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MRI Football 2008 - Rankings Regular Season Final

December 8, 2008

By Benjamin Miraski

Don't blame the computers if you are unhappy with the BCS championship match (although the MRI agrees that Oklahoma and Florida should be the participants).

They didn't have Oklahoma and Florida. They had Oklahoma and Texas in a rematch.

Instead, blame the humans.

Yes, those same humans who used to pick the national champion when all of the contending teams played in different bowl games and you didn't have a head-to-head game to judge on.

Yes, those humans, who were randomly picked to vote in the Harris poll. There isn't even as much nepotism in the federal government when if comes to jobs like this.

Yes, those humans, who are easily swayed by things like margin of victory, style points and let's not forget impassioned speeches which end up firing up a team to the tune of nearly 50 points per game after them.

Yep, the humans are who put Florida into the title game.

There is the requisite amount of whining this morning. Florida's loss came at home. USC and Texas both lost on the road.

Florida played in the SEC which wasn't its normal self this year. Texas played in the toughest division in college football, the Big XII South, and should have gotten more points for that (You can leave out the Pac-10 from that discussion. Only 5 of the 10 teams qualified for bowls in a league with two of the worst teams in D-1. With two gimmee wins, they should easily have had 7 teams into bowl games.)

Everyone is hating on Florida; my guess is that they win the whole thing.

The MRI correctly picked 75 percent of the games this weekend, finishing the season at 73.85 percent. All time, the MRI has correctly predicted 71.09 percent of the games, and it doesn't even pick during the gimmee non-conference slate.

Check out the final regular season rankings in this week's MRI:

MRI Top 25 Rankings

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
1	Florida	12-1	130.35	1
2	Oklahoma	12-1	126.73	3
3	USC	11-1	123.02	2
4	Texas	11-1	115.07	4
5	Penn State	11-1	112.69	5
6	Boise State	12-0	96.49	6
7	TCU	10-2	94.69	7
8	Alabama	12-1	89.53	8
9	Ohio State	10-2	83.62	9
10	Utah	12-0	82.45	10
11	Texas Tech	11-1	81.16	11
12	Oregon	9-3	68.92	13
13	Missouri	9-4	67.56	12
14	Tulsa	10-3	63.92	14
15	Ball State	12-1	62.98	15
16	Oklahoma State	9-3	62.30	16
17	Iowa	8-4	60.77	17
18	Cal	8-4	60.57	21
19	Georgia	9-3	59.73	18
20	BYU	10-2	58.54	19
21	Oregon State	8-4	57.01	20
22	Arizona	7-5	54.93	23
23	Mississippi	8-4	51.65	22
24	Pittsburgh	9-3	51.25	NR(31)
25	Troy	8-4	49.78	NR(33)

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Nebraska (LW #24, TW #26), Boston College (LW #25, TW #34)

Other Teams People Might Care About

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
27	Michigan State	9-3	48.35	26
29	Florida State	8-4	46.90	27
31	Georgia Tech	9-3	45.92	28
34	Boston College	9-4	44.44	25
40	Wisconsin	7-5	40.55	38
46	Clemson	7-5	36.54	45
48	Northwestern	9-3	35.31	47
53	Northern Illinois	6-6	32.29	54
54	LSU	7-5	31.27	55
55	Tennessee	5-7	30.49	56
57	Notre Dame	6-6	27.92	57
58	Vanderbilt	6-6	27.55	59
60	Miami	7-5	26.99	60
61	Illinois	5-7	24.85	61
68	Auburn	5-7	16.54	71
75	Maryland	7-5	11.45	75
79	Purdue	4-8	10.01	78
87	Duke	4-8	-0.36	89
91	Michigan	3-9	-6.79	91
95	UCLA	4-7	-10.43	92
102	Texas A&M	4-8	-19.56	103
112	Indiana	3-9	-40.84	112
114	Miami(Ohio)	2-10	-49.12	116
119	Washington State	2-11	-87.43	119

Last Place this week: North Texas (1-11) at -91.10. 3rd week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Oklahoma gained 11.75 points. (Beat Missouri (62-21))

Biggest Loss this week: Louisville lost 13.76 points (Lost to Rutgers (14-63))

Conference rankings this week: Big 12, SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big East, Mountain West, PAC-10, MAC, WAC, C-USA, Sun Belt

The MRI Rankings are copyright 2008 by MRISports.com. Ben Miraski is a reporter for the Medill News Service, edits and writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com

Posted December 8, 2008 10:33 AM

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