B1G vs. SEC

[tschu]

Just a side note that I want to bring up -

 

Why is it that most college sports fans can have totally reasonable discussions about college basketball - you hear things like comparing records in a good conference like the Big Ten vs a bad conference like the SEC for example (trollolol), people look at computer metrics like RPI (which sucks ass, but hey, it's a start - hint, use KenPom instead), and in general we seem to like to use all of the information available to say, well, Team X is 30-3 in a bad conference but Team Y is 28-6 in the best conference or whatever, so Team Y gets the 1 seed.

 

Meanwhile in college football people seem to just lose their god damn minds. I think most people are still caught up in the awful 'win and move up in the polls, lose and move down' logic. Well if you're ranked 20th and lose to the #1 ranked team by a point, you should move UP a bunch of spots in the polls, not down. Stuff like that. OLE MISS SUCKS THEY HAVE 3 LOSSES well no they don't suck. They'd be favored over all but like 6 or 7 teams in the nation. And we SEEM to know this in some areas. Most people agree that Marshall, when they were still undefeated, was not a top 20 or even top 25 team. But when it comes to applying it to the power-5 conferences, people get caught up in hate and bias and historical precedent and perhaps even information overload.

 

Let's look at Marshall's division - the CUSA East. The B1G West mean rating is ~74; CUSA East is 61. So the B1G West is 13 points better than CUSA East on average.

 

Now let's look at the SEC West. They're at 92. They are EIGHTEEN POINTS better on average than the B1G West. That's significantly larger than the gap between say the CUSA and the B1G divisions. (For comparison's sake, the SEC East is at 79 - same as the Pac-South). So why do we put such a distinction on "Power-5" ...I don't know. Because humans like to categorize things I guess. It's so much easier to say P5 = good, little conferences = bad...but I just showed how misguided that is and how little actual information you get out of that. Unless you're evaluating strength on a team by team power ranking basis, you're just blindly flailing around in the wind.

[Mavric]

The SEC went 5-6 against OOC opponents this year - third-best mark among the Power 5 and only a game above fourth-place Big XII at 4-6.

 

Among those 11 game and using currently AP Rankings (since the Committee Rankings aren't out yet):

SEC ranked higher: 2-1; Alabama over West Virginia, Georgia over Clemson, Indiana beat Missouri

SEC ranked lower: 2-5; Auburn over Kansas State, LSU over Wisconsin, , Florida State over Florida, Clemson over South Carolina, Georgia Tech over Georgia, Louisville over Kentucky, Oklahoma over Tennessee

Neither team ranked: 1-0; Arkansas over Texas Tech

 

So it's pretty much what you expect as the higher-ranked team tended to win. Auburn and LSU were pretty fortunate to win but Missouri was probably unlucky to lose so even that evens out. Doesn't mean they're not the best. But they aren't very far above the others when they've played on the field. Of course, the SEC doesn't schedule many of those game to give a larger sample size.

 

I wouldn't argue much with your top eight other than I think Georgia has gotten too much credit all year. They have three nice wins over tail-end-of-the-Top-20 teams and lost to a Top 20 team but they also have two losses against barely .500 teams.

 

But that's only part of the story. They are still the best conference - not by a lot - and their top 4-6 teams are very good but they have a lot of very average teams. The bottom five teams (all in the East) are average to bad and the next 2-4 teams above them aren't anything special.

 

I don't usually put a lot of stock in bowl results as there are too many outside factors that don't come into play during the regular season but it will be interesting to see how they play out this year.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Mavric
Corrected Missouri/Indiana game

[tschu]

I read your first sentence. Read my last paragraph. That 5-6 record that you point out is utterly meaningless.

[tschu]

Tennessee would be the 4th or 5th best team in the Big Ten.

[deedsker]

Mavric I don't get your higher lower thing. Shouldn't, at least right now, Georgia higher than GT and Mizzou higher than Indiana?

[Mavric]

Maybe you should read more.

[deedsker]

I read your first sentence. Read my last paragraph. That 5-6 record that you point out is utterly meaningless.

No, it is the only direct competition we have. Not meaningless, but rather the only place we have to build from.

[Mavric]

Mavric I don't get your higher lower thing. Shouldn't, at least right now, Georgia higher than GT and Mizzou higher than Indiana?

 

I did have the Missouri/Indiana game in the wrong spot but I used the current AP poll since the committee isn't out yet and GaTech is above Georgia there.

[deedsker]

Tennessee would be the 4th or 5th best team in the Big Ten.

Interesting, because Indiana seemed to do fine against Missouri as well.

[tschu]

Maybe you should read more.

 

No I read your whole post and thought it was good and well-measured, sorry, didn't mean to imply otherwise. But cherry-picking records from a very very small subset of games using arbitrary things like "power 5 conferences" or whatever, with no distinction about the quality of the teams in the games on either side, is a huge pet peeve of mine. You learn almost zilch and it's super easy to get mislead or come to a conclusion that is either meaningless or just plain dead wrong. Plus, the power-5 distinction is so arbitrary. That subset includes a win over Texas Tech by Arkansas (Tech is terrible) but not a win by Ole Miss over Boise (who is significantly better than Tech). That's all I was saying. I just hate hate hate that sort of thing.

[tschu]

Now back to your regularly scheduled SEC-bashing.

 

To be fair, if you hate the SEC, you should be ecstatic. 6 of the nation's 10 best teams are from the SEC, yet only 1 team will make the playoff, and there's a nonzero chance that 0 teams will make the playoff. So root hard for Mizzou!

[deedsker]

 

Mavric I don't get your higher lower thing. Shouldn't, at least right now, Georgia higher than GT and Mizzou higher than Indiana?

 

I did have the Missouri/Indiana game in the wrong spot but I used the current AP poll since the committee isn't out yet and GaTech is above Georgia there.

 

[deedsker]

Now back to your regularly scheduled SEC-bashing.

 

To be fair, if you hate the SEC, you should be ecstatic. 6 of the nation's 10 best teams are from the SEC, yet only 1 team will make the playoff, and there's a nonzero chance that 0 teams will make the playoff. So root hard for Mizzou!

So...Auburn beats Kansas State and they go from having none to 6?

[Mavric]

Adjusted for current Sagarin rankings:

SEC ranked higher: 5-2; Alabama over West Virginia, Georgia over Clemson, Indiana beat Missouri, Auburn over Kansas State, LSU over Wisconsin, Georgia Tech over Georgia, Arkansas over Texas Tech
SEC ranked lower: 0-4; Florida State over Florida, Clemson over South Carolina, Louisville over Kentucky, Oklahoma over Tennessee

So Sagarin's numbers are pretty close. Each time the SEC team was lower-ranked, they lost. Most of the time the SEC team is higher ranked, they won. That is basically what I was pointing out in my first post had you read it.

 

But you are not a totally dominant conference if you lose over half your games against other conferences. Doesn't mean you're not better. But not as much better as many like to think (as I also said earlier).

[Mavric]

 

Maybe you should read more.

 

No I read your whole post and thought it was good and well-measured, sorry, didn't mean to imply otherwise. But cherry-picking records from a very very small subset of games using arbitrary things like "power 5 conferences" or whatever, with no distinction about the quality of the teams in the games on either side, is a huge pet peeve of mine. You learn almost zilch and it's super easy to get mislead or come to a conclusion that is either meaningless or just plain dead wrong. Plus, the power-5 distinction is so arbitrary. That subset includes a win over Texas Tech by Arkansas (Tech is terrible) but not a win by Ole Miss over Boise (who is significantly better than Tech). That's all I was saying. I just hate hate hate that sort of thing.

 

 

Which is why I provided the context about which teams were currently ranked higher or lower, providing distinction about the quality of teams.