Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Texas is within the top 10, narrowly behind Oklahoma.
As we enter Week 6 of the 2021 college football season, the Big 12 title is completely up for grabs. Continue reading “Where each Big 12 team lands in ESPN’s updated FPI rankings after Week 5”
ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Arkansas a one-in-three chance to beat Ole Miss on the road.
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Arkansas will seek to bounce back in Week 6 against Ole Miss after the Razorbacks fell hard to Georgia on Saturday, 37-0.
Ole Miss, too, will be looking to return to its winning ways after Alabama handled the Rebels, 42-21.
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Arkansas has a 33 percent chance to win on the road against its fellow SEC West opponent. The number seems a bit low if one takes into consideration the teams’ rankings in the two major college football polls.
Arkansas is ranked 16th and Ole Miss 17th in the coaches poll. The Hogs are 13th and the Rebels 17th in the media poll. So what gives?
The FPI has Arkansas’ defense an impressive sixth in FBS for its efficiency rating. The algorithm has the Arkansas offense as 47th and Razorbacks’ special teams as 109th. Ole Miss, on the other hand, is 25th in defense, 21st in offense and 25th in special teams. Add in the game being on the road, and the 33% number makes a bit more sense.
The FPI data still predicts the Razorbacks to finish 8-4 and gives the team a 99.5% chance to reach six wins, ensuring bowl eligibility.
Arkansas won last year’s game in Fayetteville, 33-21, after intercepting Rebels quarterback Matt Corral six times.
Top 10?
Texas put up 70 points against in-state rival Texas Tech in Week 4. Continue reading “Where Texas lands in ESPN’s updated FPI rankings after Week 4”
Arkansas has an 11 percent chance to beat Georgia, per ESPN’s Football Power Index.
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The national coaches and media polls are one thing. But Arkansas continued its climb in ESPN’s Football Power Index on Sunday, too.
None of the three mean anything, per se. The BCS Standings are the most important and when it comes to championship aspirations, the only, thing that matters. The coaches and media polls, though, do carry some weight as far how a program feels.
The FPI is different. It’s a mathematical algorithm that projects winners. In it, Arkansas moved from 20th to 16th. The Razorbacks’ Week 5 opponent, Georgia, is No. 1. The Bulldogs leapfrogged Alabama for the top spot after Week 4’s games.
The corresponding data projects Arkansas to finish the year 8-4 and gives them a 99.6% chance to reach six wins, which would ensure a bowl appearance.
For the game itself on Saturday, Arkansas has just an 11% chance at victory.
The Bulldogs won last year’s meeting, 37-10, in Fayetteville.
Updated look at win probabilities, the LSU Tigers have the third-toughest schedule remaining in the country.
The computers are starting to give some love to the LSU Tigers. Their win probabilities have changed for the better in every game this season.
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, LSU has the No. 3 toughest remaining schedule in the country. Only the Auburn Tigers have a tougher remaining schedule. Auburn has five teams remaining in the top 25, while LSU also has five. The difference is that the former has to play both the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs.
| Opponent | Win Probability | Prev | Change |
| at Mississippi State | 44.2 | 41.6 | +2.6 |
| vs Auburn | 41.6 | 34.4 | +7.2 |
| at Kentucky | 59.1 | 37.6 | +21.5 |
| vs Florida | 33.9 | 30.6 | +3.3 |
| at Ole Miss | 30.4 | 25.8 | +4.6 |
| at Alabama | 8.6 | 5.7 | +2.9 |
| vs Arkansas | 50.9 | 44.8 | +6.1 |
| vs UL-Monroe | 98.7 | 97.3 | +1.5 |
| vs Texas A&M | 43.1 | 33.1 | +10.0 |
Prior to the game against Central Michigan, the Tigers were only favored to win against UL-Monroe and the game this past Saturday. The update has LSU favored against Kentucky and Arkansas, but the game against the Razorbacks is essentially a coinflip at this point. Games against the Wildcats and Texas A&M saw the biggest change.
All eyes will be in Starkville this weekend as the Bayou Bengals travel to Mississippi State to open SEC play. The Bulldogs have a slight edge but the Tigers are hungry for retribution after losing 44-34 at home to open last season.
Contact/Follow us @LSUTigersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Louisiana State news, notes, and opinions.
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Now sitting at No. 3 in their power rankings, ESPN gives Oregon a 41.5% chance to make the CFP, which are the 4th highest odds in the nation.
After a monumental win, it’s always fun to look ahead and see what can eventually come of it.
For the Oregon Ducks, who just shocked the world and upset the Ohio State Buckeyes on the road, 35-28, a new bar of success has been set for the current season, with legitimate aspirations for making the College Football Playoff now looking probable.
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According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, the Ducks should feel pretty confident about those expectations as well, where they now have the 4th best odds in the nation to eventually make the playoff. Here is how ESPN’s FPI broke down Oregon’s chances throughout the rest of the season:
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What odds does ESPN’s FPI give Dolphins in playoff scenarios?
“Playoffs? You kiddin’ me?! Playoffs?”
The infamous Jim Mora line could be especially applicable for the Miami Dolphins given their lack of postseason appearances over the course of the last 20 years (three berths over that stretch and two in the last 19). But that is exactly where we sit with this Dolphins team entering into the 2021 season. Playoffs feel like the expectation for a lot of folks.
