Week 11 Shocker Alert: Which Top-25 College Football Giants Are on the Brink of an Upset?
Ever wonder what happens when you hand over the massive, madcap world of college football predictions to a supercomputer? Spoiler alert: It doesn’t just toss out guesses—it crunches mountains of data with a cool precision that would make any stat geek drool. This season’s landscape is wide open—Alabama and Georgia eyeing the crown, newcomers like Texas shaking things up, and surprise contenders from every corner vying for a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff. But here’s the kicker: while we all love the drama and the giant moments, the real story is how TRACR—our Team Rating Adjusted for Conference and Roster model—turns raw numbers into gut-check predictions. So whether it’s a rivalry game that’ll have fans on the edge or a lesser-known matchup quietly shaping the season, our supercomputer’s got thoughts, opinions, and some seriously bold calls each week. Ready to dive into what the data says about which top teams might just stumble in Week 11? Let’s get to it. LEARN MORE
With the help of our trusty supercomputer, we’re providing college football predictions for every game each week.
As always, our projection model is spitting out its data-backed predictions for all college football games throughout the 2024 season.
In a relatively wide-open landscape this year, traditional SEC powerhouses Alabama and Georgia are among the favorites to win the national championship. Tennessee and Ole Miss are also contenders, with SEC newcomer Texas showing it’s also a legitimate threat.
Big Ten teams Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State all expect to be vying for a place in the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. Iowa State, BYU and Kansas State have emerged in the unpredictable Big 12, while Boise State, Notre Dame, Army and SMU hope to make the playoff from outside the power conferences.
Now, all of that is a little far in the future to be given much consideration yet, but our TRACR-powered supercomputer is continuing to make predictions for every game this season.
TRACR (Team Rating Adjusted for Conference and Roster) is a net efficiency stat that measures how a team should play against a standardized level of competition. The model is based on an EPA (expected points added) calculation weighed by opponent strength.
A team with a TRACR of 0.0 is considered an average team. So if a team with a 7.5 TRACR faced a team with a minus-3.0 TRACR on a neutral site, the better team would be expected to win by about 10.5 points if both teams ran the same number of plays, according to the model.
Each week throughout the NCAA football season, our model will have something to say about every game. No matter if it’s a headliner like Ohio State-Michigan in another chapter of a legendary rivalry, or a game we may all be a bit less excited about, it unsentimentally beeps its way through its college football picks, boldly dropping predictions for each.
Several key matchups take place across the Saturday slate, with Florida taking on AP No. 5 Texas, No. 2 Georgia visiting No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 11 Alabama at No. 14 LSU and Washington heading to No. 6 Penn State later in the evening.
For those matchups and everything between, we’ve taken plenty of data, pumped it through our predictive model and come up with its win probabilities.
Keep in mind that these percentages move throughout the week as player news shake things up (the following win probabilities were as of Thursday). You can always find the win percentages – pregame or live – on our season-long predictions page.
Note: The ranking below represents where the team sits in TRACR, while the percentage indicates win probability for the given matchup. The home team is in bold.
Friday
No. 20 Iowa 77.6%, UCLA 22.4%
Iowa has it typical strong defense, ranking 13th in the country in defensive TRACR. But it’s shown some life offensively this season, ranking 38th in offensive TRACR. UCLA, meanwhile, is 52nd in the nation in offensive TRACR.
Saturday
No. 1 Ohio State 99.4%, Purdue 0.6%
The Boilermakers have lost seven straight road games overall, their longest road losing streak since a nine-game stretch that ended in 2016. Ohio State has won 10 straight home games against Purdue, last losing in Columbus in 1988 (31-26).
No. 2 Tennessee 97.8%, Mississippi State 2.2%
Tennessee has won seven of its last eight games against Mississippi State, winning all seven games by 10 or more points. The Volunteers have not lost a game to an unranked Mississippi State team since 1994 (24-21 loss).
No. 3 Alabama 79.6%, No. 12 LSU 20.4%
Under Nick Saban (2007-23), Alabama had a 13-5 record against LSU, tied for their most losses against any conference opponent over this span (Auburn). During Saban’s tenure as head coach of LSU (2000-04), the Tigers were 4-1 against the Crimson Tide.
