What’s up, happy Thursday everyone!
We’re back at it again already—these weeks are coming fast and furious now.
There were some massive upsets in Week 4, headlined by the Big Ten’s very own Minnesota falling to Bowling Green, who, despite their name, don’t even have a D-I bowling team. But, as it turns out, they’re not half-bad at football. Ok, enough about them. Clemson also lost. Should I have led with that? To NC State, who are not a bad team most years.
With two losses and two wins, one unconvincing against Georgia Tech, I think Clemson’s hopes of making the playoff are all but over this season.
Oh, and an Ohio State player quit in the middle of the game, and it sounds like his own teammate was the one who waved him off the field, setting him off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that before and I love it. Love the chaos. Ryan Day better be careful because from what I understand, Urban Meyer may be looking for a job very soon (after, of course, another medically-induced sabbatical).
What Else Is New
Well, I was back at my alma-mater this weekend with family and friends to see Penn State beat up on Villanova. And while it was no whiteout and the only thing that was beat up was my skin by the sun, it was great to be back and see a full stadium rocking, see the fans back and interacting with the players, and see all the traditions back in action again.
This weekend, I’ve booked up my Saturday again so I won’t be watching a ton of games live, but I’ll certainly be locked-in to all the scores on my phone. It’s that time of year, folks. Fall stuff is about to be in full-swing. Be smart and try to schedule all of it on Sundays, especially if your NFL team is worse than your college team like mine (Eagles) is.
Elo Leaders
I took the liberty of visualizing the current top ten in our Elo rankings so you could see just how they have moved up or down through four weeks. You’ll notice that Alabama has actually lost points despite going undefeated. This was because of that closer-than-expected game against Florida. Similarly, Florida has really climbed and is now the fourth-ranked team.
One team notably missing from the top ten: Penn State. They really got punished last year for their losses, so, while they’ve had two solid wins so far, they still need some more convincing wins to earn the trust of Elo.
Week 5
#8 Arkansas head to #2 Georgia this week in an important game for the SEC and the playoff. Arkansas has surprised a lot of opponents already this year, including Texas and Texas A&M, so I’m excited to see how Georgia deals with them.
#7 Cincinnati faced #9 Notre Dame in another huge Playoff game for the non-Power 5 teams. This will likely end one team’s playoff hopes and give the other a great resume win.
#1 Alabama finally challenge themselves a bit against #12 Ole Miss.
Overall, I’d say this is one of the best weekends we’ve had on paper so far this season. Conference football is a in full swing and anything can happen. Here’s how Elo stacks up against Vegas odds this weekend.
Now remember, Vegas puts a lot more stats into determining win probabilities than Elo does, but sometimes they tend to be too down on struggling teams and too high on good teams. Elo prefers the “wait and see” approach, or more accurately the “give credit for sustained success” approach.
For that reason, Elo is higher on Notre Dame than Vegas, who see this game as more of a toss-up while Elo has it around 75% in favor of Notre Dame.
Other ones that intrigue me: Colorado over USC. Colorado have been not good, but USC have also looked unimpressive and lost their coach two games in, so it might be closer than people think. Iowa-Maryland is another one, and while Maryland aren’t favored to win, I think Iowa aren’t favored to win by enough. So with Iowa at -165 Moneyline and only a -3 spread, I think that’s disrespectful to the #5 team in the country. That game’s Friday Night Lights though, so get your bets in!
I also actually like Charlotte against Illinois. While Illinois have dropped four straight and haven’t put up a lot of points doing it, Charlotte have scoring-ability and may just pull off the upset, or at least cover the +10.5 points and make them sweat. Could be worth sprinkling a few bucks down.
Win Probabilities
Alright, here’s the full list of win probabilities for the week.
ACC
Big Ten
I’m just now realizing that Wisconsin is actually favored in this game? Doesn’t that just seem wrong? I know I’m breaking two rules by 1. going against Elo and 2. trusting Michigan, but they have been putting up points (granted, against no one) and playing really solid defense. I almost thought my code was broken for a second, that’s how shocked I was at those odds.
Big-12
Pac-12
SEC
You can get the rest of the win probabilities right here.
Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll see y’all next Thursday.
— Kyle