Welcome to the 2022 College Football Hourglass
Jake Wimberly
Welcome to the 2022 College Football Hourglass - an analytical approach to college football where we give out way to early records, rankings and more. Come game time, we turn into a full fledge gaming apparatus where we list Wim’s winners, weekly and other information like our College Football Playoff projector poll and more.
This is year seven - time fly’s when you are having fun and college football is fun!
This past year we saw Georgia hoist the trophy for the first time since 1980 as Kirby Smart finally got over on Nick Saban and in the biggest game of the season. We had Georgia in the championship game this time last year - but against Oklahoma. Yes, we whiff at times just like anyone else.
But props to Georgia for getting the title; now it’s on to 2022.
A lot has changed in the last year from NIL, to the transfer portal growing exponentially and an offseason that saw record coaching changes around college football. This year’s analytic crunch in college football, which normally takes about three months to pull off was a bit more challenging and will be for anyone who dabbles in predictions and analytics. The transfer portal has totally changed the game; both good and bad.
Caleb Williams will be tasked with turning SC back into a national contender.
There’s a lot we don’t know that will show up overtime as the season unfolds, like just how good will mass roster changes really affect places like USC, Oklahoma, LSU and Ole Miss?
What we do know is there should be some really good college football for 2022, possibly a team or two that might punch their first ticket to the playoff and a lot of heart racing Saturday’s coming your way this fall.
As always, we have power rankings ready, which differ from our final call predictions, coaching rankings, quarterbacks and more; so let’s get to it.
We have enjoyed great success living over 60 percent on all plays against the number and totals. And - our way to early record predictions have hit way inside a three game clip.
Let’s get to the 2022 season starting now.
2022 Power 10:
1 Alabama 190.86
2 Ohio State 179.82
3 Georgia 164.81
4 Texas A&M 140.60
5 Clemson 129.72
6 Penn State 128.59
7 Michigan 125.50
8 USC 124.31
9 Miami 122.98
10 Tennessee 121.76
Dabo Swinney looks to get Clemson back to the College Football Playoff in 2022.
To know surprise - Alabama is the number one team in our power rankings, followed by Ohio State, then Georgia and everyone else. The number to the right of the teams is simply an identifier of all the criteria together that gives us a value for each team. In determining a teams value I use a three year recruiting number (now with the incorporation of transfers), a three year coaching number that is ever changing, a returning quarterback number, Impact Ball Catcher Metric (receivers that matter), offensive and defensive efficiency numbers and more.
I will post the entire list of power rankings in another piece, but again, to emphasis this is strictly a power ranking and the final rankings coming out with team records will differ for a lot of teams.
2022 Group of Five Power 10:
1 Cincinnati 107.05
2 UCF 83.53
3 Costal Carolina 80.75
4 SMU 76.51
5 Houston 74.67
6 Memphis 71.68
7 Fresno State 70.93
8 Boise State 65.78
9 San Diego State 63.01
10 Tulane 59.55
Cincinnati made history last year, by punching a ticket to the College Football Playoff. This year, the Bearcats break in a new quarterback and must replace several key pieces off last year’s team. The question is now will Cincinnati, Central Florida or someone else be able to replicate what the Bearcats did in 2021?
Boise State has slipped amongst the Group of Five powers so it will be interesting to see in the new age of college football - can they return to the top of the G5?
Talent and Recruiting:
We know it’s about the Jims and Joes when it comes to winning and winning big. The transfer portal, along with NIL has totally changed the way rosters are built. I use a three year average to define talent, because rarely do you see a team that is loaded with year four guys or a balance in classes. What we see now is massive turnover, around 24 players per team, so these rosters are changing fast.
I categorize teams in three catigory’s - the first group of teams are those that have enough talent to win the National Title. Of course you have to have everything else in place, the schedule must be conducive to a deep title run and other factors.
The second group of teams have typically enough talent in a given setting where they could make the playoff and the third set, likely has no shot to make the playoff as they just don’t have the right talent mix.
Texas A&M made the biggest recruiting haul in the history of college football this past recruiting cycle.
Below is the top 40 most talent teams in 2022. Again, we will address talent all together down the road.
