College Football - Week of Nov. 14th

[hawkeyecub]

Now that I've had my emotional outburst I still think Iowa makes the BCS. I don't think they'll drop out of the top 14 and I think they could still get to the top 12 if enough teams lose when they are off.

 

Unless they go to the rose bowl they should not make the BCS.

 

Good to know. Texas has no business in the title game if Cincy wins out either.

 

Hard to disagree with that, and for TCU and Boise St too. What teams does Iowa legitimately deserve to go to a BCS game ahead of though?

 

Instead of just throwing out the general Big Ten comments, why don't you actually look at the BCS slots and tell me which teams are clearly more deserving? Wait, that would probably be too much work for you.

 

10 BCS slots. 6 automatics, 4 at-larges. Give 2 of the at-larges to TCU and Boise and 1 to Alabama/Florida loser. Still have 1 left. SEC can't get 3 by the rules, second place teams in Pac-10 and ACC all have 3 losses.

The only teams that don't are Pitt, Oklahoma State, Iowa and Penn State. Iowa is clearly more deserving than PSU. Oklahoma State is going to lose at OU. Pitt still plays at WVU and Cincinnati. If they win out you can say they're deserving.

[Soul]

Just wanted to mention how enjoyable it was to see Stanford rip USC a new hole right in front of their fans.

 

Atta boy, Harbaugh.

[Andy]

AP:

 

1 Florida (36) 10-0 1463

2 Alabama (14) 10-0 1429

3 Texas (10) 10-0 1424

4 TCU 10-0 1307

5 Cincinnati 10-0 1247

6 Boise State 10-0 1213

7 Georgia Tech 10-1 1139

8 Pittsburgh 9-1 1030

9 Ohio State 9-2 990

10 LSU 8-2 968

11 Oregon 8-2 918

12 Oklahoma State 8-2 754

13 Penn State 9-2 689

14 Stanford 7-3 652

15 Iowa 9-2 633

16 Virginia Tech 7-3 559

17 Wisconsin 8-2 547

18 Clemson 7-3 442

19 Brigham Young 8-2 344

20 Oregon State 7-3 338

21 Miami (FL) 7-3 255

22 USC 7-3 223

23 Utah 8-2 183

24 Houston 8-2 149

25 Rutgers 7-2 145

 

Coaches

 

1 Florida (48) 10-0 1460

2 Texas (4) 10-0 1397

3 Alabama (7) 10-0 1388

4 TCU 10-0 1277

5 Cincinnati 10-0 1219

6 Boise State 10-0 1183

7 Georgia Tech 10-1 1127

8 Ohio State 9-2 1019

9 Pittsburgh 9-1 997

10 LSU 8-2 956

11 Oregon 8-2 875

12 Penn State 9-2 772

13 Oklahoma State 8-2 750

14 Wisconsin 8-2 630

15 Iowa 9-2 584

16 Virginia Tech 7-3 558

17 Stanford 7-3 516

18 Brigham Young 8-2 404

19 Clemson 7-3 274

20 Oregon State 7-3 256

21 USC 7-3 239

22 Houston 8-2 229

23 Utah 8-2 212

24 Miami (FL) 7-3 156

25 Nebraska 7-3 107

25 North Carolina 7-3 107

[Soul]

Hmmm. I thought Bama might receive a little more consideration for #1.

[OleMissCub]

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/A-partial-account-of-Dexter-McCluster-s-exploits;_ylt=AiKArRJsjwHhtsQSDtQbze0cvrYF?urn=ncaaf,202554

 

Ole Miss' all-purpose star, Dexter McCluster, had a career day to say the least in the Rebels' biggest win of the season, in which the senior speedster ...

 

- Accounted for two-thirds of the Rebels' total yards from scrimmage and outgained Tennessee's entire offense, 324 yards to 275, with four touchdowns to the Vols' two.

 

- Personally gained more yards against Tennessee than the Vols allowed to Florida's entire offense (323) in September or to Alabama's offense (256) last month. McCluster's total against UT also outpaced Western Kentucky, UCLA and Georgia's entire offensive outputs against the Vols, and he personally accounted for more points (24) than any offense against Tennessee except Auburn (26) and Memphis (28).

 

- Delivered the second-highest single-game total in yards from scrimmage in Division I-A this season, and the highest total in the SEC (besting Mark Ingram's 269-yard effort against South Carolina) by more than 50 yards.

