College Football - Week of 11/1

[Mephistopheles]

ugh. we're not talking about in the standings. we're talking about when it comes to telling us about the game. the actual quality of the teams. obviously I am using score as a starting point. there are other things that go into how well teams are. my main argument isn't so much the score as much as how "close" the two teams played in the game. the score isn't always the best indicator, but its a better indicator than wins and losses - which treat a 54-10 win the same as a 35-34 triple over time win. Again, the important thing to look at is how well the teams played. Winning or losing isn't very accurate at telling us that. If team A wins 31-28 and team B loses 31-28, what does that tell us about the game? It tells us that on that day team A and team B were pretty much evenly matched. If team B wins 31-28 and team A loses 31-28, it tells us the same thing.

 

I dont understand why you guys can't get this. It's not very difficult. Stop looking at things in black and white. There many shades of gray.

[SpongeWorthy]

USC is up 42-0 over Washington with a couple minutes left in the first half.

 

Tyrone Willingham has laid waste to a once proud program. He was such an uninspired hire to begin with and Washington needs to make a ballsy hire.

 

Willingham should never be a head coach for big time college football ever again. He is unfathomably bad.

[shnsajax]

USC is up 42-0 over Washington with a couple minutes left in the first half.

 

Tyrone Willingham has laid waste to a once proud program. He was such an uninspired hire to begin with and Washington needs to make a ballsy hire.

 

Willingham should never be a head coach for big time college football ever again. He is unfathomably bad.

 

I was just trying to think of how many years its going to take to rebuild this program. 3,4,5?

[imb]

what you're missing is that no one cares about any of what you're saying

 

florida is the best team in college football, despite their loss? yippee. too bad they dropped a home game to a miserable team and sabotaged their own chance. all of this is just your weekly attempt to soothe yourself because they dropped a should-have-been cakewalk.

[Mephistopheles]

No, but they play a huge part in deciding who gets to play for title games.

 

You're right. I'm not saying UF should be in the title game. I am not saying merit and quality are the same thing. It's the same way in baseball. It doesn't stop us from saying a team with a worse win loss record in baseball is better than another one. The current system is merit based...for two teams. It should be merit based. The real problem with the system is the only two spots in the title game. It should be two more. The current system is what it is though.

 

What really sucks is that Big Ten and Pac 10 teams don't play title games. It hurt them sometimes, it helps them sometimes. When they're undefeated, it helps them because they don't have to play a title game. When they have a loss, it hurts them because they don't have a chance to impress the voters with a big game at the end. It always causes them to have relatively weak schedules though - even in years when the Pac 10 or Big Ten are the top leagues in the country. Really, I think a +1 system is inevitable.

[bukie]

Actually, in all BCS-accepted computer ratings, all that matters is winning and losing. How much a team won or lost by doesn't matter at all.

 

Of course, that only covers 1/3 of the actual BCS rankings. The other 2/3 are covered by a coaches poll, in which what conference a team plays in matters about as much as how well a team plays in its games, and both of which matter far less than winning or losing a game. The other third? The Harris poll, which might actually be the rating which depends on scoring the most, as it's designed to be a statistically broad representation of the entire NCAA. It's still people voting, which is far less objective than running the numbers.

 

So, in essence, a team's sole goal in a year is to make the championship game. To do that, all that really matters is to win every game. Whether a team wins 13-6 or 45-3, all that matters to conference standings and computer ratings is whether or not it was a W or an L. Conservatively, 90% of what matters to the other 2/3 of the BCS ratings is whether or not it was a W or an L.

 

Which, really, means that for all intents and purposes all that a team should be concerned with in a game is a W or an L, since that's what will determine who plays for the championship, and who is watching.

 

As to how that affects which team is actually better or worse, to take a sole sample of scoring differences is inherently flawed as a model, since that is not the goal of any team. Sure, better teams are more apt to win by a greater margin, and blowout wins and close losses are better signs of a good team than close wins and blowout losses, but beyond a one point victory, it really doesn't matter to a college team in the grand scheme of things, so there's absolutely no incentive to run up any score.

[SpongeWorthy]

USC is up 42-0 over Washington with a couple minutes left in the first half.

 

Tyrone Willingham has laid waste to a once proud program. He was such an uninspired hire to begin with and Washington needs to make a ballsy hire.

 

Willingham should never be a head coach for big time college football ever again. He is unfathomably bad.

 

I was just trying to think of how many years its going to take to rebuild this program. 3,4,5?

 

It depends on the hire. They really need an obsessive recruiter because Willingham has utterly failed to get good classes.

 

But it's not like it's a bad job. The support and history is there. You're centered in a populous city in a popuous state where the other Big State U is hundreds of miles away and blocked by a huge mountain range from the coastal fertile football grounds.

[Mephistopheles]

no one said the BCS computers are accurate. theyre not because they're "politically correct"

[Mephistopheles]

Crabtree had about 10 yards between him and a defender.

 

 

And Swindell had about 15 yards between him and a defender.

[SpongeWorthy]

Wow, the offensive line splits for TTU are huge.

[Mephistopheles]

theyve been doing that for years now.

[TruffleShuffle]

haha nebraska turned the ball over (again) and espn showed someone in the crowd wearing an obama mask holding a sign that said "That's Changetastic!" btw nebraska is really playing some nice big xii defense, they're down 21 and the game isn't even 5 minutes in.

 

washington is down 42-0 at halftime and wazzu lost 58-0 to stanford. can't wait for the apple cup!!!

[bukie]

no one said the BCS computers are accurate. theyre not because they're "politically correct"

 

That's not the point though, which is apparently what you are failing to understand. Whether or not they are accurate is completely irrelevant. What matters is that they, well, matter. That is the incentive, and that is what makes the argument as to what team is the best largely subjective.

[Mephistopheles]

4 minutes into the OU Nebraska game and it's already got 3 TDs.

[Mephistopheles]

no one said the BCS computers are accurate. theyre not because they're "politically correct"

 

That's not the point though, which is apparently what you are failing to understand. Whether or not they are accurate is completely irrelevant. What matters is that they, well, matter. That is the incentive, and that is what makes the argument as to what team is the best largely subjective.

 

I understand everything. I know the system loves wins and losses. I also know that the system is not set up to reward the best two football teams in the country. All I am saying is that when answering the question "Which team is better" wins and losses arent very useful when W/L record is close. Of course the merit question is answered completely difference. Again, I have not said that Florida has more merit, I am saying they are better.

 

It's completely different. You guys aren't realizing that the two questions are different.

Edited November 2, 2008 by Mephistopheles

[TruffleShuffle]

lololol nebraska

[Mephistopheles]

five and a half minutes into the OU game and there are four touchdowns.

[B]

OU looking good to cover early on.

[Careless]

Watching a team score 100 points would be interesting

[Butterscup1679666578]

Wow OU. Wow Nebraska.

[SpongeWorthy]

UT's front four is getting to Harrell.

[TruffleShuffle]

OU looking good to cover early on.

 

they're already covering by 7 points and it's just over 5 minutes into the game, whahahaha

[imb]

Wow OU. Wow Nebraska.

 

i've already turned it

[Mephistopheles]

UT's front four is getting to Harrell.

 

UTs secondary can't cover Tech's receivers.

[SpongeWorthy]

Catch. The. Ball.