Saturday, December 16, 2017

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.

WinnerLoserConfidence Score
LouisvilleMississippi St1
Kansas StUCLA2
Boston CollegeIowa3
TempleFlorida Int'l4
TexasMissouri5
Georgia StWestern Kentucky6
MarshallColorado St7
NavyVirginia8
Michigan StWashington St9
ArizonaPurdue10
Middle Tennessee StArkansas St11
HoustonFresno St12
Utah StNew Mexico St13
South CarolinaMichigan14
Miami FLWisconsin15
StanfordTCU16
Penn StateWashington17
West VirginiaUtah18
Ohio U.Alabama-Birmingham19
North Carolina A&TGrambling St20
Ohio StateSouthern Cal21
Central MichiganWyoming22
TroyNorth Texas23
DukeNorthern Illinois24
Virginia TechOklahoma St25
Boise StOregon26
Wake ForestTexas A&M27
GeorgiaOklahoma28
South FloridaTexas Tech29
SMULouisiana Tech30
San Diego StArmy31
North Carolina StArizona St32
Winner of Clemson/AlabamaWinner of Georgia/Oklahoma33
MemphisIowa St34
Florida AtlanticAkron35
Florida StSouthern Miss36
NorthwesternKentucky37
Central FloridaAuburn38
ToledoAppalachian St39
Notre DameLSU40
ClemsonAlabama41

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.