No. 4 Ole Miss 51.0%, No. 6 Georgia 49.0%
Georgia beat Ole Miss last season 52-17 its largest win in the series since a 49-0 shutout in 1974. The 52 points are the most that either team has scored in the matchup’s history.
No. 5 Indiana 94.4%, Michigan 5.6%
Michigan has won 27 of its last 28 games against Indiana, a run that started with a 31-6 home win in 1988. Among matchups with at least 15 games played in that time, the .964 winning percentage is the highest by one FBS team against another.
No. 7 Texas 82.1%, No. 15 Florida 17.9%
Quinn Ewers now has two career games against ranked opponents with at least three passing touchdowns and a 70.0 completion percentage (2024 at Vanderbilt, 2023 versus Oklahoma State). All other Texas players over the past 25 seasons have combined for zero such games.
No. 8 Notre Dame 94.5%, Florida State 5.5%
Notre Dame has won three straight games against Florida State, scoring 40+ points in each game. Prior to this win streak, the Fighting Irish had lost three straight to the Seminoles, scoring 41 points in total during the losing streak.
No. 9 Texas A&M (Idle)
No. 10 Miami (FL) 81.0%, Georgia Tech 19.0%
Georgia Tech has won three of five meetings with Miami since the start of 2018 despite being 15 games under .500 overall (33-48) during that time while the Hurricanes are 15 over (49-34). Each of the Yellow Jackets’ three wins have been by seven points or fewer, including a 23-20 win last season on Haynes King’s 44-yard TD pass with 1 second left.
No. 11 Oregon 89.4%, Maryland 10.6%
Dillon Gabriel has 177 career touchdowns responsible for (passing, rushing and receiving), the most of any active FBS player. With two more TDs, Gabriel will pass Case Keenum (178) for the most TDs responsible for by any D-I player in NCAA history.
No. 13 Clemson 64.9%, No. 24 Virginia Tech 35.1%
Clemson has six straight wins against Virginia Tech, though the teams have only met once
since 2018 (45-10 Clemson win in 2020). This is the third straight time the teams have met
in Blacksburg as Clemson hasn’t hosted the Hokies since 2012.
No. 14 Army 95.5%, North Texas 4.5%
Army has the longest active win streak of any FBS team, having won 12 straight games since a loss to UMass in October 2023. It is the Black Knights’ longest win streak since winning 17 straight spanning the 1949 and 1950 seasons.
No. 16 Penn State 64.8%, Washington 35.2%
The Nittany Lions are averaging 2.13 sacks per game, after averaging 3.77 sacks per game in 2023. This decrease of minus-1.64 sacks per game from last season to this season is the third largest of any FBS team (Troy, Oregon State).
No. 17 South Carolina 65.5%, Vanderbilt 34.5%
South Carolina has been elite defensively, ranking eight in the country in defensive TRACR. And the Gamecocks are balanced, ranking sixth against the run and sixth against the pass.
No. 18 Arkansas (Idle)
No. 19 Louisville (Idle)
No. 21 SMU (Idle)
No. 22 Iowa State 66.0%, Kansas 34.0%
Kansas has won its last two games against Iowa State after going 1-11 over the previous 12 meetings. The Jayhawks haven’t beaten the Cyclones three times in a row since a five-game streak from 2005-09.
No. 23 USC (Idle)
No. 25 Auburn (Idle)
AP Top 25 teams not ranked in the TRACR top 25 rankings: No. 9 BYU (at Utah), No. 12 Boise State (vs. Nevada), No. 20 Washington State (vs. Utah State), No. 21 Colorado (at Texas Tech), No. 22 Kansas State (vs. Arizona State), No. 23 Pitt (vs. Virginia), No. 24 Vanderbilt (vs. South Carolina).
Stats and facts provided by Stats Perform’s data insights team. Be sure to check out our MLB and NBA coverage, as well as all our college football and NFL picks. Follow us on X, Threads, Facebook and Instagram for more!
The post College Football Predictions: Which Top-25 Teams Could Go Down in Week 11? appeared first on Opta Analyst.
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