As of right now, other than LSU (who will assuredly make the national title game if they run the table, and have a reasonable chance even if they blow a game),
there are a number of teams who have the potential to make the national title game. Throwing out any AQ's with 2+ losses or non-AQ's with 1+ losses, we're left with:
Alabama; Arkansas; Houston; Oklahoma St; Stanford; and Virginia Tech. The Compu-Picks rankings of these six teams (along with Boise; I'll get to why in a minute)
are shown in the below table.
| Rank | BCS Rank | Team | League | Score | Schedule Rank * | Result Rank |
| 2 | 2 | Alabama | SEC | 0.91 | 12 | 1 |
| 3 | 4 | Oklahoma State | Big 12 | 0.79 | 7 | 7 |
| 6 | 7 | Stanford | Pac-12 | 0.71 | 26 | 6 |
| 7 | 6 | Boise State | Mountain West | 0.67 | 34 | 5 |
| 12 | 3 | Arkansas | SEC | 0.46 | 45 | 11 |
| 13 | 8 | Houston | C-USA | 0.45 | 96 | 3 |
| 24 | 5 | Virginia Tech | ACC | 0.33 | 58 | 18 |
Unfortunately, six teams is actually quite a lot of teams to do any in-depth analysis on, so before we get into the full nitty-gritty let's see if we can pare down that list some,
using what I call the "Boise test." Specifically, if anyone clearly has a worse resume than Boise (and doesn't have a legitimate chance to change that), we can throw them out and focus
on the rest. Clearly, Alabama does not have a worse resume than Boise. Just as clearly, Arkansas and Oklahoma St each have a major chance to impress coming up. Even if you thought
that either currently has a worse resume than Boise (and clearly the model does think this about Arkansas, rating them as having a worse schedule and doing worse against it),
there's clearly the potential to change things in the immeditate future. So let's just focus on Houston, Stanford and Virginia Tech. Do any of them fail the "Boise test"?
Eyeballing the above table, Virginia Tech clearly fails this test, while Houston probably does too (did better against their schedule, but the schedules are simply not comparable at all).
Meanwhile, Stanford is rated as having a tougher schedule, but they didn't do quite as well as Boise against it. So at the least, they don't get an automatic pass. So let's take a look
at each team's results in more detail. The below table looks at each team's 1-A results and rates them from best to worst:
| Rank | Team | Opp Name | Loc | Score |
| 1 | Stanford | Washington State | AWAY | 44 - 14 |
| 2 | Boise State | Georgia | AWAY | 33 - 21 |
| 3 | Stanford | Washington | HOME | 65 - 21 |
| 4 | Boise State | Toledo | AWAY | 40 - 15 |
| 5 | Stanford | Oregon State | AWAY | 38 - 13 |
| 6 | Boise State | Fresno State | AWAY | 57 - 7 |
| 7 | Stanford | Arizona | AWAY | 37 - 10 |
| 8 | Boise State | Tulsa | HOME | 41 - 21 |
| 9 | Stanford | San Jose State | HOME | 57 - 3 |
| 10 | Virginia Tech | Wake Forest | AWAY | 38 - 17 |
| 11 | Houston | East Carolina | HOME | 56 - 3 |
| 12 | Stanford | Southern California | AWAY | 56 - 48 (OT) |
| 13 | Houston | Southern Methodist | HOME | 37 - 7 |
| 14 | Boise State | Colorado State | AWAY | 63 - 13 |
| 15 | Stanford | Duke | AWAY | 44 - 14 |
| 16 | Stanford | UCLA | HOME | 45 - 19 |
| 17 | Boise State | San Diego State | AWAY | 52 - 35 |
| 18 | Virginia Tech | Arkansas State | HOME | 26 - 7 |
| 19 | Stanford | Colorado | HOME | 48 - 7 |
| 20 | Virginia Tech | Georgia Tech | AWAY | 37 - 26 |
| 21 | Boise State | Nevada | HOME | 30 - 10 |
| 22 | Houston | Alabama-Birmingham | AWAY | 56 - 13 |
| 23 | Houston | Rice | HOME | 73 - 34 |
| 24 | Boise State | Nevada-Las Vegas | AWAY | 48 - 21 |
| 25 | Houston | Marshall | HOME | 63 - 28 |
| 26 | Houston | Tulane | AWAY | 73 - 17 |
| 27 | Virginia Tech | Marshall | AWAY | 30 - 10 |
| 28 | Boise State | Air Force | HOME | 37 - 26 |
| 29 | Houston | North Texas | AWAY | 48 - 23 |
| 30 | Stanford | California | HOME | 31 - 28 |
| 31 | Virginia Tech | Miami (Florida) | HOME | 38 - 35 |
| 32 | Houston | Louisiana Tech | AWAY | 35 - 34 |
| 33 | Virginia Tech | Boston College | HOME | 30 - 14 |
| 34 | Boise State | Texas Christian | HOME | 35 - 36 |
| 35 | Virginia Tech | North Carolina | HOME | 24 - 21 |
| 36 | Virginia Tech | East Carolina | AWAY | 17 - 10 |
| 37 | Houston | Texas-El Paso | AWAY | 49 - 42 |
| 38 | Virginia Tech | Duke | AWAY | 14 - 10 |
| 39 | Stanford | Oregon | HOME | 30 - 53 |
| 40 | Houston | UCLA | HOME | 38 - 34 |
| 41 | Virginia Tech | Clemson | HOME | 3 - 23 |
Provided that you don't drastically disagree with the ordering of this list (you can quibble with some items, such as Boise's Georgia win getting discounted
for the fact that Georgia wasn't as good early in the year, but I doubt that if you sat down and did this exercise yourself you'd suddenly see a lot of Houston/VA Tech
at the top or Boise/Stanford at the bottom), it's fairly clear that, yes, Houston and Virginia Tech do in fact fail the "Boise test." Their performances
simply weren't as good, or even close to as good, as Boise's. And since clearly Boise isn't a national title contender (regardless of whether you think they should be or not, clearly they aren't),
then barring a lot more craziness you can legitimately remove those two from consideration. Yes, I realize that VA Tech IS in fact a national title contender
based on their ranking, but the argument here is that they really shouldn't be.
Technical notes about the lists and analyses:
1) Games against AA teams are not counted. There are many good arguments both for and against counting such games
(see this link for an interesting analysis of the issue).
I have elected not to count these results in the Compu-Picks model. As is the case almost every year, this means that one or two especially surprising AA upsets
don't make it into the numbers, skewing the results to a fair degree for a couple of teams. I believe that this is a more than acceptable tradeoff given the substantial issues
that counting AA games would create, but you are certainly welcome to disagree with my decision on this matter.
2) As mentioned here, the purpose of this system is to make picks, not to create a list used for rankings.
As such, I evaluate the system solely on the basis of how good a job it does making picks. I do not evaluate the system on the basis of whether or not
it agreed with AP polls, BCS rankings, the BCS computers, or any other such list out there. In fact, the system has a long and established history of
being substantially different than those sources. I am fine with these differences. To be honest, I publish these lists because I find them interesting
and thought-provoking, and because I believe it is a good thing to introduce an approach that doesn't simply regurgitate the same avenues of thinking as you can find
in most places.
There are a few important notes and caveats I need to make about this model:
1) Compu-Picks does not endorse implicitly or explicitly any form of illegal gambling.
Compu-Picks is intended to be used for entertainment purposes only.
2) No guarantee or warranty is offered or implied by Compu-Picks for any information provided and/or predictions made.
2011 Compu-Picks Blog
Questions, comments or suggestions? Email me at cfn_ms@hotmail.com
