OFFICIAL NCAAF Rank'em thread: October 14, 2007

[BobJoeJim]

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Take for instance, the argument that started this whole discussion of Sagarin: that according to his predictor Wisconsin is the 8th best team in the big 10. I don;t know how you can argue this.

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WISCONSIN:
Washington State (2-5 with wins over Idaho and SDSU) - W, 42-21
@UNLV (2-5 with wins over Utah and Utah State) - W, 20-13
Citadel (1-AA, also lost to Wofford) - W, 45-31
Iowa (3-4, lost to Iowa State) - W, 17-13
Michigan State (5-2, best win: Indiana?) - W, 37-34
@Illinois (Good team... but just lost to Iowa) - L, 31-26
@Penn State (5-2, solid team, did lose to Illinois and Michigan though) - L 38-7

Wisconsin is 5-0 against really bad teams, with four of the games being pretty close, and 0-2 against two good but not great opponents, including one blowout.

I'm not going to explain why I think Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State or Illinois (whose win over Penn State offsets the Iowa loss enough to let head-to-head results indicate that they're better than the Badgers). That leaves Wisconsin fifth at best. Purdue is 5-2, the losses are to Michigan and Ohio State, the wins are by big margins, pretty clear, Wisconsin drops to sixth. Indiana is 5-2, beating nobodies, losing to Illinois and Michigan State, pretty close. I can give Wisconsin the edge here, but not by much. Sagarin had Indiana ONE SPOT ahead of Wisconsin, hard to criticize that too much. Then there's 5-2 Michigan State, who lost by three at Wisconsin, and struggled to beat Pitt, but blew out two of their bad opponents, to Wisconsin's one. Now, the OT home loss to Northwestern is ugly, and I might give the nod to Wisconsin here, but again, I think it's close.

Moral of the story: Wisconsin is at best the #6 team in the Big11Ten, and two other teams are very VERY close to them. Sagarin ranks those two teams ahead of them, and puts Wisconsin #8 in the conference. It's hard to say for sure, right now, I'd probably put them 6, but it's very close. This is NOT a useful case study if your goal is to marginalize Sagarin's rankings.

And that's how I can argue it. Without using computer rankings to justify my position.

[Semtex]

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First of all, according to Sagarin's own rankings WVU are top 5 and Auburn are top 15. The best team that tOSU has played in his own system are 29. The next best is 41. How does tOSU come out on top?

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You should probably sit and try to understand the rankings if you want to argue against them without looking like an idiot

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I should have worded it differently. I am not confused as to how tOSU ends up on top, I just think its retarded.

[TomCollins]

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First of all, according to Sagarin's own rankings WVU are top 5 and Auburn are top 15. The best team that tOSU has played in his own system are 29. The next best is 41. How does tOSU come out on top?

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You should probably sit and try to understand the rankings if you want to argue against them without looking like an idiot

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I should have worded it differently. I am not confused as to how tOSU ends up on top, I just think its retarded.

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It's easy when you have one of the best defenses in the country. Perhaps USC should try getting one sometime.

[NozeCandy]

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In light of Michigan's resurrection is some of the heat off Carr/English/DeBord? We had all written them off for dead after ASU/Oregon, but it turns out Oregon is a damn good team, and Michigan has won 5 straight since then against some tough teams.

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If they aren't gone at the end of this year, the fans will riot. Seriously.

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Michigan fans make me smile. Their program has the 2nd most wins in D1 in the last 10 years, but they hate the coach because he does poorly against tOSU and in bowls. 2 early season losses, and now he's fired regardless of what he does against tOSU and in the bowl...

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the thing is Michigan is underachieving

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if Carr deserves the blame for Michigan underachieving, he also deserves the credit for building a good team. The end product is what people should be concerned with. And during Carr's tenure, the end product has been very good.

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This is so stupid. You can have a good team that underachieves.

I watch all the Michigan games. I see the monotonous, overly conservative playcalling (seriously, there are indicators via motion and personnel on the field that tip the exact play Michigan is going to run with near absolute certainty). I see teams that aren't even scouted for (App State and just about any opponent the coaches don't respect, the offense is noticeably different against teams that are supposed to be good). I see tons and tons of blown games in the 4th quarter (7-5 in 2005, losses by a total of something like 25 points, many other games that were just horrible in earlier years down the stretch). Sure it's easy to look at the end result and say, "Wow, they're doing a pretty good job." The thing is, the talent level there is usually so much better than a lot of the Big 10 except OSU that they can get away with this. It's as soon as the talent level is close or there is a mobile QB in a spread offense that Carr just goes to [censored]. He refuses to adapt, and there is no way he is going to this late in his career. If you actually watch the games, all his faults are apparent.

[Semtex]

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First of all, according to Sagarin's own rankings WVU are top 5 and Auburn are top 15. The best team that tOSU has played in his own system are 29. The next best is 41. How does tOSU come out on top?

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You should probably sit and try to understand the rankings if you want to argue against them without looking like an idiot

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I should have worded it differently. I am not confused as to how tOSU ends up on top, I just think its retarded.

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It's easy when you have one of the best defenses in the country. Perhaps USC should try getting one sometime.

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Remember according the Predictor tOSU was the 2nd best team in the country last year. After tOSU Michigan I think it became painfully obvious that neither team could play defense against any semblance of an offense which the Big 10 was completely devoid of, Everyone outside of the Big 10 knew that the best of the Big 10 couldn't begin to compare to the best of the SEC and Pac10. This was confirmed in the bowl shellackings of both teams. Why couldn't Sagarin grasp this? Because its a dumb scientific system. Just because its the best of the scientific systems doesn't mean its any good. Sure its better than the human polls but that is not saying much at all.

