Sunday Morning Quarterback

Clemson=No Respect?

Johnny5 — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:04:53 -0000

Last year Clemson performed above expectations in my mind, shocking midwesterners with a very talented season on both sides of the ball. I knew there be explosion in their offense, but in the passing game? I had no idea Cullen Harper would throw for 27 tds and i think it was six pics? thats some great production. Especially when you have James Davis and C.J. Spiller to take oppurtunities away. The defense was elite and staved off a lot of attacks that presented themselves last season.

Lucky for Clemson they lost very little this offseason, the most notable losses being Barry Richardson OT, 2nd round pick Phillip Merling DE. Almost everyone else returns. The offense will be explosive, they will probably average about 35 points a game and the defense will allow about 14. Not to mention the weak conference they play in, this season at least. Yes the ACC has Miami, FSU, and Virginia Tech, but aside from VT they won't be anything special. Look for Clemson to take the ACC title with ease. An early hurdle with Alabama at home could set them up for some name recognition and attention.

Schedule:

Alabama: W 24-21

The Citadel: W 56-7

NCST: 45-13

SCST: W 56-0

Maryland: W 31-17

at Wake Forest: W 30-27

Georgia Tech: W 20-7

at BC: W 21-7

at FSU: W 21-20

Duke: 38-10

at Virginia: L 17-28

South Carolina: W 34-28

ACC champions

Letter to a Young Procrastinator

SMQ — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:16:01 -0000

I think anyone who wants to understand how I "work" will take every word of this outstanding quasi-effort by Slate's Seth Stevenson to heart:

Stop resisting and embrace your procrastination. Don't agonize in front of a blank computer screen. Don't sit around for hours—intending to start your work any moment now—only to find that in the end you've accomplished zilch, save for ruining your own day.

Except for Guitar Hero (I only play NCAA Football these days), he has reached into my soul.

Welcome to the new Sunday Morning Quarterback and SB Nation

clockwerks — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:58:27 -0000

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An Idea about post-season

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:49:40 -0000

I was just thinking that with the commissioners rejecting any playoff proposal, I'd drop an idea I've been thinking about and seeing what people think of it.
I'm personally opposed to a playoff, since I enjoy the importance of the regular season as it is right now, but I do agree that there is a lot of difficulty in evaluating teams at the end of the year. One of the big causes of this problem is that there really aren't enough out of conference games between top teams, for a number of reasons, and this deprives us of valuable information would could use to make these decisions. The biggest and simplest reasons have to do with wanting easy wins and the financial incentive to play games at home against opponents who cannot demand a return game. This causes a lot of BCS teams to schedule weak opponents from non-BCS conferences to pad their schedules. We can't take away these incentives, but maybe we can offer an alternative.
I wonder what would happen if an auto-bid to the BCS was given to teams that beat 2 conference champions or won their conference and beat the champion of another conference. Obviously, they would need to be ranked in the top 12, 14, or 16 or whatever, and that second part of the rule would only matter to mid-major programs because the BCS conferences champions already get an auto-bid. The main point is that I think it would provide an huge financial incentive for top teams to start scheduling higher ranked opponents. If a school could guarantee itself a BCS bid by playing out of conference games against teams that have the potential to win the their conferences, there would be a push towards these kinds of games.
Strong mid-major programs like Boise State, BYU, Fresno State, UCF, and TCU would be in bigger demand, since BCS teams would seek out teams that are likely to win their conferences. That gives the smaller schools more bargaining power, and they can insist on home and home or 2 for 1 deals with the bigger schools. Also, these strong mid-major teams would have a reason to play each other; if they can win their conference and beat another conference's champion, they have stronger argument for get into the BCS games, or maybe an automatic bid.
Since there are only a limited number of out of conference games that the non-BCS conference champs can play, and big schools won't be all that keen on having to go away to play games against them (although they probably now have to start doing so), the big schools would see more reason to play against each other. Right now, the losses of big out of conference games outweigh the rewards. A school like Wisconsin has no reason to schedule games against tough opponents if it's trying to get into the BCS, because either it wins the Big 10 championship or it's trying to win as many games as possible to get a high enough ranking. Let's imagine that Ohio State wins the conference, but Wisconsin beats them heads up. Now Wisconsin would want a game against an OOC team that won its conference. It could either try to find a strong mid-major team, or it could try schedule a school like Missouri or Louisville in the hopes that that school wins its conference championship, and those schools would want the same from Wisconsin.
I think this idea would help to promote games between strong programs and teams and would help to correct the fundamental problem we have with evaluating teams now. It would give us more information about how the individual school fares against a top team and how conferences as a whole stack up against each other. It gives mid-majors a chance to build their programs up by playing against each other or demanding home games from large schools instead of always having to face a hostile environment. I think this proposal works because it gives everyone a reason to play good games OOC; the money and publicity they earn from playing in a BCS game. Thoughts?

Retro Bowl Bubble

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:16:50 -0000

As the official bowl slotting freak around here, I couldn't resist. With the announcement of 2 new bowls for 2008, what would have been the effects on the 2007 matchups if they'd existed?

OK, to recap, there were 7 bowl-eligible teams that didn't get to play in an extra game: Troy, Louisville, South Carolina, Iowa, Northwestern, Ohio and ULM.

And there are 2 new games. Let's start with the easier one: The St. Petersburg Bowl matches a Big East and a C-USA team. This is the C-USA team that used to be in the PapaJohns.com Bowl, which is now Big East-SEC. I'm assuming that the St. Pete Bowl, with the C-USA tie-in, picks ahead of the International Bowl, with the MAC. That gives you the following matchups for last year:

PapaJohn's.com Bowl: Cincinnati vs. South Carolina
St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers vs. Southern Mississippi
International Bowl: Louisville vs. Ball State

Okay, now the Congressional Bowl. That one is supposed to match the #9 ACC team vs. a service academy. It's Navy in 2008, Army in 2009, and who knows after that. And the MAC has a spot as a backup if either spot doesn't get filled.

What does that mean for 2007? Well, just for argument's sake, we'll put Navy in there and go with the 2008 matchup for the Poinsettia Bowl (where Navy had a deal), which is the #7 Pac-10 team.

Now, there wasn't a #9 ACC team or a #7 Pac-10 eligible last year. So that means the MAC gets to cover the Congressional Bowl, and the open slot in the Poinsettia goes to the only team left at better than 6-6

Congressional Bowl: Ohio vs. Navy
Poinsettia Bowl: Utah vs. Troy

Still left out: Iowa, Northwestern, ULM.

All right, now just for fun, what if the other proposed bowl, the Rocky Mountain Bowl (which sounded like all they had was some guy who said "Hey, why not have a bowl in Salt Lake City?") had been around. That one would have matched Mountain West vs. WAC.

I'm assuming that given this option, the Mountain West would have let poor New Mexico travel to a game (although they did play at Utah and TCU didn't, so maybe not). The WAC didn't have another team available, so now we have 3 open slots: Texas, Poinsettia and Rocky Mountain.

