WNUR Sports Online Content Director Cameron Songer (@CameronSonger) looks at the simulated season so far and some big games around college football this week.

With no Northwestern game this week, there’s an opportunity to see how accurate the simulations have been so far. There are also a ton of big games this week, so the lack of a Northwestern game allows for more time to look at those.

Northwestern’s season so far
Simulation: Cal 31, Northwestern 28. Reality: NU 44, Cal 30.
Simulation: Northwestern 31, Syracuse 14. Reality: NU 48, Syracuse 27.
Simulation: Northwestern 28, Western Michigan 23. Reality: NU 38, WMU 17.
Simulation: Northwestern 42, FCS East 17. Reality: NU 35, Maine 21.
Simulation: Ohio State 17, Northwestern 10. Reality: Ohio State 40, NU 30.
Simulation: Wisconsin 28, Northwestern 21. Reality: Wisconsin 35, NU 6.
Simulation: Northwestern 28, Minnesota 21 (OT). Reality: Minnesota 20, NU 17.
Simulation: Northwestern 16, Iowa 7. Reality: Iowa 17, NU 10 (OT).
Simulation: Northwestern 42, Nebraska 21. Reality: Nebraska 27, NU 24.

So, the Wildcats are 6-3 (3-2 Big Ten) in the simulation and 4-5 (0-5) in real life. The simulation has correctly predicted the winner five times. The closest it has come to predicting the point differential in a game was 3, vs. Ohio State, where the simulation predicted a 7-point loss and the reality was a 10-point loss. The farthest it was off was last week’s 24-point difference between predicted win and real loss.

Big games this week
Stanford 41, Oregon 24. Ducks, meet the Stanford defense. Marcus Mariota fumbled twice and the mighty Oregon run game managed just 132 yards.
Oklahoma 55, Baylor 7. Baylor’s season performance must have been a shock to EA; the Bears were rated pretty low at the beginning of the season. Plus, the injury bug has bitten their virtual squad.
Kansas State 21, Texas Tech 16. As further proof that no one really knows much before the season starts, Texas Tech has just 2 wins in the simulated season thanks to their low in-game ratings. They didn’t score until the 4th quarter here.
Alabama 52, LSU 17. LSU is unranked at this point in the simulated season. This was actually a scoreless game until the mid-second quarter, when T.J. Yeldon decided to go bananas. He had three rushing touchdowns in the second quarter.
Virginia Tech 31, Miami 3. A week after beating Florida State, the ‘Canes didn’t score a TD.
UCLA 28, Arizona 14. Brett Hundley’s backup is apparently named Millweard and the dude threw for 2 TDs and ran 1 more in.

Around the Big Ten
Nebraska 31, Michigan 7. Taylor Martinez, who has been totally healthy in the simulation, rushed for 2 TDs to add to his Heisman candidacy.
Penn State 27, Minnesota 17. Penn State scored the last 14 points (in the last 3 minutes, nonetheless!) to steal a win.
Illinois 31, Indiana 24. The Fighting Illini get bowl eligible (ha!) in a statistically unremarkable game.
Wisconsin 38, BYU 17. The Badgers pulled away with a 21-point second quarter and kept the officials from messing with the result in a game against a tough non-conference opponent.
Purdue 28, Iowa 21. Purdue has 6 wins and is ranked #19 in the simulation. Enough said. I’m done.