One Loss Team Comparison

[Mavric]

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

[Redux]

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

 

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

Exactly. Now Bama is back in top 4 while Ole Miss drops to 7 even though they beat Bama to begin with. Ok fine. But if it were any other league both teams would fall below top 15 or worse.

[VA Husker Fan]

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

 

Look at the rest of the schedules. Kansas St beat an FCS team (bama has yet to play theirs), had to come back late to beat a terrible Iowa St, UTEP, a pretty weak Texas Tech, and a talented but way underachieving Texas. Alabama's looks better: West Virginia (it will be interesting to see how KSU does with them); FAU and Southern Miss are like UTEP; Florida is their Texas; Arkansas isn't that good but did beat TTech handily; Tennessee is similar to those two. Alabama's resume is clearly better. Eight spots? I don't know. You'd have to look more closely at the other teams in between to talk about who really is better than Alabama and who is worse that K State. If Alabama loses again and K State wins out, KSU should move ahead. Not sure if that will really happen.

 

It's real easy to look at a couple of games or factors and make a case for or against any team. Somebody above tried to point out the teams Nebraska beat in the "others receiving votes" to compare against teams with wins over ranked teams, without adding the wins those teams also had against "others". You have to look at the whole picture,

[Dr. Strangelove]

 

According to this, I think the polls have done a pretty good job of ranking teams. The 1 loss teams that haven't beat anybody (Nebraska, Duke, etc.) are not ranked as high due to no quality wins. 1 loss teams with quality wins (Ole Miss, Oregon, Auburn) have earned their ranking with some quality wins.

 

While it's good for Nebraska to pad the win totals in the Big 10 West division, the lack of quality teams might hurt us year in and year out as far as rankings and SOS is concerned. It'll be interesting to see how SOS plays a roll in the committee's rankings as we move forward.

 

The problem is the higher up teams that have "quality wins" only have "quality wins" because the SEC is OVERHYPED and every team is pertty near ranked!

 

I agree, in part. Ole Miss deserves credit for beating Alabama, a team that is NOT overhyped.

 

I think early in the season victories against Texas A&M, a not very good team, inflated the rankings for many of the teams in the SEC.

[Wutevrdood]

 

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

 

Look at the rest of the schedules. Kansas St beat an FCS team (bama has yet to play theirs), had to come back late to beat a terrible Iowa St, UTEP, a pretty weak Texas Tech, and a talented but way underachieving Texas. Alabama's looks better: West Virginia (it will be interesting to see how KSU does with them); FAU and Southern Miss are like UTEP; Florida is their Texas; Arkansas isn't that good but did beat TTech handily; Tennessee is similar to those two. Alabama's resume is clearly better. Eight spots? I don't know. You'd have to look more closely at the other teams in between to talk about who really is better than Alabama and who is worse that K State. If Alabama loses again and K State wins out, KSU should move ahead. Not sure if that will really happen.

 

It's real easy to look at a couple of games or factors and make a case for or against any team. Somebody above tried to point out the teams Nebraska beat in the "others receiving votes" to compare against teams with wins over ranked teams, without adding the wins those teams also had against "others". You have to look at the whole picture,

 

Look at the whole picture? You compared Alabama's and K-State's schedule but completely ignored K-State's best win: at OU.

[Mavric]

 

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

 

Look at the rest of the schedules. Kansas St beat an FCS team (bama has yet to play theirs), had to come back late to beat a terrible Iowa St, UTEP, a pretty weak Texas Tech, and a talented but way underachieving Texas. Alabama's looks better: West Virginia (it will be interesting to see how KSU does with them); FAU and Southern Miss are like UTEP; Florida is their Texas; Arkansas isn't that good but did beat TTech handily; Tennessee is similar to those two. Alabama's resume is clearly better. Eight spots? I don't know. You'd have to look more closely at the other teams in between to talk about who really is better than Alabama and who is worse that K State. If Alabama loses again and K State wins out, KSU should move ahead. Not sure if that will really happen.

 

It's real easy to look at a couple of games or factors and make a case for or against any team. Somebody above tried to point out the teams Nebraska beat in the "others receiving votes" to compare against teams with wins over ranked teams, without adding the wins those teams also had against "others". You have to look at the whole picture,

 

I realize Alabama isn't the best comparison as I do think they are pretty good but their "resume" is pretty similar. I'm not saying they don't deserve to be ranked higher but I'm not sure KState deserves to be that much lower based on their resume.

 

I'd rank Alabama's wins thus:

West Virginia (6-2) - won by 10

Texas A&M (5-3) - 59

Florida (3-3) - 21

Arkansas (4-4) - 1

Tennessee (3-5) - 14

Southern Miss (3-5) - 40

Florida Atlantic (3-5) - 41

 

Interesting that Alabama has played half their SEC schedule and their best win bight be over a Big XII team. I rank the WVU win ahead because they are ranked while aTm isn't and aTm's wins are over two SEC teams that have combined to win two conference games so far this year, an SMU team that lost their coach, a Rice team that also lost to Old Dominion and an FCS team.

 

Now the same for KState

Oklahoma (5-2) - won by 1

Texas (3-5) - 23

Texas Tech (3-5) - 32

Iowa State (2-5) - 4

UTEP (4-3) - 30

SF Austin (6-2) - 39

 

They both beat their lowest two opponents handily. They both have a win over a current Top 20 team. They both barely beat a bad team. You can make the argument that Arkansas is better than Iowa State but Arkansas is 1-17 in their last 18 games against the Power 5. Iowa State is 4-14 so I'm not seeing a lot there. Texas A&M is going to have to beat Missouri to finish above .500 this year.

[VA Husker Fan]

 

 

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

 

Look at the rest of the schedules. Kansas St beat an FCS team (bama has yet to play theirs), had to come back late to beat a terrible Iowa St, UTEP, a pretty weak Texas Tech, and a talented but way underachieving Texas. Alabama's looks better: West Virginia (it will be interesting to see how KSU does with them); FAU and Southern Miss are like UTEP; Florida is their Texas; Arkansas isn't that good but did beat TTech handily; Tennessee is similar to those two. Alabama's resume is clearly better. Eight spots? I don't know. You'd have to look more closely at the other teams in between to talk about who really is better than Alabama and who is worse that K State. If Alabama loses again and K State wins out, KSU should move ahead. Not sure if that will really happen.

 

It's real easy to look at a couple of games or factors and make a case for or against any team. Somebody above tried to point out the teams Nebraska beat in the "others receiving votes" to compare against teams with wins over ranked teams, without adding the wins those teams also had against "others". You have to look at the whole picture,

 

Look at the whole picture? You compared Alabama's and K-State's schedule but completely ignored K-State's best win: at OU.

 

Because in that paragraph I said "look at the rest of their schedules", continuing the discussion where each team's loss and top win had already been pointed out. But OK, OU is better than A&M, but KSU barely got by OU while Alabama totally thumped A&M.

[HotGrillonGrillAction]

Mind boggling that O and K aren't ranked in reverse in the polls..........especially with VT getting hammered by Miami.

[Wutevrdood]

 

 

 

 

The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt early on which is why those beat a couple ranked teams stack up so high.

This is basically what got me starting looking at this. In particular, coming into the weekend you really couldn't argue with Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida State being 1-3 in some order as they were the only (major) unbeaten. But then the argument is Alabama and Auburn are next becasue they only lost to those unbeaten teams. But now look at it. Alabama lost to the currently #7 team and beat the #20 team. They are ranked #3. Kansas State lost to the #4 team and beat the #19 team but they are all the way down at #11. What part of how they've played this season makes KState eight spots worse than Alabama other than what conference they play in?

 

Look at the rest of the schedules. Kansas St beat an FCS team (bama has yet to play theirs), had to come back late to beat a terrible Iowa St, UTEP, a pretty weak Texas Tech, and a talented but way underachieving Texas. Alabama's looks better: West Virginia (it will be interesting to see how KSU does with them); FAU and Southern Miss are like UTEP; Florida is their Texas; Arkansas isn't that good but did beat TTech handily; Tennessee is similar to those two. Alabama's resume is clearly better. Eight spots? I don't know. You'd have to look more closely at the other teams in between to talk about who really is better than Alabama and who is worse that K State. If Alabama loses again and K State wins out, KSU should move ahead. Not sure if that will really happen.

 

It's real easy to look at a couple of games or factors and make a case for or against any team. Somebody above tried to point out the teams Nebraska beat in the "others receiving votes" to compare against teams with wins over ranked teams, without adding the wins those teams also had against "others". You have to look at the whole picture,

 

Look at the whole picture? You compared Alabama's and K-State's schedule but completely ignored K-State's best win: at OU.

 

Because in that paragraph I said "look at the rest of their schedules", continuing the discussion where each team's loss and top win had already been pointed out. But OK, OU is better than A&M, but KSU barely got by OU while Alabama totally thumped A&M.

 

Fair enough. I think the resumes to this point are basically a wash and I certainly don't think they warrant the ranking disparity, but a wash nonetheless.

 

The team in the top 10 i have the most beef with (based on resume) is Notre Dame. Everyone fell in love with them after they lost, but their best win is at home against a Stanford team who is 1-3 in conference play.

[Guy Chamberlin]

I think the four team playoff will be more fair than the old bowl system.

 

But I bet it pisses even more people off.

[Moiraine]

More 1-loss teams will get upset this weekend. Quit a few ranked teams place decent opponents.

[SWAMI]

An admittedly simplistic look at the log jam of one loss teams and what they've done so far this year. I should wait for the official committee Top 25 on Tuesday but oh well. Each team listed with who they lost to and any current AP-voted teams they've beaten (33 teams currently receiving votes). I've listed them in the order I think makes sense based on this listing - basically assuming wins over teams not receiving votes are equal.

 

Team A - Lost to #1; Beat #11, #16

Team B - Lost to #2; Beat #29

Team C - Lost to #16; Beat #3

Team D - Lost to #7; Beat #20

Team E - Lost to #14; Beat #8, #25

Team F - Lost to #5; Beat #17

Team G - Lost to #4; Beat #19

Team H - Lost to #20; Beat #10

Team I - Lost to #27; Beat #5

Team J - Lost to #12; Beat #19, #33

Team K - Lost to #8; Beat none

Team L - Lost to #25; Beat #27, #29

Team M - Lost to unranked; Beat #22, #31

Team N - Lost to unranked; Beat #25, #27

Team O - Lost to unranked; Beat none

Team P - Lost unranked; Beat none

Team Q - Lost to unranked; Beat none

 

 

 

A - Auburn - Currently #4

B - Notre Dame - #6

C - Mississippi - #7

D - Alabama - #3

E - Oregon - #5

F - Michigan State - #8

G - Kansas State - #11

H - Baylor - #12

I - Arizona - #14

J - TCU - #10

K - Nebraska - #17

L - Arizona State - #15

M - Georgia - #9

N - Utah - #18

O - Ohio State - #13

P - Duke - #24

Q - East Carolina - #21

 

 

 

 

Team D - Lost to #7; Beat #20

Team F - Lost to #5; Beat #17

Team G - Lost to #4; Beat #19

Team J - Lost to #12; Beat #19, #33

Team K - Lost to #8; Beat none

 

[ispoiler]

D - Alabama - #3

F - Michigan State - #8

G - Kansas State - #11

J - TCU - #10

K - Nebraska - #17

 

 

 

These five have had *fairly* similar seasons so far, based only on the ranked teams beaten/lost to. Yet the ranking of these five teams varies widely. I guess its due to the other five or six wins on their schedule. For example, this past weekend Bama gets plenty of credit for beating a 3-4 Tennessee while we get little credit for beating 5-2 Rutgers. The thing is, I'll bet Rutgers vs Tenn would be a pretty tight game.

 

 

*fairly* similar seasons: Sure, no ranked win for us. But Rutgers was "ranked" 34th before we beat them, and Miami was probly a bit higher. LINK

 

You touched on an important point. What were they ranked when you played them? Teams change during the season mainly because of injuries and gain/loss of confidence. All coaches talk about needing to getting better, yet we all seem to ignore that element in our assessments. I think the Huskers can play with anybody, but not if our quarterback, who I think is a good (potentially great) player plays scared as he did in the MSU game.

 

Don't rule us out. We have some quality opponents ahead of us. Win them all and we get recognition. Especially with the Heisman winner adding to the fever.

[SWAMI]

 

An admittedly simplistic look at the log jam of one loss teams and what they've done so far this year. I should wait for the official committee Top 25 on Tuesday but oh well. Each team listed with who they lost to and any current AP-voted teams they've beaten (33 teams currently receiving votes). I've listed them in the order I think makes sense based on this listing - basically assuming wins over teams not receiving votes are equal.

 

Team A - Lost to #1; Beat #11, #16

Team B - Lost to #2; Beat #29

Team C - Lost to #16; Beat #3

Team D - Lost to #7; Beat #20

Team E - Lost to #14; Beat #8, #25

Team F - Lost to #5; Beat #17

Team G - Lost to #4; Beat #19

Team H - Lost to #20; Beat #10

Team I - Lost to #27; Beat #5

Team J - Lost to #12; Beat #19, #33

Team K - Lost to #8; Beat none

Team L - Lost to #25; Beat #27, #29

Team M - Lost to unranked; Beat #22, #31

Team N - Lost to unranked; Beat #25, #27

Team O - Lost to unranked; Beat none

Team P - Lost unranked; Beat none

Team Q - Lost to unranked; Beat none

 

 

 

A - Auburn - Currently #4

B - Notre Dame - #6

C - Mississippi - #7

D - Alabama - #3

E - Oregon - #5

F - Michigan State - #8

G - Kansas State - #11

H - Baylor - #12

I - Arizona - #14

J - TCU - #10

K - Nebraska - #17

L - Arizona State - #15

M - Georgia - #9

N - Utah - #18

O - Ohio State - #13

P - Duke - #24

Q - East Carolina - #21

 

 

 

 

Team D - Lost to #7; Beat #20

Team F - Lost to #5; Beat #17

Team G - Lost to #4; Beat #19

Team J - Lost to #12; Beat #19, #33

Team K - Lost to #8; Beat none

 

[ispoiler]

D - Alabama - #3

F - Michigan State - #8

G - Kansas State - #11

J - TCU - #10

K - Nebraska - #17

 

 

 

These five have had *fairly* similar seasons so far, based only on the ranked teams beaten/lost to. Yet the ranking of these five teams varies widely. I guess its due to the other five or six wins on their schedule. For example, this past weekend Bama gets plenty of credit for beating a 3-4 Tennessee while we get little credit for beating 5-2 Rutgers. The thing is, I'll bet Rutgers vs Tenn would be a pretty tight game.

 

 

*fairly* similar seasons: Sure, no ranked win for us. But Rutgers was "ranked" 34th before we beat them, and Miami was probly a bit higher. LINK

 

You touched on an important point. What were they ranked when you played them? Teams change during the season mainly because of injuries and gain/loss of confidence. All coaches talk about needing to getting better, yet we all seem to ignore that element in our assessments. I think the Huskers can play with anybody, but not if our quarterback, who I think is a good (potentially great) player plays scared as he did in the MSU game.

 

Don't rule us out. We have some quality opponents ahead of us. Win them all and we get recognition. Especially with the Heisman winner adding to the fever.

 

One of the TV announcers said Michigan St. is the Vegas favorite. Anyone else hear that? If so, that speaks volumes.

[Mavric]

#11 Kansas State - Lost to #4; Beat #19
#12 Baylor - Lost to #20; Beat #10
#14 Arizona - Lost to #27; Beat #5
#10 TCU - Lost to #12; Beat #19, #33
#9 Georgia - Lost to unranked; Beat #22, #31

A better question is what has Georgia done to deserve to be ranked ahead of any of these teams?

[JTrain]

As long as people are convinced "SEC is overrated because ESPN", there will be no reasoning that will sway them. I can point to unbiased systems till I'm blue in the face--systems that do not watch ESPN and have no understanding of conference affiliation or even team name--no one will bother.

 

People feel they can look at 15-20 results and consistently apply their value system to determine where teams should rank in comparison to one another. Yet there have already been something like 475 games played and these games can be connected in tens of thousands of complex ways.

 

There is no voodoo involved. Just winner, loser, (sometimes) score, (sometimes) date and some complex math to calculate how all the games fit together (from which strength of schedule is derived). These systems consistently rank Alabama's schedule in the top five, while Kansas State's is significantly further down.

 

http://football.kislanko.com/2014/Computer_byBorda_Current.html