Mephistopheles

I don't see how I am trolling by merely supporting my views. I haven't attacked anyone on a personal level and haven't set out to rile up the place. I'm just supporting UT, UF or OU or whoever I honestly think is the right answer to a particular discussion. If my point was to troll this place to rile people up I would call out users personally whenever they're wrong. That's pretty easy this year if you look at the Zooker. I don't really care so I don't point it out. There's no reason to beating a dead horse. Right now Dew and I were having a nice discussion about the SEC East this year. Dew didn't take my comments regarding Tennessee as anything more than thoughtful analysis from my point of view - and he's the one who has a rooting interest against my p.o.v. Hosak took the last point I made, which was putting the situation rather bluntly, and didn't read the previous discussion to look at what we were discussing or how the comment came up. There's nothing wrong with not reading an entire conversation, I make a lot of posts without reading the entire conversation and I look foolish for doing it a lot. We all do. It was not my intention to make anything of that as a personal attack towards Hosak. I did, however, take offense to the malicious comments he made towards me in his post. He was the only one who took my initial post as a downright blind thing to say. Pretty much everyone else agreed. He then continued to slam things and mock me afterwards. And then he's surprised that I react negatively to his post. I don't instigate personal arguments anymore. I used to, but I haven't since I have been back. My point was that Hosak has routinely taken my posts out of context with no other intent other than to mock, slam or attack me. He never refutes my argument. I've never gotten a response from him regarding a point of mine. It's always blah meph smells blah blah meph sucks blah blah meph's a crybaby. It's never meph is wrong because ____________. I never said you called me a dick. No I have not been banned for being arrogant. Personal attacks yes, arrogant .... or as I like to describe it: Blunt. A majority of my points are taken the wrong way because I state things bluntly and don't sugarcoat negative points of view. Instead of saying "Tennessee's defense is comparable to FSU's or South Carolina's, LSU or Georgia's, and Gator fans heard how those defenses were the best the Gators would see and the Gators would be slowed down because of it. FSU, USC, UGA and LSU promptly got torched for points, so it's a fair assumption to make that the most likely scenario is Tennesee having similar difficulties stopping the offense. Instead I say something like Tennesee's no LSU, FSU or UGA. How'd that help them? The point's are the same and the argument is the same, but one's blunter than the other. Neither one is really arrogant, one's just blunt and to the point. The others a little more nicely put despite saying the same thing. As far the comments that I took as personal attacks: It doesn't matter, though, because wins and losses are irrelevant, remember? Translation: Meph said Ws and Ls are irrelevant. That's mind-numbingly stupid, so let's ignore that he's probably right and take the statement out of context and trash him for it and because of it everything he says is wrong because he's obviously stupid enough to make such outlandish remarks. You may not have said all that, but I'm sure that's what you meant and I think you're smart enough to understand that's how that comment would be taken. And with this post, almost every one of you can understand why I do not root for the conference [....] [a]nd believe me, this is TYPICAL of most Florida and Alabama fans I know. They talk an awful lot for people who don't contribute to anything that affects the game itself. Translation: Meph says a lot of things that are stupid and that post made by Meph was completely blind and stupid and shows that he is just a person who talks a lot of smack without being able to back up his comments. You certainly meant that and everyone knows that. The funny part is that with that post, no one (but you) can understand why posts like that cause you not to root for the SEC. You're the only one who took it that way. It is my hope that Florida then gets drilled in the Sugar Bowl by their opponent, and that Texas gets slaughtered by Oklahoma (just because Meph pimps the Longhorns as well). Translation: Meph's a bitch and I hate him and hope he's miserable so I hope his teams fail in epic fashion. You meant that. I don't know what you originally said. I didn't catch it before the edit so I wasn't responding to those comments.

