One Win Away: The Perfect Compromise between Tournament and BCS

Should we BCS or should we Tournament? That is the question.

Beyond the Senator, the Presidents of universities and one large country, the billionaire NBA owner, the anti-trust lawsuit, the books and articles, what we really have are two competing logics. The debate is heated precisely because both sides are (mostly) right.

The BCS Supporters are Right
Tournaments, especially large tournaments, make the regular season less important. Look at it this way: when the selection show ends, the typical team in college basketball's NCAA tournament has a 1.6% chance of winning a national championship; the best team has a 20-25% chance. This means that, over the course of the tournament, the best team (if it wins) improves its chances from 25% to 100% over six games, an average of 15% per game. That best team entered the season with a 15% chance of winning the national championship based on talent alone. Over the course of a 30 game regular season it improves its chances by 10%, or about .33% per game. (With a tournament invite almost guaranteed, its chances improve as it earns a better seed). A typical team improves its chances from, say, .1% to 1.6% over 30 games, or .05% per game. I don’t think many coaches are going to motivate their guys by emphasizing that today they can win 1/300th, or 1/2000th, of a national championship. And the fans don’t get that excited about it either. They wait until March, when the games are 45 times (for the best team) or several thousand times (for a typical team) more important.*

And college basketball is not the worst case of meaningless regular season games. The best pro baseball teams have a 35% chance of taking home a World Series ring when the playoffs start and a 10% chance at the beginning of the season. That means each game, even for the best team, is worth about 1/663rd of a World Series title – and the most important thing they do in each regular season game is avoid season-ending injury. NBA regular season games are worth 1/280th of a world championship for the best team, and the best NFL team looks to earn 1/92nd of a Super Bowl in each regular season game.

In college football, the best team can earn 2.5% or 1/40th of a national championship per regular season game on average. Even if other leagues only played 12 regular season games, college football would still have the most important games. Literally, every game counts.

93-81 does not a champion make

Unimportant regular season games are a problem for a couple reasons. First, fans and players don’t care as much. Second, and more pertinent to this discussion, the championship poorly reflects a team's performance over the course of the season. That, to me, is a serious problem. The '87 Twins were actually outscored in their run to an 85-77 regular season record. They would have finished 5th in the AL East, but they won their pennant and the World Series. The definition of a champion is subjective, but if you are happy putting a ring on the '87 Twins because they won 8 of 12 games after being significantly outplayed by several teams over a 162 game season, you're crazy. I support Cinderellas, but a real Cinderella goes to work from day one, not moments before midnight.

Tournament Supporters are Right
With a 64, or 65, or 68 team tournament, everyone has a shot at winning the national championship. That regular season game may only be worth 1/2000th of a national championship, but for Auburn and Utah in 2004, Boise State in 2006 and 2009, and TCU this year, every regular season game was worthless. I would rather crown the '87 Twins than completely dismiss half of a league from consideration.

This is not a touchdown

I was there when Kellen Moore led Boise State for a last minute score and win against Virginia Tech. Boise fans felt like they were a step closer to a national championship. I was not there when Brotzman missed a couple of field goals against Nevada, but I’m sure Boise fans felt like their national title hopes took a huge step back. In reality, the two games had the same effect on Boise State’s claim on a national championship: no effect whatsoever. As far as the race for the national championship is concerned, it never happened. An undefeated Boise team would have been passed over for a spot in the title game just the same as a two loss Boise team.

So, the solution is not as simple as a single national championship game or a tournament. You can leave out the ’04 Auburns and '08 Utahs, or you can crown the ’87 Twins, ’09 Fresno States, '85 Villanovas and ’95 Rockets.Good news? I have found a way to screen out the '87 Twins while letting in the '04 Auburns.


The One Win Away Approach 
Tournament logic asserts that because team A beat team B in a tournament game, team A is a more deserving champion. But that logic ignores a season of previous results. Georgetown beat Villanova twice during the season. A few days before the NCAA tournament, Georgetown won the Big East tournament and Villanova was eliminated in the semi-finals. Villanova (25-10), Georgetown (35-3); Georgetown won 2 of 3 head-to-head matchups. Villanova wasn't the better team and it didn't have the better season, but Villanova was two points better than Georgetown for 48 minutes (.042 points/minute), so they are your national champs.

