2018 college football upset spotting, week two

A quick recap:

• The system expected about 3.6 upsets last week and got 4, or slightly above expectations, which is good.
• It expected two upsets of a Top 25 team beating another Top 25 team; we got three.
• Likewise, it expected two double-digit favorites getting upset; we got one (Maryland over Texas) and very nearly got two more in Appalachian State-Penn State and Utah State-Michigan State. So close!

Here’s this week’s numbers:

Observations:

• It’s a pretty boring week of football. The best game involving a Top Ten team is either Clemson going on the road to play a coach in his second game at a new school or Georgia going on the road and beating Will Muschamp by 21. There’s some spots for interesting games and/or upsets, but they’re further down the charts. However…
• Note how there’s a 50/50 shot a Top Five team loses Saturday. It’s the least likely group to lose a game, but it’s still interesting, and it’s all pinned on one of Clemson or Georgia losing. Don’t bet your life savings on it, but it sure seems like one of those games will go down to the wire.
• To find an upset, look at teams ranked 6-15. The best bets here are pretty obvious: #15 Michigan State on the road at Arizona State and #10 Stanford playing host to #17 USC. (Also noteworthy is Penn State as just a nine-point favorite at Pitt after a poor opening performance.) One of these three teams will lose; it could either be a great day for the Pac-12 or for the Big Ten and no one knows.
• Also, the bottom 40% of the poll is more likely to lose a game than not. That’s pretty surprising, given that all but two of the eight games feature teams as 20 point favorites or higher. The most vulnerable teams here are from the SEC: #18 Mississippi State playing a noon game at Kansas State and #25 Florida hosting Kentucky, who they haven’t lost to in my lifetime. Obviously, I lean much more towards MSU losing than Florida, but both are close to equally possible. Maybe keep half an eye on #16 TCU at SMU, too. Plus…
• We should get one loss from a double-digit favorite. Only three are truly vulnerable this week – #2 Clemson at Texas A&M, #3 Georgia at South Carolina, and #25 Florida vs. Kentucky. For 20+ point favorites and teams facing FCS squads, they might be in trouble on an Everything Goes Wrong day: #6 Oklahoma hosting UCLA, #14 West Virginia hosting FCS stalwart Youngstown State, #16 TCU at SMU, or #21 Michigan hosting Western Michigan.

So, to sum it up: it’s a bad week of football, but you’ll get two upsets, including one shocker. I went 0-3 on my personal picks last week, so here’s a shot at 0-5: #17 USC over #10 Stanford and Kansas State over #18 Mississippi State.

2018 college football upset spotting, week one

Same deal as last year. Notes below:

• The top five looks pretty safe, but at least one and likely two Top 6-15 favorites are looking at an unexpected loss. Somehow, Auburn is a Vegas favorite over Washington, but Washington is the computer favorite. That wouldn’t count as a loss, so we’ve got to find another one. Who’s it going to be? Notre Dame to Michigan? Miami to LSU? Alternately…
• There’s just a 32.6% chance that 80-99% teams finish this week unscathed. The most vulnerable of these is Stanford, playing at home against a 10-win San Diego State team that always plays excellent defense. There’s some other interesting games out there, though – Oklahoma, in two of the five systems, is within one standard deviation (16 points) of a loss. Alabama is so in four of the five, but it’s Alabama. Penn State is within a standard deviation in one metric, as are defending national champions UCF. It feels pretty likely that someone is going to be dealt a stunner of a loss this weekend; my wild guess is Stanford.
• Double-digit favorites are expected to lose two games and have just a 10.7% chance of an undefeated weekend. One of those will be covered by the previous bullet, but the other one will have to come from the 60-79% range. You’ve got three options here: West Virginia losing to Tennessee (the most likely of the group), Boise losing at Troy, or Texas losing on a neutral field to Maryland. The last of these did happen last season, while Troy was within four points of Boise with three minutes left last season. Tennessee is a massive unknown, but computers are skeptical of a West Virginia improvement on defense. I’d rank them in likelihood of happening exactly as presented: Tennessee > Troy > Maryland.
• In coin-flip games, anything can happen. It’s strongly unlikely that all three of Washington, Miami, and Notre Dame win. However, two of those three should. If we count Auburn in this group instead, the odds rise of them losing two of the three. Michigan seems much more well-prepared to knock off their higher-rated opponent than LSU is.
• Basically: expect some shake-ups, though probably not at the top. The top five seems unlikely to change after Week One, barring a stunner or the Washington/Auburn winner moving in.
• Removing the 90-99% and top five games from the group, we’re most likely to have about three upsets. This is a shot in the dark, but give me San Diego State over Stanford, Tennessee over West Virginia, and Michigan over Notre Dame. Why not!

