Updated Rankings - just in time for the bowl matchups!

While looking at the bowl match-ups, some of them seemed like bad match-ups, and also the SEC seemed to have easy match-ups across the board.  For example, why wasn't Bama playing Baylor?  So I reran my rankings, and generated the bowl match-ups:
 

Team 1 Team 1 Rank Team 2 Team 2 Rank Predicted Margin Colorado State 80 /vs./ Washington State 61 Washington State by 6 Fresno State 17 /vs./ Southern California 23 Fresno State by 3 Buffalo 52 /vs./ San Diego State 75 Buffalo by 5 Tulane 67 /vs./ Louisiana-Lafayette 63 Louisiana-Lafayette by 1 East Carolina 35 /vs./ Ohio 74 East Carolina by 10 Boise State 46 /vs./ Oregon State 68 Boise State by 4 Bowling Green State 34 /vs./ Pittsburgh 70 Bowling Green State by 9 Northern Illinois 19 /vs./ Utah State 53 Northern Illinois by 11 Marshall 47 /vs./ Maryland 56 Marshall by 2 Minnesota 36 /vs./ Syracuse 66 Minnesota by 8 Brigham Young 30 /vs./ Washington 26 Washington by 1 Notre Dame 24 /vs./ Rutgers 81 Notre Dame by 15 Cincinnati 49 /vs./ North Carolina 64 Cincinnati by 3 Louisville 18 /vs./ Miami FL 27 Louisville by 4 Kansas State 48 /vs./ Michigan 37 Michigan by 4 Middle Tennessee State 62 /vs./ Navy 51 Navy by 2 Georgia Tech 60 /vs./ Mississippi 40 Mississippi by 5 Oregon 13 /vs./ Texas 28 Oregon by 7 Arizona State 9 /vs./ Texas Tech 54 Arizona State by 15 Arizona 41 /vs./ Boston College 55 Arizona by 4 UCLA 16 /vs./ Virginia Tech 39 UCLA by 8 Mississippi State 50 /vs./ Rice 31 Rice by 6 Duke 29 /vs./ Texas A&M 25 Texas A&M by 1 Georgia 22 /vs./ Nebraska 42 Georgia by 5 North Texas 44 /vs./ Nevada-Las Vegas 73 North Texas by 6 South Carolina 12 /vs./ Wisconsin 21 South Carolina by 4 Iowa 32 /vs./ Louisiana State 20 Louisiana State by 5 Michigan State 7 /vs./ Stanford 4 Stanford by 2 Baylor 3 /vs./ Central Florida 14 Baylor by 7 Alabama 5 /vs./ Oklahoma 11 Alabama by 3 Missouri 8 /vs./ Oklahoma State 10 Missouri by 2 Clemson 15 /vs./ Ohio State 6 Ohio State by 5 Houston 38 /vs./ Vanderbilt 43 Houston by 1 Arkansas State 65 /vs./ Ball State 33 Ball State by 8 Florida State 1 /vs./ Auburn 2 Florida State by 1
My predicted margin is simply the differences in my ranking factors multiplied by 20, which was an arbitrary number that made the margins seem realistic. You'll see that the SEC is indeed favored in EVERY GAME except Vandy, Miss St, and Auburn.  What that means is that the SEC will go 7-3 or 8-2 in bowl games and everyone will still concede that the SEC is the best conference.  But it will warm my Grinch heart if they go just 5-5.  You'll also notice that Notre Dame is very heavily favored in what I found was a puzzling match-up against the lowest ranking team in a bowl, Rutgers at #81. Penn St. was the highest ranking team (#45) not going to a bowl (ineligible), followed by Texas-San Antonio, Toledo, and W. Kentucky (#57-59, respectively), who are marching in the streets right now!  The highest ranking 5-win team was Indiana, who had a big win against Penn St, and looked almost decent at times this year. My overall rankings are below.  I realize that the format is less than desirable, but I don't care enough about this to spend the time to write the HTML or look into it.  So this is what you get.