In the One Win Away approach, Villanova isn't invited to dance. An invitation is offered, instead, only to those teams that are One Win Away. One Win Away generally means that if team B beat team A, we would then say that team B had the better season. Using the One Win Away Approach, we start by inviting the #1 team in the country. We then invite only those teams that, if they were to beat the #1 team, could then claim to have had a stronger season then the team they just beat**. In a typical college football season, you would have between 3 and 6 teams that meet that criterion. We would also invite any undefeated teams. The invitees would then be organized in an 8 team tournament. If there are fewer than 8 teams with invitations, the top seeds get byes.

By inviting only One Win Away teams to our tournament, it logically follows that the team that wins the tournament is also the team that has had the strongest overall season. It is, therefore, the perfect compromise.

What would a One Win Away tournament look like? In 2004, USC, Oklahoma and Auburn would be the top 3 seeds. California, Utah and Texas would also get an invite. Louisville would probably be left to watch from the comfort of their own homes, already having 1 loss and a significantly weaker schedule than the top teams. USC and Oklahoma would get byes, Auburn would play Texas and California would play Utah. The winners would get Oklahoma and USC, respectively, in the semi-finals.

Why it works: Every team in the country has a shot. We get a tournament, and the winner of the tournament will also be the team that has had the most complete season-when team A beats team B, that really does mean it is the more deserving champion. This would make the regular season slightly less important for those two teams that control their own destiny, but it would be infinitely more important for everyone else - overall, regular season college football games would be more, not less, influential in awarding the national championship.

Why it might not work: We need some way of finding the “One Win Away” teams. This is relatively easy to find using the BPR, but rankings are, inherently, somewhat subjective – especially rankings that must account for hypothetical wins. Also, the “One Win Away” approach requires a flexible postseason which makes planning and marketing much more difficult. A lot of rich and powerful people are deeply invested financially, emotionally, and intellectual in the existing system.

The "One Win Away" approach is, at least logically, the perfect compromise between a single national championship game and a tournament. Unfortunately, I have never known the sports world to be motivated by logic.

* These are, admittedly, back of the envelope calculations, but the logic is sound and the estimates lean towards the conservative.
** This does not mean they would, themselves, become the #1 team in the country, but they would, at least, be One Win Away from the new #1.

Boise St vs. Virginia Tech

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This week's games: Oregon at Boise State

I am posting two sets of graphs to compare teams that will be playing this week. One set shows how the teams have performed from 1994 to 2008 using the Matrix Hybrid rating. The second shows the trend-O-meter rating from 2008. Enjoy.

Boise State and Oregon have been fairly good and fairly even the last few years. Both teams improved substantially over the course of last season as they broke in new quarterbacks. Boise State caught Oregon at a low point last season, and won't do the same again this year, but the game is in Boise, and few are better at home than the Broncos-and Boise needs the win more.

The Myth of Home Field Advantage

Complete Home Field Advantage Statistics

About a year ago, in my most widely read and discussed post to date, I detailed the hard facts of home field advantage. I showed that it was small, isolated stadiums that gave their teams the most boost on the scoreboard and not the rocking behemoths that we love so much. But some people just couldn't handle the truth. I now return to the topic to show how I was right and they were wrong (so suck it Trebek) . . . but also how I was wrong and they were right, as Yoda would say, from a certain point of view.

First, we need to cover some facts. Since 1994, when playing FBS opponents, home teams have won 60% of the time and have outscored their opponents by an average of about 10.5 points. In part, this is because lesser programs often take paychecks to travel and play bigger programs, home teams are more often better teams and therefore win more often.

Home field advantage, though, is very real. On average, home field advantage is about 3.5 points. Specifically, from 1994 to 2008 it was 3.500949. In other words, the home team could expect to do 3.5 points better on average playing at home than at a neutral site against the same team. There is a 7 point swing between playing at home versus playing at someone else's home-exactly 2/3 of the average margin of victory for home teams (10.5). The other 1/3 is because Louisiana-Monroe goes to Alabama and not vice-versa (oh, wait, bad example--suck it Saban).

