College Football Week 7: Upset Special edition

[sperry]

There's all kind of statistics-based polls out there and they more or less agree with the voters, though. And they don't factor in last year. How do you account for that?

I've like the Sagarin ratings for years. And there you've got Missouri at 5, LSU at 6, TAMU at 12, South Carolina at 14 and Georgia at 17. That doesn't seem too out of line with what the voters are saying.

Computer programs can suffer from teh same types of inbreeding, especially since they're not allowed to use margin of victory. The computers love the SEC non-con record, despite not really beating anyone of note. Now the teams just play each other and their inflated rankings.

Regardless, SEC homer vs. SEC hater is another pointless argument that could be remedied with a playoff.

[Kalbear]

Yeah, you see that kind of odd circle jerk right now; FEI hates the ACC and loves the Pac-12. S+P consistently loves the Big-12. Sagarin tends to really like the SEC. Because of the dearth of connectivity, one or two games can essentially decide via transitive property how 'strong' or weak a conference is.

The solution, as always, is to mandate playing a lot more hard games between conferences and then not punish those teams for playing said hard games.

[Ramsay B.]

I still expect that at least one of FSU, Oregon and Alabama will lose a game before the season is out. Although that is little consolation to Baylor/Ohio St. fans, because even if they go undefeated there's a good chance they're going to be on the outside looking in.

Yup, I'm cautiously optimistic about FSU's chances to go undefeated. There is a whole lot of season left. They do look great but anything can happen...especially with 2 rivalry games left. Baylor and Ohio St. have been forgotten about, lately. Imagine Ohio St. going undefeated for 2 straight years and having no championships to show for it, yikes.

[Kalbear]

Ohio State should play less shitty teams, then.

[Ramsay B.]

Ohio State should play less shitty teams, then.

Agree. They wouldn't beat any of the top three, anyways.

[S John]

Yup, I'm cautiously optimistic about FSU's chances to go undefeated. There is a whole lot of season left. They do look great but anything can happen...especially with 2 rivalry games left. Baylor and Ohio St. have been forgotten about, lately. Imagine Ohio St. going undefeated for 2 straight years and having no championships to show for it, yikes.

Right now it is possible that there are 5 undefeated teams at the end of the season: Alabama or Missouri, Oregon, Florida State or Miami, Ohio State, and Baylor or Texas Tech.

Of those 5 the weakest argument for title inclusion would most likely be Ohio State. Their schedule is probably the weakest of that group. Baylor has played the weakest schedule to date, and an abysmal non-con but their conference games are back-loaded and they will end up having to beat 3 or more (depending on what Texas does) top 20 teams from this point in order to go undefeated.

Oregon will benefit from the strength of the Pac12 over FSU's schedule. I think FSU would be in better shape if the Gators were in better shape this year. But every team Oregon plays from here on out is decent to great while FSU really only has Miami, so I think Oregon would win that battle by a slim margin.

I should note that Miami and TTU are also undefeated though not really talked about. I guess because nobody really expects them to win out. It would shock me if Miami did it... I could see Texas Tech beating Baylor, though.

I think its a foregone conclusion that if either Bama or Missouri go undefeated they will play in the title game. So I'd say if 5 win out, this would be the order:

1. Alabama / Missouri

2. Oregon

3. Florida State

4. Baylor / TTU

5. Ohio State

I doubt it will happen though. I reckon at least 2 of those 5 will lose somewhere between now and the end of the season. Bama still has to play LSU and Auburn, while Missouri still has Texas A&M. Ole Miss, and South Carolina. Oregon has some pretty tough games ahead too. I think Ohio State and Florida State are actually the most likely teams of that group to win out.

[Maithanet]

I doubt it will happen though. I reckon at least 2 of those 5 will lose somewhere between now and the end of the season. Bama still has to play LSU and Auburn, while Missouri still has Texas A&M. Ole Miss, and South Carolina. Oregon has some pretty tough games ahead too. I think Ohio State and Florida State are actually the most likely teams of that group to win out.

