College Football 2008

Now that the season's over, it's time to review and rank.

The Matrix offers us rankings based on three basic ideas-efficiency, performance, and win/loss record. Efficiency is based on yards per play. the efficiency ratings presented here are adjusted for the strength of a team's competition and weighted appropriately. Performance is a team's capacity to score or prevent the scoring of points. Finally, the Elo rating is based exclusively on the win/loss record of a team and of its opponents. I use a hybrid rating that combines these three to rank all 120 D-IA college football teams.

Florida comes in at #1. USC, Oklahoma, Texas and Penn State fill out the top 5. Utah and TCU then represent the MWC at 6 and 7 despite having weak schedules (71 and 55, respectively).

Oklahoma scores the nation's best offense (with Florida coming in second) and USC the nation's best defense (TCU at number 2). Oklahoma had the best passing offense and Oregon the most effective run offense (just ask Oklahoma State about that offense).

Oklahoma also had the toughest schedule (playing in the Big 12 and national championship games bulked a schedule that already included the rest of the Big 12 South, TCU and the Big East champ). Washington had the second toughest schedule, but navigated it less well than OU.

The Apple Cup was everythign we thought it would be, including the two worst BCS conference teams in the country. Despite winning the game, Washington State still managed to wrestle the title of worst BCS conference team from Washington.

But is was a team in Texas that wrote the book on futility. North Texas had the nation's worst defense (again) and a really bad offense measured both in terms of scoring and efficiency.

Week 14 Rankings

Complete Week 14 Rankings Here

The polls got shifted around quite a bit last week. The two top teams lost. LSU did it in 3OT again and Kansas missed two chip shot field goals and threw two interceptions deep in Missouri territory. Oregon's offensive disaster in the Rose Bowl will keep it from returning in January. That opened the door for Missouri to jump from #6 to #1 in one day, barely sliding past West Virginia.

Hawaii didn't make up much ground after an impressive victory against Boise State, but USC did move up the polls after a (more?) impressive performance.

UCLA held on to its #1 ranking as the nation's most unpredictable team (the Matrix didn't know Oregon was on its third string quarterback), but Kansas fell from the most consistent out of the top 10 in consistency - Troy is #1 and I'm not quite sure I can believe that.

USC and the Ohio State have marked their turfs as the two best defensive teams in the country. If Missouri or West Virginia lose this weekend, we will get a chance to see how good that Buckeye defense really is. Utah stays at #3 in pass defense after an impressive performance that was one 49 yard pass short of helping them upset the Cougars.

For this week, I have added a combined rating. Because Missouri and Florida International sit on top and on bottom of all three polls, respectively, they are still on top and bottom in the combined poll. Minnesota falls below Baylor to become the worst BCS conference team in the nation - and with a 1-11 record even the gophers can't argue that. Hawaii is the highest ranked non-BCS team with BYU close on its heels. And the Longhorns fell out of the top 25 - a rough day for Colt.

With a lot of teams not playing, there wasn't much movement in the recent performance rankings, but USC did move into the top 5.

Complete Week 14 Rankings Here

Week 12 Rankings

I apologize. It will take a day or two to post the entire rankings. I have switched computers, but I have not yet switched all the software I need. But I do have some rankings this week.

First, The Top 10

1	Oregon	44.1
2	West Virginia	43.1
3	LSU	43.0
4	Kansas	41.5
5	Missouri	41.3
6	Ohio State	41.2
7	Oklahoma	41.1
8	Florida	40.7
9	Arizona State	39.3
10	Virginia Tech	38.4

West Virginia was poised to take the top spot, but played poorly against Louisville and made room for Oregon to slip in without playing a game. LSU could also jump the Mountaineers with an impressive showing in the SEC championship game.

Kansas jumped to #4 after an impressive win against Oklahoma State and Missouri nudged the Buckeyes out of the top 5.

Top 10, BCS variety

1	Kansas	1993
2	Oregon	1883
3	LSU	1879
4	Arizona State	1805
5	Missouri	1786
6	Oklahoma	1768
7	Ohio State	1761
8	Hawaii	1741
9	West Virginia	1697
10	Georgia	1687

This version of the top 10 uses only wins and losses. The big surprise here is that I made one minor modification and Hawaii drops from 3 to 8. Hawaii and Georgia push out Virginia Tech and Florida in this version, and the top spot is grabbed by the Jayhawks (who will belong there if they can win their next three games).