team teamconf Total SOS Rank Florida State ACC) 1.290519 85 1 Auburn SEC) 1.235572 13 2 Baylor Big 12) 1.20023 59 3 Stanford Pac 12) 1.147084 17 4 Alabama SEC) 1.105492 65 5 Ohio State Big Ten) 1.096835 64 6 Michigan State Big Ten) 1.030932 76 7 Missouri SEC) 1.030233 21 8 Arizona State Pac 12) 0.973311 4 9 Oklahoma State Big 12) 0.944364 46 10 Oklahoma Big 12) 0.934291 54 11 South Carolina SEC) 0.916229 25 12 Oregon Pac 12) 0.910985 62 13 Central Florida American) 0.870508 113 14 Clemson ACC) 0.833313 38 15 UCLA Pac 12) 0.786823 42 16 Fresno State MWC) 0.776742 117 17 Louisville American) 0.765355 123 18 Northern Illinois MAC) 0.765267 125 19 Louisiana State SEC) 0.726853 43 20 Wisconsin Big Ten) 0.710639 51 21 Georgia SEC) 0.621555 9 22 Southern California Pac 12) 0.621467 41 23 Notre Dame Independent) 0.590699 19 24 Texas A&M SEC) 0.59053 16 25 Washington Pac 12) 0.582241 23 26 Miami FL ACC) 0.565296 68 27 Texas Big 12) 0.53958 48 28 Duke ACC) 0.520572 72 29 Brigham Young Independent) 0.514771 35 30 Rice CUSA) 0.510659 111 31 Iowa Big Ten) 0.498482 30 32 Ball State MAC) 0.483301 116 33 Bowling Green State MAC) 0.479903 102 34 East Carolina CUSA) 0.465065 120 35 Minnesota Big Ten) 0.458071 39 36 Michigan Big Ten) 0.454465 22 37 Houston American) 0.396651 77 38 Virginia Tech ACC) 0.395517 27 39 Mississippi SEC) 0.390989 12 40 Arizona Pac 12) 0.362104 28 41 Nebraska Big Ten) 0.350662 66 42 Vanderbilt SEC) 0.334523 73 43 North Texas CUSA) 0.32124 109 44 Penn State Big Ten) 0.310067 47 45 Boise State MWC) 0.262635 104 46 Marshall CUSA) 0.252551 106 47 Kansas State Big 12) 0.244892 61 48 Cincinnati American) 0.241309 122 49 Mississippi State SEC) 0.234081 5 50 Navy Independent) 0.221621 83 51 Buffalo MAC) 0.210993 92 52 Utah State MWC) 0.205791 88 53 Texas Tech Big 12) 0.205361 55 54 Boston College ACC) 0.180929 58 55 Maryland ACC) 0.159098 96 56 Texas-San Antonio CUSA) 0.157358 84 57 Toledo MAC) 0.155459 67 58 Western Kentucky Sun Belt) 0.154713 115 59 Georgia Tech ACC) 0.14237 29 60 Washington State Pac 12) 0.134075 14 61 Middle Tennessee State CUSA) 0.131596 114 62 Louisiana-Lafayette Sun Belt) 0.121814 119 63 North Carolina ACC) 0.085647 50 64 Arkansas State Sun Belt) 0.06148 89 65 Syracuse ACC) 0.061125 34 66 Tulane CUSA) 0.054913 90 67 Oregon State Pac 12) 0.053885 44 68 Indiana Big Ten) 0.048228 8 69 Pittsburgh ACC) 0.031911 40 70 Tennessee SEC) 0.02913 3 71 Utah Pac 12) 0.026817 2 72 Nevada-Las Vegas MWC) 0.024226 99 73 Ohio MAC) -0.03897 86 74 San Diego State MWC) -0.04081 105 75 San Jose State MWC) -0.04839 63 76 Louisiana-Monroe Sun Belt) -0.11026 71 77 South Alabama Sun Belt) -0.11672 100 78 Northwestern Big Ten) -0.11897 33 79 Colorado State MWC) -0.14847 121 80 Rutgers American) -0.17595 95 81 Troy Sun Belt) -0.18704 98 82 Florida Atlantic CUSA) -0.24505 110 83 Old Dominion Independent) -0.26144 82 84 Akron MAC) -0.27502 37 85 Florida SEC) -0.29913 11 86 Texas Christian Big 12) -0.30015 26 87 Central Michigan MAC) -0.32062 101 88 Texas State Sun Belt) -0.32657 124 89 Illinois Big Ten) -0.35637 18 90 Southern Methodist American) -0.36578 91 91 Nevada MWC) -0.37763 45 92 Wake Forest ACC) -0.4097 36 93 Colorado Pac 12) -0.42484 20 94 West Virginia Big 12) -0.42791 53 95 Arkansas SEC) -0.46152 15 96 Wyoming MWC) -0.47134 108 97 Kent MAC) -0.48539 49 98 Iowa State Big 12) -0.52377 24 99 North Carolina State ACC) -0.53298 32 100 Tulsa CUSA) -0.5747 60 101 Kansas Big 12) -0.60036 31 102 Memphis American) -0.69308 75 103 Kentucky SEC) -0.70542 7 104 Connecticut American) -0.72399 80 105 New Mexico MWC) -0.76112 107 106 Virginia ACC) -0.76881 10 107 Louisiana Tech CUSA) -0.79761 126 108 Purdue Big Ten) -0.82627 1 109 California Pac 12) -0.84678 6 110 Army Independent) -0.8496 118 111 Temple American) -0.88482 87 112 Alabama-Birmingham CUSA) -0.98886 79 113 Hawaii MWC) -1.0042 78 114 Eastern Michigan MAC) -1.01692 74 115 Texas-El Paso CUSA) -1.02847 112 116 South Florida American) -1.03204 52 117 Air Force MWC) -1.03486 93 118 Idaho Independent) -1.04587 56 119 New Mexico State Independent) -1.04624 81 120 Western Michigan MAC) -1.10643 70 121 Massachusetts MAC) -1.17977 57 122 Southern Mississippi CUSA) -1.22802 103 123 Florida International CUSA) -1.29919 94 124 Miami OH MAC) -1.4104 97 125 Georgia State Sun Belt) -1.53502 69 126

