College Football -- Back in Action!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Supr49er


I'll be at the game.
Don't you wish Division I had a playoff?

You already know, but:

Weber State beats Cal Poly


SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP)—Sophomore quarterback Cameron Higgins threw for 399 yards and two touchdowns, and Trevyn Smith rushed for 137 yards and two scores as Weber State downed Cal Poly 49-35 in the first round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

Higgins connected with Tim Toone 10 times for 199 yards and a touchdown.

Backup quarterback Brendon Doyle even added a nine-yard touchdown pass to Cody Nakamura as the Wildcats rolled up 564 yards of total offense.

Cal Poly, which took Wisconsin to overtime a week earlier, had 548 yards of offense but make five costly turnovers after making just six during the regular season.

Jonathan Dally was intercepted four times, going 11 of 30 for 185 yards with two touchdowns. He did rush 23 times for 177 yards, but the Mustangs struggled to do much else offensively.

Ramses Barden caught both of Dally?s touchdown passes, settling for 108 yards on two catches in the Walter Payton Award candidate?s final game with the Mustangs (8-3).

Weber State (10-3) travels to Montana in the second round.

ACK!

[Jaguar]

Here's a simple proof of why margins of victory and loss are relevant in making college football rankings.

Obviously, wins and losses need to be taken into account. That alone, though, clearly isn't enough, because it would be possible for a team to go undefeated by just playing weak teams. So strength of schedule needs to be taken into account too. Many people think record + strength of schedule is enough to make rankings. They're wrong.

Consider a year with three undefeated teams, all of whom play solid schedules. One is thrashing every single opponent by gigantic margins. It regularly scores in excess of 50 points against ranked opponents, and its defense never allows more than a handful of scores. The other two have had a number of close scrapes, but came away with a win each time.

Even if the other two teams had slightly stronger schedules, the truly dominant team should be going to the championship. This shows that strength of victory counts.

I think the same arguments are pretty obvious for margin of loss. Obviously, a team that looks completely lost against an opponent should be judged far more harshly than a team that loses in overtime against the same opponent.


Another brief proof of something: for BCS purposes, head-to-head is not a valid tiebreaker of teams with the same record. If so, Texas Tech should be ranked ahead of Texas, Texas should be ranked ahead of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma should be ranked ahead of Texas Tech.

[Tuberski]

Until there is a playoff, there is no national champion.

Why?

Because what we have now automatically excludes 50% of the so-called BCS division teams

Unless one of the excluded teams beats a bunch of BCS included teams, which will never happen because the elite teams in the "Big 6" conferences won't schedule the elite of the non-"Big 6" conferences.

So, SOS is a ridiculous part of the ranking system.

Utah is penalized because most top "Big 6" teams won't schedule them?

ACK!

[Naked Gents Rut]

Until there is a playoff, there is no national champion.

No.

[Guynemer]

Yes. And that is what Jag's hypothetical situation shows; nothing about margin of victory, but everything about the need for a playoff.

Look, there are, what, 125 I-A teams, plus or minus? And they play 12 games each? Simply put, that is not enough data to meaningfully rank them all without some sort of playoff. Each conference, individually, has enough data within them to pick a champion however they want (conference record, championship game, whatever). But to compare champions between conferences is usually meaningless because they don't play one another or the same teams.

The only objective way to determine a champion is via a tournament, period.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Computer polls are as objective as a playoff, if not more so.

[Guynemer]

How do you figure?

[Naked Gents Rut]

The outcome of a playoff game (or a regular season game, for that matter) isn't objective proof that the winning team is better than the losing team, due to the influence of chance. A statistical measure of performance over the course of a 12-game season (ie. a computer poll) is far more likely to give you an objective measure of whether one team is better than another than the result of a single game is...

[Naked Gents Rut]

Put another way, there's a reason why MLB and the NBA use 7-game series in their playoff formats. A single-elimination tournament format may be exciting, but the outcome it produces is quite likely to not be the objectively best one.

[Guynemer]

True enough, but unless you're advocating a best-of-7 Super Bowl, you're suggesting that the NFL playoffs are meaningless. Which is fine, if that is your opinion, I wouldn't disagree with you on the luck factor.

But, luck is part of sports. The better team doesn't always win; sometimes, the lesser team just matches up better, sometimes they get lucky via injury or fluky play or official error, whatever. But, ultimately, it all comes down to wins and losses. No one gets so lucky to go undefeated or nearly undefeated and not earn it with good play; and no one is so much better than everyone else that they did not occasionally get lucky.

You could say that USC gets lucky in that they played OSU when the Buckeyes' starting RB was out with an injury and when they were still breaking in their new QB. You could say that they get lucky in that they have Notre Dame on their schedule every year, which is a high-profile game that happens to be a gimme. You could say that they get lucky in that they play in what has been a relatively weak conference these past several years.

So, you can either accept that luck is part of the picture and play for a championship, or have a bunch of eggheads, writers, coaches, and athletic directors vote for one. I know which way I prefer.

[SlowwHand]

He may be biased, but the idea isn't without merit.

LUBBOCK, Texas -- Mike Leach had a novel idea about how to break a possible three-way tie in the Big 12 South following No. 7 Texas Tech's 35-28 win against Baylor.

Forget the BCS and head-to-head matchups. Go to the report cards, Leach suggested.

They are STUDENT-athletes.

"I think they should break that three-way tie based on a graduation rate. I think the Big 12 conference should have an executive session tonight," the Texas Tech coach said Saturday. "And I think when they do that they will find that no one's more deserving than the Red Raiders to win Big 12 South."

Tech last month announced that an NCAA report showed its football team had a graduation rate of 79 percent to lead the Big 12. The NCAA report showed the football rate for Texas at 50 percent and Oklahoma at 46 percent -- at the bottom of the Big 12.

[Naked Gents Rut]

True enough, but unless you're advocating a best-of-7 Super Bowl, you're suggesting that the NFL playoffs are meaningless.

They are meaningless in terms of producing a champion that is objectively the best. Last year is all the proof you would ever need of this. New England was clearly the best team in the NFL, but the Giants got lucky in the Super Bowl and ended up champions.

So, you can either accept that luck is part of the picture

In doing so, you forfeit any pretense of "objectively" determining the best team and crowning them champions.

[reismark]

1. Alabama
2. Texas
3. Oklahoma
4. Florida
5. Penn State
6. Utah
7. Boise State
8. Texas Tech
9. USC
10. Ohio State

[Naked Gents Rut]

1. USC
2. Florida
3. Oklahoma
4. Texas
5. Penn State
6. Alabama
7. Texas Tech
8. Ohio State
9. Missouri
10. TCU

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut


In doing so, you forfeit any pretense of "objectively" determining the best team and crowning them champions.

I think playing a tournament of the best teams, even single-elimination, is closer to an objective determination of a champion than having people vote. This isn't American ****ing Idol.




Incidentally, Sloww--I think that is an awesome suggestion. Wow. Never even crossed my mind.