Asbury Computer Rankings heading into Championship weekend

For the season, my computer is 76.9% at picking the winner (in games involving a top 25 team) while the official spread is at 80.1%. However, my computer beats the spread 53.2% of the time. Over the years, my computer has consistently beat the spread - 51.1% in 2009 and 52.9% in 2010 - so if you want to bet on games, my picks look like a good bet.

My computer is predicting a close SEC championship game, LSU over UGA 28-24. Oregon over UCLA by 15,Wisconsin over Michigan State 31-24, and Virginia Tech over Clemson 33-20.

Rankings headed into Rivalry games

Somehow I don't feel like writing much but these rankings are messed up, at least compared to popular opinion. After 4 teams ranked in the top 7 lost, the SEC has the top 3 spots in the BCS but in my computer, those teams are #1, 4, and 13.

 

So, who's going to win the Thanksgiving week games. Even though I'll be playing bridge at the NABC, I should still be able to see GT vs. UGA, a noon start, which means it'll be 9am in Seattle.

Georgia 31, @Georgia Tech 25

@LSU 31, Arkansas 22

@Nebraska 28, Iowa 27

@South Carolina 31, Clemson 27

Florids State 26, @Florida 23

@North Carolina 33, Duke 20

@Michigan 31, Ohio State 17

Alabama 31, @Auburn 19

@Stanford 34, Notre Dame 27

@Oregon 41, Oregon State 20

@Wake Forest 27, Vanderbilt 25

Virginia Tech 24, @Virginia 21

OkSt and LSU Undisputed #1 and 2

Oklahoma State still tops the Asbury computer ranking. With Boise State and Stanford departing from the ranks of the unbeaten, my computer took a slight divergence from the BCS. Other notable games in week 11 were VT getting off to a slow start but coming up with several big 3rd down passes to beat GT 37-26, Clemson needing a late 4th quarter comeback to beat Wake Forest, and Nebraska topping Penn State during the aftermath of the Penn State scandal.

Michigan, a team that has been overrated by my computer all season, went up 3 spots to #8 despite being only #18 in the BCS. Penn State is similarly overrated, coming in at #14. Texas and Florida State, 23 and 25 in the BCS, meanwhile don't even make my top 30.

Apparently some people have gotten the impression that my computer predicts scores that are too close, but really I only put games that are most interesting on here. However, to show that my computer does indeed expect some blowouts, here goes.

@Alabama 42, Georgia Southern 7
LSU 38, @Mississippi 10
@Oregon 38, USC 27
Kansas State 30, @Texas 28
@Georgia 35, Kentucky 14
@Michigan 28, Nebraska 23
Georgia Tech 35, @Duke 21
@Wake Forest 35, Maryland 17
@Florida State 30, Virginia 19
@Virginia Tech 31, North Carolina 20

Week 11 rankings

In baseball, I love pitching duels – those 2-1 and 3-1 ball games where offense is hard to come by – so it only makes sense that I would like low-scoring football games. I enjoyed watching the Alabama-LSU game last Saturday despite having no real interest in who wins. Knowing that every little score mattered and that field position would be important makes it more interesting than say, the Oklahoma State-Kansas State or South Carolina-Arkansas games going on at the same time. So, while my teams of interest were off, LSU and Oklahoma State squeaked by, Arkansas won in a more convincing fashion, and there wasn’t really anything else noteworthy in college football in week 10.

Here’s how my computer has the teams ranked through ten weeks. Not surprisingly, Oklahoma State is #1 again. I only see a couple of screwy things, most notably South Carolina (7-2) is 4 spots ahead of Arkansas (8-1) despite Arkansas beating them by 16 last weekend.

 

This Thursday I’ll be at the Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game. The winner is almost assured of playing in Charlotte for the ACC championship against Clemson. The official spread is GT by 1, which surprised me. My computer has them at a virtual tie, Virginia Tech by .05.

For the season, my computer has picked the winner correctly 78.3% of the time (in top 25, ACC, and SEC games) and beaten the spread 50.4% of the time. Last year, my computer beat the spread 52.9% of the time. Here are some predictions for this week.

