BCS gets cleaned up a little

[Sonny]

And you are correct also sir, USC shouldn't have beaten ND. In fact they lost that game.

I no Pac-10/USC apologist... but huh?

[Sonny]

1. SEC
2. ACC
3. Big 10
t4. Big 12
t4. USC

Sagarin does not share your view of the SEC this year. He has them as the 5th rated conference behind the Big 12 and Pac 10.

CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS
1 BIG TEN (A) = 82.99 82.47 ( 1) 11
2 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 79.08 78.56 ( 3) 12
3 PAC-10 (A) = 77.66 78.66 ( 2) 10
4 BIG 12 (A) = 77.22 78.37 ( 4) 12
5 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 74.29 73.97 ( 6) 12
6 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 72.98 74.46 ( 5) 3
7 BIG EAST (A) = 72.94 73.17 ( 7) 8
8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 70.08 69.89 ( 9

Updated conference rankings (11/20) from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc05.htm

You guys are giving the SEC way too much credit. The bottom teams in the SEC are very, very, very weak: Kentucky, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Miss State. I guess you can add Tennessee (4 - 6) to that list too as they aren't going to a bowl game after losing at home to Vandy for the first time in 23 years.

[Brent Burns]

Of course, no Ivy League team can be part of BCS, but I thought it was funny, yet it is really tongue in cheek after checking out Ivy League Athletics website:

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/article.asp?intID=4692

Brown won the Ivy League title outright for the first time. The next day, the Columbia University AD announced that the Columbia Lions coach is fired. No big deal.

[DanGenck]

No one can win at Columbia. Athletes do not want to ride on a bus across New York City everyday in order to practice. College students are so strapped for time that the extra 3 hours a day you lose for travel is way too much.

... or you could go to Harvard and walk to practice.

... or you could go to Brown and have the practice field behind your dormitory.

[Timbalaned]

Im not impressed by Texas as a team. Their only semi-decent opponent was Ohio State...whom they edged by 3. (Ironic that the OSU pocket-passer tried to run....then the running-qb stood in the pocket, watched the defender close in, and took a safety in closing minutes...ugh...makes my head hurt). Since then, Texas has indeed beaten remarkable teams, such as Baylor, Missouri, Rice...ya know...all the usual BCS juggernauts. USC, at least "beat" a solid ND team. Im can guarantee that SoCal will figure out a way to stop VY...USC wins by 7 over a one-man Texas team.

USC won the game, but they by no means should have won the game. Texas Schedule was not great, but the Pac 10 is probably the most overrated conference in Football (besides maybe the Big East). USC and Texas' Schedules are pretty equivalent. USC isn't playing a conference championship game, so one less quality opponent. USC did win against ND, and Texas won against Ohio State (pretty equivalent wins). The rest of their schedules are pretty much the same. Texas Tech was ranked 7 when they beat them, and UCLA is highly ranked. And as far as the "BCS juggernauts" of the Big 12 compared to that of the PAC-10 (Stanford, Washington, Cal, Oregon State, Arizona State). The conferences are pretty equal. Which is not great. If I had to rank the conferences this is how I would do it.

1. SEC
2. ACC
3. Big 10
t4. Big 12
t4. USC

I don't know about the Rest, but this is how the major conferences go. I don't even think that the Big East is a major conference anymore after Miami, Va Tech, and BC left.

Needless to say USC and Texas are pretty equal.

However, I still don't think that these are clearly the best two teams in the country. Miami and LSU would give both teams a pretty good game.

Playoff, Playoff, Playoff.

You want to talk overrated? lets talk about ND. They have two losses and really haven't beat anyone, but we are going to get shafted by only losing to two-time defending champion. ND will get the bid to the Fiesta but we will be stuck in the Holiday Bowl when we should get a shot to prove ourselves in a BCS game.

[Sonny]

The Ivy League Sports page is pretty funny.

HOW WOULD BROWN STACK UP IN THE BCS?
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the transitive theory says:

Brown bested Rhode Island, 45-35
Rhode Island pounded William & Mary, 48-29
William & Mary ripped New Hampshire, 42-10
New Hampshire snuck past Cal-Davis, 17-13
Cal-Davis shocked Stanford, 20-17
Stanford got by Arizona, 20-16
Arizona crushed [12] UCLA, 52-14
UCLA stomped Oklahoma, 41-24
Oklahoma defeated Nebraska, 31-24
Nebraska killed Wake Forest, 31-3
Wake Forest beat N.C. State, 27-19
N.C. State edged Florida State, 20-15
Florida State outdefensed [3] Miami, 10-7
Miami walloped [7] Virginia Tech, 27-7
Virginia Tech crushed Georgia Tech, 51-7
Georgia Tech downed [11] Auburn, 23-14
Auburn beat [8] Alabama, 28-18
Alabama killed South Carolina, 48-7
South Carolina nipped Tennessee, 16-15
Tennessee surprised [4] LSU, 30-27
LSU bedeviled Arizona State, 35-31
Arizona State hammered Northwestern, 52-21
Northwestern smashed Michigan State, 49-14
Michigan State upended [6] Notre Dame, 44-41
Notre Dame dispatched Michigan, 17-10
Michigan defeated [5] Penn State, 27-25
Penn State rung up [9] Ohio State, 17-10

[Danny Hogan]

the sec is having a down year, but you don't measure the power of a conference by how bad the worst teams are. i don't have time to right now but it would be interesting if someone posted the top 8 teams from the 5 major conferences.

[DanGenck]

Looks like the Big 10 and the ACC have the best 8 this season. I would say all eight in the Big 10 are the best this year... imagine if you are Illinois and you have to play all 8 of those teams? Very easy to go 0-8.

Big Ten-

Penn State
Ohio State
Michigan
Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Northwestern
Purdue

SEC-

LSU
Alabama
Auburn
Georgia
South Carolina
Florida
Arkansas
Vanderbilt

Big 12-

Texas
Texas Tech
Colorado
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Iowa State
Oklahoma State
Missouri

PAC 10-

USC
Oregon
UCLA
California
Stanford
Arizona State
Washington
Oregon State

ACC-

Virginia Tech
Florida State
Miami
Virginia
Boston College
Clemson
Georgia Tech
North Carolina State

[Brent Burns]

The Ivy League Sports page is pretty funny.

That was why I had to post the URL to the Ivy League Sports page to show their humor eventhough I still have not mastered the skill of using Quote. We can be so caught up in the BCS debate debacle, so the humor by using transitive theory is a good way for us to sit back and look at everything.

Dan, evidently, Columbia will never, never, never excel in football until someday someone from the Light Blue can prove me wrong. I know the Lions do excel in fencing (I mean in athletics).

[Sonny]

ACC-

Virginia Tech
Florida State
Miami
Virginia
Boston College
Clemson
Georgia Tech
North Carolina State

Don't know where you are getting that from (or is that just your opinion Dan)? North Carolina or Maryland most likely would be on that list before NC State. (And NCSU beat FSU and GT on the road.)

Here is Sagarin's Top 50 1-A teams as of this morning:

College Football 2005 thru Saturday, November 19, 2005 the BCS uses the ELO_CHESS from here
HOME ADVANTAGE= 2.56 RATING W L SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 30 | ELO_CHESS | PREDICTOR
1 Texas A = 101.99 10 0 73.92( 36) 1 0 | 4 0 | 101.64 1 | 101.83 1
2 Southern California A = 100.04 11 0 76.05( 20) 2 0 | 4 0 | 99.82 2 | 99.73 2
3 Penn State A = 94.61 10 1 78.69( 7) 1 1 | 5 1 | 94.82 3 | 93.92 5
4 Ohio State A = 94.52 9 2 80.57( 2) 1 2 | 5 2 | 93.72 4 | 94.81 3
5 Virginia Tech A = 93.74 9 1 74.94( 31) 0 1 | 3 1 | 92.75 5 | 94.23 4
6 Miami-Florida A = 89.20 8 2 75.28( 27) 1 0 | 2 2 | 88.70 7 | 89.19 8
7 Oregon A = 88.33 10 1 75.02( 30) 0 1 | 2 1 | 90.29 6 | 86.25 10
8 Notre Dame A = 88.05 8 2 75.69( 22) 1 1 | 1 2 | 85.58 12 | 90.37 7
9 Michigan A = 87.90 7 4 81.00( 1) 1 2 | 4 4 | 86.63 11 | 88.70 9
10 LSU A = 86.52 9 1 70.70( 62) 0 0 | 2 0 | 86.87 9 | 85.71 11
11 Louisville A = 85.49 7 2 70.76( 61) 0 0 | 0 1 | 81.37 27 | 90.45 6
12 Texas Tech A = 84.82 9 2 67.61( 82) 0 1 | 1 1 | 84.71 15 | 84.41 12
13 West Virginia A = 84.80 8 1 69.87( 67) 0 1 | 1 1 | 87.09 8 | 82.45 21
14 Auburn A = 84.58 9 2 70.18( 65) 0 1 | 1 2 | 84.42 17 | 84.22 13
15 Wisconsin A = 84.55 8 3 76.45( 18) 1 1 | 2 3 | 86.65 10 | 82.34 22
16 Minnesota A = 84.54 7 4 79.01( 5) 1 2 | 2 4 | 84.61 16 | 83.97 15
17 Boston College A = 84.29 8 3 75.95( 21) 0 1 | 0 2 | 84.19 19 | 83.89 16
18 Iowa A = 83.99 7 4 77.19( 13) 0 2 | 2 4 | 83.89 20 | 83.58 18
19 UCLA A = 83.52 9 1 71.68( 53) 0 0 | 2 0 | 84.41 18 | 82.23 23
20 Colorado A = 83.41 7 3 75.26( 28) 0 2 | 0 3 | 83.26 21 | 83.05 20
21 TCU A = 82.61 10 1 69.07( 74) 0 0 | 1 0 | 82.67 22 | 82.06 24
22 Fresno State A = 82.48 8 2 65.66( 95) 0 2 | 0 2 | 80.42 28 | 84.20 14
23 Northwestern A = 81.75 7 4 80.34( 3) 0 3 | 3 4 | 84.99 14 | 78.71 34
24 Florida State A = 81.34 7 3 70.95( 58) 1 0 | 2 0 | 81.75 25 | 80.46 28
25 Georgia A = 81.17 8 2 69.77( 69) 0 0 | 0 1 | 79.87 29 | 81.99 25
26 Arizona State A = 81.04 5 5 77.21( 12) 0 3 | 1 4 | 78.56 36 | 83.26 19
27 Iowa State A = 81.01 7 3 72.69( 45) 0 0 | 2 0 | 79.78 30 | 81.74 26
28 Michigan State A = 80.97 5 6 77.74( 9) 1 3 | 1 5 | 78.15 37 | 83.65 17
29 Georgia Tech A = 80.90 7 3 76.99( 15) 1 1 | 2 1 | 85.44 13 | 77.06 36
30 Oklahoma A = 80.59 6 4 78.77( 6) 0 1 | 0 4 | 81.91 24 | 78.92 31
31 Clemson A = 80.39 7 4 73.96( 35) 0 1 | 1 3 | 81.66 26 | 78.76 33
32 Alabama A = 80.35 9 2 69.72( 70) 0 1 | 0 2 | 82.28 23 | 78.20 35
33 South Florida A = 80.23 6 3 72.57( 46) 0 2 | 1 2 | 79.39 33 | 80.55 27
34 Florida A = 79.60 7 3 71.89( 51) 0 1 | 1 1 | 79.06 34 | 79.62 29
35 Purdue A = 78.81 5 6 78.63( 0 2 | 1 6 | 77.89 38 | 79.21 30
36 California A = 77.86 7 4 71.05( 57) 0 2 | 0 3 | 76.43 42 | 78.82 32
37 Virginia A = 77.62 6 4 72.23( 48) 0 1 | 2 2 | 79.61 32 | 75.40 42
38 Maryland A = 77.36 5 5 76.68( 17) 0 1 | 0 4 | 78.91 35 | 75.48 41
39 North Carolina A = 77.16 5 5 77.44( 11) 0 1 | 1 4 | 79.67 31 | 74.53 44
40 South Carolina A = 76.02 7 4 72.89( 42) 0 0 | 0 2 | 77.87 39 | 73.90 48
41 NC State A = 75.81 5 5 74.56( 33) 0 1 | 2 2 | 77.08 41 | 74.15 46
42 Stanford A = 75.79 5 5 77.11( 14) 0 2 | 1 3 | 75.26 46 | 75.79 40
43 Texas A&M A = 75.49 5 5 74.81( 32) 0 0 | 0 4 | 75.94 43 | 74.55 43
44 Nebraska A = 74.85 6 4 72.01( 50) 0 0 | 1 2 | 77.18 40 | 72.32 53
45 Missouri A = 74.39 6 5 72.82( 43) 0 1 | 1 2 | 75.50 45 | 72.87 50
46 BYU A = 73.95 6 5 70.65( 63) 0 1 | 0 3 | 71.56 58 | 75.98 39
47 Kansas A = 73.80 5 5 75.09( 29) 0 1 | 0 4 | 75.70 44 | 71.61 57
48 Tennessee A = 73.02 4 6 75.43( 24) 1 1 | 1 2 | 71.63 57 | 73.91 47
49 Pittsburgh A = 72.73 5 5 70.90( 59) 0 1 | 0 2 | 70.53 63 | 74.53 45
50 Boise State A = 72.71 8 3 63.15( 108) 0 0 | 0 2 | 71.84 56 | 73.07 49

[Sonny]

the sec is having a down year, but you don't measure the power of a conference by how bad the worst teams are. i don't have time to right now but it would be interesting if someone posted the top 8 teams from the 5 major conferences.

Disagree Danny. If you are going to thump your chest and claim how good your conference is... you have to consider ALL conference teams. You don't get to handpick the top ones.

[DanGenck]

I was winging it on the ACC. I have not heard a peep out of UNC or Maryland this year and completely forgot about them...

[Danny Hogan]

Piepers,

Well sagarin has clearly lost his mind...

if his jagoff conference ratings are based on his BS team ratings, then it makes sense, and he has a something against the SEC

Texas above USC?
OSU above VT?
LSU @ #10?
7-4 Meechigan @ #9?
Louisville @ 11?
T Tech @ 12?
Georgia @ 25?
Alabama @ 32?

and the one that proclaims "i am an idiot!":

#33 South Florida
#34 Florida

I would love to bet the sagarin point spreads with you.

[benji]

I was winging it on the ACC. I have not heard a peep out of UNC or Maryland this year and completely forgot about them...

I would agree with you about to ACC this year. In my opinion, its one of the toughest conferences, however, it seems there's a lot of mediocrity within it this year with Miami crushing VaTech, VaTech crushing GaTech, and GaTech beating Miami.

It seems the ACC this year is a true testament to the "any given [Saturday]" rule.

As far as the SEC this year, I have to agree with Sonny. While its big performers (LSU, Bama, and Auburn) sure get a lot of time in the Nat'l spotlight, the SEC's other so-called contenders are having less than competitive seasons. South Carolina? Arkansas? Florida? Vanderbuilt? These teams are barely scratching the surface of the radar.

I gotta put Big10, ACC, PAC10 and the Big12 all above the SEC.

[Brent Burns]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a good ol' football game between LSU and Arkansas this weekend, doesn't it?