Omnibus College Football Thread 2021-22

The Game Room
141

Yes, book it

142

We call that “moving the goalposts.” Someday, if you’d like, I’ll explain football to you and then you’ll possibly understand that metaphor.

143

I’ll retract this. While I’ve been very careful to attack your positions and opinions only, this one feels like a personal attack. I don’t believe that you have demonstrated any particularly expertise in football analysis, but I’m pretty sure you do know what a goalpost is.

So, apologies for that, but you’re still moving them.

144

Go back and read my posts on Sept 26; I was pretty clear in talking about the top teams in the conference, not so much the entire conference from top to bottom, which I’ve never cared about. I don’t care if some mediocre team from conference A loses to a team from conference B in the Citrus Bowl. What I can tell you is that the Big12 has never won a CFP football game, regardless of how many teams OU, which perpetually benefits from its preseason rankings and gets jammed in there by the “computers”. The PAC-12 has had far fewer appearances in the CFP and yet they’ve actually won a game. And this year ain’t gonna be much different.

145

That’s an opinion, so I can tear it apart.

That’s just fucking stupid.

Hell, there’s a reasonable chance that Georgia could win a national championship this year (the chance is far greater than anyone in the Pac 12 doing so). The last time that happened was a VERY long time ago. Ask any Bulldog and they’ll tell you that it’s not easy to get that crown. Hell, they fume about the fact that Georgia Tech has the more recent championship. The fact that it has been so long has zero bearing on their likelihood of getting it this year. Remember, this is the 2021-2022 College Football Thread, not some arbitrary exercise of grabbing whatever data point from whatever timeframe happens to back up your argument, ignoring all of the counter evidence because you’re an SEC homer.

  • In the five years prior to their last national championship, OU had a a record of 24 wins, 32 losses, and 1 tie. Pretty damned shitty, yet they won the championship even though they were an 11.5 point underdog. FSU and their Heisman winning QB couldn’t get a single point on the board.

  • In the five years prior to their 1962 national championship, USC had a record of 21 wins, 27 losses, and 2 ties.

  • In the five years prior to their 1991 national championship, Georgia Tech had a record of 26 wins, 28 losses, and 2 ties.

  • In 2020, the year after winning their last national championship, LSU had 5 wins and 5 losses. Losses included Mississippi St, who went 4-7 and Missouri, who went 5-5.

What happened last year might have some bearing on this year and it might not. It’s certainly not a given as teams are bad until they are good until they are bad again. Sometimes that swing takes a year, sometimes it takes many years.

146

Oregon State and Arizona State are both undefeated in conference and lead the Pac-12 divisions. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are the two remaining Big 12 undefeated teams. Still stand by your statement?

So if I understand you correctly, you will judge the entirety of the Big 12 based on how the conference champion performs in the CFP?

147

As I said earlier in the thread, the season is young, so let’s see where things stand. A lot of noise is made at mid-season, but the ultimate test is how teams fare in the playoff.

Pretty much

148

No need to watch the rest of the regular season, correct?

Only one conference will be a success this year, I guess.

149

I think the top two conferences are the SEC and BIG. ACC’s pretty much out. The PAC-12 has good teams that are beating each other up. Big12 has teams with good records, but…

150

I’ll give him credit. He’s the first person I’ve run across in this thread who makes Stephen A. Smith sound like an even-keeled, quiet, cornucopia of sports wisdom in comparison. And Stephen A. Smith is nothing more than clickbait in human form.

151

Gosh, you think?

Yeah, it’s a bitch being undefeated Oklahoma State, having just beaten previously undefeated Baylor,
who’s just another mediocre team with a good record.

152

The most apt description of Stephen A. that I’ve heard. Well done.

153

I wonder if I should tell him that by his measure, the Ivy League is the best and everyone else pales in comparison.

154

Let me know when the Ivy League is ready to compete for the CFP. Wait, tell you what - let me know when OU is picked number 4 - we could have a one-game playoff between OU and whoever the Ivy League winner is.

155

Okie dokie, Stephen A. Where’s the goalpost?


