Week 1

So the long opening weekend of the college football season is almost done.  Just one more game tomorrow, Miami vs Louisville.  I'll post my first rankings for 2014 either late Monday night or on Tuesday.  After the surprising results of the Texas A&M - South Carolina game, there were some other surprises on Saturday.  No huge upsets, but some of the highly ranked teams expected to make the playoffs, such as Alabama, Florida State and UCLA all struggled to win their games.  For example, UCLA would have lost and probably should have lost to Virginia if it wasn't for their defense scoring 3 TDs.  It looks like UCLA's offensive line has not improved much from last year of leading the nation in giving up the most sacks.  They gave up 5 to Virginia yesterday, a team that went 2-10 and winless in conference play last year.  They do have Memphis at home this week, so I think they'll rebound with an offensive explosion.

For curiosity sake, I decided to see how each conference did the first week.  Below are the records for each conference:

ACC     10-4*
AAC     5-5*
Big 10     12-2
Big 12     6-3
C-USA     7-6
Indep     2-1
MAC     8-5*
Mtn West     6-6
Pac-12     10-2
SEC     10-3*^
Sun Belt     6-3^

* Includes conference games
^ Does not include the Florida-Idaho game that was suspended due to weather

It looks like the Big 10 had the best opening week going 12-2.  If Wisconsin had held on to beat LSU, their record would be even better.  After looking further into the games, I realized these records don't mean anything, especially since half of the games were against FCS teams.  Below shows the conference records of FCS games:

ACC     6-0
AAC     3-0
Big 10     7-0
Big 12     3-1
C-USA     2-1
MAC     7-0
Mtn West     5-0
Pac-12     5-0
SEC     2-0
Sun Belt     5-0    

Johnny who?

I have to admit, I did not see this coming.  Who needs Johnny football?  Obviously, Texas A&M is in good hands (no pun intended) with Kenny Hill.  He even broke Johnny's single-game passing record piling up 511 yards against the #9 ranked team.  The team picked by most media folks to win the SEC East.  How about that vaunted SEC defense the conference always claim?  I'm really curious to see how the SEC homers spin this one.

Texas A&M vs. South Carolina Highlights  after the jump

It's official, the season has started...

To be honest, it was a pretty good way to start.  Granted I didn't get to see the whole game since by the time I got home from work there was only 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter.  Having no affiliation to  either Georgia State or Abilene Christian, I had no dog in the fight.  On my way home listening to Chris Childers on Sirius XM ch.91 say that Georgia State had not won a game in like 683 days, I was kind of pulling for them.  Besides, they were the home team so I was hoping they could win.  When Abilene Christian scored a TD with about 2:45 left in the game and up by 9 points, I figured the game was over.  I was wrong.  Georgia State was able to kick a game-winning FG with :04 seconds left to secure the 1-point victory.  Congratulations to Georgia State.  I believe it was their 1st win at the FBS level, although they played an FCS school. Highlights to the game for those who may have missed it after the jump.



Georgia St. vs. Abilene Christian Highlights

Less than 24 hours...

The time is finally here for college football to start.  I know it's not the best game Georgia State vs Abilene Christian, but it's a FBS team (barely, since Georgia St is either in their 1st or 2nd year at the FBS level).  The real games start on Thursday and there's a great SEC matchup with Texas A&M at South Carolina.  Unfortunately for me the game starts at 3pm so by the time I get home from work it will probably be over.  However, I will be recording it and I know some people won't agree with me, but if you don't know the score of the game, you can still enjoy it the same as watching live.  That's another debate I don't want to get into. The debate I do want to get into is what will be debated all season long, who are the 4 best teams.  Let the games begin!!

10 Days and counting...

I can't believe the start of the new college football season starts in only 10 days.  This season is going to be unlike any other.  For starters, there is no more BCS and we have a playoff, well a mini playoff, in my opinion.  I would like to see it expanded from 4 to 8, which will probably happen sooner than the 12, 14 or however long the agreement is for.  I imagine if this year has controversy, which I'm sure it will, the playoff will be expanded especially if the controversy is an SEC team being left out of the four chosen.  For me, I would love that for 2 reasons.  First, the SEC finally gets screwed by the end of the season (Pac-10 got screwed at least 3 times and 2 of those caused a tweaking to the BCS).  Second, the playoff will get expanded to 8 a lot sooner.

The AP Top 25 Preseason Poll got released today.  Although,  the poll doesn't mean anything anymore, I still am using it for the first week of my ranking system so teams can get bonus points for playing top-ranked teams.  For example, Texas A&M vs South Carolina, Clemson vs Georgia and Wisconsin vs LSU are all games featuring 2 AP Top 25 ranked teams playing each other the 1st weekend of the season.  Like the previous years, I'm only using the AP poll for the 1st week only to use as a starting point.  After the 1st week, the bonus points related to rankings will be from the results of the 1st week from my polls.