Well Brantley's not Jared Lorenzon. He's quite capable of running the spread option. The biggest adjustment for him has not been being a pocket passer out of the spread. The Meyer/Mullen spread offense's pass plays are generally pocket passes. There are hardly any bootlegs or option passes. There's not really an adjustment that he has to make here. The adjustment Brantley has to make is grasping the option itself and of course the complex routes they run. The latter has little to do with the spread option, more to do with the spread, which he, like Tebow, ran in high school. He came in quite familiar with it. Really he's been working on his footwork in the Florida running game the most, that's been what he's weak at. Despite not being touted as a dual threat guy. He's actually the fastest of the three and at one point was rumored to be doing the Ingram switch when it looked like Newton would run away with the QB job. Brantley's been clocked in the 4.50 range. He just needs to learn the option part of the spread. To be fair, Tebow had to too. The Urban 2 QB system wasn't your typical 2 QB system before. It was basically a variant of the Wild where Tebow would be the wingback fullback who was taking a direct snap as a fullback not a quarterback. It's completely different. I'm saying you could see Newton be a fullback type subin if Tebow bolts, although with the emergence of Moody they probably will never need to do that. They actually have quality backs now. All the fullback 's are full back

Don't forget your Tenn reject, Jimmy Clausen. Burton's specs are 6-2.5/215/4.51. He's a downhill runner, like Tebow and Newton. Reed's more of a shifty elusive runner. I really don't know about Newton. He's suspended indefinitely. Brantley beat out Newton for the #2 job. The reason that Brantley was the #3 last year was because Newton, like Tebow before him, enrolled early. Brantley did not and the Meyer/Mullen offense is probably the most complex in the country so he redshirted simply because they would not get him up to speed quickly enough. He really impressed Meyer in the Spring. He closed the gap in the spring and overtook him in the early fall workouts and hasn't looked back since. Both Newton and Brantley were top 50 guys on some recruiting boards.

Trey Burton will probably be the heir apparent his sophomore season unless one of the incoming kids goes off and Brantley's a bust. Brantley will probably be the backup or starter in 2009. Starter in 2010 (rs JR year bolt to NFL if he's good) and then Trey Burton would be a RS fish. Trey Burton's supposed to be the once in the lifetime kind of QB recruit that Tebow was as a QB (dont we have those every year ;) ). Burton's an incredibly powerful runner who loves to run guys over and has a strong arm to boot. He's a 2010 guy and is graduating early in order to enroll in spring 2010 and he'll be up to speed for his true fish season in 2010 if we need him. He's already committed to Florida and is a bleeding Gator type like Tebow was. He won't decommit, even if Meyers fired/bolts. Burton's actually a converted tailback, so he fits the Gators as well as Tebow does. He doesn't run the spread like Tebow did in HS, triple option, so he's not highly developed as a passer like Tebow was. He, however, was the cream of the crop at Elite 11 passing.

Yes, Brantley's more of a pure pocket guy. Cameron Newton's actually a clone of Tim Tebow, but not nearly as passionate nor has a level head, as told by his recent felonies. If Newton's in jail, I don't know who the Gators backup will be. Right now the third QB is actually the punter, Chas Henry. Meyer actually says Chas is an "excellent" QB who would have been an excellent QB recruit if he didn't have a NFL leg or an NFL future as a punter and he's "excited" to see Henry be a fulltime QB in practice, I doubt that, but whatever. He's the third string QB. Remember the Ingle Martin days....ah how fun the Zooker was. I guess next year the real third QB will be Jordan Reed or another QB they recruit. Reed's another dual threat QB. He's apparently 6'3" and 235 while running a 4.5. I have my doubts.

I'm not sure there's going to be a huge long-term drop off with Brantley at the helm. By the end of the season I would expect the output to be similar. He's a much better candidate to run the offense than Chris Leak otherwise. Although the third Saturday in September may be too quick for him to be up to speed. He's very talented. Expect next year for Cameron Newton to be Tim Tebow 06 and Brantley to be the passer of the mix, and he's I've said, probably going to be the third best QB in the league next year if Tebow bolts. Brantley, Snead and Mallet all could be first round picks when its all said and done. Snead's rapid maturation the last month or six weeks has been amazing. He's played like a #1 overall pick. He made NFL throws all game long against Miss State and LSU. Their defenses didn't play that poor in those games, Snead just made perfect pass after perfect pass. Much more impressive outings than McCoy's all everything game against OU where he hit every pass or so it seemed.

