Long distance football

Houston has gained 5,626 yards, or 3.2 miles, on offense this season and passed for 2.4 of those miles. Washington St has given up 2.9 miles on defense. Nevada has rushed for more than 2 miles.

Too many undefeated teams

Six different teams this season (Texas, Alabama, Florida, Boise St, Cincinnati, and TCU) have won their first ten games, the 6^th time in college football history and the 1^st time since 1979 that this has happened. Never before have more than 4 teams won their first 12 games in the same season.

Ohio St Tempo and Possessions per Game

Despite placing 103rd in the nation in offensive tempo, Ohio St is 8th in possessions per game with 11.8. This discrepancy has occurred because possessions have been short on average in Buckeye games this season. The average Ohio St possession has consisted of only 5 plays (91st nationally), while the defense has been on the field for an average of 4.8 plays per possession (9th best in the nation). Michigan is 4th in the nation with 12 possessions per games, but also has the nation's 13th highest offensive tempo. In other words, the Ohio St and Michigan punters might want to eat their Wheaties before this one.

Pac 10 Stretch Run

These last few weeks in the Pac 10 should be fun. Oregon has the inside track to the Rose Bowl, and controls its own destiny, but with Arizona (road) and an under-rated Oregon St (home) left on the schedule, that inside track will be bumpy. The probability that Oregon wins both games is about .43.

Stanford can slip into a tie for first if Oregon loses and Stanford beats California, but they will need plenty of help to play in the Rose Bowl. If Oregon loses to Arizona, who loses to USC or Arizona St, and Oregon beats Oregon St, Stanford will win the tie breaker (assuming they beat Cal) against Oregon and go to the Rose Bowl. Likewise, if Oregon St beats Oregon but loses to Washington St, and Arizona loses to Oregon, Arizona St or USC, Stanford will smell Roses. Its even possible for Stanford to win the conference outright if Oregon loses to both Oregon St and Arizona, Arizona loses to Arizona St or USC, Oregon St loses to Washington St, and Stanford beats California, but the chances of that happening are disregardably small.

Arizona could also, theoretically win an outright Pac 10 title this season. They would need Stanford to lose to Cal, Oregon St to lose to Washington St and beat Oregon, and they would need to beat Oregon, Arizona St and USC. The chances of this happening are asymptotically close to zero. On the other hand, Arizona could easily land a tie for second, and would, in that case, own the head to head tie breaker over Oregon St, Oregon and Stanford. Arizona has a 1 in 10 chance of taking a piece of the Pac 10 crown and slightly weaker odds for going to the Rose Bowl.

In fact, the only other team with a "legitimate" shot of winning the conference title outright is Oregon St. For this to happen, Oregon St would need to beat Oregon and would need Arizona to beat Oregon as well. Arizona would also need to lose to USC or Arizona St and California would need to come up big against Stanford. Chances of one of these scenarios working out for Oregon St? 2 in 100. But Oregon St does have a 1 in 3 shot of taking home a piece of the prize and, if all the pieces fall into place, getting the Rose Bowl bid as well.

Margin of Victory and Margin of Defeat

So far this season, Oklahoma's ranks 6th nationally with an average margin of victory of 17.7 [1) Texas-24.2, 2) TCU-21.9, 3) Boise St-20.5, 4) Florida-18.0, 5) Cincinnati-17.9, 6) Oklahoma-17.7]. An impressive statistic in its own right, Oklahoma's margin of victory is more outstanding because they have already lost 4 games this season. Only 3 times in the modern era have teams outscored their opponents by at least 17.7 points on average while losing at least 4 games: Iowa 1997 [21.0], Kansas St 2003 [20.3], and Virginia 1990 [19.8].

College Football Rankings, 1900 to 1919

University of Michigan will most likely finish this season at 5-7, giving them 1 win for every 3 games over the last two years. As the country's winningest program, this leads us to ask, will this be a short-lived ebb in Michigan history, or is it part of a long-term secular trend? First, it seems that Michigan's best days are over, dead and buried a century ago. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Wolverines finished 8 times in the top 8 and 4 times were the nation's best. They did not lose a game in the 4 seasons from 1901 to 1904, and only 6 games from 1901 to 1910. The program, though, gradually declined until its renaissance in the early 70s, and has again been declining since. Although the most recent seasons have been historically bad, it appears to me that it is all part of a larger trend.

Rankings: 1900 to 1904 | 1905 to 1909 | 1910 to 1914 | 1915 to 1919

College Football Rankings, 1880 to 1899

College football was very different in the 1800s. For example, teams scored a total of 42 points in 1873-the entire season-or just over 2.5 points per team per game. And home field advantage took on a new meaning when the rules varied from site to site. Teams did not play very many games, and many of the games they did play were against teams representing athletic clubs, high schools, orphanages, nunneries, underground anarchist groups, Russian penal colonies, etc. The participants were often those not athletic enough to make the rowing or badminton teams, and there could be as many as 50 players playing at the same time. In many ways it was more similar to soccer, or the SEC West, then modern college football.

In other words, interpret the rankings below, for 1880 to 1889, with a grain of salt.

1880 to 1884
1885 to 1889
1890 to 1894
1895 to 1899