and both are presumably among the top conferences, an interconference comparison game should be good for both. And the current ratings bear this out. Going by our All-Division ratings, Wake Forest would be favored by 19 points over Wisconsin, and Oklahoma by 25 over Florida (or, in our FBS-only Strength ratings, 7 and 12 points). The oddsmakers instead have Wisconsin a near 10 point favorite, and Oklahoma just a 7 point favorite.

Today's games, if they go as expected, would rearrange the conference pecking order quite a bit as the Big Ten and SEC join the interconnected world. Ohio State and Alabama would be the biggest beneficiaries. And we will get our first fair comparison between these teams and Clemson and Notre Dame—even if each is linked only by a single game.