It amazes me how people get away with a lot more personal insults than I do. It's been this way forever. Perhaps if you would have taken the time to actually read the entire conversation instead of targeting me with the specific purpose of a headshot to take me out on personal attacks, you would have gotten my point. Let's revisit the conversation in sequence. Dew: If we had a little bit of offense this year and our QB could hand the ball off, it wouldn't have been an embarrassment this year. That said, if Tebow and Harvin are back next year you may be right. Meph: The offense is in another gear with [Demps and Rainey] in the mix. In fact, Demps didn't even play on offense in that game. If Tennessee played the Gators in November you and I both know it would have probably wound up 55-3 or something worse. Dew: Probably, but ya'll have done that to pretty close to everybody. cubsweiser03: Not to be a dick but you dont have to be dick about this, show some respect. Its not like UT is Vanderbilt, they bring in some very good players and have talented players on the current roster. Meph: It's not like [Tennessee] is UGA, FSU or LSU either. How'd that help them? It shouldn't be hard to see my point looking at the conversation in sequence instead of taking comments out of context to help achieve your agenda.

Dunno if it should be here or Baseball Discussions. A little of both for the media mogul.

Keep in mind though, in my analysis that you did not read, i gave half the first place votes to Florida, a fourth to OU and a fourth to Texas and it still does not appear to be enough for Florida to jump Texas. well, i hope you're right, because if we get past missouri, i'm much more confident of our ability to beat texas than i am that we can beat florida That's correct, but also factoring in it will be a de facto home game for Florida too. Keep in mind though, in my analysis that you did not read, i gave half the first place votes to Florida, a fourth to OU and a fourth to Texas and it still does not appear to be enough for Florida to jump Texas. I have a hard time seeing Texas getting 1/4 of the first place votes even if OU loses. I have a hard time seeing Florida getting 1/2 of the first place votes if OU wins.

Keep in mind though, in my analysis that you did not read, i gave half the first place votes to Florida, a fourth to OU and a fourth to Texas and it still does not appear to be enough for Florida to jump Texas.

Maybe thats what it was.

Fantasy Baseball! If you're not getting started now, you're behind the curve. So thoughts on sleepers, who to avoid, comebacks. etc! I have a big sleeper and his name rhymes with Michael Jordan. I have an even bigger bust and his name rhymes with Ricky Gutierrez.

Didnt Slick Rick guarantee a win against U$C or something?

lovely.

And with this post, almost every one of you can understand why I do not root for the conference. I sincerely hope that Florida beats Alabama in the SEC Championship, and that they do not make the MNC game. It is my hope that Florida then gets drilled in the Sugar Bowl by their opponent, and that Texas gets slaughtered by Oklahoma (just because Meph pimps the Longhorns as well). And for those of you who complain about the SEC and their fans, I understand why... I really do. It's fans like this. And believe me, this is TYPICAL of most Florida and Alabama fans I know. They talk an awful lot for people who don't contribute to anything that affects the game itself. I do hope Team Jorts will beat the Criminal Tide, and then get left out of the MNC game. It doesn't matter, though, because wins and losses are irrelevant, remember? I have no respect for any person who makes generalizes about a population of fans. It's absurdly naive and stupid. My point is that Tennessee's defense, while talented, is no more talented than Georgia's, LSUs or Florida State's and they had no prayer stopping the Gators offense. Lost in all of your blinded generalizes you missed the entire point of my post (and you do this with all of mine, you never sit there and actually look at what I said and think about it).

It's not like UT is UGA, FSU or LSU either. How'd that help them?

If we had a little bit of offense this year and our QB could hand the ball off, it wouldn't have been an embarassment this year. That said, if Tebow and Harvin are back next year you may be right. And I don't think Spurrier's that livid over this, but thought it was funny that he was pitching a fit already. If you had a little bit of offense this year and your QB could hand the ball off, it would have been a bigger embarrassment this year. Florida scored effectively against you guys. They didn't rack up gobs of points because the game was short. I think they only got 7 possessions when a typical Oklahoma game has 13 or 14 possessions. Also, you played the Gators before they knew what they had in Demps and Rainey. The offense is in another gear with those two in the mix. In fact, Demps didn't even play on offense in that game. If Tennessee played the Gators in November you and I both know it would have probably wound up 55-3 or something worse.

I'm sure Urban Meyer is going to embarrass Tennessee again next season. I don't think Urban Meyer really gives a damn about him. I don't think Steve does either, he just likes to share his opinion on every topic.

