Yes. Yes it is.
However, Sports Illustrated doesn't think so, and they've put out their "post-spring camp Top 25" plus five more, and it's an interesting list to peruse...
1. Ohio State 11. Stanford 21. Georgia Tech
2. Baylor 12. Ole Miss 22. Oklahoma
3. Auburn 13. Arizona 23. BYU
4. Alabama 14. USC 24. LSU
5. Michigan St 15. Boise State 25. Oklahoma St
6. TCU 16. Clemson 26. Arkansas
7. Notre Dame 17. Missouri 27. Utah
8. UCLA 18. Georgia 28. Mississippi St
9. Florida St 19. Arizona St 29. Texas
10. Oregon 20. Wisconsin 30. Michigan
I find this list absolutely fascinating to contemplate, which is why I post it. At Following Football, we do NOT rank football teams until somewhen in mid-October at the earliest. What we do do is group teams into what we call "tiers"; eventually there'll be about twenty tiers, A through T or so, even when they're ranked (that's also how we project game outcomes) but at the very beginning of the season? We'll divide them up into two, three, four tiers...then six or seven...then maybe eight or ten..until we have enough information to rank them all, #1-127. (UAB football, rest in peace.)
But about THIS list? Look at these crunchy tidbits!
> Auburn 3 and Alabama 4? Delicious!
> OSU deserves #1, but MSU isn't very far behind at #5...
> Baylor at 2 and TCU way back at 6? But TCU's the one bringing their QB back!
> How about this one? Everett Golson goes to perennial playoff contender Florida St, #9... but the team he left is #7!
> Look at the Pac-12! UCLA #8, Oregon #10, Stanford #11, Arizona #13, USC #14, and Arizona State at #19! (Even Utah sneaking in at 27!) THAT will be a packed conference!
> The "Group of Five" better figure out a way to defeat Boise State! They start the season ranked this year...even a loss or two may not knock them out of the top non-Power spot! (Only BYU sits on the list, at #23, to challenge.)
> Oklahoma 22 and Okee State 25? Fun!
> Arkansas 26 and Texas 29? (Or OU/UT? Or...)
> And look who they've got sneaking in at #30! High hopes, indeed, Mr. Harbaugh!
Showing posts with label Oklahoma St. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oklahoma St. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2015
Hello, point-shaving possibilities!
The Big 12 now has a tiebreaking formula in case Baylor and TCU tie again at 8-1...unfortunately, it has a hint of disaster lurking underneath it in the case of a three way tie... check out this link.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Thoughts from championship Saturday....
As the game between TCU and Iowa St is reaching its 55-3 conclusion, with the Horned Frogs having made their statement to the playoff committee, two tweets retweeted by TCU reporter Stefan Stevenson caught our eye. The first remarks on the ethics of coach Gary Patterson:
- #Classystylepoints "@calexmendez: TCU has 55 points, kneeled on a fourth-and-goal at the 6.... with 4:05 to go."
- Immediately thereafter, the opposing viewpoint, or at least ONE opposing thought, was presented:
Reply
Retweet
Favorite- Yep. "@byjoelanderson: If I played for Iowa State, I'd be way more offended that they treated us like a Make-A-Wish squad."
As we discussed Tuesday night, the committee has already made their decision, and 55-3 isn't going to give them any reason to change their minds... TCU will be in the playoff.
Congratulations to the SMU Mustangs! After the season from hell, in which their coach quit on them, two games in; in which game after game, their opponents have dominated them on both sides of the ball; in which, on the one occasion that they looked like should win, South Florida drove the field for a touchdown, made them punt, and then finished the game with a ridiculous 21-play, eight-minute, three 4th down conversion drive that ended with a six yard touchdown pass on fourth down with six seconds to play to win 14-13...after all of that, they finally came up with a fourth quarter score to break a 20-all tie and defeat conference foe Connecticut 27-20. They end the season 1-11, break a thirteen game losing streak, and prevent the 2014 season from having a winless season this year.
Think about this: The 1-11 SMU Mustangs will enter the 2015 season on a longer winning streak than THREE of the four playoff teams will!
Good on you, Oklahoma St! On a five-game losing streak, down 35-21 to their Bedlam rivals Oklahoma, it would have been easy and understandable to simply let down and give in. Instead, they scored a touchdown, stopped the Sooners, and ran a punt return back to tie the game and send it on to overtime, where they just kicked a field goal to not only upset their rivals but become bowl eligible.