College football upset spotting, week eight

• <50% (3-3 on the season (+0.36); expected record of 0.43-0.57; 43.3% chance of undefeated): #25 Memphis (at Houston) (43.3%)
• 50-59% (7-6 (-0.26); no games)
• 60-69% (15-7 (+0.58); 2.59-1.41; 17.65%): #24 LSU (at Ole Miss) (62.7%), #18 Michigan State (vs. Indiana) (63.3%), #13 Notre Dame (vs. #11 USC) (66.0%), #10 Oklahoma State (at Texas) (67.4%)
• 70-79% (19-4 (+1.71); 4.52-1.48; 18.26%): #23 West Virginia (at Baylor) (72.2%), #20 UCF (at Navy) (72.4%), #2 Penn State (vs. #19 Michigan) (76.2%), #17 USF (at Tulane) (76.6%), #15 Washington State (vs. Colorado) (77.3%), #9 Oklahoma (at Kansas State) (77.5%)
• 80-89% (23-3 (+0.95); 2.54-0.46; 60.70%): #21 Auburn (at Arkansas) (82.5%), #14 Virginia Tech (vs. North Carolina) (85.6%), #8 Miami (FL) (vs. Syracuse) (86.0%)
• 90-99% (51-2 (+0.19); 2.88-0.12; 88.39%): #5 Wisconsin (vs. Maryland) (91.0%), #1 Alabama (vs. Tennessee) (97.7%), #4 TCU (vs. Kansas) (99.3%)

Based on these numbers, we should expect about four upsets…however, if Memphis coming back to beat Houston means anything, we should shift our expectations to about 3.46, or right in the middle of three and four. I’m still going to roll with four upsets: Indiana over #18 Michigan State, Texas over #10 Oklahoma State, #19 Michigan over #2 Penn State, and Colorado over #15 Washington State.

College football upset spotting, week seven

Yeah so this week isn’t very good but whatever it’s football.

• <50% (3-2 on the season (+0.83); expected record of 0.47-0.53; 46.8% chance of undefeated): #25 Navy (at Memphis) (46.8%)
• 50-59% (6-5 (-0.16); 1.10-0.90; 30.41%): #24 Texas Tech (at West Virginia) (54.2%), #21 Michigan State (at Minnesota) (56.1%)
• 60-69% (11-5 (+0.5); 3.92-2.08; 7.74%): #19 San Diego State (vs. Boise State) (60.6%), #6 TCU (at Kansas State) (61.9%), #10 Auburn (at LSU) (65.5%), #20 NC State (at Pittsburgh) (67.9%), #11 Miami (vs. Georgia Tech) (68.1%), #23 Stanford (vs. Oregon) (68.3%)
• 70-79% (17-3 (+1.9); 2.19-0.81; 38.82%): #17 Michigan (at Indiana) (71.6%), #13 Oklahoma (vs. Texas) (71.9%), #8 Washington State (at California) (75.4%)
• 80-89% (19-2 (+1.26); 4.31-0.69; 47.34%): #14 USC (vs. Utah) (80.7%), #15 Oklahoma State (vs. Baylor) (86.8%), #7 Wisconsin (vs. Purdue) (87.4%), #5 Washington (at Arizona State) (87.8%), #18 USF (vs. Cincinnati) (88.2%)
• 90-99% (47-1 (+0.87); 4.68-0.32; 71.8%): all remaining games

I’d warned about this for a couple weeks, but we finally got a couple of huge upsets that we’ve been waiting for: Michigan State over #7 Michigan (82.5%) and Iowa State over #3 Oklahoma (92.7%). We’re still running significantly behind expectations for the 70-99% upsets, though. 70-79% teams should be about 15-5 right now; that’s likely to regress to the mean at some point this season. Same for 80-89%. Because the teams in 90-99% are that much better than their opponents, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if we only got the one 90+% loss this year.

