The Andrew Extravaganza

The week began with 11 undefeated teams and it ended with 6 still standing. LSU, Cal, Missouri, Cincinnati, and Connecticut all lost in close games with a 4.8 point average margin of loss. That leaves Ohio State, Boston College, South Florida, Arizona State, Kansas, and Hawaii with unblemished records. The question is, how many of those teams have a chance to go unbeaten? I've painstakingly put together a little table to examine the relevant data (there's a key to the abbreviations beneath the table).

Team	Record	PWR	SSTR	PSPWR	FSPWR	Quality Wins	Quality Opponents Remaining
Hawaii Warriors	7-0	82.3	120	51.8	61.5	Ha! None	Boise State (83.7)
Kansas Jayhawks	6-0	93.0	119	59.3	75.6	at Kansas State (86.2)	at Oklahoma State (80.6) Missouri (86.4)
South Florida Bulls	6-0	91.8	88	69.5	78.1	at Auburn (88.5) West Virginia (94.9)	at Rutgers (84.0) at Connecticut (86.9) Cincinnati (89.3)
Ohio State Buckeyes	7-0	93.4	111	63.4	82.7	None	Michigan State (85.4) at Penn State (87.3) Illinois (82.7) at Michigan (81.6)
Boston College Eagles	7-0	90.0	114	63.3	81.2	Wake Forest (81.8) Georgia Tech (81.8)	at Virginia Tech (85.8) Florida State (84.9)
Arizona State Sun Devils	7-0	93.8	86	71.2	84.6	None	California (90.5) at Oregon (96.4) USC (86.5)

The Key:

PWR - The power rating as determined by my computer system.

SSTR - The ranking of a team's strength of schedule. It is derived from my computer power ranking system. Hawaii's 120 represents the easiest schedule in nation.

PSPWR - The average power rating of past opponents. This is just another way of presenting the SSTR.

FSPWR - The average power rating of future opponents. This is a snap shot evaluation of the remaining schedule strength for each team. The higher the average, the more difficult the schedule.

Quality Wins & Quality Opponents Remaining - This shows any Top 40 opponents past and future with that team's current power rating in parentheses.

So what does all of that data mean?

Hawaii, as shaky as they've been at times this season, has a really good look at an undefeated season. They are the only team in the country with two Division I-AA schools on the schedule. They only have one legitimate team all year, Boise State, and they get to play them in Hawaii. In fact, the Warriors only have one more visit to the mainland left on the schedule, a trip to play the Nevada Wolfpack. Not only can this team go undefeated, they should go undefeated. Whether or not we should respect that as an accomplishment is a whole other argument.

The Kansas Jayhawks schedule to this point is nearly as pathetic as Hawaii's. In Kansas' favor: the best case schedule against the Big XII South. No Texas. No Texas Tech. No Oklahoma, at least until the Big XII Championship game. Kansas will lose two or three of the remaining six; they're paper tigers with an outside chance to win the Big XII North.

The South Florida Bulls have already passed their two biggest tests: a trip to Auburn and the West Virginia Mountaineers. This team has a speedy, but slightly undersized defense and a young offense that shows flashes of explosiveness. As they've ascended the polls, South Florida has lost the ability to surprise teams; everyone will be gunning for them from here on out. Can they maintain their current high level of play? Sure, it's possible, but this is probably a two loss team and the first could very well come this Thursday at Rutgers.

Ohio State, the bully of the Midwest. They've spent the first two months of the season slapping around the Kent States and Akrons of the world, but now they're entering the meat of the Big Ten schedule. In the Buckeyes' favor is the failure of a team to emerge from the pack. The Big Ten this season is pretty solid top to bottom, but an elite team is impossible to find. Ohio State will be challenged every week, and they'll drop one, maybe even two along the way.

Boston College is in a similar situation as Ohio State. They're in a very solid conference as far as depth goes, but there just isn't an elite team to be found. This Boston College team is included in that assessment of the ACC. These guys have flirted with disaster several times this season. It helps to have a first round talent at QB, Matt Ryan, but he's about to get two difficult tests in a row at Virginia Tech and against Florida State. Boston College loses two games this regular season, one against a good team, one against a team they should beat.

Arizona State is screwed. They have Cal, Oregon, and USC as three of their remaining five games. The Sun Devils have the fire power, but defense isn't in their vocabulary. They definitely lose on the road to Oregon. I can entertain the possibility that they beat both Cal and USC, but more likely they take one of those games. Best case the Sun Devils go 10-2, they probably go 9-3, but could go into a meltdown death spiral and finish 8-4.

If you forced me to commit to an opinion, I'd say one team goes into bowl season undefeated, and that would be Hawaii. To varying degrees those universally weak schedules are hiding some major flaws. As conference play heats up and the competition gets stronger, those flaws are going to get exposed.