The FCS playoffs are in the Round of Sixteen, and besides the Sam Houston St upset of Jacksonville St (that we predicted, thank you!), the home teams have rolled. Except for the defending champs, North Dakota St, who hosted their cross-border rivals from South Dakota St. The game was neck and neck, and SDSU moved ahead 24-20 with just over three minutes to go. The Bison did what all great teams do - they showed their greatness by driving the length of the field when they HAD to, scored that must-have touchdown with a perfect pass with fifty-four seconds to go, and intercepted the first pass SDSU threw to seal the victory.
Hard to argue with the shows that three of the four CFP top four teams put on over the last twenty-four hours: we talked about TCU's victory, but Alabama and Oregon both won conference championships at neutral sites over division title winners with disarming ease. Last night, the Ducks avenged their only loss by annihilating Arizona 51-13, with Marcus Mariota clinching his impending Heisman Trophy win with five TDs with his arm and his legs. This afternoon, the Crimson Tide rolled over Missouri, 42-13, with Blake Sims confirming his coaches' faith in him when they surprised folks by naming him the starter. Now, it's up to defending champion Florida St to complete the picture tonight by beating the teams they beat exactly two years ago to start their 28-game winning streak, the Georgia Tech. If they win, the committee WILL NOT remove them from the playoffs. It just won't happen! But if they LOSE, they're gone. Period. Then,...who? Ohio St? Baylor? Both have tough games (Wisconsin and Kansas St, respectively) that they'll have to win to give the committee the opportunity to move them up into the four-spot.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Looking forward to Week 9 in college football with our SCIENTIFIC tools!
There are some great games coming this weekend, the first one on Thursday night when Tier F Louisville hosts Tier A Florida St! By tiering, the best game of the weekend should be Auburn @ Ole Miss, where the polls have the Tigers above the Rebels, but we have Ole Miss in Tier A and Auburn a rung lower in B; hence, we're favoring Ole Miss (and, if we were actually making bets, "taking the points").
Other marquee games include TCU @ West Virginia (tiers A vs. C), Kentucky @ Missouri (tiers D vs. E; unlike the oddsmakers, we like the Wildcats), Arkansas @ Mississippi St (tiers H vs. A), Arizona @ UCLA (again, they're favoring the lower tiered team, so we'll take tier C Arizona and the points over the tier E Bruins), and Stanford @ Oregon.
Going strictly by tiers, and using the old saw about home field being about a three-point advantage, we've noticed that the point spread for this week's games generally matches up very well with our 20-tier system. As a general rule, the expected margin of victory will be somewhere between 1-2.5 points per tier, plus or minus the three points for the home field. The actual average is 1.75 points per tier, with the median at 1.5 points per tier. So, if two teams are four tiers apart on last week's listing, expect the higher team to be favored by 4-10 points, most likely 6-7, + the three points for home field.
Given those parameters, and strictly using our wisened separation tool better known as "guessing" where teams should fall, we took a look at the 54 FBS games scheduled this weekend for "outliers" to see if there were some easy predictions we could make based on this statistical creation:
Predictions based on our tier system and the Vegas odds...
*Iowa should be favored by more than 4 at home against Northwestern.
*Rutgers shouldn't be eleven point underdogs at home against Wisconsin (more like 2).
*Florida International shouldn't be 6 1/2 point dogs at home to Rice (also about 2).
*Why is Duke not favored over Pitt? Tier D over tier I? They should be giving points!
*North Carolina will be closer to the Hurricanes than seventeen points...
*Boston College shouldn't be getting points from Virginia Tech (or, at least not three)!
*Eastern Michigan shouldn't be more than about a touchdown underdog to Central Michigan (not 16 1/2 points, anyway!).
*Louisiana Tech should be a much bigger favorite over Tier R Western Kentucky - six points at home isn't sufficient.
*Virginia at Georgia Tech shouldn't be just the three point home field advantage...the Yellowjackets deserve at least a TD spread in their favor.
*Part of the continued over-valuing of the Cougars after Tayson Hill's injury: Middle Tennessee should NOT be the underdog at home again BYU.
*And Kentucky should be favored over Missouri - or at least, not down six!
*We see both UNLV and Ole Miss as higher tiered teams at home (against New Mexico and Auburn, respectively), and with the three-point home bump should be more than one and two point faves, in turn. More like five each.
