2007 College Football Week No. 7 (week of 10/13/07)

[Timbalaned]

No wonder you liked that column, Danny, Forde sure heaped lots of love on your Gators.

It was a pretty fair piece, IMHO, but I think he is way off on his complete dissing of UCLA. They lost to Notre Dame without either their starting QB or even their capable back-up. Tough for any team to win with a third-stringer at the most important position on the field, and this led to turnovers which resulted in Irish scores. Having watched USC, Ohio State and UCLA against my Huskies, I think all three teams are pretty darn even. Hard to figure that blowout loss to Utah, though. I think the Bruins are just one of those Jekkyl-and-Hyde kind of teams -- really good one game and really bad the next. But if Olsen was healthy and playing QB, the Bruins might be unbeaten themselves.

Much as it pains me deeply to say anything nice about Oregon, the Ducks were a late fumble away from beating #2 Cal and being unbeaten themselves, yet Forde never mentioned them at all. If we give so much credit to a 4-2 Florida team for a close loss to #1 LSU (deservingly), why no props to 4-1 Oregon at all for a close loss to #2 Cal? Now excuse me while I rinse the taste of green-and-gold bile out of my mouth...

All you needed to do was watch SportsCenter last night and saw that Kirk still has us at #5 in his top 5, that is more love than I would ever expect to get from a company based in CT

[Dan Wishengrad]

Here's the most current computer ranking by Jeff Sagarin, as published by USA Today in yesterday's edition:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt07.htm

ASU is the #5 ranked team, but I'm sure many of you -- like Danny Hogan who referred to this notion as "absurd" earlier in this thread -- will vehemently disagree. Even Cincy is ranked only 2 spots lower than Florida, with a margin of error that treats them as basically equal football teams. All the major unbeatens (except Hawaii) are ranked by Sagarin's computer in the top 20.

I am NOT saying the computer is right. We are all free to have our own opinions, but at least the computer is (supposedly) free of partisan or regional biases. Just interesting food for thought, folks. Let the debate continue!

PS Washington IS rated as having the toughest schedule in the nation, and the only team with a losing record in the overall ranking's top 50.

PPS The BCS geniuses use the ELO-Chess rankings... check those out if you really want to see "absurdity" in computer football rankings!

[Danny Hogan]

i don't vehemently disagree, i have been dismissing the Sagarin ratings as the laxpower of lacrosse for years now....

[Danny Hogan]

From a Gator blog site talking about the Sagarin ratings from 2006 right in the middle of bowl season (before UF and LSU smoked BCS opponents)

All pac 10 teams as the 10 toughest strength of schedule? HA!

Its not the whole article sonny...

Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Ranking Jeff Sagarin

As any fan of college football knows, Jeff Sagarin has developed a mathematical model for ranking college football teams, which is published in USA Today. His rankings are more than just an academic exercise, because they are one of the six computer models used in the BCS (in other words, real dollars are at stake).

Sagarin, like most of the computer rankers, keeps his actual methodology secret. (The Colley Matrix, also used in the BCS, is a welcome exception, as Wesley Colley gives makes his formula publicly available.)

I have long been suspicious of the methodology, and utility, of the Sagarin rankings. Often his rankings seem to defy logic. From what Sagarin is willing to reveal, his rankings take into account strength of schedule and margin of victory, among other factors. The BCS requested Sagarin create a new formula that does not take victory margin into account for its purposes, and Sagarin calls this method the “ELO_CHESS”. The BCS friendly “ELO_CHESS” ranks the top 5 as follows-

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4. USC
5. LSU

Sagarin however feels that this BCS requested “ELO_CHESS” is “less accurate” than his regular methodology. In his regular formula, his current rankings are –

1. Ohio State
2. USC
3. Michigan
4. LSU
5. Louisville
6. Florida
7. California
8. West Virginia
9. Boise State
10. Tennessee

I’m not going to waste print space analyzing this top ten, other than to point out the mysteries of LSU being 2 spots above a team it lost to by 13 points, or that a USC team that lost two times to unranked teams is listed second.

Or, think of it this way - if Jeff Sagarin was picking the BCS title game, it would be Ohio State against USC.

Sagarin states that his method is accurate for making “predictions” for games (he even calls it the “Predictor”). In the predictor, you take the number assigned to the team – like the 98.25 rating for Ohio State, and compare it to another team, to see what the winning margin is predicted to be. OSU’s 98.25 to Florida’s 87.02 “predicts” that the Buckeye’s will win 11 points.

Well, let us put Mr. Sagarin to the test this bowl season.

For the games played so far, here are his rankings, the predictions and the results.

33rd TCU v 84th Northern Illinois – TCU by 15
Actual – TCU by 30. Missed by 15 points.

21st BYU v 22nd Oregon – BYU by 5
Actual – BYU by 30. Missed by 25 points.

64th Rice v 103rd Troy – Rice by 9
Actual – Troy by 24. Missed by 31 points.

85th New Mexico v 69th San Jose State – New Mexico by 1
Actual – SJSU by 8. Missed by 9 points.

58th Utah v 55th Tulsa – Utah by 2
Actual – Utah by 12. Missed by 10 points.

28th Hawaii v 27th Arizona State – Hawaii by 4
Actual – Hawaii by 17. Missed by 13 points.

So, thus far, Sagarin has picked the winners in 4 of 6, but in each case, he greatly underestimated the margin of victory. His average point miss through 6 games is 17.17.

If you were playing “Vegas” by his numbers, you would be broke.

If you look at Sagarin’s rankings, he ranks Pac Ten teams Oregon and ASU right near their bowl opponents, yet those opponents far exceeded the expectations of his “Predictor”. Sagarin also ranks conferences. Presently, the Pac Ten is his top rated conference, with the SEC second. In his strength of schedule rankings, Pac 10 Teams have by far the “hardest” schedules, with all ten top rankings going to the conference. His SOS rankings –

1. Stanford
2. USC
3. UCLA
4. Arizona
5. Washington
6. California
7. Oregon
8. Washington State
9. Arizona State
10. Oregon State

It defies credibility to believe that every Pac Ten team played a tougher schedule this year than anyone else in the nation.

It isn’t hard to see here that Sagarin’s methodology has some fundamental flaws that severely impact his rankings. Since his formula is propriety, we can only speculate to what that is, but I suspect the following –

- An “echo” effect. When a team like USC plays tough out of conference opponents like Arkansas, Nebraska and Notre Dame, their strength of schedule gets attributed to every team they play. Since the same conference teams play each other, it "echoes" throughout the conference.

- An overemphasis on high scoring teams. Sagarin admits he takes scoring margins into account. USC, for instance, was averaging over 32 points a game before they ran into UCLA. UCLA also happens to be the best defensive scoring team USC faced all year, giving up 17.9 points per game.

Several teams also played Notre Dame (Stanford, UCLA and USC), so ND’s relatively good record also helped the conference)

Sagarin’s method does not seem to take into account the effectiveness of good defenses. That best defense of UCLA that USC played (and lost to)? Well, it is ranked 27th nationally. And that 27th ranked defense made it very evident that USC could be shut down.

The problem is this - just because some teams in a conference play some quality out-of-conference opponents does not mean that the entire conference itself is good. USC, to their credit, played and beat Arkansas, Nebraska and Notre Dame. USC is a pretty good team.

However, there is really no evidence the rest of the Pac Ten is very good. Cal, for instance, played 3 out-of conference opponents - Tennessee, Minnesota and Portland State. They got whipped by UT, beat 6-6 Minnesota, and beat Division I-AA Portland State. Cal had a pretty mediocre out of conference record. Yet, they are second best team in the Pac Ten.

Whatever Sagarin is doing, it has a real effect on his ratings. USC, with two losses, is ranked 2nd. California, with 3 losses, is raked 7th, 3 places ahead of 3 loss Tennessee which destroyed Cal head-to-head. Stanford – 1 win Stanford – is ranked 91st, ahead of teams with 5, 6 or even 7 wins.

We are going to keep watching Sagarin here through the bowl season.

http://sauriansagacity.blogspot.com/200 ... garin.html

[Beta]

The PAC 10 is his top rated conference...wow.

[insert East Coast bias crying]...

[Danny Hogan]

furthermore that was last year, where imo the pac 10 was not as strong as it is this year.

[Dan Wishengrad]

Danny, I think you could make your argument more effectively by using source material that doesn't come straight off of "Gator blog", a site not many people outside Gainsville would view as objective and non-partisan. If we are talking about strength of schedules (and NOT actual strengths of football teams), consider the non-conference games that the top SEC teams have scheduled for 2007:

Current consensus #1 LSU: Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana Tech, Tulane. WOW, now I am REALLY impressed! Certainly no cupcakes on THIS list.

Defending National Champ Florida: Western Kentucky, Troy, Florida Atlantic. Way to go out on a limb, Gators! But weren't there any high school teams willing to give you a 4th non-con game?

South Carolina: Louisiana-Lafayette, South Carolina State. Man, that Spurrier sure is one gutsy dude setting up so many non-con games against all these dangerous traditional football powerhouses.

Your argument belittles the Sagarin computer picking the Pac-10 schools as all playing the toughest schedules. The "echo" effect" you cite is a valid point, even I'll admit. And I'm sure almost 100% of the regular readers of "Gator blog" will agree with your overall argument. But can't you also concede that the Pac-10 schools regularly schedule non-con games against much more worthy opponents than you SEC guys, and that the Pac-10 itself is a much stronger conference TOP-TO-BOTTOM than the SEC is?

Finally, let's compare the three SEC non-conference schedules above with Washington's: at Syracuse, Boise State, Ohio State, at Hawaii. Three of the four were ranked teams in the pre-season poll, and the fourth (The Orangeman) play in a decent conference and could have reasonably expected to be a good team when the game was scheduled. Syracuse turned out to be a bad team this year, and the Huskies went into the Carrier Dome and "smoked em" (thanks for the verbage). Of course Syracuse DID go to highly-ranked Louisville and pull out a huge upset, so maybe SU isn't so terrible after all. Washington is in 9th place in the Pac-10, winless in conference games. The Hawaii game was actually added only last year to give the Huskies an extra game, and the Warriors were expected to be a solid team in '07.

I believe that you must measure a conference by comparing the weakest teams in it, and not just the strongest teams at the top. SEC vs Pac-10? No argument which is the stronger conference... well except maybe from the readers of "Gator Blog", that is.

[Beta]

The SEC doesn't need hard OOC schedules when you can play Florida, LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, UGA and Tennessee all in the same year.

[Dan Wishengrad]

The SEC doesn't need hard OOC schedules when you can play Florida, LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, UGA and Tennessee all in the same year.

And neither does the Pac-10, when we play USC, Cal, ASU, Oregon and UCLA every year... but then we add non-com games against the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Tennessee, etc. etc. etc. Our weakest ranked team (until last week anyway) was Stanford, who went on the road and beat #2 USC. When was the last time the WORST team from the SEC upset a Top-10 team? And why DON'T the top SEC teams show some cojones and schedule a tough OOC opponent or two?

[Beta]

And neither does the Pac-10, when we play USC, Cal, ASU, Oregon and UCLA every year... but then we add non-com games against the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Tennessee, etc. etc. etc. Our weakest ranked team (until last week anyway) was Stanford, who went on the road and beat #2 USC. When was the last time the WORST team from the SEC upset a Top-10 team?

So that means that the conference is good? They (Stanford) beat the top team from their conference. If Boise State gets beat by (whoever is at the bottom of the WAC-10) that means there's something wrong...within the conference. It doesn't mean that the conference is automatically good. I don't see LSU losing to Vanderbilt or Ole Miss anytime soon.

Haha ASU and UCLA? ASU hasn't proved anything yet. UCLA did play Notre Dame...niiiiiice.

I think LSU is allowed to play 1-2 bad teams OOC with the following schedule:

08/30 at Miss St W 45-0
09/08 #9 Va Tech W 48-7
09/15 M Tenn St W 44-0
09/22 #12 S Carolina W 28-16
09/29 at Tulane W 34-9
10/06 #9 Florida W 28-24
10/13 at #17 Kentucky
10/20 #22 Auburn
11/03 at Alabama
11/10 La Tech
11/17 at Ole Miss
11/23 Arkansas

[Dan Wishengrad]

I think LSU is allowed to play 1-2 bad teams OOC with the following schedule

Sure they are. But why don't they take the risk on playing somebody decent, too? If they're so darned great wouldn't playing and beating somebody from outside the SEC other than the Confederate School for Blind Women actually HELP their national reputation as the best team in the land?

C'mon the rest of you -- am I the only person willing to debate the Southerners?

[FLAK]

On another note, looks like Stanford loss isn't the only one USC should be concerned with....

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3056397

A sports marketer will give NCAA investigators financial records and other evidence linking Reggie Bush and his family to nearly $280,000 in benefits while he was enrolled at Southern California, according to a report Wednesday.

Yahoo! Sports also reported it had acquired confidential e-mails from officers of New Era Sports & Entertainment, a marketing agency founded by Lake and Michael Michaels with cooperation from Bush and his stepfather, LaMar Griffin. The e-mails show the agency soliciting marketing and memorabilia deals on the running back's behalf, Yahoo! Sports reported.


If Bush is found to have received improper benefits, USC could be forced to forfeit games. The school could face other sanctions if it's proven that coaches knew or should have known about the alleged benefits.

Also, if Bush is found to have broken NCAA rules during his Heisman-winning season, the award could be revoked.

Back to the scheduling dispute, I hope people understand that teams schedule OOC games 5 years in advance usually, and they have no control over whether a team gets better or worse.

I don't understand how they can consider ranking schedules at this point with all the upsets and such...Shoudn't this not really be a factor until the regular season is done and before the conference championships? I know it just gives us more things to debate about, but I don't see the logic in ranking schedules when we don't even know how teams will do the rest of the season.

[Beta]

Sure they are. But why don't they take the risk on playing somebody decent, too? If they're so darned great wouldn't playing and beating somebody from outside the SEC other than the Confederate School for Blind Women actually HELP their national reputation as the best team in the land?

C'mon the rest of you -- am I the only person willing to debate the Southerners?

Someone decent in addition to VaTech, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama?

Let's look at ASU's schedule since you mentioned them and they're apparently sicknastyill this year

September 1 San Jose State W 45-3
September 8 Colorado W 33-14
September 15 San Diego State W 34-13
September 22 Oregon State W 44-32
September 29 at Stanford W 41-3
October 6 at Washington State W 23-20
October 13 Washington
October 27 No. 2 California
November 3 at No. 9 Oregon
November 10 at UCLA
November 22 No. 10 USC
December 1 Arizona

Whew, ASU has room to talk..>San Jose State...Colorado and San Diego State...and wins over QUALITY teams like Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State. I believe a congressional medal of honor is in order.

And let's not forget about UCLA since you mentioned them and their SWEET losses to Notre Dame (20-6) and THE University of Utah (44-6).

And Washington...they play Ohio State...that's actually a quality OOC game. Syracuse? Hawaii?? Boise State??? Boise's only claim to fame...EVER is the OT win over a crappy 06' Oklahoma team, all on trick plays.

I don't see LSU, Florida...hell South Carolina losing to UCLA anytime soon.

Southerners? Please.

Playoff, Playoff, Playoff.

[Dan Wishengrad]

I don't see LSU, Florida...hell South Carolina losing to UCLA anytime soon.

And on this I agree with you 100%! LSU, Florida and So. Carolina don't have the cojones to schedule a team like the Bruins, so they can't possibly lose a game they are apparently afraid to play.

[Beta]

And on this I agree with you 100%! LSU, Florida and So. Carolina don't have the cojones to schedule a team like the Bruins, so they can't possibly lose a game they are apparently afraid to play.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently Notre Dame had the balls to do so...and we all know how ferocious Notre Dame is this year.

Yes, LSU is terrified of UCLA. So that means that Notre Dame is tougher than LSU...since Notre Dame pounded UCLA's FEARED team. I would be scared of a team that manages to give up 44 points to Utah.