Week 12 Top 25 and CFP Notes 2023

Ratings and College Football Playoff Response/Prediction

The first four teams are all undefeated now, just in time to lose at least one undefeated team this weekend.  It happens to be the same top four as the CFP top 25.  I can argue until I’m blue in the face about Oregon, but I guess people like flashy offenses and uniforms (not to mention years of a hype and a nationwide ad campaign for the quarterback) more than they like a good strength of schedule.  It seems like they’re setting up the possibility of Oregon going to the Playoff in the event of revenge wins over Oregon St. (for last year) and Washington (for both last year and earlier this season).

Putting aside the CFP ramifications, I think Oregon might have some motivation to win this next game.

I don’t think Washington, Georgia, or Florida St. (another undefeated not in the top four) have much chance of a loss this coming weekend, but losses by none of them (except maybe Georgia) would be much stranger than the time 4-7 Pitt beat 10-1 West Virginia in 2007 to help LSU make the championship game. 

Florida and Washington St. have five wins apiece and are playing for bowl eligibility as well as in-state bragging rights, while Georgia Tech is already bowl-eligible.  A late pick-six is likely the only reason Washington beat Arizona St., who is only 3-8.  Despite one fewer win, Florida is a better team than Boston College, whom Florida St. only beat by 2.  Georgia hasn’t really come close to a loss though.

Alabama and Florida St. both lost ground compared to higher teams as a result of playing FCS opponents.  Alabama probably lost a bit less since the SEC gained strength with out-of-conference wins and because Chattanooga is an FCS playoff team.

I suspect that unless Washington and Georgia remain undefeated, removing Oregon and Alabama from the running in the process, the plan is that Florida St. will be excluded from the Playoff.  I don’t know if this was the plan before their QB Jordan Travis was hurt or not.

I don’t think the CFP standings after Alabama matter too much for the national championship, but LSU fans (ironically) should cheer for Missouri and Ole Miss to lose for a better chance at a selection committee (or NY6) bowl or at the CapitalOne Bowl.  It’s ironic because normally it would be a good thing if no one outside of the top 12 beat you and you had a top-10 win, but that’s not how the logic of bowl placement works.

It would be more logical for LSU fans to cheer for Alabama to beat Georgia (whom LSU did not play, if you haven’t noticed) in the SEC Championship game because that would retain the possibility of there being two SEC playoff teams.  This might not be the year for that to happen though given the possibility of four undefeated teams going into championship weekend.  There are also a couple of other teams (I mentioned Oregon; there is also Texas) who could be good one-loss candidates as conference champions.  I think one-loss Texas will go ahead of one-loss Alabama even if they shouldn’t.

Anyway, the rest of this is just about my ratings, not the CFP rankings or what I think they will do.

The Big Ten is now much closer to the Pac-12, which is now #3, as they can look forward to taking the Pac-12’s two best teams (as well as UCLA and USC, which are more in the middle).  They would still be behind the SEC, which will add the Big XII’s two best teams.

I mentioned Arizona St. earlier.  Oregon’s win over the Sun Devils allowed them to get past Ole Miss, who beat an inferior UL-Monroe squad.  Other relatively small differences in quality of opponents accounted for the movement in the rest of the top 20, apart from James Madison, who lost to Appalachian St.  Oregon St. fell a smaller number of spots for losing to Washington, which was a close game as expected.

I had a little bit of trouble figuring out the last two.  I strongly considered Oklahoma St. and Clemson, but they each had three losses that were all big negatives.  Arizona had only one bad loss and one that was mediocre.  Oregon St. and North Carolina St. only had one mediocre-to-bad loss apiece.  Oklahoma St. had the best list of wins, but the others had comparable good wins.  I didn’t hold the fourth loss (to Florida St.) against Clemson, but there weren’t really strong wins to counterbalance the other losses.

It might seem a little weird that North Carolina still has honorable mention status, but the four teams directly below them (Kansas, Utah, Tennessee, and USC) all lost also. Another interesting one is UNLV, whom I have never ranked in the top 25.

My Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Washington	2
3	Georgia	5
4	Michigan	4
5	Texas	6
6	Alabama	7
7	Florida St.	3
8	Penn St.	8
9	Oregon	10
10	Ole Miss	9
11	Oklahoma	13
12	Missouri	12
13	Louisville	15
14	Liberty	16
15	Iowa	14
16	Kansas St.	17
17	LSU	18
18	James Madison	11
19	Notre Dame	23
20	Toledo	21
21	Troy	20
22	Tulane	22
23	Oregon St.	19
24	N Carolina St.	—
25	Arizona	—

Out of Top 25: (24) Utah, (25) Memphis

Honorable mention: Oklahoma St., UNLV, Clemson, Memphis, North Carolina

Week 11 Top 25 2023

I was supposed to have time to do this on Wednesday but ended up having an unusually long (and rainy) work day instead, so I’m writing this on Thursday night (Friday morning for many of you).

