ESPN football Power Index, based on 10,000 computer simulations.

[Leroy Jenkins]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings


We must be delusional. Then again... how many "simulations" had us #1 for 5 weeks last year? Garbage in garbage out.

[msstate7]

Computer simulations are garbage esp before the season starts.

[Smitty]

Hopefully these are the same computers determining Strength of Schedule after we beat 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 17.

Funny thing is we all pretty much think that the #17 (Auburn) is our toughest test.

[thf24]

ESPN yet again showing the sports world that we might as well not play the games since they can already tell us what's going to happen. They do great work over there.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Tennessee and A&M at 13 and 8 respectively are the most egregious. And Auburn only at 17? Wow.

[TrapGame]

We can't all be smoking the maroon crack. OM #9 and Arkansas #10? C'mon mane!

[Johnson85]

We are going to do badly in any formulaic ranking because they are always going to look at starters lost and never will be sophisticated enough to look at who we have behind them, or whether our "starters" were even getting the crunch time minutes. The reporters' rankings are a little more egregious. As much press as 1A and 1B got last year, they can't take ten minutes to look at our depth chart and production from last year and maybe look at some NFL draft rankings? Just ten minutes would tell you our significant losses were P. Smith, BMac, and Robinson, Clausell, Day, and Beckwith, and that we appear to still have a weakness at safety, which we already had to deal with last year and may or may not be materially better or worse this year. Those are certainly some big losses, but if you look at what we have coming back, the guess would be we will take a step backwards, but still be in the top 20ish teams.

[PMDawg]

Based on their numbers, it looks like only 2 SECW teams never won the west in 10,000 simulations; Us and.........Auburn. haha

[Tbonewannabe]

Computer simulations are only as good as the data it uses. It would be interesting to see what data they used.

[Tbonewannabe]

Noticed they had South Carolina going around 5-7. Interesting since Steve Spurrier has never had a losing season since he has coached a SEC team.

[HenryGondorff]

Hopefully this means I can get a little more value on an Over 7 Wins bet shortly...

[smootness]

Computer simulations before a game has been played....HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[DancingRabbit]

ESPN put out an FPI ranking back in May and offered this explanation:


Preseason FPI is calculated using three major components for each FBS team: prior years’ offense, defense and special teams efficiencies; returning starters and head coach information; and recruiting rankings.

A couple of things that struck me as straight out of bizarro world was that they projected LSU as 12th and Tennessee 19th on offense. Last year LSU ranked 80th in total offense and Tennessee 93rd.

http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/102380/102380

[Tbonewannabe]

ESPN put out an FPI ranking back in May and offered this explanation:



A couple of things that struck me as straight out of bizarro world was that they projected LSU as 12th and Tennessee 19th on offense. Last year LSU ranked 80th in total offense and Tennessee 93rd.

http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/102380/102380

I understand UT better than LSU. At least Dobbs ended up doing well down the stretch for them. LSU still doesn't have a QB.