Glog - BYU vs Idaho State

KVN's and Hoffman's last home game!  I, for one, will miss them.  Both of them are in my top 10 list of favorite Cougs since I've been watching.  Not on the list: Bret Engemann.

This is the first BYUTV game I've watched this year.  I haven't missed Blaine.  I don't mind what Blaine says, but his voice is kind of grating.  On the flip side, I love McCann - he's a great play by play guy.

Maverik is sponsoring the opening kick.  I used to get gas there all the time when I delivered pizza!  In '98, the prices were as low as 90 cents a gallon.  The cat drank unleaded instead of milk.

1st drive - BYU ball

Crowd is sparse.  Weather looks terrible.

And Hoffman delivers on the 1st drive.  Blaine makes the point that very few people can make that grab, and he's right.  We've been spoiled with Hoffman.

We throw the fade to Ridley on 1st and goal.  I hate the fade - it seems like such a low percentage play, but at least it was on 1st down.

Williams into the end zone!  The crowd heads for the exits.

2nd drive - ISU ball

3 and out.  They threw 3 passes, one was dropped.  I like the fact that they're throwing so much - more potential for more possessions.

3rd drive - BYU ball

INT on the first play.  Not a bad decision, just a bad throw.

4th drive - ISU ball

2 runs and they get down to the 20.  My prediction is 49-7 so there better not be any FGs.  I'm rooting for them to score a TD here.

D is looking pretty lackadaisacal.

There is a LOT of screaming going on.  What are they doing to the fans there?

ISU totally chokes and has to kick a FG.  There goes my prediction and the shut-out!  The ISU coach has met his goal - he doesn't care how the rest of the game goes.

5th drive - BYU ball

We went for it - and Jamal takes it to the house!  Really surprised we went for it.  Williams finally breaks a big one, although it was against an FCS opponent.

6th drive - ISU ball

Fake punt!  ISU came to play!

7th drive - BYU

Williams is touching the ball every play.  What a hogball!

Hill keeps it.  I don't want to see Hill run it again this game.

8th drive - ISU

Even though this game is pretty boring already, I loved attending these types of games growing up.  No pressure, we knew we were going to kill the other team, so we punks usually deserted the old man and roamed the empty stadium and made jokes about passing efficiency and stats. 

9th drive - BYU

Hoffman with a nice punt return.  He gets lots of airtime on my glogs.

Hill runs it for a few yards.  Bench him!

****End of 1st Q

These BYUTV graphics are pretty cool.  I'm impressed.

Nice pass for a TD to Ridley!  NOW it's time to bench Hill.

10th drive - ISU

Dinner update - Mel is picking up some burgers for us, and I just made Kraft Mac & Chemicals for H.  Adelaide is still snoozin'.  I can still remember the first time I had Mac & Chemicals - it was at the Judds house, I was probably 12 or 13 and I thought it was the best stuff ever.  I had it sporadically at other people's houses until I moved out after high school, when I had it all the time, realized it was garbage, and haven't touched it since.

Fumble!  Cougs jump on it.

11th drive - BYU

INT!  Hill *should've* thrown it away if it was a good opponent, but I don't mind taking those chances there.  Another foot and Hoffman might have a TD.

12th drive - ISU

BYU's D now is dominating.  Almost had a pick or safety there.

13th drive - BYU

Hendrik hates the Cougar cat noise or whatever that thing is.  He says, "I don't like the tiger.  I just like the sock (Red Sox)."  I don't think I'll have much influence over his favorite teams.  He usually picks the other team when we're watching a game.

14th drive - ISU

Kaufusi with the pick 6!  McCann called it - and KVN with the assist.  35-3 now, so we should hit 49 pretty easily.

