Top10 college teams (10/4/2006)

[mmbt0ne]

AP Poll

1. Ohio State (63) 6-0 1,623
2. Florida 6-0 1,516
3. USC 5-0 1,451
4. Michigan 6-0 1,429
5. West Virginia (2) 5-0 1,416
6. Texas 5-1 1,294
7. Louisville 5-0 1,247
8. Tennessee 5-1 1,159
9. Notre Dame 5-1 1,068
10. California 5-1 1,017
11. Auburn 5-1 943
12. Clemson 5-1 876
13. Georgia Tech 5-1 739
14. LSU 4-2 693
15. Iowa 5-1 661
16. Georgia 5-1 615
17. Arkansas 4-1 482
18. Oregon 4-1 474
19. Missouri 6-0 469
20. Boise State 6-0 449
21. Nebraska 5-1 431
22. Virginia Tech 4-1 360
23. Oklahoma 3-2 271
24. Rutgers 5-0 194
25. Wisconsin 5-1 86

[tdarko]

Vince,

Haha, wow. Let me break it down for ya:

Texas wins:
Sam Houston State
Oklahoma
Iowa State
North Texas
Rice

Tennessee wins:
Cal
Air Force
Memphis
Marshall
Georgia

Cal and Georgia are better wins than any win on Texas' list, please o' please try to argue this. Air Force is better than UNT, Rice, and Div 1-AA Sam Houston State. The Air Force win may not be as good as the Iowa State win but it isn't far off but there really isn't any reason to argue this anyway. The Oklahoma win has been the only decent win so far this year--cool they beat a team ranked #23 in the country though they could be ranked higher. I really don't know how you can't look at the two schedules so far and plainly see who has beat better teams, it is plain as day.

Texas Loss:
tOSU

Tenn Loss:
Florida

The losses are a push. tOSU I would give the edge obviously as the better team (not by an enormous margin--we are talking 1 & 2 teams in the country here) but the fact that Texas looked like they didn't belong on the field and Tenn. was in position to win and gave the game away at the end makes it a push, which is me being lenient IMO.

[Vince Young]

[ QUOTE ]
I really don't know how you can't look at the two schedules so far and plainly see who has beat better teams, it is plain as day.

[/ QUOTE ]
Which is why I never said Texas has beat better teams. Although I do think OU > Georgia. If anyone has a right to be ahead of Texas, it's Louisville(and Notre Dame, Cal, and Auburn, because Texas showed they are clearly not a top 10 team yesterday, right?).

[teamdonkey]

tdarko,

the real answer is because the preseason polls had Texas #2 and Tennesee #23.

i'm excited to watch Garrett Wolfe tonight on ESPN

[tdarko]

teamdonkey-

Me too.

Vince-

Why does Cal deserve to be ahead of Tex but Tenn doesn't? What kind of thinking is that?

[lastchance]

SOS matters, so does Margin of Victory. I just look at Predictor to adjust these factors, and Texas seems really good. BTW, most of the top teams are pretty damn close right now, so I don't think most of these are really terrible.

Overrated teams:
Notre Dame at 9.
Georgia Tech at 13.
Arkansas at 17.
Rutgers at 24.

Underrated:
Oklahoma at 23.

[tdarko]

lastchance,

I have always thought ND was overrated and I stated in my previous post that Oklahoma should be ranked higher.

Still I don't understand how you (Vince) can think Cal should be ranked higher than Tenn when Tenn beat the piss out of them; makes zero sense.

As far as Margin of Victory goes, that seems kind of ridiculous b/c in college baseball it is the opposite and works well. It isn't the score of the games but the difficulty of schedule and what you do with that schedule you play to determine where you are ranked. When I say "what you do with that schedule," I am not saying the score of the games but your record. Anyone can schedule a ton of cupcakes, run up the score and "seem really good" that doesn't show anything in my opinion.

[lastchance]

One of the basic tenets of statiscal analysis in sports is that the best teams destroy inferior teams, not will their way to victory or squeak out small wins. To use a NFL example, the Bears are impressive not just because they've won 5 games, but because they've destroyed their competition in 4 of those.

Think about playground sports: You can judge future performance by watching how much better one team is compared to the other when one team runs up the score. If the game is close, you can tell that these teams are likely equivalent.

I rank Cal higher than Tenn because Predictor tells me so.

Apparently, in their other games, Cal has shown their superiority over inferior teams more than Tenn has, and Predictor shows it. Of course, it's really, really close, and at this point, this game is likely a pk.

It's probably that 1 point win at home against Air Force. A top 10 team should've won by a TD+, but there are all fluke games. It does drag down Tenn's ranking a bit though.

[tdarko]

lastchance,

I must be lost or something b/c I completely disagree with all of this. First, I don't think you can compare the NFL with college football.

Secondly, if one team destroys another...I am not talking a squeeker but a big dominating win, this tells you that the winning team is better or at least should be considered better and Tennessee beat Cal fairly decidingly.

Your predictors and etc. still don't tell me anything. If a top 15 team plays a div II team why is the score taken seriously when a top 15 team beats the number #10 ranked team in the country by 18 or the #9 team in the country by 17 (as previously discussed)? In my eyes a decisive win against quality opponents shouldn't even be discussed on the same level as some blowout against a Div II team or UNT (30 minutes from my house) which, btw, is a team that gets blanked by Middle Tenn 35-0 and is the same team that lost to Oklahoma 59-0...well Tex only beat UNT 56-7 does that make Oklahoma better than Texas? I think we saw who was better yesterday, see score doesn't mean a whole lot.

You can give me all of predictors or whatever but I still haven't heard anything concrete that has convinced me as to why wins over some of the worst programs in Texas are better than wins against two teams ranked 9th and 10th in the country.

[Troy Smith]

The predictor also thought Minnesota was the #3 team in the country when they played Michigan, and Michigan owned them. Over he past 3 weeks, the predictor is 33% against the spread.