Being a particularly greedy sort of person, the way it played out was exactly what I didn’t want. Dallas is a four hour drive from my house. Miami is 22 hours away and the airfare to the area is outrageous.
And here’s a list of the payouts:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/college-bowl-game-payouts/
The good news for you is that Phoenix is only a 13 hour drive. 
Yes it is and I’ve just purchased a futures contract on 2 tickets.
Speaking of payouts, who can tell me how much Clay Helton’s salary just went up?
Goddammit! I just googled him to make sure I spelled his name right, and that cocksucker is YOUNGER than me! Fuck, he looks like an old sack of shit!
And I just googled him, and I found out that the girl I met on Match.com is his QB coach.
The Thing Fish Rankings – week 14
Well, I am realizing I have run afoul of one of the basic principles of science: don’t change your parameters in the middle of the experiment. A few weeks ago, I introduced a bunch of strength of schedule adjustments which made the system much more complicated and which, I now believe, didn’t give better results and probably gave worse ones. I mentioned last week how those changes led to the dubious conclusion that Ohio State was still better than Michigan State, and that upon examination the rationale for that conclusion made no sense. The rankings as a whole were very minimally affected by those changes, but they did end up making a difference in the top four. So, having said that, here’s the pre-bowl top 25 in accordance with the rules as currently established:
1.Oklahoma!
2.Clemson
3.Stanford
4.Alabama
5.Michigan State
6.Iowa
7.Ohio State
8.TCU
9.UNC
10.Northwestern
11.Oklahoma State
12.Baylor
13.Florida State
14.Notre Dame
15.Michigan
16.USC
17.Utah
18.Oregon
19.Ole Miss
20.Houston
21.Western Kentucky
22.Bowling Green
23.Wisconsin
24.UCLA
25.LSU
Departing: Florida
Arriving: Bowling Green
According to the rules as originally announced at the start of the season, the top five are (in order) Clemson, Oklahoma, MSU, Stanford, and Alabama. If I just throw out the schedule strength adjustments but keep the deduction for losses which I introduced midseason, we also get Clemson, Oklahoma, MSU, Stanford, and Alabama. All the formulas agree that Iowa is #6, tOSU #7, and then a huge drop to either TCU or UNC.
So which is right? I think there is a reasonable case to be made that Stanford deserved a playoff spot more than MSU; maybe not a completely convincing case, but much stronger than most media and fans seemed to realize. The simple-minded only need to know that MSU had only one loss to Stanford’s two, but let’s look deeper. Strength of schedule favors Stanford: despite having one more loss overall, they also have one more win over P5 teams than MSU (10-2 vs. 9-1). Stanford was 4-2 against ranked teams, while MSU was 4-0. Stanford also has a win over a team just outside the rankings (WSU); none of MSU’s unranked opponents were anywhere near being ranked. On the other hand, MSU’s ranked opponents were ranked considerably higher on average than Stanford’s, especially if you go by the CFP rankings rather than mine (which gives Stanford only 3 wins over ranked teams, two of them over #25). Stanford’s two losses were both to good teams, MSU’s to a bad one.
They had one common opponent, Oregon; MSU barely beat them and Stanford barely lost. This would seem to be a point for MSU, if I didn’t follow Oregon closely enough to know that they struggled early this year and were playing far, far better at the time they played Stanford than they had been when they met MSU. So despite the different outcomes, I would if anything call this a small edge to Stanford. Overall, though, I don’t take comparisons to games against a single common opponent very seriously.
I think the strongest argument is that MSU was 5-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less, while Stanford was 1-1. If MSU had had just average luck in their close games, they would have been 9-3 and wouldn’t have won their division. So you can argue that MSU were very lucky to have the record they did, while Stanford’s record is a more accurate description of their actual quality. It’s a matter of opinion how much this matters; obviously, we all agree that the most important distinction is between winning and losing, not between winning with or without style points. I think it would be hard to say that a difference of four games –a full third of the season – in which they had to sweat it out at the end shouldn’t mean anything at all. In the end, the decision between these two teams probably comes down to how heavily you weigh the “game control” factor and whether you feel that I or the CFP are closer to right about UCLA and USC.
Alabama, I think, is also comparable to both these teams. They played three cupcakes, so were 9-1 against the P5, 2-1 against ranked teams (as per both me and the CFP), and the wins were over fairly low-ranked teams, though they were also 3-0 against nearly ranked teams. Their only loss was to a good team, and they were 1-1 in close games. So although I don’t think the committee made a major blunder in picking the teams they did, there should have been more suspense than there was about which of these three teams would be left out if they all won their conferences.