To understand HFA, we first look at the point differentials (PD) or the difference in the average margin of victory at home versus on the road. Again, this is not my opinion, this is data. Over this period, Arkansas State has lost home games by an average of 1 point, but they have lost road games by an average of 20 for a differential of 19. The highest ranked BCS team is Texas A&M at 10, and there are only 7 in the top 25.

This, of course, does not actually measure HFA because it does not account for the strength of schedule. For example, Arkansas State's average home opponent was about 12.4 points worse than its average road opponent, so when we take that into account we see that Arkansas State had a 6.8 point HFA, or 13th best in the country.

After accounting for strength of schedule, Boise State and Hawaii come out on top. Oklahoma State is at 4, Texas A&M and Texas Tech at 8 and 9. Beaver Stadium comes in just a hair below Arkansas State at 14. You have to go to 39 with Florida before you find an SEC team.

These are facts-hard, undeniable facts--but there is more to football than point margins. Arkansas State has a real home field advantage, but getting less plastered at home is not anything to write home about.

So I decided to measure HFA as the oomph that helps a team win at home when they would lose on the road. This measure is a bit more technical, but the results are also a bit more satisfying. Interpreting the numbers is just about impossible, but the most important thing to remember is that teams with a larger number have been able to win more games at home that they would have lost on the road than are teams with smaller numbers.

Texas Tech is number 1, as Longhorn fans know all too well. Texas is 12, which might come in handy when they are looking for revenge against the Red Raiders this year. Florida State is at 3, showing the superiority of the tomahawk chop over the gator chomp, which comes in at 14. Despite the long home winning streak at Kyle Field in the 90's, Texas A&M drops to 26.

In summary, home field advantage means different things at different times. It helps almost all teams put more points on the board than their opponents (with the exception of Navy), and this characteristics of home field advantage seems to have less to do with big stadiums and raucous crowds than we might think. On the other hand, home field advantage helps some teams win when they might otherwise have lost. It might not show up in gaudy numbers, but Nebraska is able to win games in Lincoln that they would have lost somewhere else. And at the end of the day, that's what really matters. And Georgia plays better and is more likely to win on the road-go figure.

Bowl Results

Things were going very well until I went 0 for 4 the last four bowl games. Still, the Matrix was 53% against the spread. It correctly predicted 67% of winners, which isn't too impressive until you recognize that the Vegas line only picked the winner 53% of the time. At times, the Matrix seemed prophetic, picking Utah over Alabama and hitting the Boise State/TCU game on the nose. But then it estimated that Oregon State and Pitt would combine for 56 points. All in all, it was a topsy turvy bowl season, but the Matrix weathered it relatively well.

Time for a Change-the MWC and the BCS

I asked at the beginning of the year how many wins the MWC could pull off against BCS conference teams. The answer was 9. They finished 9-5 against the BCS with wins over almost every team in the Pac-10 and traditional powerhouses Michigan and Alabama. And San Diego State, easily the worst team in the conference, almost pulled out a W against the Domers.

If we include Boise State (and the Mountain West should be working hard to net Boise as its 10th team), the MWC+Boise State would have wins over every team in the Pac-10 except Washington State (lack of opportunity), Cal (the only Pac-10 team to pull out a regular season victory against the Mountain West), and USC (lack of opportunity?).

And we should note that Utah beat Alabama not with trick plays or 8 Alabama turnovers, but because they were honestly the better team. All but 3 of Alabama's points came off Utah mistakes. Alabama's offense looked like, well, an SEC offense, racking up 200 yards while giving up 8 sacks. Utah moved the ball in the air and on the ground, picking up first downs from the wildcat formation late in the game. Utah was every bit as athletic as Alabama.

And why is this all important--because Utah won their conference by the hair on their chinny-chin-chins. They cashed in on some powerful karma against both TCU and BYU. The MWC was very good this year,

and that wasn't a fluke.

