We are out of words. You should be dead, Auburn, because we saw you die. And here you are, breathing in the flesh, able to say this: you made the Alabama Crimson Tide kick the winning touchdown for you.
It’s hard to top that recap from EDSBS of one of the greatest games in college football history. Two weeks after pulling off the ending of the season — the Prayer at Jordan-Hare — Auburn gave us the ending of our lives. Entering week 14, Alabama had fielded the best special teams in the nation; on Saturday, all of the Tide’s goals were ripped from them following three missed field goals and a game-winning field goal return touchdown.
Toomer's Corner.
Of course, the SRS is not so sensitive to missed field goals that are returned for touchdowns. The Crimson Tide ranked third in last week’s SRS, a ranking which felt one spot too low. Following the Iron Bowl loss, Alabama’s rating dropped from 61.1 to 59.4, moving Nick Saban’s team down to… third. The beauty of a predictive system is that it need not change due to a close road loss to a top team, and that’s what happens here. Auburn jumps from 14 to 11 but no higher, as a 14-point road loss to LSU, a 4-point home win against MSU, and a 7-point home win against Washington State still count.
Ohio State, in fact, actually drops one slot, as the close win in Ann Arbor dropped the Buckeyes behind idle Oklahoma State. Does that mean the Buckeyes don’t deserve to be in the BCS National Championship Game if they defeat Michigan State? Of course not. Last year, Notre Dame was ranked 6th on December 9th in the SRS, but the Fighting Irish surely deserved a spot in the BCSNCG by virtue of being the lone undefeated (and eligible) team in college football. Ohio State deserves the same treatment this year.
Below are the SRS ratings through 14 weeks. As always, thanks to Dr. Peter Wolfe for providing the final scores for every college football game.
Auburn has the toughest SOS of any one-loss team, and that will only increase if the Tigers can beat Missouri in the SEC Championship Game. Actually, whichever set of Tigers wins in Atlanta will finish the year 12-1 and with the best SOS of any one-loss team. I’m sympathetic to the Auburn argument – is going 4-1 against Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Georgia, and Missouri really worse than going 2-0 against Wisconsin and Michigan State? — but I don’t think we should expect to see a one-loss SEC champ jump over an undefeated Ohio State. And frankly, the Buckeyes are probably the better team, anyway. Most importantly, the Auburn-Ohio State “debate” has lead to the greatest Sportsnation poll result ever.
Of course, the Buckeyes are no sure thing to remain undefeated. Ohio State is 7.5 points better than Michigan State in the SRS and a 6-point favorite to win in Indianapolis on Saturday. What explains the difference? My guess is Vegas doesn’t put any stock in the Spartans scoring one offensive touchdown in a 13-point win at home against 1-11 Western Michigan or a 14-0 home win against 1-11 Purdue. Michigan State played 102nd-ranked South Florida a week after the Bulls lost by 32 to an FBS school and won by 15 points. Against those three teams — all ranked outside of the top 100 — Michigan State won by a combined 42 points. Those three games really drag down MSU’s rating; I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that is appropriate.
Auburn is a 1.5-point favorite over Missouri, and I don’t think that one is as easy to explain. My guess is betters are riding the Auburn high of a pair of fantastic finishes, but the SRS would set the line at Missouri -2.5 (and, in fact, the line opened with Missouri favored by two points). One could argue that Gus Malzahn’s team is peaking, but let’s not forget that Mizzou has been without James Franklin for several games this season, including the team’s sole loss.
Arizona State has been an SRS darling for weeks, and it seems like the rest of college football is finally catching up. The Sun Devils moved up to 4th this week, and host Stanford in the Pac-12 Championship Game. ASU should be a 7-point favorite over Stanford based on the SRS, although Vegas has only set the line at 3.5 points so far.
And in the least exciting conference championship game, Florida State is a 29-point favorite over Duke. The Blue Devils are the 40th ranked team in the SRS, and shouldn’t present much of a challenge to FSU. It’s true that the Seminoles are “only” 24 points better in the SRS, but that might be understating things. What if we go by the “eliminate every win of 21+ points that lowered a team’s rating” idea? Well, FSU won every game but one by 27+ points. As a result, doing this would eliminate eight of FSU’s games, including a 56-point win against Syracuse! Looking just at the 37-point win at Clemson, the 63-point win against Maryland, the 56-point win at Wake Forest, and the 14-point win at BC would bump up the team’s rating to 72.0, making them 30 points better than Duke. We can expect FSU to be a touchdown favorite (or more) in the title game, too.
Below are the single-game SRS grades for each FBS team in week fourteen. A pair of Pac-12 South teams show up with blowout wins over local rivals, and Florida State assumes its customary top-three spot here, too. The most shocking event in Alabama football on Saturday outside of the Iron Bowl isn’t a high bar to hurdle, but did you see that Alabama-Birmingham lost? And that UAB lost to Southern Miss — a team on a 23-game losing streak? And that the Blazers allowed 63 points to a team that had not topped 23 points all year? Alabama-Birmingham gets an SRS score of -23.2, a touchdown worse than the production of any other FBS team in any game all year.
Conference Standings
Finally, here are the season-ending conference standing ratings:
Pac-12 teams have the hardest strengths of schedule, courtesy of scheduling 9 conference games, four more against Notre Dame/BYU, and scheduling MWC teams in their “easy” games instead of the MAC, Conference USA, or the Sun Belt.