Virginia Tech 26+, @Georgia Tech 26

@Notre Dame 28, Maryland 16

@Florida State 28, Miami 23

@Georgia 33, Auburn 23

@Clemson 37, Wake Forest 23

@Kansas State 35, Texas A&M 31

@Boise State 36, TCU 26

@Stanford 34, Oregon 30

Boise State solidly at #2 in the Asbury Computer

With 4 weeks left in the regular season, there are few things that people can agree on but one is that Alabama and LSU are the two best teams so far. They play each other Saturday night and may well still be ranked 1 and 2 in the polls after that. Computers don't seem to give them as much credit. And it's not just my computer program - it's the computers used in the BCS calculations, too. All but one of those computers puts Oklahoma State at #1.

Georgia and Georgia Tech are now pretty much tied with their 6-2 marks. Georgia Tech beat Clemson 31-17 and played far better than they did in the previous 2 losses to Virginia and Miami. I'm told Georgia looked like the far superior team in the 24-20 win over Florida. At the bridge tournament Saturday, I tried to bet a Clemson fan that they would beat Tech by at least 2 touchdowns but he smartly didn't take me up on that bet.

Boise State's opponents currently have a 31-25, which is awfully good considering Georgia is the only decent team they have played, but hopefully that will drop their strength of schedule down to where it actually should be around 90th to 100th toughest out of 119.

This week there really aren't many interesting games on tap with all 3 ranked ACC teams being off and Georgia pretty much being off. Actually, there are 3 games with top 15 teams playing each other, all at night. Here's what my computer predicts.

@Alabama 24, LSU 23
@Oklahoma State 42, Kansas State 24
@Arkansas 27, South Carolina 26
Notre Dame 32, @Wake Forest 24

That 6-0 start seems like such a distant past

Georgia Tech has lost 2 in a row and has Clemson and Virginia Tech next. They looked pretty terrible yesterday but I think we all knew they weren't a top 10 team. Today, however, was a good day as the Falcons beat the Lions and Matt Stafford. And Calvin Johnson still had a good game, which makes me happy.

Apparently my computer rankings are much more in line with the BCS computers than with the voters with Oklahoma State #1, Oregon and Stanford significantly lower than the polls. I really don't see how Boise State could have the 45th toughest schedule but I'm pretty sure all the kinks of that are gone. the other strength of schedules seem about right, so maybe it'll improve as Boise plays more weak teams.

So, since plans to go to GT homecoming against Clemson fell through, I'll be at a bridge tournament and probably will get to see the last quarter of the game - hopefully it will still be a game.

For the 4th straight week, Wake Forest is expected to win.

Clemson 37, @Georgia Tech 27
@Florida State 31, NC State 27
Wake Forest 28, @North Carolina 27
Georgia 28, Florida 20
South Carolina 33, @Tennessee 17
@Kansas State 31, Oklahoma 30
@Oklahoma State 47, Baylor 30
Michigan State 28, @Nebraska 26
Wisconsin 30, @Ohio State 24
Virginia Tech 31, Duke 17
@Miami 31, Virginia 18

Who would win today: UGA or GT?

On the drive up to Athens Saturday morning, I was listening to 790 the Zone and they were having an informal poll of callers guessing who would win between the Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets if they played today on a neutral field. I was quite surprised that nearly everyone picked the Yellow Jackets. I didn't even agree with that. Yes, I thought, and still think, that UGA would and will beat Tech. Both teams struggled a bit this weekend but Georgia managed to survive with a win while Tech couldn't muster up quite enough offense against the Wahoos. Teams who have a bye week before playing Tech continue to have significantly more success than teams who only have 1 week to prepare. It's no coincidence - the extra week helps more against Paul Johnson's abnormal offense than it does against other teams.

Anyway, here are the new rankings, including half of the SEC in the top 25. Oklahoma State is at the top, way ahead of #2 Oklahoma. Michigan State (5-1) beat my previous #1 Michigan but still is at only #31.