Below is the AP Top 25 Preseason Poll:

AP Top 25 Preseason Poll
Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Previous
1	Florida St.	0-0	1496	1
2	Alabama	0-0	1361	7
3	Oregon	0-0	1334	9
4	Oklahoma	0-0	1324	6
5	Ohio St.	0-0	1207	12
6	Auburn	0-0	1198	2
7	UCLA	0-0	1106	16
8	Michigan St.	0-0	1080	3
9	South Carolina	0-0	1015	4
10	Baylor	0-0	996	13
11	Stanford	0-0	885	11
12	Georgia	0-0	843	NR
13	LSU	0-0	776	14
14	Wisconsin	0-0	637	22
15	USC	0-0	626	19
16	Clemson	0-0	536	8
17	Notre Dame	0-0	445	20
18	Ole Miss	0-0	424	NR
19	Arizona St.	0-0	357	21
20	Kansas St.	0-0	242	NR
21	Texas A&M	0-0	238	18
22	Nebraska	0-0	226	NR
23	North Carolina	0-0	194	NR
24	Missouri	0-0	134	5
25	Washington	0-0	130	25

Others receiving votes:  UCF 94, Florida 87, Texas 86, Duke 71, Iowa 68, Louisville 48, Marshall 41, Oklahoma State 37, Virginia Tech 26, TCU 23, Mississippi State 22, Michigan 19, Texas Tech 19, Miami (FL) 16, Cincinnati 15, Boise State 10, Oregon State 10, Northwestern 8, BYU 8, Penn State 5, Vanderbilt 2, Navy 2, Nevada 1, Lousisiana-Lafayette 1, Utah State 1

Final 2013 Rankings Analysis

In the previous years when I used my system to rank teams during the year to see how closely it related to the final BCS poll, my rankings have been pretty close to getting the same teams in the championship team.  In 2012, I definitely had Alabama in the title game, but Notre Dame did not rise far enough up to get to the game.  The same thing happened in 2013, where Florida St was definitely in the title game, but Auburn only climbed to #17 in both of my polls using the AP preseason rankings to begin the season or have everyone start in the same position with zero points.  For both Notre Dame in 2012 and Auburn in 2013, both started very low in the preseason poll and were not able to make up the gap.  The reason I have the "Equal" poll is to combat the preseason poll bias.  With both teams either going undefeated or only having 1 loss, you would think they would have enough to climb high.  By reviewing the results of all the games Notre Dame played in 2012 and Auburn in 2013, there was a recurring theme.  The reason neither of them were able to climb high enough in my polls at the end of the year is because they both played very close games.  For example, the first game of the year, Auburn struggled to beat Washington State at home and in 2012, it took Notre Dame 3 overtimes to beat a 6-7 Pitt by 3 points.  In my system since margin of victory plays an important part in the scoring, both Notre Dame and Auburn had very low margins of victory and therefore did not get as many points as they could.  Now in Auburn's defense, playing in a really tough SEC West and SEC in whole, of course the games will be closer, but they were not winning more convincing in the other games they should have that cost them.  The same thing for Notre Dame in 2012, they had many close games when some of them shouldn't have been so close.  Overall, I need to come up with some tweaks to solve this issue.  I have an idea about giving bonus points for winning your conference.  That still won't help Notre Dame, but it's their own fault for not committing to be a full fledged  member of a conference.

2013 Week 14 Rankings

Preseason						Equal
Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev		Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev
1	Florida St.	12 - 0	393	2		1	Florida St.	12 - 0	291	1
2	Alabama	11 - 1	363	1		2	Northern Ill.	12 - 0	220	5
3	Ohio St.	12 - 0	339	3		3	Alabama	11 - 1	219	2
4	Oklahoma St.	10 - 1	313	4		4	Ohio St.	12 - 0	218	3
5	Oregon	10 - 2	305	5		5	Missouri	11 - 1	212	4
6	Northern Ill.	12 - 0	303	9		6	Oregon	10 - 2	201	6
7	Missouri	11 - 1	298	7		7	Oklahoma St.	10 - 1	197	7
8	Stanford	10 - 2	293	8		8	Michigan St.	11 - 1	193	8
9	Michigan St.	11 - 1	292	11		9	Baylor	10 - 1	185	10
10	Baylor	10 - 1	286	12		10	Louisville	10 - 1	177	10
11	Clemson	10 - 2	283	6		11	Ball St.	10 - 2	173	15
12	LSU	9 - 3	271	13		12	Marshall	9 - 3	166	16
13	Wisconsin	9 - 3	270	10		13	Clemson	10 - 2	164	9
14	UCLA	9 - 3	249	18		14	Wisconsin	9 - 3	163	12
15	South Carolina	10 - 2	246	17		15	Bowling Green	9 - 3	162	17
16	Arizona St.	10 - 2	240	20		16	Stanford	10 - 2	161	14
17	Auburn	11 - 1	227	22		17	Auburn	11 - 1	148	18
17	Texas A&M	8 - 4	227	15		18	Arizona St.	10 - 2	146	21
19	Fresno St.	10 - 1	225	14		19	East Carolina	9 - 3	143	13
20	Marshall	9 - 3	222	26		20	LSU	9 - 3	130	22
21	Ball St.	10 - 2	221	25		21	Cincinnati	9 - 2	129	20
22	Oklahoma	9 - 2	218	21		21	South Carolina	10 - 2	129	26
23	Boise St.	8 - 4	217	28		23	Fresno St.	9 - 2	123	19
24	Cincinnati	9 - 2	214	23		23	Washington	8 - 4	123	25
25	East Carolina	9 - 3	209	16		25	UCF	10 - 1	122	23
						25	UCLA	9 - 3	122	32

