who plays in the BCS title game?

[BobJoeJim]

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I'm curious to see what people think about a bet I made the other day. My friend and I have an even money bet that if KU goes undefeated they'll be in the championship game. I said they're in.

Aside from this having about a 97% chance of being no-actioned, was this a good bet? Obviously if 2 of Cal, OSU, LSU go undefeated then we're out, but could any of those school leapfrog us even with one loss?

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I'm not sure I like it. Kansas doesn't play Missouri until their last game, so they'll be MILES under the radar even at 11-0... I'm not sure they'll get enough of a boost from closing with neutral site wins over Missouri and Oklahoma to leapfrog some of the teams that will surely be ahead of them before that. I think that in addition to Cal, Ohio State, LSU, USF, Arizona State and Boston College, an undefeated Cincinnati would likely finish ahead of Kansas as well. From my numbers above, there's a 50% chance that Ohio State wins out and a 50% chance that at least one of the other teams on that list ALSO does, so 25% of the time Kansas will be the third unbeaten at best. Combine this with the chances of their coming in behind a one-loss LSU team (which will exist over 50% of the time, and almost certainly finish ahead of Kansas), and I think an undefeated Kansas is less than 50% to get their shot. I'd probably be willing to put money on Kansas at 2:1, and willing to bet against them at 9:5 odds, I think the fair odds are around 40%.

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I'm just still in shock that people are using "Cal" and "undefeated" in the same sentence....I guess if the Red Sox can win the series, anything can happen.

[BobJoeJim]

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I'm just still in shock that people are using "Cal" and "undefeated" in the same sentence....I guess if the Red Sox can win the series, anything can happen.

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Well, I can't speak for others, but at least when I do it I'm also including the words "1.5% chance" in that sentence :P

[rwperu34]

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So... how likely is it for each of the current undefeated teams to remain undefeated this year? This is a key component to predicting the BCS title game... and I have numbers!

For each of the 11 current undefeated teams, I calculated the predicted spread for each of their remaining games using Sagarin's predictor rankings. I assumed they would face the highest rated team in their conference in a conference title game, and used a home advantage of 3. I then used Bookmaker.com's current data set of spreads and moneylines to calculate a rough conversion between spread and odds of winning, and used this to calculate each team's odds of winning each remaining game. Then it was just simple multiplication to get the odds of them remaining perfect for the whole year.

Thus, without further ado, the odds of each team remaining undefeated according to Sagarin are approximately:

Ohio State - 49.8% (favored by 9.5 @Penn State, 15+ in every other game)
LSU - 30.9% (double digit fave in every game until the SEC Championship)
Hawaii - 18.2% (Favored by double digits until their last two games, and still 2.5 and 2.6 point faves at home to BSU and UDub)
Cincinnati - 14.4% (favored @USF)
Arizona State - 5.7%
South Florida - 4.8%
Boston College 4.6%
Kansas - 3.5% (18.4% chance of reaching the Big Twelve title game unscathed)
Cal - 1.5% (underdog @UCLA, @ASU, and vs. USC)
Connecticut - 0.9%
Missouri - 0.02% (it sucks to have to play Oklahoma twice)

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Current WSEX odds to WIN the championship;
LSU 4-3
OHIO STATE 19-4
CALIFORNIA 13-2
OKLAHOMA 8-1
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 17-2
WEST VIRGINIA 20-1
SOUTH FLORIDA 20-1
OREGON 25-1
MISSOURI 28-1
ARIZONA STATE 35-1
VIRGINIA TECH 40-1
FLORIDA 66-1
FLORIDA STATE 66-1
WISCONSIN 66-1

It looks like ASU and OSU are the only two offering +EV situations right now. That would be a sweet rematch of the 1996 Rose Bowl that cost ASU a title.

Edit: Assuming 50/50 shot in the title game.

[rwperu34]

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Sagarin has Cal ranked 12th in the predictor ratings, which is about where my computer rankings have them too. USC and ASU are 7 & 8 (and personally, I'd be more scared of USC if Booty ISN'T healthy, he's an interception machine). What I have trouble comprehending, however, is how Sagarin ranks UCLA 13th (my computer has them 49th)...

For the record, while Sagarin's spreads give Cal a 1.5% chance of staying unbeaten, the spreads from my computer rankings put it at a 9.8% chance, mostly because I rank USC and UCLA quite a bit lower right now.


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Predictor is still bayesian, whatever the heck that means. Somehow preseason ratings still factor in.

I'd also like to see the chances of the one loss teams winning out.

[FlyWf]

That Rose Bowl was faaaantastic FWIW. Definitely worth watching when it's on ESPN Classic.

Also,
"FLORIDA 66-1
FLORIDA STATE 66-1
WISCONSIN 66-1"

What?

