Wow, so another weird week of football rankings. I think this week we can really see the difference between ranking and watching college football.
SEC? SEC!
My computer obviously did not have to sit through South Carolina's collapse against Auburn or Florida's beating at the hands of Alabama. While I realize that, especially in Florida's case, getting walloped by a good team is not necessarily a mark of shame (especially in my ranking system), South Carolina and Florida looked bad, like-out-of-the-Top-25 bad. As you can see below, this wasn't the case and my computer ranked both teams in highly (South Carolina at #9 was especially surprising).
I guess the question to ask here is: who is playing better football and deserves to rank higher than South Carolina or Florida? I would put Wisconsin and Stanford higher, but, once again, we see the difference between watching and ranking. Right now, one loss South Carolina has a more impressive record against good teams than either of those probably better teams. My computer thinks fairly highly of all of South Carolina's opponents, except East Carolina, and they have been winning, for the most part, against them. Remember that my computer ranks how teams are playing at the moment, not how I anticipate them doing. Do I think SC and Florida are going to lose some more games during the season? Absolutely. Especially Florida, who plays at LSU next weekend (can we just pencil in wins for LSU until they play Bama? Seriously, they're so good it's scary). Also, Spurrier's teams are always good for a hilarious late-season collapse. Similarly, will Wisconsin lose again before the national title game? No, I don't think they will. Does that matter right now? Wisconsin has only played one quality opponent, and that was against a Nebraska team that, according to my ranking system, was massively over-valued by the AP and USA Today polls (I had them at 15 last week, while they were 8 in the AP).
That said, having watched Wisconsin play, they're statistically frightening (in fact, my computer has them tied with Alabama, slightly behind Stanford, as the top 3 statistically best teams in football right now). The fact that they play in the historically weak Big 10, against an especially weak Big 10 conference this year, is going to hurt them in my rankings. It stinks that this happens, but there you go.
In any case, the point I want to make here is that my computer can shower all the love it wants on South Carolina and Florida, because it, unlike me, didn't have to watch either of those games last weekend. It's one of the interesting things about statistical sports: as Bill James said in a cameo on The Simpsons, "I make baseball as fun as doing your taxes." When you care only about the numbers, you get a much different version of sporting events than when you are actually confronted with the live events.
Week 5 Top 25
- LSU 5-0 (406.340909090909)
- Alabama 5-0 (397.323484848485)
- Oklahoma 4-0 (375.457575757576)
- Michigan 5-0 (359.8875)
- Illinois 5-0 (352.620833333333)
- Oklahoma State 4-0 (344.051136363636)
- Boise State 4-0 (338.606818181818)
- Clemson 5-0 (329.565151515152)
- South Carolina 4-1 (313.159090909091)
- Georgia Tech 5-0 (284.409090909091)
- Stanford 4-0 (269.125)
- Kansas State 4-0 (265.201515151515)
- Texas 4-0 (264.772727272727)
- Wisconsin 5-0 (258.966666666667)
- Auburn 4-1 (245.318622589532)
- Florida 4-1 (242.7)
- Arizona State 4-1 (241.6)
- Arkansas 4-1 (238.566666666667)
- Houston 5-0 (234.236363636364)
- Notre Dame 3-2 (226.681136363636)
- UNC 4-1 (223.557575757576)
- South Florida 4-1 (220.66)
- Tennessee 3-1 (217.697916666667)
- USC 4-1 (217.135)
- West Virginia 4-1 (216.729318181818)