It's tough to say since we don't know the breakdown of the votes by the coaches. Let's assume that Florida is #1 and Texas is #2 in the polls on everyone's ballot. This isn't going to happen, obviously, but the difference between the two is going to be similar. Let's also make the further assumption that Oklahoma is #2 on everyone's ballot and a win over Missouri won't cause Oklahoma to get jumped by Texas in a computer, which is a fair hypothesis. Obviously Oklahoma and Texas can't both be number two on every ballot, but it's a good estimate of what the average is going to be, they're going to be tied, or so. If Texas is #2 on every computer and Oklahoma is #1 on every computer, then Florida will need a computer average of .8800 or higher to catch Texas. A .8800 computer average corresponds to being on, on average, ranked #4 in the computers. Right now they're ranked, on average, fifth in the computers, behind Alabama and Utah as well as Texas and Oklahoma. If we make the further assumption that Florida won't finish behind Alabama in the computers with a win over them, then yes it looks like Florida will barely catch Texas. Let's go ahead and make some projections of the BCS computers. We can make a relatively accurate estimate of the impact of a Florida win over Alabama by looking at how much each individual computer acted after the Oklahoma win over Texas Tech (and also the Texas win over Oklahoma). So first let's look at Anderson and Hester computer rankings. Right now the A&H rankings are Alabama, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Florida in that order. .811 Alabama .805 Utah .800 Texas .798 Oklahoma .787 Texas Tech .784 Florida Going into the Tech and Oklahoma game, their respective rankings were .815 and .768, respectively. After the game they went to .785 and .786, respectively. Going into the Texas and Oklahoma game the rankings were .802 and .771 respectively. Afterwards .821 and .713. Nothing about the A&H methodology is published, but it seems to take points off of one team and add them to the other if the team wins to a certain extent. We can also look at Tech's win over Texas. Going into the game .834 for Texas and .749 for Texas Tech. .802 and .813 afterwards. Texas Tech gained .060 for their efforts. Texas gained .019 and Oklahoma gained .027. If we take the minimum of that we get .019 increase for Florida with a win over Alabama. However, Texas was actually ranked higher than Oklahoma by a significant margin. Florida gained .029 for winning against Georgia when Georgia was ranked three spots higher than them. So I think a .019 increase for Florida is a low estimate, but we'll use that one. Let's also take a loss of the same for Alabama. Note that Texas Tech lost 30 and Oklahoma lost 58, so I think again, this is a relatively low estimate. Let's also have Oklahoma gain .019 for a win over Missouri. Missouri is ranked #13 right now. This might be a relatively high estimate, but a gain of .07 is all that's needed for them to surpass the kids ahead of them and that kind of increase seems to be probable. With these changes in mind (everyone else static) we get: .8170 Oklahoma .8050 Utah .8030 Florida .8000 Texas .7920 Alabama .7870 Texas Tech Again, this is a low estimate, Florida may jump Utah as well. It's going to be close to whether or not they are able to jump Texas one would have to think. Now let's look at Richard Billingsley joke of a system. We know a few things about the system. We know if you don't play you don't gain any points. We know if you win you gain points. If you lose you lose points. We also know if you beat an opponent you're going to be ranked ahead of them the next week no matter what. Right now we have: 325.926 Alabama 322.918 Oklahoma 314.792 Florida 313.293 Texas Thus, we know, no matter what a win guarantees Florida to be ranked #1 or #2 in the system next week. We also know that Texas can be ranked no higher than third. The question is whether or not a loss by Alabama to Florida will drop them below Texas or not. Texas lost 22 points and Texas Tech gained 38 points. Texas was then #1 and Tech was then #13. Florida gained 10 points and Georgia lost 8 points. Georgia and Florida were ranked #6 and #7 respectively. Texas Tech lost 9 points and Oklahoma gained 12 points. They were ranked #2 and #6 respectively. Texas gained 16 points and Oklahoma lost 3 points. Texas was #5 and Oklahoma was #1. Tech was terrible going into that game, so that's why we had such drastic changes thanks to a last second catch (stupid system). We can safely assume then that Oklahoma's win over now #18 Missouri won't gain them 8 less points than Florida's win over #1 Alabama. We can also make a fair assumption that Alabama won't lose more than 10 points with a loss to Florida. That gives us this relativish ranking. The lack of an extra game here really, really hurts Texas. 