Monday, November 7, 2011

Week 11: Top 25 -- TFG


Rank +/- Team WinPct SoS Adjusted
Off. Def. Pace
1 -- Alabama 0.967 0.615 15 33.4 1 8.7 1 152.9 120
2 -- LSU 0.937 0.711 1 32.3 3 10.9 2 156.6 115
3 -- Boise St. 0.905 0.437 80 30.5 5 12.4 6 163.5 83
4 -- Stanford 0.896 0.502 68 31.2 4 13.2 8 163.0 88
5 -- Oklahoma 0.891 0.597 23 27.1 9 11.7 3 180.5 5
6 -- Oregon 0.874 0.577 33 26.4 11 12.2 5 184.2 1
7 -- Wisconsin 0.874 0.527 57 32.7 2 15.1 22 160.4 103
8 -- Ohio St. 0.825 0.553 47 23.2 33 12.5 7 158.9 109
9 -- TCU 0.819 0.377 98 27.2 8 14.9 17 163.0 89
10 +1 Florida St. 0.818 0.542 50 26.2 13 14.4 12 158.4 111
11 -1 Oklahoma St. 0.800 0.564 43 27.5 7 15.8 28 181.7 3
12 +3 Virginia Tech 0.786 0.504 65 22.9 34 13.6 9 159.1 107
13 -- Florida 0.779 0.637 10 24.4 23 14.7 16 160.7 102
14 -- Notre Dame 0.771 0.607 20 23.3 32 14.4 11 166.8 61
15 +8 Texas 0.771 0.537 52 24.3 24 14.9 18 161.2 98
16 -4 Nebraska 0.765 0.562 45 23.4 30 14.6 15 165.7 63
17 -- South Carolina 0.759 0.611 18 24.6 21 15.5 23 160.0 104
18 +4 Arkansas 0.759 0.598 22 28.4 6 18.0 47 169.5 36
19 -- USC 0.757 0.587 28 24.9 19 15.8 26 169.5 37
20 -2 Michigan 0.750 0.517 60 25.6 15 16.5 31 160.8 101
21 -1 Texas A&M 0.749 0.630 11 22.7 35 14.6 13 181.5 4
22 -6 Michigan St. 0.746 0.590 27 21.8 40 14.2 10 162.3 95
23 NA Georgia 0.738 0.583 32 26.2 12 17.3 38 163.6 81
24 -- Clemson 0.731 0.584 30 24.0 25 16.1 29 170.5 27
25 NA Miami-FL 0.723 0.612 16 24.9 20 17.0 34 158.9 108
Rankings through games of 2011-11-06

New entries: Georgia, Miami-FL.

Dropped out: Arizona St., Missouri.

Yet another "Game of the Century" in the books, and .... nothing changes in the top nine? Well, yes and no. If you look back at last week's top 25 you'll see some changes in the expected winning percentages. Alabama and LSU effectively fought to a standstill (a very slow standstill, but an even one), and LSU's three-point victory on the road results in a slight net shift in LSU's favor. Practically speaking that means Alabama went from a 69.2% favorite on a neutral field to a 66.3% favorite on a neutral field. Looking beyond the 9-6 final score -- and I think most everyone agrees it would be a good idea if we pretended that one of these top teams was able to score a touchdown -- the Crimson Tide racked up more yards and had several good shots at a win. Going into Saturday's game, the FBS average for field goals from 40-49 yards was 58.7%, and 42.4% from 50+ yards. Thus Alabama's atrocious 1-for-5 performance from 40+ yards was an anomaly; statistically speaking they should have gotten about 8.8 points (i.e., somewhere between 2-5 and 3-5 from that distance), but instead they got only 3. As mentioned in the preview, this isn't too different than the 2009 game between underdog Alabama and favorite Florida, and that Alabama team went on to the national title.

Below that Boise remains the third-best team in FBS, but dropped a few points thanks to giving up 21 against a horrible UNLV team. Stanford and Oklahoma remain effectively tied for fourth while Oregon and Wisconsin are actually tied for sixth. From there it's a reasonable drop-off to Ohio State and ninth-place TCU. The Seminoles enter the top 10, as Oklahoma State continues their version of "the first team to 50 wins." As I noted two weeks ago with regards to Clemson, that's not the safest path to an undefeated season.

From there we have our usual traffic jam from (12) Virginia Tech down to (25) Miami-Florida. The gap covering those 14 teams is 0.063 in expected winning percent, just slightly larger than the 0.062 that separates (1) Alabama from (3) Boise State. SEC fans who argue that the (2) Tigers would destroy Boise  are right that LSU would be the favorites, but only by 61.0%; this, of course, doesn't take into account the fact that the title game is at the Superdome, which would likely give LSU a home field advantage boost.

Tomorrow we'll take an updated look at the five remaining undefeated teams and their respective paths to a perfect season.

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