1 Alabama 2 1 2 1.67 128.3333333 98.72
2 Georgia 3 3 1 2.33 127.6666667 98.21
3 Ohio State 4 2 5 3.67 126.3333333 97.18
4 Texas A&M 1 7 6 4.67 125.3333333 96.41
5 Clemson 13 5 3 7.00 123 94.62
6 LSU 12 7 7 8.67 121.3333333 93.33
7 Oklahoma 8 11 11 10.00 120.00 92.31
8 Texas 5 17 9 10.33 119.67 92.05
9 Notre Dame 6 9 17 10.67 119.3333333 91.79
10 Michigan 9 10 14 11.00 119 91.54
11 Oregon 17 6 12 11.67 118.3333333 91.03
12 Miami 11 12 13 12.00 118 90.77
13 Tennessee 16 16 10 14.00 116 89.23
14 Penn State 7 21 15 14.33 115.6666667 88.97
15 North Carolina 10 14 19 14.33 115.6666667 88.97
16 Florida 25 13 14 17.33 112.6666667 86.67
CHAMPIONSHIP CUT LINE
17 Auburn 18 27 7 17.33 112.6666667 86.67
18 Florida State 19 22 22 21.00 109 83.85
19 Kentucky 14 33 23 23.33 106.6666667 82.05
20 Wisconsin 34 15 25 24.67 105.3333333 81.03
21 Miss. State 23 25 27 25.00 105 80.77
22 Ole Miss 21 18 39 26.00 104 80.00
23 Arkansas 26 24 30 26.67 103.3333333 79.49
24 Nebraska 41 22 20 27.67 102.3333333 78.72
25 Iowa 29 23 34 28.67 101.3333333 77.95
26 Maryland 36 19 31 28.67 101.3333333 77.95
27 Stanford 20 50 21 30.33 99.66666667 76.67
28 Missouri 15 29 50 31.33 98.66666667 75.90
29 Utah 35 31 29 31.67 98.33333333 75.64
30 Michigan State 24 31 43 32.67 97.33333333 74.87
PLAYOFF CUT LINE but this is possibly growing
31 USC 50 8 45 34.33 95.66666667 73.59
32 UCLA 43 30 32 35.00 95 73.08
33 Oklahoma State 22 39 45 35.33 94.67 72.82
34 West Virginia 37 40 37 38.00 92.00 70.77
35 South Carolina 28 68 18 38.00 92 70.77
36 California 55 28 38 40.33 89.66666667 68.97
37 TCU 33 61 28 40.67 89.33 68.72
38 Georgia Tech 51 47 26 41.33 88.66666667 68.21
39 Minnesota 52 37 36 41.67 88.33333333 67.95
40 Cincinatti 44 42 40 42.00 88 67.69
Quarterback Play defines the game:
Joe Burrow, Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence; even Stetson Bennett in the fourth quarter last year; at some point a dude is going to have to make a play to win you championships. Quarterback play can take a good team to great, a mediocre team to good and so on. It can also take a team the opposite direction.
This one position defines a team in a lot of ways, which is why we focus on this metric in our model.
We will dive off into this more, but below are the top 30 quarterbacks for 2022.
TOP POWER FIVE QUARTERBACKS 2022
1 Alabama Bryce Young 45.8
2 Ohio State CJ Stroud 42.4
3 NC State Devin Leary 33.4
4 Tennessee Hendon Hooker 32.3
5 Wake Forest Sam Hartman 32.2
6 Miss. State Will Rogers 32.1
7 Virginia Brennan Armstrong 27.4
8 Georgia Stetson Bennet IV 23.8
9 South Carolina Spencer Rattler 23.6
10 Arkansas KJ Jefferson 22.7
11 Nebraska Casey Thompson 22.1
12 Miami Tyler Van Dyke 21.9
13 USC Caleb Williams 21.9
14 Texas A&M Max Johnson 21.8
15 Michigan State Payton Thome 21.3
16 Louisville Micale Cunningham 21.2
17 Purdue Aidan O'Connell 20.7
18 UCLA Dorian Thompson - Robinson 20.4
19 Oklahoma Dillion Gabriel 19.7
20 Utah Cameron Rising 19.5
21 Washington State Cameron Ward 19.5
22 Maryland Taulia Tagovailoa 18.9
23 BYU Jaren Hall 18.5
24 Arizona Jayden De Laura 17.7
25 Penn State Sean Clifford 16.1
26 Boston College Phil Jurkovec 15.6
27 Kentucky Will Levis 15.1
28 Kansas State Adrian Martinez 13.8