Anyway, as you can see, there isn’t a single Top 25 vs. Top 25 game this weekend. It’s a pretty weak slate, all told. However, considering the unusually light season for upsets so far – we’re running about 5.2 upsets below expectation just six weeks in, which is seriously astounding – we’re due for something stupid. I’m going out on a limb and projecting six Top 25 teams to lose this weekend: Memphis over #25 Navy, West Virginia over #24 Texas Tech, Boise State over #19 San Diego State, Kansas State over #6 TCU, Texas over #13 Oklahoma, and Utah over #14 USC. Why not! Let’s root for some mean regression this weekend.

College football upset spotting, week six

We already got one upset last night with NC State beating a Louisville team that’s very likely Lamar Jackson and 21 JAGs. However, that won’t be the only one this weekend:

This is a deeply unusual week – 1.5 seasons in, I’ve never had a week that gave three ranked teams as underdogs to unranked teams. It’s really weird, and I have a feeling we might have One Of Those Weeks. Your upset range is anywhere from three to seven within one standard deviation.

• Sub-50% (1-1; expected record 1.22-1.78): #20 Utah (vs. Stanford) (33.0%), #11 Washington State (at Oregon) (44.3%), #13 Miami (at Florida State) (44.8%)
• 50-59% (6-3 (+0.93); expected record 1.09-0.91): #17 Louisville (at #24 NC State) (53.8%), #21 Florida (vs. LSU) (55.0%)
• 60-69% (11-5 (+0.5); expected record 0-0)
• 70-79% (13-3 (+1.04); expected record 3.14-0.86): #22 Notre Dame (at North Carolina) (77.2%), #8 TCU (vs. #23 West Virginia) (78.4%), #19 San Diego State (at UNLV) (78.6%), #9 Wisconsin (at Nebraska) (79.8%)
• 80-89% (14-1 (+1.24); expected record 4.98-1.02): #4 Penn State (at Northwestern) (80.7%), #25 UCF (at Cincinnati) (81.2%), #7 Michigan (vs. Michigan State) (82.5%), #5 Georgia (at Vanderbilt) (82.6%), #16 Virginia Tech (at Boston College) (83.0%), #12 Auburn (vs. Ole Miss)
• 90-99% (42-0 (+1.44); expected record 5.57-0.43): Every other game

There’s already been one upset with #24 NC State over #17 Louisville. Along with those, give me Stanford over #20 Utah, Florida State over #13 Miami, UNLV over #19 San Diego State, and – why not – Northwestern over #4 Penn State. We’re due a shocker. If every group reverted to their mean this week, we’d see eight upsets. Chaos may be coming.

College football upset spotting, week five

Headed on an airplane somewhere…

• 50-59% (6-3 on the season (+0.93 above expectation): No games
• 60-69% (8-4 (+0.01): #5 USC (at #16 Washington State) (60.3%), #14 Miami (at Duke) (60.4%), #7 Georgia (at Tennessee) (60.7%), #13 Auburn (vs. Mississippi State) (69.2%)
• 70-79% (9-3 (+0.03): #2 Clemson (at #12 Virginia Tech) (70.5%), #15 Oklahoma State (at Texas Tech) (72.3%), #21 Florida (vs. Vanderbilt) (77.8%), #19 San Diego State (vs. Northern Illinois) (77.9%)
• 80-89% (11-1 (+0.83): #10 Wisconsin (vs. Northwestern) (84.3%), #4 Penn State (vs. Indiana) (86.6%), #18 South Florida (at East Carolina) (88.3%)
• 90-99% (37-0 (+1.23): Every other game

My picks are #16 Washington State over #5 USC, Duke over #14 Miami, and…I don’t know, Northern Illinois over #19 San Diego State. I suck at these this year so whatever. A lot of that is due to some insanely bad luck late in games (Kentucky-Florida, Iowa-Penn State, Tennessee-Georgia Tech, etc.), but…anyway, 2-12 on the year.

College football upset spotting, week four

As bad as I am at picking these games (1-9 now!), our system is working: it projected four Top 25 upsets last week. We got four exactly, and it was mostly my fault for picking the wrong games: the system correctly identified three potential areas for upsets with the 50-59% range (Memphis over #25 UCLA), 60-69% (Vanderbilt over #18 Kansas State), and 70-79% (San Diego State over #19 Stanford). It did expect a fourth upset from the 80-89% range, but we got that in 70-79%: Mississippi State destroying #12 LSU. So…we’re moving in the correct direction. That’s a positive! Amazingly, if I’d just picked every one of the 50-89% teams to lose last week, I’d have a better record (4-8) than I do on the season with my subjective picks. Fun times.