Best-laid plans of mice and A&M boosters, I suppose.

Recap of LSU/Florida and Rivalry

It wasn’t because there was nothing to write about. I’m happy to make fun of Texas A&M and Florida, who lost a fifth straight to LSU. No one else has a losing streak to LSU that goes back to the national championship season (unless Vanderbilt’s streak of two counts). Although the LSU/Florida series dates back to 1937 and has been played annually since 1971, this was the first time LSU won five straight. Florida had once won nine straight from 1988 to 1996, but LSU now has its first lead in the series since then. If LSU doesn’t win another game this season, I’ll still feel some measure of success from that fact.

While it is unlikely that the LSU/Florida series will continue annually beyond that, the Tigers will at least make the return trip to Gainesville next year. I will endeavor to update the key Rivalry Series in the next week or so.

Not to be bitter about it, but the damage is done anyway. Having to play Florida every year, which included going to the Swamp every even year (apart from 2016), at least more often than not placed the Tigers at a disadvantage in the SEC West as far back as 1996. I guess it did in years before that too, but LSU was so bad it didn’t really matter. LSU had also played Auburn, which was strong for roughly the same time period, on the road in even years. The combined influence of those two games prevented LSU from winning the West in an even year until last season. The other SEC Championship appearances had been 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2019. I acknowledge a certain crimson opponent played a role as well, but LSU’s unique struggles with them really only started in the 2012 calendar year.

LSU had to play Auburn every year by virtue of being in the West (that series will not be played next year), but had the Florida series not been made permanent, playing a different SEC East opponent could have made the difference in 1996 (when LSU would been one game better rather than losing a tie-breaker with Alabama) and 2006 (when LSU would have won a tie-breaker with Arkansas, but the additional loss made that irrelevant).

Given that the game was typically in early October though, it put the Tigers behind in 8-ball in several additional seasons. For example, LSU would have known going into the Arkansas game in 2000 that a win would have sent them to Atlanta (ironically, they went to Atlanta anyway to play in the Peach Bowl). Florida dealt LSU its first loss in 2008, and QB Jarrett Lee was never the same again. If it weren’t for his late-season penchant for throwing “pick sixes”, LSU could have easily won all but one other SEC game. LSU also nearly lost to Troy later in that season (seems like that would have taught the AD a lesson, but I digress). I doubt it affected the SEC championship games, but Florida also dealt LSU its first losses in 2012 and 2018, respectively.

Anyway, this was the largest win by either team since LSU’s 41-11 win in 2011. I’ll give the Gators credit for keeping it close for a while though. It didn’t help LSU that, as a result of a poorly-fielded kickoff, the Gators were able to score twice in just a couple of minutes to take a 28-24 lead in the third quarter. Jayden Daniels is a little bit more reliable for generating points than hoping for points off of turnovers and other miscues though, so the Tigers outscored the Gators 28-7 the rest of the way.

Jayden Daniels rushes against Florida on Saturday in Baton Rouge. He ran so well, I can’t even be certain which play this was; but I believe it was the 85-yard touchdown that was along the left side of the field. Daniels became the first person to pass for 200 yards and run for 200 yards in an SEC game at some point in the third quarter, but he finished with over 350 passing yards, which had never been done along with that many rushing yards. Johnny Manziel had thrown for 200 and rushed for 200 once; but that was in a bowl game, so we really hadn’t seen anything like this before.

The LSU defense and coordinator Matt House continue to get a lot of flak, but keeping Alabama within one possession at least until the fourth quarter (if not the entire rest of the game) and keeping Florida from getting a lead the whole game would have been something to be proud of. It’s just not helpful if you put them on the field with their backs close to the end zone seconds after the previous drive ends.

Response to College Football Playoff Top 25

I’ll start by saying there is nothing really new in terms of grievances with the College Football Playoff’s top 25. Oregon’s being ahead of Alabama and Texas continues to make no sense if you care about schedule strength.

At least Oregon St. is no longer the top 2-loss team, having been passed by Missouri. I don’t expect the Beavers will stay the one of the top 2-loss teams indefinitely anyway given games against Washington and Oregon coming up. If they win both, I’ll be happy for them to be the top 2-loss team though. More on them below.

I’d also like them to care more about the schedules of teams like Arizona and North Carolina, but those are far enough down that I’m not sure they really matter. The Arizona/Arizona St. game might actually be game though. It looked like it was going to be a pillow fight earlier in the year.