I've never figured out how it actually works when you have an undesirable 7-5 team (Troy) that has to get a spot, and 6-6 teams that are more desirable. I'm guessing that everybody cuts deals until one bowl's left. And traveling to SLC in December to play New Mexico is the loser there. So, in this version you get:

Poinsettia Bowl: Utah vs. Northwestern (Iowa didn't want to go to a game during exams)
New Mexico Bowl: TCU vs. Nevada
Texas Bowl: Iowa vs. Houston
Rocky Mountain Bowl: New Mexico vs. Troy

That leaves just ULM, but hey, they beat Alabama! They're happy.

Another Proud Moment

SMQ — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:06:41 -0000

A visitor to the site today got here one of the fun ways: do a Google Image Search for a highfallutin' word like "anthropomorphism," and what comes up? Naturally, this:

Once again, god bless the Internet.

Ohio State and Playoffs

Year2 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:50:57 -0000

Here's a thought: Buckeye fans should be some of the most vocal playoff proponents.

Ohio State has gotten a bad rap lately, as SMQ has pointed out so eloquently on the main page. It has been to 3 of the past 6 BCS title games, and has one of the highest winning percentages of the decade.

However, thanks to two bad losses in the last two BCS title games, they're equated with the early '90s Buffalo Bills. You know who else has two bad losses at that level in the past two years? UCLA men's basketball. The Bruins lost badly to Florida in the past two Final Fours, but instead of being a national joke they're held up as an example of a great program. Sure, there's pressure on them to win it all this year, but no one is calling them the Bills.

The difference is that UCLA made its way to those bad losses via a playoff. Ohio State got voted in to the title games, and there were definite questions last year surrounding the team given the national negative perception of its conference. Plus, they basically backed into the contest because following a bad loss to Illinois they won a nondescript game over Michigan and watched the national carnage propel them back up.

If we had a playoff the last two years, it's entirely possible the Buckeyes could have lost without even making the title game. However, if they did make it there both years the public perception would be that they earned their way there, and they just happened to get caught in a bad matchup both times. It's also entirely possible that a playoff-forged matchup between the Buckeyes and Gators in 2006 would have made OSU take UF more seriously and everyone would be talking about 2 titles in 5 years instead of invoking Scott Norwood's team when talking about them.

Ohio State's fans should be in favor of a playoff for this very reason. Vocally so. After all, an 11-1 Ohio State team with only a road loss to USC would have a powerful case for going to the national title game in any year this decade, but if there's 2 other 11-1 teams I can't help but feel that people will vote OSU #3 based on perceptions made from the last two years. But, when opinion polls and beauty contests rule the postseason system, these are the things that could happen.

Stand up Buckeyes. It's time you made a real playoff push.

Disclosure: I am a Florida Gator, and even run Florida-centered blog.

Homerism: For What It's Worth

SMQ — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:18:33 -0000

I put this in the 'Diary' section because I've addressed in the main page several times already, but I'm still having a difficult time with the kneejerk reaction nationally and, for the most part, regionally against Jeff Bower's dismissal from Southern Miss after 14 straight winning seasons, four conference championships, etc. etc. This is what we can take from those opinions:

1) Bower's record at Southern Miss was very ordinary by the program's historical and contemporary standards.
2) Southern Miss has suffered from steadily diminishing returns throughout the current decade.
3) Southern Miss has consistently underachieved according to national expectations and oddsmakers over the last eight years.
4) In a little more than two months, Larry Fedora delivered the single highest-rated recruit and in all likelihood the highest-rated overall recruiting class in school history.

Saurian Sagacity has up this week a quick look at the highest-rated classes by Rivals over the last four years. This is very similar to the quick and dirty look I put together last month, but includes mid-major rankings, which I did not. Cumulatively, Southern Miss ranks 55th nationally. That's best of any non-BCS team, and USM's cumulative point total, using Rivals' formula, is twice that of the second-best total in Conference USA (Central Florida). Among the teams that rank below Southern Miss in cumulative talent, in this survey's estimation:

• Kentucky
• South Florida
• BYU
• Wake Forest
• Boise State
• Hawaii
• Cincinnati

Kentucky and USF upset eventual top five, BCS-winning favorites and spent part of last season in the top ten, both finishing in or very near the final polls. BYU has won 16 straight Mountain West games and finished in the top 20 two years in a row. Wake Forest appeared in the Orange Bowl in 2006 and won nine games again last year. Boise State and Hawaii have had undefeated regular season and appeared in BCS bowls; Boise trounced USM in a joke of a game that wasn't competitive for a second back in September. Cincinnati, besides being a former C-USA underling that finished last season in the top 25, was the biggest favorite of the bowl season against the Eagles, so much so that a friend called to congratulate me that USM was still in the game in the third quarter.

The 'experts,' such as they are, think Southern Miss has at least comparable athleticism to each of these teams. Yet USM has lost three C-USA games each of the last four years and each time finished at least two games back of the conference champion in one of the weakest conferences in the country. It was the unanimous favorite to win the league last year and finished sixth, with a home loss on national television to Rice (97th in talent over the last four years, according to Rivals) for good measure. USM has not even sniffed the polls.

So why was a call for new blood such a damn mystery? Pay attention, people.

TDs: The Runs Batted In of College Football (Part Three)

The Boy — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:51:15 -0000

Once again, it's The Boy from Rock M Nation. The amount of time between Parts Two and Three here was larger than I intended, but that's actually a good thing--I got sidetracked because somebody showed me a site where I can enter play-by-play for games about 4x or 5x faster. Instead of 8-10 a week, I can now do 40-50. So without the help of any volunteers, I should have all of 2007's games entered some time in late-April or early-May. Hooray! I still need volunteers, though, when it comes to playing with the data and seeing what becomes of it. As always, e-mail me at BillConnelly1 @ gmail.com if you're interested. Anyway, on to Part Three.

Part One

Part Two

So today we're going to cover Defensive Success Rates, or Alvin Bowen's Law. This one probably won't be quite as interesting as Parts One or Two (I'm a great salesman!), but it's a pretty important concept.

I can basically pinpoint the moment I started down this "football metrics" road. It was spring 2007, and I was reading about Iowa State LB Alvin Bowen and the fact that he had roughly 113,536 tackles in 2007. He received plenty of post-season accolades, but I just kept thinking, "Yeah, but how many of those were actually good plays, and how many were just plays where somebody had to make the tackle? Bad teams always have somebody with an insane amount of tackles. If only there were a way to differentiate between plays and good plays..." Being a big sabermetrics fan (i.e. a nerd), I started looking around for stat nerd-oriented football books/websites. Long story short, I found Football Outsiders, I pilfered their Success Rate measure (covered in Part Two), I entered a crapload of Big 12 play-by-plays from 2006 and 2007, and it was time to play around with the data...in this case, using Alvin Bowen as the guinea pig, of course.

