Florida State-Oregon, Baylor-Ohio State decided with advanced statistics

With the college football season entering its final month and six undefeated teams in the running for two open spots in the BCS National Championship Game, it’s time for that great American tradition: advanced statistical analysis of the contenders!

Over at Addicted to Quack, college football’s hottest debate is running amok: Who should be No. 2, Oregon or Florida State? ATQ examines advanced statistics from Football Outsiders and our own Football Study Hall, and surprisingly finds that the Seminoles are a significant favorite:

[W]ith all of my biases and whatnot, it’s impossible to like Oregon here based on these numbers. The biggest advantage Oregon has is on special teams, and while that is good it is not likely to carry a team to victory by itself. If the teams were closer in S+P I might say that this would give Oregon the edge, but they’re not; Oregon’s D is simply outclassed against FSU here and even the homer in me can’t say otherwise. S+P also tends to be the more reliable of the two metrics early on in the season with less volatility, so that’s another factor in FSU’s favor.

Given these numbers, I’d expect FSU to be anywhere from a 5 to 8 point favorite, and given these numbers I’d likely take FSU to win and cover.

Ouch, that sucks.

Each offense has an advantage over the opposing defense with Baylor’s being significantly larger than that of Ohio State, and lurking in the background is that ridiculous, almost unfathomably good Buckeye special teams unit. Basically, I rank the individual units in this game in the following order:

1. Baylor O
2. Ohio State ST
3. Ohio State O
4. Baylor D
5. Ohio State D
112. Baylor ST

ODB concedes that Ohio State’s special teams are miles ahead of their Baylor counterparts, but questions whether it’s enough to overcome a statistical disadvantage on both sides of the ball:

We think Baylor will score, so tOSU will get the chance to return kicks. That’s probably going to happen. But if we don’t punt much, their advantages in returning punts won’t matter. The same goes for their own kickoff team, should they not score (that’s not a prediction, it’s an example). The nature of special teams play is inherently unpredictable, but that nature also lends itself to a situation where Baylor could get up a touchdown or two, then kickoff to Ohio State and have them run it back, completely changing the complexion of the game. And based on this, it’s totally possible, if not likely, that we will give up something that makes us shake our heads.

Of course, the plausible circumstances that would lead to an Ohio State-Baylor matchup in January -- wholesale carnage among the nation’s top 3 teams or an Ohio State loss in the Big Ten Championship Game forcing the Buckeyes into the Fiesta Bowl -- don’t look particularly likely. This game might live only on paper.

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