Election Odds #4

After SC/FL Primaries
Likelihood of each candidate becoming their party's nominee (with change from last time):

Democrats
Obama 60% (+5)
Clinton 40% (-3)

Obama's big win in SC gives him a boost, but Hillary's leading in the big Super Tuesday states

Republicans
McCain 75% (+20)
Romney 24% (+9)
Huckabee 1% (-14)

McCain is now the man to beat, but don't count out Romney's deep pockets

Likelihood of each candidate becoming the next President

Overall
Obama 40% (+3)
McCain 35% (+10)
Clinton 15% (-3)
Romney 8% (+2)
Huckabee 1% (-7)
Bloomberg 1% (--)

Obama and McCain, the most electable Democrat and Republican, look like the two most likely heirs to the throne

By Party
Democratic 55% (-1)
Republican 44% (+1)
Independent 1% (--)

The rise of McCain and Hillary's strong campaign organization make it more likely that a Republican will be in office next January

Election Odds #3

Version 3:
Likelihood of each candidate becoming their party's nominee (with change from last time):

Democrats
Obama 55% (-5)
Clinton 43% (+8)
Edwards 2% (-3)

Republicans
McCain 55% (+15)
Huckabee 20% (-10)
Romney 15% (+1)
Giuliani 10% (-5)



Likelihood of each candidate becoming the next President

Overall
Obama 37% (-3)
McCain 25% (+7)
Clinton 18% (+3)
Huckabee 8% (-4)
Romney 6% (+2)
Giuliani 4% (-1)
Bloomberg 1% (--)
Edwards 1% (-3)

By Party
Democratic 56%
Republican 43%
Independent 1%

Election Odds #2

Version 2:
Likelihood of each candidate becoming their party's nominee:

Democrats
Obama 60%
Clinton 35%
Edwards 5%

Republicans
McCain 40%
Huckabee 30%
Giuliani 15%
Romney 14%
Thompson 1%


Likelihood of each candidate becoming the next President

Overall
Obama 40%
McCain 18%
Clinton 15%
Huckabee 12%
Giuliani 5%
Edwards 4%
Romney 4%
Bloomberg 1%
Thompson 1%

Election Odds

Likelihood of each candidate becoming their party's nominee:

Democrats
Obama 65%
Edwards 20%
Clinton 14%
Richardson 1%

Republicans
Huckabee 25%
McCain 24%
Romney 23%
Giuliani 22%
Thompson 5%
Paul 1%


Likelihood of each candidate becoming the next President

Overall
Obama 45%
Huckabee 14%
Edwards 11%
McCain 10%
Giuliani 8%
Romney 6%
Clinton 3%
Bloomberg 1%
Richardson 1%
Thompson 1%

And the best BCS conference is . . .

For those of you who like to argue about which conference is the best, here's the complete list of how each BCS conference fared each other BCS conference along with the conference's overall record against non-conference BCS teams and Top 25 non-conference BCS teams. Games against Notre Dame were not included, nor were Washington's win over Boise St. or UCLA's win over BYU.

BCS Conferences: Games and Record vs. Other BCS Conf.
Conf.	Big E.			ACC			Big 12			Big 10			Pac 10			SEC			Record			v. Top25
Big E.				4	-	3	0	-	0	0	-	3	1	-	1	2	-	1	7	-	8	1-3
ACC	3	-	4				2	-	2	1	-	0	0	-	0	3	-	3	9	-	9	0-6
Big 12	0	-	0	2	-	2				2	-	0	0	-	2	1	-	2	5	-	6	1-4
Big 10	3	-	0	0	-	1	0	-	2				2	-	1	0	-	0	5	-	4	0-2
Pac-10	1	-	1	0	-	0	2	-	0	1	-	2				1	-	0	5	-	3	1-1
SEC	1	-	2	3	-	3	2	-	1	0	-	0	0	-	1				6	-	7	1-3

The one hole in the LSU debate

If you logically examine the top teams from which one could pick a BCS title game participant opposite Ohio St., LSU seems to make the most sense on many levels. They're the champs of what is probably the most difficult conference and they shellacked ACC champ VaTech head-to-head.

