Wow, there's a weekend shot to pieces

Beautiful weather. Perfect for getting out and enjoying nature, loving life, living to the max....

And I sit at my computer playing with a spreadsheet and schedules and all that. It's a sickness, I'm telling you.

I sat down and decided to figure out the odds for what at team's chances are at winning the Heavyweight Football Championship. Okay, so to recap, this is done boxing style where the champ is champ until someone beats them, at which time they become the champ.

So, Texas is the current champion. They play North Texas who of course is a total long shot at winning the game. But the fact they're playing at all means you have to give them some kind of chance. It would probably take something bizzare but there's still a very slight possibility. So now there's two possible champions. Then after that, Texas plays Ohio State. Now this one could go either way. At the same time, North Texas' next game is against Southern Methodist, also one that could go either way. So, 2 weeks, four possible champions. Pretty easy so far. Then week 3, 8 possible champions, week 4 means 16, week 5 means 32, and so on. suddenly the numbers are getting bigger. week 7 is 128 possible champions which of course doesn't make sense cuz there's only 119 teams, and many of them haven't had a chance to play against a possible champion. It probably makes mroe sense calling it possible paths to the championship. In the end, there's a total of about 3800 combinations. All laid out on my spreadsheet, all right there... talk about time consuming!!!

Of course, half the work is spent figuring out odds on games that go through North Texas. I found myself thinking... what AM i thinking anyway????

But now it's done.

For what it's worth, there are 71 different ways that North Carolina State can win the title. Most of the differences are pretty subtle, but they're still distinct. Even with all those different ways to win, the odds are still 447 to 1 for them to win it.

Obviously, a lot hinges on how i rated games. The huge majority of games were considered a 50-50 split. Major conference games were almost always 50-50 unless you had one of the few dominant teams in the conference or one of the weakest teams in the conference. Ultimately, even though Ohio State and Texas come out of week two evenly rated, it pretty much comes down to this difference: The way I saw it, Texas had one 50-50 match, that being against Oklahoma. I really struggled with where to rate the Penn State - Ohio State game, because based on last year, I'd put Penn State at close to a 50-50. Maybe 55-45 in favor of OSU. However, I determined to make it simple and limited the odds on each game to eitehr 95-5 for expected blowouts, 75-25 for teams clearly favored, and 50-50 for anything close. I didn't see Ohio State and Penn State as clear 75-25 for OSU, so that makes two 50-50 games for Ohio State, thus dilluting their ranking.

Is any of this making sense? I know my ratings were very quickly done and not deeply thought out for the most part. But all things considered, tehy're probably still not too terribly off because scheduling is very much the key.

An example of the scheduling impact is that it is totally impossible for 7 teams to take the championship before the end of the regular season, all because their schedules don't coincide with any possible champions at the right times to qualify. The other example is the top 22 teams are all either Big 12 or Big 10 simply because there are not many out of conference games after teh Ohio STate Texas game. Generally, for a team outside these conferences to win, a lesser team in teh conference will have to upset someone and then lose a later out of conference game.

So here's a confession (which you will notice is buried deep in this post, deep enough that most people have fallen asleep by now) -- this is the main reason this concept will never be taken very seriously. But hey, this was never about serious anyway, it's about having fun.

Anyway, here's the odds leaders at this point:

1. Texas - 9.7 to 1
2. Oklahoma - 10.9 to 1
3. Michigan - 16 to 1
4. Ohio State - 16 to 1
5. Iowa - 17.6 to 1
6. Penn State - 18.1 to 1
7. Wisconsin - 21.6 to 1
8. Purdue - 21.7 to 1
9. Texas Tech - 28.9 to 1
10. Texas A&M - 29.1 to 1
11. Oklahoma State - 31 to 1
12. Kansas State - 33 to 1
13. Colorado 36 to 1
14. Nebraska - 36 to 1
15. Kansas - 42 to 1
16. Missouri - 42 to 1
17. Minnesota - 53 to 1
18. Illinois - 54 to 1
19. Northwestern - 54 to 1
20. Michigan State - 55 to 1
21. Iowa State - 56 to 1
22. Indiana 65 to 1
23. Virginia Tech (first non-Big12/Big10 team) 126 to 1
24. Navy - 127 to 1
25. Miami Florida - 127 to 1
26. Florida State - 146 to 1
27. Florida - 190 to 1
28. Baylor - 197 to 1 (i may have rated them too low in some games, they seem to be turning things around)
29. Buffalo - 216 to 1 (much like Navy, this is more to do with being scheduled at the right times than anything else)
30. Toledo - 319 to 1
31. Bowling Green - 378 to 1
32. Kent State 370 to 1
33. Boston College - 378 to 1
34. Virginia - 392 to 1
35. Ball State 406 to 1
36. Wake Forest - 420 to 1
37. Maryland - 424 to 1
38. Northern Illinois - 428 to 1
39. Georgia Tech - 441 to 1
40. North Carolina State - 448 to 1
41. Eastern Michigan - 453 to 1
42. Central Michigan - 455 to 1
43. Marshall - 526 to 1
44. Southern Miss - 527 to 1
45. West Virginia - 619 to 1
46. Georgia - 645 to 1
47. Tulane - 657 to 1
48. South Carolina - 658 to 1
49. Tulsa - 659 to 1
50. Ohio - 662 to 1
51. Clemson - 666 to 1
52. North Carolina 688 to 1
53. Central Florida - 713 to 1
54. Alabama Birmingham - 722 to 1
55. Houston - 734 to 1
56. Rice 738 to 1
57. Southern Methodist 745 to 1
58. Texas El Paso 788 to 1
59. Memphis 790 to 1
60. Miami Ohio 820 to 1
61. Duke 837 to 1
62. Notre Dame 857 to 1
63. Akron 949 to 1
64. Alabama 1068 to 1
65. Auburn 1068 to 1
66. Troy 1073 to 1
67. East Carolina 1125 to 1
68. Florida International 1216 to 1
69. Arkansas State 1221 to 1
70. Hawaii 1233 to 1
71. Louisiana Lafayette 1235 to 1
72. Southern California 1243 to 1
73. Florida Atlantic 1257 to 1
74. Middle Tennessee State 1293 to 1
75. Western Michigan 1421 to 1
76. Louisiana Monroe 1427 to 1
77. North Texas 1555 to 1
78. Cincinatti 1559 to 1
79. Rutgers 1559 to 1
80. Syracuse 1559 to 1
81. Connecticut 1561 to 1
82. Louisville 1587 to 1
83. Pittsburgh 1587 to 1
84. LSU 1663 to 1
85. Southern Florida 1687 to 1
86. Wyoming 2730 to 1
87. BYU 3102 to 1
88. Temple 3301 to 1
89. Tennessee 3338 to 1
90. UNLV 3384 to 1
91. San Diego State 3413 to 1
92. Texas Christian 3413 to 1
93. Kentucky 3527 to 1
94. Nevada 3640 to 1
95. Boise State 3640 to 1
96. Air Force 3686 to 1
97. Utah 3938 to 1
98. New Mexico 4096 to 1
99. Arkansas 4234 to 1
100. San Jose State 4748 to 1
101. Mississippi 5269 to 1
102. Mississippi State 5269 to 1
103. Army 5487 to 1
104. Colorado State 6826 to 1
105. Louisiana Tech 8090 to 1
106. Fresno State 8097 to 1
107. Idaho 9102 to 1
108. New Mexico State 9497 to 1
109. Utah State 9497 to 1
110. UCLA 10,361 to 1
111. Vanderbilt 27,456 to 1
112. Oregon State 54,613 to 1

Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Stanford have no shot at the championship until bowl games.