My computer doesn't think there will be many good games next week - out of all of the top 25 teams, my computer's spread is at least 6 in every game. But after my tennis league and a nap, I'll be watching Clemson-UNC and then GT-Miami and Auburn-LSU.

Week 8 computer predictions:
@LSU 34, Auburn 17
@Oklahoma 43, Texas Tech 26
Wisconsin 28, @Michigan State 21
@Clemson 33, North Carolina 23
Georgia Tech 33, @Miami 27
Wake Forest 31, @Duke 24
Arkansas 37, @Mississippi 17
@Florida State 34, Maryland 21

Pick Six and Michigan still atop the Asbury college football rankings

This year, the phrase "pick six" has been used a lot more than I have noticed previously. I hadn't really heard anyone use it until a couple of years ago but it has become the standard way to refer to an interception that is taken back for a touchdown. I don't think I like this phrase but maybe it'll grow on me.

Of the 25 games I put into my computer predictor (all top 25 teams plus all ACC and SEC games), my computer only got two wrong and beat the spread on 15 out of 25. The two my computer got wrong were Arkansas over Auburn and Texas A&M over Texas Tech. My computer has always liked Auburn a lot and I guess it was down on A&M after their loss to Arkansas. I'm glad my computer got the WF win over FSU. People don't respect the Demon Deacons football program. I'm not sure I do either.

Georgia comes in at #31, Virginia Tech #34, and Wake Forest #39.

Next week doesn't appear to have many interesting games, which suits me just fine since I will be playing bridge all day Saturday at the Athens sectional, but here are my computer predictions. Something must be wrong - the computer is picking Wake to beat another perennial power in the ACC.

LSU 33, @Tennessee 14
@Oregon 34, Arizona State 29
Michigan 24, @Michigan State 16
Georgia Tech 37, @Virginia 24
@Wake Forest 27, Virginia Tech 26
Georgia 28, @Vanderbilt 17
@Duke 30, Florida State 26
@Auburn 28, Florida 26

Week 5 Rankings have Michigan at the Top

So, my new rankings for this week have Michigan at the top and initially they had unranked Texas Tech at the top, with Alabama and LSU #17 and 18. That all looked really wrong so I spent the last hour and a half looking for glaring errors and I found one - not in the algorithm but a typo or misaligned column. That resulted mostly in the strength of schedule numbers being way off. Anyway, these new rankings for week 5 look pretty good, with the exception of Michigan at the top. Just in time to watch the new episode of Pan Am.

I like that my computer ranks Clemson #4, more respect than the poll voters give them. The one team that my computer seems to have way off is Wisconsin, fresh off a good beating of Nebraska. And of course, I like that Georgia Tech is ranked so high. They seem to now be on a collision course to go into homecoming on October 29 against Clemson, both with 8-0 records. Both the Yellow Jackets and Tigers will be bog favorites in their next 3 games - GT vs. Maryland, Virginia, and Miami; Clemson vs. Boston College, Maryland, and North Carolina). Hopefully College Gameday will be in Atlanta that day.

Some computer predictions for week 6 games:
@LSU 34, Florida 16
Oklahoma 31, @Texas 23
Auburn 31, @Arkansas 30
@Georgia Tech 40, Maryland 23
@Virginia Tech 24, Miami 21
@Wake Forest 28, Florida State 26
Georgia 30, @Tennessee 28
@South Carolina 31, Kentucky 14
@Clemson 35, Boston College 13

Week 3 Rankings

Georgia Tech and Georgia both won big last weekend. Tech set several school and ACC records with their 768 offensive yard performance against Kansas. The ACC fared reasonably well in it's slate of marquee non-conference matchups. Clemson beat Auburn and Miami beat Ohio State soundly but Florida State was outclassed by Oklahoma and West Virginia barely held off Maryland.

This week, my computer rankings look a little more normal as Oklahoma is the clear #1.

A few computer predictions for week 4:
Georgia Tech 31, North Carolina 28
Georgia 33, Mississippi 24
Clemson 30, Florida State 24
Arkansas 31, Alabama 30
West Virginia 28, LSU 26