Anyway, here’s this week’s chart:

I mentioned previous weeks as being the potential “the best upsets happen on the worst weeks” weeks, but this might really be it. There’s two good games (the two Top 25 vs. Top 25 matches) and a whole lot of potentially close games that offer no serious appetite nationally. The ABC game (#4 Penn State at Iowa) got moved to 7:30 PM ET, which is ABC admitting they think this game’s pretty boring. Heck, the most interesting Top 25 vs. unranked opponent game of the week (#8 Michigan at Purdue) runs at 4 PM on FOX.

With all that said, this week has serious poll-toppling opportunities. Here’s the categories by win percentage for the week:

• 50-59% (5-2 (+1.02 above expectation) on the season, expected record of 1.08-0.92, 29.26% chance of 2-0): #17 Mississippi State (at #12 Georgia) (50.1%), #23 Utah (at Arizona) (58.4%)
• 60-69% (6-2 (+0.66) on the season, expected record of 2.67-1.33, 19.83% chance of 4-0): #22 San Diego State (at Air Force) (62.6%), #20 Florida (at Kentucky) (67.5%), #6 Oklahoma State (vs. #16 TCU) (67.6%), #24 Oregon (at Arizona State) (69.4%)
• 70-79% (5-3 (-0.99) on the season, expected record of 2.98-1.02, 30.84% chance of 4-0): #21 USF (vs. Temple) (71.6%), #7 Washington (at Colorado) (73.0%), #4 Penn State (at Iowa) (75.0%), #5 USC (at California) (78.6%)
• 80-89% (7-0 (+1.09) on the season, expected record of 4.26-0.74, 44.86% chance of 5-0): #14 Miami (FL) (vs. Toledo) (80.4%), #12 Florida State (vs. NC State) (82.8%), #8 Michigan (at Purdue) (86.5%), #15 Auburn (at Missouri) (87.5%), #3 Oklahoma (at Baylor) (88.7%)
• 90-99% (30-0 (+0.88) on the season, expected record of 6.65-0.35, 69.49% chance of 7-0): #25 LSU (vs. Syracuse) (90.0%), #1 Alabama (at Vanderbilt) (90.7%), #13 Virginia Tech (vs. Old Dominion) (93.8%), #18 Washington State (vs. Nevada) (95.0%), #2 Clemson (vs. Boston College) (97.5%), #19 Louisville (vs. Kent State) (98.9%), #10 Ohio State (vs. UNLV) (99.2%)

I mean…look at that. Even factoring in that some ranking systems probably have yet to fully factor in Missouri and Baylor’s suck, you can count…what, six potential upsets that are nearly impossible to envision? I can’t see Alabama losing to Vanderbilt, ever, and Clemson through Ohio State are safe, but…yeah, something weird’s gonna happen. We’re underperforming our usual upset totals, and regression to the mean is coming. It’s probably going to happen later in the year, but this week seems like it’s got a good shot.

Without rationalizing, here’s my picks, because I no longer care to rationalize picks that are 10% successful: #12 Georgia over #17 Mississippi State, Air Force over #22 San Diego State, Kentucky over #20 Florida, and Iowa over #4 Penn State. Why? Why not. Mostly because I can’t let myself pick Jim Harbaugh to lose to Purdue. I’d cry.

Look for four or five upsets this week, including a top five team potentially going down. The top five has just a 46.25% chance of staying intact for Week Five. Iowa over #4 Penn State? Sure! Why not. Cal beating #5 USC for the first time in like 14 years? It could happen! Vanderbilt? Nah, but they’re in a good place right now.

There will probably be an 80-99% range upset, too. Picking these games is a zero-sum game in itself because you look like an idiot when it’s wrong, but combined, they have just a 10.91-1.09 expected record this week and a 31.05% chance of going undefeated. There’s going to be a GIANT upset this week…let’s see who it is.

Two top ten teams losing this week? Absolutely. I have the top ten as a whole with a projected record of 7.57-1.43 and a chance of going 9-0 at just 19.59%. Typically, this means we get multiple big upsets, which…yes, let’s do it. Go Colorado!

