2013 NCAA Football Thread

5 out of the 9 ranked one loss teams are from the SEC. While the top 4 of those are SEC teams. 10 undefeated teams are below the top one loss Georgia. The non SEC one loss teams are all from different AQ conferences (one of each).

Bias alert? what say you?
 
We interrupt this program to issue the following alert: Navy has effectively won the prestigious Commander-in-Chief's trophy by beating Air Force. A Navy victory in the Army-Navy game in mid-December should be a mere formality, but will nevertheless be played due to tradition, marketing, and to give Army players a fleeting bit of hope that they could actually win it this year (unless Air Force stomps on them - as expected - beforehand, in which case Navy wins it before Army-Navy is even played due to tiebreakers).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of Top-25 team discussion.
 
I'm counting five of nine . . .

Georgia's only loss is to a top five team, and they have two wins over the top fifteen. I think you could make an argument that they're ranked too low. They won't survive all those injuries though, they may not even win the East . . .

A&M lost by seven to the #1 team and scored six of the seven touchdowns that team has allowed this year. Again, you could argue they're undervalued . . .

LSU's borderline. Their only loss is to Georgia, but they've got a lot of youth on defense and they don't really have any quality wins. Then again, neither does the highest ranked one loss team not from the SEC, Washington :dunno:

SCAR's too high. Their resume is very mediocre . . .

Florida may have the best defense in the country, and their only loss is by five to an undefeated team in a game where they lost the turnover battle pretty much as badly as a team can. Again, probably ranked too low . . .

You could argue that Washington and Northwestern deserve to be higher based on the quality of their loss, but they don't have any good wins to bolster their argument . . .

Virginia Tech has the quality loss to Alabama, but they haven't looked very good in their wins . . .

Okie State doesn't have a leg to stand on . . .

EDIT: Maybe Navy will play a top 25 team in their bowl game, and we can talk about them then ;)
 
Wrymouth3 said:
If FSU so happens to beat Clemson or even blows them out (the former is very much a possibility), how much do you think Clemson drops down the rankings?
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Probably not out of the top 10. I suspect the quality of Clemson's win over Georgia may eventually lose its luster as Georgia succumbs to a ton of injuries though.

Body of work is body of work. Washington and ASU is pretty comparable to Northwestern and Wisconsin. As for the cupcakes, while the outcome wasn't in doubt that Buffalo game was a lot closer than a twenty-point final margin made it look . . .
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Ohio State was playing without most of their best players, outgained Buffalo by over 200 yards, held Buffalo to 3-14 on 3rd down, and dominated virtually every aspect of the game. The Bulls also scored on a somewhat flukish defensive TD. That was much closer to a 35 point win than say, a 10 pointer.

I know it's harder to win on the road and it's something that everybody has to do, but I don't put a lot of weight on a win just because it came on the road. Alabama over A&M doesn't mean much more to me just because it came in College Station. There are exceptions like Autzen or Death Valley at night but I think even those are largely mythological.
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I believe this is mathematically untrue.
ummmm........ said:
LSU's borderline. Their only loss is to Georgia, but they've got a lot of youth on defense and they don't really have any quality wins. Then again, neither does the highest ranked one loss team not from the SEC, Washington :dunno:
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What do you consider a quality win? TCU was a Top 25 team when LSU beat them, and Auburn is a top 25 (buuut probably not for long) team now. Washington beat the crap out of a Top 25 (then) Boise State team that isn't going to lose another game for the rest of the year.


Florida may have the best defense in the country, and their only loss is by five to an undefeated team in a game where they lost the turnover battle pretty much as badly as a team can. Again, probably ranked too low . . .
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Their offense was TERRIBLE though, although they've seen an uptick now that Murphy is throwing the ball around a little. Fortunately, we get to find out exactly how good they are this Saturday.

You could argue that Washington and Northwestern deserve to be higher based on the quality of their loss, but they don't have any good wins to bolster their argument . . .
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Washington beat Boise State. Both schools have road wins over BCS teams, although I can understand why somebody wouldn't be thrilled over Illinois and Cal victories.
 
When I compared cupcakes and talked about the quality of the one-loss teams' wins that was within the context of the specific questions.

OSU/Buffalo wasn't close, but if you're comparing Stanford and OSU's cupcakes, the Buffalo performance is a strike against OSU :dunno:

Similarly, beating Boise or Auburn or TCU is nice, but when talking about the best one-loss teams midseason and looking for a quality win, I'm thinking of something more like Georgia over LSU . . .

EDIT: And yes, I know there is a mathematical advantage to playing at home -- 4.28 points across all games so far this year, according to Sagarin -- I just think it's overblown a lot of the time . . .
 
Those Maryland cupcakes are really yummy.
 
Crabcakes and football! That is what maryland does!
 
ummmm........ said:
Great Dan Wetzel article on the selection committee. It's contradictory, but at least he correctly identifies the problem . . .
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Time to go back to the days where Steve Spurrier was voting Duke in the polls every preseason, and the #22 team in the nation having a first place vote by some clearly uninformed coach.
 
:confused: I can't see how that relates to the article. The problem with the committee -- as described in the article and which I happen to agree with -- is not it's composition, but its lack of predefined criteria for the selection process. The article points out it would be best to have a selection committee whose football knowledge is irrelevant but is comprised of people who are good at dealing with logic problems, then present them with the data anonymously. The contradiction is that the article complains about the BCS computers, when the computers define exactly what the article is calling for . . .

EDIT: This has bothered me since the inception of the committee concept. If you want opinion, why not use a poll? More people equals more diversity of opinion, less bias, etc. I can see how you wouldn't want to use the coaches' poll due to the conflict of interest, and it sucks that the AP poll won't allow itself to be used anymore, but you could come up with something. If you wanted objectivity instead of opinion, use computers. For all the whining and grief surrounding the BCS every year, it has done a stellar job of meeting its primary objective -- pitting #1 against #2, every year, regardless of public opinion.

The only reason you'd want a committee with no predefined criteria instead of either of those options is if you're not looking for the best four teams, but instead for the most appealing matchups, largest media markets, most money, whatever.

I mean, that's fine -- and sorely needed -- for the non-playoff bowls that the committee will administer, but there is no good, competitive reason to avoid a definite, pre-existing criteria that will not be influenced by the circumstances of the season when seeding 1-4 . . .
 
Yeah, I wrote about something similar yesterday. I'm not totally against the idea of bringing in a bunch of non football people, provided they're great at analyzing data. There is no way Archie Manning knows what S&P or F+ is, and I think that's probably a bigger problem than say, Condi's "lack of football experience".

The most troubling factor though is that these people are all part time. You need to be able to watch a LOT of football to do this right, and not even media guys can do that. Given the money involved, this ought to be a full time gig.
 
downtown said:
The most troubling factor though is that these people are all part time. You need to be able to watch a LOT of football to do this right, and not even media guys can do that. Given the money involved, this ought to be a full time gig.
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Could not agree more! I also think that the selection committee should be coaches (not currently employed by a college or NFL team) and scouts. These folks have spent nearly all their lives breaking down football games down to the hand movements of individual players and assessing that said movement's impact on the play, quarter, half and ultimately the game.

So, who would be your ideal committee members be? (you do not need to give a full list to fill every spot, and you don't have to agree with my opinion above to qualify folks to your list).
 
See that's what the article was talking about. You don't need people who can break down film because their job is not to project what's going to happen, but to assess what has already happened . . .

As for the composition of the committee, I don't care that much. I just wish they had predefined criteria to measure the teams with . . .
 
Bill Hancock said they refused to look at current media members, which I think is too bad. The person who I think most deserves to be on the committee is Bill Connelly, who writes for SB Nation and Football Outsiders, and is one of the game's pioneering voices for efficiency-based statistics in college football. I'd much rather have somebody who is better at data analysis than breaking down tape, if I have to pick one or the other.
 
ummmm........ said:
Idk. I wonder if it will be like the NCAA basketball tournament -- too far away to see . . .
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Would be funny because Virginia Tech and Tennessee aren't even in the top 3 for college bouncy hoops in their respective states :lol:.
 
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