1. Oklahoma 2. Florida 3. Alabama 4. Texas Now let's look at the Colley Rankings. We can just use the play God feature to estimate what happens. So entering Florida beats Alabama and Oklahoma beats Missouri: Oklahoma moves to #1, Texas drops to #2 and Florida moves from #4 to #3. If those three polls move that way and our assumptions hold true about the voters and the other three computer polls stay the same, then our BCS standings are: .9733 Oklahoma .9533 Florida .9533 Texas A dead tie. Florida is ranked 6th, 6th and 7th in the other three polls. They'll need to gain at least at least one spot in either the Massey or Sagarin ratings with their win. That's most likely in the Massey Rankings where Alabama is just one spot ahead of them. There's a sizable difference between them and #5 Utah in Sagarin. I wouldn't say it's certain that a win over Alabama moves them ahead of Utah. Alabama will need to drop below Utah and still get jumped by Florida for them to gain a spot there. Florida is 7th in Peter Wolfe's rankings. Right now this poll is the one getting dropped for Florida, so if anything is to be gained by improving here, they're going to need to jump both #6 Boise State and #5 Utah. They will probably jump Boise State, they're relatively close. They're quite a ways behind Utah. In fact the difference between #7 Florida and #5 Utah is the same as the difference between #7 Florida and #13 Oklahoma State. There really isn't a lot of room for Florida's computer scores to grow in the other three rankings, although we have an accurate gauge on them in the first three. Let's first assume that Florida makes the easy jumps in the three rankings. Let's say they gain one spot in each of them. Under our original assumptions of the human polls we have Florida jumping to #2 in the BCS. But how fair are our Harris Polls and Coaches polls when it comes to assuming Florida is #1 in the human polls and Texas averages #2. It's probably different. Florida is just below Texas in the Coaches poll and they're barely behind Oklahoma. What happens if Alabama drops. Does Florida gain all the unspoken for 58 first place votes? Probably not. Will they gain half of them? Probably. Who gains the rest of them? Considering how Texas is only 1 point behind Oklahoma, despite Oklahoma receiving two first place votes and Texas none I think it's a relatively fair assumption to make that Oklahoma and Texas split them. Then the question is, if you're a voter who sticks to your guns and has Texas ranked ahead of Oklahoma, do you have Florida ranked ahead of Oklahoma or not? That's going to be the difference. If these voters vote Texas ahead of Oklahoma only because of the head to head matchup, then it is VERY likely that on almost all the ballots that have Texas #1 will have Florida #3 and Oklahoma #2. If you have Oklahoma #1, then it's a fair assessment that you also have Florida #2 thanks to the big win over Alabama. If you have Florida #1, then what? Let's assume that again, half the voters think Oklahoma is higher and half the voters thank Texas is higher. Using these crude assumptions we can project the coaches polls and the total of number of votes compiled by each team. There are 61 voters in the coaches poll. Meyer and Brown have votes, Stoops does not. So let's calculate their votes as the deciding ties. Ie, So we assumed that half of them have Florida #1, so 30 #1 votes for Florida. Half of these have Texas #2 and half have Oklahoma #2. Now let's say of the other 31 votes, we have 15 of them voting OU first and 16 of them voting UT first. Where UT is first we assumed that OU was #2. Where OU was first, we assumed that Florida was #2 always. Our Coaches: #1 1478 Florida (30) #2 1464 Oklahoma (15) #3 1450 Texas (16) Now, under this framework, without even adjusting our Harris Poll we get (with the other above projections for the computers): .9733 Oklahoma .9503 Texas .9497 Florida In order for Florida to pass Texas under this scenario they're going to move to number four in either the Sagarin poll (passing Alabama and Utah) or the Massey ratings (passing Alabama and Utah) or move up to number four in the Wolfe poll (passing Alabama, Utah and Boise State). I'm not sure I'd bet on them making the jump in any of the polls. I'm not so sure we're overestimating Florida getting half the first place votes from the coaches. If Texas gets only 15 of the first place they're still ahead by .0001. Now let's try to improve our guess on the Harris poll. Right now we're assuming that Florida gets all first place votes and Texas gets all of the second place votes. Let's not make that assumption. Right now Florida has a sizable lead on Texas, who has a minuscule lead over Oklahoma. I think we can make the same relative estimates about Florida getting half the first place votes and the other half splitting between OU and Texas. If that were to happen, we'd get the same poll results for the Harris and Coaches. I think it's the most likely outcome. Doing this we get: .9733 Oklahoma .9472 Texas .9395 Florida In order for Florida to pass Texas, they're going to have to move into fourth place in either the Sagarin, Wolfe or Massey polls and move into third in one of the other two. As we've seen that's not a very likely outcome - at all. Sorry guys, Florida's not jumping Texas if Texas can stay ahead of Oklahoma in half the polls. Maybe I'm making too large of an assumption on the number of first place votes (1/4th) that Texas will get. I don't think I am. If anything I am over-representing the amount of first place votes that Florida will get (probably not in the Harris but probably so in the Coaches poll). Florida's going to need style points against Alabama. Simply beating them won't be enough. I'm going to go ahead of 'project' these components: Harris Poll and Coaches Poll 0.969180328 Florida 0.960000000 Oklahoma 0.950819672 Texas AH RB CM KM JS PW School 23 24 23 21 21 20 Florida 25 25 25 25 25 25 Oklahoma 22 23 24 23 24 24 Texas That gives me the Meph BCS Projections (under the assumption Florida beats 'Bama and OU beats Mizzou) .9733 Oklahoma .9472 Texas .9395 Florida Keep in mind, there's a 45% chance Missouri or Alabama win. If that happens then in all the scenarios the BCS title game projection is trivial. It's SEC Winner vs OU or Texas (if OU loses) Wow, I ranted more than I thought I did. Good read guys though. Don't be daunted