What happens if it’s just a boring week with a couple upsets? Then we messed up somewhere along the line. The expected upsets for this week, within one standard deviation, are anywhere between 2.607 to 6.102. Two standard deviations (95% of outcomes): 0.859 to 7.849. We very rarely hit the second standard deviation, so that should put our range of upsets this week between 3 and 6.

College football upset spotting, week three

Eventually, we will hit on an upset. We’re 0 for 6 this year, though we did correctly nail that there would be an upset from the 60-69% range and at least one from 50-59%. It’s still one short of expectation. That typically regresses throughout a season. Either way, we’ll get our upsets in eventually.

• 50-59% (5-1 on the season, expected record of 0.53-0.47): #25 UCLA (at Memphis) (53.3%)
• 60-69% (3-1 on the season, expected record of 2.62-1.38): #18 Kansas State (at Vanderbilt) (62.7%), #24 Florida (vs. #23 Tennessee) (63.5%), #3 Clemson (at #14 Louisville) (67.5%), #9 Oklahoma State (at Pittsburgh) (68.0%)
• 70-79% (3-1 on the season, expected record of 3.00-1.00): #19 Stanford (at San Diego State) (71.2%), #12 LSU (at Mississippi State) (72.3%), #10 Wisconsin (at BYU) (78.1%), #4 USC (vs. Texas) (78.6%)
• 80-89% (4-0 on the season, expected record of 2.54-0.46): #22 USF (vs. Illinois) (80.0%), #21 Washington State (vs. Oregon State) (85.8%), #20 TCU (vs. SMU) (88.3%)
• 90-99% (21-0 on the season, expected record of 8.70-0.30): every other game

Considering I’m 0 for 6 on the season so far, I might as well shoot for 0-7 or worse. Memphis defeating UCLA is a fairly realistic proposition (two of our eight models say it’ll happen and seven of eight give Memphis a 40% shot or greater), and I’ve no clue why UCLA is ranked other than people politely forgetting how absolutely, utterly awful they looked for 2.5 quarters against Texas A&M. Plus, if I screw this pick up, they play at noon so it can get over with early.

We need three more upsets, and, because I’m a hopeful person, we’re picking one from each group. On average, we’re looking at about 1.3 upsets from the top ten teams and 2.3 from 11-25. One of them is Memphis over UCLA; the other two are #14 Louisville over #3 Clemson and…wait, BYU over #10 Wisconsin? Uh…sure!

I’m rationalizing this with the following: the top 12 teams playing this week (FSU’s off) have an expected record of 10.45-1.55. The remaining nine favorites are expected to go about 6.95-2.05. If we’re to follow this, we need two top 12 upsets. The reigning Heisman Trophy winner gets a Clemson team at home that’s yet to force a turnover in front of a bonkers crowd. Good enough for me.

The other one’s borderline impossible to rationalize because BYU has looked like absolute butt thus far, but Wisconsin (minus Jonathan Taylor Tailback) has yet to look consistently good on offense thus far. This could just as easily be a Wisconsin blowout as it could be a weird, wonky 17-14 BYU win. It’s worth the risk.

Forcing in two top 12 upsets leads me to leave out the San Diego State over #19 Stanford pick I’d hoped to use. We need a new one, and, wildly enough, we’re going to go for an 80-89% game. The 80-99% games this week have an expected record of 11.25-0.75 and, combined, have about a 44.3% chance of going 12-0. That’s still pretty good, but it’s more likely than not we get a serious upset loss. It’s also significantly more likely it’s an 80-89% team.

I only seriously considered two games from this bracket: Oregon State-#21 Washington State and Illinois-#22 USF. We’re rolling with Illinois over #22 USF and I’m not confident. Oregon State really should be 0-3, because FCS Portland State completely outplayed them in every sense of the word. Illinois just beat what I thought could be a 12-0 Western Kentucky team and it wasn’t a fluke. By recruiting rankings, Illinois has more talent. By coaching rankings, Charlie Strong was one of the very worst by CFB Matrix Coach Effect in the last decade. Go Illini!

I very rarely pick a 90-99% upset, but if there’s going to be one it would have to be an absolute shocker: something like East Carolina over #16 Virginia Tech or Air Force beating #7 Michigan. Neither is going to happen in all likelihood, but both did have at least one model peg them as less than 90% favorites. Also interesting was the idea of Samford over #13 Georgia. Sagarin Ratings had that game at 83.5%, which is crazy, but also lends respect to a Samford team expected to be a strong contender in the Southern Conference.