 

I do think the loss of that safety for Tenn helped Dexter a bit, but still. What a massive game. But when he gets his touches, he can put up some insane yards. His last 3 starts:

 

vs. Ark: 266 yards

vs. Auburn: 207 yds

vs. Tenn: 324 yds

 

Coach Nutt has finally realized that for the Rebels to win they have to minimize Snead's impact.

[Guest]

UC Davis won the Great West title by beating North Dakota today. It's really a shame that the Great West doesn't have six teams which would guarantee it an auto berth in the FCS playoffs because it deserves it. It's rated as the second best FCS conference by both Sagarin and College Sporting News' GPI. None of the five teams are great (at best they're ranked 20-25) but there isn't a bad team either. UCD has the best record at 6-4 but that's a bit deceiving because they played Fresno State, Boise State as well as Montana (the No. 2 ranked FCS team) and are 6-1 outside of that and they should have beaten Montana. They deserve to go just as much as the winner of the MEAC and Patriot League do.

 

shut it :evil:

 

That wasn't so much a knock at the Patriot League and MEAC as much as it was propping up the Great West. I would have added the Big South, Ivy, SWAC and Pioneer if I was talking about rankings since all of those conferences have teams that are ranked higher than UCD with significantly weaker schedules.

[Derwood]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

[Andy]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

[Derwood]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

 

you wonder if/when the BCS formula will start moving more towards the computer polls and away from the human polls

[ISUCubsFan]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

 

you wonder if/when the BCS formula will start moving more towards the computer polls and away from the human polls

 

I doubt we see too much of this. When the human and computer polls disagree the BCS tends to change the computers so they conform with the human polls. That's why we now have crappy computer rankings that don't take MOV into account. This may have been posted here before, but here's a Bill James article on the situation.

[Derwood]

I wonder what the rankings would look like if they ran a straight-up RPI ranking

[Exile on Waveland]

Penn State's overrated. Unless one is impressed by their big win over . . . Michigan? Northwestern? Minnesota?

[Jon]

What's football parking like in Champaign?

 

That depends on how far you're willing to hoof it and whether you want to tailgate. Most of the lots around the stadium are set aside for football parking, so if you want to tailgate, you can go to the lots down along First Street south of the stadium and in the research park. You'll have to pay to park at those places, though. If you just want to go to the game, university parking is free on Saturdays, although most of that parking is a decent walk away from the stadium. This parking includes a long row of free meters between Windsor and Kirby on Lincoln along with a number of the lots on campus.

In the end I decided just to play it safe and park in one of the SW lots closer to I-72. Should've listened to you. I didn't expect $20 for parking. Illinois must make a killing. Purdue only charges $10. I-57 is probably my least favorite drive ever, too, though there seem to be fewer trucks on I-57 than I-65.

[bcl412]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

 

you wonder if/when the BCS formula will start moving more towards the computer polls and away from the human polls

 

I believe that computer polls should be 100% of the BCS.

[Guest]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

 

you wonder if/when the BCS formula will start moving more towards the computer polls and away from the human polls

 

I believe that computer polls should be 100% of the BCS.

 

Not the way they're currently structured, they shouldn't. If they bring back margin of victory into the computers then sure. But not the way the computers are set up now.

[Andy]

cue the "how can PSU be ranked above Iowa when they lost" complaints

Miami is ranked ahead of UNC when they lost to them 24 hours ago. Polls make no sense.

 

you wonder if/when the BCS formula will start moving more towards the computer polls and away from the human polls

 

I believe that computer polls should be 100% of the BCS.

 

Not the way they're currently structured, they shouldn't. If they bring back margin of victory into the computers then sure. But not the way the computers are set up now.

The computers as of now are basically structured to look like human polls. True computer polls absolutely should be 100 percent of the BCS.

[dew1679666265]

I'm not real surprised by Tennessee's loss. I thought we had the chance to win out, but also knew that Ole Miss was clearly a better team if they showed up to play (and got the ball to McCluster). They showed up and were clearly better.

 

Crompton had another nice day, which is encouraging, and we can still win 7 games and make the Peach Bowl (potentially) if we beat Vandy and Kentucky. 7-5 isn't a bad year in Kiffin's first year.

[dew1679666265]

Not the way they're currently structured, they shouldn't. If they bring back margin of victory into the computers then sure. But not the way the computers are set up now.