As always, those are brought to you by http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt08.htm I am not saying they're right or not.

It's tough to say since we don't know the breakdown of the votes by the coaches. Let's assume that Florida is #1 and Texas is #2 in the polls on everyone's ballot. This isn't going to happen, obviously, but the difference between the two is going to be similar. Let's also make the further assumption that Oklahoma is #2 on everyone's ballot and a win over Missouri won't cause Oklahoma to get jumped by Texas in a computer, which is a fair hypothesis. Obviously Oklahoma and Texas can't both be number two on every ballot, but it's a good estimate of what the average is going to be, they're going to be tied, or so. If Texas is #2 on every computer and Oklahoma is #1 on every computer, then Florida will need a computer average of .8800 or higher to catch Texas. A .8800 computer average corresponds to being on, on average, ranked #4 in the computers. Right now they're ranked, on average, fifth in the computers, behind Alabama and Utah as well as Texas and Oklahoma. If we make the further assumption that Florida won't finish behind Alabama in the computers with a win over them, then yes it looks like Florida will barely catch Texas. Let's go ahead and make some projections of the BCS computers. We can make a relatively accurate estimate of the impact of a Florida win over Alabama by looking at how much each individual computer acted after the Oklahoma win over Texas Tech (and also the Texas win over Oklahoma). So first let's look at Anderson and Hester computer rankings. Right now the A&H rankings are Alabama, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Florida in that order. .811 Alabama .805 Utah .800 Texas .798 Oklahoma .787 Texas Tech .784 Florida Going into the Tech and Oklahoma game, their respective rankings were .815 and .768, respectively. After the game they went to .785 and .786, respectively. Going into the Texas and Oklahoma game the rankings were .802 and .771 respectively. Afterwards .821 and .713. Nothing about the A&H methodology is published, but it seems to take points off of one team and add them to the other if the team wins to a certain extent. We can also look at Tech's win over Texas. Going into the game .834 for Texas and .749 for Texas Tech. .802 and .813 afterwards. Texas Tech gained .060 for their efforts. Texas gained .019 and Oklahoma gained .027. If we take the minimum of that we get .019 increase for Florida with a win over Alabama. However, Texas was actually ranked higher than Oklahoma by a significant margin. Florida gained .029 for winning against Georgia when Georgia was ranked three spots higher than them. So I think a .019 increase for Florida is a low estimate, but we'll use that one. Let's also take a loss of the same for Alabama. Note that Texas Tech lost 30 and Oklahoma lost 58, so I think again, this is a relatively low estimate. Let's also have Oklahoma gain .019 for a win over Missouri. Missouri is ranked #13 right now. This might be a relatively high estimate, but a gain of .07 is all that's needed for them to surpass the kids ahead of them and that kind of increase seems to be probable. With these changes in mind (everyone else static) we get: .8170 Oklahoma .8050 Utah .8030 Florida .8000 Texas .7920 Alabama .7870 Texas Tech Again, this is a low estimate, Florida may jump Utah as well. It's going to be close to whether or not they are able to jump Texas one would have to think. Now let's look at Richard Billingsley joke of a system. We know a few things about the system. We know if you don't play you don't gain any points. We know if you win you gain points. If you lose you lose points. We also know if you beat an opponent you're going to be ranked ahead of them the next week no matter what. Right now we have: 325.926 Alabama 322.918 Oklahoma 314.792 Florida 313.293 Texas Thus, we know, no matter what a win guarantees Florida to be ranked #1 or #2 in the