2014 college football season

[dew1679666265]

On most preseason rankings I've seen where statistical adjustments are made for SoS, four SEC east teams are ranked in the top 30 (SCar, UGA, Mizz, UF) and both Tenn and Vandy are ranked above the 50th percentile (that is, at least average). Only UK is a bottom-feeder.

 

I think there's some overrating going on there. Too many questions marks for all the teams involved (even SC has some questions). I will say, though, the pitiful comment is based on what the SEC East historically has been.

 

Also UF has a legit top ten defense but their offense looks to be atrocious.

 

And we saw what that mix resulted in for them last year. They're not going to be 4-8 again, but to win close games consistently you have to be disciplined and fundamentally sound. There are two definite things we know about Muschamp teams - they're undisciplined and they can't score. Not a good mix.

[dew1679666265]

I'm assuming they have some four stars stepping in and a juco or two that they purchased.

 

Tennessee always has a ton of size.

 

Donatavius Blair (JUCO Jr) is probably going to be a stud, but I figure he'll have a transition period this year. Marcus Jackson is likely going to be the rock of the line and very good, but he's still a bit unproven because of our depth on the line during his tenure. Mack Crowder and Kyler Kerbyson were highly rated, impressive guys coming out of college, but neither have played well enough to earn any playing time behind legitimately very good linemen (James Stone and Alex Bullard).

 

The line could be ok, but I'm not real optimistic. It's my biggest concern in regard to a breakout in 2015.

Edited July 31, 2014 by dew

[OleMissCub]

Wall Street Journal did an interesting hypothetical radical realignment.

 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-radical-realignment-plan-for-college-football-1406069526

What if schools were sorted into conferences based on their football strength?

 

To do that, Jonathan Jensen and Brian Turner chose to ignore geography and tradition, the typical forces in conference realignment. Instead, they focused solely on football and its financial implications, coming up with a formula that factored in every team's football revenue, winning percentage, computer ranking and attendance between 2003 and 2013. Then they sorted teams into clusters to figure out which schools were most alike—and should be playing each other.

 

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DU542_COUNT0_G_20140722221045.jpg

 

Notre Dame would get obliterated in that division.

Edited July 31, 2014 by OleMissCub

[dew1679666265]

They also open with Utah State which was just an idiotic scheduling decision. I don't know when they signed up for that game but that's just stupid. It's one thing for Ole Miss to schedule Boise. Tht game generates interest and even though Utah state has been th better team the perception of losing to Utah state is more crippling than losing to Boise.

 

Utah State has been on the books for several years, I believe - before they were anything to write home about. It's one of those games that was supposed to be the warmup opener that has all of a sudden become really, really dangerous for a team that desperately needs an easy opener.

[dew1679666265]

UF over Tenn is definitely not a slam dunk, but I have little problem saying UF is a better team than Tenn by a safe margin, especially on defense.

 

Florida might be a little better, but I've been very unimpressed by them under Muschamp. Two years ago they looked pretty good, but even then there were signs that something was screwy with them. I know they were massively injured last year, but even before all the injuries piled up, they looked incompetent offensively against Toledo and then lost to a Miami team that couldn't really move the ball that much either. And it took a dumb decision by Butch and an extremely generous Tennessee team for Florida to win that game.

 

I'm a big follower of recruiting rankings (though I understand their limitations), but the majority of Florida's players (primarily on offense, but some on defense) haven't come close to living up to those rankings. And I suspect an inability by Muschamp to develop players is the culprit.

[Guest]

I'm missing Illinois...

[OleMissCub]

Looks like Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue left off from Big Ten.

 

Vandy, Miss St, and UK from SEC.

[ConstableRabbit]

Selfishly, I'd like to see what it would look like without attendance factored in.

[Ryne Ween]

Cluster 2 might be better than cluster 1. FSU and Southern Cal should absolutely be cluster 1 squads. Especially Southern Cal which is one of the five best programs in college football. Poor clustering. Georgia and Auburn are cluster 2 calibre programs.

[Ryne Ween]

Ok State and Va Tech are way ratter programs than most of cluster 3. For some reason I'm really upset about these clusters.

[Guest]

They didn't pick them out of a hat, they came up with objective criteria and this was the (relatively silly) result.

[Ryne Ween]

Didn't realize a formula was used. In any event it's odd to me that I'm the last 11 years, the results favor michigan over SC. Lost bowl revenue from the sanctions? Because they have won one or two national titles in that span and played for another. Michigan has been down for a while. They must be making up a lot of ground in the revenue area.

[OleMissCub]

Georgia and Auburn are cluster 2 calibre programs.

 

Georgia should be in cluster 2, but Auburn....probably not according to the metrics they are using. In that ten year span they won a national championship, played for another, and arguably should have played for another (13-0 in 2004). They also play in a stadium with a capacity of 87k.

[George Hayduke]

On most preseason rankings I've seen where statistical adjustments are made for SoS, four SEC east teams are ranked in the top 30 (SCar, UGA, Mizz, UF) and both Tenn and Vandy are ranked above the 50th percentile (that is, at least average). Only UK is a bottom-feeder.

 

I think there's some overrating going on there. Too many questions marks for all the teams involved (even SC has some questions). I will say, though, the pitiful comment is based on what the SEC East historically has been.

