Bowl Game Predictions and Confidence Rankings 2017

The college bowl games began today! For those who may be participating in a bowl game picking competition similar to ESPN's Capital One Bowl Mania, the following predictions and confidences are computed using the final regular season rankings.

I will update this post later with the winners/losers to see how it does.

Update: The bowls are complete and the results of the predictions are updated below. In ESPN's Capital One Bowl Mania, this entry finished at 94% of the entries in the competition with 551 points.

Winner	Loser	Confidence Score
Louisville	Mississippi St	1
Kansas St	UCLA	2
Boston College	Iowa	3
Temple	Florida Int'l	4
Texas	Missouri	5
Georgia St	Western Kentucky	6
Marshall	Colorado St	7
Navy	Virginia	8
Michigan St	Washington St	9
Arizona	Purdue	10
Middle Tennessee St	Arkansas St	11
Houston	Fresno St	12
Utah St	New Mexico St	13
South Carolina	Michigan	14
Miami FL	Wisconsin	15
Stanford	TCU	16
Penn State	Washington	17
West Virginia	Utah	18
Ohio U.	Alabama-Birmingham	19
North Carolina A&T	Grambling St	20
Ohio State	Southern Cal	21
Central Michigan	Wyoming	22
Troy	North Texas	23
Duke	Northern Illinois	24
Virginia Tech	Oklahoma St	25
Boise St	Oregon	26
Wake Forest	Texas A&M	27
Georgia	Oklahoma	28
South Florida	Texas Tech	29
SMU	Louisiana Tech	30
San Diego St	Army	31
North Carolina St	Arizona St	32
Winner of Clemson/Alabama	Winner of Georgia/Oklahoma	33
Memphis	Iowa St	34
Florida Atlantic	Akron	35
Florida St	Southern Miss	36
Northwestern	Kentucky	37
Central Florida	Auburn	38
Toledo	Appalachian St	39
Notre Dame	LSU	40
Clemson	Alabama	41

Final Regular Season Rankings of 2017

Due to some technical difficulties with upgrading my operating system, the first post of the 2017 season unfortunately comes as the last ranking before the bowl games. The College Football Playoff matchups have been set to be #1 Clemson vs #4 Alabama and #2 Oklahoma vs #3 Georgia. Using our rankings, Alabama would not have made the cut and instead would be replaced with the only undefeated team, Central Florida. UCF is not even in the top 10 in the CFP rankings due to their perceived weak schedule. Interestingly, they are never lower than #3 in our rankings even as our parameter p goes to 0.5 where strength-of-schedule has the greatest emphasis. Central Florida will get a chance to prove themselves against Auburn, who gave both Alabama and Georgia their only losses of the season.