[Hornacek]

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In light of Michigan's resurrection is some of the heat off Carr/English/DeBord? We had all written them off for dead after ASU/Oregon, but it turns out Oregon is a damn good team, and Michigan has won 5 straight since then against some tough teams.

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If they aren't gone at the end of this year, the fans will riot. Seriously.

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Michigan fans make me smile. Their program has the 2nd most wins in D1 in the last 10 years, but they hate the coach because he does poorly against tOSU and in bowls. 2 early season losses, and now he's fired regardless of what he does against tOSU and in the bowl...

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the thing is Michigan is underachieving

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if Carr deserves the blame for Michigan underachieving, he also deserves the credit for building a good team. The end product is what people should be concerned with. And during Carr's tenure, the end product has been very good.

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This is so stupid. You can have a good team that underachieves.

I watch all the Michigan games. I see the monotonous, overly conservative playcalling (seriously, there are indicators via motion and personnel on the field that tip the exact play Michigan is going to run with near absolute certainty). I see teams that aren't even scouted for (App State and just about any opponent the coaches don't respect, the offense is noticeably different against teams that are supposed to be good). I see tons and tons of blown games in the 4th quarter (7-5 in 2005, losses by a total of something like 25 points, many other games that were just horrible in earlier years down the stretch). Sure it's easy to look at the end result and say, "Wow, they're doing a pretty good job." The thing is, the talent level there is usually so much better than a lot of the Big 10 except OSU that they can get away with this. It's as soon as the talent level is close or there is a mobile QB in a spread offense that Carr just goes to [censored]. He refuses to adapt, and there is no way he is going to this late in his career. If you actually watch the games, all his faults are apparent.

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none of this matters

Les Miles will be coming to Ann Arbor in Spring 2008, and its not for a spring exhibition vs LSU...

book it

[FlyWf]

How is it that a sub-forum allegedly populated by drawing from a pool by winning poker players is still full of results-oriented garbage?

People are reacting to last year's NC game like they've never seen a lopsided game before. OSU losing was not a sign of anything greater than specific failings by Tressel and his players. It's rather incredible that you've managed to convince yourself that "everybody" knew that OSU was going to lose badly because they couldn't play defense and the Big Ten was terrible, that would be why Florida was a double digit favorite, right?

Trying to dig up any quotes from you about the NC game was unsuccessful, but I did manage to find a thread where you strenuously argued that USC 05>Texas 05.

[Semtex]

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How is it that a sub-forum allegedly populated by drawing from a pool by winning poker players is still full of results-oriented garbage?

People are reacting to last year's NC game like they've never seen a lopsided game before. OSU losing was not a sign of anything greater than specific failings by Tressel and his players. It's rather incredible that you've managed to convince yourself that "everybody" knew that OSU was going to lose badly because they couldn't play defense and the Big Ten was terrible, that would be why Florida was a double digit favorite, right?

Trying to dig up any quotes from you about the NC game was unsuccessful, but I did manage to find a thread where you strenuously argued that USC 05>Texas 05.

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Specific failings? You think that was a fluke? You think that team was going to be even close to USC, Florida, Cal, or LSU? So Michigan getting worked by USC was also a fluke? That Texas team was one VY knee injury away from completely self-destructing. You put any other quarterback on that team, including Leinart, and had Booty start for USC they would have won. So somehow if Texas beats USC in a nailbiter I cannot argue that calling Texas better is being results oriented, while you can argue calling tOSU wildly overrated for letting Michigan run up 39 and then Florida 41 in a blowout is results oriented garbage? Face it, they had no defense, it just looked that way because they played a bunch of terrible teams. I also guarantee tOSU gets destroyed if they play an SEC or Pac10 team in the NCF

[BobJoeJim]

Did you REALLY think, BEFORE the Florida game, that Ohio State had no defense? They had given up 12, 7 (this was Texas who averaged 36), 7, 6, 17, 7, 7, 3, 0 (Minnesota averaged 29), 10, and 10 in their first 11 games. Yes, they then gave up 39 to Michigan, who averaged 29 on the year, but prior to the Florida game I think the logical assumption would have been to think that *that* was the fluke, particularly considering that Ohio State still won the game... and that Michigan's offense was helped by three turnovers... Ohio State's defense finished the year, INCLUDING the Florida stats, #15 in rush defense, #10 in pass efficiency allowed, #12 in total defense, and #5 in scoring defense. I think Florida was the best team in the country, but I'm pretty sure that the margin of the title game was NOT indicitave of the actual talent gap between them and OSU, who I think was probably the second best team in the country.

[capone0]

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How is it that a sub-forum allegedly populated by drawing from a pool by winning poker players is still full of results-oriented garbage?

People are reacting to last year's NC game like they've never seen a lopsided game before. OSU losing was not a sign of anything greater than specific failings by Tressel and his players. It's rather incredible that you've managed to convince yourself that "everybody" knew that OSU was going to lose badly because they couldn't play defense and the Big Ten was terrible, that would be why Florida was a double digit favorite, right?

Trying to dig up any quotes from you about the NC game was unsuccessful, but I did manage to find a thread where you strenuously argued that USC 05>Texas 05.

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I just think the Big 10 has been pretty weak the last couple of years in Comparison to the SEC and I'm a big Michigan fan. We just can't compete with some of the SEC/Pac-10 schools. I hope the tOSU-UF game was a fluke, but it looked like domination to me. I guess we could blame it on many things, but I'm still skeptacle of the Big 10 right now.