In 2006, Alvin Bowen recorded 155 tackles, a profane 12.92 per game, for an Iowa State team that was, shall we say, not great. How are we going to evaluate how many actual `good plays' he made, and how are we going to define `good plays'? Well let's go back to the Success Rate measure I used in Part Two. If an offense gains a certain number of yards on a certain down, it's a "successful" play. Well, wouldn't a "successful" play for the defense be preventing a "successful" play for the offense? Makes sense to me. So the rules for Defensive Success Rates are as follows (and if they look familiar, they are--they're just the inverse of the Offensive Success Rate rules):

1st Down: less than 50% of necessary first down yardage. If it's 1st-and-10, a gain of less than 5 yards equals defensive 'success'.

2nd Down: less than 70% of necessary yardage (rounded up to the nearest yard, of course). If it's 2nd-and-10, a gain of less than 7 yards is 'success'. 2nd-and-15? Less than 10 yards.

3rd and 4th Downs: less than 100% of necessary yardage. I figure this requires no explanation.

In all, any given play has about a 57% chance of defensive `success.'

During conference play in 2006, here are the top 10 Big 12 LBs according to Defensive Success Rate (for LBs who had at least 10 `successful' plays):

Rufus Alexander (OU), 77.5%
Rodrick Johnson (OSU), 74.6%
Brent Slaughter (Tech), 74.1%
Joe Mortensen (KU), 68.6%
Jordan Dizon (CU), 67.7%
Corey McKeon (NU), 67.2%
Dedrick Harrington (MU), 65.0%
Robert Killebrew (UT), 63.9%
Bo Ruud (NU), 63.8%
Rashad Bobino (UT), 63.2%

Here are the Big 12 coaches' All-Conference linebackers:

1st-Team: Alexander (#1 above), Ruud (#9), MU's Marcus Bacon (#18)

2nd-Team: KSU's Brandon Archer (#12), Alvin Bowen (#13), BU's Joe Pawelek (#32)

So obviously the coaches disagree with using Defensive Success Rate as a tool to evaluate effectiveness. Then again, so do I. Well, I disagree with using only Defensive Success Rate.

Brent Slaughter, #3 on my list above, had 13.5 tackles (to calculate this, I only give half-credit for assisted tackles) in conference play, while Alvin Bowen had 69.5. Slaughter making 10.0 successful tackles among his 13.5 doesn't make him a better linebacker than Bowen. LBs should, to some degree, still get credit for quantity along with quality. So what were the top 10 LBs according to Total Successful Tackles in conference play?

Alvin Bowen, 42.5 (2nd-team)
Jordan Dizon, 42.0 (HM...which was a total travesty, not to the level of Martin Rucker being 2nd-team All-Conference TE behind OSU's Brandon Pettigrew in '07, but still a travesty...Big 12 coaches are horrible voters)
Rufus Alexander, 39.5 (1st)
Tyron McKenzie (ISU), 35.0
Dedrick Harrington, 32.5 (HM)
Brandon Archer, 27.5 (2nd)
Rodrick Johnson, 26.5
Brock Stratton (Tech), 25.5 (HM)
Patrick Lavine (OSU), 24.5
Rashad Bobino, 24.0

Okay, that list has some bigger names on it, but it fails to take into account any `unsuccessful' tackles. `Unsuccessful' plays should have some role to play, as any tackle you make (in theory) prevents a TD, does it not?

It seems to me that if we were to add up the rankings of three separate categories (Defensive Success Rate, Total Successful Tackles, Total Tackles), we might get a pretty good indicator, no? Sure, there's some overlap in there (success rate is just Successful Tackles divided by Tackles), but still...let's see what happens.

Top 10 Big 12 LBs, 2006

Rufus Alexander (sum: 8--#1 in Success Rate, #3 in Successful Tackles, #4 in Total Tackles...the lower the better)
Jordan Dizon (9)
Alvin Bowen (15)
Dedrick Harrington (17)
Tyrone McKenzie (21)
Brandon Archer (26)
Rodrick Johnson (28)
Rashad Bobino (35)
Brock Stratton (35)
Patrick Lavine (39)

Now, this still fails to take into account things like turnovers forced--Marcus Bacon had a ton of forced fumbles, and Bo Ruud should get some credit for his propensity for scoring TDs off of turnovers in '06. But for pure play-to-play proficiency, these were the conference's best LBs

(You can tell by the Coaches' list that voters tend to only remember the big plays--hence Bacon and Ruud making 1st-team while Dizon, who was absolutely everywhere for four years, was relegated to Honorable Mention.)

You'll notice that Alvin Bowen was #3 on my LBs list. He is officially exonerated. In fact, that suggests that he was underrated by the coaches. I will therefore be renaming this Joe Pawelek's Law. Pawelek, you see, made it to 2nd-team All-Big 12 (and Freshman All-American) solely on the basis of his high number of tackles. But his Defensive Success Rate was only 42.0%, which is absolutely horrid for a linebacker and led to his being ranked 26th (out of 33) on my LBs list. A majority of his tackles were of the "Somebody had to make it..." variety, but he got all sorts of attention for it (as did 2006 Defensive Newcomer of the Year Misi Tupe, who ranked 32nd).

Really, this same concept could be used to judge Defensive Linemen as well (Top 5 Big 12 DLs in '06: OU's CJ Ah You, NU's Adam Carriker, MU's Lorenzo Williams, Tech's Keyunta Dawson, and CU's Abraham Wright), and even Safeties. (Cornerbacks are an entirely different ballgame--some of the best CBs hardly make any tackles at all, as the guys they're covering rarely catch the ball.)

Using concepts like Success Rates and Successful Tackles gives you a much better idea of which defensive players (at certain positions) actually excelled at making plays others didn't make, and which ones just made plays that almost anybody could have made. It gives guys like Jordan Dizon and Tyrone McKenzie a little more credit than they otherwise received (in '06, anyway) and puts the Joe Paweleks of the world in their place.

(Then again, in '07 Bowen had a 40.0% success rate and Joe Pawelek a 54.2% rate. So I'd say there's still room to grow here when it comes to predictive ability.)

The best part about all this, though, is that these measures are still in the formative stage. Anybody who thinks they see a better way of doing this can just e-mail me (or comment below), and we'll where it goes. This is one giant open book right now.

Next up (at some point): Part IV, Strength of Schedule...

Subjectivity is not necessary

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:00:16 -0000

SMQ's arguments in favor of a playoff in the debate with Kyle King are among the best I have ever read. SMQ says everything I ever thought about the need and purpose of a playoff but had never been able to put it to words so well in my own debates with Kyle and others. I cannot even begin to understand why anyone would oppose a playoff on the grounds that the best team may not lay claim to the label "champion" while touting opinion deciding who is the champion just because the champion can claim the unverifiable label of "best team" when identifying the best team has never been the purpose served by competition.