15th drive - ISU

ISU now 2-for-2 on screen passes, both have been intercepted.   

Nevermind!  Overturned.

16th drive - BYU

Another INT.  Terrible decision.  Hill needs to realize that these are stat fests - not bad stat fests.

17th drive - ISU

I need them to score a FG here, and then kick an extra point after the FG.  Here comes the kicking unit - Make that kick!  Make that kick!

...and it's blocked.  Didn't they hear what I was chanting?

18th drive - BYU

Hill is still out there.  This guy is terrible - 3 INTs?  Yank him!

Brown with an awesome run.  I liked his battering ram move at the end.

Blaine is more concerned about Hill's stats than the Hansens.  I didn't think that was possible.

Hill has made some absolutely terrible throws today.  I'm not going to blame him, since we're up 32 and the weather is terrible.  Grip could be bad.

Touchdown!  42-3.  84 points is not out of reach.

Blaine on kicker Sorenson: "He's been almost automatic from anywhere on the field this year."  I will admit that he's been pretty solid this year inside of 40, but I think our standards after last year are beyond low.

19th drive - ISU

ISU runs it on first down, 3 minutes left.  Call timeout!  We could still score another!

Now taking guesses for total passes BYU will throw in the 2nd half.  My guess: 10.

20th drive - BYU

Olsen comes out to practice his handing off.  The first one was solid. I like what I see so far.

The 2nd handoff is just as successful.  Olsen is on fire!

Olsen hands it off for a TD!  49-3.  My prediction is in some serious trouble.

****Halftime 

Hine with a TD on the first play.  ISU's given up.  We're going to have to start kneeling on it.

Olsen comes out after only 2 drives and 5 handoffs.  His handoff efficiency was off the charts - something like 5-5, 130 yards, 2 touchdowns.  Amazing!

Stewart goes back to pass and blows it by not throwing it.  I don't care if nobody's open, you throw the ball!  How many other chances will you ever get?

Olsen comes back in and hands it off for 30 more yards on the first play.  This guy is uncanny.  Heisman candidate!

We kick the FG and the band still plays the fight song.  Not one person in the stands is seen rah-rah-rahing.

3rd quarter play selection: 8 plays, 8 runs.  We may not even have a pass in the 2nd half.  My 10 guess earlier is looking foolish.

Stewart throws a pass!  And then is immediately benched.

He throws another pass - right in the dirt.  Stewart's passing efficiency is negative.

Olsen throws 2 passes.  If you had 4 second half passes, you win.

Rankings explanation

In my BYU-Wisconsin glog comments, Brian made the point that S Carolina was way overrated purely because of their preseason rankings.  He's right (of course), and so I was thinking about how to do some sort of rankings that was purely based on this season's accomplishments and not some historic or conference bias.  I thought of the RPI which is used in basketball to some extent, so I decided to make my own.  I don't particularly trust the BCS "computer" rankings because the correlation of the AP rankings to the computer rankings is too high, so there HAS to be some sort of bias in their algorithm.

For my job, I do lots of data analysis, so this was right up my alley.  I found a website that has all of the FBS teams and results for the season, pasted it into Excel, wrote a macro to get it into database format, then imported into SQL Server. 

First, I did an initial calculation based on records and margins of victory.  This would change week to week, for example after week 1, BYU's loss to Virginia wasn't that bad because Virginia was 1-0, but as Virginia kept losing and losing, it got worse and worse.  The initial calculation would be the driver for strength of schedule (SOS). Each team was assigned a factor.

I then did the same analysis, but this time adding the SOS factor as the key driver.  Each game was assigned a value.  The highest value was FSU's victory over Clemson, and the lowest was South Florida's big loss to McNeese St (FCS team).  Each FCS team was considered equal to the worst FBS team, which I know isn't terribly accurate, but you have to make assumptions when you don't have data.

Then I averaged all of these values and got the rankings.  You'll see that my rankings are not too different than this week's BCS rankings.  The main noticeable difference is that FSU is #1, but the biggest difference is LSU, who is 32nd in my rankings.  S Carolina is only off by 3, UCLA is overrated by 7 spots, and ASU is underrated by 8 spots.  Overall, this is the difference by conference for top 25 rankings:

SEC	24
ACC	-3
Pac	1
Big 10	-3
NA	-2
Big 12	-5

You can see that the SEC, as I suspected, is overrated by an overall 24 spots, LSU the biggest offender.  Most of the other conferences are pretty accurate, although the Big 12 is slightly underrated.  "NA" is everybody not in those 5 conferences.

