One inevitable feature of the run-up to a major sporting event are the silly predictions. For example, we’ve had Ellen Degeneres predict the World Series using male strippers and a manatee forecast the Super Bowl winner. Esperanto enthusiasts will tell you that the World Cup is always won by whichever country is hosting that year’s Universala Kongreso. Are any of these approaches any goofier or less scientific than predicting the upcoming College Football Playoff by using law schools?
Each of the four schools seeded in the inaugural College Football Playoff — Ohio State, Florida State, Oregon, and Alabama — has a law school. If law school rankings were decisive on the gridiron, our 2015 National Champion would be … Alabama.
Alabama Law is ranked No. 28 by U.S. News, followed by Ohio State (31), Florida State (45), and Oregon (100). Our own ATL Law School Rankings places Alabama at No. 28 and Ohio State at No. 38. (Florida State and Oregon do not make the cutoff for the ATL rankings because ranking more than 50 schools is just silly really.)
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Another legal angle to predict the winner: how do the four states compare in terms of their relative number of lawyers?
Florida: .350% of all Floridians are licensed attorneys
Ohio: .333%
Oregon: .312%
Alabama: .295%
(source: ABA)
So by yet another unimpeachably scientific measure, Alabama comes out on top. Roll Tide!