Well, not everyone believes Clemson will beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. Just most everyone. Despite the avalanche of media analysts and websites predicting the Buckeyes’ inevitable defeat at the hands of the defending national champions, we found one metric that actually favors the Big Ten champions.
According to ESPN’s FPI matchup predictor, it’s not Clemson that has the best chance to win, but rather Ohio State. In fact, it gives the scarlet and gray a 54% chance at winning the Fiesta Bowl once all the confetti falls in the desert night on December 28.
So why does the FPI like Ohio State? Because once all the game metrics and play had time to roll into the big, bad machine that analyzes all the data, the Buckeyes broke records for some of the metrics used to determine just how good a team is. So, you’re seeing a carryover.
Of course, this is all just on paper, and we could go on and on about how flawed ESPN’s measurements are (it had Ohio State outside the top ten preseason), but it’s still a nod to how dominant this year’s OSU team has been.
Now it’s all about putting all those analytics to work when the rubber pellets meet the desert air.