 

If you cap margin of victory pretty low, I think it should come back. It's not a reliable factor, though, if Florida shoots for 100 against Coastal Carolina or something. Or if Texas doesn't let off the pedal yesterday against Baylor.

[bukie]

Not the way they're currently structured, they shouldn't. If they bring back margin of victory into the computers then sure. But not the way the computers are set up now.

 

If you cap margin of victory pretty low, I think it should come back. It's not a reliable factor, though, if Florida shoots for 100 against Coastal Carolina or something. Or if Texas doesn't let off the pedal yesterday against Baylor.

There are still ways to account for that, though. Put a cap of 30 points in the second half/fourth quarter or something. Something well beyond the reasonable range of comebacks.

[dew1679666265]

Not the way they're currently structured, they shouldn't. If they bring back margin of victory into the computers then sure. But not the way the computers are set up now.

 

If you cap margin of victory pretty low, I think it should come back. It's not a reliable factor, though, if Florida shoots for 100 against Coastal Carolina or something. Or if Texas doesn't let off the pedal yesterday against Baylor.

There are still ways to account for that, though. Put a cap of 30 points in the second half/fourth quarter or something. Something well beyond the reasonable range of comebacks.

 

That's the point I was making. As long as you put a cap on margin of victory, I'm fine with it. Without a cap, you skew the numbers by teams running up the score on 1-AAs, etc.

[TruffleShuffle]

Penn State's overrated. Unless one is impressed by their big win over . . . Michigan? Northwestern? Minnesota?

 

same can be said for wisconsin. same bad non-conference schedule, convincing loss to the conference champ (ohio st), home loss to the #2 team (iowa), bunch of wins over the middle of the road and bottom of the barrel big ten teams.

[jersey cubs fan]

Man, Kirk Ferentz displayed some serious Lovie Smith caliber cowardice this weekend.

[Tracer Bullet]

Iowa lucked out against MSU. That offense isn't built to score in less than a minute, especially with the back-up QB playing in the first start of his young career at Ohio State. The risk of a fumble or INT by Vandy was too high. Can you imagine the crap Ferentz would be taking if Vandy through a pick-6 right there?

[jersey cubs fan]

Iowa lucked out against MSU. That offense isn't built to score in less than a minute, especially with the back-up QB playing in the first start of his young career at Ohio State. The risk of a fumble or INT by Vandy was too high. Can you imagine the crap Ferentz would be taking if Vandy through a pick-6 right there?

 

They were moving the ball at will at that point and didn't have far to go. And your last sentence is exactly why I said it was cowardice. It was a cover your ass strategy instead of a try to win the freaking game strategy. He had plenty of time, and by forcing his QB to try and win it in OT (after the coach displayed a huge vote of no confidence in him late in the game) was just plain old stupid.

[Tracer Bullet]

Iowa lucked out against MSU. That offense isn't built to score in less than a minute, especially with the back-up QB playing in the first start of his young career at Ohio State. The risk of a fumble or INT by Vandy was too high. Can you imagine the crap Ferentz would be taking if Vandy through a pick-6 right there?

 

They were moving the ball at will at that point and didn't have far to go. And your last sentence is exactly why I said it was cowardice. It was a cover your ass strategy instead of a try to win the freaking game strategy. He had plenty of time, and by forcing his QB to try and win it in OT (after the coach displayed a huge vote of no confidence in him late in the game) was just plain old stupid.

 

at will? They had 2 drives in the 4th quarter. One ended in a TD, one ended in a pick. They had a KO return for a TD and ran out the clock at the very end. On that last possession, they had to go 40-45 yards to get into 50/50 territory. Murray is 5/10 on FGs over 40 yards this year. So 40-45 yards in 50 seconds to have a 50/50 shot at the winning FG v. chance your QB in his first start throws his 2nd pick in the 4th quarter or fumbles the ball, giving the opponent great field position to kick the winning FG.

 

If you thought Iowa was moving the ball at will, why wouldn't you want OT? That's right, in OT they lost 15+ yards in 3 plays to knock themselves out of field position. They were not moving the ball at will. They were having mixed success, which is the best you can hope for with your backup QB.

 

As for your comment about my last sentence as evidence of cowardice - that's ridiculous. Ferentz wasn't thinking about the fan reaction when he decided to run the clock out. He was thinking he had a better chance of winning the game in OT than risking a TO that would lose the game for him. It was conservative, but that's his nature and I think it's the right call in that situation.