That said, I take issue with SMQ's concession that subjectivity is necessarily needed to determine playoff participants and seeds. The fact that teams have dissimilar schedules does not preclude college football from determining the values of each team's season in a completely objective manner. With objective rules, Resume A always beats Resume B given the exact same results. However, with subjective rules, there is no way to know that a selector won't vote in favor of the same team even if they traded resumes with another. In this instance and in many others, who wins the better seeds and final playoff berths has nothing to do with what actually occurred on the field of play.

Take the objective rules I devised for this very purpose. Ideally, teams would play an equal number of regular season games versus I-A competition only and their schools would be directly influenced by the rules when it comes to scheduling. Yet, despite none those conditions existing, the results compared to the polls are very comparable. During the past 30 years, the first place under the rules I devised has won or shared the mythical title 18 straight years, 23 of 24 years, and 26 of 30 years. On average, these rules and the AP have agreed on 3 of 4 top four teams, 6 of 8 top eight teams, 10 of 12 top twelve teams, and 14 of 16 top sixteen teams The difference is that no one can dispute the results based on objective rules even if they have problems with the rules themselves whereas subjective rules define disputed as any team on the outside looking in can adopt any argument to justify their inclusion. Even if there are reasons the same rules used by other sports to determine their playoff particpants and seeds are not practical for college football, it doesn't follow that all possible objective rules are impractical. The rules I speak of here only need wins and losses and opponents' wins and losses to separate any two teams more than 99% percent of time. Ultimately, where teams rank only comes down to results that occurred on the football field.

This year, my system and the AP agreed on 14 of the top 16 teams. My system favored South Florida and BYU whereas the AP favored Tennessee and Clemson. My system can tell everyone the exact difference between any two places and the least that needed to happen for any team to gain any desired ranking. Other than more voters simply holding opinions favorable to USF and BYU, we have no idea what the least these teams needed to do to gain the pollsters' favor. In fact, despite USF owning a better record, opponents' record, and head-to-head win over Auburn, the Tigers actually finished the regular season ranked higher in the AP. I don't claim the rules I advocate here won't produce politically incoorect results, but at least the rules explain the results. There is nothing about polls that explains this result or even suggests pollsters put much thought into it.

Ultimately, the biggest problem I see when it comes to advocating objective rules is that so many are quick to dismiss any rules that produce any results that contradict their subjective values based on a different standard. The idea that objective and subjective values are suppose to agree is absurd. No one believes that beating the best and worst NFL teams are subjectively equal accomplishments, but no ever objects to those same results having equal objective values. An athletic competition involving several games is really no different than an individual game. The rules exist simply determine a winner. Whether or not anyone would favor the same rules I do, the results only say that this team beats that team according to these particular rules. As an example, I can tell everyone that based on these rules, a 9-3 season versus 72-72 opponents always beats an 8-4 season versus 68-76 opponents. Always. Doesn't it make more sense to know who would win given all possible scenarios before a single game is played rather play all games then have a selection committee tell us who won via a vote influenced by as many standards as there are committee members in which no member could ever guarantee that they would value the same seasons more if posted by another team? As an example of this, earlier this year, after losing at home to Stanford, the Trojans remained ranked higher than an unbeaten South Florida team that had posted a road win versus Auburn. My problem isn't that USC's resume at that point was valued more, but rather the fact that the same two teams would have ranked in the same order even if they traded resumes. As such, USC wins not because of what happened on the field but rather because they are USC. That is absurd. The rules, whatever they may be, should tell us beforehand what makes for a better resume and reward the owner of said resume with a higher ranking rather than the name team with the better talent regardless of what actually occurs on the playing field.

Proposal for 8 team playoff

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:13:57 -0000

8-team playoff

Ideally, we would rank the top 8 teams and have them play it out. Inevitably, certain conferences (and Notre Dame) might be left out in certain years under that system, and unfortunately, that is unpalatable to conference commissioners and school presidents. We all want a playoff, but we all have to be realistic and must understand that some concessions have to be made in order to have a playoff system in this construct that we currently have. A playoff will never happen without the support of the six major conferences, the support of the BCS bowls, and the support of the Notre Dame administration (as much as we hate to admit that). There is simply too much money involved and each of those entities must have some incentive and involvement to support a playoff system. Additionally, there must be some value given to the regular season and a conference championship to satisfy traditionalists. There is something to be said about preserving the value of the regular season and maintaining the importance and tradition of conference play and rivalry games.

I would have an 8 team playoff, with 6 of the teams comprising the champions of each of the 6 major conferences (big 10, big 12, sec, pac10, big east, acc). The other 2 teams would be the highest ranked teams in the BCS standings who did not win their conference. If Notre Dame or a mid-major was one of these teams, then they qualify. If Notre Dame or a mid-major finishes in the top 6, they automatically earn one at-large bid over any other team (a playoff system has to have the support of ND, as much as we might lament one school having such influence). For this system to work, the regular season would likely have to be shortened by 1-2 out of conference games to satisfy the NCAA and preserve academic integrity in the sport.

Teams would be seeded based on the final BCS rankings. The first round of games would be played at the higher seeded home team's stadium. This rewards a team for an excellent performance during the regular season. The 4 losers of the first round would then be eligible for selection to non-BCS bowl games. The winners would advance to semifinals (two games) to be played at two of the BCS bowl sites. The semifinal winners advance to a championship game (3rd BCS site). The losers would advance to a consolation game (4th BCS site). The semifinals, championship, and consolation games would rotate between BCS sites on an annual basis.

In 2007, with this system, the teams involved would have been the conference champions (OSU, LSU, VaTech, Oklahoma, USC, West Va) and the next highest ranked teams, in the top 8 (Georgia and Missouri). Teams would be seeded according to final BCS ranking. The first round of this playoff and bracket would have looked like this for the past few seasons:

2007 season:

West Virginia @ Ohio State
Georgia @ Oklahoma

Missouri @ VaTech
USC @ LSU

2006 season (michigan/florida controversy):

Wake Forest @ Ohio State
USC @ LSU

Louisville @ Michigan
Oklahoma @ Florida

2005 season (USC/Texas game)

Florida State @ USC
Notre Dame @ Ohio State

Georgia @ Penn State
West Virginia @ Texas

2004 season (Auburn gets snubbed despite going 12-0)

Pittsburgh @ USC
Utah @ Texas

VaTech @ Auburn
Michigan @ Oklahoma

2003 season (USC was AP, Coaches#1 but left out by BCS; BCS was determined largely by computers at this time)

Kansas State @ Oklahoma
Ohio State @ Michigan

Florida State @ USC
Miami @ LSU

Of course, Kansas gets left out of the party in 2007, Boise State in 2006, Oregon in 2005, Cal in 2004, and Texas in 2003, but again, some team will always feel jilted in any system where only a finite number of teams are invited to play. Only two teams from the same conference realistically can be in the tournament in any given year in this system, adding even more importance to the regular season. This is why you MUST win your conference to guarantee your place. Additionally, some people might say that this system is unfair to mid-majors. Teams from the WAC, MWC, SunBelt, and MAC can get to the dance if they schedule and defeat hard, OOC foes from major conferences and dominate their conference slate (i.e. Utah in 2004). The one anomaly above is the 2003 season, where Oklahoma got routed in the Big 12 championship game 35-7 by Kansas State and still was ranked #1 in the final BCS standings. In this playoff system with the 2003 BCS system used for seeding, Kansas State would have to travel to Oklahoma again in the first round after soundly smacking them in the Big 12 Championship. Of course, the BCS at that time was heavily based on esoteric computer rankings and not as much as on the human polls as it is at the present time. Surely, with today's BCS emphasis on human polls, those standings would have changed considerably and Oklahoma certainly would not have been ranked #1 after such a disastrous conclusion to the regular season.