29 TCU Max Duggan 13.1
30 Baylor Gerry Bohanon 13.1
TOP GROUP OF FIVE QUARTERBACKS
1 SMU Tanner Mordeci 30.6
2 Fresno State Jake Haener 29.1
3 Costal Carolina Grayson McCall 28.1
4 Utah State Logan Bonner 27.6
5 Houston Clayton Tune 23.5
6 Miami Ohio Brett Gabbert 22.7
7 Western Michigan Kaleb Eleby 22.3
8 Toledo Dequan Finn 21.1
9 Central Michigan Daniel Richardson 20.6
10 Memphis Seth Henigan 20.3
11 Georgia State Darren Grainger 17.4
12 Tulane Michael Pratt 16.4
13 Boise State Hank Bachmeier 15.1
14 MTSU Chase Cunningham 13.7
15 East Carolina Holton Ahlers 13.1
16 San Diego State Braxton Burmeister 12.8
17 UCF Mikey Keene 12.7
18 Northern Ill. Rocky Lombardi 12.6
19 Hawaii Chevan Cordeiro 12.1
20 UAB Dylan Thompon 11.2
21 Akron Zach Gibson 11.2
22 Cincinnati Ben Bryant 10.3
23 Air Force Haaziq Daniels 9.2
24 Marshall Grant Wells 8.5
25 Arkansas State Layne Hatcher 8.4
26 North Texas Austin Aune 7.5
27 Troy Gunnar Watson 7.2
28 Ohio Kurtis Rourke 5.8
29 Texas State Brady McBride 5.7
30 UTSA Eddi Lee Maurburger 5.5
Coaching rankings for Power and Group of Five:
We understand the value of coaching and in a microwave society, we have become impatient with coaches. Just this past year we saw record coaching turnover in college football as every institution is looking for the right leader of their program. Our rankings are a three year moving average of each coach, because a lot can change quickly for a coach, from losing assistants, and not finding the right ones as replacements, players leaving and more.
Our coaches are held as CEO’s of their programs and are judged as such. Below is the top 20 coaches in Power and Group of Five going into this year.
Luke Fickell signed a new deal with the Bearcats after a playoff appearance and will guide his team into the BIG 12 in the near future.
Power Five Coaches:
# Team Coach HGMS
1 Alabama Nick Saban 36
2 Georgia Kirby Smart 35
3 Ohio State Ryan Day 32
4 USC Lincoln Riley 31
5 Clemson Dabo Swinney 28
6 LSU Brian Kelly 23
7 BYU Kalani Sitake 21
8 Texas A&M Jimbo Fisher 19
9 Michigan Jim Harbaugh 18
10 Florida Billy Napier 17
11 Penn State James Franklin 16
12 Miami Mario Cristobal 16
13 Utah Kyle Wittingham 16
14 Wisconsin Paul Chryst 14
15 Iowa State Matt Campbell 13
16 Ole Miss Lane Kiffin 11
17 Oklahoma State Mike Gundy 10
18 Baylor Dave Aranda 10
19 Iowa Kirk Ferentz 10
20 TCU Sonny Dykes 9
Group of Five Coaches:
# Team Coach HGMS
1 Cincinnati Luke Fickell 24
2 San Diego State Brady Hoke 18
3 Costal Carolina Jamey Chadwell 16
4 Liberty Hugh Freeze 15
5 Air Force Troy Calhoun 14
6 UCF Gus Malzahn 14
7 UAB Bill Clark 13
8 Army Jeff Monken 11
9 UTSA Jeff Traylor 11
10 Ohio Tim Albin 10
11 Fresno State Jeff Tedford 9
12 Utah State Blake Anderson 8
13 Central Michigan Jim McElwain 8
14 Western Michigan Tim Lester 7.5
15 App State Shawn Clark 7
16 Georgia Southern Clay Helton 6
17 Western Kentucky Tyson Helton 5
18 Toledo Jason Candle 5
19 Houston Dana Holgerson 5
20 Akron Joe Moorhead 4.5
Other variables are considered when putting these models together and coming up we will give out records, predictions and more.
Stay tuned right here - it’s April, but it is time for college football.
NOTE: All images are courtesy of 247sports
