My blogpoll ballot: week eleven

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	TCU	1
4	Texas	1
5	Cincinnati	2
6	Georgia Tech
7	Pittsburgh
8	Boise State
9	Oregon
10	Stanford	7
11	LSU	2
12	Oregon State	9
13	Oklahoma State	6
14	Southern Cal	2
15	Ohio State	1
16	Virginia Tech	2
17	Iowa	6
18	Clemson	6
19	California
20	Penn State
21	North Carolina
22	Arizona	8
23	Miami (Florida)	13
24	Wisconsin	1
25	Navy
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Houston (#15), South Florida (#22), Utah (#23).

I gave my thoughts on why I’m not yet willing to rank Rutgers on Monday. Even though two more wins will make their W-L total look even nicer, are they really going to signify all that much? The only way I’ll rank the Knights without a win over WV is if their resume looks stronger (i.e. UConn wins, OOC wins win), or if other teams ahead of them look weaker. Do I think that Navy is better than Rutgers? Not necessarily; in fact, probably not. But they’re going to have to earn it in my book.

For anyone wondering about why I still have USC so high, keep in mind that I value SOS very highly. Even though they’ve stumbled as of late, USC has played a ridiculous schedule, and still did beat Ohio State. The Big Ten is awful this year, and the Pac-10 looks pretty good, and I weigh those factors quite a bit too.

Based on their SOS worsening, and a second straight close win, I dropped Cincy behind TCU and Texas. I’ll still jump them back up if they prove that they deserve it.

It should be clear though that I’m not even remotely comfortable with these rankings. Yes, the concept itself is a bunch of hogwash, and I’m sure any past beliefs attaching mythical significance probably look very silly in retrospect. I can’t help but think that none of these teams below the top 10 are all that great. For example, Oklahoma State and Oregon State deserve their rankings with respect to how they compare this year, but doesn’t it seem like, intuitively, that they “feel” more like a team that should be in the 20s or so? It’s more of an indictment of how much parity exists today, not that I’m complaining about that.

Rankings are meaningless

Rutgers is now the #25 team in the Associated Press poll, and #28 in the USA Today poll. I don’t believe that is warranted, considering the schedule that Rutgers has played this year. They have a talented, young roster, and are just starting to play their best football, but I can’t in good conscience see them as a top 25 team when they are 85th statistically in offense (usual caveats apply, blah blah), and had looked awful on that side of the ball before last week. That’s saying a lot, considering that not many of the teams outside of the top 10 look all that tough. Intuitively, they should be closer to between the 30 to 40 range. It’s a nice selling point for the program though, and Coach Schiano gets a cool $10,000 bonus.

Me, I’m more concerned with whether or not UConn can beat Notre Dame this week, which might be the only way that Rutgers can get to a half decent bowl game for once.

It’s not something that I’m that interested in harping on though. Rutgers is the latest beneficiary of voters not considering strength of schedule, and overrating more recent wins over an entire season resume, but they’re hardly the sole offender. How else can you explain rating Penn State over Iowa, when the Hawkeyes have played a much tougher schedule, and soundly beat the Nittany Lions on the road? That’s just one of a countless number of discrepancies. I think the ‘net blogpoll is somewhat of an improvement, but it’s still fatally flawed, and subject to the same biases. No matter their flaws, computer statistical models give the best, most objective determination of the relative strength between teams and conferences. In fact, the computers need to be unrestrained and unleashed, as current BCS policy bars consideration of margin of victory, despite the fact that taking the points into account is more predictive of future results than solely looking at W/L records.

My blogpoll ballot: week ten

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Cincinnati
4	TCU
5	Texas
6	Georgia Tech	3
7	Pittsburgh	3
8	Boise State	2
9	Oregon	2
10	Miami (Florida)	7
11	Iowa	3
12	Southern Cal	1
13	LSU	1
14	Arizona
15	Houston
16	Ohio State	4
17	Stanford
18	Virginia Tech	2
19	Oklahoma State	4
20	Penn State	7
21	Oregon State
22	South Florida
23	Utah	4
24	Clemson
25	Wisconsin	1
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Oklahoma (#18), California (#21), West Virginia (#25).

My blogpoll ballot: week nine

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Cincinnati	1
4	TCU	1
5	Texas	1
6	Boise State	3
7	Oregon	3
8	Iowa	1
9	Georgia Tech	2
10	Pittsburgh	3
11	Southern Cal	8
12	LSU
13	Penn State	3
14	Arizona	7
15	Houston	7
16	Virginia Tech	8
17	Miami (Florida)	3
18	Oklahoma
19	Utah
20	Ohio State
21	California	2
22	South Florida
23	Oklahoma State	8
24	Wisconsin
25	West Virginia	8
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: South Carolina (#24), Central Michigan (#25).