Brian Flores may not say it publicly. It flies in the face of the mantra he constantly serves to his team:
One day at a time. One practice at a time. One rep at a time.
But make no mistake: these Miami Dolphins are on the doorstep and the expectation is that the team manages to kick that door down after being left out of the 2020 tournament despite winning 10 games. But don’t just take our word for it: projections for the season have Miami routinely in the mix. The latest release of postseason forecasts comes from ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). And the Dolphins are firmly in the mix.
How does FPI rank the Dolphins’ playoff probabilities? Better than a coin toss odds to make the playoffs, for starters. Here are FPI’s postseason odds for Miami:
As a point of reference, nearly half of the league has less than a 1% chance to win the Super Bowl according to FPI and Miami has better odds of winning the Super Bowl this year than Carolina, Atlanta, New York (Giants), Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Detroit, New York (Jets) and Houston do collectively combined in the same measure.
So yes. Playoffs. The Dolphins won’t dare discuss it to the world, but we all see the trend building entering Year 3 of the Chris Grier/Brian Flores era. And anything less would be a disappointment.
ESPN’s Football Power Index ranks Dolphins as 6th best team in AFC
NFL franchises will spend all offseason looking to piece together the right formula of new parts to add to their existing infrastructure; the hope being that they’ll stumble upon the magic blend of luck, skill and strategy to end the season atop the mountain. The science to winning a championship is an inexact one (with the exception apparently being having a Tom Brady on the roster) and as a result you’ll often see a wide array of preseason opinions on the talent and forecast for each team.
One of the most notable projections for an NFL season is ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), which runs simulations of the season at any point throughout the season and spits out a forecast and a set of power rankings for the entire league.
FPI has not been kind to the Dolphins over the last two seasons — Miami has begun both of the last two years at or near the bottom of the league. But 2021 brings a new season and, in the case of the Dolphins and their FPI forecast, a new expectation.
FPI ranks the Dolphins in their Power Ranking as the 6th best team in the AFC, trailing the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots. The Dolphins are tied with the projected AFC South winner, the Tennessee Titans.
Should the FPI forecast come into reality, the Dolphins would be due to travel to Buffalo to play the Bills in the Wild Card round of the AFC Playoffs. Every Dolphins fan knows how that trip went in January of this past season. Miami’s aspirations in 2021 certainly include a ticket to the big dance — and if Miami has successfully closed the gap on the Bills in the AFC East, a potential third game between the two would be an exciting proposition.
The Dolphins do have some separation from the fringe playoff contenders in the AFC, too. FPI scores Indianapolis and Pittsburgh at nearly an equal to “average” team. Indianapolis (0.3) and Pittsburgh (0.1) are comfortably off the projection of both Miami and Tennessee (1.2 each). This, of course, is just a projection. It will definitely change. But the fact that these expectations exist for Miami is a good indication of what has the potential to come in 2021.
The Gators enter the 2021 season with slightly lower national expectations than they’ve had the past two years under Dan Mullen.
ESPN had to issue a minor mea culpa on its previous Football Power Index rankings, citing issues with the calculation and modeling. As a result, Seth Walder released an update to the previous rankings, though the update didn’t change much about Florida’s preseason situation.
He has the Gators ranked No. 11 in the FPI, an increase in three spots from where they sat in the previous rankings. But it’s still not ideal for UF, showing it on the outside looking in for the College Football Playoff battle. Of course, there’s an entire season yet to be played, but it seems the analytics are wary about the amount of talent the team has to replace.
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With Georgia and Alabama both poised to be very good again, Florida has its hands full in the CFP race, but being in the SEC gives it quite an advantage. According to Walder, the league is all but guaranteed to put one team in (with there being a 94% chance of that happening). It also has the best chances by far to put a second team in at 31%.
The Gators will hope they will be one of the four teams, and there will be a few key games they’ll need to win. Bouts against the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide rank fourth and sixth, respectively, on Walder’s list of games that will be most impactful in the CFP race. UF’s chances of making the playoff are slim to none if it doesn’t win at least one of those games.
Coach Dan Mullen enters perhaps the most crucial season of his Florida tenure in 2021, given all the outgoing talent he has to replace. This will be one of his most challenging coaching jobs yet, and he has set high expectations for himself in Gainesville. Having a breakout year under those circumstances won’t be easy, but UF has the chance to do just that.
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A look at the Big 12 Conference in terms of strength of schedule and where Oklahoma ranks.
There is a lot of expectations surrounding the Oklahoma Sooners football team as we march towards the kickoff of the 2021 season. While there are more than three months until the start, that hasn’t hindered any of the discussions.
With the rankings and preseason power rankings constantly putting Lincoln Riley’s squad near the top, it is hard not to think of what could be. Is this the season that the fifth-year head coach can finally put it all together? Can Riley and company avoid the early season letdowns of the last several years and make a run at No. 1 in the country?
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Year in and year out ESPN has released their Football Power Index rankings for all 130 teams in FBS. Many factors go into these FPI rankings including the strength of schedule (SOS). According to the latest edition, the Big 12 Conference as a whole has the toughest SOS in college football. All 10 teams rank in the top 20.
A full breakdown of every team’s strength of schedule and where they rank nationally:
