"The SEC is Down This Year"
by glen55 on Dec 6, 2011 12:15 PM CST
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PrintHave you heard that refrain about the SEC being down this year? I have.
Did you hear it last year? I did.
Did you hear it the year before that? I did.
Open your ears, and you'll hear it every year. Maybe one year it will be true. This ain't the year.
There's a reason that 2 of the top 2, 3 of the top 6, 4 of the top 9, 5 of the top 16, and 6 of the top 25 teams in the final BCS rankings are SEC teams. Part of the reason is respect, and while fans of the other conferences can and should lobby for a level playing field, logic decrees that you pay a little respect to the conference that is winning the championship every year and has never lost a BCS Championship Game.*
But there's a better reason: dominance in big games THIS REGULAR SEASON.
Let's look again at that BCS top 25, and have a look at the losses of each team in the top 25. It quickly becomes apparent that you won't find many losses by top 25 BCS teams to teams from other conferences.** In fact, there are only 7. And here they are:
Baylor 50, TCU 48
TCU 36, Boise St. 35
Boise St. 35, Georgia 21
LSU 40, Oregon 27
LSU 47, West Virginia 21
Alabama 27, Penn St. 11
South Carolina 34, Clemson 13
The next sentence needs to be shouted.
THE NON-SEC PART OF THE NATION HAD THREE OUT-OF-CONFERENCE WINS OVER BCS TOP 25 AND THE SEC HAD FOUR.
A little sauce: the three non-SEC out-of-conference Top 25 wins were by 1 point, 2 points and 14 points. All four of the SEC wins were by double digits.
Put another way: the average score of the three non-SEC out-of-conference wins was 40.3-34.7. The average score of the SEC out-of-conference wins was 37-18.
Put another way: the total margin of victory of all non-SEC out-of-conference wins over BCS top 25 teams: 17. Total margin of victory of all SEC out-of-conference wins over BCS top 25 teams: 72.
Just for extra sauce, we'll mention Tennessee's 45-23 win over AP #27 Cinncinnati, and Georgia's 31-17 win over AP #29 Georgia Tech (the BCS only goes through 25).
There's a moral in this story for you SEC types, many of whom I have heard parroting the annual "The SEC is down this year" refrain. The moral is that the media peddles that shit sandwich every year. Next year, take a sniff before you chomp down.
*That streak will end this year, although I don't think the anti-rematch crowd stopped to realize that.
**Michigan St. lost to Notre Dame, which of course is not in a conference.
FanPosts are just that; posts created by the fans. They are in no way indicative of the opinions of SBN and the authors of Roll Bama Roll.
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Well, in fairness to the skeptics....
this will be the first year that an SEC team has ever lost the national title game. So in that sense, I suppose we are “down” compared to years past.
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
I think they are saying this because teams like UT, UF, and even AU have been good for 9-10 wins every year
And this year, not so much.
"Football has never been just a game to me. Never."
Paul William Bryant
What does every year mean?
Should we say that teams like MSU, Vandy, and SC have been good for 2-4 wins every year? Arkansas has been good for 6-7 wins every year? LSU and UGA have been good for 8 wins every year?
’Cause this year, not so much.
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 7, 2011 8:24 AM CST up reply actions
UT, UF, and AU have been traditionally good teams with large, passionate fanbases
Which translates to higher tv ratings and more money for everybody. This past season there was no national interest in UA-UF, UA-UT, UF-UT…etc.
SC, MSU, Vandy and Arky may be better, but outside their fanbases, no one cares. They don’t produce big ratings.
Maybe if Spurrier took the fun and gun to SC instead of a defense, people would care. And with Franklin giving Vandy a pulse this year, you know he won’t be there long. Mullen’s name is mentioned every time a coach is fired.
It’s just better for the league to have a strong UT and UF and I don’t care too much if AU is good.
Makes the games more interesting for us, too. It was kind of a letdown this year to know how badly we were gonna beat them before we played them.
"Football has never been just a game to me. Never."
Paul William Bryant
Oh...
…sorry…I thought we were talking about football….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 7, 2011 2:55 PM CST up reply actions
Watergate, man...
Follow the money!
"Football has never been just a game to me. Never."
Paul William Bryant
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
by Skarth on Dec 6, 2011 12:49 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
the guy in the background on the right is non-SEC
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
As I was saying......
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
by Skarth on Dec 6, 2011 2:38 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
I'm not being Touchy! I'm just sayin'!
(joke)
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
Well...
…you are being a little Douchy….
(also joke)
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:14 PM CST up reply actions
One thing I meant to add
SEC teams looking bad against other SEC teams is NOT evidence that “The SEC Is Down This Year.”
I’m sure the SEC will be down one year. Haters = stopped clock. If they say it once a minute, every minute for the rest of their lives, eventually they will catch the minute where it’s true.
Typo
Average score of non-SEC wins over BCS top 25 is 40.3-34.7, not 49,3 (whatever that means)-34.7.
FYI, you can edit Fan Posts.
Look for the little pencil icon near the title.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Oh you're right
I thought that had disappeared after people commented. I did a couple of quickie edits right after I posted it. Was it more visible then, or was I less stupid then?
Answer to my question
Right after you publish it, there’s a green bar at the top that asks “Edit it again?” That bar goes away after you navigate away from the page.
Although I’m sure I was less stupid then, too. At my age, senility approaches rapidly.
Fixed.
Bowl season will tell us how down we are.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Of course
Luckily, Tennessee’s not out there in a bowl to be worried about
Proud member of the Fax Girl fan club.
Whatever the heck happened to them?
I thought they would at least achieve mediocrity when Bray came back, but lo, they fell short of that goal, not to mention decent-ness which didn’t even get into the picture.
Depends on which UF shows up.
UF was a different team before they played Bama. If they can regain that early season form they may be ok.
If Auburn was in New Mexico and we never played them I would still hate them and their dumb coach and their cheating players.
Which one is Urban coaching in the bowl?
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:15 PM CST up reply actions
He's coaching the one with Tebow at QB.
I will put an asterisk next to an Alabama Crimson Tide "fake national title" the second one is given. That day has not and will never come. But to be fair, I'll give you 1941 if you give me 1945 and the Missing Ring of 1966.
by NewAnachronism on Dec 7, 2011 12:53 PM CST up reply actions
Great stuff man.
I remember this hillarious column by Dennis Dodd (think it was him, could have been some other clown) talking about how the sec was really down in 2009, Alabama and Florida weren’t really very good, etc. Of course we finish national champions and Florida was what? 3rd? I think TCU might have been 2nd as they ran the table (hence the TCU troll that was here the other night).
"Those are just facts and facts are just opinions and opinions can be wrong"
-Veronica, Better Off Ted
Even sillier...
…I believe Texas finished 2nd in front of UF. Not that I really care, but that was just silly.
Come to think of it, they prolly woulda finished 1B if Cold McCoy hadn’t gotten hurt….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:17 PM CST up reply actions
"The Big East is down this year, and so is the ACC."
Who would ever say a fool thing like that? It sounds equally silly to say that the SEC is up this year. Why wouldn’t it be? When the rest of the country predicts a down year for our conference, take it as tacit acknowledgement of SEC supremacy. Sometimes a back handed compliment is the best kind. Having said that, you have to admit the conference is top heavy this year. It’s getting hard to be an SEC homer when the likes of Ole Miss, Tennessee and now Auburn are screwing every pooch they can get their hands on.
Being good has nothing to do with it, Mikey. They choose your name randomly out of the phonebook.
Hasn't this been going on a while?
and now Auburn are screwing every pooch they can get their hands on.
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
To be down would imply
that you had at once been up…
"Never start a fight with an old man...if he's too old to fight, he'll probably just kill you."
The SEC may not be down but
the SEC East damn sure is. That is as bad a division as there is in college football.
Follow on twitter @thelyell
the P12 South would like a word...
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
I think it's at least as good as the ACC Coastal too.
UGA>VT
USCe>UVA
UF=GT
Vandy=Miami
Kentucky<UNC
Tennessee=Duke (ROFLMAOLOLOLOLOL)
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Talk about things you never thought you'd live to see:
Vandy=Miami
LOL
God bless our Dark Lord.
by CarrotTop4 on Dec 6, 2011 2:54 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
FINE DAMMIT!!! WE'LL CALL IT A CLOSE BUT DISTANT 3RD!
they still suck yall..
Follow on twitter @thelyell
I just wanted to put Tennessee
behind Kentucky and even with Duke.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
I'd take Vandy against any Big East team.
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:18 PM CST up reply actions
Not even
UGA and South Carolina are pretty decent teams. The other teams can handle the dregs of other conferences with aplomb.
Your post is pure hyperbole. You’re comparing the East to the West, not to the rest of college football. Check out the Big 10 if you want to see some really baaaad teams that would get absolutely trucked by any team in the SEC East. Indiana? Purdue? And we’re not even mentioning the big East.
The Big East has not divisions.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Nor multiplications, nor additions...
…but they have plenty of subtractions….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:19 PM CST up reply actions
Oh yes it does.....I've dreamed of an 0-12 season for Tennessee.....get pissed when it doesn't happen
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. ~General George S. Patton~
I saw Cecil tweet about this
And found it funny that the Big 12 is ranked as the top conference by the national pundits, while they have only one OOC win against the top 25 (Baylor over TCU). Personally I’d love to see a plus one this year just to answer Mike Gundy’s question about offense vs defense (I’d thought that had been answered a few times since 2004). I believe LSU and Bama would go through the Big 12 like crap through a goose. I’m not so sure that Arkansas, Georgia and South Carolina wouldn’t come close to running the table in that conference either.
"Never start a fight with an old man...if he's too old to fight, he'll probably just kill you."
I'm pretty sure Arkansas is this year's Big 12 champion....
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 6, 2011 10:21 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
National pundits just love them some offense
I read an article yesterday and the guy picked his Most Exciting Games of the year and the scores in every game were like 49-45 or some shit like that. And he put Bama-LSU at the bottom of the list and then put “Just kidding” after it. Fuck them all.
In High School, the best athletes typically play both sides of the ball. The rest of the nation apparently puts them on offense when they go to college. The SEC puts theirs on defense. And that’s why we win the BCS EVERY YEAR!
"Football has never been just a game to me. Never."
Paul William Bryant
Here's another good argument
Best best team in their conference
LSU – no one would argue this
Best 2nd-best team in their conference
Alabama – no one would argue this
Best 3rd-best team in their conference
Arkansas – here, at least you might get for argument that Michigan St. or Nebraska, whichever is 3rd-best in the B10, but the pollsters, computer ratings, and smart money would all say Arkansas
Best 4th-best team in their conference
South Carolina – no one would argue this
Best 5th-best team in their conference
UGA – no one would argue this
So other than the Big 10 making some lame arguments for the best 3rd-place team, there is no serious argument that the top 5 of the SEC is better than the top 5 of EVERY OTHER CONFERENCE at EVERY POSITION in the top 5.
The best any conference could possibly do is argue that their dregs are better than the SEC dregs, and even those arguments are shaky.
They might argue it.
I might flip SC and UGA. Otherwise, obvious point is obvious, unless you just hate you some SEC.
I will put an asterisk next to an Alabama Crimson Tide "fake national title" the second one is given. That day has not and will never come. But to be fair, I'll give you 1941 if you give me 1945 and the Missing Ring of 1966.
by NewAnachronism on Dec 7, 2011 12:56 PM CST up reply actions
The Big 10 also has a decent argument for 4th
Whoever is 4th among Michigan St., Michigan and Nebraska is not obviously worse than SC—but again, they would be behind in the pollsters, computer ratings, and smart money.
I don’t think anybody else has any real arguments anywhere.
LSU > Oregon, OSU, Wisconsin, Boise St.
Alabama > Stanford, K St., MI/MI St./Neb., TCU – the 5 fanatic Stanford fans in Palo Alto might argue it, but nobody else
Arky > Baylor/OU, MI/MI St./Neb.
SC > Baylor/OU, MI/MI St./Neb.
Other than the Big 10 or Pac 12, what other conference would even be willing to put a team up and say “this is our 4th-best team, we’ll match ’em against SC/UGA?” Who else even has a 3rd-best team that would invoke anything other than humor getting matched against Arkansas?
The SEC IS down this year.
You are talking about as a conference on the whole, not the top teams. The 2 best teams are from the SEC, but it’s downhill from there.
It’s the reason Oklahoma St beat us in 4 of the computer polls, despite having the same record and a better loss. Because the biggest strength of our schedule was LSU, which we lost. Penn St being better than expected was also nice, but not enough to make up for the down SEC.
The facts:
Ole Miss 2-10. Only FBS win was Fresno St, a 4-9 team.
Miss St 6-6. Bowl eligible, but not the same 9-4 team they were last year.
Barn 7-5. Miracle 7-5, no doubt they are down from last year.
Tenn 5-7 Not even bowl eligible. They haven’t been a hot team lately, but they are definitely down from even last year with all the injuries and such.
Kentucky – 5-7. 5 wins – best win was Tennessee. Made bowl last year.
Florida 6-6 Barely bowl eligible. And another SEC team getting it’s 6th win on a FCS school. They were down last year, down even more this year.
Georgia 10-3 I guess the record would say they are up, but really I don’t think it’s the degree of the record. Definitely better, and 10-3 is a nice record, so overall they were up this year, even though they didn’t really beat any good teams. Their best win was Georgia Tech(and thankfully they won that since it’s OOC, good for us).
South Carolina – 10-2. Up a tad, but mostly because they didn’t have the meltdown they had last year. But up record wise.
LSU 13-0. Strong team last year, even stronger this year. Up a tad.
Vandy – 6-6 the big surprise of the year, however unfortunetly they never beat anyone with a winning record. That thumping of Wake Forest(6-6) sure was nice though.
5 teams including us are “up”. LSU and Alabama were already strong, so minimal gain there. Georgia benefited from a rather weak schedule to be honest, didn’t play Alabama, LSU or Arkansas in the regular season, and South Carolina did good against Georgia and Clemson and yet lost to the barn, and that was pretty much it for them, did not play Alabama or LSU.
But the rest lost much more.
So from top to bottom, the SEC is definitely down. The past 2 years I’ve thought people were nuts when they said it, and sending 10 teams to bowls pretty much backed that up.
This year, only 8, and that’s in part thanks to FCS schools(although not like they couldn’t put in some crap FBS team).
The best conference from top to bottom this year was the Big12. Texas still sucks, but the other teams picked it up.
And that is why OK St beat us in 4 of the computer polls. If the SEC had been as strong as it was last year, no way would OK St have come close.
But if you want to just cut the creme of the crop, then the SEC has the best teams in LSU and Alabama. It’s not down in that sense at all. I’d say in that regard it’s way up. But the SEC has always prided itself not on the top teams, but on the entire conference as a whole. That brutal schedule of tough teams week after week etc. That wasn’t really there this year.
What are the facts that say the Big 12 is the strongest conference
I put some facts on the table.
Total margin of victory of SEC teams in wins over BCS top 25: 76
Total MOV of Big 12 teams in wins over BCS top 25: 2
And no, I’m not just cutting to the cream of the crop, but I’m damned sure not excluding it, either. Having the 2 best college football teams of the last 5 years IMO—and you may well disagree with that opinion, but I don’t think you can seriously argue that this is not the best 2-team grouping from any conference in a LONG time—easily makes up for having the bottom half of the conference a little mushier than usual.
Whether the SEC is a hair down from what it was last year or in 2009 is a reasonable question. But saying they’re below the Big 12 this year?
Amusing.
Well Sagarin has the Big 12 as the number 1 conference. He has Bama and LSU as clear cut #1 and #2, but 2 teams is not enough to bring up a 12 team conference that much.
Here are his ratings for the B12:
1 BIG 12 (A) = 84.86 84.09 ( 1) TEAMS= 10 84.34 ( 1)
College Football 2011 through games of December 3 Saturday the BCS uses the ELO_CHESS from here
HOME ADVANTAGE= 3.30 RATING W L SCHEDL VS top 10 | VS top 30 | ELO_CHESS | PREDICTOR
3 Oklahoma State A = 97.31 11 1 80.28( 6) 2 0 | 6 1 | 97.81 3 | 96.36 3
4 Oklahoma A = 92.87 9 3 80.37( 5) 0 2 | 6 2 | 91.49 6 | 93.87 4
10 Baylor A = 87.50 9 3 79.38( 8) 1 1 | 5 3 | 91.42 7 | 84.27 15
12 Kansas State A = 87.11 10 2 78.53( 10) 1 2 | 5 2 | 93.81 5 | 82.69 24
13 Texas A&M A = 86.44 6 6 80.87( 3) 1 3 | 2 6 | 84.86 17 | 87.67 11
15 Missouri A = 85.74 7 5 79.40( 7) 0 3 | 3 4 | 85.49 16 | 85.47 13
16 Texas A = 85.23 7 5 80.72( 4) 0 3 | 2 5 | 86.20 13 | 83.86 18
29 Iowa State A = 78.31 6 6 81.59( 2) 1 2 | 1 6 | 82.98 21 | 74.33 46
44 Texas Tech A = 74.82 5 7 79.16( 9) 1 2 | 1 7 | 78.80 29 | 71.12 60
87 Kansas A = 65.52 2 10 81.79( 1) 0 3 | 0 8 | 70.13 65 | 60.91 112
And for the SEC:
2 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 80.13 80.88 ( 2) TEAMS= 12 80.56 ( 2)
College Football 2011 through games of December 3 Saturday the BCS uses the ELO_CHESS from here
HOME ADVANTAGE= 3.30 RATING W L SCHEDL VS top 10 | VS top 30 | ELO_CHESS | PREDICTOR 1 LSU A = 102.97 13 0 76.01( 18) 3 0 | 4 0 | 108.06 1 | 99.75 1
2 Alabama A = 98.99 11 1 74.27( 23) 1 1 | 2 1 | 99.49 2 | 98.03 2
7 Arkansas A = 89.48 10 2 73.58( 28) 0 2 | 2 2 | 95.82 4 | 85.33 14
14 South Carolina A = 86.35 10 2 72.99( 34) 0 1 | 2 1 | 89.41 8 | 83.55 20
18 Georgia A = 85.12 10 3 73.79( 27) 0 2 | 0 3 | 86.96 11 | 83.09 23
32 Mississippi State A = 77.44 6 6 74.34( 22) 0 3 | 0 5 | 78.17 30 | 76.26 41
34 Florida A = 76.75 6 6 74.47( 21) 0 2 | 0 5 | 76.45 34 | 76.52 39
35 Auburn A = 76.56 7 5 77.93( 11) 0 3 | 1 5 | 85.53 15 | 70.45 65
39 Vanderbilt A = 75.69 6 6 73.11( 33) 0 2 | 0 4 | 74.10 42 | 76.85 37
51 Tennessee A = 73.34 5 7 76.84( 14) 0 3 | 0 5 | 73.95 45 | 72.24 56
84 Kentucky A = 66.26 5 7 71.75( 43) 0 1 | 0 3 | 68.91 71 | 63.29 93
107 Mississippi A = 61.65 2 10 77.76( 12) 0 3 | 0 4 | 63.07 100 | 59.74 116
You can call these crazy if you want, but they’re all based on cold hard facts. Those facts say that 7 of their 10 teams rate in the top 20 in the country. The SEC only has 4 out of 12 in that category.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Also, the Big 12 is 21-3 in OOC versus FBS teams.
SEC is 30-6.
So they have a better percentage there. And they are probably also helped by SOS because all 12 SEC teams played an FCS opponent, while only 6 of their 10 did.
And yes, one of their 3 OOC losses was to an SEC team, but that was our 3rd best team (out of 12) beating their 5th best team (out of 10).
God bless our Dark Lord.
Sagarin conference ratings are not meaningless
But I don’t put a great deal of stock in them, and I know that conference overall records are pretty much fluff unless you look at the actual games played.
Show me the Big 12 doing well head to head with power teams from other conferences. That’s the only thing that will impress me and IMO the only thing that has real meaning in comparing conferences. I’ll admit I haven’t comprehensively studied all their results, but I’m not aware of a lot of impressive OOC wins.
That little exercise I did is not the only way to measure conference strength, but it’s a very good start. If I was able to get a BCS top 50 instead of a top 25, that would almost tell the whole tale. Wins against teams in the bottom half of the pack is meaningless in determining the strength of a power conference.
I haven't comprehensively studied all their results either. That's why I look at the computer results instead.
What you’re talking about is fine if you want to measure the strength of the top of the conference, but not the overall conference strength.
God bless our Dark Lord.
There's a chicken-egg thing there though.
If you notice, those 10 teams have the 10 toughest schedules in the nation, because they all play each other and several of their teams are rated high, largelly because of their top 10 SOS.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
In Sagarin's poll, I mean.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
They're rated so high as a group because of how well they did in the non-conference.
It’s not chicken-and-egg. The wins come first, then the SOS and ranking are determined.
God bless our Dark Lord.
I'm more of a Bacon and Eggs kind of guy
j/k
I would like to get a better handle on how they determine the “sos” of the conferences. I suspect they don’t go ‘deep’ enough, but I don’t know this for a fact. I wonder if they look at the conferences as being ‘equal’ and then go from there. So (setting the individual teams aside for a moment) if 3 Big XII teams beat 3 PAC 12 teams that is the same as 3 SEC teams beating 3 ACC teams (again the individual teams strength figured out separately). I would think they would need to take it to several layers meaning each team’s opponents record and the opponents opponent’s record and so on…
That is why I believe a strong SOS component added BACK to the BCS would help clear up a lot of questions. Even if it urks the crap out of the Boises of the world.
Attempting to remove humor from posts since August 30, 2011
Sagarin ranks each team individually.
I don’t have the formula, but it’s based on which other individual teams they beat and which ones they lost to. This is done for every team, which means if you’re getting credit for beating #59, then you’re getting that credit based on who #59 beat and who else beat them. So it takes every game into consideration in ranking every team.
After the individual team rankings are determined (as shown above), then he has a few different ways of averaging those to determine the conference strength. In every one of those, the Big 12 comes out ahead of the SEC this year.
God bless our Dark Lord.
So no, 3 Big XII teams beating 3 PAC12 teams is not the same as 3 SEC teams beating 3 ACC teams.
It depends on where all of those teams are ranked
God bless our Dark Lord.
But his isn't the only computer poll
and they don’t all have the Big 12 filling out the top ten slots in SOS.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Honestly I didn't read your post closely enough to get your point.
It is odd that those 10 teams are 1 through 10 in the SOS rating. Obviously the fact that they only play 3 OOC games each makes those games more important and makes it more likely that the teams will be grouped together, and the fact that they did very well in those means that they will be ranked high.
FWIW, I’m assuming that “SOS” as listed there is calculated after the rankings are determined. Strength-of-schedule is baked into the rankings (in that you get more credit for beating stronger teams), but that SOS factor is a separate calculation.
Sagarin’s isn’t the only computer poll, it’s just the one that I know how to find the easiest. I assume that the others are similar.
God bless our Dark Lord.
It's real odd.
And, frankly, it reduces the credibility of his poll in my opinion. LSU’s strength of schedule ranking is a joke. Maybe they should throw out everyone’s bottom two games- that would give you a bit better idea since pretty much every big school plays a couple of patsies. The ATVS folks went nuclear on me for this, but I still say that it doesn’t matter if a top team played ULL and Tulsa or North Texas and Kent State. If you’re worth of natty discussion you’d better beat all four handily.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Yeah, I don't know what to make of it.
I don’t know that you should throw out the bottom 2 though. Less information rarely makes for better output.
He says that his Schedule factor is what a hypothetical team’s rating would have to be to be predicted to win 50% of the games on the schedule. So I think that means it’s a median of the ratings of the teams on the schedule. If so, that should mean it wouldn’t matter what the actual rating of the bottom 2 is, as long as they don’t change that median.
I personally like what Matt does here on RBR where he assigns a probability of winning vs teams in various ranges.