Winning your conference gets you in but it might not necessarily earn you a home game or a favorable matchup in the first round. Seeding is based on BCS rankings, which essentially is based on the polls, so a conference champion would not necessarily be assured a home game in the first round. In West Virginia's case, their season-ending loss to Pittsburgh would send them to the Horseshoe in December for a first round matchup with the Buckeyes in 2007, rather than hosting a first round game in Morgantown. USC, which lost two games (one to Stanford), would have to travel to Death Valley to take on LSU. This might seem like a terribly tough matchup in the first round, but both of these teams had two losses and the BCS ranked them where they ranked them. No system is perfect, but anything is better than what we have right now.

This analysis holds even more true in 2006. Wake Forest won a weak ACC conference and would have to travel to Columbus in the first round. USC, the Pac-10 champion who lost to UCLA in the 2006 season finale, would have to travel to LSU, who didn't even win the SEC. Similarly, Louisville and Oklahoma would have tough opening round matchups with Michigan and Florida.

Bottom line: A team that has an impressive season is rewarded with a home game in their home stadium with the most favorable matchup possible. In college football, home field advantage is paramount. Imagine if an SEC team had to play in Happy Valley or the Horseshoe in December, or the converse of a Big Ten squad having to go the Swamp or Death Valley.

Hopefully this would encourage teams to schedule competitive, out of conference games. If a team won such a game, they could elevate their ranking and seeding in the BCS rankings. If they lose such a game, they could still get into the playoff by winning their conference. Unlike the current system, there would be little to lose and much to gain by scheduling tough OOC foes. Tradition is preserved and the importance of the regular season, if anything, is increased.

BCS involvement, unfortunately, is critical. Bowl administrators and TV executives are probably fearful that they would lose money in this system, but in reality they should clamor for this playoff system. Right now, too many teams are included the BCS and the quality of games is diluted. ABC had excellent foresight when they decided not to renew their contract with the BCS. There have been only two competitive games in the past two years (boise state/OU and kansas/VT) in this current 5-game format. Ratings have been abysmal for the other games, probably because many of these matchups lack national appeal and because there is rampant resentment towards the current BCS system. In this proposed playoff system, every BCS game matters (with the exception of the consolation game, although that might attract more viewers than current BCS pairings). In this system, three BCS playoff games have national title implications, not just one, and the consolation game would match up two of the top four teams in the country. The championship, consolation game, and semifinals would rotate through all four BCS sites. You would have to believe these games that determine college football's national title would earn higher ratings than Kansas/VT or Wake Forest/Louisville.

TDs: The Runs Batted In of College Football Statistics (Part Two)

The Boy — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:19:32 -0000

Okay, so last time around, I talked about Points Per Play (PPP) as the football version of Slugging %. In baseball, OPS (On-Base + Slugging) is one of the most telling, easy, reliable stats around. It's great because it's flexible. There are two different ways to put together a strong OPS--either by getting on base a lot or by hitting for power--and the best hitters do both. You find consistency and explosiveness in one measure.

So if PPP is equivalent to Slugging % (explosiveness), what's equivalent to On-Base % (consistency)? Success Rate, that's what.

In its most basic form, Success Rate is simply the percentage of time in which a play is deemed `successful'. It is a measure I culled from Football Outsiders and tweaked to fit my own purposes. How is 'success' determined?

Here are the rules according to down:

1st Down: 50% of necessary yardage. If it's 1st-and-10, you need 5 yards for 'success'.

2nd Down: 70% of necessary yardage (rounded up to the nearest yard, of course). If it's 2nd-and-10, you need 7 yards for 'success'. 2nd-and-15? 10 yards.

3rd and 4th Downs: 100% of necessary yardage. I figure this requires no explanation.

In all, any given play has about a 43% chance of 'success.'

Success Rate measures consistency the same way that On-Base % does for baseball. It's a lot harder to score in baseball if you're not getting on-base. Sure, you can still hit a homerun, but in general, less people on-base leads to less scoring opportunities, which leads to less runs.

In football, a low success rate limits your chances in the same way. Sure, you can score on a 99-yard TD run, and sure, you can consistently gain 10 yards on 3rd-and-9 to sustain a drive (leading to something like a 33.3% success rate)...but you're playing with fire. The odds of consistently moving the ball like that are minimal.

To illustrate the usefulness of Success Rates, let's look at the success rates for each of the Big 12 Offenses.

1.    Texas Tech 53.6%
2.    Missouri 51.0%
3.    Oklahoma State 50.2%
4.    Kansas 50.1%
5.    Nebraska 48.8%
6.    Oklahoma 48.9%
7.    Texas 47.4%
8.    Texas A&M 45.7%
9.    Kansas State 45.5%
10.    Colorado 39.6%
11.    Baylor 38.5%
12.    Iowa State 36.5%

Aside from a couple exceptions (Nebraska above Texas?), that's pretty much a rundown of the conference's top offenses, is it not?

Success Rate is a fantastic tool, and I used it more than just about anything else when I was previewing Mizzou games this year (example here). It can be used to judge teams in every possible way--how they do in close games, how well they run (or defend the run), how well they play in the redzone, et cetera.

And it becomes an even better tool when teamed with the Points Per Play (PPP) measure we discussed in Part One. Quick recap: based on the average number of points scored from any yardline on the field, I came up with a way to create a `point value' for each play of a game by comparing the beginning value of a play compared to where it ended up. It is the "slugging %" to Success Rate's "on-base %" in the OPS equation. So if On-Base Plus Slugging = OPS, then what is Success Rate plus Points Per Play? S&P!

S&P, like Success Rate, is an extremely versatile tool. You can compare offenses, defenses, running backs, just about anything. To illustrate the usefulness of S&P, let's look at the four Heisman finalists.

