Football Study Hall projects 2014 football season rankings

Submitted by dnak438 on

Football study hall has run a projection of the 2014 season based on three factors:

(a) Ca. 60%: A five-year weighted S&P+ average, with 2013 getting 5x the weight, 2012 4x, ..., and 2009 1x

(b) Ca. 30%: The 2013 S&P+ ratings, adjusted for the number of returning starters.

(c) Ca. 10%: the past two years of recruiting

The top 25 are as follows:

Rk Team (a) Rk (b) Rk (c) Rk 2014 Projected S&P+
1 Alabama 295.5 1 275.3 5 290.3 1 288.9
2 Florida State 268.7 2 298.1 1 282.2 5 279.0
3 Oregon 257.4 3 281.1 2 257.4 20 264.6
4 South Carolina 242.3 13 266.8 6 268.4 16 252.3
5 LSU 250.2 5 244.7 18 285.9 3 251.9
6 Stanford 249.3 6 261.4 8 237.0 39 251.8
7 Texas A&M 245.4 9 255.7 13 280.0 7 251.8
8 Georgia 243.2 11 258.0 10 277.9 9 251.0
9 Oklahoma 245.0 10 256.3 12 269.8 15 250.8
10 Ohio State 242.6 12 251.4 14 288.1 2 249.6
11 USC 234.4 17 265.2 7 274.9 10 247.7
12 Auburn 222.9 30 277.7 3 279.3 8 245.0
13 Michigan State 241.9 14 246.6 15 248.7 26 244.0
14 Clemson 235.4 16 245.1 16 272.0 13 241.8
15 UCLA 215.9 43 276.0 4 270.6 14 239.4
16 Oklahoma State 246.7 7 222.4 37 247.2 28 239.4
17 Notre Dame 238.7 15 219.4 41 281.5 6 236.9
18 Boise State 251.2 4 219.9 39 198.4 65 236.7
19 Wisconsin 246.6 8 216.0 45 226.8 47 235.4
20 Louisville 224.6 27 257.6 11 216.6 51 233.9
21 Florida 233.0 18 218.1 42 283.0 4 233.2
22 Virginia Tech 231.7 21 226.7 29 257.4 20 232.6
23 Michigan 227.2 25 232.3 22 265.5 17 232.4
24 Central Florida 223.3 29 261.2 9 185.2 73 231.2
25 Baylor 232.9 19 223.1 34 246.5 29 231.2

That seems generally about right to me, although not all of the rankings seem right: Boise State's ranking is inflated, for instance.

Unicycle Firefly

February 7th, 2014 at 11:18 PM ^

A&M is about to nosedive without Manziel, not sure how they end up that high. I also have a hard time buying Georgia as top 10. They're like Michigan in the mid-90's, always losing 3-4 games they shouldn't.

StoneRoses

February 7th, 2014 at 11:45 PM ^

Honestly I'm surprised we are ranked that high to begin. You'd think the pollsters would not have much faith in us after last years debacle.

uminks

February 8th, 2014 at 1:20 AM ^

Possible if we win on the road against ND, we could be undefeated when we play sparty. It will be interesting if Ness can get more development out of our young OL. I see the D improving, so the OL is the question mark.

NFG

February 8th, 2014 at 2:18 AM ^

I don't think we deserve to be ranked until we show a cast improvement. Otherwise, it'll just be embarrassing after we lose another 4+ games.

LSAClassOf2000

February 8th, 2014 at 7:46 AM ^

I would agree with the OP - in a mjaority of cases, teams seem to be in approximately the right position. Indeed, the top ten here seems to read like the top ten of both the Coaches' and AP polls in various weeks throughout the past several years, so particularly in that portion of this projection, there seems to be some consistency. As for Michigan, I think that's probably right based on the data mentioned, and I could see us being somewhere around there in at least one of the preseason polls. 

nMegoblue

February 8th, 2014 at 12:43 PM ^

General Motor's brands in the '80s and '90s were so strong that the corporation continued to sell the most vehicles of anyone right up until bankrupcy despite putting out product with poor quality the whole time.

As consumers of this 'Brand', we should care more about quality than we do about recognition.

The football program has not  lived up to expectations since 2003.