College Football -- Better Than Ever

[SlowwHand]

From 4 down is outlandish. The Top 3, fine. Whatever. From there down is not right.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What exactly is wrong with any of it? All the teams 4 and below are undefeated aside from Ohio State, who gamely fought USC, and Southern Cal, who were without their starting QB due to injury.

[SlowwHand]

Undefeated only goes so far, at this point.
For instance, I'll kiss your ass if Cincinnati is in any significant bowl.
Texas Tech gave Texas all that Texas wanted to handle. Did you see it, by chance?
Ohio St. sucks. They're Big 10. Are they some kind of token entry?
California? Well, they do slant things towards the Pac 10, so maybe...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Cincinnati is likely to make a BCS bowl, as they did last year. Or is that not significant enough for you .

Ohio State is also a good team with a great defense. Their offense isn't that great, but then again, it wasn't in 2003 either and they won the national championship that year. As long as Pryor advances as a QB, they have a very, very good shot.

And you are slagging on Cal?! 8th in the AP poll and ties for 7th in the USA Today? Yeah, I trust them far more than you because you've shown you know **** all about college football.

[SlowwHand]

Ok, fine. I don't know anything about college football.

[Drake Tungsten]

I don't know anything about college football.

QFT

[Guynemer]

Um, Imran... you do realize you have OSU ranked quite a few spots ahead of USC, a team with an identical record that beat OSU on the road?

I know, in the long run, it's impossible to keep everyone ranked according to who beat who, but early on, that makes no damn sense.

[Guynemer]

The new AP Top 10:

Florida
Texas
Alabama
Ole Miss
Penn State
Cal
LSU
Boise State
Miami
Oklahoma


Miami is the biggest riser, from 20 to 9. Georgia Tech went from 14 to out of the poll (27th). Utah also dropped out of the poll. New are FSU (#18) and Washington (#24).

Inexplicable (at this point): Oklahoma 9 spots ahead of BYU, Oklahoma State 1 spot ahead of Houston. Especially since it appears the pollsters took care to keep USC ahead of Ohio State; despite shuting out a Toledo team that hung 700 yards of offense on their previous opponent (Colorado), Ohio State dropped two spots to 13th, just under #12 USC. Also not currently justifiable: USC 12 spots ahead of Washington, despite having the same record and Washington's only loss coming at the hands of #7 LSU by 8 points.


Also, Sloww: Cincinnati is highly, highly likely to appear in a significant bowl, as they appear to have next to zero competition in the Big East this year.

[DanS]

Uggghhh...

Floyd undergoes surgery, likely out for season
AP - Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:00:31 -0400 (EDT)
By TOM COYNE
Notre Dame wide receiver Michael Floyd underwent surgery Sunday for a broken left collar bone and is likely out for the remainder of the regular season.

Coach Charlie Weis said there is a chance Floyd could be back if the Irish go to a bowl game.

Floyd, who went into the game second in the nation in receiving yards at 160 yards a game, was injured falling to the ground trying to make a touchdown catch. Floyd has 13 catches for 358 and five touchdowns.

[Guynemer]

Ouch. That's a big blow for the Irish.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Um, Imran... you do realize you have OSU ranked quite a few spots ahead of USC, a team with an identical record that beat OSU on the road?

I know, in the long run, it's impossible to keep everyone ranked according to who beat who, but early on, that makes no damn sense.

'Tis better to lose early than lose late. One can also argue that Ohio State lost to a vastly superior opponent than USC, and the game between them was virtually a toss up (that out of 10 games, it may have been 5-5).

That, and you can't just leave a team where they are or just a spot down for losing to an unranked team that was 0-12 last season (though are vastly improved, obviously, this season). And Ohio State was next up on my previous rankings (actually, Boise St was next, but I didn't feel like pushing them up to 4... yet).

[Guynemer]

Heading into Week 4, there remain 28 schools without a loss.

ACC (2): Miami, North Carolina
Big 12 (4): Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Texas A&M
Big East (3): Cincinnati, South Florida, Pitt
Big 10 (5): Penn State, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana
C-USA (2): Houston, Southern Miss
MWC (2): TCU, Colorado State
Pac-10 (3): Cal, UCLA, Arizona State
SEC (6): Florida, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, Auburn, Kentucky
WAC (1): Boise State
MAC & Sun Belt (0)

Only four games between undefeated teams this weekend:

Southern Miss at Kansas
Indiana at Michigan
Iowa at Penn State
Florida at Kentucky

But lots and lots and lots of potential casualities for other undefeated teams:

Alabama at Arkansas
LSU at Mississippi State
Ole Miss at South Carolina
Texas Tech at Houston
Colorado State at BYU
TCU at Clemson
Cal at Oregon
UCLA at Stanford
Arizona State at Georgia
Michigan State at Wisconsin
North Carolina at Georgia Tech
Miami at Virginia Tech
Fresno State at Cincinnati
South Florida at Florida State
Pitt at North Carolina State

We might very well be down to 15 or so undefeated teams by the end of next week's games.

[snoopy369]

'Tis better to lose early than lose late. One can also argue that Ohio State lost to a vastly superior opponent than USC, and the game between them was virtually a toss up (that out of 10 games, it may have been 5-5).

That, and you can't just leave a team where they are or just a spot down for losing to an unranked team that was 0-12 last season (though are vastly improved, obviously, this season). And Ohio State was next up on my previous rankings (actually, Boise St was next, but I didn't feel like pushing them up to 4... yet).

I suggest that's a fault of your rankings, then. Personally I'd rank both teams much lower... though I don't think UW needs to be above USC, I doubt many people think UW will win the Pac-10 or anything [though Oregon might...]. H2H matchups have to count for something; you don't know whether OSU would've lost to UW or not, after all, and if USC didn't blow out Toledo quite as effectively, it likely would've won easily.

Then again, this just goes to continually show how pointless rankings are before most teams play real opposition

[snoopy369]

So, who's the cinderella in the BCS this year? TCU? Boise State? Nobody? Or can BYU/Utah overcome tough early losses?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I suggest that's a fault of your rankings, then.

H2H matchups have to count for something

Go ahead and make your own then .

I think over the years it's become very obvious that H2H matchup don't really mean all that much to me. I think it is a huge failing of most people's rankings that a single H2H matchup is so prevalent, especially since with the short season of college football, one cannot really state that one game indicates just how good a team actually is over a season (which is why baseball with its 162 games is a far superior indicator of which teams deserve to be in the postseason).

And that's one of the reasons I like to do my own rankings. Because I think those based mostly on H2H matchups fail to capture the overall strength of teams, especially on a sport which it can be said "any given Saturday". That, and I tend to like to do stuff like rank a 1 loss Florida over undefeated teams (last year), where others are aghast at such.

this just goes to continually show how pointless rankings are before most teams play real opposition

Just because they start playing against their conference opponents doesn't mean we know how strong or weak that conference actually is.