Cal is their big rivalry game. You cant take much from that game.
It does. Long lectures in my experience. This guy is a sore loser and a chucklehead.
The Thing Fish Ratings – week 12
- Iowa!
- Clemson
- Oklahoma
- Michigan State
- Stanford
- North Carolina
- Alabama
- Oklahoma State
- Notre Dame
- Baylor
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- TCU
- Utah
- Oregon!
- Florida
- Florida State
- Northwestern!
- UCLA
- Pitt
- Wisconsin
- Ole Miss
- USC
- Bowling Green
- Washington State
On the bubble: Mississippi State, Toledo, Memphis
Ole Miss returned yet again to the rankings this week, and Houston dropped out.
The strength of schedule adjustments are starting to kick in. Here’s the list of teams which are being counted as a level above or below their actual level, with the new ones this week in bold.
P5 teams counted as mid-majors: Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Auburn, The Oregon State Biebers, Colorado
mid-majors counted as P5: Bowling Green, Air Force, San Diego State
mid-majors counted as FCS: Charlotte, E Michigan, Wyoming, Hawaii,** Lousiana-Monroe, UCF**
FCS counted as mid-major: Jacksonville St, Colgate, Dayton, McNeese State, Southern Utah, Charleston Southern, Richmond, NC A & T, North Dakota State, Duquesne, Chattanooga. So Alabama and Florida State actually get a little credit for their wins last weekend.
Funny that I often find myself arguing that win-loss record is overrated as an indicator of team quality, but now it’s my rankings that have the two unbeatens on top!
Michigan State had a great week, obviously with the big win in Columbus and also with the upgrading of Air Force.
Stanford actually lost ground even with their win over Cal due to the downgrading of UCF and Colorado. But they still have two quality opponents left (Notre Dame and the Pac-12 South champion) and can certainly get back into the top 4 if they win out. Notre Dame will almost certainly finish in the top 4 if they win at Stanford, and could reach #1 if Temple and Navy win their divisions. Weirdly, it now looks like in real life ND might not reach the playoffs with a win over Stanford, so the committee and I have completely reversed our positions on ND in the last few weeks!
In a week of slapstick in the SEC, Florida’s OT win over Florida Atlantic wins the Barkis Award for this week’s least convincing victory by a ranked team (I forgot to name last week’s winner: obviously, Michigan’s double OT squeaker over Indiana). Happily, it seems the CFP has finally moved Florida out of danger of making the playoff. Washington State would be about ten spots higher if it weren’t for that albatross of the Week 1 loss to Portland State dragging them down.
Overall my ratings and the committee’s are starting to align a bit more. I still don’t get their infatuation with Navy (though they did get a nice bump from the Air Force upgrade and definitely have a shot at cracking the final rankings), and I think they were pretty hard on Utah for a close loss to a ranked team (I note they now have Oregon ranked above both of the Pac-12 teams that beat them and have identical records! Even I didn’t have the chutzpah to do that).
The most interesting thing to me this week is that my system sees UNC and Alabama as highly comparable, while they have them at the very opposite ends of the range of one-loss teams. I think the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. Both have the same record with only one win over a barely-ranked team (by my count; Bama has one and UNC none per the CFP). Both have beaten four P5 opponents by 15 or better. Their nonconference schedules are fairly comparable; UNC played two bad P5 teams and Bama played one good one, filling out the rest with cupcakes. I can see two advantages for Bama that my system doesn’t take into account: they also have a win over a barely-unranked team, while none of UNC’s opponents other than Pitt have a prayer of getting ranked (and of course, the committee doesn’t have Pitt ranked at all). Also, Bama lost to a pretty good team, while UNC lost to a team which lost to The Citadel.
Those aren’t huge differences, but they are enough for me to say that the system has these two reversed, and Alabama deserves to be ranked higher than UNC. But I don’t see how Bama ranks above Oklahoma (two quality wins, five blowout wins, as I commented above), undefeated Iowa (which has three quality wins by my count, but still ties Alabama in that category with one per the CFP), or (wait for it…wait for it…) Stanford, which has one more loss than Alabama but two more quality wins (by my count, one more by theirs) and five blowout wins.
Likewise, I certainly don’t see why you’d put UNC below the likes of (gag) Florida or Ohio State, with its zero quality wins by anyone’s count. Looks like SEC bias and won-last-year bias are alive and well.
How the hell is Utah 5 places ahead oh us when we dominated em Saturday?
Not that I necessarily agree any P5’s should count as mid-majors, but how in the world do you not include Purdue in this list?
