Another great week. Last week’s picks, both Top 25 v. non-Top 25 and Top 25 v. Top 25, went 4-0. That’s the second time this season we’ve put up an undefeated week, and my system is now 14-5 on the year. I have no idea if anyone reads these and they probably don’t, but my hope at the beginning of the season working on this was to simply get to a range of 55-60% by the end of the season, which would signal success to me. I’m currently at 73.7% with seven weeks of football left and feel good about my odds.
Last week’s picks were USC over #21 Colorado (W 21-17), LSU over #18 Florida (not played), and Washington State over #15 Stanford (W 42-16). The Top 25 vs. Top 25 upset picks were #23 Florida State over #10 Miami (FL) (W 20-19) and #25 Virginia Tech over #17 North Carolina (W 34-3). Pretty good!
Now, on to this week’s numbers, Top 25 v. non-Top 25 only to start…
As usual, the top number is the number of total wins, the bottom the likelihood that everyone in this group goes undefeated with an absolute of 1. The number of games in each section this week:
Top 1-5: 1
Top 6-15: 6
Top 16-25: 7
There’s 14 games this week featuring a Top 25 team versus an unranked opponent. If you remove the three Top 25 v. Top 25 games from the above ranking, that gives us about 2.657 expected upsets, which we’ll round up to three. (Also one Top 25 v. Top 25 upset, which we will read into later.)
Win probabilities for each category:
- 40-49% (0-0 last week, 2-3 this season): #20 West Virginia (at Texas Tech) (46.6%)
- 60-69% (1-0 last week, 8-2 this season): #10 Nebraska (at Indiana) (67.5%)
- 70-79% (2-1 last week, 8-2 this season): #16 Miami (FL) (vs. North Carolina) (70.4%), #21 Utah (at Oregon State) (73.4%), #24 Western Michigan (at Akron) (75.8%)
- 80-89% (2-1 last week, 9-3 this season): #19 Oklahoma (vs. Kansas State) (80.5%), #18 Florida (vs. Missouri) (80.6%), #17 Virginia Tech (at Syracuse) (80.7%)
- 90-99% (2-0 last week, 33-1 this season): #3 Clemson (vs. NC State) (90.3%), #14 Houston (vs. Tulsa) (91%), #15 Florida State (vs. Wake Forest) (91.7%), #16 Boise State (vs. Colorado State) (93.5%), #7 Louisville (vs. Duke) (95.9%), #11 Baylor (vs. Kansas) (96.3%)
Now, the expected wins for each category:
- 40-49%: 0.466 of 1 (46.6% chance of 1-0)
- 60-69%: 0.675 of 1 (67.5% chance of 1-0)
- 70-79%: 2.196 of 3 (39.2% chance of 3-0)
- 80-89%: 2.418 of 3 (52.4% chance of 3-0)
- 90-99%: 5.586 of 6 (65% chance of 6-0)
There’s two obvious places of attack here: the 40-49% and 70-79% ranges. Because there’s just one game in the former, we’ll go ahead and lock in Texas Tech over #20 West Virginia. Finding one in the 70-79% range is a bit more difficult because I don’t like any of the underdogs or their chances, but in instances where it’s relatively close, always take the best underdog by the computer rankings. That would be North Carolina over #16 Miami (FL).
As usual, the third will be a slight stretch. Let’s go to the group with the third-lowest chance of an undefeated record – 80-89%. All of these teams have almost exactly the same odds of winning, which is very rare, but we had the exact same thing happen last week. However, this group is performing well below their expected capabilities. Let’s fade this group and go with Indiana over #10 Nebraska.
A side note: this may be the week we get an earth-shatterer of an upset. It’s been five weeks since the last 90%+ team lost, and they’re about one game ahead of expectation. A 65% chance of an undefeated record is also the lowest this group has been since that week. I won’t be picking it as it doesn’t fit with the metrics, but there’s a real chance someone leaves this weekend totally stunned. There are two underdogs that stand out from the pack ratings-wise: NC State and Wake Forest. Perhaps the ACC race takes a shocking turn this weekend. We’ll see.
Now, on to the Top 25 v. Top 25 games. Same thing with probabilities:
- 60-69% (1-0 last week, 1-0 overall): #12 Ole Miss (at #22 Arkansas) (68.9%)
- 70-79% (3-0 overall): #1 Alabama (at #9 Tennessee) (74.9%), #2 Ohio State (at #8 Wisconsin) (76.2%)
And expected wins:
- 60-69%: 0.689 of 1 (68.9% chance of 1-0)
- 70-79%: 1.511 of 2 (57.1% chance of 2-0)
In total, there’s about 0.8 expected losses from Top 25 favorites on Saturday, which can be rounded to a whole one loss. As with above, we’re going to take the best underdog, considering that the three of these teams are relatively close in odds to win. Here’s how the Massey Composite, which takes in 102 different computer rating systems, says these underdogs rank:
- Tennessee (#8)
- Wisconsin (#9)
- Arkansas (#31)
Well…that’s certainly something. It looks to me like we can rule Arkansas out, which is fine, because it still befuddles me that Arkansas is ranked to begin with. It’s now down to Tennessee or Wisconsin, who at #8 and #9 are more or less interchangeable. My own bias tells me not to take Tennessee, because I know there’s a small chance it actually happens. Eff it, though: I’m standing by my best underdog rule. #9 Tennessee over #1 Alabama.
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