God bless our Dark Lord.
I agree with this
Less information rarely makes for better output.
but I think this may be one of those rare cases. Does it really matter if you play team #80 or team #170? I don’t think it does, and if playing #80 produced a significantly enhanced SOS then I do think that leaving that data out would be beneficial. As you said though, it may not matter anyway.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
I have similiar results.
With a much different formula.
I have Big 12 teams in 6 of the top 10 for SoS. And 10 out of the top15.
But individual team strength wise is another story.
Alabama is the strongest team, followed by LSU. 4 of the strongest teams in the top15 are from SEC.
Only 1 Big12 team in the top10 strength wise, 2 in top15. But when you get further down, you see more Big12 teams, and less SEC and that’s where it comes out in SoS.
So basically, the SEC is stronger at the top, but it’s more top heavy while the Big12 is a bit more steady. Kansas was down low @ 2-10. But then next up is Texas Tech @ 5-7. 6-6 Iowa and all winning records from there up.
As SoS is always an average for the season, a steady group of say 60’s beats out on 3 90’s+ and a bunch of 20’s and 30’s and 0’s for FCS. Same way a 0 on a test or 2 would have killed your average in school.
You know what might improve it?
Rank every team ranked lower than 60 (or 80, or whatever you think the number is that “bad” teams hit the list) as tied for 60th place. No difference to a good team anyway.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Not really.
The BCS only ranks the top 25 anyway. I’d say that anyone in legitimate contention for the top 25 would routinely beat #80 or #120 with relative ease- wouldn’t you? I think doing something like this combined with a capped MOV component would be just about the perfect formula.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Again, this SOS is not a direct factor in the BCS.
And as I understand it, it’s not a direct factor in the ratings either. The ratings are calculated (and fed to the BCS) and then the SOS is calculated from that.
So you can play with the formula for how “SOS” is calculated how ever you want, but it won’t do anything to the BCS result.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Well, if it affected every single computer poll it would.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
What?
Not sure how else to say it, so I’ll just say it again: As far as I know, the “SOS” factor does not affect the computer rating. It’s the other way around. The “SOS” is something calculated from the computer rating.
God bless our Dark Lord.
But SOS has to be a factor
in determining the computer ratings to begin with. Otherwise the Big 12 wouldn’t have so many teams at the top of Sagarin’s poll.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
Yes, it's baked in there.
But it’s not explicitly a separate factor, so you’re proposal to cap it wouldn’t do anything to the rating.
God bless our Dark Lord.
You're attacking the egg when you're actually upset about the chicken.
Stomping that egg doesn’t have the slightest effect on the chicken.
God bless our Dark Lord.
But choking the chicken
keeps you from fertilizing the egg.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
The computer formula is for the most part fine.
There are things that no computer can account for, and that is likely always going to be the case.
But this is not a problem for the computers to fix, it’s a problem for Alabama to fix.
If there is no difference between #70 team and #120 team, then just schedule the #70 team and be done with it.
Shouldn’t even be an issue for us.
Yeah, I agree
except that you don’t know in advance who the #70 team is going to be.
God bless our Dark Lord.
But the #70 team can only play so many games.
My point is that patsies are patsies.
'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'- Nick Saban
It's not a direct factor
for me anyway. And I’m not BCS so it doesn’t really matter, I just do it for fun.
SoS ranking is purely informational only, and is generated while ranking.
What I do is get a power/strength rating of each team.
A power rating is between 0-100. The top team is 100, and then teams will fall into a % of that power(based on a score).
if you beat a team, you are given their power rating. If you lose to a team, then you lose 100 – their power rating. Lost to the top power team, – 0 points. Lose to Kent St with a 30 rating, – 70. Lose to a FCS school, -100, beat a FCS school, +0. Power itself makes up part of the rankings, but this score makes up the majority.
SoS is to just total up those scores, divide by the number of games and then putting them in order for rank.
The actual ranking is never used. I would never use the actual ranking because a hard rank number doesn’t really tell the story. Most teams will fall together and are basically even. Power wise, it’s like a big bell curve, with the bulk of people being in the 70-40% range.
What I have been considering is not to mess with the bottom teams, but rather to mess with the top teams. To put the top 5 teams all @ 100, and then get the power % based on the 5th most powerful team.
Because I don’t think Alabama is getting proper credit for LSU for example. LSU I rate @ 92%. 5th rated team, only 80% of Alabama. 20th place team is 70%, 33rd is 60%, and so on.
So it would move those middle scores up to mean more, and spread out the curve. Because basically, Alabama is so strong it’s screwing itself in terms of strength of other teams.
But again, this is just me trying to improve mine. It’s up to Alabama mostly.
What if you...
took the inverse of all the ratings. And then averaged those. And then took the inverse of that.
That puts more emphasis on the lower rated teams that way.
Team A played opponents ranked 1, 10, and 109.
Team B played opponents played 39, 40, and 41.