[rwperu34]

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So... how likely is it for each of the current undefeated teams to remain undefeated this year? This is a key component to predicting the BCS title game... and I have numbers!

For each of the 11 current undefeated teams, I calculated the predicted spread for each of their remaining games using Sagarin's predictor rankings. I assumed they would face the highest rated team in their conference in a conference title game, and used a home advantage of 3. I then used Bookmaker.com's current data set of spreads and moneylines to calculate a rough conversion between spread and odds of winning, and used this to calculate each team's odds of winning each remaining game. Then it was just simple multiplication to get the odds of them remaining perfect for the whole year.

Thus, without further ado, the odds of each team remaining undefeated according to Sagarin are approximately:

Ohio State - 49.8% (favored by 9.5 @Penn State, 15+ in every other game)
LSU - 30.9% (double digit fave in every game until the SEC Championship)
Hawaii - 18.2% (Favored by double digits until their last two games, and still 2.5 and 2.6 point faves at home to BSU and UDub)
Cincinnati - 14.4% (favored @USF)
Arizona State - 5.7%
South Florida - 4.8%
Boston College 4.6%
Kansas - 3.5% (18.4% chance of reaching the Big Twelve title game unscathed)
Cal - 1.5% (underdog @UCLA, @ASU, and vs. USC)
Connecticut - 0.9%
Missouri - 0.02% (it sucks to have to play Oklahoma twice)

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One more thing I'd like to see is, what are the chances of the ASU/Cal winner going unbeaten? Same with Kansas/Mizzou and the Big East teams.

[BobJoeJim]

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[ QUOTE ]
So... how likely is it for each of the current undefeated teams to remain undefeated this year? This is a key component to predicting the BCS title game... and I have numbers!

For each of the 11 current undefeated teams, I calculated the predicted spread for each of their remaining games using Sagarin's predictor rankings. I assumed they would face the highest rated team in their conference in a conference title game, and used a home advantage of 3. I then used Bookmaker.com's current data set of spreads and moneylines to calculate a rough conversion between spread and odds of winning, and used this to calculate each team's odds of winning each remaining game. Then it was just simple multiplication to get the odds of them remaining perfect for the whole year.

Thus, without further ado, the odds of each team remaining undefeated according to Sagarin are approximately:

Ohio State - 49.8% (favored by 9.5 @Penn State, 15+ in every other game)
LSU - 30.9% (double digit fave in every game until the SEC Championship)
Hawaii - 18.2% (Favored by double digits until their last two games, and still 2.5 and 2.6 point faves at home to BSU and UDub)
Cincinnati - 14.4% (favored @USF)
Arizona State - 5.7%
South Florida - 4.8%
Boston College 4.6%
Kansas - 3.5% (18.4% chance of reaching the Big Twelve title game unscathed)
Cal - 1.5% (underdog @UCLA, @ASU, and vs. USC)
Connecticut - 0.9%
Missouri - 0.02% (it sucks to have to play Oklahoma twice)

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One more thing I'd like to see is, what are the chances of the ASU/Cal winner going unbeaten? Same with Kansas/Mizzou and the Big East teams.

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Lots of ways to look at this question, some more complicated than others. First off, there is a 23.4% chance that ASU and Cal will both still be undefeated when they play each other. If they are, and ASU wins, ASU has a 10.2% chance of winning the rest of their games, while if Cal wins they will win the rest of their games 17.2% of the time. There is also a 57.1% chance that ASU is undefeated but Cal has a loss before they play, and a 5.7% chance of the reverse. And ASU has a 70% chance of winning when they play.

Does any of that extra info help you grasp the situation better? Because the simple answer is that you can just add Cal's odds to ASU's odds. The chances that the winner finishes the year unbeaten are 5.7 + 1.5 = 7.2%. If either of them goes undefeated, they will by definition have been the winner of their game, and their chances of doing so already include having to play the other one...

[renodoc]

Brag: I'm have tickets (in the Cal section) to see them play at the Rose Bowl!!

Beat: Its just the UCLA game and the seats are in section 12 (wtf bruins, put us roadies in the frickin end zone, wtf???)

[pvn]

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That's part of the ridiculousness, there should NOT be 119 teams in the same division, period.

D-IA should really be limited to at most 50-60 or so teams.

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I think I'll always be outside of this because I don't understand the obsession with National Champ

the goal is the Rose Bowl...everything else is a big whatever

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Perhaps you should post some stats showing how many more Rose Bowl victories the Big 10 has compared to the SEC.

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Pac10 has owned the series

I think alot of it has to do with Big11Ten teams having the goal of just getting to the Rose Bowl as much higher than winning the Rose Bowl

Playing at UCLA has factored in a few times

curious calls a few other times-- don't ever play West Coast teams on the West Coast

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So did you not read my question, or did you just miss the joke?