BigMike said:
Louisville I have rated behind UCF, and no idea how the human polls have them ahead, UCF has a much better SOS so far
Infield Infidel said:
This really blows my mind btw. I HATE how pollsters refuse to move teams very far from the previous week. "Louisville was overrated, so let's keep em overated, even ahead of a team that beat them!" I'm terrified that without computers next year the committee will make this error more prominent
At the end of the day, the BCS is still a beauty contest with judges deciding the top teams. The problem is that two-thirds of the equation comes from the humans, and the polls have fatal flaws, especially this week.
For example, UCF, whose only loss came to South Carolina, just handed Louisville its first loss at Louisville. At the moment, based on what happened on the field so far, there’s no rational explanation for not ranking UCF ahead of Louisville. However, UCF is ranked 25th in both the Harris and coaches’ polls while Louisville is an inexplicable 16th.
Worse yet, Auburn has just one loss on the year — at then-No. 6 LSU — on the way to its 6-1 record. Texas A&M is 5-2 with a loss to Alabama along with Saturday’s loss to Auburn. That means the Tigers have a better record and a head-to-head win over the Aggies, but Texas A&M is 13th and Auburn is 15th in the Harris Poll, and A&M is 15th in the coaches’ poll while Auburn is 17th.
Fortunately, the computers helped the cause to help make Auburn No. 11 in the BCS standings, five spots ahead of Texas A&M. But Louisville is 20th in the BCS (despite being 28th by the computers) and UCF is 23rd even though it’s 19th among the computers. Blame the humans.
The BCS standings are determined by these polls, so if there’s something off, it hurts the overall credibility, and it throws the whole thing out of whack.
PaulinMyrBch said:
I tend to look at things as who do I think would win, neutral site, head to head. For that reason, Clemson stays ranked mainly due to the fact as quality wins go, beating healthy Georgia was impressive. Unfortunately computer polls do not distinguish the difference between healthy Georgia and Georgia missing the top 2 RB's and top 3 WR's. So that win is diminished by some, but it might be the best quality win of anyone in the top 10.
I can't rank TTech any higher after nearly losing to WVU on Saturday.
I said "might"....but those are clearly the two of the notable wins of top 10 teams.BigMike said:
So Clemson beating healthy UGA might be a better quality win than FSU beating the living shit out of a healthy Clemson team in Death Valley? and you are downgrading TTech because they nearly lost to WVU (at Morgantown). Yet Clemson by your same standard nearly lost to an equally bad Boston College team at Home the previous week
Infield Infidel said:For those that have Baylor over Ohio State, what's the reasoning? OSU's win over Penn St yesterday is more impressive than anything Baylor has done, and OSU also beat Wisconsin, which is a top-25 team
FBS Opponents' records
Baylor 19-26
Ohio St 28-25
Sagarin ranks Baylor's sched 96th, OSU 69th
3. Arizona State and USC are almost certainly ranked too highly in the F/+ rankings...
...at sixth and 10th, respectively. I'm not going to convince you that those rankings are totally legit, at least not yet.
But let's just say the Sun Devils and Trojans probably aren't going to move down much in this week's updated rankings after their performances. Both teams looked pretty fantastic in disposing of Washington State and Oregon State, respectively, in weeknight road trips.
SMU_Sox said:So Clemson and BYU seem to bother you the most. Let me say it is more about Clemson than BYU. Clemson strikes me as one of the most overrated teams. Not because they are bad but because they are incredibly inconsistent game ti game and quarter to quarter. The fei, f+ and s+ tell me what I see. BYU lost to a bad Virginia team that Clemson beat. But I don't care about one common opponent. I think BYU and Clemson are a coin flip if they play.
BigMike said:
Really a coin flip game. I think Vegas Would have Clemson as somewhere between a 14 and 24 point favorite in the game depending on where it was being played
I think Clemson has had a bad year where they have underperformed their talent level, and yet are still a top 7 team. Some of it is coaching, I think Dabo is awful, but the talent level is insane
With Utah and TCU getting called up to major conferences (along with, technically, the former Conference USA members that joined the still-AQ American Athletic Conference), BYU going independent, and Boise State entering an apparent down cycle of sorts, the mid-major ranks currently aren't what they once were. The downward creep began in 2012 and has continued rather dramatically in 2013. There were only two non-AQ teams in the F/+ top 30 in 2012, and heading into this past week of action, there were only two in the top 40 in 2013. Neither were Fresno State or Northern Illinois. In fact, neither the Bulldogs nor Huskies were in the non-AQ top six. When the new F/+ rankings are unveiled tomorrow, the odds are very good that Fresno State will have moved up a few spots following a shellacking of Wyoming, but it will only be a few spots; the Bulldogs aren't going to suddenly rank in the top 30.
Top 10 teams from BCS non-AQ conferences in 2013 (By F/+)
35. Utah State
38. East Carolina
41. Boise State
48. North Texas
50. Ball State
53. Marshall
56. Fresno State
58. Toledo
61. Rice
64. Northern Illinois
(lowest-ranked AQ conference leader: No. 13 UCF)