Comments about My Ratings

I had a bit of time to smooth out the rough edges this weekend and I still liked the results to add the original ratings back in as I described last week.  It also makes sense for some of the teams lower in the ratings because there is a number I have to adjust to factor in the bad teams so one bad loss doesn’t swallow multiple wins.  I can re-add the original ratings without that adjustment though, which I think is the fairer approach.

I was also able to do conference ratings and strength of schedule.  I will wait another week to see if the strength of schedule is giving teams enough credit in the ratings.  That might also be a further adjustment to the formula.  The same basic numbers and computations are being used regardless, it’s just been a continuing balancing act over years between giving credit for wins and giving credit for quality of competition.

It’s amazing that LSU, Ole Miss, and Penn St. have only seven combined losses and are still in the top 7 of the strength of schedule.  Duke is the only other team in the top 12 with a winning record.  Others in the top 20 with winning records are Utah, Kansas St., Kansas, Notre Dame, Missouri, and USC.  I did opt not to put Kansas in the top 25 below due to some of the losses they have though.

I think it’s fair that even though Michigan and Georgia still don’t have great schedules that this recognizes their schedules are now comparable enough that they should be ranked ahead of teams with losses like Texas and Alabama. I think barring any major upsets (based on rank, not necessarily based on betting line), most people would agree that the Top 4 should be Big Ten champion, SEC champion, undefeated Florida St., and undefeated Washington. If Alabama were to lose the SEC championship, the next beneficiary (for now) of a potential upset should be Texas if they win out. This recognizes that.

The conference ratings weren’t very surprising.  The SEC and Big Ten are neck and neck, but I think the SEC will pull away slightly next week given the out-of-conference games.  There are non-conference games the week after that, but I don’t like Kentucky’s, Florida’s, or South Carolina’s chances against ACC opponents (I’m not too worried about Georgia), so that might bring the SEC closer to the Big Ten again.

The SEC would still be ahead after adding the new programs to the Big Ten and the SEC.  That’s not really proof of too much about next season anyway given that Washington, Oklahoma, etc., can’t get as many good wins without hurting someone else in their respective future conferences next season.  It might mean that the Big Ten will be harder to beat in future seasons; but on the other hand, maybe Oregon and Washington fall back to the more mediocre status they occupied not too long ago.

Washington is very close to getting the top spot in the computer ratings.  I definitely think the Huskies will have that spot with a win, but they might lose it the week after (Washington St. wouldn’t count for nearly as much as Michigan would) and reclaim it the week after that (Oregon would count for a lot more than Iowa would). I expect to keep Ohio St. #1 here however for the next couple of weeks absent a loss or something really concerning. I’ll be very interested in how the ratings shape up after the conference championships though.

The initial line I saw had Washington barely favored over Oregon St., and then I saw one in which the Beavers were favored.  I definitely think that’s the big game this weekend. As I’ve mentioned, the Huskies have a couple of very narrow wins at home, so playing a team that’s been playing well on the road might be a challenge.  They might gain more support in the polls and the CFP with the win also, but those are much more stubborn than my ratings are.

Another Heisman candidate now, Michael Penix, Jr., throws under pressure against Oregon St. in Seattle last November. The Huskies won at the last second, 24-21, so it makes sense that the Beavers are given a very good chance to win at home this time despite the Huskies’ undefeated record.

I feel bad for Oregon St. that they lost a close game in Pullman when Wazzu was playing well, but the Cougars have gone down like the Hindenburg since then.

Three of the Honorable Mentions got promoted last week, so keep an eye on those. This week, all but one is in a Power Five conference, so that’s a noticeable change. That one other team is Coastal Carolina, the only one that hasn’t been ranked at some point this season.

My Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Washington	3
3	Florida St.	2
4	Michigan	6
5	Georgia	7
6	Texas	4
7	Alabama	5
8	Penn St.	9
9	Ole Miss	8
10	Oregon	11
11	James Madison	10
12	Missouri	16
13	Oklahoma	13
14	Iowa	19
15	Louisville	14
16	Liberty	17
17	Kansas St.	24
18	LSU	25
19	Oregon St.	21
20	Troy	20
21	Toledo	—
22	Tulane	—
23	Notre Dame	23
24	Utah	18
25	Memphis	—

Out of Top 25: (12) Kansas, (15) Oklahoma St., (22) Tennessee

Honorable mention: Kansas, Oklahoma St., Coastal Carolina, North Carolina, Southern CA

Week 6 Top 25 and LSU Reaction

I didn’t make a prediction as to the outcome of the LSU-Tennessee game.  While I thought LSU would be a lot better in the passing game than they were against Auburn and that Tennessee was not unstoppable, I knew there were some things that LSU could do wrong in this game that could make them look really bad on the scoreboard.  If you had told me the final score, I would have predicted that LSU would have had poor special teams play (likely including a turnover) early and got behind.  I would have further predicted that once they got behind, LSU would not be able to establish a running game.  Tennessee did have a better rushing offense than I thought they would even if they got ahead (263 is beyond what I thought the upper limit would have been, in other words); but given how the game started, I’m really not surprised by the end result.  I didn’t anticipate Tennessee having so many more sacks and tackles for loss than LSU did, but part of the reason was that LSU was forced to throw so much and Tennessee was not.

Tennessee RB Jabari Small runs through an attempted arm tackle by LSU CB Jarrick Bernard-Converse in Baton Rouge on Saturday. Small ran for 127 yards and two touchdowns in Tennessee’s first win over the Tigers since 2005.

I was not at all surprised that Jayden Daniels threw for 300 yards with a 71% completion percentage and that Hendon Hooker was held to 239 yards and a 63% completion percentage.  Hooker did throw for more yards per attempt, but he wasn’t this vastly superior quarterback whom LSU wasn’t going to be able to stop as many claimed.  He was good enough that when they took over at the LSU 25 he could put points on the board though.  And Daniels wasn’t so good that he was able to throw long touchdown passes to keep the game close.  So nothing that I thought about Tennessee’s passing offense versus LSU’s passing defense or LSU’s passing offense versus Tennessee’s passing defense was disproven.  I’m actually glad that Daniels took enough chances to throw an interception.  Maybe next time he’ll take more chances while the game is still within reach.

This is kind of a humbling moment; but as I discussed previously, Saban’s first SEC game was a 34-17 loss to Auburn.  On October 7, 2020, he suffered his second SEC loss, 41-9 to Florida.  In Ed Orgeron’s first full year, he lost his first SEC game 37-7 to Mississippi St.  The Tigers had a 3-game conference winning streak after that (starting with Florida two weeks later) but not before losing to Troy.  I know Orgeron isn’t the model to follow beyond that, but it was still a better progression from Year One to Year Two to Year Three than anyone could have realistically expected.

In 2005, Les Miles lost his first SEC game at home to Tennessee.  Granted, that loss took place in overtime rather than being some ugly score like the above; but Tennessee finished 5-6 that year, while LSU won 11 games.  If LSU had under-performed and Tennessee had over-performed that much on Saturday, the final score would have been even worse.

Even after Saban won a national championship at LSU, he lost a game to Georgia, 45-16, in 2004.  Obviously such a score against anyone would be disappointing in a head coach’s fourth season, but I had a feeling such a loss was coming at some point this season.  I hope that like in the Orgeron tenure, we can make up for the disappointment from the week before by taking it out against Florida.

Here are the obligatory “rivalry” links for Tennessee and Florida. Hopefully LSU continues to rally around the Florida game to overcome past disappointments as they did in the Orgeron era (after his interim stint, during which LSU lost on a goal-line stand, Orgeron was 4-1 against the Gators). LSU has a chance of winning 4 in a row against Florida for only the second time ever and also of winning 5 of 6 against Florida for only the fourth time ever. Last year, LSU took the lead in the series in Baton Rouge for the first time in 30 years; but Florida still leads by a few games at home (where the game will be played on Saturday).

Top 25 and Comments

I was more limited in my subjective interventions into the top 25.  I based most of my ratings on last week, which was half computer formula anyway.

There were a few reasons I couldn’t strictly follow the computers.  For one, Clemson went into the #1 spot.  The Tigers haven’t played been very convincing in their wins.  While the average opponent might be better, I think Alabama’s top three opponents of Texas, Arkansas, and Texas A&M are probably a tougher group (though none are in the top 25 at the moment) than Clemson’s top three of Wake Forest, North Carolina St., and Georgia Tech.  The top four teams are very close together though, so the order of my subjective ratings makes a big difference.  #1 and #4 are closer to one another than #4 is to #5.

Based on the current rankings, the game of the year so far was Clemson’s double-overtime win over Wake Forest. In the picture above, Clemson QB DJ Uiagalelei drives forward through the Demon Decon defense. He accounted for 371 passing yards and 52 rushing yards in the game in Winston=Salem, N.C., on September 25.

I certainly didn’t want to allow a team that lost to LSU in the top 10, and I didn’t want teams that lost to Marshall or Southern Mississippi to be in the top 25.  It’s bad enough that I am allowing a team who lost to Tulane in.

Given how uninspiring the last handful of teams in the top 25 are, it wasn’t really surprising that James Madison and Coastal Carolina made it into the top 20 by virtue of being undefeated.  They eventually play one another and each has a game against an ACC opponent, so don’t assume they’re just going to go up the rankings every week without having to prove anything.  My ratings don’t really work that way anyway, but in the short term they can maintain their position or gain slightly based on losses by other teams who will be tested more frequently.

