College Football -- Better Than Ever

[Imran Siddiqui]

I like how you pick and choose.. did you read the entire sentence?

It isn't like the team came out of nowhere, but top 5? They should have to earn their way into the top 5, not be there because of their 9-4 season and bowl game win last year.

Furthermore, you have problems paying attention to rankings. They didn't start in the Top 5. They moved there due to losses to other Top 5 teams.

They were 8th in the preseason.

[MRT144]

I like how you pick and choose.. did you read the entire sentence?

It isn't like the team came out of nowhere, but top 5? They should have to earn their way into the top 5, not be there because of their 9-4 season and bowl game win last year.

Furthermore, you have problems paying attention to rankings. They didn't start in the Top 5. They moved there due to losses to other Top 5 teams.

I'm not picking and choosing because I don't consider beating Florida to have great significance. You're suspending your belief in randomness to justify their current ranking and their preseason ranking.

Thanks for correcting me, they moved up 4 spots from their preseason rank because Oklahoma and Va Tech lost in week one, OkS in week 2, and USC lost in week 3...which still doesn't justify why they were #8 preseason.

[Guynemer]

It's a perfect illustration of why there shouldn't be any goddamned preseason rankings at all.

Playoff!

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm not picking and choosing because I don't consider beating Florida to have great significance. You're suspending your belief in randomness to justify their current ranking and their preseason ranking.

You are a ****. They beat Florida, Texas Tech, LSU, and lost by only 4 against Alabama... which indicates, based on the entire season, they were a good team which played well against quality opposition. It wasn't just one out of the blue upset.

Thanks for correcting me, they moved up 4 spots from their preseason rank because Oklahoma and Va Tech lost in week one, OkS in week 2, and USC lost in week 3...which still doesn't justify why they were #8 preseason.

Actually #8 preseason probably was warrented based on their season last year.

[MRT144]

You are a ****. They beat Florida, Texas Tech, LSU, and lost by only 4 against Alabama... which indicates, based on the entire season, they were a good team which played well against quality opposition. It wasn't just one out of the blue upset.



Actually #8 preseason probably was warrented based on their season last year.

Except they were chronically inconsistent that year. Their losses were to mediocre/bad teams. Good wins (although they barely beat Florida and you can lay that solely on Tebow having an off game. LSU wasn't that good last year and Texas Tech has no defense at all.) and bad losses makes them middle of the pack and not top 10.

Last year shouldn't have such an impact on current pre season ranks especially using your own metrics of measuring team strength and accounting for your heavy weighting of randomness.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How about winning 6 in a row to close out the year after losing to Alabama by only 4? Sure, early on they lost to Wake Forest and Vandy. And then lost to South Carolina after beating Florida, but then rolled off an impressive end to the season. And considering that they brought a good portion of the team back, it seemed like they would continue that run.

That is not, at all, an irrational decision to make.

And to further illustrate that, in last year's end of season Sagarin computer rankings, Mississippi was ranked 10th

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt08.htm

[MRT144]

How about winning 6 in a row to close out the year after losing to Alabama by only 4? Sure, early on they lost to Wake Forest and Vandy. And then lost to South Carolina after beating Florida, but then rolled off an impressive end to the season. And considering that they brought a good portion of the team back, it seemed like they would continue that run.

That is not, at all, an irrational decision to make.

And to further illustrate that, in last year's end of season Sagarin computer rankings, Mississippi was ranked 10th

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt08.htm

Only because of the circular methodology that keeps highly ranked teams ranked and the teams that beat them ranked. Texas Tech was so freaking over-rated considering that their best win was against Texas and their second best was Kansas. They got rolled by every other team that was good so they were 50/50 in games against good teams.

I give credit to Ole Miss for finishing out the season strong but I would have definitely put them much lower (14-15) as their current season schedule makes it improbable to have a top 5 season given the other contenders in their conference.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So computer rankings share these subjective biases as well? Even those that take into account margin of victory (something you minimized due to running up the score earlier in this thread) and strength of schedule?

[MRT144]

So computer rankings share these subjective biases as well? Even those that take into account margin of victory (something you minimized due to running up the score earlier in this thread) and strength of schedule?

The entire BCS picture is determined in 2/3rds by subjective biases.

But to your question, the problem isn't the bias of favoring one team over another is based on conference but that the win that Mississippi had over Texas Tech pushed up Mississippi higher than it did to lower Texas Tech by a significant amount. Mississippi went from 25th at the end of the season in computer polls, to AFAIK (cause I'm having a hard time digging up week by week and post bowl game computer rankings) to 15th and from averaging out data I could find. In Sagarins ranking alone they went from somewhere outside of 25 to 10th. On the other side Texas tech went from 3rd to 9th. As we've said before, good teams lose games and sometimes better teams lose games but the computer rankings tend to keep the rankings sticky which benefits teams that upset but doesn't hurt the upset teams that much.

Take the case of Georgia who Sagarin put below Ole Miss, and the only reason you can point to is that in the computer ranking, the wins over other teams with good records has more importance than losses to teams with worse records.

[Imran Siddiqui]

the computer rankings tend to keep the rankings sticky which benefits teams that upset but doesn't hurt the upset teams that much.

Using objective criteria (ie, the way the rankings are done don't change from week to week), so what's the big deal? Because it offends your subjective biases?

[MRT144]

the computer rankings tend to keep the rankings sticky which benefits teams that upset but doesn't hurt the upset teams that much.

Using objective criteria (ie, the way the rankings are done don't change from week to week), so what's the big deal? Because it offends your subjective biases?

The big deal is when you try to back a subjective premise with objective measurement inconsistently. Obviously you don't strictly go by computer rankings, but you're using computer ranking from last season to justify subjective rankings today while ignoring computer ranking from today that contradict the subjective rankings of today. So if you're going to use last year's year end Sagarin rankings TCU should have been ranked higher than Ole Miss as they are higher both at the end of last season and currently.

I don't think putting Ole Miss in the top 15 would have been too much of a stretch but certainly top 4 was even before last night and that kind of bias is what lingers with human pollsters. Even the starting out at 8th was too high in my opinion.

[SpencerH]

In terms of "elephants in the room" no one has mentioned that USC is overrated in preseason every damn year. Lets face it, they play in a wimpy conference. As for the SEC, it is the best and toughest conference and BIG 12 is second best. All the others have (at best) one or two decent teams. Hoover highschool could beat most yankee college teams I've watched. Remember last year when Penn state was being talked about as a possible BCS bowl contender. What a joke! IMO the SEC and BIG12 champs should play for the BCS bowl unless there is clear indications that another team deserves consideration.

[Imran Siddiqui]

All that I said was ranking Mississippi that high was not irrational based on the season they had. When you stated that it wasn't that impressive, I showed you computer rankings saying that it was. Now you are trying to (strawman) attempt to say that I ranked Mississippi that high based on last season's computer rankings.

But you don't actually read what I write anyway.

Also, I may have rated TCU higher if I knew more about them. I don't know who they lost or gained or stayed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In terms of "elephants in the room" no one has mentioned that USC is overrated in preseason every damn year. Lets face it, they play in a wimpy conference.

I thought about posting this article before, but it works better now:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/george_schroeder/09/25/usc-pac-10/index.html?eref=sihpT1

There's a lot to love about Pete Carroll, including his Tweeting. He's easily the best of the football coaches trying to be cool with the kids in 140 characters or less. Probably because at 58, he remains one of the cool kids.

Carroll gives us a SOTD (Song of the Day), like The Rising from Bruce Springsteen ("to help celebrate his bday"). On Wednesday, he offered this tip:

"98.7 in LA is going to play the new foo fighters song this morning in case you're interested"

Hey, how could you not be? But like so many else on Twitter, the coach provides inanity, too. Carroll tapped out this message shortly after USC's loss to Washington:

"what's crucial is not the adversity but how you respond to it ... we're on the rebound ... the bounce is what counts"

Sorry Pete, but the bounce counts in Gainesville and Norman. And in Austin, Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa.

In Los Angeles, the loss counts. Haven't you learned that by now?

USC's latest inexplicable meltdown has probably cost the Trojans a shot at the national title. Again.

In the last five seasons, USC is 61-7. Much has been made of the Trojans' play-anybody scheduling philosophy, and with good reason. USC is 30-1 against nonconference opponents since 2002. And we're not talking about Charleston Southern; the Trojans are 15-1 against ranked nonconference opponents.

But the number that counts these days is one, as in the annual Pac-10 loss that leaves everyone shaking their heads. Oregon State. UCLA. Stanford. Oregon State again. And now Washington. For USC, the yearly stumble has been too damaging to overcome.

It's worth questioning how good this USC bunch is, considering the collection of raw quarterbacks and the underwhelming tailbacks and receivers. But assuming the Trojans are better than they played last Saturday at Husky Stadium and by December might be as good as any team, anywhere -- not an unreasonable assumption, considering the talent on hand -- we're likely about to watch a familiar rerun. USC wins out, then pounds some Big Ten patsy in the Rose Bowl. We all recognize the Trojans might have done pretty well in the BCS Championship Game. We tsk-tsk about that loss in Seattle, way back in September, that eliminated them from the race.

Not long ago, CBSSports.com ranked USC as the top program of the decade. There's an argument to be had, sure. But there's no debate about this: Alone among the elites, USC has no margin for error.

Florida? Texas? Alabama? Oklahoma? LSU? All can work their way into the biggest game despite a loss. As long as it's early, the opponent might not even matter.

Florida loses at home to Ole Miss, and it's just another example of how tough life is in the SEC. Hey, when Ole Miss lost at South Carolina on Thursday night, the TV babble-heads immediately started talking about how nothing's ever easy in those SEC snakepits. (Meanwhile, many of us were thinking our suspicions had been confirmed: Ole Miss was overrated, and the Rebels' performance was vintage Houston Nutt, complete with terrible decisions/mistakes in crunch time.)

But let's be honest: Ole Miss' loss Thursday night was better than Florida's home loss to the Rebels last year. And that loss, of course, didn't derail Florida so much as propel the Gators, enlarging the legend of Tim Tebow (and leading eventually to a nice plaque memorializing his postgame promise).

USC's loss at Oregon State two days earlier? Never mind that Corvallis is a tough place for visitors, or that the Beavers were in contention for the Pac-10 title until the last weekend of the regular season. When USC loses in the Pac-10 -- most often, it's in the Pacific Northwest -- it's a monumental upset, and a devastating blow.

Which is crazy.

Much of this mess is of Carroll's own making. The Trojans have managed seven consecutive top four finishes in the AP poll and been to seven consecutive BCS bowls. But there's another USC streak everyone cites:

Seven straight Pac-10 titles.

That's a problem, because it leads to the national perception that it's really the Pac-1. And when Carroll brags, as he did before the season started, that the Pac-10 is "the best conference in the country," or when new commissioner Larry Scott says "the reality is that the conference is deep," most find it difficult to keep from laughing.

It doesn't matter that last season, the Pac-10 went 5-0 in bowl games. USC manhandled the Big Ten champion in the Rose Bowl, as usual. Oregon physically dominated an Oklahoma State team that was gearing up to become 2009's August flavor of the month. Cal notched an Emerald Bowl victory over a Miami team now dominating the headlines.

It doesn't matter when the league office trots out some nice statistics; like that the Pac-10 is 19-6 in nonconference play this season and has played more games against other BCS conferences than any league.

USC beat Ohio State, like always, and did it at the Horseshoe, with a freshman quarterback. California went cross-country to beat Minnesota. Two weeks before beating USC, Washington showed signs of life in a loss to LSU. Oregon beat Purdue and Utah. (On the other hand, Oregon State lost at home to a solid Cincinnati team, Oregon was punchless -- during the game -- at Boise State, Arizona wasn't ready for Iowa, and Stanford lost to Wake Forest.) And did anyone see anything soft about UCLA's performance at Tennessee -- or Kevin Prince's? Stacked against the rest of the Pac-10, UCLA looks like a nice contender for the Sun Bowl.

But the league never seems to earn much credit for playing, top to bottom, tougher nonconference schedules than any other league. Or for winning. This week, the Wall Street Journal even chimed in, noting that since 2000, the Pac-10 has the best record against other BCS conferences (81-62) and a winning record against the other five leagues.

Of course, statistics aside, the Pac-10's not the SEC. But top to bottom, the Pac-10 is much better than its rep, and so USC has gotten a bad rap.

But none of that matters.

Part of the problem is geography, and it's not going away. The time zones won't change, the Pac-10's pitiful TV arrangements won't expire for years and some voters will always be in bed by the time the last Pac-10 games have finished on Saturday nights.

The nine-game, round-robin conference schedule doesn't do the Pac-10 any favors, either. The league's coaches voted last spring to get rid of it, but the athletic directors voted to keep it. That's great for the fans, but not so good for the coaches and teams and the league overall.

Instead of grabbing one more easy win -- like they do in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC -- Pac-10 teams begin beating up each other a game early. This hurts the effort to get teams bowl-eligible. And more importantly, to get a second team into a BCS bowl (which hasn't happened since 2002).

Whatever the reasons, when it comes to USC it doesn't matter that Oregon State has proven to be pretty good over the last few years, or that Steve Sarkisian's Huskies might be fairly talented -- certainly, with a healthy Jake Locker, they're much better than 0-12. College football watches the upset, snickers, and erases USC from the BCS race.

USC must win out and hope everyone else loses, and even that probably won't be enough to get the Trojans into the BCS Championship Game.

But there's a solution, for this year, and the future: The Pac-10 needs a different champion.

How about Cal?

In a weird way, that might be the best thing that could happen to Carroll and the Trojans. Cal, or anyone else, wins the league. Other things have to happen, too -- the new champion must win the Rose Bowl, and the rest of the league must continue to show teeth in bowl games, and somehow the national perception needs to be less about USC slipping and more about the Pac-10's strength. It would help if USC grabbed a BCS at-large berth.

Maybe then, people won't presume the Pac-10 is the Pac-1, and USC's annual league loss won't be quite so devastating.

Maybe then, it will be the bounce that counts.

Otherwise, we've always got the SOTD.

IMO, the Pac-10 is criminally UNDER-rated.

[MRT144]

All that I said was ranking Mississippi that high was not irrational based on the season they had. When you stated that it wasn't that impressive, I showed you computer rankings saying that it was. Now you are trying to (strawman) attempt to say that I ranked Mississippi that high based on last season's computer rankings.

But you don't actually read what I write anyway.

Also, I may have rated TCU higher if I knew more about them. I don't know who they lost or gained or stayed.

You're such a ****ing lawyer.