2013 Week 13 Rankings

Preseason						Equal
Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev		Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev
1	Alabama	11 - 0	369	1		1	Florida St.	11 - 0	266	1
2	Florida St.	11 - 0	368	2		2	Alabama	11 - 0	224	3
3	Ohio St.	11 - 0	333	4		3	Ohio St.	11 - 1	212	4
4	Oklahoma St.	10 - 1	313	8		4	Missouri	10 - 1	204	5
5	Oregon	9 - 2	303	3		5	Northern Ill.	11 - 1	200	7
6	Clemson	10 - 1	296	7		6	Oregon	9 - 2	199	2
7	Missouri	10 - 1	287	9		7	Oklahoma St.	10 - 1	197	10
8	Stanford	9 - 2	285	10		8	Michigan St.	10 - 2	181	12
9	Northern Ill.	11 - 0	283	12		9	Clemson	10 - 2	179	9
10	Wisconsin	9 - 2	282	10		10	Baylor	9 - 1	177	6
11	Michigan St.	10 - 1	280	13		10	Louisville	10 - 1	177	8
12	Baylor	9 - 1	278	5		12	Wisconsin	9 - 3	175	11
13	LSU	8 - 3	266	15		13	East Carolina	9 - 3	162	14
14	Fresno St.	10 - 0	236	20		14	Stanford	9 - 2	153	16
15	Texas A&M	8 - 3	231	14		15	Ball St.	9 - 2	152	13
16	East Carolina	9 - 2	230	18		16	Marshall	8 - 3	142	17
17	S. Carolina	9 - 2	227	18		17	Bowling Green	8 - 3	140	19
18	UCLA	8 - 3	222	16		18	Auburn	10 - 1	136	15
19	USC	9 - 3	220	26		19	Fresno St.	9 - 2	134	21
20	Arizona St.	9 - 2	219	20		20	Cincinnati	9 - 3	129	18
21	Oklahoma	9 - 2	218	23		21	Arizona St.	9 - 3	125	19
22	Auburn	10 - 1	215	17		22	LSU	8 - 3	125	23
23	Cincinnati	9 - 2	214	24		23	UCF	8 - 2	118	27
24	Georgia	7 - 4	201	28		24	USC	9 - 3	117	31
25	Ball St.	9 - 2	200	25		25	Washington	7 - 4	112	35

2013 Week 12 Rankings

Preseason						Equal
Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev		Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev
1	Alabama	10 - 0	353	1		1	Florida St.	10 - 0	245	1
2	Florida St.	10 - 0	347	2		2	Oregon	9 - 1	220	2
3	Oregon	9 - 1	324	3		3	Alabama	10 - 0	208	3
4	Ohio St.	10 - 0	312	4		4	Ohio St.	10 - 1	191	5
5	Baylor	9 - 0	285	8		5	Missouri	9 - 1	185	3
6	Louisville	9 - 1	284	5		6	Baylor	9 - 0	184	6
7	Clemson	9 - 1	280	9		7	Northern Ill.	10 - 1	177	9
8	Oklahoma St.	9 - 1	277	10		8	Louisville	9 - 1	169	7
9	Missouri	9 - 1	268	6		9	Clemson	9 - 2	163	10
10	Stanford	8 - 2	264	7		10	Oklahoma St.	9 - 1	162	12
10	Wisconsin	8 - 2	264	12		11	Wisconsin	8 - 3	157	13
12	Northern Ill.	10 - 0	260	14		12	Michigan St.	9 - 2	156	11
13	Michigan St.	9 - 1	255	14		13	Ball St.	9 - 2	152	7
14	Texas A&M	8 - 2	249	11		14	East Carolina	8 - 3	143	16
15	LSU	7 - 3	242	13		15	Auburn	10 - 1	136	15
16	UCLA	8 - 2	230	16		16	Stanford	8 - 2	132	14
17	Auburn	10 - 1	215	18		17	Marshall	7 - 3	117	19
18	South Carolina	8 - 2	211	20		18	Cincinnati	8 - 3	116	26
18	East Carolina	8 - 2	211	23		19	Arizona St.	8 - 3	115	19
20	Fresno St.	8 - 1	207	19		19	Bowling Green	7 - 3	115	27
20	Arizona St.	8 - 2	207	21		21	Fresno St.	8 - 2	113	17
22	Boise St.	8 - 2	204	25		22	BYU	7 - 3	108	29
23	Oklahoma	8 - 2	203	27		23	LSU	7 - 3	104	23
24	Cincinnati	8 - 2	202	28		24	Houston	7 - 3	101	18
25	Ball St.	9 - 2	200	17		25	North Texas	7 - 3	99	21
						25	Boise St.	8 - 3	99	33