I got an interesting comment last week that the Big Ten wasn’t that good (and that therefore I shouldn’t have had Ohio St. #2). The Big Ten didn’t play Notre Dame, for instance, Ohio St. did. I have three SEC teams in the top 5 versus one Big Ten team. Even with how much the conference schedule dominates the season as a whole these days, it doesn’t do it as much early in the season. Anyway, even though I thought Michigan St. was good three or four weeks ago, beating them didn’t keep the Buckeyes from slipping this week. There are only two potential top 10 opponents (before the championship game) on Ohio St.’s schedule and maybe one other who may be ranked when the Buckeyes play them, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ohio St. fall farther behind the top three teams as the season goes on. Michigan and Penn St. are in a similar boat, but they were farther behind to begin with due to not having played a Notre Dame.

I believe James Madison is the 93rd team I have ranked since I started doing this in 1995.

Todd Centelo threw for 394 yards and four touchdown against Arkansas St. on Saturday in Jonesboro, Ark.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Alabama	1
2	Georgia	3
3	Clemson	4
4	Ohio St.	2
5	Ole Miss	5
6	Michigan	6
7	Tennessee	15
8	Texas Christian	14
9	USC	13
10	Penn St.	11
11	Wake Forest	7
12	Oregon	9
13	UCLA	24
14	N. Carolina St.	8
15	Mississippi St.	17
16	Kansas	10
17	Syracuse	25
18	Oklahoma St.	18
19	James Madison	—
20	Coastal Carolina	—
21	Illinois	—
22	Kansas St.	—
23	Kentucky	12
24	Florida St.	16
25	Cincinnati	20
—	Washington	19
—	LSU	21
—	B. Young	22
—	Maryland	23

Full Computer Ratings

2022 Week 1 Top 25

I’ve had some computer problems that have prevented me from writing more and posting blogs when people are most likely to read them.  I have switched browsers for blog-posting; but if that doesn’t work, I may have to go to a new site.  If that happens, I will do my best to post a link here.  You can also follow me on Facebook for updates.  I also have a twitter account @TheBayouBlogger.

I will elaborate further later in the week, but I just wanted to say a few things about the LSU game and some of the reactions.

I HATE how the media is always in competition to say the most dramatic outlandish things after a single game.  There is no accountability for being wrong, they just get more clicks by being dramatic.  If it were up to the media alarmists, Ed Orgeron wouldn’t have made it past the Troy game.  Les Miles wouldn’t have lasted past the loss to Tennessee in 2005. (I don’t remember it being this bad in 2000, but I’ll get to that.)  Oh all problems at LSU aren’t fixed, I guess Brian Kelly stole 10 million dollars!  He should never show his face in public again after a one-point loss to a Power 5 opponent at a neutral site (FSU fans were there in droves, don’t give me that)! He’s blaming everyone but himself when he cited coaching as an issue four times in an 11-minute press conference!  He made a sarcastic comment about how maybe they could have played worse at halftime!

Then every November and December, these same people decry how fast coaches get fired after their fan bases are bombarded with dire negativity after every loss.  Some of them (Colin Cowherd, for instance) even attacked LSU in 2019 (when the Tigers had NO losses all year), saying they weren’t up to snuff because they allowed too many points and yards to Vanderbilt and Ole Miss in garbage time.

Top 25

I don’t like to shake things up too much after one game. Two months from now, I won’t really care about margin of victory; but I think a couple of these teams showed more problems than teams like Notre Dame and Cincinnati showed in losses. All four Division I teams Brian Kelly has coached lost this week.

I think replacing Utah with Florida was obvious, but the game certainly could have gone the other way. Even Oregon might well be a top-25 team. In 2006, Arkansas lost by even more to USC (the defending national runner-up); and the Razorbacks were national-title contenders until late November.

I listed six teams that I thought were good candidates for the last spot in preseason, but Maryland was the only one that played up to expectations. Obviously, the Terps may not be a top-25 team, but there was no obvious candidate to move ahead of them. One team I considered was Penn St., who had a good win at Purdue. Another was Indiana, who beat Illinois after the Illini easily beat Wyoming in “Week 0”, so right now there are seven Big Ten teams in my top 30. Not quite as many as the SEC, but close.

I only have the Bulldogs #3, but they certainly put up the most impressive score of the weekend. Pictured is Kenny McIntosh finding the corner of the end zone for a rushing touchdown during the first half against the Oregon Ducks in Atlanta on Saturday.

Some have said Georgia should be #2, but I think Notre Dame is significantly better than Oregon at the moment. I certainly understand if people who believed Oregon was a top-10 team differ with that assessment.