Agreed on the undefeated part, although I think that FSU's remaining games will be tougher than OSUs. When you put together that order, I would put Ohio State ahead of Baylor of Texas Tech. Ohio State is a marquee program, and if say, Oregon and FSU lose then the storyline of "OSU hasn't lost a game in two years" will be repeated ad naseum by ESPN. I have trouble believing that TTU or Baylor, who have a harder, but by no means stunning, resume, could hop over Ohio State.

In my opinion, an Alabama/Ohio State national championship would be the worst possible result, because I hate both those teams and Bama's win is a foregone conclusion.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

In my opinion, an Alabama/Ohio State national championship would be the worst possible result, because I hate both those teams and Bama's win is a foregone conclusion.

Agreed on both counts. It'll be just as much a farce as last year's game.

I know as a fan of an SEC team I'm supposed to show conference solidarity and all that, but I am really fucking sick of Alabama waltzing into titles. If they do end up make the NCG again I would at least like to see them play a team that will challenge them.

[sperry]

Agreed on the undefeated part, although I think that FSU's remaining games will be tougher than OSUs. When you put together that order, I would put Ohio State ahead of Baylor of Texas Tech. Ohio State is a marquee program, and if say, Oregon and FSU lose then the storyline of "OSU hasn't lost a game in two years" will be repeated ad naseum by ESPN. I have trouble believing that TTU or Baylor, who have a harder, but by no means stunning, resume, could hop over Ohio State.

In my opinion, an Alabama/Ohio State national championship would be the worst possible result, because I hate both those teams and Bama's win is a foregone conclusion.

Yep, and I'm worried this is exactly what's going to happen. I think Oregon's schedule down the stretch is too difficult to expect them to emerge unscathed. The underrated thing is that while a lot of the teams aren't great, every one of them is at least solid. You don't have any 3-9 pushovers that you can sleep for the first half and still come out with a win. Florida State and Bama both have a bunch of cream puffs mixed in with the big games. Neither of them has to play Stanford either. FSU *should* go undefeated, but I still don't trust them not to muck it up. In fairness though, I think LSU is going to give Bama a game and could very easily win.

Regardless, I actually want Bama to face a real contender in the championship game. If they beat FSU or Oregon (And Jameis and Mariota don't go down on the first drive with a medically inexplicable injury), then I will bow down to them and certainly won't sneer at that title. But if they play an overmatched, slow Ohio State team I'll just be sickened.

[Maithanet]

Regardless, I actually want Bama to face a real contender in the championship game. If they beat FSU or Oregon (And Jameis and Mariota don't go down on the first drive with a medically inexplicable injury), then I will bow down to them and certainly won't sneer at that title. But if they play an overmatched, slow Ohio State team I'll just be sickened.

Agreed. I want to see the SEC lose, but that's just because I always root against dynasties. They have earned their top dog status. But Ohio State has looked really unimpressive in the two games I've watched of them. They looked mostly asleep for the first three quarters of the Northwestern game, and that sort of thing will cost you even against second tier teams like Stanford or LSU, let alone Oregon or Alabama.

[Kalbear]

If be okay with an Oregon osu rose bowl for the ncg mostly because of nostalgia. But not much else.

[sperry]

If be okay with an Oregon osu rose bowl for the ncg mostly because of nostalgia. But not much else.

I don't want Oregon to get a free win in the championship game either. Things have not ended well for the Big 10/ ND (basically a big 10 team) in the national championship game, or BCS games in general.

Again, why we need a playoff. I have no faith in the Big 10, but they should be afforded the chance to prove their worth, just not at the expense of the other conferences (which is what happens in the 2 or 4 team playoff).

[lokisnow]

One thing that has helped the Pac12 ascendency this year is a weekly slate of games that has been the most interesting of any conference every week of the season. That's true again this week. the Big12, SEC and Big10 all only have one game that is remotely interesting this week, the SEC is remarkable for having a plethora of phenomenally bad games this week. But that's what you expect given the SEC's monumentally pussy and cowardly scheduling practices.

