tschu

Ok, so now that the Missouri game is over, I did a simple rudimentary exercise to see how well the SEC has performed compared to how the betting market expected them to perform prior to the bowls being played. Pretty cool the results that I found: The SEC as a whole has underperformed by just 2 points per game. They're basically performing just like Vegas has expected them to perform. Almost exactly, really. (Note: Alabama and Tennessee have yet to play obviously). In fact, every team except the set of quadruplets from the SECW have actually outperformed their spread. Basically what this tells us is that any gloom and doom about the SEC is massively overstated. But, perception is a weird and fickle beast. I'd like to do this for Sagarin's predictions as well, but I'll have to find an archive from early December, as his ratings update daily and will thus have some bowl outcomes already reflected in them, and I'd like to see the change that bowls may have had - can't use data that already has this factored in. I'll get around to that eventually.

Really rudimentary point spread exercise incoming

It's because they don't care, right? You think that these rankings get inflated/deflated based on the fact that apparently good teams play apparently good teams and apparently bad teams play apparently bad teams? I mean when an SECW team plays and SECW team, both teams rankings don't go up. One goes up and the others' goes down based on the outcome, proportional to the margin of victory and the difference in their rating. It's not like Bama plays LSU and suddenly both teams make a jump. The reason that the SECW was rated so highly at the beginning of the season was because they were something like 29-0 against all non-SECW teams. As far as the "not caring" narrative...who knows. I hate narratives. For some reason people always try to read into the motivation of each team in a bowl game - maybe motivation is a factor, maybe it isn't; there's no way to know and guessing from the outside is purely conjecture.

SEC East outperforming, SEC West underperforming in bowls so far.

Maty Mauk is clearly concussed

Barry!

bahahaha Auburn with a truly pathetic offensive series

I would think that overtime favors Wisconsin slightly

Wow Minnesota The hurdle

THATS MORE LIKE IT Gordon is too effing good

Everything sets up incredibly well to make it to Indy next year. I'd consider not winning the West a failure, given how the schedule sets up. It's not EVER going to get any easier than what we have on our B1G slate in 2015. As far as BYU and Miami go, I don't know. I think we drop one of those games. I honestly see another 9-3 type season. Which is totally fine given the change.

WHY WHY WHY Is Wisconsin trying to throw the ball downfield

Minnesota can win this game with their defense

this

Love how Minnesota has started too.

That MSU TD was a great play

Wisconsin would be a lot better off by not letting Stave unleash it in the passing game You have Gordon/Clement/Pipeline...use them!

Bowls?

ON WISCONSIN

We crown champions on the field because that's the way sports works. If we just eliminated all variance and used metrics to crown a champion, sports would be lame. The Patriots would be 2007 Super Bowl Champs. But I'm not crowning a champion. I want to know which teams and conferences are best because that's what I'm interested in. Lots of people are interested in it, and not in an ESPN talking heads or message board nonsense way. Also, determining the place of teams in college football despite the asymmetrical schedule is a necessary evil because of how we determine which teams get into the playoffs in the first place. For example, if we truly want the four best teams, Florida State does not make the playoff. Florida State does not even make the 8-team playoff. But it's clear that either we're still antiquated in the ways we think about things, or we value coming up on the right side of variance and putting together a deserving resume. Personally, I like building a resume to get in since it keeps more of the qualification on the field, but FSU still does not make a 4-team playoff with their resume if we take margin of victory into account. They do make an 8-team playoff though, resume-speaking. Also, it's entirely possible within the realm of probability that the best team in the nation this year has 2 or 3 losses - not all that likely since the best team is one of either Oregon, Bama, or TCU, but still entirely possible. I think it's incredibly valid to discuss which team is truly the best team simply from a fan standpoint and someone who is interested in understanding the CFB landscape, while also recognizing that the champion is crowned on the field. Real results have to matter otherwise sports is pointless. I could sit at home with a random number generator and simulate seasons but where's the fun in that? Besides, every metric ever is based on those real results. So, once again, I do not buy the "why play the games when you could just look at your computers" nonsense. The computers are based on the games. Another thing people don't understand is how widely game results vary. Auburn is a 6-point favorite today. Does that mean that they should win the game by 6 points or by 5-7 points every time? No. They play that game 100 times, Auburn will win 49-10 sometimes, and Wisconsin will win 35-13 sometimes, and they'll tie and go to overtime sometimes. On average, Auburn is predicted to be 6 points better - and this late in the season, those lines are incredibly sharp. That's all it means. If we care about how conferences stack up and one conference goes like 0-9 or 1-8 or something against the spread and against the computer predictions, that would certainly be meaningful information and would tilt the way that conference stacks up. But a conference going 3-6 or 4-5 against the spread or 5-4 or 6-3...those are all very likely outcomes and shouldn't change the way we think at all. My point is that, and I've already seen it in this thread, people cherry pick the results that fit their narrative and ignore the ones that don't. Personally, I hate all narratives - I don't care what the storyline is. If I flip my view on a team or computer rankings change for a team, that's not flip-flopping or waffling or even being wrong. That's called adjusting based on new information. I work in science. This is what I do.

I really wouldn't hate going to the triple option - you need to get a pipeline that's solid, but there's a lot to like when running it. The option play itself is so hard to deal with if you don't see it regularly, and in addition it forces the corners to play on islands. If you get a couple decent receivers, you just pound pound pound BAM-30 yard pass. Lethal. It's really weird that more programs don't look at the triple option as a way to try to take a step up as a program. I bet that boosters are a big reason why triple-op coaches don't get hired.

Today is going to be SO MUCH FUN I think the B1G wins at least 1 of their 3 early games. I doubt Wisconsin wins, what with Barry Alvarez coaching and all, but I don't hate Minnesota's chances against Mizzou. MSU-Baylor will be incredibly interesting.

It won't be bad at all. I always did mine in a side closet that was kept a little cooler than room temp. No smell at all. But just being adjacent to a bedroom won't be a big deal, the smell is really not an issue. I used both the bottles you can buy and commercial bottles. Here's my ranking on bottles: 1. Swingtop bottles or old Grolsch bottles - you need rubber gaskets but these are super easy and 100% the best way to go. Expensive though if you have to buy them all new. I got an old box for free so that was cool. But you just add the beer, swing the lid on to seal it and that's it. No capper needed. 2. Homebrew bottles you can buy. These bottles are built very sturdy and usually have a neck area that's a little thicker because when you put the cap on, you are applying a lot of stress to that area of the bottle, so bottles made for homebrew will hardly ever break. 3. Commercial bottles - I've used them and used them a lot, but the downside is that they're not made for being capped with a hand-capper, so the neck breaks easily. I bet I broke 3-4 bottles per batch just capping when I used commercial bottles. Then you have a broken glass mess and have to decide whether trying to save that bottle of beer is worth it and it just sucks. They'll work, but don't use screw-off-cap bottles obviously, and if you use them try to use a stouter, sturdier bottle. I found that I liked the bottles that Boulevard/Sierra Nevada/Empyrean use.