system next week. We also know that Texas can be ranked no higher than third. The question is whether or not a loss by Alabama to Florida will drop them below Texas or not. Texas lost 22 points and Texas Tech gained 38 points. Texas was then #1 and Tech was then #13. Florida gained 10 points and Georgia lost 8 points. Georgia and Florida were ranked #6 and #7 respectively. Texas Tech lost 9 points and Oklahoma gained 12 points. They were ranked #2 and #6 respectively. Texas gained 16 points and Oklahoma lost 3 points. Texas was #5 and Oklahoma was #1. Tech was terrible going into that game, so that's why we had such drastic changes thanks to a last second catch (stupid system). We can safely assume then that Oklahoma's win over now #18 Missouri won't gain them 8 less points than Florida's win over #1 Alabama. We can also make a fair assumption that Alabama won't lose more than 10 points with a loss to Florida. That gives us this relativish ranking. The lack of an extra game here really, really hurts Texas. 1. Oklahoma 2. Florida 3. Alabama 4. Texas Now let's look at the Colley Rankings. We can just use the play God feature to estimate what happens. So entering Florida beats Alabama and Oklahoma beats Missouri: Oklahoma moves to #1, Texas drops to #2 and Florida moves from #4 to #3. If those three polls move that way and our assumptions hold true about the voters and the other three computer polls stay the same, then our BCS standings are: .9733 Oklahoma .9533 Florida .9533 Texas A dead tie. Florida is ranked 6th, 6th and 7th in the other three polls. They'll need to gain at least at least one spot in either the Massey or Sagarin ratings with their win. That's most likely in the Massey Rankings where Alabama is just one spot ahead of them. There's a sizable difference between them and #5 Utah in Sagarin. I wouldn't say it's certain that a win over Alabama moves them ahead of Utah. Alabama will need to drop below Utah and still get jumped by Florida for them to gain a spot there. Florida is 7th in Peter Wolfe's rankings. Right now this poll is the one getting dropped for Florida, so if anything is to be gained by improving here, they're going to need to jump both #6 Boise State and #5 Utah. They will probably jump Boise State, they're relatively close. They're quite a ways behind Utah. In fact the difference between #7 Florida and #5 Utah is the same as the difference between #7 Florida and #13 Oklahoma State. There really isn't a lot of room for Florida's computer scores to grow in the other three rankings, although we have an accurate gauge on them in the first three. Let's first assume that Florida makes the easy jumps in the three rankings. Let's say they gain one spot in each of them. Under our original assumptions of the human polls we have Florida jumping to #2 in the BCS. But how fair are our Harris Polls and Coaches polls when it comes to assuming Florida is #1 in the human polls and Texas averages #2. It's probably different. Florida is just below Texas in the Coaches poll and they're barely behind Oklahoma. What happens if Alabama drops. Does Florida gain all the unspoken for 58 first place votes? Probably not. Will they gain half of them? Probably. Who gains the rest of them? Considering how Texas is only 1 point behind Oklahoma, despite Oklahoma receiving two first place votes and Texas none I think it's a relatively fair assumption to make that Oklahoma and Texas split them. Then the question is, if you're a voter who sticks to your guns and has Texas ranked ahead of Oklahoma, do you have Florida ranked ahead of Oklahoma or not? That's going to be the difference. If these voters vote Texas ahead of Oklahoma only because of the head to head matchup, then it is VERY likely that on almost all the ballots that have Texas #1 will have Florida #3 and Oklahoma #2. If you have Oklahoma #1, then it's a fair assessment that you also have Florida #2 thanks to the big win over Alabama. If you have Florida #1, then what? Let's assume that again, half