The college football weekend is upon us and the Big 10 is back in addition to the Mountain West. Couple these with the leagues that are already well into their seasons and it makes for a great weekend of college football. This dashboard is the college football watchability index, which highlights the most- and least- (if there could ever be such a thing with college football) watchable games of the week. The absolute value of the point spread is on the horizontal axis and this represents a measure of uncertainty of outcome. Lower point spreads, in absolute value terms, are expected to be closer games. The total (over/under) is plotted on the vertical axis, with higher totals representing games that are expected to be higher scoring. The shape of the point representing each game represents day and start time. The color of the point is differentiated by the use of Sagarin Ratings for each team and sums them for the two teams playing in the game. Gold represents a combined high sum (could be 2 good teams or a dominant team in the game) and Red represents a combined low sum (not among the better teams playing in the game).
Fans generally prefer games in the upper-left hand quadrant, where games are expected to be close and high-scoring. The top games in this quadrant this weekend are Auburn-Mississippi, Virginia Tech-Wake Forest, Baylor-Texas, and Penn St.-Indiana. Other potential interesting games in this quadrant are Florida St.-Louisville and Oklahoma-TCU.
The lower-left hand quadrant houses games that are expected to be close, but relatively lower scoring. The prime game in this quadrant is Michigan-Minnesota. Other exciting matchups here include South Carolina-LSU, Cincinnati-SMU, Kentucky-Missouri, and Notre Dame-Pittsburgh. In this quadrant, I’m personally also looking forward to UL-Lafayette-UAB.
Games that are not expected to be close but are expected to be high-scoring affairs are in the upper-right hand quadrant. The best games, noted by shapes that are more yellow/gold in nature, include the top teams in the nation including Alabama (at Tennessee), Ohio State (hosting Nebraska), and Clemson (hosting Syracuse).
The lower-right hand quadrant features games that are not expected to be close, nor high-scoring. There are some potentially interesting games here, however, with matchups between Illinois-Wisconsin, Florida Atlantic-Marshall, and Utah St.-Boise St.
In relation to Saturday, if I were forced to watch only one game at each timeslot (which makes me sad to think about each week), I would choose Auburn-Mississippi (in a tough choice over Oklahoma-TCU and Florida Atlantic-Marshall) early, Penn St-Indiana midday, Michigan-Minnesota in the evening (although I’m tempted by Cincinnati-SMU), and Air Force-San Jose St. late. Have a great weekend and enjoy the games!
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