You're right. LSU lost to fellow SEC Alabama.

Chances of an average top-5 team going undefeated against each team’s schedule.

Against Auburn’s sched: 10.4%
Against OSU’s sched: 26.0%
Against FSU’s sched: 29.1%

The odds of an average top-5 team making it through Auburn’s schedule with exactly 1 loss are 28.1%, so the chances of making it through with one loss or better are 38.4%.

So counter to my initial thoughts, arguing that a 12-1 Auburn team should jump a 13-0 Ohio State team doesn’t seem reasonable.

There are a couple contenders that could have arguments at 12-1. The chances of a top-5 team going 12-1 or better against Georgia’s schedule are 23.2%, against Stanford’s sched are 23.2% and against UCLA’s sched are 23.0%, but those teams have already lost, 4, 2 and 3 games respectively so the point is moot.

urbs basically started the "SEC SEC" thing when florida stopped tosu

he also has 2 of those titles so no reason to think he can't have a similarly successful team other places


actually I guess that sort of shows how much the B1G sucks as well

OSU, before Meyer, has twice has many BCS bowl game victories as the entire ACC. If we want to talk about history, why the **** isn't Auburn jumping FSU?

Team Blue is a little more um.. volatile (note the absence of Oregon!)

I did do a study of how Team's Blue and Green fared at predicting actual game outcomes. I translated each methodologies lines and the vegas lines into a single number for each game (home score - away score). This single number can be compared to the actual game outcome as a measure of error. I summed up the absolute values of those errors for each week for each model (and for pinny opening lines) and voila:

Saturday is what we call a freeroll. Duke has nothing to lose (I don't think) and could both knock FSU out of the national title game and have an objectively hilarious win over Famous Jameis to put them in the BCS for the first time ever.

btw, the FSU line isn't enough unless Jameis is suspended or something.

why is the team green line blue and the team blue line green

See who is paying attention

c333, dkwoat, and other dip****s

The new inpredictable lines are out, and, as I predicted Auburn saw a nice boost that places them 15th overall per the market--sandwiched between Washington and Clemson. Missouri tumbled a bit and is two GPF less than Auburn.

MEANWHILE, Ohio State held steady and is still rated well above Auburn, about 9 GPF.

those rankings have ohio state as 12 point favorites over michigan state

if only there was a way to see what the actual line is between those two teams

conclusion: ohio st is way overrated on that site, lol ray horton

Amazing how much the reputations of the Big 10 and the SEC have clouded these BCS discussions. The people who post regularly are knowledgeable posters and know their stuff which is why it befuddles me they seem to mostly be in favor of Auburn over tOSU.

Ohio St would be a slight favorite on a neutral field. Its harder to go undefeated vs Ohio St's schedule than go through Auburn's with 1 loss or less. If Stanford had gone through the year with just one loss, they would have a lot more merit than Auburn, yet I doubt the media would be saying a peep about them as possibly overtaking tOSU.

At this point in time, NCAA football doesn't do power rankings for the BCS otherwise we'd assuredly see Bama-FSU. With that the case, how ridiculous would it be for a 1 loss team that Vegas would make an underdog (possibly pickem at best) to get in over an undefeated BCS conference team? I strongly dislike OSU and think the B1G is overrated, but that doesn't mean they should be excluded if they beat Sparty.

This year it looks like the ball bounced in tOSU's favor (assuming they beat Sparty), like it has for the SEC time and time again in the past continually getting 1 loss teams into the title thanks to late losses by teams in other conferences. The SEC already gets a nice edge (deservedly) always receiving the tiebreaker if teams' records are the same, adding that they also can get a 1 loss team in over an equally good or better undefeated team from another BCS conference would be absurd.

In week 12 Stanford was 4th in the BCS with a .869 average. Ohio State was 3rd at .893. If Stanford still had one loss everyone would be saying the same thing they're currently saying about Auburn jumping tOSU.

Agree with every word of this. Basically what I wrote in my football update this week, except about 1/4 as long lol

It's difficult to completely put aside the fact that the SEC champ has beaten the best champ from all the other conferences every year since Vince Young was in burnt orange. It's not like these are all new coaches and players. In a perfect world with tons of other data, yes you just compare the individual teams. But we don't have that. Is THIS the year that the Big 10 champ is deserving even though they didn't play anyone? You can understand why people would be skeptical.

Not at all.

Auburn has played multiple teams as good or better than Ohio State's best opponent (Wisconsin, which may be even more overrated than OSU).


Most of Ohio State's schedule has been an absolute joke. It's not their fault that the entire conference is aids, but they can't get much credit for beating it either.

The math was already done. Auburn played 1 team as good as Wisconsin (Bama). But they lost one.

Most of Auburn's schedule is a joke too. It's how college football works! They had 4 reasonably tough games - Georgia, Alabama, LSU, and A&M and went 3-1. Ohio State had 3, and went 3-0. 3-1 > 3-0 though I guess.

I did the calculations earlier in the thread. Odds of a top-5 team going undefeated against OSU's schedule were 26.0%. Undefeated vs Auburn's sched was 10.4%, but odds of going 12-1 or better were 38%

I think there are around sixteen teams where 12-1 is better than OSU's 13-0, ten teams from the PAC, five from the SEC (but not Auburn) and Notre Dame.

Not Auburn because they didn't have to play Auburn, MIRITE?

Or why isn't Auburn on there, they had to play a Pac-12 team!

is that math taken from raids site that tells us OSU is a 12 point neutral favorite vs sparty

wisconsin, ... michigan? at a loss now. iowa? alabama is in a completely different league than those teams while lsu and a&m are even at worst with wisconsin and way better than the other two. uga probably in the middle

No, it's from Goldenbears. I am genuinely curious about it, 50% of #5 team matching Auburn seems slightly high to me.

Sorry, but this post is just horse****.

vs Top 25 sagarin

Auburn:
2 Bama
17 LSU (road)
20 Georgia
22 TAMU (road)

OSU:
7 Wisconsin

WTF are you talking about 3-0 vs 3-1? Against quality competition it's a complete landslide.

OSU's 2nd toughest opponent was 29 Iowa, also at home. Auburn 5th toughest was 35 Wazzou at home.

I assume you were counting Michigan as your 3rd "tough" opponent? They're ranked 42. By comparison, the Mississippi schools are 45 and 46. Your 4th toughest was 57 Penn State.

Your road games:
42 Michigan (1 point win)
66 Northwestern (10 point win, very close game. First of 7 straight losses for NW)
75 Illinois (gave up 35 points lol)
108 Cal (gave up 34!)
153 Purdue

So the schedules are nowhere close to the same. Auburn's is far more difficult in every way and your resume away from home is rather pathetic actually.

I haven't seen GB's numbers, but looking at that resume I find it highly highly unlikely that OSU could get through Auburn's schedule with one loss and almost no way you go undefeated. How can you expect to win 2/3 (much less 3/3) of Bama, @LSU, @TAMU when you are scraping by Michigan and Northwestern and those are the 3rd and 4th toughest game you played? What about the other 4 teams Auburn beat that are as good or better than Michigan? You just going to roll those teams as well?

Looking closer at OSU's resume, it's really a lot weaker than I realized.

Iowa #29, Michigan #42.

Alabama a hair ahead of Wisconsin (#2 vs #7), LSU way behind Wisconsin (#17), Aggies at #22. Georgia at #20 (though biased toward early season before injuries, so probably about #30 when they played Auburn).

I did forget about #35 Washington State. Chalk up another quality win.