Tracer Bullet

Or a Pitt chip shot FG That wouldn't bring Stanford down to 1 loss. Ah, I forgot they lost to Washington. I was thinking they were a one loss team for some reason. If they were, TT's statement wouldn't have made any sense because Stanford would have just switched with Notre Dame and been undefeated. He just wants to bash ND. Let him make up his own facts. It's all he has.

I'm gonna stop you right there I missed this earlier and the whole thing is even better. I'm assuming your third team for Notre Dame is Michigan. So if that's the case, why are we not counting Michigan as a good win for Bama? Especially when: -Bama won at a neutral side, Notre Dame won at home -Bama won by 27 (and seeing as they were up 31-7 at half, it probably could have been worse), while Notre Dame only won by 7 And I love the add-in of "at least three good teams" for Notre Dame. Who's the fourth? The rest of the schedule is 7-4 Navy (you want to talk about empty wins, look no further), 5-6 Purdue, 5-6 Michigan State, 6-5 Miami, 6-5 BYU, 4-6 Pittsburgh, 2-9 BC, 5-6 Wake Forest. I'd even throw Michigan into the same vein as Mississippi State. They both lost to the only good teams they played and haven't beaten a ranked team. That was a mistake on my part. I think UM is better than Miss St, however. Miss St has no good wins. UM at least has NW. Miss St hasn't beaten even a decent team, that I can see. As I said before, Stanford and Oklahoma match up well, SOS-wise, with Bama's top opponents (LSU and TA&M).

You used a terrible analogy. What dog do you have in this discussion? Why are you so butthurt about ND?

That's the problem: there is no solution that's going to be acceptable bc people decided decades ago that they should rank the best CFB teams in order and the public likes it. I'm not nearly smart enough to come up with a way to rank a bunch of teams that don't play each other and don't play nearly the same level of competition every week. It's probably better to group teams than rank them, as it's easier to put a number of teams in buckets than in a specific order, esp when you've got dozens of "Team A beat Team B beat Team C which beat Team A" scenarios. But no one's going to go for that (outside of the top 4 teams that make the playoffs, but that's not going to eliminate rankings). Sorry I don't have a solution or a computer that spits out "these teams are too tenuously connected to give you an ordered list supported by a shred of logic." The people that created such models probably don't get much attention from people that want to know who's #1. But it doesn't take a lot of digging to realize that there are gigantic holes in these results, does it? When is the last time the #1 team lost by 28 to a 4-win team in late November? It's just hard to wrap my head around this one.

i don't even know what point you're trying to make here. maybe kansas state had just played like a great team for the first 10 games or whatever, and then didn't play like a great team (or they were just a fluke) in the game against baylor. was kansas state overrated by the computers? i dunno, maybe, but they're [expletive] computers, they don't have a bias against notre dame. You guys just can't get beyond the ND thing. I'm saying the formulas are flawed. I've had this argument with others before when it didn't hurt or benefit ND (it hasn't really been a concern in a while). But keep just saying ND and bias and thinking you're making some sort of point.

You couldn't miss the point more if you tried. You think I give a [expletive] about what the computers say bc that in some way will impact the outcome of a hypothetical game 2 months from now? Do you know how dumb that sounds? Look, there are a lot of intelligent posters on this board that think for themselves and analyze data to come to their own conclusions. For whatever reason, we seem to shut that down when it comes to CFB and just put blind faith in Saragin or w/e. I could give a [expletive] what Saragin or any of you think of ND. You hate the team and most of their fans and (some of you) me? I really don't care. I'm discussing this bc it's interesting to me. Right now it's mostly interesting to me that people here (and certain people in particular) don't see flaws in these models and say "Saragin tells me that the predictor is the best predictor for W-L, but the Big 12 hasn't beaten any good teams OOC yet they have #3, 7, 15, 16, and 20 in predictor and oh wait, #3 just got the doors blown off by #28, who has 5 Ws) If ND and Bama both win out, chances are they'll play in January. I have no idea if ND will win or not. Bama has only played 2 really good teams (1-1) and they were both close games (Miss St doesn't seem like a good team - that's a really empty 8 wins). ND has played at least 3 good teams and won them all with varying degrees of success. I don't think any of those teams is as good as Bama, but ND has at least faced several (5) that have extremely good defenses. Bama hasn't faced a defense as good as NDs, though. I just don't see a blowout either way.