I was working on the data through week 11 for most of my analysis, but about 2 hours ago the website was updated.  Through week 11, BYU would have been ranked 17th, and Wisconsin 18th.

In full disclosure, I did add *a little* conference bias.  I gave a slight edge to all teams from the major 5 conferences listed above for SOS, plus Notre Dame and BYU.  So this actually ends up being advantageous for the people playing these teams, not the actual teams.  I thought it helped reflect reality, because the worst team in the SEC is much better than the worst team in the smaller conferences.  But I didn't pick and choose the teams (aside from ND and BYU, since they are independent) who I gave the boost to, I just did it for all teams in those conferences, and it was all the same level of boost (1 factor point for the SOS - not that it means anything to you).

One major thing I have not yet considered is home field advantage, but I'm going to call it quits for this week because I've been doing this for almost 5 hours.  Hendrik's at his Aunt Amber's, Mel and Adelaide are in Texas, and I don't have much to do.  Let me know your thoughts - I'm open to suggestions for improvement, and would even share my code.

My CFB Rankings after week 12 - Purely Computer-based with no bias

Rank	Team	Factor
1	Florida State	1.534
2	Alabama	1.480
3	Baylor	1.396
4	Ohio State	1.293
5	Stanford	1.257
6	Missouri	1.129
7	Oregon	1.118
8	Clemson	1.105
9	Auburn	1.081
10	Fresno State	0.962
11	Arizona State	0.940
12	Oklahoma State	0.923
13	South Carolina	0.907
14	Central Florida	0.899
15	Michigan State	0.896
16	Oklahoma	0.841
17	Texas A&M	0.836
18	Northern Illinois	0.819
19	Wisconsin	0.797
20	UCLA	0.792
21	Miami FL	0.791
22	Louisville	0.755
23	Texas	0.734
24	Virginia Tech	0.734
25	Minnesota	0.718
26	Brigham Young	0.705
27	Ball State	0.668
28	Duke	0.665
29	Georgia	0.656
30	Southern California	0.644
31	Houston	0.636
32	Louisiana State	0.636
33	Georgia Tech	0.632
34	Notre Dame	0.605
35	Nebraska	0.598
36	Washington	0.596
37	Mississippi	0.593
38	Michigan	0.590
39	East Carolina	0.585
40	Buffalo	0.520
41	Louisiana-Lafayette	0.480
42	Texas Tech	0.475
43	Arizona	0.447
44	North Texas	0.401
45	Pittsburgh	0.386
46	Oregon State	0.361
47	Iowa	0.323
48	Rice	0.318
49	Boise State	0.305
50	Kansas State	0.291
51	Penn State	0.288
52	Toledo	0.280
53	Cincinnati	0.264
54	Vanderbilt	0.238
55	Ohio	0.235
56	Syracuse	0.220
57	Boston College	0.214
58	Maryland	0.212
59	Utah State	0.184
60	Marshall	0.180
61	Rutgers	0.174
62	Utah	0.153
63	Florida	0.146
64	North Carolina	0.136
65	Middle Tennessee State	0.135
66	Bowling Green State	0.112
67	Tulane	0.107
68	Texas State	0.091
69	Arkansas State	0.089
70	Indiana	0.084
71	Mississippi State	0.076
72	San Jose State	0.072
73	Tennessee	0.071
74	Navy	0.068
75	Western Kentucky	0.021
76	Washington State	0.015
77	Texas-San Antonio	(0.033)
78	Northwestern	(0.034)
79	San Diego State	(0.035)
80	Old Dominion	(0.044)
81	Louisiana-Monroe	(0.075)
82	Wake Forest	(0.094)
83	Nevada-Las Vegas	(0.107)
84	West Virginia	(0.114)
85	Colorado State	(0.162)
86	Texas Christian	(0.165)
87	Troy	(0.183)
88	Florida Atlantic	(0.268)
89	Arkansas	(0.281)
90	North Carolina State	(0.285)
91	Illinois	(0.319)
92	Colorado	(0.326)
93	Wyoming	(0.327)
94	Southern Methodist	(0.361)
95	South Alabama	(0.411)
96	Virginia	(0.464)
97	Nevada	(0.485)
98	Central Michigan	(0.503)
99	Louisiana Tech	(0.506)
100	Akron	(0.509)
101	Kansas	(0.511)
102	Kentucky	(0.525)
103	Memphis	(0.542)
104	New Mexico	(0.591)
105	Army	(0.653)
106	South Florida	(0.657)
107	Purdue	(0.708)
108	Tulsa	(0.716)
109	California	(0.719)
110	Iowa State	(0.754)
111	Kent	(0.770)
112	Alabama-Birmingham	(0.813)
113	Eastern Michigan	(0.853)
114	Air Force	(0.880)
115	Idaho	(0.951)
116	Temple	(0.979)
117	Massachusetts	(1.049)
118	Texas-El Paso	(1.066)
119	New Mexico State	(1.073)
120	Western Michigan	(1.083)
121	Hawaii	(1.132)
122	Florida International	(1.176)
123	Connecticut	(1.184)
124	Southern Mississippi	(1.273)
125	Miami OH	(1.415)
126	Georgia State	(1.518)

