A weak schedule does hurt you in the polls, but not nearly as much as a loss. Until that gets fixed, you’re going to continue to see almost nothing but serious mismatches outside conference play.
And, btw, Go Bucks!
A lot depends on which caste you’re in. Chosen Ones can play a patsy schedule and close wins over cream puffs don’t hurt them- witness FSU last year. If you’re a Chosen One and do happen to lose a game, you only drop a few slots which you immediately get back with your next serving of cupcake.
Nobody is going to “upset” Texas. They sucked. I couldn’t believe how bad they were on both sides of the ball. I wasn’t overly impressed with ND’s offense, but they hung a lot of yards on Texas. And the Longhorns’ offensive line. Yuck.
The way I look at it: a Hail Mary is a fluke play. It’s a desperation play that every team tries at the end of a close game. 99% are not caught. The very few that are highlight reels.
So, I’ll look on the bright side to give our new coach the benefit of the doubt. Other than that fluke play, we would’ve won that game. We were down 24-14 at the half. Under Pelini, the team would’ve quit on him, like all those Wisconsin blowouts. Especially when QB Armstrong was looking so useless after that first drive.
But we came back and took the lead. That ball bounces off, like 99% of Hail Marys, Huskerland is talking about how Riley & Co made the adjustments to beat BYU (whom I do think is a better team than Nebraska). Now, there is much gnashing of teeth “We fired a 9-win coach for this?”
- Please note, BYU fans, I am not “asterisking” the Hail Mary pass. We beat Northwestern(!) at home(!!) on a Hail Mary a few years ago. And it was thrilling!
I can’t stand Jim Harbaugh. Every time I see that guy’s image on my T.V. screen I want to punch it, repeatedly. Having typed that, he’ll have the Wolverines (a TEAM that I CANNOT stand) back where they THINK they belong, and soon, because he’s proven himself to be a top coach everywhere he’s gone. Contrast that with “silver-spoon-in-his-mouth” C.P. at the University of Washington. Boy did the U-Dub f*ck THAT up. C.P. proved NOTHING in Boise except that his team could continue to dominate teams in the MWC much as they already had under guys like Houston Nutt, Dirk Koetter, and Dan Hawkins. Unless the U-Dub becomes accustomed to M-E-D-I-O-C-R-I-T-Y for its football team (which I’m beginning to think that it already is) C.P. will be GONE from Seattle, and DESERVEDLY SO, within 3 years (hopefully fewer).
The Thing Fish Rankings!
I am happy(though by no means surprised!) to see that the usual complaints about rankings have already begun. Last year I was making my own rankings, and over the offseason I tuned up my system. I wanted to design a system that was simple and, crucially, that doesn’t depend at all on “preseason ratings” or expectations based on past performance or the estimated strength of recruiting classes. Rather, I am starting from the assumption that all P5 teams are of equal quality until proven otherwise.
I wanted to primarily reward teams for winning, especially winning against good teams, on the road, and/or by decisive margins (without incentivizing running up scores in blowouts). I will post the details of the system at some point for those interested. I quickly ran last season’s results through this, and found that early in the season, my ratings looked very different from the established ratings, but tended to converge later in the season. Last season’s top 4 would have been Oregon, FSU, tOSU, and TCU, with Alabama at #5. So I like this system because it confirms my belief that the SEC is perpetually overrated!
I think these ratings may be useful for identifying teams which,* based on what they have actually done during the current season* are overrated; for example, last year this system never ranked either Mississippi team in the top 10, even though they were both briefly ranked very high in the real polls after beating some other overrated SEC teams.
Conversely, this system will rate teams that haven’t done all that much low, even though they may look good on paper. For example, the winner of next week’s MSU-Oregon game will probably be around 3 or 4 in the AP poll, but this will have it ranked much lower, because the loser won’t yet have shown that it is actually any good. If, as expected, both teams go on to have good seasons, the winner will then get some extra credit for the quality win.
