Week 6 numbers are in. Oh Alabama, things really didn't go your way last week. You can find an explanation to these calculations here.
LSU, I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
You may be thinking, "Vincent, where's LSU? I can't comprehend why they're still winning so I've resorted to cutting myself at night with rusty scissors while on chatroulette."
Usually, when teams win inexplicably, there's some stat you can tease out to explain it all. In 2002, Ohio State had an offense that, um... they had an offense.... AND a solid bend-but-don't break defense that held teams to very high yards-per-point numbers. 2010 LSU barely makes the top 33% in Gap. Back to cutting yourself...
CONFERENCE PLAY
Week 6 and 7 means teams are now in the thick of conference action, so I figured it would be neat to combine the 4 conferences that are still in the running for a national title (i.e. not the ACC or Big East) to see where everyone stacks up.
First, the annual Big 10 vs. SEC hate-fest
Even with a pretty bad loss to Arizona, Iowa's defense has been stellar, #4 and #1 in total and scoring defense respectively. Beating an awful Memphis squad, a Case Keenum-less Houston team, and Alcorn St. have helped Mississippi State keep a high Gap value.
Next, we merge the western half of the US together:
Mizzou seems out of place because, to date, they have played nobody of consequence. Their best looking win so far is vs. llinois on a neutral field. Beating Colorado 26-0 helped their numbers significantly. McNeese State, Miami (OH), and SDSU round out the rest of the schedule to date. Their next three games vs. A&M, OU, and Nebraska will show what this team is really made of.
For shits, we'll add the WAC to the SEC and Big 10, respectively
My issue with Boise State is that the bottom dwellers of their conference are some of the worst teams in all of FBS. Sure, the bottom dwellers in every conference are bad, but few teams come close to the suckage of NMSU, SJSU, Utah State, and LA-Tech. Furthermore, the top ten teams in either mash-up belong to the major conferences.
But, before getting too far ahead of ourselves, there's a more pressing matter for Boise: the Nevada Wolfpack, who appear to be a better team on paper.
PICKS
4-1 again last week. The spreadsheets literally caught fire inside my computer when LSU won. Only two games feature ranked teams this week. Turrible, college football, jus' turrible.
Thursday night! South Florida at West Virginia (-10.5)
South Florida: 1.825 PPP, 6.5 Gap
West Virginia: 1.855 PPP, 5.6 Gap
Vegas has this squarely in favor for WVU but the numbers suggest a closer match. I'll take the Mountaineers at home.
Ohio State (-3.5) at Wisconsin
Ohio State: 2.672 PPP, 6.8 Gap
Wisconsin: 1.701 PPP, 4.1 Gap
The numbers suggest a slam dunk for the Buckeyes, but playing at Wisconsin at night is never easy, where the daily output of all our nation's breweries are consumed each and every football Saturday in Madison.
Arkansas at Auburn (-4)
Arkansas: 2.006 PPP, 4.7 Gap
Auburn: 1.813 PPP, 2.5 Gap
Putting faith in the spreadsheets and calling the upset - Arkansas over Auburn.