I think most of the changes are obvious if you just look at the results of a given team. The only one who slipped a little who might not be obvious based on the final score is Kentucky, who won 37-13 over Miami U.; but they only led 13-10 at halftime, and they only out-gained the RedHawks by 53 yards on offense.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Alabama	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Georgia	5
4	Clemson	3
5	Michigan St.	6
6	Michigan	8
7	Ole Miss	9
8	Arkansas	11
9	Oklahoma St.	12
10	Oklahoma	13
11	Baylor	14
12	Texas A&M	15
13	Cincinnati	4
14	Notre Dame	7
15	Iowa	10
16	Mississippi St.	19
17	B. Young	17
18	TX Christian	18
19	N. Carolina St.	16
20	Kentucky	18
21	U. Miami	21
22	Wake Forest	22
23	Pittsburgh	23
24	Florida	—
25	Maryland	—
—	Utah	24
—	Oregon	25

i thought it was easier to just include the teams that fell out on the same chart.

Week 3 Top 25 and Conference Report

Week 3 Conference Report

The only decent interconference records are held by the Big XII (23-4 including 11 FCS wins), Big Ten (23-7, including 6 FCS wins), and SEC (30-6, including 8 FCS wins).  You can only tell a limited amount from the games between those conferences, but I think Arkansas’ win over Texas is significant.  Arkansas is usually one of the worst teams in the West, and Texas is usually one of the best teams in the Big XII.  To my shame as an LSU fan, I think the Tigers have the SEC’s worst loss, but the good thing is the Pac-12 barely has a winning overall record, so they’re not close to being considered.  UCLA is an improving program, but they shouldn’t beat a team with LSU’s recent success in the SEC.

It is bad that Vanderbilt lost to East Tennessee St., but it’s not that unexpected for the worst of any conference to lose to an FCS opponent.  This year, FCS teams have won 10% of the time against FBS opponents.  Also, the Commodores redeemed themselves somewhat against Colorado St.  On the other hand, the Big Ten and Big XII have not suffered such losses yet.

The best win by the Big XII was West Virginia over Virginia Tech, but the Mountaineers also suffered a loss to Maryland.  I don’t really fault the Big XII for the other two losses: Iowa St. usually loses to Iowa, which looks to be a very good team this year; and Kansas staying with Coastal Carolina as long as the Jayhawks did was a positive in my view.

WVU RB Leddie Brown runs for a touchdown on Saturday in Morgantown. He rushed for 161 yards on the day.

The Big Ten has the most losses in this group, although most are excusable.  Nebraska did well to keep Oklahoma close.  Illinois (losses to Virginia and Texas-San Antonio) is just having a bad year.  Northwestern has had recent success though, so their loss to Duke isn’t as well-taken.  I also didn’t expect Indiana to beat Cincinnati.  I do fault Ohio St. a bit for losing to Oregon.

So, for the Big Ten, I just think there is too much blame to go around.  There also isn’t a really great win.  Michigan St. had a good win against U. Miami, but I think the Hurricanes were just overrated.  Penn St. was a good win over Auburn, but Auburn has a new head coach after losing at least 4 games every season since the national-championship loss to Florida St. in the 2013 season.  Auburn is just not what they used to be.  I know Penn St. did poorly in last year’s abbreviated season, but after going 11-2 and winning the Cotton Bowl in the last full season, I still think they’re a program more on the right track.  It just wasn’t a huge deal that they beat Auburn at home.

The SEC’s other losses weren’t anything to write home about.  Pittsburgh was somewhat of an upset against Tennessee, but the Vols are usually in the bottom half of the SEC if not the bottom quarter.  Mississippi St. has an accomplished head coach with an entertaining personality and therefore some potential, but we haven’t seen much from the Bulldogs since Dan Mullen left after the 2017 season.  I’d frown upon losing to most American Conference opponents, but Memphis is a much better program than most in that conference. 

I’m giving to the edge to the SEC at this point based on Georgia’s win over Clemson.  Neither the Big Ten nor the Big XII has that giant-killer sort of game on its resume.  Georgia is one of the top 5 to 10 programs right now, don’t get me wrong; but Clemson is one of the top 2 programs right now.  West Virginia beating Virginia Tech (who was only ranked because they beat a likely overrated UNC team) is no comparison.

Since this is a combined blog when originally I meant it to be two separate blogs, I’m just going to give a list of the other conferences with their records and my ranking.

The American Conference (AAC) might raise some eyebrows based on record alone, but trust me that they have better wins and a stronger schedule as a whole.  I mentioned a couple of them above: Memphis over Mississippi St. and Cincinnati over Indiana.