Glog: BYU vs Wisconsin

Welcome to the biggest game of the year for BYU!  We're pretty confident, but this one will show us and everybody if we're really any good.  Before the season, I picked the scores for all the games, and I picked us to lose 41-7.  So my expectations are low.

Rod Gilmore is our analyst - I like him.  I don't know this play by play dude.

Gary Andersen is the UW coach.  Anybody who could turn USU around has got to be a solid coach.

Windy there today, which probably means no FG attempts outside the 10.

1st drive - UW ball

KVN with another TFL!  Brings up a 3rd and long, which is not a sure thing with our D this year.

Ugh.  We have to get more pressure on these 3rd and longs, he had all day to make that pass.

UW dominating us at the front line.  Not a good sign.

Hadley goes out.  We'll miss his 'stache.

So far our secondary has looked solid, tight coverage.

This game is reminding me of the Stanford-Oregon game.  Stanford just dominated the line and got 4-5 yards on every play for these 7 minute drives.

Easy TD for UW.  Not a good sign for us, but a very good sign for my 41-7 loss prediction.

2nd drive - BYU ball

Nothing to say here.  Good protection on the 3rd and long is the only silver lining.

3rd drive - UW ball

'Unga makes the impact player list - surprise of the day!

Stuffed on 3rd down!  Key stop there, we don't want to dig out of a 14-0 hole.

Just found out the Falselev is out.  Rats.  He's a key, more on the offensive side than the PR side.  Good hands, shifty moves.

4th drive - BYU ball

3rd and long again.  Let's see if we can pick something up.

"Pick" was a bad choice of words there.  Hill overthrows Hoffman and UW picks it off.

5th drive -UW ball

I wonder if Andersen is over there on the sidelines thinking, "This is so much easier with Big 10 talent, it's almost unfair".

Sorenseon almost with the INT!  Would've been nice to come down with it.

Fumble!  BYU picks it up!  Let's see if our O can move the ball more than 3 yards.

6th drive - BYU ball

First 1st down!  A couple quick hits there, good playcalling.

7 yards to Mahina.  We need to continue to get our TE's involved.

Down to UW's 40 yard line.  Prime punting range.

Into the red zone, getting everybody involved!  Really enjoying this.  Let's see if we can get a TD.

3rd and 7 from the 13.  4 down territory, I'd think.

Wow - I can't believe they gave Hill the incomplete pass there.  I further can't believe that Bronco trusted Sorenson to make that FG.  Good call, though, he made it.  Another red zone trip without a TD.  Until we improve this, we're not going to beat tough teams.

7th drive - UW

Did our band travel all the way to UW?  Or is their band playing our fight song?  If so, kudos to them.

They almost broke that kickoff for a lot of yards.  Good arm tackle.

Manu with the great break through the line!  D starting to step up.

"Jonathan Pigskin" is what Rece Davis called Johnny Football just now.  Great name - Susan Hansen approved.

Read the screen all the way, D with a 3 and out.  Solid!

8th drive - BYU

Interesting that Rod thinks that BYU still has BCS chances.  I'm skeptical, considering we're not ranked.  I mean, that would be great, but even if we do win out, I can't see it happening.

End of 1st****  We're only down 7-3 to a good team on the road, I can't be too disappointed about that.  D has been solid after that first drive, and O showed some signs of life in the last drive.  If we can score more TDs, we can win.  But FGs aren't going to do it.

Wow - I had no idea Camp Randall was so ugly from the outside.  Solid concrete, who designed this, Joseph Stalin?

Gutsy call on 3rd and 8 with the run!  Worked to perfection with a long run.  If that wouldn't have worked, I'd be complaining pretty hard in this very space.

Another throwaway and Hill had all kinds of time.  We must not getting anybody open.

Great pass on 3rd and 10 to Friel!  Huge play there.  Great catch, too.

Deep pass to the end zone and the defender practically tackles Hoffman before the ball gets there. No flag - bad sign of things to come.

New Taco Bell ad with the white guy and the steak sandwich was awesome.  "That was a travel."  Sandwich looks pretty diarrhea-tastic, though.  I rewound it and watched it 3 times.  Possible new favorite commercial.

