Week 7 college football power ratings and game spreads

Quarterback injuries have been a big story for a couple of weeks, but we’ve got even more of them to worry about this week. Players like NC State’s Devin Leary and Kansas’s Jalon Daniels mean a lot to the line and coaches in college football don’t have to be as forthcoming with injury information as the guys in the pros. As a result, we’ve had some surprise starters and a lot of uncertainty with the lines.

A lot of bad teams have been changing their quarterbacks as well in hopes of sparking some kind of turnaround. You never really know how a backup is going to perform. San Diego State only scored 16 points against the lowly Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, but the Aztecs have a new leading passer in Jalen Mayden. He’s played one game and has half of the pass attempts of Braxton Burmeister, but has outgained him through the air by 59 yards. That’s just one example from this past week.

In the era of college football free agency and the transfer portal, there are more moving parts than ever before. It was reported last week that multiple SMU players were going to sit out and preserve a year of eligibility by redshirting. I’ve also heard about the same thing happening at Colorado. Players at other schools will be doing this as well. It may be harder than ever before to handicap college football, especially by doing power ratings.

I still like using them as a guide and to try and get out in front of the market with some lines that I think will move, but I will be focused on overhauling my process for next season and also fixing my in-season updating process. Being adaptable is arguably the most important trait in this business. It takes time and it takes humility to be able to look at your process and assess how well it is working. Right now, the QB injuries are making it tough to get a true evaluation, as there are so many teams that are moving targets because they have those injuries or are playing teams that are missing key pieces.

Trying to get a little better, sharper and smarter each day is the goal and that’s what I’ll continue to look to do the rest of the way.

Here are my Week 7 Power Ratings:

Here are my Week 7 adjustments:

Up: UCF + 2, Rutgers + 1, Colorado State + 1, San Jose State + 3.5, Indiana + 1, Buffalo + 4.5, Pitt + 2, Ohio State + 3, South Carolina + 1.5, Florida State + 1, Missouri + 2.5, Georgia State + 2.5, Kent State + 2.5, Texas State + 4, James Madison + 3.5, Boise State + 4.5, Oregon + 1.5, UCLA + 4, Arizona State + 4.5, Stanford + 1.5, UL Monroe + 2, Tennessee + 1.5, Texas Tech + 1.5, Texas + 7, Toledo + 2, UTSA + 2, Notre Dame + 3.5, Purdue + 2.5, Eastern Michigan + 2, Wisconsin + 1.5, Georgia Tech + 3, New Mexico + 2, Troy + 3, UConn + 3, TCU + 2, Penn State + 4.5

Down: SMU -2, UNLV -4.5, Maryland -2, Miami (FL) -3, Bowling Green -3, Virginia Tech -3, Boston College -2.5, Michigan State -2, NC State -4, Florida -2, Georgia Southern -1.5, Miami (OH) -1.5, App State -2, Army -3, Akron -2, Utah -4, Washington -3, Coastal Carolina -2, East Carolina -2, Oklahoma State -2.5, Arkansas -4, Northwestern -3, Western Kentucky -3, BYU -3, Cincinnati -2, Western Michigan -2, Tulsa -2.5, Iowa -2, Alabama -1.5, Kentucky -3, Nebraska -2.5, Oregon State -5.5

Injury*: Louisville -5 (if Cunningham out), Kentucky -7 (if Levis out), Alabama -6 (if Young out), Arkansas -4 (if Jefferson out), Kansas -6 (if Daniels out), NC State (-6 if Leary out), Illinois (-4 if DeVito out)

Those are just some of the quarterbacks missing or those that were starters and may not be going forward. With some teams and some games, the opposing defense just may not have been prepared for a QB change, but the team the following week has some film on the new guy. Coaches seem to have much quicker trigger fingers with less loyalty across the board.

Here are some notes on the biggest adjustments:

Texas + 7: Quinn Ewers looks to be the real deal and I think a big reason why Texas was bumped so much this week was because of how he looked against Oklahoma. The Sooners are obviously in bad shape right now, so I think the Texas win has been overrated a tad in the market, but there is a different look and feel with the program.