Tim Tebow

PASSING: 52.5% success rate + 0.62 PPP = 1.15 S&P
RUSHING: 54.8% success rate + 0.54 PPP = 1.09 S&P
ALL PLAYS BEHIND CENTER: 54.6% success rate + 0.53 PPP = 1.08 S&P

Colt Brennan

PASSING: 53.7% success rate + 0.53 PPP = 1.07 S&P
RUSHING: 47.2% success rate + 0.38 PPP = 0.86 S&P
ALL PLAYS BEHIND CENTER: 52.9% success rate + 0.44 PPP = 0.97 S&P

Chase Daniel

PASSING: 51.4% success rate + 0.46 PPP = 0.97 S&P
RUSHING: 47.1% success rate + 0.38 PPP = 0.86 S&P
ALL PLAYS BEHIND CENTER: 50.4% success rate + 0.39 PPP = 0.90 S&P

For the three QB finalists, you can start to see how this single number--S&P--can take into account everything from Tebow's rushing TDs to Brennan's insane yardage totals to Daniel's nation-leading third down percentage. They had similar numbers, though when schedule strength is taken into account (I've got ways to do this, but not until I have everybody's games entered), Tebow comes out far ahead. It's why I'd have voted for him even though I wasn't remarkably impressed with the 20 mostly-short-yardage rushing TDs.

Okay, so I just came up with a complete different way to determine that Tim Tebow should have won the Heisman. Woo. I could have used yards and TDs to figure that out. What use do these new-fangled stats have if they're just going to lead to the same conclusions as the, uhh, old-fangled stats? That's where Darren McFadden comes in.

Darren McFadden

RUSHING: 46.8% success rate + 0.34 PPP = 0.81 S&P

And he was the QB in the WildHog Formation, so...

ALL PLAYS BEHIND CENTER: 48.3% success rate + 0.71 PPP = 1.19 S&P

As a point of comparison, McFadden's 0.81 S&P would have been #13 in the Big 12. Jorvorskie Lane (ATM) had a 1.09, DeMarco Murray (OU) a 0.97, and Chris Brown (OU) had a 0.85.

McFadden is obviously very good, but the consensus "best RB in college football" wasn't as effective at running the ball in 2007 as he was at being a threat to run the ball...if that makes any sense. With McFadden sharing the backfield, Felix Jones pulled off an insane 1.17 rushing S&P, and the WildHog was quite effective in giving McFadden the option of running, throwing, or handing to Jones and Peyton Hillis. But for every highlight reel run McFadden ripped off this season, there were about 10 1-yard runs. This is why a theoretically explosive offense like Arkansas' ground to a halt against good defenses like Auburn (lost 9-7) and Missouri (lost 38-7). The offense was perceived as better than it actually was, and its low success rate (44.6% for the season) and S&P (0.81...the same as stagnant Texas A&M's) betrayed it throughout the season.

(And here's another interesting stat: McFadden accounted for 111.04 `points' running the ball in 2007. Tebow accounted for 107.05.)

In other words, there's a reason why Darren McFadden didn't deserve the Heisman, no matter how good he looks in the open field. It wasn't his fault that Arkansas' passing game sucked, and it wasn't his fault that defenses did whatever they could to force other players to beat them...but you have to be more than a threat to win the Heisman--you have to still produce as well.

Okay, time for another plea. I really want to be able to test the limits of S&P, PPP, Success Rates, and lots of other stats I have yet to reveal, but I'm in need of some volunteers to help me plow through the remaining 2007 games. As I mentioned last time, games take about 30 minutes to enter (once you figure out what you're doing), and you can feel free to enter games for whichever team you like (other than the ones I've already done, anyway--Big 12, Hawaii, Florida, Arkansas).

If you want to help either shoot me a response on this thread with your e-mail address, or contact me at BillConnelly1@gmail.com. Thanks again.

TDs: The Runs Batted In of College Football Statistics (Part One)

The Boy — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:37:48 -0000

OFFSEASON PROJECT! Hey, this is The Boy from Rock M Nation. Over at RMN, I've been playing with the `Beyond the Box Score' idea (calling it that as an ode to the wonderful SBN sabermetrics blog of the same name) as it applies to college football stats.

I've been cranking out play-by-plays for 2007 games as fast as possible--as I post for a Mizzou blog, I've focused on Big 12 teams, Mizzou opponents, and teams with fellow Heisman finalists--but this is a massive undertaking, and I need some volunteers to enter play-by-play for the games I have yet to enter from the 2007. They take about 30-45 minutes each, and I'm figuring I'll need about 6-10 volunteers to finish this stuff in a timely enough fashion to do something about it before the 2008 season starts orbiting everybody's attention span, so...actually, how about I just show you why I'm doing this?

It's fair to say that the Bill James Revolution has reshaped the game of baseball over the last 25-30 years (for some franchises, anyway...my Pirates sure haven't paid any attention). I'd go into detail about all the different statistics that have come about due to James and his disciples, but I'm going to be honest here--if you don't know/care about Bill James, then you probably won't care at all about this post.

The typical statline for a hitter hasn't changed much over the years. Chances are, when a guy is at bat, the stats they'll show on TV are Batting Average / HRs / RBIs. However, as thousands of words are spent in deciphering baseball stats each year, it's becoming more and more obvious that those categories--the last one in particular--are pretty worthless in evaluating the quality of a hitter. Who cares about a .300 batting average if it's all singles and it's not complemented by any walks or anything? Who cares about 25 HRs if you strike out 200 times and don't ever get on base otherwise? And who cares about 100 RBIs if it's complemented by a .225 average and only comes about because the guys in front of you are fantastic hitters?

Having a high number of RBIs does say something about your propensity for timely hits, but it says even more about the ability of the folks ahead of you to get on base. If the dude in front of you in the batting order has a .220 on-base %, you're probably not going to get too many RBIs no matter how good a hitter you are. It's the same way with touchdowns, really. Jerome Bettis's final season was great for my fantasy team, but his "2 carries, 3 yards, 2 TDs" lines really didn't contribute much to the team overall. I loved The Bus as much as the next guy, but just about anybody could have come in and plunged in from the 1. Getting the ball to the 1 was the much bigger accomplishment.

(Since I'm a Mizzou fan, you can probably gather that I wasn't all that impressed by Tim Tebow's "20 passing TDs/20 rushing TDs" stat that everybody was in love with since half his TDs came from a couple yards out and Chase Daniel could have done the same if he never handed the ball off either. That's true, but in the end I'd have probably voted for Tebow to win the Heisman anyway. You know...if I had a vote...)

I've been entering play-by-play for Big 12 games for the last two seasons, and I've been able to do a lot with the data...enough that I want to be able to do it with the entire country's data. The biggest thing I've accomplished so far is coming up with measures called EqPts (Equivalent Points) and PPP (EqPts per Play), based on the chart below, which shows the average number of points that could be expected from any specific yard line.

As you see, gains in certain areas of the field are worth different amounts. I did the same thing for each down.

So a 5-yard gain on 3rd-and-5 from your opponent's 39 would only be worth about 0.19 points on the first graph, but it's worth a huge 2.24 points on the second one. Stuff like that is interesting to a nerd like me. And here's the most interesting part--averaging these two EqPts figures together, and adding in a measure of turnover costliness (into which I go into more detail in my Beyond the Box Score glossary), ends up doing a pretty good job of coming up with how many points were scored in a given game.