Good luck on your picks this week, and wait for the first national college football writer to talk about how the worst weeks have the best games. Or something like that.

Finding the upset: week 5

All things fun have to end eventually. In this blog’s case, it ended with crashing through the floor and an 0-3 record on upsets last week despite two of our picks leading their games with 30 seconds to play. Football is beautiful, dumb, and frustrating. Let’s try to get back on track. Here’s this week’s spreadsheet…

I’ve included the Top 25 picks as a bonus because I want to get into those later, but the more I look at this, the more I think we could see upsets in pure numbers this week more so than anything truly shocking. I have extreme doubts that any of the top 10 teams playing an unranked opponent will lose this week, and I don’t think there’s even a feasible potential loss until you get to #15 Miami playing a somewhat difficult Georgia Tech team on the road. (More on that later.)

The Top 25 picks will help more as a guide to show what we were missing when we didn’t include them: without the T25 v. T25 games included, I wasn’t giving you the complete picture of how many Top 25 teams were likely to lose on a given weekend. That’s now fixed.

Anyway, the numbers you care most about: the models individually expect 3.85 upsets (S&P+), 3.71 (FPI), and 3.73 (Massey), creating a total number of around 3.76 anticipated losses. We can round that to the nearest whole number somewhat easily (four), so let’s find four upsets.

First up, your list of Top 25 teams versus unranked opponents, as ranked by win likelihood:

• 40-49% (1-0 last week, 2-1 through 3 weeks): #22 Texas (at Oklahoma State) (40.3%), #21 TCU (vs. Oklahoma) (49.2%)
• 50-59% (1-1 last week, 2-2 overall): #18 Utah (at California) (50.5%)
• 60-69% (3-0 last week, 6-1 overall): #17 Michigan State (at Indiana) (60.4%), #14 Miami (FL) (at Georgia Tech) (67.9%)
• 70-79% (2-0 last week, 5-0 overall): #12 Florida State (vs. North Carolina) (74.5%), #16 Ole Miss (vs. Memphis) (79.3%)
• 80-89% (2-0 last week, 3-1 overall): #23 Florida (at Vanderbilt) (80.2%), #13 Baylor (at Iowa State) (84.4%), #24 Boise State (vs. Utah State) (86.6%), #15 Nebraska (vs. Illinois) (87.3%), #19 San Diego State (at South Alabama) (87.4%)
• 90-99% (2-0 last week, 28-1 overall): #6 Houston (vs. UConn) (93.9%), #1 Alabama (vs. Kentucky) (98%), #2 Ohio State (vs. Rutgers) (98.6%)

Now the expected number of wins for each category:

• 40-49%: 0.895 of 2 (19.8% chance of 2-0)
• 50-59%: 0.505 of 1 (50.5% chance of 1-0)
• 60-69%: 1.283 of 2 (41% chance of 2-0)
• 70-79%: 1.538 of 2 (59.1% chance of 2-0)
• 80-89%: 4.259 of 5 (44.7% chance of 5-0)
• 90-99%: 2.905 of 3 (90.7% chance of 3-0)

Just like we’ve done each week so far, let’s bring in each category of the Top 25 (Top 1-5, 6-10, etc.) and check their likelihoods:

• Top 1-5: 1.965 of 2 (96.6% chance of 2-0)
• Top 6-10: 1.811 of 2 (81.9% chance of 2-0)
• Top 11-15: 3.141 of 4 (37.3% chance of 4-0)
• Top 16-20: 3.757 of 5 (20.7% chance of 5-0)
• Top 21-25: 2.56 of 4 (13.8% chance of 4-0)

This is a pretty easy curve to look at, and one that’s just very obvious. The likelihood of the category going undefeated decreases significantly past the top 10, and gets worse the further down you go. At the very least, we can expect about one upset each from the three lowest categories. This week’s three top upset picks are Oklahoma State over #22 Texas, California over #18 Utah, and Indiana over #17 Michigan State.