And the argument for UNC’s low ranking is that they’re being punished for playing not one but two FCS teams.
:smack:
Probably the same reason I still have Okie State ahead of Baylor. I guess those head-to-head wins happened so long ago they slipped my mind.
:smack:
While realizing it is a blunt instrument, the criteria for getting downgraded is finishing last in your division, and I missed that Purdue have already clinched that dubious honor, having lost to both of the teams it could end up tied with (also made the same error WRT UMass, on further review).
I see that downgrading Purdue will drop Bowling Green out of the rankings, leading to a bunch of other domino effects… Revised rankings to be issued later.
Thanks for catching these!
UNC did play two FCS teams OOC, but it also played two P5 teams (crappy ones, yeah, but it also trounced NCA&T, who are among the best FCS teams). On balance I would call it about an average OOC schedule for a P5 school.
Apparently, even Cal isn’t sure about this; the AD has asked the NCAA for a waiver just in case Cal loses to Arizona State on Saturday night and Grambling is considered not to have given out 90% of its maximum scholarship equivalents in the past two years (there’s a new rule this rule that says the cost of required books has to be included in the calculation), which would make Cal 5-6 for bowl eligibility purposes, although if there are not at least 80 bowl-eligible schools, Cal becomes eligible anyway.
Ok, fair enough. And how do you determine which mid-majors count as P5? Because I’d argue that Navy may fit the criteria.
I just stopped by si.com and initially read one of the headlines as “LSU to defecate on Miles after Saturday’s game”.*
*actual word: “decide” - but I think I had it right the first time.
Same difference; the ones who win their divisions (or their undivided conference). So either Navy or Houston will be upgraded depending on the result this weekend. I posted the full details in a spoiler box with last week’s rankings. Obviously I am aware that the second place team in one mid-major division may be superior to the first-place team in some other division, and this would likely be such a case, but there’s only so much complexity I can deal with here.
The Thing Fish Rankings – Week 12-Revised
- Iowa!
- Clemson
- Oklahoma
- Alabama
- Stanford
- Michigan State
- North Carolina
- Baylor
- Oklahoma State
- Ohio State
- Notre Dame
- Michigan
- TCU
- UCLA
- Utah
- Oregon
- Florida
- Florida State
- Northwestern
- Pitt
- Wisconsin
- Ole Miss
- USC
- Washington State
- Mississippi State
coming up: Ole Miss, Miss State
going down: Houston, Bowling Green
on the bubble: LSU, Bowling Green, TAMU
P5 teams counted as mid-majors: Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Auburn, The Oregon State Biebers, Purdue, Colorado
mid-majors counted as P5: Bowling Green,** Air Force, San Diego State**
mid-majors counted as FCS: Charlotte, E Michigan, Wyoming, Hawaii, Lousiana-Monroe, UCF, UMass
FCS counted as mid-major: Jacksonville St, Colgate, Dayton, McNeese State, Southern Utah, Charleston Southern, Richmond, NC A & T, North Dakota State, Duquesne, Chattanooga. So Alabama and Florida State actually get a little credit for their wins last weekend.
Some jostling near the top: Alabama benefits from the upgrade of Mississippi State, while Michigan State is hurt by the downgrade of Purdue. The downgrade of Massachusetts slips Notre Dame behind Ohio State, and Baylor also leapfrogs them by virtue of the head-to-head win over Okie State.
A ranking that listens…I think I love you 
The Huskers are shooting themselves in the foot with stupid penalties. Iowa just scored as I typed this. They look pretty good, actually.
It looks like the Cougars from Week One showed up for the Apple Cup.
Their nation-leading QB was knocked cold last week, and didn’t play today. They could play with anybody this year when their first string was healthy, but the dropoff to the second string was like the Grand Canyon.
Les Miles tells LSU boosters that tomorrow is likely his last game.
I hope LSU spirals into Tennessee depths of oblivion and mediocrity. Entitled little bitches. Feaux the Tigers!
I’m hoping he takes a 15-20 year holiday in Columbia, SC
Fuckin’ Sweet!
Trojans, Pac-12 South reps for the Championship game! I never would have believed this a couple months ago! It’ll be another “Perfect Day” when Stanford beats Notre Dame in a little while. I wonder how much tickets are for the game in Santa Clara next week?
Woo-hoo! The Land Grant Trophy stays in East Lansing! On to Indy to take care of Iowa, then two more wins for the biggest trophy of all.
Derrick Henry gained more yards than the Auburn team. RTR!