The system without adjustments for schedule strength, with or without deduction for losses, gives a reasonable result while being far simpler, so that is where I will start if I decide to add some tweaks and try this again next year. That system, however, would have prevented any mid-major teams from cracking the top 25 at all, so that is something I will have to think about.
It’s really tough to judge how good the Big 12 teams are because they almost play in a vacuum. Between OU, OSU, Baylor and TCU combined they played 2 P5 teams. And neither of them was all that good. OU beat Tennessee in double OT and TCU beat Minnesota by 6. And then they each beat up on the rest of the Big 12. Not that big of a deal to come out of that schedule with 2 losses.
I just wanted to applaud your efforts. It’s interesting to see how a different algorithm plays out – where it converges with the AP and the Committee, and where they differ. Hope to see it again next year.
Actually (unless I’m missing your point), the Big 12 is right behind the Pac-12 in average number of Power-5 opponents. It’s the SEC that is way behind the rest.
From http://newsok.com/why-is-the-big-ten-trying-to-submarine-a-big-12-title-game/article/5465688
When we’re talking about the top 4 Big 12 teams that actually show up in rankings, 2 of them played no other P5 teams. And the 2 that did, as I mentioned, won very close games against weaker P5 teams. From the whole conference, Texas played the strongest P5 team, Notre Dame, and got steamrolled.
The top SEC teams played decent P5 teams. Alabama played Wisconsin and Florida played, and lost big to Florida State. And nobody will accuse SEC teams of beating up on their weak conference schedule.
If I understand the article correctly and if in 2016 the Big Ten plays a schedule similar to this year’s, except with nine conference games for each team, the Big Ten would be at 10.36, easily the highest of all the leagues.
But there’s a big difference between playing Vanderbilt and Alabama, for example.
Thanks!
There were 29 regular season interconference games between Power 5 teams this year. Conference records:
Big 12 4-2
SEC 6-5
Big 10 9-9
Pac 12 4-4
ACC 6-9
So, the Big 12 does pretty well, but it’s a small sample size.
Overall, looking at these games, the thing that strikes me is how few upsets there are (given the default assumption that teams in the top, middle and bottom of the standings in each conference are roughly equal to each other). I only found two games that could be fairly described as big upsets, both by the SEC over the ACC:
Auburn (2-6) beat Louisville (5-3) and USC (1-7) beat UNC (8-0)
Off the top of my head, here’s how I would describe each conference’s interconference record:
ACC had 6 games in which they should have been favored, 6 in which they were underdogs, and 3 tossups.
Big 12: 3 favorites, 1 dog, 2 tossups
Big 10: 5 faves, 4 dogs, 9 tossers.
Pac 12: 2 faves, 1 dog, 5 tossups
SEC: 2 faves, 5 dogs, 4 tossups
So I would say that the available evidence (sparse as it is) indicates that the SEC is a little stronger than the other conferences and the ACC a little weaker; though as has been noted, the SEC also plays more cupcakes than other conferences, so maybe some of that difference is that they are better rested!
I think outside South Bend, most people would say that Iowa (held to a relatively respectable margin by Iowa State) was the strongest P5 team to play a Big 12 team this year.
Throwing out Kansas, which was pretty clearly the worst team in the P5 by a wide margin, the other 5 teams that went 1-19 against the Big 4 went 2-2 against teams from other power conferences, and neither of the losses were embarrassing. It’s a very small sample size, but it suggests to me that those teams weren’t so bad that going 5-0 against them shouldn’t be considered impressive.
That is all. Fall out, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
I can’t believe that 40 years after having been a Navy brat, I still watch this game, and still root for Navy. I guess it must be like being raised Catholic.
Not really. I was born & raised Catholic but I don’t always root for Notre Dame 
Now if the Marine Corps had a separate team, I’d be Sempre Fi-ing them (Ooh Rah!)
(21 years active duty Marine brat, 4 years active duty Naval Officer, 7 years drilling Navy Reserve)
When asked about beating Navy, the Army coach replied “It’s taking longer than we thought.” :smack:
Go army! Beat navy!
That was ssooo close! Too bad, can’t say the army didn’t have a chance…
You guys know the army players are at an huge disadvantage, right? They have made much more strict physical fitness requirements (gotta run 2 miles for the pt test, etc) and under a much tighter weight limit, and have absolutely no way of going pro - unlike the other device academies …
Most ND fans are probably not actually in South Bend, but I do think they’re a better team than Iowa. Not that it matters. The real point was that the top 4 Big 12 teams did not play good out of conference schedules, which makes it difficult to judge how good they really are. How good is Baylor, really? How good is Oklahoma State? Are those very impressive wins for Oklahoma? Maybe, maybe not.