TCU is structurally advantaged compared to, say, Texas Tech. It's not a big school, but it's in the heart of the most dense football talent in the country, and they have been playing football well for quite some time. The true loyalists might be few in number, but they are rabid about their team (see Miami).

BYU can recruit nationally (and internationally). It is a large school with large numbers in attendance at the games-better than any team in the Big East. The Cougars won a title 25 years ago (more recently than just about every team in any of the major conferences). It has a long, strong tradition of potent offenses that quarterbacks and possession recievers want to be a part of and can now draw in Tongans/Samoans (who, except for Manti Te'o, seem to be criminally ignored by the major recruiting services) using the Mormon connection.

Utah draws on the same Tongan/Samoan population and many of the top notch athletes in the region that are not interested in the lifestyle at BYU. They, like BYU, can also nip players from California. Utah, along with BYU and TCU, have sent many notable athletes to the NFL.

Conclusion-the top three teams of the MWC are more legitimate than the top three teams of the Big East. The bottom six of the MWC are every bit as legitimate as the rest of the Big East. There is no rational explanation why the Big East has an automatic spot and the MWC does not.

I propose two solutions. First, the MWC should steal Boise State. Boise State has been succesful everywhere, regardless of the coach and despite the Mickey Mouse field, and they have a BCS bowl win. That top four has been as successful as the top four in any other conference over the last few years. The MWC could then demand inclusion in the BCS.

Second, the MWC champ and the WAC champ play for the bi-conference championship and an automatic spot in the BCS. I have been championing this idea for years. The conferences do not now have championship games, and there is a natural rivalry between the two. If this had been in practice last year, BYU and not Hawaii would have played Georgia and we would have had a better game. If this had been in practice this year, and Utah had beat Boise State, they would have as legitimate a claim as anyone else to the national championship.

Quick Note: Week 4 Results

1) The BYU Defense-BYU has not allowed a point in two complete games now. The last points against the Cougars were score by Jake Locker and, notably, not Washington's kicker. Inexperience and lack of depth on defense were supposed to be BYU's achille's heel when the season kicked off, but the Y has pitched shoutouts even when they've thrown out the scout team in big blowouts. They aren't Auburn or anything, but as Wyoming's Devin Moore put it, "They were a little faster than I though they were."

2) Auburn/LSU-I don't care what SEC backers say, beating Mississippi State 3-2 is not a good thing, and Auburn finally got a small taste of comeuppance. This was a tight game between two very evenly matched teams that was essential decided by two injuries. The first injury was that inflicted by LSU's Andrew Hatch. QB Jarrett Lee's performance in the first half had been so bad that he was not going to see the field again--until Hatch was knocked unconscious. Then, all of a sudden, Jarrett Lee was back in the spotlight and he couldn't screw up if he tried. Auburn also suffered some breakdowns in the secondary and, for the first time in the game, LSU was able to make them pay.

The second big injury was suffered by Auburn's RB Brad Lester. Ben Tate was going to get most of the carries anyway, but the change of pace between the two was beginning to give LSU some headaches. And as time was running down, Lester could have been used out of the backfield to add a little unpredictability to an otherwise painfully predictable offense.

3) South Florida-the Bulls need to drop a few spots. Beating Kansas was a nice, but needing a big comeback at home-against a team that looks more like a 20-30 type team instead of the top 10 team of last year-does not merit a sub-teen ranking. And now that they have struggled against both UCF and FIU, they are getting no love from me. But, of course, since they play in the Big East, which might not be as good as the MWC from top to bottom this season, they'll probably finish the season with two losses and a trip to a BCS bowl.

4) One fifth of the top 25 is currently held by the MWC and the WAC. These five teams have gone a combined 17-1 over a schedule that has included Oregon, Washington, UCLA, Rutgers, Michigan and Wisconsin, not to mention in-conference foes (and teams that went bowling a year ago) in New Mexico and Air Force. The MWC teams will beat each other up a little, and TCU has a tough task ahead in going to Oklahoma, but if one the three survives the ringer, Boise State or Fresno State wins and Tulsa continues its winning ways, we could be on path to a major BCS logjam.