It’s mostly a crapshoot after the top ten or so.

Iowa’s win over Indiana last week was telling. It hurt Iowa’s SOS, but I’m not going to hold an early scare against the Hawkeyes. That happens all the time, and the yardage disparity in that one shows how much better Iowa was.

Rutgers is even getting a few votes now in some ballots, although I’m not ready to go that far yet. The SOS is really bad, and the offense has shown little in terms of an ability to consistently sustain drives. As awesome as Savage’s TD pass to Brown was, most of the time, you don’t win games at the last minute. That’s not generally a good formula for victory.

Can SOS be misleading?

One of my Sunday rituals is to take a gander at the latest Sagarin ratings (and similar statistical offerings) before submitting my draft blogpoll ballot. According to the latest iteration, Rutgers comes in at #68 in the country based on what they’ve accomplished to this point, having played the #140 schedule in the country.

I’m not trying to posit that Rutgers has played particularly well to this point, as they haven’t. However, I think there is a bit of a quirk in these computer polls that can distort the picture of everything that’s going on, to some extent.

As an example, let’s compare the schedules to this point of Rutgers and USF. They were chosen because both have a win over an ACC team, and have played similarly bad schedules, featuring two FCS teams.

Rutgers

(8) Cincinnati L 47-15
(228) Howard W 45-7
(135) FIU W 23-15
(115) @Maryland W 34-15
(196) Texas Southern W 36-0
(18) Pittsbugh L 24-17
(144) @Army W 27-10

USF

(187) Wofford W 40-7
(178) @Western Kentucky W 35-13
(212) Charleston Southern 59-0
(44) @Florida State W 17-7
(100) @Syracuse W 34-20
(8) Cincinnati L 34-17
(18) @Pittsburgh L 41-14

Rutgers and USF have played fairly comparable schedules up to this point. Rutgers had the worse loss to Cincy, but keep in mind that Tony Pike missed most of the second half of that game, and that Dom Natale’s turnover meltdown sent the opener out of hand. In comparison, Rutgers looked far, far more competitive against Pitt. Based on the more-recent history, Rutgers is the better team right now.

As far as I can tell, what’s really skewing the Sagarin ratings are the fact that FSU is ranked much more highly than Maryland is. However, I’m not that sure if there’s that much of a wide gulf between the teams. Maryland narrowly lost to MTSU, while FSU pulled away from Jacksonville State late. A few bounces here and there, and both games turn on their heads. At some point, there is a lower boundary or floor with poor teams. Alabama would beat #80 about as bad as #200.

The purpose of this post isn’t to rail against computer rating systems. I think that they’re actually far more accurate than human polls, even if each still has its own particular blend of oddities and eccentricities. By the end of the season, with the benefit of a larger, more accurate sample size, everything should look a lot more intuitive. However, these current results are very difficult to square with what’s actually going on in games at the moment. USF may have the better resume to this point, but they’re not 32 rankings and 7 points on a neutral field better.

Which is, not to single out USF, although I love picking on their program at times. At the moment, all human and computer polls have their share of strange, unintuitive results. We’ll just have to wait until the end of the season, and see how everything plays out to know where exactly the chips fall.

My blogpoll ballot: week eight

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Southern Cal
4	Cincinnati	1
5	TCU	1
6	Texas	1
7	Iowa	5
8	Virginia Tech	2
9	Boise State	1
10	Oregon	1
11	Georgia Tech	2
12	LSU	2
13	Pittsburgh	2
14	Miami (Florida)	5
15	Oklahoma State	1
16	Penn State	3
17	West Virginia	4
18	Oklahoma
19	Utah	3
20	Ohio State	4
21	Arizona
22	Houston
23	California
24	South Carolina	4
25	Central Michigan	2
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Texas Tech (#17), South Florida (#18), Auburn (#24), Oregon State (#25).

Screw it. I don’t care that people get hung up on Oklahoma’s W/L record. Last week’s throttling of Kansas proved their case. Kansas had a somewhat good record, but lost to a bad Colorado team, and had really beaten nobody. Oklahoma didn’t have quality wins either, but their losses did all come to good teams. Can anyone really make the case that say, Notre Dame, is a better team when they haven’t looked all that good (outside of USC) without Michael Floyd?

I think we’re also getting to the point of the season where head to head wins remain important, but are starting to be trumped by a total body of work. One-game mishaps happen. Sometimes the matchups aren’t in a team’s favor.