4. ACC (22-12, including 10 wins over FCS)
5. Pac-12 (16-15, including 7 wins over FCS)
6. MWC (20-13, including 8 wins over FCS)
7. AAC (17-18, including 8 wins over FCS)
8. Sun Belt (17-10, including 8 wins over FCS)
9. Independents (13-6, including 2 wins over FCS)
10. CUSA (16-17, including 12 wins over FCS)
11. MAC (13-22, including 10 wins over FCS)

As for the rankings, the first thing I wanted to note was that I left USC in last week’s rankings by accident.  I should have ranked Central Florida #24, although last week’s performance has taken the Golden Knights back out of the rankings.  I also should have taken UL-Lafayette, which lost to Texas in Week 1, out and left Texas in at #25.

So this should have been the final three teams and the “out of rankings” list last week:

23 Ball St. 23
24 C. Florida —
25 Texas 15
Out of rankngs: (20) UL-Lafayette, (21) S. California, (24) Buffalo

Week 3 Top 25

Moving on to this week, I decided to move Oregon up another chunk of spots.  I know at the end of the season “win chains” (Team A beat Team B who beat Team C and so on) get ridiculous, but it’s one of the few things to go on as we transition from a general sense of a team in preseason to a situation where we can exclusively rely on observations from this season alone.  We also don’t have enough games played where we can disregard a win chain where maybe a 3-win team upset an 8-win team. 

Anyway, the Ducks beat Fresno St. in Week 1.  The closeness of that game was actually part of the reason I didn’t rank the Ducks after Week 1, but now that the Bulldogs beat UCLA, who beat LSU by a couple of possessions, the Ducks have two good wins.  This increase in rank doesn’t have anything to do with Oregon’s win over Stony Brook last week.

Oregon RB CJ Verdell outruns the Buckeye secondary for a 77-yard touchdown in Week 1 in Columbus. This is still a very significant game for both parts of this blog.

Also, Ohio St. (the other meaningful victim of the Ducks) has improved in status in my view.  The Buckeyes are the only team to beat Minnesota, who just beat Colorado by 30.  The Buffs played a close game against Texas A&M the week before.  Anyway, this not only bolstered my decision to move up Oregon, it also led me to move Ohio St. up and Texas A&M down.  I also moved Oklahoma down after another close game against a seemingly mediocre opponent.

Although I didn’t want to punish Liberty or Coastal Carolina for any particular reason, I don’t mind them being the victims of the Buckeyes’ and Ducks’ improvements given Coastal’s close game against Buffalo and Liberty’s close game (in week 2) against Troy.  Those were both road games against respectable Group of 5 programs though.  I also didn’t want to move Oklahoma down that far, so someone had to get the short end of the stick.

Partly because Georgia Tech lost to Northern Illinois, I also moved Clemson down considerably for its struggles against the Ramblin’ Wreck.  In the Tigers’ defense, they did score nearly twice as many points as did the Yellow Jackets; but when that margin is one possession, that’s still a cause for concern.  I don’t see this as a contradiction to giving Georgia credit for beating Clemson, but this is another instance of the natural process of changing the focus to this season.  Clemson needs good wins to compensate for the loss now, and that wasn’t one.  They can’t just point to success over past seasons.

Also, Georgia and Clemson seem to be moving in opposite directions.  I’m encouraged by the Bulldogs’ 96 points in the last two games.  UAB isn’t great, but the Blazers have won 8 of 12 including last season.  Asking Georgia to score any more points than they did would have been wrong, and UAB was held off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter.  South Carolina was not a good team last year, but don’t forget that the last time the Gamecocks went to Athens they won.  So a solid 27-point win was also about as much as you could ask of the Bulldogs.  No need to give South Carolina bulletin-board material for next year.

Again, I hope you’ll forgive my lack of elaboration for the other new and moved teams since I’m trying to keep the size of this combined blog under control.  Apart from Wyoming, all of the new teams are also being recognized by the major pollsters. 

Wyoming beat both Northern Illinois and Ball St.  I mentioned that Northern Illinois beat Georgia Tech, whom Clemson barely beat.  I ranked Ball St. in the preseason, and the Cowboys beat the Cardinals by a larger margin than Penn St. did.  For all I know, Ball St. may not win another game; but I don’t think they changed much between playing Penn St. and playing Wyoming at the very least.  Northern Illinois’s other loss is to Michigan, which I’m also giving credit for starting the season well.  It’s only consistent to also include Wyoming at this point.  I did rank the Cowboys a couple of spots below the Wolverines, but they had a much closer game against the Huskies than Michigan did.  I know they don’t attract the attention of many voters (although someone in the AP put them 25^th); but if Wyoming were named Notre Dame with the same resume they do now, they’d probably be in the top 10.  I definitely don’t think they’ve done anything as bad as losing to Fresno St.  They haven’t beaten LSU either, but we don’t really know what that means yet.  Doubt should be resolved in favor of the undefeated team, at least in September.

