B1G vs. SEC

[tschu]

Hahaha I just read the whole article. That's the most casualfan blind theorizing stuff ever. Like I understand his point, but he makes so many stupid blind assertions along the way that it's hard to take him seriously.

 

The biggest takeaway from that isn't some huge bias or something, it's "Let's do away with preseason polls." There's no reason to have a poll until like week 6 when you actually know a thing or two. Which is precisely what the playoff committee does, which is nice.

[tschu]

 

I don't pay attention to polls, dude

 

None of that applies to any computer rankings because computers don't have any idea how good a team is "supposed" to be...they only know the team name and the scores of their games (or ypp data or whatever). Preseason biases and crap like that might apply to the AP Poll and such, but not the crap I pay attention to.

 

Assuming that you're talking to me...the link I posted isn't a poll. It's an article on how Texas A&M influenced the entire 2014 football season and rankings.

 

Yeah, it's how they influenced poll voters. I don't pay attention to those polls.

 

I pay attention to the computer rankings, the vegas power rankings, efficiency rankings, etc etc etc. Not anything that can be influenced by a preseason rank.

[True2tRA]

 

 

I don't pay attention to polls, dude

 

None of that applies to any computer rankings because computers don't have any idea how good a team is "supposed" to be...they only know the team name and the scores of their games (or ypp data or whatever). Preseason biases and crap like that might apply to the AP Poll and such, but not the crap I pay attention to.

 

Assuming that you're talking to me...the link I posted isn't a poll. It's an article on how Texas A&M influenced the entire 2014 football season and rankings.

Yeah, it's how they influenced poll voters. I don't pay attention to those polls.

 

I pay attention to the computer rankings, the vegas power rankings, efficiency rankings, etc etc etc. Not anything that can be influenced by a preseason rank.

Do you have any good or interesting links to these things you use such as the Vegas power rankings and computer rankings. I'm interested in seeing a few more rankings not based on human error and also eliminating the pre season rankings from their formula.

[In the Deed the Glory]

"They haven't proved it against anyone. They only play each other"

 

*immediately lists 3 wins by SEC teams over very good power-5 conference teams*

 

lol

 

With all your "advanced metrics" (whatever the hell that is) did you take the time to notice those are the only three Power 5 games these "powerhouses" from the SEC West played this year? Teams ranked in the top ten at some point playing two sub #15 teams and one barely top ten team. How is that a good look into how good they really are? Here is the rest of their opponents:

 

Miss St: Southern Miss, UAB, South Alabama, UT Martin

Auburn: San Jose St, Louisiana Tech, Samford,

Ole Miss: Boise St, La-Lafayette, Memphis, Presbyterian

Alabama: Florida Atlantic, Southern Miss, Western Carolina

LSU: Sam Houston, UL-Monroe, New Mexico State

 

That is absolutely ridiculous. The only half-way decent team in there is Boise, who beat world beater Fresno St by an astonishing 10 pts. Come on, man.

 

You can have all your little computer crap, that is fine. I am from the school where you have to prove it on the field. They haven't done that. They squeaked by less talented P5 teams and then played a bunch of schools with directions in their names. Your computer rankings artificially inflate SOS based on these beefed up records against patsies and the subsequent raising of their group of cronies in their division by playing against only each other.

 

You have become a victim of groupthink my man, and it saddens me as a fellow Packer fan.

[tschu]

Yeah, I'm the one here who's become a victim of groupthink. As the lone person who thinks that the SEC is the best conference. LOL

[In the Deed the Glory]

Yeah, I'm the one here who's become a victim of groupthink. As the lone person who thinks that the SEC is the best conference. LOL

 

Your group is a little bit larger than ours, bud. Whoever said they weren't the best? I am not disputing that. I am trying to get you to understand they aren't the 9th NFL division everyone nationally is making them out to be. They aren't leaps and bounds better than everyone else. They certainly aren't 4 of the top 6 best teams in the nation. That is ludicrous. I don't really think they have the best team in the nation. Alabama is good, but I think Oregon is better. I think Michigan State is very, very good. I think Florida State has played a tougher schedule than any SEC team so far and is undefeated.

[tschu]

The really sad thing is, Glory, is that I'm on your side. I don't like the SEC and I don't like that they're showcased more than other conferences. Not happy about that at all. And maybe there's this disconnect resulting from how dumb most analysts are on the networks and ESPN and such - a lot of times they just spout off a bunch of nonsense ... but then arrive at the correct position that the SEC is the best conference (or team X is better than team Y or what have you). I agree, their idiocy is bad, but they arrived at the correct conclusion despite their bad analysis. So I think a lot of that is going on. But don't let that confuse you.

 

Secondly.

 

Yes, the SEC schedules poorly, but not overwhelmingly poorly compared to other conferences. We need some good data points to ground SEC teams to other conferences. We have them. Alabama beat WVU. Auburn beat KSU. Ole Miss handled Boise State AND Memphis. Both Boise State and Memphis would be the 3rd best team that Nebraska had faced all year, if they were on our noncon schedule. Arkansas dominated Texas Tech. LSU beat Wisconsin. Hell, Louisiana Tech is #43 in Sagarin Predictor, but I assume you just looked at their name and assumed they were a bottom of the country type team. (You probably did that with Memphis too.) Now, the rest of those teams are terrible, which is true, but if you look at Michigan State or Oregon or Nebraska or TCU or Baylor (especially Baylor good lord) or whatever Power Five team you want, it's going to look eerily similar. One good opponent, one not-quite-sucky opponent, and a couple of cupcakes.

 

We can look at the East too - they've played a bunch of out of conference teams that are comparable enough too. Clemson, Clemson again, Oklahoma, Utah State, Northern Illinois, Louisville... really the only two teams of note that played NOBODY were Mississippi State and Texas A&M. But the end story from all of this is that we have plenty of comparison points (and in fact, every game is a comparison point!) with the other conferences. So even though Mississippi State didn't play anyone and should get flak for that (they will pay for it - no way a 1-loss Miss St gets into the playoff with that noncon), we can still have enough comparison. That's the beauty of computer rankings. We as humans try to piece together individual wins/losses/scores as best we can, but it's just too much information. You've got the score and margin of victory of basically 150 games per week that need to be taken into account to get a full picture, so with that much information to be accounted for, we can't do it without making a ton of simplifications and assumptions, which lead to biases. We as humans are really bad at evaluating chaotic systems, especially when all kinds of preseason rankings, biases carried over about programs from years past, and a general lack of knowledge about probably 2/3 of the teams (at least) especially clouds are judgement. Computer rankings can take into account every result from every team in every game SIMULTANEOUSLY and incorporate all of them fully into one rating, which in turn can be turned into a rank.

 

Thirdly, everyone needs to stop looking at single individual games. NEBRASKA ONLY BEAT MCNEESE STATE BY 7. There, I can do it too. Anyone can cherry-pick any one result by any team and make them either look good or awful. You can do this for literally any team - just start at FSU (Trailed NC State in the 4th Quarter!) or Mississippi State (Only beat UAB by 12!) or Oregon (Lost to Arizona at home!) and so on. Results only take meaning when you look at all of them at once, otherwise you're just intentionally ignoring parts of the picture. THAT is called bias. "How can Alabama be good they only beat Arkansas by 1" ...well cool statement, but that statement by itself means virtually nothing when determining a power rank.

 

Finally, like I posted earlier, make a distinction in what your ranking (if you're doing one) is trying to accomplish. A pure power ranking is not the same as an accomplishment ranking. A lot of ratings will still have Ole Miss above Mississippi State in a pure power ranking; however, Mississippi State's accomplishments rank higher. Ole Miss lost two games - they deserve to fall in an accomplishment ranking. But Ole Miss didn't somehow become a worse team because Treadwell dropped the ball at the goal line. Just like Nebraska wouldn't have suddenly been a better team had Alonzo Moore caught the ball against MSU. Our accomplishment ranking would be much higher, but in terms of pure power ranking we'd still be ~15th or whatever.

[tschu]

 

Yeah, I'm the one here who's become a victim of groupthink. As the lone person who thinks that the SEC is the best conference. LOL

 

Your group is a little bit larger than ours, bud. Whoever said they weren't the best? I am not disputing that. I am trying to get you to understand they aren't the 9th NFL division everyone nationally is making them out to be. They aren't leaps and bounds better than everyone else. They certainly aren't 4 of the top 6 best teams in the nation. That is ludicrous. I don't really think they have the best team in the nation. Alabama is good, but I think Oregon is better. I think Michigan State is very, very good. I think Florida State has played a tougher schedule than any SEC team so far and is undefeated.

 

 

It's not leaps and bounds better. I agree. When you look at the conference as a whole, it's clearly better, but not leaps and bounds. Not overwhelmingly at all. The reason the narrative annoys a lot of people is that the SEC West is flat out ridiculous. The 5 best teams in the conference are all in that division, and they're all arguably top-8 or 9 in the country. Pure power ranking of course. Is Oregon better than Alabama? It's certainly possible.

 

The one thing I will heavily disagree with is that FSU has played a tougher schedule. No, they haven't. They've played several 20-40th ranked teams, but Notre Dame is their highest ranked opponent, and most computer rankings have them roughly the same as Nebraska. Oklahoma State is on a very down year - they're roughly the same strength as Penn State or Minnesota, per Sagarin. (worse, actually). Louisville is decent but not great, Clemson is admittedly Solid, but after that? Garbage. Mainly, they're hurt by having no top teams

 

Sagarin Strength of Schedule has FSU at 40th...compare that to Oregon at 29, Kansas State at 45, TCU at 39, etc etc. Meanwhile Auburn, Ole Miss, and Alabama all are in the top 6.

[In the Deed the Glory]

Dude, you can try to cram all that computer sh#t down my throat if you want. FSU has the best player in the country and is the defending National Champion that is yet to lose. I am old school, prove it on the field. Not with a bunch of geeks behind computer screens using stats to prove what you have to prove on the field.

 

I do agree with you on one thing, Miss St is not that good. No way they are the best team in the country. I think MSU handles them easily, and Oregon blows them out. This is based on watching these teams play. They can't play with FSU either. Just my opinion, that I formed myself by watching football for 20 years. I'm glad you have your way of distinguishing good teams, I have mine.

 

Mainly, you are on a Nebraska board spouting off at how there is no SEC bias on ESPN (it is there, sorry man, read some national news stories about it from this week if you don't believe me). Then you go on to argue for 2 pages about how great the SEC is and offer up all your shiny little stats to prove it. You really think the SEC beating Memphis show how strong they are? Man you have swallowed the hype-pill.

 

I'm done with this, because you have been brainwashed to think we might as well have a playoff of all SEC teams because they are the best. They aren't. They should get one team in. So should the PAC, B1G, and B12. ACC if FSU wins out will knock one of those out, probably B12 with no title game.

 

Good discussion, man. Seriously, nice to not have to read a post from somebody trying to fire all of our coaches for a change. p.s. I don't think Nebraska is playoff worthy either, just so we are clear on that.

[tschu]

Wowzers.

[Mavric]

Classic example from a national 247 guy:

 

Brian Perroni ‏@Perroni247 33m33 minutes ago

Is there a more hard-luck team than Arkansas? They're winless in SEC but way better than that. Played A&M, Bama, Hail State all close

It can't be that the top teams aren't quite as good as everyone thinks. It's got to be that a team that's 1-18 in their last 19 against the Power 5 is just unlucky.

[QMany]

Classic example from a national 247 guy:

 

Brian Perroni ‏@Perroni247 33m33 minutes ago

Is there a more hard-luck team than Arkansas? They're winless in SEC but way better than that. Played A&M, Bama, Hail State all close

It can't be that the top teams aren't quite as good as everyone thinks. It's got to be that a team that's 1-18 in their last 19 against the Power 5 is just unlucky.

No they are just unlucky. Just like they were unlucky when the lost to Louisiana-Monroe (at home) and Rutgers (twice) in the past 2.5 years.

[tschu]

Blitz, you just did exactly what I told you not to do

[tschu]

You attempted to counter data with anecdotes and single-game examples.

[StPaulHusker]

 

Classic example from a national 247 guy:

 

Brian Perroni ‏@Perroni247 33m33 minutes ago

Is there a more hard-luck team than Arkansas? They're winless in SEC but way better than that. Played A&M, Bama, Hail State all close

It can't be that the top teams aren't quite as good as everyone thinks. It's got to be that a team that's 1-18 in their last 19 against the Power 5 is just unlucky.

No they are just unlucky. Just like they were unlucky when the lost to Louisiana-Monroe (at home) and Rutgers (twice) in the past 2.5 years.

 

I don't care if it's bad luck or bad team. It's happening to Bret Bielema and that's all that matters.