I'm very annoyed at Alabama right now. I thought that 8 pt spread in their favor was the easiest pick ever. Historically elite defense vs "meh" offense? MONEY. But noooooo, Zach Mettenburger had to suddenly turn into "adequate," and boom: 5 straight weeks of beating the spread with my picks turned into a loss. Screw you Alabama. Screw you hard.

Also, it is extremely odd rooting hard for Notre Dame. I guess I'd rather be right than taste Irish schadenfreude

And the rest of the Big Ten:

Some thoughts...

Hoegher's Rankings vs Actually Winning. I've actually got another set of rankings I look at ("Resume," probably somewhat similar to talonk's, though he puts much more effort into his), that only look at wins and losses. I haven't really posted them because:

a) I think they are less interesting and/or informative, and

b) Time and energy over here. Especially with actually working now

But it's still fun to look at the comparisons every now and then, so there's no time like the present, right? Here's a look at some notable teams and their differences:

Toledo, Kent State, Ohio... okay, wait a sec. Here's a look at teams that people actually care about:

Utah (32nd in AdjMarg, 77th in Resume) - this is what happens when you drop three close games to Utah State (1 pt), USC (10 pts), and Arizona State (7 pts).

Tennessee (23rd in AdjMarg, 61st in Resume) - I know you're all shocked by this one.

Washington (65th in AdjMarg, 32nd in Resume) - Oregon State and Stanford are the reason for this

Louisville (38th in AdjMarg, 8th in Resume) - die in a fire, Louisville.

Alabama (1st in AdjMarg, 2nd in Resume) - well, somethings never change.

My new co-worker attended Illinois. I told him his football team is awful, and all he did was sigh and say, "Yeah..."

More information! So I actually project a final score for each game (which is how I come up with a final difference, and thus a confidence value in the picks that I make). The formula that I came up with uses each team's AdjOff and AdjDef ratings, and aligns with my AdjMarg rankings, so I'm happy. For example, Georgia-Auburn is predicted to end 34.1-13.4 (guess which team wins, I know it's hard). Sometimes the score projections seems a little off (which I why I only post confidence values, so people have less evidence to laugh at me for), but for the most part I think they align.

ANYWAY, the point of all this is that sometimes - if one team is really good (on defense) and the other team is really bad (on offense) - the score projections can defy reality. For example, a hypothetical match-up between Alabama and Illinois:

Alabama 42.1 Illinois -1.6

That's right, negative points. This is all I really wanted to say. (Iowa gets 2 pts, for comparison)

But they still beat Colorado by 16 pts. Oh Buffaloes. Just when I got scared that you weren't going to stay on rock bottom, rising ever so slightly to 122nd (out of 125) last week, you bring it all back down to 124th again (ahead of Massachusetts, who still has the excuse of not being a FBS program last year, much less a former national title winner). This is Colorado since 1990 (charted by percentile, so 99=awesome):

Colorado plays a RichRod offense this week and will probably fail to beat the 30 pt spread

TOP 25 PICKS

I'll have you know that I went 9 of 10 (for 52 pts) in the OTE College Pick'Em last week... and placed 5th for the week. Christ.

Also, these picks were made based on scores prior to Tuesday. SO EAT IT TOLEDO [/crotch chop].

And the rest of the Big Ten: