Source: http://cfn.scout.com/2/1236582.html

One extra feature I'm adding to this week's Compu-Picks analysis is a closer look at the top four unbeaten teams according to the BCS: Alabama, Kansas St, Oregon and Notre Dame.

The below table looks at each of the 1-A games played by the above four teams, ranking them from the best to worst performances.

A couple things are pretty obvious from looking at the table: first, Alabama is almost exclusively near the top of the list. 5 of the top 9, 6 of the top 11, and 7 of the top 13 games. The only game that rated anywhere near the bottom was their blowout of FAU, which is more "this opponent is too atrocious to give much credit to a blowout win" than any kind of actual wart.

Second, Notre Dame is the inverse of Alabama, almost exclusively occupying the bottom of the list. 2 of the bottom 3 (and those 3 were WAY worse than any other performances on this list), 5 of the bottom 7, and 6 of the bottom 13. The Irish had one truly elite performance, the blowout win at Oklahoma, but other than that, there just isn't much heft to the resume compared to Alabama, Oregon or Kansas St.

It's harder to separate Oregon and Kansas St just from looking at the list, and in fact their resumes suggest a fairly similar conclusion. The basic difference is that Oregon's blowout of Arizona rates much better than KSU's blowout of Texas Tech, and KSU's struggle against North Texas is much worse than Oregon's mediocre win at Wazzu. But overall, the two teams' resumes are fairly close, and there's plenty of time for the gap between them to grow, shrink or possibly even reverse.

Rank	Team	Opp Name	Loc	Score
1	Notre Dame	Oklahoma	AWAY	30 - 13
2	Oregon	Arizona	HOME	49 - 0
3	Alabama	Arkansas	AWAY	52 - 0
4	Alabama	Western Kentucky	HOME	35 - 0
5	Kansas State	Texas Tech	HOME	55 - 24
6	Alabama	Mississippi State	HOME	38 - 7
7	Kansas State	West Virginia	AWAY	55 - 14
8	Alabama	Missouri	AWAY	42 - 10
9	Alabama	Tennessee	AWAY	44 - 13
10	Kansas State	Oklahoma	AWAY	24 - 19
11	Alabama	Michigan	NEUTRAL	41 - 14
12	Oregon	Southern California	AWAY	62 - 51
13	Alabama	Louisiana State	AWAY	21 - 17
14	Oregon	Arizona State	AWAY	43 - 21
15	Oregon	Washington	HOME	52 - 21
16	Oregon	Fresno State	HOME	42 - 25
17	Notre Dame	Miami (Florida)	HOME	41 - 3
18	Alabama	Mississippi	HOME	33 - 14
19	Notre Dame	Michigan State	AWAY	20 - 3
20	Kansas State	Oklahoma State	HOME	44 - 30
21	Kansas State	Miami (Florida)	HOME	52 - 13
22	Notre Dame	Navy	NEUTRAL	50 - 10
23	Kansas State	Kansas	HOME	56 - 16
24	Oregon	Colorado	HOME	70 - 14
25	Oregon	Arkansas State	HOME	57 - 34
26	Kansas State	Iowa State	AWAY	27 - 21
27	Alabama	Florida Atlantic	HOME	40 - 7
28	Notre Dame	Stanford	HOME	20 - 13 (OT)
29	Notre Dame	Michigan	HOME	13 - 6
30	Notre Dame	Brigham Young	HOME	17 - 14
31	Oregon	Washington State	AWAY	51 - 26
32	Notre Dame	Pittsburgh	HOME	29 - 26 (OT)
33	Kansas State	North Texas	HOME	35 - 21
34	Notre Dame	Purdue	HOME	20 - 17

There are a few important notes and caveats I need to make about this model:

1) Compu-Picks does not endorse implicitly or explicitly any form of illegal gambling. Compu-Picks is intended to be used for entertainment purposes only.

2) No guarantee or warranty is offered or implied by Compu-Picks for any information provided and/or predictions made.

2012 Compu-Picks Blog

Questions, comments or suggestions? Email me at cfn_ms@hotmail.com