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156

Since the composite makes it a bit tricky to see conferences in aggregate, I created a pivot table to do a bit of playing around, and am showing them in conference order and team order within each conference. Mean and Median are pretty obvious and StDev is just showing the amount of disagreement in a given ranking. Higher values mean the ranking is more volatile and that the “jury is still out” for now. For the rank, they simply take the mean and sort the teams, then assign them a row number, i.e. ranking. They use mean to determine conference rankings and that seems fair to me and is the order I show them here. If you switch to median or rank, it moves the Big12 up to second, but that’s because they are top heavier than the Big10. For those watching at home, if the median is lower than the mean, the conference is top heavy. Median higher, bottom heavy.

If anyone wants to see something else, let me know. Now that it’s a pivot table, it’s not terribly difficult to make changes.

Conference Team Mean Median StDev Rank
SEC 37.43 36.6 11.73 35
Georgia 1.43 1.0 0.68 1
Alabama 3.21 2.0 2.73 2
Arkansas 15.83 14.0 6.21 10
Florida 18.03 14.0 11.16 14
Kentucky 20.40 20.0 14.08 15
Mississippi 21.93 19.0 11.09 19
Auburn 25.86 25.0 11.24 23
Texas A&M 40.65 37.0 17.09 36
Mississippi St 42.71 41.0 10.66 40
LSU 43.71 46.0 17.42 42
Tennessee 45.18 42.0 18.11 44
South Carolina 55.25 56.0 14.18 58
Missouri 83.53 84.0 10.77 80
Vanderbilt 106.36 111.0 18.73 111
B10 40.97 40.2 11.44 41
Iowa 4.47 4.0 1.85 3
Michigan 5.10 4.0 4.25 4
Penn St 7.63 7.0 3.40 6
Ohio St 10.94 8.0 7.09 8
Michigan St 16.80 15.0 7.43 13
Maryland 40.25 36.0 17.50 34
Rutgers 45.53 44.0 15.55 46
Nebraska 46.09 42.0 22.25 48
Purdue 53.05 51.0 11.88 53
Minnesota 55.47 56.0 11.04 59
Wisconsin 55.56 55.0 17.64 60
Indiana 56.95 61.0 14.97 62
Illinois 83.75 83.0 9.43 81
Northwestern 92.02 97.0 15.82 92
B12 41.20 40.0 11.70 39
Oklahoma 9.81 7.0 7.16 7
Texas 11.23 10.0 4.88 9
Oklahoma St 16.68 13.0 13.07 12
Kansas St 34.31 34.0 11.26 27
Iowa St 34.59 32.0 20.58 28
Baylor 35.26 33.0 9.18 30
Texas Tech 41.64 39.0 12.66 38
West Virginia 54.38 51.0 15.12 56
TCU 55.95 60.0 16.43 61
Kansas 118.11 121.0 6.61 121
ACC 52.54 52.0 11.46 52
Wake Forest 20.53 17.0 8.79 16
Pittsburgh 23.55 20.0 14.13 20
Clemson 23.80 22.5 12.06 21
NC State 30.31 28.0 9.80 26
North Carolina 41.51 44.0 17.29 37
Boston College 43.88 41.0 11.10 43
Virginia Tech 46.67 46.0 9.55 49
Virginia 52.95 52.0 9.06 52
Louisville 58.83 58.0 8.45 64
Miami FL 61.01 63.0 16.00 66
Georgia Tech 72.60 73.0 15.31 73
Syracuse 75.72 76.0 7.30 75
Duke 88.37 88.0 8.76 89
Florida St 95.84 99.0 12.90 99
P12 62.72 63.7 12.68 63
Oregon 21.27 20.0 7.18 18
Arizona St 26.26 26.0 8.17 24
Oregon St 35.44 31.0 10.26 31
UCLA 39.16 39.0 9.54 32
Stanford 42.49 44.0 12.31 39
USC 45.51 45.0 14.07 45
Utah 57.54 60.0 17.02 63
Washington 68.91 72.0 22.78 70
Washington St 94.19 98.0 13.46 96
