SRS: Auburn Remains on Top, Nebraska Jumps to No. 2; Boise Falls To No. 9

The conference rankings are starting to solidify, that should prevent some of the wild jumps that have been occurring, though there will still be some.  Also, I’m changing the display of the rankings a bit, changing from Best Win to Quality Wins.  Also, at the request of Paul, I’m going to post a 16 team playoff.  Lastly, I’m going to predict some wins, losses, and great games.  We’ll see how I do. 

So how are the SRS rankings created? 

First, the easy one: The whole point of me starting a ranking system 15 years ago was to remove any and all bias (that’s what they all say). The only teams I might have any sort of bias towards are the small Boise States of the world (no, I don’t have them No. 1) or my favorite team, Fresno State (not ranked). 

I’ve tried to come up with the rationale that every sports announcer I’ve ever heard brings up: Conference rankings (check), Road vs. Away (check), and who did you play (double-check).

As I said before, I’ve been doing this privately for over 15 years, and every year there have been slight changes to it. Usually by the end of the season, I see more improvements I can make, and I do that for the following season. By no stretch is it perfect, but I think it’s getting there.

So what are the specifics? It starts by generating a ranking for each conference. This is done by generating a win-loss record for each conference against the other conferences. For the purpose of this system, I consider each division a conference (for example, the SEC West is a conference—so are the independents).

This is modified by determining who those wins are against. For example, the Big Ten loses some of its power by scheduling lots of MAC teams. I take the total and divide it by how many teams are in the conference to normalize the value, and then take a ranking of that value.

As of Oct. 18, 2010, the conference rankings are as follows, with last week’s ranking in parenthesis:

17. MAC East (17)

16. MAC West (16)

15. Sun Belt (15)

14. C-USA East (14)

13. Big East (13)

12. C-USA West (12)

11. MWC (10)

10. WAC (11)

9.   ACC Atlantic (9)

8.   ACC Coastal (8)

7.   SEC East (7)

6.   Pac-10 (6)

5.   Big Ten (5)

4.   Independents (4)

3.   Big 12 North (3)

2.   Big 12 South (2)

1.   SEC West (1)

After determining the conference rankings, I generate values that a team would receive for playing another team. Values are generated for a Home Win, a Home Loss, a Road Win, and a Road Loss.

Each of the values is derived from the Home Win, which is formed by taking the team's place in the conference (first, second, third, etc.), inverting it so more points are awarded for beating the team, and multiplying it by the inversed conference ranking. This is then normalized again for the number of teams in the conference.

For example, if the first place team in the first place conference is Alabama, and Arkansas beats Alabama, they will earn 102 points. This is because Alabama was in first place (inversed = 7 multiplied by inversed conference ranking = 17, 7 * 17 = 102). 

Losses are similar, though there is no inverting. Thus an Arkansas loss will only cause them to lose two points (Place in Conference = 1, Conference Rank = 1, 1 * 1 = 1). I added an additional modifier of two if you are lost at home, so 1 * 2 = 2. A Road Win is the same as a home win, except the value is multiplied by two, and a Road Loss takes the Home Loss and divides it by two. 

Did you follow all of that? If not, don’t worry about it; just know that it is under constant improvement, and again, this where I think they will be if they continue to do what they did last year. I’ll go in reverse order, like a Top 10 list:

	Team	W-L	Points	Last Week	Last Game	Points	Quality Wins	Losses
25.	Nevada	(6-1)	151	19	BYE	--	None	@Hawaii
24.	Temple	(6-2)	155	21	W @ Buffalo	+5	@Army	@Penn St @N. Illinois
23.	Baylor	(6-2)	158	--	W vs. Kansas St	+60	None	@Texas Tech @TCU
22.	USC	(5-2)	159	17	BYE	--	@Hawaii	Washington  @Stanford
21.	Stanford	(6-1)	164	23	W vs. Washington St	+7	None	@Oregon
20.	South Carolina	(5-2)	171	--	W @ Vanderbilt	+44	Alabama	@Kentucky @Auburn
19.	Utah	(7-0)	182	25	W vs. Colorado St	+14	@Iowa St	None
17.	Oregon	(7-0)	197	12	W vs. UCLA	+22	None	None
17.	Florida St	(6-1)	197	16	BYE	--	@Miami (FL)	@Oklahoma
16.	Oklahoma State	(6-1)	203	10	L vs. Nebraska	-12	@Texas Tech	Nebraska
15.	Texas	(4-3)	207	8	L vs. Iowa St	-24	@Nebraska, @Texas Tech	UCLA Iowa St Oklahoma (N)
14.	Ohio St	(7-1)	221	24	W vs. Purdue	+57	@Illinois	@Wisconsin
13.	Arkansas	(5-2)	228	15	W vs. Mississippi	+17	@Georgia, @Texas A&M	Alabama @Auburn
12.	Oklahoma	(6-1)	235	5	L @ Missouri	-3	None	@Missouri
11.	TCU	(8-0)	248	3	W vs. Air Force	+28	None	None
10.	Mississippi State	(6-2)	253	9	W vs. UAB	+12	@Florida	Auburn @LSU
9.	Boise St	(6-0)	263	4	BYE	--	@Virginia Tech	None
8.	Alabama	(7-1)	268	13	W @ Tennessee	+44	@Arkansas	@ South Carolina
7.	Wisconsin	(7-1)	271	18	W @ Iowa	+113	@Iowa	@Michigan St
6.	Michigan St	(8-0)	293	11	W @  Northwestern	+71	None	None
5.	Hawaii	(6-2)	298	6	W @ Utah St	+32	@Army	USC @Colorado
4.	Missouri	(7-0)	301	14	W vs.  Oklahoma	+96	@Texas A&M Oklahoma	None
3.	LSU	(7-1)	316	2	L @ Auburn	-1	@Florida	@Auburn
2.	Nebraska	(6-1)	388	7	W @ Oklahoma St	+192	@Oklahoma St @Kansas St @Washington	Texas
1.	Auburn	(8-0)	397	1	W vs. LSU	+85	@Mississippi State LSU	None

My college football playoff preference:

The detractors of a playoff indicate that the reasons they don’t like a playoff is that there would be too many games included in the season, and it would be hard to transport as many people as would be needed to each and every neutral site game.  So to solve this, the playoff needs to let a minimum number of teams in as possible, and only have a few of the games be at a neutral site game. My thoughts are: Make it like the NIT tournament, each of the higher seeded teams get home games until the final four.  Also, in order to give everyone a chance, have only conference champions invited.  That gives us 11 teams, and in order to make it an even number, I’m okay with one “wild card”.  I’ve been told that a lot of people want 16.  So given that, let’s take the Current Standings and choose our 16 schools.

ACC—Florida St

Big XII—Missouri

Big East—Pittsburgh

Big Ten—Michigan St

C-USA—East Carolina

MAC—Northern Illinois

MWC—TCU

Pac-10—Oregon

SEC—Auburn

Sun Belt—Troy

WAC—Hawaii

Wild Card—Boise St

Wild Card—Alabama

Wild Card—Utah

Wild Card—Oklahoma

Wild Card—Wisconsin

Taking these 16 schools, I’d then seed them by conference strength.

1. Auburn
2. Missouri
3. Michigan St
4. Oregon
5. Florida St
6. Hawaii
7. TCU
8. East Carolina
9. Pittsburgh
10. Troy
11. Northern Illinois
12. Boise St
13. Alabama
14. Utah
15. Oklahoma
16. Wisconsin

In this scenario, the first round of games would be (I have road teams winning in bold):

Wisconsin Auburn	Oklahoma Missouri	Utah Michigan St	Alabama Oregon
Boise St Florida St	Northern Illinois Hawaii	Troy TCU	Pittsburgh East Carolina

I’d take the worst teams and send them the best teams like the NFL.  The next round (again winning road teams in bold):

Alabama Auburn

Boise St Missouri

East Carolina Michigan St

TCU Hawaii

That would leave us with a Final Four Saturday-Sunday Contests in a Neutral Site to be: 

Hawaii Auburn

Michigan St Missouri

With a Final of:

Missouri Auburn

Playoff Dreams are fun, too bad you have to wake up.

Predictions for Week 9

New stuff for the week:  The following are my locks, great games, and upsets for the upcoming week.

Locks

Boise St over Louisiana Tech

Nevada over Utah St

South Carolina over Tennessee

Great Games

Oregon @ USC

Arizona @ UCLA

Utah @ Air Force

Florida St @ North Carolina St

Upsets (if any)

Nebraska over Missouri

USC over Oregon