For instance...on December 1, Missouri beat Kansas, 36-28. MU's offense accounted for 29.47 EqPts (from the first graph) and 42.98 Down-Dependent EqPts (from the second). That averages out to 36.23. KU had 30.69 EqPts and 33.95 DD-EqPts, averaging 32.32. KU also had 6.83 points worth of turnovers (again, click the link above if you want information on that), and applying half of that to KU's score and half to MU's, you end up with an EqPts final score of MU 38.98, KU 28.91. Pretty damn close. On the same day, OU beat OSU, 49-17. The EqPts score was OU 47.88, OSU 15.65.

Of course, it doesn't always calculate closely--the ball's oblong and simply doesn't always bounce the way it's supposed to--but looking at things this way gives you a lot better indication of who accounted for a team's points than total yards or TDs or yards per carry.

For now, let's pretend that PPP is the football equivalent of Slugging %. What's the football equivalent of On-Base %? We'll get back to that in Part Two...if anybody's actually interested, anyway.

And if you want to help me enter play-by-plays, either shoot me a response on this thread with your e-mail address, or contact me at BillConnelly1@gmail.com. Thanks!

SMQ: Sports Blog of the Year?

SMQ — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:46:50 -0000

I don't know who this is, who they represent, how many people visit the site, how many people will vote, what conflicts of interest are involved or any other pertinent information about this site, but it has for whatever reason nominated SMQ as one of six blogs for "Best Sports Blog" in something called the "Performancing Awards," if you'd like to vote.

SMQ is currently running second to "other," which includes my vote for MGoBlog.

What was Greg Schiano thinking?

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:54:06 -0000

And I'm a Rutgers fan...

I think there's something to be said for loyalty. It's good to want to stay at the same place for 30 years and retire with the gold watch and the big video tribute and fancy ceremony. Staying, especially when somebody else wants to pay you more to do the same job in perhaps a more desirable localee, is a very noble concept.

It's also dumb.

Greg Schiano has now twice turned down programs that have won national championships in the last twenty years. He's twice turned down the possibility of getting $2 million-plus in compensation. He's twice turned down the opportunity to be a perennial BCS contender.

I know what Schiano says of Rutgers - that it can be a sleeping giant, football players in the tri-state are are great, etc, etc, etc. He's dramatically improved facilities and support and may still be able to get the stadium expanded despite the state pulling out of their end of the bargain a few weeks ago. But ultimately, Rutgers is, well, Rutgers. They're more likely to be this era's Boston College in the Big East (a perennial bowl team that occasionally teases a run at the conference title) than they are this era's Virginia Tech or Miami. This most recent span for the program (7-5,11-2,7-5) illustrates as much.

So if Schiano is turning down Michigan and Miami, he's doing so either because he's really bought into his own spiel about making the state university of New Jersey a legitimate national power, or he's angling for his dream job.

This column in the Harrisburg Patriot-News a while back illustrates what many around the Penn State program have suggested for years - that Joe Paterno hasn't formed a succession plan and is basically going to coach until he physically can't coach anymore. And when that happens, what better place for Schiano to head back to than the program he idolized as a kid for the coach he's always thought of as a mentor?

Mark May on Southern Miss (Argh!)

SMQ — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:18:34 -0000

I didn't want to put this on the main page, because I've dealt with it a couple times already and it's not good to get too repetitive with homerism. Anyway, I thought the ignorant, knee-jerk responses to Jeff Bower's "resignation" at Southern Miss were passed.

But here's Mark May on GameDay final after Bower's last game Saturday, paraphrased:

"I think it's atrocious. Who does Southern Miss think it is? He's had 14 straight winning seasons! What else do you want? What do they think, they're going to win national championships? They're not even in a conference where they can compete for a national championship! Even if they go undefeated, they can't play for a national championship. I don't understand this decision at all."

Neurons firing in real time.
- - -
Mark May doesn't understand because he knows not what he speaks (national championship?!), and this isn't about Mark May because the rest of the national media that deigns to take any interest in Southern Miss has expressed exactly the same shortsighted, un-researched opinion, and so has much of the local media in Mississippi.

Previously, I've taken on this attitude twice - Here, to combat the notion (as expressed by Ivan Maisel) that USM will not find "a coach who fits what it needs more than Bower does," I shallowly covered Bower's record in its historical perspective, which is very ordinary by Southern Miss standards, and went into greater depth on that record here.

I don't know where "national championships" comes into the picture, or even BCS bids. That's beyond ridiculous. How about simply winning Conference USA? USM hasn't won the conference it once dominated in four years, has taken the championship only one time in eight years, and has finished at least two games back of the league champion six of those seven unsuccessful seasons. And that is how Southern Miss partisans view it - anything short of the C-USA championship is unsuccessful. Not a failure, but not success. That's a standard Bower's team failed to reach seven of the last eight seasons, usually without coming very close. This is only about competing within Conference USA. And, based on the records kept at the endlessly useful database of preseason picks at Stassen.com, USM fans aren't the only ones who think the team is underachieving in its own conference:

USM Predicted vs. Actual Results, 2000-07


	Predicted (C-USA)	Final (C-USA)	Difference	Losses as Favorite	Wins as Underdog	Total Losses

2000	1	4	-3	Two (L'ville, Cincy)	Two (Bama, TCU)	4

2001	3	5	-2	Two (Mem., TCU)	-	5

2002	2	3t	-1	Two (USF, Tulane)	-	6
2003	2	1	+ 1	-	One (Cincy)	4

2004	4	2t**	-	Two (Cincy, TCU)	One (Neb.)	5

2005	1 (E)	2t (E)	-1	Two (Tulsa, Mem.)	-	5
2006	2 (E)	1 (E)***	+ 1	One (E. Carolina)	-	5

2007	1 (E)*	4 (E)	-3	Three (Rice, UCF, Mem.)	-	6

* USM was the consensus favorite to win C-USA in 2007
** Four-way tie for second place behind Louisville in 2004; USM lost to two of the teams it technically tied, Cincinnati and Memphis
*** USM lost the C-USA Championship Game to Houston and finished two games behind the Cougars in the final standings.
- - -

Dark sections are unabashed underachievers based on preseason expectations and disappointing losses; 2004 teeters on the bring of underachievement, only because the preseason expectations (from the outside, anyway) were lower than in any other season. The 2003 team is the only overachiever; the 2006 team was par. The "Losses as a Favorite" column is the most disturbing, even more than all the seasons falling short of the championship and the preseason expectations, because a) those are ten lost wins, games USM was obviously good enough to win and didn't, and b) they are all conference games. In eight years, Southern Miss has won one (1) Conference USA game it wasn't expected to win by oddsmakers, and that was a fluky win (on a last second field goal, after a Cincinnati TD had been overturned on penalty) over a team that finished 2-6 in the conference. This is a very clear, consistent pattern of underachieving on the conference level, and the season past fell by far the furthest from the bar. How long can a team continue to lose multiple games every season it thinks it should win, and that oddsmakers think it should win? How long can it settle for seven wins and five losses when even outsiders apparently believe season after season it should be winning nine or ten? This is only about Southern Miss winning the games it's supposed to win.