MR's been butthurt for weeks that ND's been the lowest ranked of the major unbeaten teams. He's also one "computer geeks in their mother's basement" away from turning into a crotchety old sportswriter. There it is. Just keep your blind faith in the computers that had KSU as the better team this year. They put up about as many points on Baylor as Sam Houston St did (gave up more than SHSt did, too). Wait, you mean the same computers which ranked Notre Dame No. 1 last week? Those computers? Just keep your blind faith in your gut (or whatever) that had ND as the better team this year. They put up about as many points on Pittsburgh as Youngstown State did (gave up more than Youngstown did, too). And Notre Dame was at home in that game! See, I can do it also. http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm Yes. (I don't know when that updates, but as of today, ND was 5th in Ranking and Predictor). When you're trying to sound smug, remember that winning is ultimately important. You seemed to have missed that key component of this little comparison. Oh some school beat Pitt by more than ND beat Pitt? Great. ND won (despite 3 TOs, worst game of the season). The #1 (or 2 or 3) team got blown the [expletive] out by a team worse than that team blew out Sam Houston St. Almost all great teams have close games. But great teams don't get blown out by bad or mediocre teams. Is there some extenuating circumstance? Did they lose their starting QB (Heisman favorite 24 hours ago) or another star player? Nope. Did they give up 5 TOs? Nope, 3-2? Have an incredible amount of penalties or penalty yards? No. Oh, they gave up 340 rushing yards to a team that averages about 200 on the season? oops

MR's been butthurt for weeks that ND's been the lowest ranked of the major unbeaten teams. He's also one "computer geeks in their mother's basement" away from turning into a crotchety old sportswriter. There it is. Just keep your blind faith in the computers that had KSU as the better team this year. They put up about as many points on Baylor as Sam Houston St did (gave up more than SHSt did, too).

Having a discussion doesn't mean I'm up in arms.

They suffer the same flaw. They don't play enough games against quality teams outside their conference to know how good the conference is. The Big 12 takes the cake this year. Point me to a single OOC win by the Big 12 that supports your conclusion. A single one. Miami? Is that what you're going to hang your hat on? KSU beat Miami? It's somewhat amazing to me that so many people say "Saragin says his data is now unbiased" and accepts that as fact. I don't have a "better objective measure." I haven't seen a single "good" objective measure and that includes the ones that ND's schedule ranked toughest heading into the season. I don't know how you can say one schedule is harder than the other when they only share 2-3 teams at most. The best team Bama played is probably better than the best team ND played. Although I don't know if that's true because ND beat a Stanford team that a short-week away game choke against a top-25 team away from being otherwise undefeated and they took the #1 team in the country to OT and lost on a goal line stand and just beat the former #2 team in the country in OT. That's a good resume. But the top 2-3 teams on their schedules are comparable. LSU, TA&M, UM v. Oklahoma, Stanford, UM. But ND has beaten 5 teams in the top 25 in defense. ND has beaten 7 teams that are bowl eligible (and 2 more could be with Ws next week). Bama has played 5 (maybe 6) bowl-eligible teams (lost to one of them) and one of those is the 5th best team in the Sun Belt. ND has given up 111 points to 11 FBS teams. Bama has given up 111 points to 10 FBS teams (including the 5th and 8th best Sun Belt teams), and maybe the worst team in the Southern Conference. If they both win out, they'll play each other and we'll see who is better. But in terms of SOS, resume, etc, saying Bama is head and shoulders above the competition is foolish bordering on delusional. Sorry I can't point to a guy whose got a self-serving "unbiased" computer ranking.

