SFL Power Rankings: Clinch or Clench

After last week where the top 6 stayed the same this week sees everyone move around except for unanimous #1 Houston. Carolina continues their march to take over the Eastern Division after taking down Charleston and with the first of two meetings vs Florida on the horizon. A few divisions are also on the precipice of being clinched this week in Houston and Denver. D.C. has wrapped up their place in the playoffs and are hoping for Pitt to stumble to close the door in the North. A few weeks left; let’s see where it takes us.

voting breakdown

Not much to say this week besides Strength Rating confirming Bossier City being a very unlucky team this season. Even the Pythagorean Expectation has them at 6.4 wins and most likely locked into the most underperforming team on the season. Although, D.C. is on pace to be the highest overperforming team so their matchup this week vs one another may end up being an interesting battle.

what more can be said

#x Team Name (Record)

I enjoy this little spotlight section I have in every edition. Back when I started I would try to have a positive & negative spotlight to give a better picture of all teams, but you quickly run out of both ends or get stuck with the same few teams doing well or poorly or stuck in a rut; so we’ve cut it down to one. After 13 weeks of Power Rankings I just don’t where to go or what more can be said. I’ve mentioned this week about how unlucky Bossier has been and there’s not much more to it that’s hasn’t been said already by other media outlets. I’ve spoken on the top teams as they’ve made their way there. I’ve even called out Pitts turnaround when they had three game win streak heading into their first bye. Maybe next week, as the playoff picture comes into frame, we can speak on those on the outside looking in or Charleston backdooring the East. For now we’ll leave it here and move on to the current battle in the East. 

week 14 premier matchup

#21 Carolina Skyhawks @ #14 Florida Storm(-2.5) | O/U 45.5 | Oct. 18th 6:30 PM EST

So a team that received no votes versus a team barely in the Top 16 is the Premier matchup. Why? This game won’t decide the East but it will bring a lot into focus. Carolina was 1-6 heading into Week 11 and their lone win was against Denver of all teams. So I guess they had shown some sort of possibility that they could beat top teams and make some noise late. With the leaguewide bye week that shifted games to a Week 16 it pushed all of Carolina’s divisional games to the final five weeks of the regular season and so far they’re on a two game win streak beating Lexington & Charleston. So, 3-6 shouldn’t matter in a division where other leaders are 9-1, 8-2, 7-2 or 6-3, right? Wrong. Florida is out in front at…4-5. Charleston is right behind at…4-6. Lexington has no path at 2-7. Carolina could force a 3 way tie and have the H2H sweep with a win and then later plays Florida again to close out the regular season. On the other side, Florida has won four games but the four wins have given them the 2nd lowest SOV at .294 (the lowest is Charleston at .292) so are they good-ish or are they just the best of the rest. The Skyhawks have the 10th best SOV at .430 but a lot of that is the win over Denver so who’s to say they are better than the rest of the East? Carolina & Florida have non-divisional games in between playing again, Sin City & Denver, respectively so they could split their series and lose in-between and we’re back where we started, Carolian could keep the good times rolling and beat Sin City to put pressure on Florida or Charleston could just disregard everyone and go 6-6 and let them beat each other down. A lot will be revealed this week for the East and I hope this first edition will be as close as the East has been all season.