Top 10 Consistency

1	Kansas	4.98
2	Arizona State	5.16
3	Utah State	5.44
4	Florida International	5.61
5	Army	6.31
6	Missouri	6.99
7	Idaho	7.28
8	Fresno State	7.32
9	North Carolina	7.89
10	Hawaii	8.23

A quick note of warning - consistency does not equal good. Army and FIU are not good. Those two, Utah State, and the Vandals of Idaho have each made their way on this list with consistently horrible play. And Kansas finds itself on top of the pack again. Unfortunately for Arizona State fans, they were also consistent when they played Oregon and, very predictably, lost.

Top 10 Inconsistent

1	UCLA	24.55
2	Utah	22.59
3	Central Michigan	21.58
4	Kansas State	20.17
5	Iowa State	20.14
6	UNLV	19.53
7	Nebraska	19.16
8	East Carolina	18.18
9	Kentucky	17.39
10	Marshall	17.30

Again, inconsistency is not necessarily bad (though it won't win you any national championships). Iowa State has squeezed on this list by improving dramatically through the season. UCLA and Utah, on the other hand, have just been completely unpredictable.

Top 10 Hotness

1	Iowa State	0.361
2	Louisiana-Lafayette	0.298
3	Marshall	0.281
4	Illinois	0.260
5	Tulsa	0.215
6	Ohio	0.211
7	Cincinnati	0.205
8	Georgia	0.191
9	Wisconsin	0.178
10	Clemson	0.172

As I mentioned before, Iowa State is playing well. Illinois just shot through the roof in a single game.

Top 10 Coldness

1	Kansas State	-0.421
2	Miami (FL)	-0.314
3	UTEP	-0.265
4	Purdue	-0.218
5	Boston College	-0.205
6	New Mexico State	-0.196
7	Houston	-0.188
8	South Carolina	-0.163
9	UAB	-0.159
10	New Mexico	-0.158

As well as Iowa State has been playing recently, Kansas State has been worse, losing to Iowa State and then losing in embarrassing fashion to the Corn Huskers. I mentioned in an earlier blog, the Clemson/Boston College game is one of teams moving in opposite directions.

Most unexpected winners

	Home	Road	Spread	Score
7	UNLV	Utah	-7.5	27-0
6	Oregon	California	6.5	24-31
5	Middle Tenn	Lo-Lafayette	13.5	24-34
4	Michigan St	Northwestern	14.5	41-48
3	Louisville	Syracuse	37	35-38
2	UCLA	Notre Dame	22	6-20
1	USC	Stanford	41	23-24

I have limited this to winners, because some of the most unexpected outcomes this season were teams that almost won and shouldn't have had a chance - and "almost-upsets", as you learn as a child, aren't horseshoes or hand grenades. The USC/Stanford game was as big of a spread as you will ever see, but Cal beating Oregon has turned out to be a comparably unlikely event. Interestingly, UNLV is the only team to pull off the impossible at home.

Week 11 Rankings

Week 11 Rankings

#1?
Ohio State.

You can't really argue with that, can you? And if the Matrix picked the participants for the national championship game today we would see the Buckeyes against the Ducks. And, in case you're wondering, it would give Oregon a 60% chance of winning.

SEC fans might gripe about this, but SEC teams don't win big enough. LSU really shouldn't need a brilliant combination of luck and guts to beat Alabama in a late comeback. Oregon didn't need late heroics to beat Arizona State, who also has a pretty good team. And hanging your hat on the Florida-Ohio State game here won't do you any good. USC put as solid a whipping on Michigan as Florida did on Ohio State.

Some things to keep in mind when you look at the rankings. First, it is based on margin of victory, not wins and losses, but with a very rapid diminishing returns for large margins of victory. In other words, it sees a 1 point win as little better than a one point loss, but a one point loss versus a 1 point win can change a teams ranking about as much as a 15 point win instead of a 35 point win.

I've set it side by side with a few other important and sophisticated polls. The scores under Matrix represent the teams rating and the number on the far left side is the ranking according to the Matrix. The mean is a number I've pulled from masseyratings.com which compares over a hundred rankings. I'm a big fan of this compilation and of the Massey ratings.

There are a few kinks with the html that I need to work out, but that will have to wait until another day.

Click here to see the rankings