Alabama has 2 good wins this season, 1 over a team that damn near lost to Ole Miss today and got taken well into the 2nd half by FCS Towson, and the other to a team ND also beat. It seems really odd to use close wins to poor teams as reason to discredit someone on Alabama's schedule in an attempt to make a relative comparison to Notre Dame. Alabama's played three teams that could be described as 'not crappy' this year, struggled with one, creamed one and lost to one. The narrative of Alabama as an invincible force of college football when their most recent FBS game was a home loss to a team that was a middle-tier Big 12 team last season needs to be discredited, even if it means making a comparison you find odd. It's not narrative that has Alabama the head and shoulders #1 in Sagarin's Predictor, or their SOS the best of any title contender save Florida. If the point is one of "any given Saturday", or "Alabama's not invincible", I don't think that's one that anyone's arguing against. If the point is that Alabama is equal or less worthy than the alternatives(especially since their title game appearance is dependent on beating UGA), then I think you're reaching in backlash to their reputation. Pretty soon here, we're going to have to start accepting that Saragrin isn't god. I know he's telling you that his data is unbiased now, but why do you believe him? Did KSU look like the #1 team in the country? What big 12 team has beaten any quality team outside its conference? Is there a single OOC win against any team that is among the 50 best in CFB? How do you know if KSU is good when they haven't beaten any team that's actually beaten a good team? Even playing and losing a close game to a quality team OOC would be something, but the big 12 has nothing. Bama has the best schedule of any title contender? This is the team that just played a team 2 weeks after its Southern Conf schedule ended. The team with that brutal stretch of W Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida Int'l, Ole Miss, Mizzou, Tenn (only 1 of those teams may be bowl bound, assuming the 5th best team in the Sun Belt gets a bowl invite). That team? Even if you think the SEC is hands down the best conf, Bama doesn't play Georgia, Florida, or USC. Ugh. Bama's looked like a dominant football team most of the year, but they get enough breaks without pretending that they've gone through some gauntlet.

I'm interested to see how many #1 votes Bama gets

Your Heisman favorite can't get a yard on 3 tries.

Klein dove and landed a yard short.

The refs tried a garbage call on a kickoff TD by Baylor earlier, but Baylor scored on the drive anyway. EVERYONE is conspiring against notre dame! KSU with a pick at the 1/2 yard line and SU just gifts one to Oregon. Can there be any other conclusion?

Tebow thinks Klein needs to shore up his mechanics

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/andy_staples/07/21/usc-changes/index.html

Has Texas Tech beaten a good team? Got spanked today.

Tennessee is pathetic

That would be great, actually. Take BC and Maryland out of the ACC doesn't hurt football or basketball. ND can find a game in the NE every other year. I'm surprised Maryland would give up LAX though.

abuck is so pissed about that phantom PI call on Baylor that he can't even post

You don't care. That's why you say [expletive] those guys when everyone knows ND isn't and wasn't on the table for the big x. You don't sound scorned at all.

Pitt and ???? Would've said Notre Dame a few years ago, but seriously, [expletive] those guys Right. ND is just dying to get into the big x.

c'mon Baylor. Win this one for abuck

Are you asking for Oregon when Chip Kelly bounces to the NFL? Kiffin isn't getting fired. Why not? You really think they're going to fire Kiffin now? He clearly seems to be an interim guy who will guide them through scholarship sanctions before they hire a real coach. I can't imagine a hotshot candidate is going to want to come in in the middle of the scholarship sanctions. If you're Haden why wouldn't you? Your rival fan bases are begging him to stay. You didn't hire the guy in the first place and he can't stop putting his foot in his mouth and getting involved in minor controversies (or worse) here and there. And that's before you get to this utter fail of a season. And I don't think a hot shot non-BCS HC or fast rising assistant turns down this job. Jon Gruden types, sure. Haden led the committee that hired kiffy