[sperry]

So, this is a pretty crazy stat from the once proud Big XII. Every single team except for Baylor has made at least one QB change. 6 of the 10 schools in the conference have a QB from the last 5 years who is currently starting in the NFL, or would be but for injury:

K-State (Josh Freeman)

Baylor (RGIII)

OSU (Brandon Weeden)

OU (Sam Bradford)

WVU (Geno Smith)

TCU (Andy Dalton)

Two of the other 4 schools have had QBs in that time period that were Heisman finalists (Colt McCoy UT and Graham Harrell TT), and Colin Klein is a third heisman finalist at the position from the league. Although they aren't playing in the league anymore, aTm and Missouri had fantastic QBs while they were still in the league (Tannehill and Daniel, respectively).

And now the league has one competent QB (maybe two, as the Tech two headed monster seems to be pretty solid).

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Yep. The b12 is basically a quarterback wasteland right now. Though I should point out that Dalton never played in the B12, so I dunno if he should count in this discussion.

TCU has an Elite 11 QB who is currently red-shirted, as well as a redshirt fish QB who has seen some playtime who was the top QB in Kansas his senior year, something like 15th in the country. Neither he nor our starter can do anything. Many Frog fans believe that it isn't really our QB who is weak, but rather that our offensive line is abysmal. Which it is. But Boykin doesn't look like a college QB.

The rest of the conference isn't much better. Bell is solid but not exceptional, Ash & McCoy at UT are mediocre with occasional good games, and the rest are mostly the same. Baylor and TTU have the three best playing QBs in the conference by far. I would say that whichever of Webb or Mayfield plays 2nd string could start for most B12 teams this season.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Damn!! So close, Cats...nice effort. I was all fired up to break out the old #failstate.

[sperry]

Yep. The b12 is basically a quarterback wasteland right now. Though I should point out that Dalton never played in the B12, so I dunno if he should count in this discussion.

TCU has an Elite 11 QB who is currently red-shirted, as well as a redshirt fish QB who has seen some playtime who was the top QB in Kansas his senior year, something like 15th in the country. Neither he nor our starter can do anything. Many Frog fans believe that it isn't really our QB who is weak, but rather that our offensive line is abysmal. Which it is. But Boykin doesn't look like a college QB.

The rest of the conference isn't much better. Bell is solid but not exceptional, Ash & McCoy at UT are mediocre with occasional good games, and the rest are mostly the same. Baylor and TTU have the three best playing QBs in the conference by far. I would say that whichever of Webb or Mayfield plays 2nd string could start for most B12 teams this season.

Yeah Dalton never played in the Big XII, I was just trying to say that 5 years ago TCU had excellent QB play. Today, not so much, same as everyone else sans Baylor.

[MisterOJ]

Damn!! So close, Cats...nice effort. I was all fired up to break out the old #failstate.

Yeah. That one hurt. Kentucky was probably good enough to win that game - just made too many stupid mistakes. Not a good football team right now.

Thank God it's basketball season!

[Ferrum Aeternum]

So State's marketing department thought it'd be a great idea to run an unfiltered stream of all tweets with the hashtag #Fight4MSU on the jumbotron during last night's game. Hilarity and mild embarrassment ensued. :lol: A few samples:

Scott Smith@kenssmith

I used my $1 to eat a McDouble instead of go to the game. #Fight4MSU

Mark Ennis@Mengus22

I still know all the words to Ninja Rap from TMNT 2. #Fight4MSU

Zach Rau@zrau

Does this look infected to you? #Fight4MSU

Bunkie Perkins@BunkiePerkins

2 for 1 lap dances at The Pony when you present your ticket at the door #Fight4MSU

[Rhom]

So State's marketing department thought it'd be a great idea to run an unfiltered stream of all tweets with the hashtag #Fight4MSU on the jumbotron during last night's game. Hilarity and mild embarrassment ensued. :lol: A few samples:

:rofl:

Who in the hell thought that would be a good idea?!!?