10 bucks says Bronco punts it from the 32 if we throw an incomplete pass here. 

Obviously, not many options here, but why not go to Hoffman in the end zone again?  What's to lose?

Punt goes into the end zone of course.  What's the inside-the-40 punt total for the year?  8?  Good time to paste in something I found interesting from TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) on when to punt:

• Inside your own 20, punt.
• From your 21 to 35, go for it on fourth-and-2 or less.
• From your 36 to midfield, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 49 to opposition 30, go for it on fourth-and-4 or less.
• From the opposition 29 to opposition 3, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 2 or 1, go for it.
• Exception: inside the opponent's 25, attempt a field goal if it's the fourth quarter and a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead.

According to this, Bronco made the right call.  Not much to do on 3rd and long.

9th drive - UW

KVN with another amazing play!  This guy is hands-down the best defensive player ever.  No argument there.  I mean, the INT was pretty lucky to fall on his body, but I feel like other defensive players would've still screwed that up, and I can't really remember KVN screwing up sure INTs ever.

10th drive - BYU

Just off the fingertips of Mathews!  So close...would've been huge!

Hoffman is getting murdered on every play by the corner.  Lots of grabbing and early touching before the ball gets there. Probably not going to get many catches without help from the refs.

Wait - Brian Urlacher?  Who's that?  He's not even playing anymore, how good could he have been?

Hoffman had steps there, but Hill overthrows by 5 yards.

11th drive - UW

Nothing makes me ffwd faster than when NASCAR people appear on the screen.  And worse - Rod makes commentary about it!  NOBODY CARES ABOUT NASCAR, Rod!  And if they do, they're wrong.

5 missed tackles on that long run.  Also, a blatant hold at the line.  How many flags on UW so far?  1?  Oh, I see.

4th and 1... you have to go for it here.  Too long for a sure FG.  Bronco would punt.

 Big hit by 22!  Who's 22?  Nice play, 22!

Of course, the kicker who has never made a FG makes it from 38.  He'd have missed that against Ohio St.

12th drive - BYU

Not a surprise that we have nobody open downfield, their corners are probably jumping on our WR's shoulders and riding them like horses.

13th drive - UW

Big hit by Fua!  3rd and 4 coming, need to get a stop here.  10-3 at the half and the ball is not a bad position to be in.

Need to get more pressure on the QB, he's got all day.  We could use Ziggy here!

Ball tipped at the line.  Good play, but the play was well-covered, possible INT we could've had there.

TD.  Too much time for the QB!  You have to rush more than 3 there.

 HALFTIME

It's interesting that UW has 2 losses and they're ranked #24.  Their 2 losses are to OSU and ASU, both ranked.  The highest 2 loss team is S Carolina at #12. 12 spots higher!  Well, SCar lost to Tennessee, who has gotten creamed by everyone, and Georgia, who isn't ranked either.  "But Kent, SCar beat #5 Missouri!" Oh, then nevermind.  Totally justified.  Let's forget that Missouri is awesome, and not the fact that other top 25 wins have been over Georgia and Florida, both unranked.  Apparently all you have to do to be in the top 10 is to be in the SEC and win 3 conference games.

14th drive - BYU

I'm not counting that last drive of the half.

Is it possible for us to have a kickoff withOUT a block in the back?

Ugh.  3 and out.  Now I'm rooting for UW to score 41 points and BYU to get 2 safeties.

Terrible punt!  Didn't we have the wind for this punt?  Not looking good.

15th drive - UW

Sorensen is an excellent defensive player - a lot like Francisco from a few years ago.  We'll be in a tough position next year without him and Van Nuy.

We bring the pressure on 3rd but they have a quick hit.  I still like the fact that we brought it.  We need to get more pressure.

Break there with a bad pass to a wide open WR!

16th drive - BYU

We're averaging 32 points a game and over 500 yards.  That's a pathetically low point average for how many yards that is.  Speaks to our red zone inability.  We need a "points per yard" stat.

Williams with a drop there.  He has terrible hands, we know this from the Virginia game.  For Williams to be considered a top 10 all time RB, he needs to be a better pass-catcher.

Williams bailed out with the offsides call.  We need a score here.

Huge surprise - Apo doesn't come up with a catch that he should've.  Apo is my least favorite BYU player - people have been talking about him like he was supposed to be better than Hoffman.  He's been dropping catchable passes his whole career.

And just to illustrate my point, Hoffman makes a great catch for a TD!  How many catches has Hoffman caught where there's been a pass interference call?  But, yeah, Apo still might be better than him.