Home Field Advantage - Stage 2

New home field advantage post

Your aren’t going to like this.

I don’t like this and I wrote it. In my mind, it attacks the very foundation of the game I love so much. But I’m filled with a sense of academic integrity to report on my findings, even if I don’t like my findings. So bear with me and read with an open mind.

Home field advantage is very real. We can all agree on that. The professional athletes in professional sports, the older, hardened men and women of athletics, are influenced by the venue in which they play. In college football, with huge stadiums looming over young kids playing an emotional game, the effect is magnified. This, for the college football fan, is what college football is all about. This is why 75% of the ACC sucks.

But what creates home field advantage? The screaming fan likes to believe that his perturbation of air molecules, along with the butterfly in China, prevented an opponent’s audible on third and long or inspired the corner to make that extra effort and break up the pass. Or maybe his prayer was so heartfelt and sincere that God couldn’t resist interceding on his behalf.

Those with experience in the game also have felt the affect of riding long hours on a bus or plane and dressing in a pink locker room, just a little dehydrated, just a little tighter than usual, just a little distracted by an unfamiliar environment.

One goal of mine since establishing this blog was to quantify home field advantage. Early on, I found consistently that home field advantage across the country in college football was worth about 3 to 3.5 points. But how does that vary by team?

When I started, I was hoping to produce a list like this one offered up by a wizened reader:

1. LSU
2. Florida
3. Tennessee
4. Oregon
5. Ohio State
6. Penn State
7: Auburn
8. Washington
9. Clemson
10. Wisconsin

With a few minor changes to match my own biases (e.g. my personal opinion of ACC football). But I had to do this statistically, objectively, and reproducibly.

For my purposes here, home field advantage is defined as the opponent adjusted differential between home and road performance. A good home field environment can also work in other ways—it aids recruiting, it inspires future and current boosters to open their check books, it fills the athletes with a sense of pride and respect for their program that improves the work in practices, etc—but I’m not concerning myself with these for now. This analysis looks exclusively at the difference between how a team performs at home and how it performs on the road.

With that in mind, I think it is also important to establish that an “advantage” in college football that doesn’t show up on the scoreboard is not really an advantage. Sure, it might be fun to hold out your arms and slap them together like a giant reptile with 75,000 other people, but if it doesn’t show up on the scoreboard its just entertainment, it's not an advantage.

Using all games since 1987 as my sample, after controlling for the strength of the team and its competition and removing teams with an insufficient representation, I found that almost every team in the country has experienced a home field advantage (with the notable exception of Navy which apparently plays better in the more liberal environments outside of Annapolis).

The teams on the list above do not fare well. Tigers in cages, stadiums that seat small metropolises, and a thousand combined years of tradition aside, LSU comes in behind La-La and Louisiana Tech, Ohio State behind Ohio and Kent State, and Penn State eeks out an extra .2 points at home than Pitt in their oversized, undermanned condiment stadium.

Instead, coming in at number 1, and with little doubt, are the Rainbow Warriors. The distance a team must travel to play Hawaii (and Hawaii must, in turn, cover to play anyone else) seems to be the most important home field advantage in college football-because it definitely it's not the intimidating environment of Aloha Stadium.

After that, the list seems rather random. Blue fields are apparently difficult to adjust to. And instead of Oregon cracking the top 10, Oregon State takes a proud spot at number 3.

These results disturbed me, so I went in search of an explanation. I tried to looking at conference games (and all games in weeks 5-12 for independents) in an effort to control the sample bit, but the list looks similar-- still dominated by the WAC.

I next thought that I might find something in close games (final point margin was 7 or less), where the crowd has the most effect. Instead, I found that home field advantage almost disappears completely. This, I thought, was the most condemning evidence of them all.

(Click to see a larger version)

For completeness, I've also included 95% confidence intervals. This means that you can be 95% confident that the real value of the team's home field advantage lies somewhere in that range.

