University Challenge 2015-16: Second Round Review and Quarter-Final Preview

OK, we've arrived at the QF stage of this year's University Challenge. As usual, eight teams have made it through, and will be fighting among themselves for the rest of the series. This year's eight, in order of qualification and with their aggregate and average scores, are:

• Imperial College London (590, 295)
• Nuffield College Oxford (325, 162.5)
• Newcastle (335, 167.5)
• Liverpool (395, 197.5)
• York (490, 245)
• Peterhouse Cambridge (375, 187.5)
• St Catharine's College Cambridge (375, 187.5)
• St John's College Oxford (435, 217.5)

Now let's look over the teams in detail, in order of aggregate score.

• Imperial: Trounced both Reading and Sidney Sussex College Cambridge by huge margins, in the latter instance with the highest score of the series (305) so far. Have been strong on both the buzzer and the bonuses, and must surely be firm favourites to progress to the semis.
• York: Consigned Manchester to their earliest UC exit of the BBC era, and then took down Christ's College Cambridge. Also very strong on the buzzer and generally get the bonuses too. Also firm favourites to progress.
• St John's: Impressive on buzzer in victories over Bristol and Queen's Belfast, but their bonus rate was much better in their first match than their second. Even the best of teams have an off day, so should still be lukewarm favourites.
• Liverpool: Comfortable winners over St Peter's College Oxford, narrow winners over Southampton. OK on the buzzer, about half-way with the bonuses. Outside chance of progression, but bonus work will maybe need to be worked on.
• Peterhouse: Narrow winners over Glasgow, comfortable winners over St George's London. Like Liverpool, good on the buzzer, about half-way on the bonuses. The semis aren't out of the question, but, again, their bonus work could do with an improvement.
• St Catharine's: Narrowly defeated Southampton, then comfortably won out over Nottingham. Good on the buzzer, with captain Calum Bungey particularly impressive, and their bonus work has been superb too. Could be dark horses to reach the semis.
• Newcastle: Narrow winners over Kent and Glasgow respectively. Decent on the buzzers, good on the bonuses in the first round, moderate in the second. Will start the QFs as underdogs, but certainly shouldn't be written off.
• Nuffield: Narrowly defeated Queen Mary London and Warwick to get this far. Again, OK on the buzzer, about half-way with the bonuses. Will also start off as underdogs, but could easily make it through with some improvements on both fronts.

So, two stand out favourites, one who will probably do enough, three whose progression may well depend on matches against each other, and two who start off as outsiders.

So, from that, you can guess that I'm tipping Imperial, York and St John's to reach the semis, along with one of Liverpool, Peterhouse and St Catharine's. But Newcastle and Nuffield are more than capable of making a mockery of that.

So, thanks to Mr Powell and Miss Woods of Peterhouse on Twitter, we know, as I predicted, that York vs Peterhouse will be the first preliminary on Monday. This probably means St Catharine's will play St John's in the second, and the other four will be randomly split amongst themselves, though I'd imagine Imperial and Liverpool will be kept apart.

In terms of diversity, despite a big overall improvement on female representation this series, half the teams in the draw are all-male, with two of them firm favourites to go through. The other four all have just one female on their teams, and, rather neatly, the female is in a different seat for each team! It's still a marginal improvement on last year, where five of the QF teams were all-male; not to mention all four SF teams were all-male, but I can't imagine we'll see that again this series.

A few weeks ago, Uni Challenge Faces on Twitter predicted that the series would not be won by an Oxbridge team. We shall have to wait and see if that transpires; it would be the first time since Warwick won in 2007 that a team other than Oxbridge or Manchester have won the title.

So, whatever happens, all we can hope for, as usual, is that the QFs can provide us with the drama, tension and unpredictability that they have in the past, and we can look forward to a cracking end to this series.

I'll be back next week with my usual look over the first QF, as well as the OC final!