The Undefeated - after Championship Week

[SWC75]

This is the point of the season when I look at the future schedules of undefeated teams to see who has the best chance to run the table and make the playoff. When the number of such teams falls below four, I chart the one-loss teams. I limit this to ‘power’ conference teams unless a ‘Group of 5’ team is in the Top ten of either the writer, coach’s or committee’s polls. I also have two fictional bowls for the two top mid-majors, (the ‘Pesci’ Bowl, named after vertically challenged but ever-feisty character actor Joe Pesci), and the two worst teams in the country, (the Ty-D Bowl, named after the Ty-D Bol toilet bowl cleaner). For the Pesci Bowl, I’ll keep track of the undefeated Group of 5 teams until there are less than two of them. Then I look at the one-loss G5 teams. For the Ty-D Bowl, I keep track of the winless teams until there are less than two of them. Then I’ll look at the 1-win teams. Rankings are by the writers/coaches/committee- when it comes out. I’ve decided to include each team’s points “Against Ranked Teams” (ART). See that post for details on how that is computed.

After WEEK 12

The Playoff contenders:

GEORGIA 13-0 (509-166) ART +132 ranking: 1/1/1 vs. OHIO STATE 11-1 (534-231) ART +59 ranking: 3/4/4
Comments:

MICHIGAN 13-0 (521-174) ART +86 ranking: 2/2/2 vs. TEXAS CHRISTIAN 12-1 (524-325) ART +121 ranking: 4/3/3
Comments:


The Pesci Bowl contenders:

SOUTH ALABAMA 10-2 (383-233)
or
TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO 11-2 (503-345) ART -16 rankings: 22/22/25
or
TROY 11-2 (340-228) ART -13 rankings: 24/23/24
or
TULANE 11-2 (458-266) ART +22 rankings: 17/14/16
Comments: Point differentials: Tulane +192, UTSA +158, South Alabama +150, Troy +112. I’ll go by point differential among the three ranked teams. That gives us:

TULANE 11-2 (458-266) ART +22 rankings: 17/14/16 vs. TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO 11-2 (503-345) ART -16 rankings: 22/22/25


The Ty-D Bowl:

It came down to four teams, two of them power conference teams and two not. So I decided to have two games:

COLORADO 1-11 (185-534) ART -109 vs. NORTHWESTERN 1-11 (163-340) ART +15
Comments: The Buffs are in the buff, one of the worst power conference teams in years. The Wildcats were in the Big 10 title game two years ago.

MASSACHUSETTS 1-11 (150-373) vs. SOUTH FLORIDA 1-11 (336-494) ART -28
Comments: UMASS’s embarrassing FBS runs, (21-103) continues. Meanwhile the Bulls are strangely bearish, (8-37 the last there years), despite their size, their location and their history of success. (Thirteen winning seasons since they joined FBS in 2000, including 21-4 in 2016-17)

 

[SWC75]

In the real NCAA playoffs for FCS, DII and DIII, Next weekend features the following games:

FCS
(The top 8 seeds got first round byes and all won in the second round)

8-Holy Cross 12-0 (465-238) 2-5 all time with no titles
at
1-South Dakota State 11-1 (387-177) 15-11 no titles

6-Samford 11-1 (417-304) 3-5 no titles
at
3- North Dakota State 10-2 (432-217) 42-3 with 9 titles

7- Incarnate Word 11-1 (623-248) 1-0 with no titles
at
2-Sacramento State 12-0 (495-271) 1-2 with no titles

5-William & Mary 11-1 (428-238) 8-10 with no titles
at
4-Montana State 11-1 (528-327) 13-10 with 1 title

Comment: Which one of these is not like the others?

DII

4-West Florida 12-1 (566-296) 11-2 with 1 title
at
1-Ferris State 12-1 (458-188) 24-11 with 1 title

3- Shepherd 13-1 (575-224) 19-13 with no titles
at
2- Colorado School of Mines 12-2 (656-261)7-7 with no titles

DIII
(There are no seedings so I included their ranking)

12-Wartburg 13-0 (537-104) 14-14 with no titles
at
2- Mt. Union 13-0 (598-92) 109-18 with 13 titles

3-Mary Hardin-Baylor 12-1 (564-191) 42-15 with 2 titles
at
1-North Central 13-0 (709-65) 25-12 with 1 title

Comment: Yes, Wartburg. North Central's average score this season has been 55-5. They won the 2019 title but lost to Mary Hardin-Baylor, 24-57, in last year's title game. They had beaten Mount Union 26-13 in the title game. FCS quarterfinals will be on ESPN2 12/9-10. DII/III semi-final games will be on ESPN+ on 12/10, then rebroadcast on ESPNU on 12/13. The DII and DII title games will be on ESPNU on 12/16(DIII) and 12/17 (DII). The FCS semis will be on ESPN2 on 12/16-17 and the championship game

The NAIA title game is 12/17, time to be announced, ESPN3, between

3- Northwestern Iowa 12-1 (577-136) 29-21 with 2 titles
vs.
12- Keiser 10-3 (415-265) 6-3 with no titles

 

[SWC75]

The History of the Pesci Bowl

After doing the Ty-D-Bowl, I came up with the idea of a bowl game between the top two Mid or Lower Majors teams. I would define those teams as teams listed as a major college here: http://www.jhowell.net/cf/scores/byName.htm but which, had they won all their games, would not have been...

syracusefan.com

The History of the Ty-D-Bowl

What if there was a sort of BCS for the lousy teams as well as the best ones and they chose the two worst teams in the country to play each other and the loser would be crowned the worst team in the country? Nobody would ever participate in something like this but, if they did, the result could...

syracusefan.com