Pac-12 Rankings Update After Week 1

It could be argued that preseason predictions are based on almost nothing. Now that each Pac-12 team has played a game it is time to look at how well those preseason predictions look and at what the impact has been from those games.

Polls

There are 3 Pac-12 teams that are ranked in the major polls. Here is a summary of where the Pac-12 teams are and the changes from last week.

Oregon dropped out of the top-25 in the AP poll; they had enough points to essentially be #26. There are three other teams that received votes in the polls. UCLA received 6 points in the Coaches poll (good for #38) and Oregon State got 3 points (good for #43). Oregon State got 5 points in the AP poll (good for #38) and UCLA and Arizona got 1 point each in the AP poll (good for a tie, with Purdue for #41).

Athlon Sports has an updated top-25

· USC (#8)

· Utah (#13)

· Oregon (#15)

CBS Sports again ranked all FBS teams. Here are where the Pac-12 teams were slotted and the change from the preseason. You can find the full ranking of all 131 teams here: https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/rankings/cbs-sports-rankings/

Arizona made the biggest jump up and Oregon had the biggest fall. UW was one of just 4 Pac-12 teams that moved up.

Here’s a ranking of Pac-12 teams by On3.

In the article linked in the tweet, it does say that they think that UW could be moving up over the next few weeks. I would hope so given how WSU did against Idaho last weekend, plus who they play this weekend.

Team-Based Advanced Stats Rankings

Two of the more commonly mentioned advanced stats ratings for college football teams are the SP+ and the FEI ratings. Here are where the Pac-12 teams rank for each.

The results are remarkably similar between the two ratings-except for UW and WSU where FEI has both teams notably higher.

Among other (mostly computer) rankings, UW is as high as #18 in the Sagarin ranking and as low as #97 in the ARGH Power Rankings. A summary of (currently) 44 different rankings for FBS teams can be found here: https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm (I don’t know much about most of these. There are links near the top of the page to websites for each to find out more.) For now, UW’s average was 58.69 from those 44 rankings.

And it isn’t just UW which has a lot of variability from those different rankings. USC’s ranking is as high as #8 and as low as #91; Oregon is as high as #11 and as low as #101! I expect that there will be a lot less variability as more games get played.

ESPN FPI

One of the computer rankings in that list is ESPN’s FPI. Here is some of the updated ESPN FPI information for the Pac-12 teams.

‘6Wins%’ is the projection for getting 6 or more wins-hence making a bowl game.

Oregon’s chance to win the conference dropped from almost 20% to under 7%; their projected wins are down by almost 2; and their projection to make a bowl game dropped from over 97% to 80%. Arizona’s projection for making a bowl game improved from under 9% to over 45%. Despite the loss, Utah’s chances of winning the conference went up slightly and USC’s went from 7.5% to almost 37%-likely because Oregon’s chances went down.

ESPN Game Projections

The teams that were favored by ESPN’s FPI before last weekend’s games (including the Thursday and Friday games) won 10 of the 12 games featuring Pac-12 teams. The lone ‘upset’ was Arizona beating San Diego State since ESPN’s FPI had Arizona with only a 32.9% chance of winning. Oregon State was also a slight underdog in their game; they had a 49.8% chance of winning-so not much of a true ‘upset’. Most of the games were expected to be one-sided, so getting 10 out of 12 isn’t terribly impressive.

After including the data from the first games, ESPN updated the win percentages for the remaining games. Here are their projections for all of UW’s remaining games:

UW’s win percentage improved in almost every game-with just very slight drops against Portland State (which doesn’t make a lot of sense-but it isn’t much so nothing to be concerned about) and Oregon State (likely because of how well the Beavers played against Boise State). The improvements against UW’s two big rivals (Oregon and WSU) has to be encouraging to Husky fans. UW is favored in 7 of their remaining 11 games (same as before).

Here are some highlights (and lowlights) from each of the game-by-game projections for each of the other Pac-12 teams:

· Arizona improved their win percentage in every game except their game against USC-where it dropped slightly (-1.3 points).

· Arizona State’s win percentage dropped 11.2 points against USC (to 19.2%) and 12.4 points Arizona (to 56.5%); it increased 9.9 points to Colorado (to 72.1%). There was little change in their other games.

· California had a mix. Their chances went up against WSU and Colorado to the point where they are now favored, but went down against UNLV and Arizona (-13.7 points and -13.4 points respectively).

· Colorado is no longer favored in any game. Their best winning percentage is 42.8% in a home game against California.

· Oregon’s win percentage dropped in every game; they had the biggest drop of any Pac-12 team: -25.8 versus BYU. They are now no longer favored against BYU, Utah, or Oregon State.

· Oregon State is now favored against Fresno State and Oregon (they were underdogs in both games previously). Their win percentage improved against every team except USC.

· Stanford is only favored over Oregon State (51.8%) and WSU (76%).

· UCLA is no longer favored over USC. Their win percentage improved against Oregon (+16.4), but otherwise there was little change.

· USC’s win percentage improved in every game. They are favored in every game except Utah (44.1%) and Notre Dame (49.5%).

· Despite their loss, Utah is favored in all of their remaining game, although their win percentage against USC dropped from 73.2% to 55.9%.

· WSU’s win percentage dropped against all of their remaining opponents except Oregon (up 3.9 points). They are now only favored against Colorado State.

And finally, here are all of their winning percentages for this week’s Pac-12 games.

Now that you’ve seen where others have UW ranked, it is time to discuss how Husky fans are feeling about how UW is looking compared to other teams. Some people may need more games (understandable), but here is a poll if you have an opinion.