Reasoning for each: Oklahoma State could have cashed last week if Mike Gundy knew how to run a fourth-and-goal play call and/or didn’t fumble; Cal appears to be this year’s Team No One on Earth Enjoys Playing, and it seems pretty obvious that Michigan State is in rebuilding mode. More quantifiable, they all host the lowest chances of winning in their individual pods. I’d like to hunt down one in the Top 11-15 range, but I don’t like any of the situations the underdogs are in at all: Georgia Tech looked positively woeful offensively against Clemson last week and Miami’s had two weeks to prep for the triple option; Baylor losing to Iowa State seems unfathomable, no matter what season; Illinois is atrocious; UNC has easily the best odds of an upset, but this is a situationally poor game for them (emotional comeback victory over Pitt previous week and playing against a pissed-off Florida State team that can run like crazy).

To find a fourth upset, let’s look back at those win categories. Notice anything interesting? My eyes immediately jump to that 80-89% win range, which has the third-lowest likelihood of going undefeated. Pretty shocking, no? That means someone’s looking at a major haul of an upset. Again, we base this on likelihood, so you can rule the Top 16-20 out, which has no 80-89% range teams. The Top 11-15 has two in Baylor and Nebraska, but the likelihood of that group losing one of those plus the Miami game is just 4.5%.

Let’s roll back to the Top 21-25, which already fell alarmingly close to two upset losses. There’s two options here: a Florida team that just gave up 38 in a row to Tennessee or a Boise State team that is fine, but nothing beautiful. Neither one really excites me as an upset pick, either: Florida looked pretty great for one half against the Vols, and Boise’s already beaten two teams significantly superior to Utah State. The best pick I’ve got is situational here: Florida just came off of a major rivalry loss to a team that hadn’t beaten them in nearly 12 years, is missing their starting quarterback, and is about to play a team whose defense has looked pretty good in three of four games. (Georgia Tech is nearly always forgivable.) So, in true “throwing your hands up” fashion, eff it: Vanderbilt over #23 Florida is the stretch pick by the metrics this week, as it’s the most likely event of the 80-89% group. There are two things I love about this game: the under on 40.5 (neither offense will top 21 by themselves) and situationally both ways. Florida finished the Tennessee game on the losing end of a 38-7 run, while Vanderbilt just beat a solid Western Kentucky team on the road by scoring a TD on the final play then stopping WKU’s two-point attempt in overtime. They’ll be riding high while Florida will be travelling to Nashville to play a game they likely have little interest in on a noon kickoff.

Last week’s picks went 0-3, making us 5-4 on the year. This week’s upset picks for Top 25 teams playing unranked opponents: Oklahoma State over #22 Texas, California over #18 Utah, Indiana over #17 Michigan State, and Vanderbilt over #23 Florida as the stretch pick of the week per the metrics.

Now, let’s look at the Top 25 games. By the numbers, we’re looking at a composite total of 1.52 upsets from these four games – basically a coin flip between one or two upsets, and we met the expected total of 1.81 (2) last week. If we’re being honest, some won’t really even be upsets, but I digress.

Let’s run some win percentages:

• 20-29% (0-1 last week, 0-1 overall): #8 Wisconsin (at #4 Michigan) (23.3%), #25 Georgia (v. #11 Tennessee) (27.8%)
• 40-49% (1-1 last week, 2-2 overall): #3 Louisville (at #5 Clemson) (48%), #10 Washington (v. #7 Stanford) (48.6%)
• 50-59% (1-1 last week, 2-2 overall): #7 Stanford (at #10 Washington) (51.4%), #5 Clemson (v. #3 Louisville) (52%)
• 70-79% (1-0 last week, 1-0 overall): #11 Tennessee (at #25 Georgia) (72.2%), #4 Michigan (v. #8 Wisconsin) (76.7%)

Again, the Top 25 categories for each involved higher-ranked team:

• Top 1-5: 0.753 expected losses
• Top 6-10: 0.486 expected losses
• Top 11-15: 0.278 expected losses

So, if you’re a betting man, the obvious immediate look is to either #3 Louisville or #4 Michigan losing. Let’s take the much more likely event, both subjectively and objectively: #5 Clemson over #3 Louisville. If you need a second one, it seems that the Top 6-10 is a lot more likely than Tennessee losing to what smells distinctly like an 8-4 Georgia team. If there’s going to be a second upset this week, it’s likely #10 Washington over #7 Stanford. But, again, if I’m looking to bet, I lean away from looking at a second upset. We’ll see. By the metrics, our picks to meet the 1.52 (rounded up to 2) “upsets” are #10 Washington over #7 Stanford and #5 Clemson over #3 Louisville. If you’re just picking one, take #5 Clemson over #3 Louisville.