So here is the first week’s rankings: (and remember, with only one week of data to work with, this basically ranks teams that won in rough order of how impressive their wins were)
- Ohio State
- UCLA
- Notre Dame
- TCU
- Texas A & M
- Alabama
- Northwestern (this whole project was worth it just to get to type that!)
- Utah
- Baylor
- South Carolina
- Auburn
- Miss St
- Illinois (ditto)
- USC (the real one)
- Michigan St.
- West Virginia
- Duke
- NC State
- Florida St.
- Oklahoma
- Okie St.
- Tennessee
- Arkansas
- Georgia
- Florida
Actually this doesn’t look too radically different from the AP poll; we both have the same #1 and 6 of the top 10. We will see how this evolves over the course of the season…
How weird is it that Michigan State plays Oregon the same weekend that Oregon State plays Michigan?
I am a bit worried about that game after Eastern freaking Washington put 42 points on the Ducks last week; Michigan State may get into triple digits. I see it didn’t hurt us with the AP voters, though, which is kind of ridiculous; just putting EWU on the schedule should hurt you badly. Hoping that the defensive coaches are working overtime this week. At least we’ll have the better uniforms!
I applaud your effort, and look forward to seeing next week’s ranking.
This week is pretty light on matchups. Michigan State vs. Oregon could be interesting, but I don’t have much rooting interest. Ohio State gets to pretty much roll all the way to the 2nd half of November when they play Michigan State. So that’s depressing.
That just means every game is a trap game for the Bucks. It’ll be a real coaching challenge for Meyer, on top of massaging his QB situation.
That’s one way to spin it. As for their QB situation, it’s Cardale and don’t look back. JT can have the reins next year and the year after. It’s an easy sell, really.
Reminds me of 1981, when Cal outscored its opponents despite going something like 2-9 that season (thanks to the hiring of Mouse Davis, who instituted a Run & Shoot / Trick Plays offense centered around QB Gale Gilbert, who got injured in the first half of the first game of the season on Cal’s then-new artificial turf (the old, cement-floored type), thanks to a 40-plus-point win over one of the Oregon schools that were fighting each other for the “worst team in I-A” title (one year, they decided it…with a 0-0 tie).
Will they make a bowl?
First question: does Grambling give out enough football scholarships so that Cal can count it as a bowl-eligible win? (If not, the only way a 6-6 Cal team goes to a bowl is if there are not enough schools to fill the bowls otherwise.)
Second question: does Cal want to make a bowl? Unless it’s reasonably local, any bowl Cal is expected to go to would probably end up costing the school money. (Then again, would Cal have a choice, since the replacement team probably wouldn’t be from the Pac-12, which means the other schools wouldn’t get a share?)
The Oregon teams playing at the Michigan teams today. This was a collaboration between the U of O and the OSU teams, right? I know it was mentioned here upthread but it’s kind of cool.
I’m as big a Michigan fan as there is, and I loathe the man. He has been the douchiest of the douchey for his entire life back to when he was the Michigan QB. Do find it an interesting experiment to watch. He will make them better, he is that good of a coach, but he is to much of a tool to last anywhere, and Michigan’s opinionated big time donors are as bad as anywhere therselves. There is an equation in there of hype, expectation,success, and jackassness that will be a lot of good whiny fun for a few years.
Anybody watching the Jacksonville State game? Up 20-13 with 5 minutes to go.
I can see some anti-SEC bias right away.
Auburn beat a P5 team (Louisville) is ranked lower than Baylor who beat a non P5 team (SMU)
I take it you’re not watching the Auburn game right now?
I am watching the Auburn/Jax St game.
But that game is irrelevant to the standings after Week 1.
I disagree. It might show us that those standings are more accurate than our perceptions after Week 1.
Louisville is an ACC team and therefore a more quality opponent than SMU (an American West team).
Auburn beating Louisville should have been ranked higher than Baylor who beat SMU (blowing them out)