*Oklahoma St will be a one TD underdog to Kansas St, not two.
*Arizona will flat out beat UCLA in Los Angeles, not lose by four.
*Fresno St may be favored at home, but Wyoming shouldn't be getting 10 1/2 points!
*See previous comment with Utah not getting five points against Arizona St!
*Finally, it's hard to estimate what the trip to the islands does to a team, but we think Utah St deserves more love than a three point spread when they play at Hawaii late Saturday night!
We'll see how those predictions go this weekend! Eighteen chances to be proven wrong! A prognosticator's dream!
Other marquee games include TCU @ West Virginia (tiers A vs. C), Kentucky @ Missouri (tiers D vs. E; unlike the oddsmakers, we like the Wildcats), Arkansas @ Mississippi St (tiers H vs. A), Arizona @ UCLA (again, they're favoring the lower tiered team, so we'll take tier C Arizona and the points over the tier E Bruins), and Stanford @ Oregon.
Going strictly by tiers, and using the old saw about home field being about a three-point advantage, we've noticed that the point spread for this week's games generally matches up very well with our 20-tier system. As a general rule, the expected margin of victory will be somewhere between 1-2.5 points per tier, plus or minus the three points for the home field. The actual average is 1.75 points per tier, with the median at 1.5 points per tier. So, if two teams are four tiers apart on last week's listing, expect the higher team to be favored by 4-10 points, most likely 6-7, + the three points for home field.
Given those parameters, and strictly using our wisened separation tool better known as "guessing" where teams should fall, we took a look at the 54 FBS games scheduled this weekend for "outliers" to see if there were some easy predictions we could make based on this statistical creation:
Predictions based on our tier system and the Vegas odds...
*Iowa should be favored by more than 4 at home against Northwestern.
*Rutgers shouldn't be eleven point underdogs at home against Wisconsin (more like 2).
*Florida International shouldn't be 6 1/2 point dogs at home to Rice (also about 2).
*Why is Duke not favored over Pitt? Tier D over tier I? They should be giving points!
*North Carolina will be closer to the Hurricanes than seventeen points...
*Boston College shouldn't be getting points from Virginia Tech (or, at least not three)!
*Eastern Michigan shouldn't be more than about a touchdown underdog to Central Michigan (not 16 1/2 points, anyway!).
*Louisiana Tech should be a much bigger favorite over Tier R Western Kentucky - six points at home isn't sufficient.
*Virginia at Georgia Tech shouldn't be just the three point home field advantage...the Yellowjackets deserve at least a TD spread in their favor.
*Part of the continued over-valuing of the Cougars after Tayson Hill's injury: Middle Tennessee should NOT be the underdog at home again BYU.
*And Kentucky should be favored over Missouri - or at least, not down six!
*We see both UNLV and Ole Miss as higher tiered teams at home (against New Mexico and Auburn, respectively), and with the three-point home bump should be more than one and two point faves, in turn. More like five each.
*Oklahoma St will be a one TD underdog to Kansas St, not two.
*Arizona will flat out beat UCLA in Los Angeles, not lose by four.
*Fresno St may be favored at home, but Wyoming shouldn't be getting 10 1/2 points!
*See previous comment with Utah not getting five points against Arizona St!
*Finally, it's hard to estimate what the trip to the islands does to a team, but we think Utah St deserves more love than a three point spread when they play at Hawaii late Saturday night!
We'll see how those predictions go this weekend! Eighteen chances to be proven wrong! A prognosticator's dream!
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Without further ado...the Week 6 Tiers!
Tier 1
Alabama (5-1, thanks to a blocked XP), Baylor (6-0, thanks to local timekeepers), Florida St (6-0, thanks to the Tallahassee PD), Mississippi St (6-0, legitimately), Notre Dame (6-0, no thanks to the stud QBing for North Carolina) , Ole Miss (also legit 6-0), Oregon (5-1), and TCU (4-1 and deserving of Tier 1 by proving against OU and Baylor that they deserve to be up here!).
Tier 2
Auburn (5-1 and probably just on vacation from the top tier), Arizona (5-1, and a failed two-pt conversion from undefeated), Georgia (5-1, after proving they are not just Todd Gurley), LSU (5-2), Michigan St (5-1, but they'd prefer three-quarter games), Oklahoma (5-1; see Auburn), Oklahoma St (5-1), and UCLA (4-2, all due to Brett Hundley).