 

The rankings I look at are based on more objective statistical analysis (vs. say a preseason coaches' or sportswriters' poll). There's obviously an element of subjectivity even in those as you have to assign value to things like recruiting, but it makes it harder for a team to be simply overrated. I should point out too that when I'm talking about the strength of the SEC-E, I'm talking more about actual talent-level quality of the teams vs what I think the actual records will end up being (as we all know, there's not a direct 1:1 correlation between the two).

 

Also UF has a legit top ten defense but their offense looks to be atrocious.

 

And we saw what that mix resulted in for them last year. They're not going to be 4-8 again, but to win close games consistently you have to be disciplined and fundamentally sound. There are two definite things we know about Muschamp teams - they're undisciplined and they can't score. Not a good mix.

 

This is fine to talk about generally, but that's like the baseball equivalent of saying, "to win close games consistently, you have to be able to buckle down under pressue and show some grit and heart"...kind of true in broad principle, but doesn't really mean much in terms of projecting how good a team will be. I don't know if you've ever checked out Football Outsiders, but they one of several really great websites for meaningful analysis....they take something like a SABR approach to football. Brian Fremeau has developed a nice statistical analytic called the Fremeau Efficiency Index. It basically breaks down offensive/defensive quality by how well executed a drive is. It takes out some of the statistical noise that can result from a couple of flukey plays in an otherwise well-executed performance that might turn into a loss. As a natural corollary to this, he has also developed something like a pythagorean W/L statistic for football...based on the efficiency of various drives, how many points and thus wins "should" a team have had. Basically, with their tough schedule and all of their flukey injuries, UF still underperformed their expeced # of wins by 0.4 wins...which sounds small but is statistically significant in a 12 game season (roughly equivalent to a MLB team underperforming their Pythag by ~5 wins). They were better last year than they looked on paper at the end of the season, and if they can stay healthy this year I expect their record will bounce back pretty well (and I think even less analytical observation of the team tends to support this, which is why their line is at 7.5).

[Andy]

Coaches poll:

 

1. Florida State (56 first place votes)

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. Oregon (1)

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State (1)

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina (1)

10. Baylor

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin

15. USC

16. Clemson

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State

22. Nebraska

23. North Carolina

24. Texas

25. Washington

[CubInOK]

Coaches poll:

 

1. Florida State (56 first place votes)

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. Oregon (1)

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State (1)

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina (1)

10. Baylor

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin

15. USC

16. Clemson

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State

22. Nebraska

23. North Carolina

24. Texas

25. Washington

I don't see Alabama staying #2.

[Guest]

Teams with 2 losses or fewer last year are #1-6, 8-10, 16 (Clemson), 26 (Mizzou, sigh), and 28 (UCF)

 

Preseason polls are so stupid.

[George Hayduke]

Coaches poll:

 

1. Florida State (56 first place votes)

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. Oregon (1)

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State (1)

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina (1)

10. Baylor

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin

15. USC

16. Clemson

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State

22. Nebraska

23. North Carolina

24. Texas

25. Washington

I don't see Alabama staying #2.

 

Alabama isn't all that, but they have a relatively easy schedule this year.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Iowa should climb that list pretty quickly because they don't [expletive] play anybody this year.

[NOLA]

Coaches poll:

 

1. Florida State (56 first place votes)

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. Oregon (1)

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State (1)

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina (1)

10. Baylor

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin

15. USC

16. Clemson

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State

22. Nebraska

23. North Carolina

24. Texas

25. Washington

Preseason polls are silly, but based on who I know...

Ranked too high off this: Bama, aTm, Texas

Too low: Ole Miss, AZ State

[George Hayduke]

Coaches poll:

 

1. Florida State (56 first place votes)

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma (3)

4. Oregon (1)

5. Auburn

6. Ohio State (1)

7. UCLA

8. Michigan State

9. South Carolina (1)

10. Baylor

11. Stanford

12. Georgia

13. LSU

14. Wisconsin

15. USC

16. Clemson

17. Notre Dame

18. Arizona State

19. Ole Miss

20. Texas A&M

21. Kansas State

22. Nebraska

23. North Carolina

24. Texas

25. Washington

Preseason polls are silly, but based on who I know...

Ranked too high off this: Bama, aTm, Texas

Too low: Ole Miss, AZ State

 

And I'm not even sure how K-State made the list...I don't think I've seen any other preseason rankings that had them breaking the top 40. Won't be surprised if they end up like 7-5.

[sneakypower]

oh great, now tadow is going to stick his throbbing purple head in here

[Sosa21MVP]

This is going to be the year Indiana wins 6 games! We got this! \:D/

[rawaction]

This is going to be the year Indiana wins 6 games! We got this! \:D/

 

I think this could be a really fun team to watch. 1 QB this year, and Sudfeld should lead the conference in passing. He will be throwing to some fast undersized targets instead of the big boys like year's past. Coleman is back at RB, after 6ypc last year. OL is 100% back, with 2 NFL prospects. Best LB and DL is back. Bring back a CB that led the league is passes defensed and a solid 4-year starter at FS.

[NOLA]

 

And I'm not even sure how K-State made the list...I don't think I've seen any other preseason rankings that had them breaking the top 40. Won't be surprised if they end up like 7-5.

Oh, now you'e done it.