This is the 3rd installment of my annual preseason analysis, where I use various mathematical projections in order to predict how the college football season might play out. I started with an overview and summary of the Big 10, which can be found here. I then took a look at the SEC and ACC, which can be found here. As for today, 12s are wild as we round out the Power 5 with the Big 12 and Pac 12. Let's kick things off on the Great Plains.
Big 12
As I did with the previous conferences, let's begin with my overall summary of the Big 12:
Big 12
As I did with the previous conferences, let's begin with my overall summary of the Big 12:
Based on this data, the Big 12 is only projected to have 3 teams of roughly Top 25 quality (Oklahoma (6), Texas (17), and Iowa State (26)), and only those teams are likely to have a realistic shot to win the Title. I suppose that Baylor (37), Oklahoma State (36), or TCU (34) could rise up and cause problems, but as it stands now those teams all have only a ~4% chance to win the conference. The rest of the league seems to be just Plain bad, with less than a 1% chance.
Back at the top, the Big 12 seems pretty straightforward. Oklahoma (6) is both projected to be favored in all 12 games, and my simulation has the Sooners running the table as well. They have benefit of playing Iowa State in Norman and their annual Red River Showdown is at a "neutral" site in Dallas. The Sooners does travel to both Baylor (37) and Oklahoma State (36), but even my upset happy simulation doesn't think those games will be upsets. Oklahoma doesn't even really have a tough looking non-conference game either, unless you want to count Houston (65) at home or UCLA (44) on the road. That's a "no" from me. So, it is not surprising that my calculations give the Sooners a 49% chance to win the conference and a 41% chance to make the Playoffs, the second best odds besides Clemson.
So, what could go wrong? At this point, it seems like a really good bet that Oklahoma will at least finish 2nd in the league to earn a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game. So, the real question is which team in the most likely to join them? The raw probabilities suggest Texas, but based on the schedule, I like Iowa State.
Neither team gets Oklahoma at home, but the Cyclones do get to host the Longhorns. In addition to that advantage, Iowa also hosts 2 of the 3 2nd tier Big 12 teams (TCU and Oklahoma State) while Texas only hosts 1 of them (Oklahoma State). My simulation agrees, and projects Iowa State to finish a game ahead of Texas at 7-2 (with loses to Oklahoma and at Baylor) and a nice win vs. Iowa (18) in the non-con. If this were to come to pass, Iowa State would have a 2nd crack at beating Oklahoma on a neutral field. While I don't predict that, it is likely their best shot.
Ironically, in this scenario, Iowa State would be headed to the Sugar Bowl either way. If Oklahoma wins, they would very likely be going to the Playoffs, and the Sugar Bowl would be obligated to take the 2nd place Big 12 team. If Iowa State wins, their record would not likely be good enough to earn a Playoff spot, so they would be obligated to by selected by the Sugar Bowl as the Big 12 Champs.
For those interested parties, here is my corrected win matrix for the Big 12.
Oklahoma has a 45% chance to win at least 10 games. Once again, this is including the probability that the Sooners are not as good as the preseason polls suggest. Finally, here is the Big 12 over/under chart.
In this case, there is no clear outlier, but the "over" for Oklahoma State and Baylor may be promising, as is the "under" for Kansas.
Pac 12
Finally, I will turn my analysis to the last and (let's be honest) least of the Power 5 conferences: the Pac 12. As always, let's start with the overall summary table:
In the big picture, the preseason rankings predict that three teams (Oregon, Washington, and Utah) are all of Top 15 quality, and each of those teams has good odds to win the conference. After that, there is a second tier of teams (USC, Stanford, and Washington State) that look like potential dark-horse candidates with Title odds between 4% and 6% in this preseason.
As for the North Division, the two favorites, Washington (14) and Oregon (12) have virtually identical odds (39% vs 38%), which makes the Pac 12 north perhaps the most competitive Division in the Power 5. In my simulation, however, Washington has the clear edge and is projected to finish 8-1 in conference play (with a loss at Stanford) and 11-1 overall. The Huskies have the clear advantage of hosting the Ducks this year, and having a very manageable road schedule (traveling to Arizona (46), Oregon State (94), and Colorado (71) in addition to the trip to Palo Alto).
In contrast, the Ducks travel to Washington (14), Stanford (29), USC (31), and Arizona State (43) in conference play. In other words, the Ducks will face 4 of the top 6 overall Pac 12 teams on road, while Washington draws 3 of the 4 worst Pac 12 teams on the road. I project the Ducks to finish 6-3 in conference play.
I actually project Stanford to finish ahead of the Duck in the standing. The Cardinal have tough road games at USC (31) and Washington State (24), but draw both Oregon and Washington at home. I project Stanford to finish 7-2 in conference play, a game behind Washington, but with a win over the Huskies. Despite the Cardinals lower odds, I could easily see them winding up the King of the North. However, I also project Stanford to drop a non-conference road game at UCF (25) in September and they could also very easily lose their home opener to Northwestern (42). That could wind up being a fairly bad look for the conference if they were to win the North with a record of 8-4 overall.
Down South, things could get really interesting. My odds calculation suggest that Utah (13) is the overwhelming favorite with over a 75% chance to win the Division, while USC (31) lags being at only 14%. BUT, my simulation actually projects USC to finish in a tie with the Utes and earn a trip to the Pac 12 title game by winning the head-to-head tie-breaker.
A closer look at each team's schedule sheds some light on this situation. For USC, they have the type of schedule where the majority of their tough games are at home and their easier games are on the road. As a result, my simulation suggests that pretty much all of the Trojans games will be close, but they will have a slight edge in most of them. USC faces Utah (13), Stanford (29), and Oregon (12) all at home. Meanwhile, their road slate of Washington (14), Arizona State (43), Cal (56), UCLA (44), and Colorado (71) is much more manageable. My simulation has the Trojans at 7-2 in conference play, with loses only at Washington and ASU, but with close wins over all of their tough home opponents. On the downside, I also project USC to lose two non-conference road games at Notre Dame (9) and BYU (48).
In contrast, the Utes have a feast-or-famine type schedule. The Utes have tough road games at USC (31) and Washington (14), but the rest of their games are all projected to be blowout wins. So, from an overall average point of view, it does seem like Utah is the team to beat, but there is a clear path where they don't. I project them to finish 10-2 overall in my simulation, but they could easily finish 11-1 with a win at USC.
Overall, my simulation projects a Pac 12 Title Game featuring an 11-1 Washington squad against a 8-4 USC team, and the Huskies would be the clear favorite it that contest. However, the overall numbers suggest that Utah is more likely to win the South, and based on my numbers, the Utes would be favored to beat any of the possible North opponents, including perhaps avenging their only loss to Washington. Of course, there is also a very reasonable scenario where we might see two 8-4 teams in the Title game (Stanford and USC), both with fairly embarrassing non-conference losses on their resumes. In any event, it might be a struggle to get a Pac 12 team into the Playoffs
For reference, here is the full corrected win matrix for the Pac-12:
Perhaps the must notable data in this figure is the difference in standard deviation in wins between USC and Utah. Due to the differences in the schedules discussed above, USC's standard deviation is 2.58, which is by far the biggest of any Division 1 team. By contrast, Utah's standard deviation of 1.74 is well below the national average of 2.00.
Finally, here is the over/under chart for the Pac 12.
In general, my math agrees pretty well with the Vegas over/unders. If I had to make a pick, I would take the "under" on Colorado and Cal.
With that, I will close out the 2019 look at the Power 5. Next up, a brief look at the Group of 5, followed by my NY6 / Playoff Picks and final thoughts.
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