2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 15

The final week of the regular season is upon us!

Only fourteen games separate us from the end of the supposed "most sacred" regular season in sports. I've refuted it enough times on here that I won't do so again. Instead, I'm going to shift the focus to the games on the field.

At this point, all non-conference games are complete. Army and Navy still have to play their game in a couple weeks, but the two teams have a combined ten wins, so neither is a threat to make the Death to the BCS Playoffs. Most of the 28 teams who are playing between Thursday and Saturday however, are. Some need this win to get in. Others are likely safe without, if this week's mock bracket has any indication.

Since there are no non-conference games left, I'll copy my NCSS rankings list from last week. These are the official numbers and are used with the assumption that I didn't mess something up somewhere. Listed with each conference today are the remaining games in conference that have an impact on the conference championship. To follow, I'll make some final comments about NCSS.

1. Conference USA (6.23). Marshall hosts Louisiana Tech in the Conference USA Championship Game.
2. Mountain West (6.17). Boise State hosts Fresno State in the Mountain West Championship Game.
3. Sun Belt (6.09). No games; Georgia Southern has already clinched the Sun Belt's automatic bid.
4. American Athletic (6.09). Central Florida visits East Carolina and Cincinnati hosts Houston. UCF and Cincinnati are half a game back of Memphis for the American Athletic Championship. If there is a tie, the team with the best College Football Playoff Selection Committee ranking will receive the conference's automatic bid.
5. MAC (6.08). Northern Illinois plays Bowling Green at a neutral site for the MAC Championship Game.
6. Big 10 (4.43). Ohio State plays Wisconsin at a neutral site for the Big 10 Championship Game.
7. ACC (4.21). Florida State plays Georgia Tech at a neutral site for the ACC Championship Game.
8. SEC (3.36). Alabama plays Missouri at a neutral site for the SEC Championship Game.
9. Pac 12 (3.33). Oregon plays Arizona at a neutral site for the Pac 12 Championship Game.
10. Big XII (3.10). Baylor hosts Kansas State and TCU hosts Iowa State. Baylor needs a win or TCU loss to clinch the Big XII automatic bid. TCU needs a win and a Baylor loss to clinch the automatic bid. (NOTE: This is being done for the Death to the BCS Playoffs despite Bob Bowlsby being a moron.)

Fairly simple, other than the American Athletic tiebreaker. None of the three teams mentioned are in the Top 25 of the Committee's rankings to give this any semblance of a tiebreak. If there's a two-way tie, there's no head to head tiebreaker, even though there should be. I'll have to dig into that if both UCF and Cincy win.

As for the NCSS ranking itself... I'm sure if you're new to COAS and reading this post, you may look at this and say to yourself that I'm biased against the Power conferences looking at the rankings. Not true. The independents, being that all of their games are out of conference, boast an average NCSS of 19.00, counting the Army-Navy game taking place in a couple weeks. Their scores are obviously inflated, given their independent status. The mid major conferences getting higher numbers than the Power conferences is merely a matter of scheduling.

Photo by David Banks (Getty Images)

Almost every school in the nation scheduled at least one FCS team this season. If you want to confirm for yourself, you can check my spreadsheet with all the data and look in each row for the "-1" result. With only a few exceptions, every school has one. This brought scores down to some degree. Even for the schools that didn't, every team gets scored in the same fashion. You get one point for playing an FBS opponent not from your conference, with a bonus point if it's a power conference foe and another if you went on the road. For a lot of schools though, extra home games were better, so many of the Power conference schools missed out on possible points. Then from there, a lot of the Power conference schools didn't schedule schools from other Power conferences. There are some exceptions (the ACC-SEC matchups from last week, schools like Northwestern and Michigan State traveling to face Pac 12 foes, to name some), but by and large, a lot of the non-conference games were mid major schools traveling to face Power conference schools. It reflects that in these rankings. Since the mid-majors did these, they'd often get three points for their non-conference games while their opponents only got one.

Meanwhile, the Pac 12 and Big XII bringing up the bottom of these rankings does show a flaw in the system, and is why I don't use this metric a ton for deciding playoff teams. Both conferences have a nine-game league schedule, which limits non-conference opportunities to three games. As such, this means fewer opportunities to affect this number, and this is why the SEC passed both up last week (that, and the SEC having those last-week-of-the-season matchups against the ACC to cover up their pathetic scheduling otherwise).

Photo by Ray Carlin (USA TODAY Sports)

As for individual schools? Once we get past the inflated independent scores (Notre Dame led with 26 NCSS points, BYU had 19, Navy 16, Army 15), the best team in the nation with regards to non-conference scheduling was Louisiana-Monroe with 11 points. Their four non-conference games involved a home date against Wake Forest and trips to LSU, Kentucky and Texas A&M. This is how conferences like the Sun Belt get such a leg up on conferences like the SEC. Wake Forest got two points for its trip to Monroe while the aforementioned SEC schools only got one for welcoming the Warhawks to their turf. UL-M was something of an exception, as they didn't have an FCS team on their schedule. The next highest school, Massachusetts had 10 NCSS points and had a similar schedule in that they had no FCS opponent, but they provided some balance by hosting Boston College and Colorado before traveling to Vanderbilt and Penn State. My two teams tied next at 9 points also didn't have an FCS opponent (SMU and Florida Atlantic). I think the point is made. Overall again, if you want to see each school's score, you can consult my spreadsheet here.

After Saturday, all of the automatic bids will be set. Check back on Monday when I unveil my final set of Playoff Points rankings and the official bracket for the 2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs!