From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 9
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LSU Tigers |  1 |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide |  -1 |
| 3 | Clemson Tigers | 1 |
| 4 | Oklahoma Sooners | -1 |
| 5 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | -- |
| 6 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
| 7 | Stanford Cardinal | 6 |
| 8 | Texas A&M Aggies | 3 |
| 9 | Oregon Ducks | 3 |
| 10 | Kansas St. Wildcats | -3 |
| 11 | Michigan St. Spartans | 7 |
| 12 | Wisconsin Badgers | -4 |
| 13 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -3 |
| 14 | Michigan Wolverines | -5 |
| 15 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -- |
| 16 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | -- |
| 17 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 2 |
| 18 | USC Trojans | -- |
| 19 | Penn St. Nittany Lions | -- |
| 20 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
| 21 | Texas Longhorns | -1 |
| 22 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | -- |
| 23 | Cincinnati Bearcats | -- |
| 24 | Syracuse Orange | -- |
| 25 | Arizona St. Sun Devils | -2 |
| Dropouts: Illinois Fighting Illini, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, North Carolina Tar Heels, Auburn Tigers, Washington Huskies, West Virginia Mountaineers, South Florida Bulls | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
Four main points were made in the comment; my response to each:
- Move Okie State above Oklahoma. Response - no. They are so very very close in the system. Arguments can be made for each. State is undefeated and beat two common opponents by better than what OU did. OU thrashed two other common opponents that State did not. Tiebreaker: Oklahoma has a very solid out of conference win on the road that State doesn't have. So close between the two that we might just have to wait til Bedlam to sort it out.
- Move Nebraska below Wisconsin. Response - OK. This is one of the great challenges of ranking teams. Team A has done nothing outside of blow out Team B. Team B got killed by Team A but other than that has a much better resume overall. Both have the same record. Seriously, after Nebraska, Wisconsin's next-best game was beating Northern Illinois. I decided to give in on this one because of Washington's precipitous fall after getting belted by Stanford.
- Move Arkansas above Texas. Response - I'm an idiot. Yes, the system gives me Texas above Arkansas because frankly, Arkansas has a giant chasm between their best two wins and the rest of their schedule. I have their third-best win as New Mexico. (Sure, Mississippi's a better team - somewhat - but when I rank those games I take into consideration how you looked. Did you blow out a team you should have blown out? Or did you almost gag it away?) Anyway, despite all, a 4-2 team like Texas, with their best win as UCLA, should not be above 6-1 Arkansas that has beaten Auburn and A&M. This is why Blogpolleteers post their ballot before they're finalized, to fix stupidity like that.
- Replace Cincinnati with Houston. Response - sorry, not yet. Cincy, at least, beat a formerly-ranked USF team and squashed 4-3 NC State. Houston is undefeated, yes, but it's gonna take another couple wins to overcome the fact that the best thing they've done all season is to squeak past shitty UCLA, which just got curb-stomped by even-shittier Arizona.
So that is the new ballot - I'll put changes like this on top of the old one, but leave the old one up so you can compare. It's all about accountability.
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I think it's pretty vanilla this week.
From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 9
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LSU Tigers | 1 |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -1 |
| 3 | Clemson Tigers | 1 |
| 4 | Oklahoma Sooners | -1 |
| 5 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | -- |
| 6 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
| 7 | Stanford Cardinal | 6 |
| 8 | Texas A&M Aggies | 3 |
| 9 | Oregon Ducks | 3 |
| 10 | Kansas St. Wildcats | -3 |
| 11 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -1 |
| 12 | Michigan St. Spartans | 6 |
| 13 | Wisconsin Badgers | -5 |
| 14 | Michigan Wolverines | -5 |
| 15 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -- |
| 16 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | -- |
| 17 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 2 |
| 18 | USC Trojans | -- |
| 19 | Penn St. Nittany Lions | -- |
| 20 | Texas Longhorns | -- |
| 21 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
| 22 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | -- |
| 23 | Cincinnati Bearcats | -- |
| 24 | Syracuse Orange | -- |
| 25 | Arizona St. Sun Devils | -2 |
| Dropouts: Illinois Fighting Illini, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, North Carolina Tar Heels, Auburn Tigers, Washington Huskies, West Virginia Mountaineers, South Florida Bulls | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »
I did decide that the system was wrong to give me Oklahoma above Clemson; at this point in the season, 8-0 is 8-0.
Lot of churn in the bottom. All those teams that dropped out did so by adding losses to their resume. Some of them really bad.
Teams that didn't make it, in order: Houston, UNC, Illinois, West Virginia, Southern Miss, Auburn, Washington.
Obviously not gonna have any mention of UVA in this calculation this week. Or in any future weeks, I'd imagine. Maybe next year. Just wait til tomorrow when I get all ranty. We will definitely talk UVA then.
2 comments:
I'll take a stab at being critical again ;p.
-First thing that stands out to me is oklahoma vs. oklahoma state. They both beat Texas, OK pasted them in dallas, OK St won a bit closer in austin, so edge oklahoma there. They both beat missouri, OK by 10 at home, OK St by 3 TD's on the road. They both pasted tulsa, OK's score was probably better because of the D, but OK St again was on the road. They both slaughtered Kansas, OK St put up 70, OK did it on the road. And they both put up 60+ on their puffball, OK gets the edge there cause they decided to play D, but I'm not basing a ranking on how a team looked in blowouts vs. sun belt/mac teams, so whatever. Frankly, this all looks pretty even to me, slight arguments for both sides. So then OK St adds a 1 pt road win over your #8 Texas A&M, and OK has their 10 pt win over FSU. OK St also pasted Arizona, take that for what you will... and OK lost at home to texas tech. Seems pretty solidly in favor of OK State. I actually have Oklahoma 9th, but the rest of them are certainly arguable.
-The top big ten teams are a mess, but I really hate having Nebraska ahead of Wisconsin. I understand why your system spit out what it did, but... yeah. I wound up putting them at the top of the list, just because they're the only one without an ugly blowout loss. It's really just eye test though, not logic.
-I get why your system doesn't like Arkansas, 4 of their wins are complete garbage, but they have to at least be better than texas. They both got slaughtered by an elite team, but Texas' was worse... and alabama/lsu are slaughtering everyone, while Oklahoma's been in 3 competitive games, and only one of those opponents are ranked. Texas also lost to another very good team. And then you have their wins... which are also mostly garbage. Sagarin has their opponents rated 59th, 62nd, 73rd, and 90th. I don't really think they should be ranked at all at this point, but certainly not ahead of someone that's beaten a top 10 team and slaughtered another team significantly better than anyone texas has beaten.
-Finally, I'd like to make an argument for Houston. Basically, I think they should have cincinnati's spot. Neither team has any wins worth mentioning for a top 25 team... Using sagarin again to compare, Houston's wins were (parentheses signify blowouts) @71, 73, @79, (88), (89), (@123), (209) while Cincy's were @55, (63), 80, (@127), (182), (211). I'd certainly give a slight edge to cincy's, but I don't want to overrate blowing out nc state just because I know who they are... they're still not actually a good football team. And Cincy was blown out by unrankable Tennessee, while Houston is undefeated. I tend to think being undefeated is worth a bonus... there's still that mythical possibility that you are in fact better than everyone else, that a win is a win.
Anyway, you probably disagree with all this, you usually do... but thought I'd toss my 2 cents in :)
No, you certainly make a good point about Arkansas and Texas, at least. Honestly I can't even come close to defending that one. Anyway, see responses that I appended to the post above.
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