Colorado 103.16 107.0 12.57 107
California 104.75 108.0 15.84 109
Arizona 113.99 114.0 8.90 116
FBSI 74.04 74.4 7.97 73
Notre Dame 16.05 15.0 5.13 11
BYU 20.69 18.0 13.10 17
Liberty 40.16 41.0 13.70 33
Army 62.40 62.0 11.48 67
Massachusetts 125.76 128.0 5.41 127
New Mexico St 126.49 128.0 2.73 129
Connecticut 126.72 129.0 4.26 130
AAC 74.71 74.7 10.82 76
Cincinnati 6.14 6.0 2.58 5
SMU 27.85 25.0 12.68 25
Houston 50.68 49.0 10.70 51
Memphis 72.34 75.0 10.31 72
UCF 77.59 76.0 19.41 78
East Carolina 77.68 76.0 7.37 79
Temple 95.64 96.0 15.03 98
Tulsa 100.61 102.0 12.10 103
Tulane 101.11 103.0 13.37 105
South Florida 104.58 105.0 6.63 108
Navy 107.63 109.0 8.85 114
MWC 75.88 77.0 13.97 77
San Diego St 46.07 48.0 17.21 47
Wyoming 50.04 53.0 26.09 50
Air Force 53.42 52.0 13.89 55
Nevada 54.94 56.0 11.40 57
Boise St 59.35 59.0 15.64 65
Fresno St 66.34 66.0 11.34 68
Utah St 77.30 79.0 15.14 77
San Jose St 84.85 88.0 13.83 83
Colorado St 91.99 95.0 18.91 91
Hawaii 92.32 91.0 8.13 94
New Mexico 116.87 119.0 7.64 119
UNLV 117.09 118.0 8.38 120
SBC 85.11 86.1 12.15 86
Coastal Car 25.40 25.0 9.07 22
Appalachian St 40.32 40.0 11.86 35
Louisiana 53.14 53.0 18.52 54
South Alabama 84.37 88.0 20.57 82
Troy 97.50 97.0 10.74 100
ULM 100.77 105.0 22.35 104
Ga Southern 103.10 104.0 9.34 106
Georgia St 106.94 108.0 7.31 112
Texas St 119.39 121.0 5.35 123
Arkansas St 120.17 120.0 6.39 124
MAC 90.81 91.8 11.38 91
W Michigan 34.92 29.0 18.95 29
Toledo 71.17 70.0 10.92 71
N Illinois 76.93 82.0 23.51 76
Ball St 87.12 89.0 13.31 85
Kent 87.36 87.0 9.18 86
Buffalo 87.39 88.0 10.82 87
Miami OH 91.64 95.0 8.07 90
E Michigan 93.33 94.0 9.01 95
Bowling Green 105.84 108.0 12.36 110
C Michigan 107.25 109.0 11.17 113
Ohio 121.00 123.0 5.81 125
Akron 125.79 127.0 3.50 128
CUSA 94.69 95.4 11.33 96
UT San Antonio 42.79 37.0 22.28 41
UAB 67.65 69.0 11.27 69
FL Atlantic 73.22 73.0 10.40 74
Marshall 85.93 88.0 19.54 84
Louisiana Tech 88.13 87.0 9.43 88
WKU 92.13 93.0 14.53 93
MTSU 95.01 97.0 8.51 97
UTEP 97.72 102.0 19.38 101
Charlotte 99.25 99.0 9.16 102
Rice 108.89 112.0 13.34 115
North Texas 115.68 116.0 4.73 117
Old Dominion 116.71 118.0 7.04 118
Southern Miss 119.01 120.0 4.78 122
Florida Intl 123.48 125.0 4.20 126
157

Cute stats and all, but the Big12 is still weak.

158

You’re absolutely correct, Stephen A.

The Big 12 only has 7 out of 10 teams that are ranked higher than LSU. Definitely slacking off.

159

OK, we get it. You think the Big 12 sucks, and nothing will make you change your mind. And if/when the Big 12 rep loses in the CFP, you will be shouting loudly from the mountaintop.

Meantime, the rest of us will form our opinions based on data and actual, you know, football.

160

I can safely say now that the Big12 will go down in flames in the CFP if they’re fortunate enough to make it. Another year, another overrated team, and another Big12 season without any defense. OU is gonna get slapped around in the playoff