Atomic Football Update

A few notes:

#1 We're officially up and running on al.com. Check us out at http://www.al.com/atomic-football/. Thank you to the folks there (Brian McAlister et al.) for making it happen.

#2 We've made some tweaks to our team pages so that the background graphics are actually all "in the background." What this means is that if you print the page, you can turn off the background in your print dialog box and get a nice, neat printout of your team's schedule and stats. If you've never checked out our team pages, here's an example.

#3 For those not familiar with our site, we generally update our numbers on Sunday afternoon.

#4 If you are a fan of the FCS, D2, D3, or NAIA, we could use your help. We are seeking good sources of data on returning starters on these divisions/associations. We have leads on a few preseason magazines, but we would like to confirm that they have the numbers we need. If you have info on this, please comment on this post or contact us through the Atomic Football web site.

2009 Most Competitive Schedules

Here are Atomic Football's estimates of who plays the most competitive schedules in the country across all divisions. Not the toughest schedules, but the schedules where the opponents are most well-matched (i.e., the most parity). Another way to look at it is... which teams have the most unpredictable, and perhaps most exciting, games on their schedules?

Not surprisingly, 12 of the 13 most competitive schedules in the FBS come out of the MAC and ACC. Here are the top 6...

#1 Bowling Green

#2 Virginia

#3 Wake Forest

#4 Georgia Tech

#5 Toledo

#6 Ohio U.

The most competitive schedule outside the MAC and ACC? Purdue at #9 on the list.

Here's what we have on the other divisions. You'll note that the teams tend to cluster into one or two conferences. After all, within a conference, parity for one tends to mean parity for all...

FCS:

#1 Princeton

#2 Brown

#3 Columbia

#4 Tennessee State

#5 Cornell NY

#6 Austin Peay

D2:

#1 Ferris State

#2 Fairmont State

#3 West Virginia State

#4 Lane

#5 Charleston WV

#6 SE Oklahoma State

D3:

#1 Randolph Macon

#2 Lycoming

#3 Wilkes

#4 Bridgewater VA

#5 Gustavus Adolphus

#6 Franklin & Marshall

NAIA:

#1 Eastern Oregon

#2 Montana St-Northern

#3 Montana-Western

#4 Montana Tech

#5 Rocky Mountain

#6 Valley City State

If I get a chance, I'll try to add "least competitive schedules" to this post.

2009 Undefeated Regular Season Predictions

Something else a little different... Who is good enough, and whose schedule is favorable enough, to go undefeated during the 2009 regular season? Here goes...

FBS: Expect one undefeated. Florida has about a 48% chance. Oklahoma about a 13% chance. USC, Texas, Penn State, and Boise each have between a 5 and 7% chance. TCU, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Iowa, Alabama, Cal, and Pitt fall in the range of 1 to 4% chance.

FCS: Odds are that no one in the FCS will go undefeated. The best chance goes to Montana (6%) followed by Dayton (3%), Richmond (3%), and James Madison (3%). App State and Harvard each have a 2% chance. A host of others are at 1%.

D2: Expect two undefeated teams. Chances are as follows: Minn-Duluth (43%), UNA (22%), Abilene Christian (20%), NW Missouri State (16%), Grand Valley (15%), Indiana PA (10%). About 20 others fall between 1 and 5%.

D3: Expect at least three undefeated teams... Mount Union (73%), UW-Whitewater (38%), Mary Hardin-Baylor (27%), Monmouth IL (23%), Wash & Jeff (19%), Millsaps (17%), Wabash (13%), Case Western (11%), and several others between 5 and 8% (Wheaton, Franklin, Wesley, Redlands, Muhlenberg, Willamette, and Wartburg).

NAIA: Expect one and possibly two undefeated teams... Saint Francis IN (31%), Morningside (21%), Carroll MT (14%), Lindenwood (14%), Friends (14%). The rest are all less than 8%.

One caveat... beyond the FBS, I cannot account for returning starters for the other divisions. So, for these divisions, the above is basically projecting last year's teams into this year's schedules. The numbers I post to the team pages (http://www.atomicfootball.com/af-team-links.html) from which these projections come will be updated as the season progresses. Expect the biggest changes after week one when this year's performance first begins to get factored in.