Iowa remains a tricky, tricky case. Their out of conference SOS is surprisingly excellent, although inflated by the flukey success of Iowa State. That’s counterbalanced by the horrific Big Ten. Iowa is winning a lot of games on the margins, but their offense isn’t that good, and I’m not convinced that their turnover rate is sustainable. Rutgers can build up a reserve there when beating up on Howard and Texas Southern. It’s harder against semi-difficult competition. Can Ohio State just beat them already to end this silly debate? I think the Hawkeyes were pretty good last year, but are defanged without some critical personnel losses, and their quarterback has regressed too.

Still, on the other hand, it’s difficult to keep them below the likes of Florida and Texas. If both end up undefeated, I may very well have Iowa jump the Horns by season’s end. Still think that Cincy and TCU are better though, not to mention SC.

My blogpoll ballot: week seven

Forgot to post this earlier. Didn’t really have time to look it over too closely.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Southern Cal
4	TCU
5	Cincinnati
6	Virginia Tech
7	Texas
8	Boise State	1
9	Miami (Florida)	1
10	LSU	3
11	Oregon
12	Iowa	4
13	Georgia Tech	6
14	Oklahoma State
15	Pittsburgh	6
16	Ohio State	4
17	Texas Tech
18	South Florida	8
19	Penn State	1
20	South Carolina	6
21	West Virginia
22	Utah	2
23	Central Michigan
24	Auburn	2
25	Oregon State
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Oklahoma (#15), Nebraska (#17), Houston (#23), Brigham Young (#24).

My blogpoll ballot: week six

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida	1
3	Southern Cal	1
4	TCU	1
5	Cincinnati	1
6	Virginia Tech	1
7	Texas	5
8	Miami (Florida)	1
9	Boise State	4
10	South Florida	1
11	Oregon	3
12	Ohio State
13	LSU	5
14	South Carolina	3
15	Oklahoma	1
16	Iowa	1
17	Nebraska	4
18	Penn State
19	Georgia Tech	4
20	Utah
21	Pittsburgh	1
22	Auburn	12
23	Houston
24	Brigham Young
25	Oregon State
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Stanford (#19), Arizona (#22), Wisconsin (#24), Missouri (#25).

I toyed with going full-on resume ranking this week (for instance, Wisconsin has a stronger resume than PSU), but didn’t have time to get all the kinks out. Definitely feeling the hate for Texas though. Way to play an atrocious OOC schedule year after year.

I’m not comfortable with any of these after Oregon. Once again, don’t pay attention to the arrows, I don’t take into account last week’s ballot and am ranking based off team strength and total resume (with heavy weight to SOS).

My blogpoll ballot: week five

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Texas	1
3	Florida	1
4	Southern Cal
5	TCU
6	Cincinnati	1
7	Virginia Tech	1
8	LSU	7
9	Miami (Florida)	10
10	Auburn	12
11	South Florida	3
12	Ohio State	3
13	Boise State	2
14	Oregon	2
15	Iowa	5
16	Oklahoma	4
17	South Carolina	3
18	Penn State	5
19	Stanford
20	Pittsburgh
21	Nebraska
22	Arizona
23	Georgia Tech
24	Wisconsin
25	Missouri
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Houston (#8), Georgia (#17), California (#18), Oklahoma State (#24).

We’re far enough into the season where I’m trying to resume rank as much as I can. If only teams like UF that have played nobody would cooperate, schedule-wise. As always, I don’t remotely care about week to week consistency.

Given that the Pac 10 is the #2 conference by Sagarin, I’m fine with ranking Stanford and Zona. By the way, the Big Ten sucks. Pass it on.

My blogpoll ballot: week four

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida	1
3	Texas	1
4	Southern Cal	2
5	TCU	7
6	Virginia Tech	5
7	Cincinnati	1
8	Houston	2
9	Ohio State
10	Iowa
11	Boise State	8
12	Oklahoma	4
13	Penn State	6
14	South Florida
15	LSU	5
16	Oregon
17	Georgia	1
18	California	13
19	Miami (Florida)	15
20	South Carolina
21	Nebraska	3
22	Auburn	3
23	Georgia Tech	2
24	Oklahoma State	10
25	Missouri	2
Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Mississippi (#13), Brigham Young (#15), North Carolina (#17), Kansas (#22).

See you later, Ole Miss. With a bad taste in my mouth, I moved them up last week by default. They have literally done nothing at this point to deserve any ranking.

Regression to the mean is a wonderful thing. As always, I rank based on overall resumes, not overweighing one particular week. For instance, I don’t see four teams better than USC. I’m much lower on LSU than most polls. I like their roster, but they aren’t playing like a top ten team to this point.

With the season sample size getting bigger, it’s getting slightly easier to put together a coherent ranking, although all the upsets don’t help. Nice to see the Big East making a little noise however.