Oregon State -5.5: I guess I got a little overanxious with the Beavers after a nice start to the season. Their last three data points haven’t been great, though they did play two good teams in USC and Utah. I was way off on the Washington State line this week, so I had to adjust. Maybe I’m just too low on the Cougars.

Penn State + 4.5: I’m not sure how or why this happened, but I had Michigan about a two-touchdown favorite against Penn State this week at the Big House. Apparently I’m too low on the Nittany Lions or too high on a Michigan team that hasn’t really played anybody yet, but I bumped Penn State up a bit out of caution that I was making a big mistake by not viewing them more favorably.

Boise State + 4.5: Welcome Back, Koetter, as in Dirk Koetter, who has completely fixed the Boise State offense in a two-week span. The Broncos have scored 75 points against San Diego State and Fresno State and now head into the bye week with the ground game rolling and a whole lot more confidence. Boise State has rushed for 316 yards each of the last two weeks.

Arizona State + 4.5: Maybe the rumors are true that sabotage took place to get Herm Edwards fired in Tempe. The Sun Devils beat a very good Washington team last week and were pretty competitive with USC before running out of gas and turning the ball over in the second half. There’s a different feel to this team now and I have to respect that. They’re off this week, but I think we’ll see that respect in the market.

Buffalo + 4.5: The MAC stinks, but Daaaaaa Bulls are playing pretty well. This is a team that lost on a Hail Mary against Holy Cross earlier this season, but has scored 112 points against three MAC opponents and is the only team without a loss in the East Division.

UNLV -4.5: The margin for error is so small with a program like UNLV. Doug Brumfield is questionable this week and his absence was a big reason why the Rebels only scored seven points against San Jose State last week. He doesn’t play defense, though, and that side of the ball has started to falter.

UCLA + 4: Okay, maybe the win over Washington lost some luster with this week’s performance from the Huskies against Arizona State, but that’s a really good Utah team that UCLA pushed around this past weekend. This offense is absolutely humming with Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zach Charbonnet. I’d venture to say it’s been a long time since Utah gave up 8.23 yards per play to a Pac-12 opponent, but that’s what happened here.

Here are my Week 7 lines:

Date	Away	Home	My Line
10/12	Louisiana	Marshall	-11
10/13	Baylor	West Virginia	+ 3
	Temple	UCF	-27
10/14	Navy	SMU	-14
	UTSA	FIU	+ 29.5
10/15	Kent State	Toledo	-7
	Buffalo	UMass	+ 17
	Alabama (w/ Young)*	Tennessee	+ 12.5
	Vanderbilt	Georgia	-41
	Miami (FL)	Virginia Tech	+ 10
	Penn State	Michigan	-11.5
	Mississippi State	Kentucky (w/ Levis)*	+ 2
	North Carolina	Duke	+ 10
	LSU	Florida	+ 2
	Maryland	Indiana	+ 6.5
	NC State (w/ Leary)*	Syracuse	+ 2.5
	UConn	Ball State	-5.5
	Central Michigan	Akron	+ 17
	Nebraska	Purdue	-11
	Clemson	Florida State	+ 4
	Memphis	East Carolina	-8
	Tulane	USF	+ 10
	Minnesota	Illinois (w/ DeVito)	+ 3.5
	Miami (OH)	Bowling Green	+ 10
	Northern Illinois	Eastern Michigan	-1
	Old Dominion	Coastal Carolina	-11.5
	James Madison	Georgia Southern	+ 14.5
	Arkansas State	Southern Miss	-2
	Arkansas (w/ Jefferson)*	BYU	+ 3.5
	New Mexico	New Mexico State	+ 5
	Cal	Colorado	+ 19.5
	USC	Utah	+ 1
	Washington State	Oregon State	-6.5
	Arizona	Washington	-11
	San Jose State	Fresno State	+ 7
	Texas State	Troy	-19.5
	Auburn	Ole Miss	-14.5
	UL Monroe	South Alabama	-19
	Kansas (w/ Daniels)*	Oklahoma	-3
	Oklahoma State	TCU	-3.5
	Iowa State	Texas	-12.5
	Ohio	Western Michigan	-3.5
	Wisconsin	Michigan State	+ 7
	Western Kentucky	Middle Tennessee	+ 3
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