I thoroughly enjoy the web site collegefootballpoll.com, when I have a few minutes to waste, which I haven't had in a while. However, due to the excitement of being 24 hours away from kickoff, I have neglected my homework and spent a few minutes perusing it tonight.
First off, the web site does a comprehensive list of all FBS schools and ranks them based on a lot of "stuff" from top to bottom. I believe they do that every week throughout the season as well. BYU comes in preseason at #24, so somewhat higher than the human polls regard them. One important note here is that every team on BYU's schedule comes in lower than that in the preseason. Notre Dame is #25, Utah #26, Boise State #31, and Georgia Tech #38. Utah State is the next highest at #79 and Oregon State is #86. Everyone else is 100 or worse. According to that, BYU is, in theory, better than all 12 of its opponents.
I can theoretically get on board with that. Utah has some question marks on the back 7 of its defense, particularly with Blechen suspended for three games, which includes BYU. Boise State lost a lot of offensive firepower AND I believe 6 of their 8 DL graduated, plus their best player at LB and DB. Notre Dame is playing walk-on WRs in the secondary and still isn't really settled at the QB position since the projected starter is suspended for the opener. Plus they are suspending other starters left and right for team violations. Georgia Tech: well, I think the Cougars are better at a lot of positions than the Bumblebees.
Secondly, the web site projects where teams will finish the season "ranked." BYU finishes #20. This final season projection puts them behind Utah, which it has at #13 and projected 11-1 (loss to USC), but ahead of everyone else, and significantly so. Boise State is #35 (9-3), Georgia Tech is #42 (8-4), and Notre Dame is #47 (7-5). Utah State jumps to #54 (8-4), San Jose State to #67 (7-5), and everybody else is 88 or lower and not bowl eligible.
On a side note, it also projects each conference's relative strength. The MWC, which was once positioned as perhaps the 6th best conference in America, making a serious push for 5th, dropped below the Sun Belt coming in at second-to-last, ahead of only the dying WAC. The MWC is also losing some of its best members next year, so it stands to reason that perpetually going forward the MWC will be the worst conference in America...not to pile on: but the MWC absolutely killed itself by its own stupidity. If you don't know what I'm talking about and care to find out, I'd be happy to tell you all about, so shoot me a line!
Third, the web site goes through and projects every college football team's schedule, including projecting what the margin of victory should be, based on its computer simulations and projecting the outcome as such. BYU is a 18-point favorite or more in 8 games. It is a single-digit loser against Utah (1.52 points) and Notre Dame (2.64). It is a single-digit winner against Boise State (0.22) and Georgia Tech (2.61). It will adjust its projections as the season goes along and more data is entered, which seems fair enough to me. It is impossible to take all things into account when making preseason projections.
Given that the site is very similar to mine, I'm going to go ahead and defend it! BYU gets blowout wins almost across the board, with close losses to Utah and ND and a close win at Boise. The only major difference is Georgia Tech. I believe BYU is better, but college football is still a mental game and that's where I believe BYU loses the game.
So, the site has BYU going 10-2. Hope is restored! Well, except that last year they projected BYU to go 11-1 when they went 9-3. The year prior: they had 10-2 compared to the actual 6-6 record. In addition, the site has a National Championship Game prediction of Virginia Tech and Oklahoma, so clearly computers don't recognize everything. The last time the site UNDER-estimated BYU's record was back in 2006, so the odds are either 1) not in BYU's favor to go 11-1 or 12-0 or 2) that BYU is due to beat/exceed the site's projections/expectations.
Either way, no matter who your team is, this is a fun site if you have some time to play around (after you're done reading my blog, of course!). Looking at this, if the ball bounces their way, it's certainly not out of the question that BYU goes 12-0. But when has the ball bounced BYU's way for 12 games? In answer to the question I posed in the title: the odds aren't great, but it's not a statistical impossibility either.
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