I did not advocate for Jeff Bower's removal, and still have two minds about it now. His tenure as a whole, because of what he accomplished with conference titles in 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2003, is an unquestioned positive. But that is the past, and in football terms, the fairly distant past. If the more recent history is any indication, there is only more mediocrity and disappointment in the future.

Housekeeping!

SMQ — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:30:15 -0000

The archives on the left sidebar has been updated, finally, with the entire set of "Friday Quarterback" and "Sunday Quarterback" entries for the season, as well as the preseason preview items that have been "coming soon" since August and the playoff debate with Dawg Sports from February. For posterity, you know.

Cancel the BCS Championship Game

SMQ — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:11:08 -0000

From Slate, LSU fan Josh Levin's case for cancelling the national championship:

The BCS was created in 1998 to bring some semblance of order to the college postseason. Every year, we discover a new scenario the system can't deal with. But the BCS isn't what's wrong with college football. The problem is trying to overlay any kind of rational framework onto an irrational sport. College football's design makes it nearly impossible to compare teams: Since schools in different conferences have few common opponents, the regular season hardly ever settles which team is best. In college football, an undefeated season has always been difficult but attainable--a useful proxy for greatness if not direct evidence of a team's immortality. When two and only two major-conference teams (sorry, Hawaii) survive the season without a loss, a championship game provides the perfect ending. In every other situation, a one-off title game is guaranteed to be an unsatisfying conclusion. As the BCS has shown, for every year in which there are two and only two great teams, there are several more in which there are four great teams, or three, or one. And then there's this year, where there happen to be none.
[...]
My modest proposal for college football is to have a little flexibility. In an ideal world--one without pesky things like TV contracts--the sport would play it by ear. If Texas vs. USC is the only game anyone wants to see, make it happen. If there are four one-loss teams, throw them all into a playoff. And if there are five or seven or 10 teams that are roughly indistinguishable, don't bother with a playoff or a championship game. The regular season may do a terrible job at selecting the country's best team, but it functions rather well at determining who the best team isn't. This year, every team has done more than enough to eliminate itself from contention. So, let's play all the bowls, give everyone a smallish trophy, and tell them better luck next year. I'm looking forward to a potential game between Missouri and West Virginia. Just don't try convincing me that the winner is anything close to great.
- - - Uh, yeah. Cancel it, or just don't call it a championship. Where have I heard that before?

I can't let that slide, SMQ

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:29:39 -0000

In your recent Blog Pollin' post (http://www.sundaymorningqb.com/story/2007/11/28/85811/733#commenttop), you call me out for my "revisionist horse shit" positions on LSU's place in the poll, specifically saying:

Before these notes came up, an argument broke out in the comments based on the poll alone, begun by commenter usckb and backed by LSU partisan crepusucular, who take their cues from fearless leader (or pope; he has the hat - ed.) Les Miles in arguing that, rather than suffer for its second defeat, the Tigers should remain at the top of the polls - in reality, they argue, "LSU has tied twice," and its collection of wins marks it as "still the best team in the nation."

Problem with that is that I never made such claims. Since you couldn't be bothered to actually distinguish between my and usckb's posts, I pasted my 3 posts (in chronological order) below:

----

11:03am
yup (on the merits of quality wins)
That's pretty much the point I was making on an earlier thread. Except, not trying to make a case for the current 2 loss team, I pointed out that the neutral fan should be lamenting the falls of LSU and Oregon since they have each at least beat a couple of top 10 teams. OSU and WVU can't even claim a single top 14 win. Mizzou I've got no problem with. But as an LSU partisan, I can almost understand people not looking at my argument rationally.

11:21am

I agree (on taking "into account the TWO LOSSES (note: not ties)"
That's what makes this so difficult, essentially comparing apples to oranges as far as quality wins vs. number of losses. I believe the number of losses category is typically given too much weight but obviously that's just my opinion.

For another approach to ranking teams at this point, I'd recommend envisioning the number of losses you would expect WVU and OSU to have if they played LSU's schedule and vice versa. Does anyone believe either of those teams escapes that with fewer than 2 losses?

I would concede that LSU doesn't have a strong argument to be ranked above WVU and OSU. But I don't feel they have a strong argument to be ranked above LSU either.

12:03am
Can't argue with that (to an argument that WVU is better than LSU)
They have been very sloppy. I was hoping they'd manage to beat Arkansas (I knew it would be a difficult game), avoid Georgia in the SEC Title game, then heal-up and put in a dominating performance in the BCS Title game. Obviously that's not how you would expect to feel if you really think your team is currently #1, which contrasts strongly to how I felt 4 years ago at this time.

As for Tim J's comment upthread, I don't think you can really make a strong argument that Illinois and S. Florida are better than Kentucky and Arkansas. Without getting into specifics, all of those teams are just below the cream of the crop in each of their conferences. I've said before that Mizzou deserves to be ranked where they are so I don't count their loss to Oklahoma in this argument.

----

I only point this out because it's as plain as day that I did not make those "horseshit" arguments. To recap, you claim that I argue 1) "LSU has tied twice" and 2) LSU is "still the best team in the nation." I politely asked you at the bottom of the thread to re-read my comments and edit your post but it seems you only selectively read and interpret comments to fit whatever mold you want to see. Now it's my turn: Your claim, SMQ, is horseshit!

I come to this site because of how it's supposed to differ from other sites and TV networks fronted by annoying talking heads that spout whatever they want without having to listen to any counter-arguments. It would be a shame if you don't keep it that way.

Dusting off realcollegefootballplayoff.com

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:56:50 -0000

This season of utter wackiness illustrates one simple thing - we need a freakin' playoff, and we need it now.

The concept of a 16-team playoff system isn't new - I remember an SI article back when I was a kid that laid out such a playoff using bowl games. Of course, whenever you bring up the idea to college football purists/greedy universities, they all shut down debate with the same tired arguments.

-Kids would play too many games.

-A playoff would interfere with finals.

-Fans wouldn't travel.

-It wouldn't generate as much revenue.

-The regular season would be undermined.

(And so on and so on. In fact, most of these "arguments" are laid out at the Football Bowl Association's website, where the old canards are trotted out like hard, fast unflinching facts.)

A year ago, when Rutgers was on the verge of doing the unthinkable and contending for a BCS title game berth they likely wouldn't have gotten even if they'd ran the table, I felt it was time to actually come up with a workable plan. And no, not the CFN plan or the Dan Wetzel plan - rather, a plan that actually tried to meet the objections of that Big 10 dude head-on.

So I dug deep into my year and a half as a product manager where I had to write business cases, and out popped out a proposal for a 16-team playoff that, quite frankly, is eminently workable except for the fact that major conferences would actually have to, you know, win games in order to get major cuts of the revenue pie.

I won't get into all of the details here, but check out realcollegefootballplayoff.com and/or email me at realcollegefootballplayoff@yahoo.com for more details. It hasn't been updated in a little while (I haven't made a 2007 bracket yet) but the premise still holds as much, if not more, value now.