17th drive - UW

That Hyundai ad where they show BYU for the first seconds really threw me off when I first saw it.  I thought, "Wait, is this BYUTV?  Is this a BYU commercial?"  I'm surprised we made the cut, and got so many clips.

Daniels' tackling has been terrible this game.  Through the first 8 games, he was surprisingly solid.

The problem with playing ND every year is that I have to root for them every game.

Brought pressure and we finally get a sack! 

18th drive - BYU

Good overturn by the refs.  If anything, that was the cleanest guarding of Hoffman all game.

3rd and 13 is a little long for a trap play, no?  We need to get a good punt here.

What a punt!  61 yards?  Check your math, buddy.  That's 75 yards right there.  Maybe the first bounce was 61.

19th drive - UW

The announcer asks "What are the odds that the championship game will NOT be Bama - FSU?"  This is exactly what's wrong with the BCS, the fact that it's so likely with 4 games to play.  I know that it's going away, but the fact that it existed for so long was just baffling.  I will complain about the BCS until I'm dead.  In 2050, I'll be telling my grandkids, "In my day, there wasn't this 68 team tournament gobble-de-gook.  It was 2 teams!  Voted in by the media!  In those days, we knew how to pick a winner!

Our D looks tired.  Every play is a good handful of yards.

End of 3rd****  It's looking unlikely we'll pull this out.  I'm rooting for us to at least make it close, but UW looks pretty dominant.

touchdown

20th drive - BYU

Where's my pizza?!  I ordered it an hour ago!

3rd and 2 here.  We have to go for it if we don't get it.  Let's run it here.

We ran it.  Didn't work.  At least UW planned for a punt and burned another TO.

Rod makes the point "Bronco does not believe his defense can hold them."  I no longer like Rod.  You HAVE to go for it here.

Penalty - we still should go for it.  What good does punting do?  Give it to UW to run 5 minutes off the clock and get more points?  Look, we're not going to win this game playing conservatively, so why not sell out early?  We punt.

21st drive - UW

They pick up 30 yards just like that.  I'm glad we punted it.  As a coach, you have to be realistic with your D.  If they're not stopping the other team, own up to it and keep the ball as much as possible.

They're getting 5-7 yards on every play and all they do is run it up the gut.  Glad we punted.

4th down!  We stopped them!  Bronco made the right call to punt - we're getting the ball at the 10 yard line with 4 fewer minutes.  Plenty of time to score 3 times.

How can Planet Fitness guarantee a "Judgement-Free Zone"?  Are they kicking people out who sneer at others?

22nd drive - BYU

Hoffman once again proves that he's the best.  Ever.  In the history of everything.

Even if we miraculously come back and win this game, UW is clearly the better team.  They've dominated the trenches on both sides.  I think last year's D would've kept us closer with Ziggy on the D-line, but last year's O wouldn't have gotten us more than the 10 points we have. 

NOW Rod says we shouldn't punt. I don't know why Bronco is waiting until 4th down to punt, we could throw an INT or fumble it on 3rd.

23rd drive - UW

ESPN shows a BYU asst coach as "Bronco Mendenhall".  The camera crew must be confused as to who's the head coach, they've been showing that dude all game.  I don't know who that dude is, but I know who Bronco is at least.

24th drive - BYU

Still no pizza.  I just called, "It's on the way" they say.  The place is 10 minute walk, a 3 minute bike ride, and a 2 minute car ride (lots of stop signs) from my house.  I could have walked there, made the pizza myself, and walked back.  At least I get to save money on the tip.

We burn a TO on 3rd.  If we had any glimmer of a shot, it now is gone.

Go for the TD here.  You need 2 TDs still, and we need the stats.

25th drive - UW

Pizza finally arrived.   I stiffed the delivery guy, and he was clearly disappointed.  Listen buddy, the pizza took 90 minutes to get here and I live right next door.  When I delivered, I was hoping to not have to give the pizza away for free, let alone get a tip.

26th drive - BYU

ANOTHER picked up flag.  The other refs must feel eviscerated with the main ref overruling all his calls.

Apo with another drop.  There's this dude in my ward who thinks that Apo is a "great receiver".  He also thinks (no joke) that the BCS is better than the playoffs.  I was absolutely, completely baffled when he told me that.  I had no idea these people still existed.

End of game - UW 27, BYU 17

The head coaches shake hands at midfield.  The production lead at ESPN says, "Wait, THAT'S the head coach of BYU?!?!?"

As mentioned earlier, BYU was beaten by a better team.  We stayed relatively close, but we just aren't good enough yet.  Maybe next year.  I'll be happy if we can beat ND, but we'll need to stuff the run more consistently.