Those both average to 40, but I would say the first is clearly harder.
If you do the formula I said above, for Team A it comes out as 2.7 and for Team B it comes out as 40.0.
People won’t like this formula because they don’t understand it. (Get out the pitchforks!!!) But I think it accomplishes what you want.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Probably should’ve said “higher rated” (lower numbers, better team) here:
That puts more emphasis on thelowerhigher rated teams that way.
If you’re trying to determine an overall SOS based on the ranking of the teams you’ve played (which is not quite what Sagarin does)…
In my example for Team A above, the Excel calculation is 1/average(1/1, 1/10, 1/109)
Does that make sense?
God bless our Dark Lord.
If you apply this to the SEC and Big 12 this year,
you get 6.2 for the SEC and 9.6 for the Big 12.
Now that I look at it some more though, maybe this rewards the very top teams too much. It makes playing #1 worth twice as much as playing #2. Oh well.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Thanks
giving the #2 team twice as much as the #1 team is why I ultimately don’t use ranks. Instead I use the power rating I’ve mentioned, which teams are even with others in many cases.
But because of averages, the problem also does exist in terms of what is mentioned about #1 and #100 equaling out too playing #49 and #50, so I’m gonna have to figure out something.
Is there any simple explanation for why Alabama is rated ahead of LSU?
Obviously that doesn’t make intuitive sense.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Yes, Alabama is the better team on a consistent basis.
My power/strength measure is of a teams ability to move the football vs it’s ability to keep people from moving the football. It takes into account the strength of the team they are playing etc, and then I take the offensive power and subtract the defense power and that is a basic rating of moving the football.
So if a team runs it for 200 yards against Alabama, it means alot in terms of power, but if they do it against Kent St – not so much.
Alabama has a very “stiff” defense. It doesn’t bend basically at all. It’s broken a couple of times, but it doesn’t really bend.
LSU has probably the best “bend but don’t break” defense I’ve ever seen in my life. They give up more yards, but they don’t break very often. You get a first down against them, you get another, and you think things are going great, and the next thing you know they are running it back for pick 6, they get a fumble, they sack the QB for 10 yards and make it 3rd and 20. It’s almost as if they are setting up ambushes.
I have to figure out how to get turnovers into the rating, so in that manner it underrates LSU. That’s a goal for me in the offseason. And special teams element as well I haven’t figured out how to rate well. I made an attempt on that, but after Fresno St jumped up to #20, it was pretty clear it wasn’t right lol.
But when it comes to straight up moving the ball football, Alabama is tops.
Vs FBS teams, Alabama had about 4,759 yards of offense, while giving up only 1,978.
LSU had had only 4200 yards of offense, but gave up 2900 yards.
Even in the game against LSU, stats wise Alabama won. In every category expect where it matters most. And lets be honest, a good bit of that is on the shoulders of the coach. He is human afterall!
Of course it’s basically impossible for a computer to get a perfect rating on a team. 12 games is not alot of data, and teams are up and down which is near impossible to take into account and know – is the team down, or is that other team better.
LSU is #1 in the actual rankings however where actual wins and SoS come into play. Strength ratings are only used to measure SoS and a small % of the overall score.
So the short answer is that you're looking at yardage stats
and not just game scores. OK.
God bless our Dark Lord.
True...
…mine is full of weeds, while my neighbor’s looks like a lush, green blanket of awesomeness….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 9, 2011 2:18 PM CST up reply actions
So at least there is some additional verification.
Still, yours is a more believable result than what Sagarin has, with the 10 Big XII teams taking up all of the top 10 SOS spots. There must be some quirk in his calculation that did that.
Funny you should bring up Kansas though. Even Kansas at 2-10, they were 2-1 in their non-conference schedule with a win over a 10-3 Northern Illinois team that won the MAC. So they did that and then went 0-9 in their conference. That’s the type of thing that lifts your conference strength. Meanwhile we had Kentucky losing to Louisville but still beating 2 SEC teams.
God bless our Dark Lord.
Yes, that is exactly the reason
Although I do not personally use win-loss records directly as the strength of a team.
I sent Sagarin an email about this, and he wrote me back.
But basically this is all he said:
they only lost 3 out-of-conference games the whole season. … I realize that many of those games were “cupcakes”, but all the big conferences do exactly the same thing. The 27-3 record is one of the best in the history of college football.
God bless our Dark Lord.
So, what he really meant was...
I got lazy, dog.
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 9, 2011 2:19 PM CST up reply actions
In measuring the overall strength of the conference
I would without hesitation assign a stronger weight to the top half of the conference. That’s where bragging rights come from. Nobody much cares whether Ole Miss can beat Indiana, but when Alabama cornholed Michigan St. people drew some conclusions about conferences from that.
To be clear
I’m not saying the bottom half is meaningless, but it should be given a lower weight. If a rating doesn’t assign a lower weight to the bottom half of the conference, it’s not being smart. People don’t care much about that.