My first, second, third, … , and tenth reactions to all these results were that there must be something wrong with my analysis, something wrong with the data, something wrong with my computer, my statistical package, the interaction of electrons on the atomic level or the universe as a whole. NO WAY does No. Illinois get more of an advantage at home than every team in the country with a stadium that seats more than 80,000. I’ve been at those games, and yelled for my team and I know in the depth of my soul that I had an impact—but apparently I, we, were just a little delusional. The reason my team wins at home is because the opposing team had to eat something different for their pregame meal, left their lucky socks at home, spent too many hours commuting and then couldn’t find the restrooms once they arrived.

But go and yell your heads off anyways, pace in the living room, curse, swear, pray, and curse some more and refuse to change your underwear if you think it helps. That’s the Atlas of college football.

P.S. I have two more ideas that will take me a little longer to apply but may interest the engaged fan. I'm going to control for the field surface and the distance traveled to see what results that gives me, but it will take me a little while to organize all the data and design the analysis, but stay tuned.

Bowl Picks 2

Hawaii Bowl. Boise State vs. East Carolina

The talk of the town is that Boise State will have a letdown in this game and started slowly after the BCS miracle last season. Obviously, these people have never been to Boise or played in the WAC. East Carolina's trips to Virginia Tech and West Virginia received much more national attention than any game Boise State has played in this season (including at Hawaii). The Pirates' Chris Johnson is a stud, averaging an opponent-adjusted 5 yards per carry, but Boise State is definitely the better team in this game.

The Matrix - Boise State by 8.8, 46.3% against the spread

Motor City Bowl. Central Michigan vs. Purdue

What a miserable bowl to be forced to play in - how can you recruit to a school where a conference championship and decent season is capped off with a trip to Detroit in late December? Central Michigan has played three BCS conference teams this years, losing by 45, 23 and 56 points. If there is greater parity in college football, it ain't coming from the MAC. We may expect a different outcome this time from the previous meeting (when Purdue won by 23) after the dismissal of Lymon, but losing an athlete for conduct detrimental is not as bad as losing a leader to injury and, in some cases, can be a real blessing if his conduct was really detrimental. The critical point is that Central Michigan plays poor pass D (114th in the nation according to the Matrix) and Purdue will throw the ball 40 to 50 times.

The Matrix - Purdue by 6, 42% against the spread

Holiday Bowl. Arizona St. vs. Texas

These are two teams that, in my opinion, are meeting at a crossroads as they move in opposite directions. Two years ago from now, Texas had one of the best college football teams the world has ever known. Arizona St was struggling on the bowl eligibility bubble. Texas is losing more recruiting battles to LSU, OU, A&M, OSU, and even Tech (but not Baylor), has placed too many athletes in Austin's prisons recently, and has lost its last 3 games against rivals A&M and OU. Texas is still among the toughest against the run, but ASU has the better overall opponent-adjusted defensive efficiency and won't be all that interested in running the ball anyway.

The Matrix - ASU by 2.5, 61.8% against the spread

Champs Sports Bowl. Michigan St. vs. Boston College

Where the Purdue/Central Michigan game is a no win situation for the Big 10 - no one's impressed when you beat the Chippewa's - the Spartans could knock off BC, the ACC runner-up and former national title contender, and win back some Big 10 pride. Don't believe the hype about Ryan and BC's efficient offense - Michigan St is more efficient on the ground and in the air than the Eagles. Michigan State could pull off the upset in a shootout.

The Matrix - Boston College by 5.3, 55.9% against the spread

Texas Bowl. TCU vs. Houston

Who's going to get excited about this game? Houston doesn't have fans and TCU fans were expecting a BCS bowl berth when the season kicked-off. Houston is headless and TCU has been stumbling around all season. When Houston has the ball, we will be seeing a top 20 offense against a top 20 defense and should be, for college football fans, fun to watch.

The Matrix - TCU by 4.8, 54.3% against the spread

Emerald Bowl. Maryland vs. Oregon State

It's been a tough year for the Terps. After losing half the starting roster and losing to North Carolina, Maryland needed 2 wins in 3 games to go bowling - and beat Boston College and North Carolina State (37-0) to punch their ticket. Oregon St. has had the nation's most efficient run defense and Friedgen needs to run the ball to take pressure off of Turner.