the voters think Oklahoma is higher and half the voters thank Texas is higher. Using these crude assumptions we can project the coaches polls and the total of number of votes compiled by each team. There are 61 voters in the coaches poll. Meyer and Brown have votes, Stoops does not. So let's calculate their votes as the deciding ties. Ie, So we assumed that half of them have Florida #1, so 30 #1 votes for Florida. Half of these have Texas #2 and half have Oklahoma #2. Now let's say of the other 31 votes, we have 15 of them voting OU first and 16 of them voting UT first. Where UT is first we assumed that OU was #2. Where OU was first, we assumed that Florida was #2 always. Our Coaches: #1 1478 Florida (30) #2 1464 Oklahoma (15) #3 1450 Texas (16) Now, under this framework, without even adjusting our Harris Poll we get (with the other above projections for the computers): .9733 Oklahoma .9503 Texas .9497 Florida In order for Florida to pass Texas under this scenario they're going to move to number four in either the Sagarin poll (passing Alabama and Utah) or the Massey ratings (passing Alabama and Utah) or move up to number four in the Wolfe poll (passing Alabama, Utah and Boise State). I'm not sure I'd bet on them making the jump in any of the polls. I'm not so sure we're overestimating Florida getting half the first place votes from the coaches. If Texas gets only 15 of the first place they're still ahead by .0001. Now let's try to improve our guess on the Harris poll. Right now we're assuming that Florida gets all first place votes and Texas gets all of the second place votes. Let's not make that assumption. Right now Florida has a sizable lead on Texas, who has a minuscule lead over Oklahoma. I think we can make the same relative estimates about Florida getting half the first place votes and the other half splitting between OU and Texas. If that were to happen, we'd get the same poll results for the Harris and Coaches. I think it's the most likely outcome. Doing this we get: .9733 Oklahoma .9472 Texas .9395 Florida In order for Florida to pass Texas, they're going to have to move into fourth place in either the Sagarin, Wolfe or Massey polls and move into third in one of the other two. As we've seen that's not a very likely outcome - at all. Sorry guys, Florida's not jumping Texas if Texas can stay ahead of Oklahoma in half the polls. Maybe I'm making too large of an assumption on the number of first place votes (1/4th) that Texas will get. I don't think I am. If anything I am over-representing the amount of first place votes that Florida will get (probably not in the Harris but probably so in the Coaches poll). Florida's going to need style points against Alabama. Simply beating them won't be enough. I'm going to go ahead of 'project' these components: Harris Poll and Coaches Poll 0.969180328 Florida 0.960000000 Oklahoma 0.950819672 Texas AH RB CM KM JS PW School 23 24 23 21 21 20 Florida 25 25 25 25 25 25 Oklahoma 22 23 24 23 24 24 Texas That gives me the Meph BCS Projections (under the assumption Florida beats 'Bama and OU beats Mizzou) .9733 Oklahoma .9472 Texas .9395 Florida Keep in mind, there's a 45% chance Missouri or Alabama win. If that happens then in all the scenarios the BCS title game projection is trivial. It's SEC Winner vs OU or Texas (if OU loses)

MAC Championship Game: 79.5% #12 Ball State over Buffalo Ball State favored by 12 points Conference USA Championship Game: 71.6% Tulsa over East Carolina Tulsa favored by 8 points ACC Championship Game: 63.0% #18 Boston College over Virginia Tech Boston College favored by 4 points Big XII Championship Game: 70.4% #4 Oklahoma over #19 Missouri Oklahoma favored by 7 points SEC Championship Game: 77.9% #2 Florida over #1 Alabama Florida favored by 11 points

I'd vote for Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson, Alan Trammell, and Rock Raines. Bert Blyleven too probably

It probably is. At the very least it's relatively equivalent.

I don't see any reason to do this.