CFP, Week 9

Well, last week was pretty awesome for the Tito College Football Predictor. The CFP went 44 and 11, an 80% success rate in its first week of the 2006 season. The system even correctly picked the Washington State upset over Oregon. The largest margin of a missed pick was 5.0 (Oklahoma State over Texas A&M), so the higher margin ranges looked really good last weekend.

This weekend, the CFP went out on a limb and made five questionable upset picks. Oklahoma State is up 10 points on Nebraska, who looked pretty good against powerhouse Texas last week. Missouri is actually 4.9 points up on Oklahoma, but that's with the 5-point home field advantage. Navy is picked to beat Notre Dame (also with the home field advantage) by a ratings margin of 3.2. (This is the one I doubt the most. The last time Navy beat Notre Dame was in 1963. That's 42 straight losses to the Fighting Irish.) Purdue was picked over Penn State by 2.4 points. Lastly, Oregon State was picked by 0.2 over USC. (You know which one I want to happen most.) What's the likelihood that all five of these will happen? Almost zero. Still, I'll be surprised if none of them do.

Michigan, Boston College, Ohio State, and Arkansas all get gimmees this week. They are all favored by 16 points or more over their opponents (Northwestern, Buffalo, Minnesota, and Louisiana-Monroe). We'll see how my year-to-date record is holding up at the end of Saturday. You can find the rest of this week's picks at http://tito.asimweb.org/cfp/week9.html.