The Matrix - Oregon St by 5.8, 53.2% against the spread

Week 13 Picks

Table: Week 13 Picks and Odds

Supporters of the BCS system should be pleased. This season has turned itself into a natural tournament. LSU, Missouri and Kansas are in the quarterfinals. West Virginia is the champion of the losers bracket and Oregon and Ohio State are ready to take their spot if they falter. Ironically, in a season that has lacked dominant teams the BCS system might succeed in identifying two consensus national championship contenders. Or it might not.

We start with the Big 12.

Game 1. Kansas vs. Missouri (neutral site)
I don't this game was marked on many calenders outside of Lawrence and Columbia, but it is now the most important game of rivalry weekend. Kansas has made a name for itself by playing tough defense (12th in the nation by my rankings in run and pass def. efficiency) and mistake free offense. Missouri has play makers, two of which (Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin) are becoming household names. The two teams have had success by making the most of less talent and being consistent. Missouri is hoping to get a rematch against Oklahoma and a birth in the national championship game (consecutive wins over Kansas and Oklahoma should boost them over WVU), but the Matrix gives them only a 37% chance of winning this game and the Big 12 North

The Matrix - Kansas by 2.6, 53% against the line

Game 2. Connecticut @ West Virginia
The surprise here is not that this game matters, but that UConn actually has a chance of winning. Unfortunately, UConn's defense is proportioned differently than Cincy's - they are tough against the pass and soft against the run. A healthy White and resurgent Slaton should have a field day.

The Matrix - WVU by 14.5, 38.8% against the line

Game 3. Arkansas @ LSU
LSU is the better team and Arkansas is quickly becoming headless. But LSU gave up over 400 yards last week against an inferior opponent. McFadden could have a field day - though he won't be as effective without Felix Jones mixing things up.

The Matrix - LSU by 13.4, 53% against the line

Game 4. Tennessee @ Kentucky
If Tennessee loses this game, LSU will have to play Georgia to get into the national championship game. Kentucky needs to win to finish .500 in conference, after a season that started so promisingly. Tennessee will need to run the ball effectively against a weak Kentucky run defense, and then get enough stops to come out on top. These two teams have been inconsistent, and it is impossible to know which version will show up.

The Matrix - Kentucky by 5.2, 55.7 against the line

Game 5. Boise State @ Hawaii
This game is essentially the championship game for the weak of schedule. To their credit, they have won when they needed to and, at times, won by a lot. But offensively and defensively, only Hawaii's pass offense finds itself in the top 25 nationally - beyond that, the two teams are average. The Matrix does not include a "Hawaii is a really long ways away" adjustment factor, so you might want to mentally add 7 points to its estimate

The Matrix - Hawaii by 1.8, 42% against the line

Game 6. Texas @ Texas A&M
This game is somewhat similar to the game last year. If Texas wins they might be playing for the Big 12 title (if Oklahoma State can beat Oklahoma). Texas plays tough run defense - as good as any - and A&M needs to run the ball because they're 94th in pass efficiency. Last year, A&M rushed for over 300 yards and didn't attempt a pass on the 80-yard game winning drive. The last time Texas went to College Station, Stephen McGee almost beat Vince Young in a surprise start.

The Matrix - Texas by 1.9, 40.3% against the line

Game 7. Utah @ BYU
Not nationally important, but it is the Holy War. Few realize it, but Utah's pass defense has been as effective as any - more efficient than the Bayou Bengals. BYU is 12th in the nation in passing yards per game. BYU needs to win this game or next week to clinch another MWC title. The possibility that this game will be half as exciting as last year gives me tingles.

The Matrix - BYU by 3.2, 46.6% against the line

Game 8. Alabama @ Auburn
Alabama is trying to recover from a "catastrophe". They were probably looking forward to this game, and everyone else in Alabama was as well. Auburn has a better team, and I'm still waiting for Saban to perform those promised miracles.

The Matrix - Auburn by 7.7, 55% against the line

It looks like it should be a quality Thanksgiving weekend.

Click Here for Week 13 Picks and Odds