Tier 3
Clemson (4-2), Duke (5-1), Georgia Tech (5-1), Kansas St (4-1), Nebraska (5-1, higher if we could forget McNeese St), Ohio St (4-1), Texas A&M (5-2, and our pastor will never set foot in the state of Mississippi again!), and USC (4-2).
Tier 4
Arizona St (4-1), Kentucky (5-1, and a 3OT loss from perfection), Louisville (5-2), Marshall (6-0, and a decent schedule away from perfection), Missouri (4-2, embarrassed by Georgia yesterday), Stanford (4-2), West Virginia (4-2), and Utah (4-1, and getting the hang of this Pac-12 thing).
Tier 5
Maryland (4-2), Minnesota (5-1, thanks to a great runback for the winning TD), Oregon St (4-1), Penn St (4-2 and fading), Rutgers (5-1), Virginia (4-2), Virginia Tech (4-2), and Washington (kur man Chris Petersen is starting to get the 5-1 Huskies moving smoothly!).
Tier 6
Arkansas (4-2, the lowest ranked SEC West team is still on the board!), Boston College (4-2), BYU (4-2 and falling faster than PSU), Colorado St (5-1 and on the rise), Florida (3-2, and the biggest mystery in the nation), Iowa (5-1), Miami-FL (4-3), and Utah St (4-2 and more and more looking like the cream of the MWC).
Tier 7
Air Force (4-2, and brought back to earth by USU), Boise St (4-2), Bowling Green (5-2), California (5-2, waxed by Washington), Northwestern (3-3), South Carolina (3-3), Tennessee (3-3), and Wisconsin (4-2).
On the outside, looking in...
Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Houston, Indiana, Memphis, North Carolina, North Carolina St, Northern Illinois, Pitt, Temple, Texas, Texas Tech...
Alabama (5-1, thanks to a blocked XP), Baylor (6-0, thanks to local timekeepers), Florida St (6-0, thanks to the Tallahassee PD), Mississippi St (6-0, legitimately), Notre Dame (6-0, no thanks to the stud QBing for North Carolina) , Ole Miss (also legit 6-0), Oregon (5-1), and TCU (4-1 and deserving of Tier 1 by proving against OU and Baylor that they deserve to be up here!).
Tier 2
Auburn (5-1 and probably just on vacation from the top tier), Arizona (5-1, and a failed two-pt conversion from undefeated), Georgia (5-1, after proving they are not just Todd Gurley), LSU (5-2), Michigan St (5-1, but they'd prefer three-quarter games), Oklahoma (5-1; see Auburn), Oklahoma St (5-1), and UCLA (4-2, all due to Brett Hundley).
Tier 3
Clemson (4-2), Duke (5-1), Georgia Tech (5-1), Kansas St (4-1), Nebraska (5-1, higher if we could forget McNeese St), Ohio St (4-1), Texas A&M (5-2, and our pastor will never set foot in the state of Mississippi again!), and USC (4-2).
Tier 4
Arizona St (4-1), Kentucky (5-1, and a 3OT loss from perfection), Louisville (5-2), Marshall (6-0, and a decent schedule away from perfection), Missouri (4-2, embarrassed by Georgia yesterday), Stanford (4-2), West Virginia (4-2), and Utah (4-1, and getting the hang of this Pac-12 thing).
Tier 5
Maryland (4-2), Minnesota (5-1, thanks to a great runback for the winning TD), Oregon St (4-1), Penn St (4-2 and fading), Rutgers (5-1), Virginia (4-2), Virginia Tech (4-2), and Washington (kur man Chris Petersen is starting to get the 5-1 Huskies moving smoothly!).
Tier 6
Arkansas (4-2, the lowest ranked SEC West team is still on the board!), Boston College (4-2), BYU (4-2 and falling faster than PSU), Colorado St (5-1 and on the rise), Florida (3-2, and the biggest mystery in the nation), Iowa (5-1), Miami-FL (4-3), and Utah St (4-2 and more and more looking like the cream of the MWC).
Tier 7
Air Force (4-2, and brought back to earth by USU), Boise St (4-2), Bowling Green (5-2), California (5-2, waxed by Washington), Northwestern (3-3), South Carolina (3-3), Tennessee (3-3), and Wisconsin (4-2).
On the outside, looking in...
Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Houston, Indiana, Memphis, North Carolina, North Carolina St, Northern Illinois, Pitt, Temple, Texas, Texas Tech...
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