From my perspective, you can say LSU Alabama and you’ve already done 90% of the work in showing that the SEC is the best conference. No conference has produced two teams that good since 1971, and maybe not even then.
Having LSU Alabama at the top means a helluva lot more than whether Oregon St. is better than Duke.
And just in case replying to myself once wasn't confusing enough
That’s why I think the info in this post is more useful than anything I have seen published, such as Sagarin ratings or overall conference records. If the Big 12 only has 1 2-point win over TCU to point to as their big wins, then . . .
Then you are only measuring the top half of the conference.
And that’s fine if you want to do that. But what’s being talked about is the SEC, which means each and every single team in it from top to bottom.
Alabama and LSU are the 2 best teams in the country, no doubt about that. But now you are talking about individual team strength, not the conference strength.
That's not correct
I said assign a lower weight to the bottom half, I didn’t say ignore it.
When I say this information is more useful than the Sagarin ratings, I’m not sayihg this info tells the whole story, but I’m saying that the Sagarin ratings suck, and the info in this post proves it. To my mind, if Conference A has way more marquee, limelight wins, and Conference B is ranked as a stronger conference, that’s a problem with the ratings.
Will you want to take it back the other way?
When the SEC is back to it’s normal self top to bottom?
Because every other year I have no trouble seeing the SEC is the best conference. This year, not so much.
This actually seems like a good year for the SEC to me
In fact, a very good year. Alabama and LSU are fucking awesome. As I think I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, the two best teams in several years, probably since Texas & USC in 2004. Having them both from one conference is a real mark of distinction for the conference.
Add on to that that #3-#5 are the best #3-#5 in the country. If you believe, like I do, that the top is more important than the bottom—and I believe that strongly, because the top is what the fans pay attention to, and the bottom is virtually invisible to average fans—it virtually doesn’t matter what the rest of the conference is doing.
In fact, the rest of the conference is respectable compared to the bottom of other conferences. Yes, the Big 9 has a better bottom half than the SEC, but I just can’t see that making up for getting blown away by the top half. It’s not miles and miles better, anyway, it’s just a little better.
Most of what you posted cannot be used to accurately gauge if the SEC is up or down from last year.
Several teams have significantly more wins than last year, and those were at the expense of other SEC teams. But you’re skewering the SEC teams that lost those games while not giving enough credit to the SEC teams that won them.
Also I would say that we hardly ever take pride in the bottom of our conference. I’d say it’s usually the top half, or maybe 8 or 9, that we take pride in being the best in the country. This year, I’d say our top 5 were reasonably strong. The ones in the 6 to 10 range were just more even than usual.
Ima go look up some numbers and I’ll be back…
God bless our Dark Lord.
Not counting bowls...
FBS OOC wins this year: Kent St, Penn St, North Texas, New Mexico, Troy, Texas A&M, Utah St, FAU, FAU, UAB, New Mexico St, Ga Tech, Western Ky, Central Mich, Oregon, West Virginia, Western Ky, Fresno St, Memphis, La Tech, UAB, East Carolina, Navy, Clemson, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee, UConn, Army, Wake Forest
FBS OOC losses this year: Clemson (AU), FSU (UF), Boise St (UGa), Louisville (UK), BYU (Miss), La Tech (Miss)
OOC record: 30-6
BCS conf record: 9-3
FBS OOC wins last year: San Jose St, Penn St, Duke, UL-Monroe, Texas A&M, UTEP, Arkansas St, Clemson, UL-Monroe, Miami (OH), USF, UL-Lafayette, Ga Tech, Louisville, Western Ky, Akron, North Carolina, West Virginia, UL-Monroe, Tulane, Fresno St, UL-Lafayette, Memphis, Houston, UAB, Southern Miss, Troy, Clemson, UAB, Memphis, Eastern Mich
FBS OOC losses last year: FSU (UF), Colorado (UGa), Oregon (UT), Northwestern (Vandy), UConn (Vandy), Wake Forest (Vandy)
(Plus Ole Miss lost to FCS Jacksonville St.)
OOC record: 31-6
BCS conf record: 10-6
God bless our Dark Lord.
Because of how they won them, and/or who they lost against.
Not all wins are equal. And all FBS wins aren’t equal either.
I mean Georgia is 10-3, but they lost all their games against good teams. Miss St or Georgia Tech is their best win really.
Does 10-3 Georgia compare at all to the 10-3 Alabama team of last year strength wise? I don’t think it does.
And Vandy is another example. Nice and great that they went 6-6, and that win over Wake was a real nice boost, and Vandy was definitely up. Yet they also didn’t beat anyone of consequence outside Wake. So yes, more wins there, but not exactly projecting strength of conference with them, especially since other parts of the conference lost more.
So when you start getting into the specific strength of the wins and losses on an individual basis like a computer does with the stats, then when the drop in strength shows up.
tl;dr
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Dec 8, 2011 10:18 AM CST up reply actions
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