FanPost

Hoegher's 2013 Rankings and Picks: WEEK NINE (picks update!)

Hey remember last year when West Virginia was ranked in the Top 10 partway through the season, before coming crashing back down to earth? Just saying, Texas Tech is looking mighty ripe right now.

THE RANKINGS

rk LW NCAA Team Conf Record Rating Adj Off rk Adj Def rk
1 2 FloridaState ACC 6-0 1.414 1.964 5 0.424 2
2 3 Baylor B12 6-0 1.385 2.295 1 0.646 21
3 4 Alabama SEC 7-0 1.339 1.558 13 0.277 1
4 1 Oregon Pac-12 7-0 1.318 2.097 4 0.586 13
5 10 ArizonaState Pac-12 5-2 1.095 2.105 3 0.806 46
6 5 Louisville Amer 6-1 0.981 1.362 24 0.434 3
7 11 Wisconsin B10 5-2 0.918 1.317 28 0.455 6
8 8 Miami ACC 6-0 0.897 1.670 8 0.697 27
9 6 Washington Pac-12 4-3 0.875 1.370 22 0.520 7
10 12 OhioState B10 7-0 0.854 1.649 9 0.723 33
11 19 Missouri SEC 7-0 0.848 1.637 11 0.720 32
12 23 GeorgiaTech ACC 4-3 0.847 1.386 21 0.552 8
13 20 CentralFlorida Amer 5-1 0.845 1.571 12 0.677 24
14 7 LSU SEC 6-2 0.844 1.645 10 0.729 38
15 14 Stanford Pac-12 6-1 0.824 1.400 20 0.580 10
16 9 Clemson ACC 6-1 0.821 1.466 16 0.626 17
17 17 BYU Ind. 5-2 0.751 1.351 26 0.608 15
18 24 TexasAM SEC 5-2 0.734 2.170 2 1.244 102
19 16 Utah Pac-12 4-3 0.713 1.450 17 0.710 30
20 13 Georgia SEC 4-3 0.690 1.677 7 0.900 58
21 18 Auburn SEC 6-1 0.686 1.238 36 0.584 11
22 15 UCLA Pac-12 5-1 0.656 1.257 34 0.622 16
23 27 Arizona Pac-12 4-2 0.627 1.235 37 0.630 18
24 32 VirginiaTech ACC 6-1 0.608 0.930 75 0.437 4
25 22 SouthCarolina SEC 5-2 0.588 1.257 33 0.678 25

And the Big Ten in particular...

rk LW NCAA Team Conf Record Rating Adj Off rk Adj Def rk
7 11 Wisconsin B10 5-2 0.918 1.317 28 0.455 6
10 12 OhioState B10 7-0 0.854 1.649 9 0.723 33
33 30 PennState B10 4-2 0.513 1.071 55 0.604 14
35 41 Michigan B10 6-1 0.483 1.500 15 0.967 72
39 36 Indiana B10 3-4 0.424 1.865 6 1.343 112
44 47 MichiganState B10 6-1 0.349 0.880 84 0.585 12
47 40 Nebraska B10 5-1 0.315 1.255 35 0.927 64
48 49 Iowa B10 4-3 0.304 0.958 71 0.684 26
63 71 Illinois B10 3-3 0.129 1.430 18 1.281 106
72 66 Northwestern B10 4-3 0.008 1.032 60 1.024 79
77 86 Minnesota B10 5-2 -0.084 0.840 92 0.918 61
113 113 Purdue B10 1-6 -0.686 0.505 120 1.121 83

A primer on what goes into these rankings can be found here. Some thoughts...

Where's the love for BYU? Not that you should pay much attention to the Coaches Poll anyway, but BYU continues to not be ranked (can't tell if they are receiving any votes, but I'm guessing not) and is receiving a single vote in the AP Poll. I realize they started off the season losing to a pretty poor Virginia team, but they've been doing just fine since then. They destroyed Texas, lost a close game to Utah in the Holy War (who you may remember just beat Stanford), and just took down a previously undefeated Houston team.

Of course, part of the reason I'm noting this is because Wisconsin plays BYU in 3 weeks, and we could really use a resume-boosting win (assuming we continue to win otherwise, knocking wood and all). The Coaches Poll still has us on the fringes of the Top 25, and the computers aren't going to be much help either (we're 8th in the Sagarin rankings... but 48th in the BCS set). Ohio State could always do us a solid and drop a couple games, though...

Relevant to Ohio State interests: there are ten undefeated teams remaining. From most likely to continue this trend, to least (based on my calculations of questionable quality, and not including conference championship games):

Team Conf Record Und % Next Game
Baylor B12 6-0 92% Kansas
FloridaState ACC 6-0 82% NorthCarolinaState
Alabama SEC 7-0 75% Tennessee
Oregon Pac-12 7-0 65% UCLA
OhioState B10 7-0 45% PennState
Missouri SEC 7-0 28% SouthCarolina
FresnoState MWC 6-0 26% SanDiegoState
Miami ACC 6-0 7% WakeForest
NorthernIllinois MAC 7-0 6% EasternMichigan
TexasTech B12 7-0 0% Oklahoma

This list is going to get culled further, as one from FSU/Miami, Bama/Mizzou, Baylor/TTU (by which I mean Texas Tech is going to lose) is necessarily going to acquire a loss. But Ohio State is still going to have to root for three losses between the Bama, Oregon, FSU, Baylor quartet. Those odds aren't looking great here, but I thought Louisville was going to cruise through the season and look where that ended up (though I thought Central Florida was certainly good enough to spring the upset).

As far as the mid-majors, Fresno State has a decent shot, though they'll probably have to play Boise State in the MWC Championship again to get that BCS auto-bid (I'm hoping this isn't the case). I refuse to entertain talk of Northern Illinois. I've called them a knock-off of Texas A&M, and I'm assuming that they'll meet a similar fate.

The Weekly Crap-tastic Re-set I should really just re-name this to The American! (and Purdue):

#116 - Connecticut

#115 - South Florida

#113 - Purdue

#107 - Temple

#99 - California

THE PICKINGS

Lines taken from here as of 2013-10-21. Home teams highlighted in blue.

Overcat Underdog Proj Winner Conf Line Hoegh Pick vs Spd
BYU BoiseState BYU 79% 7.0 11.0 BYU
Rutgers Houston Houston 78% 7.0 -10.4 Houston
Miami WakeForest Miami 98% 21.0 23.7 Miami
FloridaState NorthCarolinaState FloridaState 99% 29.5 44.3 FloridaState
Oklahoma TexasTech TexasTech 53% 7.0 -0.9 TexasTech
Alabama Tennessee Alabama 98% 28.0 24.3 Tennessee
USC Utah Utah 61% 7.5 -3.8 Utah
Missouri SouthCarolina Missouri 71% 3.0 7.3 Missouri
Baylor Kansas Baylor 99% 35.5 46.5 Baylor
Oregon UCLA Oregon 92% 23.0 18.7 UCLA

And the Big Ten games...

Overcat Underdog Proj Winner Conf Line Hoegh Pick vs Spd
OhioState PennState OhioState 76% 15.0 9.6 PennState
Nebraska Minnesota Nebraska 80% 10.5 11.3 Nebraska
Iowa Northwestern Iowa 73% 4.5 8.4 Iowa
MichiganState Illinois MichiganSTate 68% 11.5 6.2 Illinois

All FanPosts are the opinions of the author only. By posting a FanPost, you give OTE permission to edit or remove content as management of OTE, SBNation, or Vox deem necessary. FanPosts not in line with community guidelines will be removed.