Here's the biggest problem I have with this:

If LSU had beaten Arkansas last week and lost to Tennessee yesterday, their record would be more impressive. They would still have two losses, but the losses would have come to better teams. In short, they would be better on paper. And yet, I don't think they would even be mentioned in the list of contenders for the #2 slot if that had happened.

BCS Title Game

Let me say this right now. There is no national champion this year. I don't care who wins what bowl games.

That said, here are the most likely teams, in order, to face Ohio St. in the BCS Title Game:

1. LSU
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. Kansas
5. USC
6. Hawaii

Personally, I hope that the computers sneak Kansas into the title game simply b/c it will be so ridiculous that nobody will agree with the decision.

overrated/underrated #5

According to the BCS computers (with AP rank/computer rank in parentheses)

underrated due to a lack of a football tradition
Arizona St. (9/4)
UVa (16/12)
Illinois (20/16)
Cincinnati (21/17)
UConn (25/18)
S. Florida (29/23)

overrated due to a lack of wins over top teams
Oklahoma (3/7)
Texas (12/20)
Hawaii (13/27)
Boise St. (17/26)

Again, the computers seem to disagree most with the humans about the Big East (underrated) and the Big XII (overrated)

upset watch

This weekend is a lousy one for college football fans: no top 15 teams play each other and (depending on the poll) only two games involve two teams from the top 25. ESPN is so unimpressed that the Gameday crew is covering Williams-Amherst. Not all hope is lost though -- there could still be some upsets. I was going to make a list of a few likely upsets, and then I noticed that virtually every top team is playing a team potentially capable of an upset. So I decided to rank them in order of most likely to least likely. I'll put the under/over at seven of these actually happening.

The following is the list grouped into bunches (with the number I predict will actually happen in parentheses -- predictions have a margin of error of +/- 1 game)

likely (2)

Auburn over Georgia (Heck, Georgia should've lost to Vandy)
Arkansas over Tennessee (I don't understand who actually thinks Tennessee is good)
Miami (FL) over UVa (UVa can't keep winning by one point, can they?)

50/50 (2)

Cincy over UConn (I want to believe in UConn, but I already believe in Cincy)
Miss. St. over 'bama ('bama already lost to Florida St. and Miss. St. already beat Auburn)
Wake Forest over Clemson (which would barely qualify as an upset)
Fresno St. over Hawaii (even though they don't have David Carr anymore)

Maybe (2)

Vandy over Kentucky (though Vandy has already had their one upset this year)
Wisconsin over Michigan (Gulp . . . I hope not)
Oklahoma St. over Kansas (Arguably the best team Kansas has faced to date (which isn't saying much))
Texas Tech over Texas (Texas can't keep coming back from 10+ down in the 4th quarter, can they?)
Cal over USC (This assumes, of course, that Cal can actually win a game (other than against Tennessee))
S. Carolina over Florida (Remember when S. Carolina crushed Kentucky and then Kentucky beat LSU?)
Maryland over BC (If they can lose to Florida St., why not Maryland?)

Crazier Things have happened (1)

Illinois over Ohio St. (Illinois is a decent team)
Florida St. over VaTech (they beat BC -- it could happen)
UCLA over Arizona St. (Remember when UCLA beat Cal?)
Louisville over West Virginia (I can't stop thinking that Louisville will play one good game this year)
Texas A&M over Missouri (I don't think this will happen, but you never know)

Even I would be Surprised (0)

Utah St. over Boise St. (although it's not being played on the magical blue field)
Temple over Penn St. (maybe Temple is good at praying)
Baylor over Oklahoma (I think even Appy St. is better than Baylor)
LaTech over LSU (same goes for LaTech)

overrated/underrated #4

According to the BCS computers (with AP rank/computer rank in parentheses)

underrated due to lack of football tradition
Arizona St. (9/5)
UConn (16/11)
UVa (23/14) - their low margins of victory also skew the computer rankings

underrated b/c they haven't received enough credit for their best victories
Penn St. (29/19)
S. Florida (33/25)

overrated b/c they haven't beaten top teams
West Virginia (6/12)
Hawaii (14/unrated) - not among the top 26 teams according to the computers