Can Week 2 match Week 1 for big matchups?
No, not at all. In fact it's chock-full of laughers and cupcake opponents. Still, there are a few key games to watch.
Let's take a look at our current Playoff Projection:
Rnk Team Rec %Odds This week: 1. Alabama 13-0 69.5 Mercer 2. Oklahoma 13-0 68.1 W. Carolina 3. Arizona St 13-0 64.8 UNLV 4. Indiana 12-1 32.9 Idaho 5. Georgia 12-1 25.6 UAB 6. Clemson 12-1 20.2 S Carolina St 7. Ohio State 11-1 16.9 Oregon 8. UCLA 11-1 15.6 -- 9. Iowa St 11-2 15.2 Iowa 10. Brigham Young 11-1 7.9 Utah 11. Wisconsin 11-2 7.5 Eastern Mich 12. Iowa 10-2 7.2 @Iowa State (L) 13. Miami FL 11-2 6.9 Appalachian St 14. Mississippi 10-2 6.5 Austin Peay 15. Texas A&M 10-2 6.2 @Colorado (Denver) 16. North Carolina 10-2 5.9 Georgia State 17. Wake Forest 10-2 5.5 Norfolk State 18. Boston College 10-2 5.2 @Massachusetts 19. Coastal Carolina 13-0 3.4 Kansas 20. Notre Dame 9-3 2.4 Toledo (L) 21. Oklahoma St 9-3 2.1 Tulsa 22. TCU 9-3 1.7 California 23. Florida 9-3 1.4 @South Florida 24. Oregon 9-4 1.1 @Ohio State (L) 25. Ball St 11-1 0.4 @Penn State
Read em and weep:
Mercer, Western Carolina, UNLV, Idaho, UAB, and South Carolina State.
Those are the opponents for our top six Playoff contenders. If any of the contenders lose this week they are in big, big trouble. To be brief, there are no big games to match Alabama vs. Miami or Clemson vs. Georgia this week.
Add in #8 UCLA being idle and the only game of interest in the top 8 is #7 Ohio State hosting #24 Oregon. And since we rank Ohio State #6 in our Bayesian power rating and Oregon has fallen to a dismal #53, we don't expect this to be that much of a game either. But if the Ducks do manage to win they'll get a big boost while the Buckeyes will slide to the middle of the pack. Oregon would still have three more expected losses on their slate, including a Pac-12 title game loss, but it would be a good start—and maybe prove to our power rating that they're a good team.
Probably the real game of the week is Iowa visiting Iowa State. We stick with the Cyclones winning this one in our CFP projection but our Bayesian power rating now has Iowa #3 and Iowa State #14, making the Hawkeyes the favorite there. But don't just look at last week's results (Iowa 34-6 over Indiana, Iowa State 16-10 over Northern Iowa) and expect a dominant Hawkeye win. Many times in the past Iowa State has struggled with (or even lost to) Northern Iowa then turned around and given Iowa a dogfight, win or lose. This is going to be a close game.
If Iowa wins it would put their projection at 11-1 and they'd join the likes of Ohio State and UCLA as 1-loss teams that don't (yet) make their conference championship game. Iowa State losing would mean the Cyclones have 3 projected losses total, and they'd have to beat Oklahoma two times to end up with just 1 loss. That's asking a lot.
#10 BYU has a very important game against Utah, their 2nd straight Pac-12 foe. It's nice to have a win over Arizona but Utah is ranked in the AP Top 25 and that would be a big plus. Or a big minus if they lose, as any loss puts them in a bad spot as an independent with no conference title game to shoot for. #13 Miami has a potentially tough rebound game hosting Appalachian State, but if they can shake off the effects of the Bama beatdown they should be fine. Any hangover from last week could really short circuit the Canes' season.
We hit another major soft patch with #11 Wisconsin facing Eastern Michigan, #14 Mississippi hosting Austin Peay, #16 North Carolina vs. Georgia State, #17 Wake Forest vs. Norfolk State, #18 Boston College vs. UMass, #20 Oklahoma State vs. Tulsa, and #23 Florida at South Florida. Even #15 Texas A&M facing Colorado and #19 Coastal Carolina vs. Kansas are mismatches despite the Power Five opponents. That's a lot of surefire wins—or at least the favored teams better hope. California should at least be a bit of a challenge for #22 TCU.
The MAC's Last Stand
That leaves two more games that matter. #20 Notre Dame takes on Toledo, the only MAC team that did well last week of the four(!) in our pre-season top 25 power rating. Since Toledo is up to #10 in our Bayesian ratings while Notre Dame fell to #29, we still expect a Toledo win. Notre Dame therefore has an opportunity to move up in our rankings with an "upset." If Toledo wins it would cause quite a stir as most people would put this game in the category above—easy win for the more prominent team. The MAC has one more chance to pull off a big surprise.
Or maybe two chances, since #25 Ball State travels to Penn State this week. Our Playoff projections count this as a win for Ball State, but our Bayesian rankings no longer agree as Ball State dropped to #23 and Penn State is up to #15 since beating Wisconsin. We might say goodbye to Ball State, and if that's the case the Nittany Lions would project to 9-3 and likely enter our forecast this coming Monday.
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