FEI Week 8; ACC Outlook Update

In the week 8 edition of the FEI, Clemson moves up from #21 to #13 after bouncing the previous #4, Miami dropped to #6 (Miami was an 18 point favorite last Saturday by FEI's reckoning). You can see the expanded FEI is now available at FootballOutsiders, just follow the link. Now we can see the justification for Clemson's high ranking--FEI has us at the 3rd strongest schedule in the country (thanks TCU, Georgia Tech) and while we grade out #42 on offense, we're all the way up at #8 on defense. By the way, FEI treats Division II (or whatever its called now) teams as a bye, hence no ranking for Coastal Carolina. Also: FEI says Central Michigan will give BC all they can handle on Saturday.

The Ken Massey meta-rankings has Clemson rise from #40 all the way to #25. I have to say, if you plotted the rankings of the two systems week to week, I think we'd see a lot less fluctuation in FEI thus far.

On to the updated ACC chart:
Despite winning in Miami, I don't see any reason to change the rest of the chart. I figured based on matchups that Miami could only be considered the "lean" favorite, which gave us a reasonable chance of pulling it out. In the end, I don't think Saturday's performance justifies giving Clemson better odds the rest of the way. On the other hand, GT confirmed my suspicion about the shallow nature of Virginia's ACC season "revival", and I'm close to putting the Virginia game in the Clemson "lock" column. Maybe next week. Meanwhile, the FSU-NC State game will likely have implications for next week's update.

What last Saturday really did for the Tigers was to improve their odds of taking the ACC. The range of likely outcomes for Clemson went from a 4-6 win spread to a 5-6 win spread. I still have to give BC the slightest of edges to win the division due to their weak conference schedule, but its something close to 5:4 odds while Clemson is at around 4:5. Its essentially a two-team race, with WF and FSU needing the complete implosion of both Clemson and BC to have a chance.