Wyoming QB Sean Chambers led the offense to over 200 passing yards Saturday in Laramie. He also added 21 net yards on the ground.

rank team last
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 2
3 Iowa 3
4 Penn St. 4
5 Oregon 13
6 Cincinnati 6
7 Florida 8
8 Ohio St. 14
9 B. Young 11
10 Clemson 5
11 Oklahoma 7
12 Liberty 9
13 Coastal Car. 10
14 Texas A&M 12
15 Notre Dame 15
16 Oklahoma St. 16
17 Arkansas 21
18 Iowa St. 22
19 Texas 25
20 Ole Miss —
21 Fresno St. —
22 Michigan —
23 Michigan St. —
24 Wyoming —
25 UCLA 19

Out of rankings: (17) U. Miami, (18) Indiana, (20) Virginia Tech, (23) Ball St., (24) Central Florida

Last Week

2019 College Football Conference Report

I never thought LSU would win all the major men’s sports for an entire academic year, but I guess there are a lot of things going on I thought I’d never see.

I wasn’t going to write this since it’s based on a season that ended two months ago, but I have the time now, and I thought someone might want to read about the last full season we had.  I am writing this on Friday, a day I originally took off in order to enjoy the first round of the basketball tournament.  My last day of work for a while was Tuesday, so I may write something else in the coming days.

Anyway, I used to do conference reports more often.  I would do them weekly after each of the first four weeks and then again at the end of the regular season with a final one at the end of bowl season.  I thought I had done more than one, but the only one I could find was after Week 2.  One reason I haven’t done them as much is I’ve been rating the conferences statistically on my ratings site. Another reason is time of course.

SEC Regular Season

The SEC did not start particularly strong.  In the first two weeks, Tennessee lost twice (to Georgia St. and to BYU), Missouri lost to Wyoming, Ole Miss lost to Memphis (which turned out to be not so bad), and South Carolina lost to North Carolina.  So after two weeks, I had the Big Ten higher in the conference standings. 

Week 3 didn’t really change anything.  Mississippi St.’s loss to Kansas St. on the road wasn’t really a shock.  Arkansas beating anyone in FBS was a good thing (they beat Colorado St.).  The other wins that week would have been complete surprises had they not been blowouts.

Week 4 was a little bit more encouraging with Georgia’s win over Notre Dame.  Ole Miss and Arkansas lost, but those were not unexpected; both games could have gone either way.

Georgia WR George Pickens jumps for a reception against Notre Dame in Week 4 in Athens.

There was nothing else of note out-of-conference until Week 11, when Appalachian St. beat South Carolina.  In the mean time, Vanderbilt went 1-1 against two weak teams and Arkansas lost out of conference yet again, a blowout at the hands of Western Kentucky.  At that point things were looking even worse for the SEC than at the time of my conference report.

Apart from South Carolina’s expected big loss to Clemson (the actual margin of 35 would have been a modest estimate), the SEC won the other major rivalry-week games (Florida-Florida St., Kentucky-Louisville, and Georgia-Georgia Tech) to at least put itself back in contention for best conference.

SEC Bowls

Almost every year, I talk about how the SEC is often held to unfair standards in bowl games.  For instance, in 2018, LSU was in a four-way tie for third and had to play a team on a 25-game winning streak in the Fiesta Bowl.  The major bowls’ going deep into the SEC leaves relatively mediocre teams in big games like the Citrus and Outback Bowls.  Also, the best SEC team not in the Playoff (Georgia in 2018, almost every Alabama team that hasn’t been competing for a national championship) often has a lackluster performance based on disappointment from elimination from championship contention.

None of those seemed to be problems in this bowl season though.  There were two losses that were both understandable.  Auburn was in a tie for fifth and lost to a team who tied for second in a good conference in a competitive game.  The only other loss was by Mississippi St., who only barely made a bowl game and had some intra-squad drama (to put it mildly) in bowl prep.

Obviously, LSU beat two conference champions.  Florida, which was the runner-up in the East, beat Virginia, which was the runner-up in the entire ACC.  Georgia beat Baylor in a matchup of conference runners-up.  Alabama capitalized on a rare favorable matchup for the SEC when the Tide played fifth-place Michigan of the Big Ten. 

Lamical Perine breaks through the Virginia defense in the 2019 Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Fla. Perine averaged over 10 yards per carry in the game.

In another SEC-Big Ten matchup, Tennessee beat seventh-place Indiana. In record, the Volunteers were tied for fifth in the SEC, but I think when you consider that the Vols played in the (weaker) SEC East while the Hoosiers played in the (stronger) Big Ten East, it was a fair fight. 

Texas A&M beat Oklahoma St. to complete the sweep of the Big XII, and Kentucky beat Virginia Tech to make the SEC 3-1 against the ACC in bowl games.

SEC vs. Big Ten and Pac-12

The fact that the SEC had as many wins over the Big Ten as they had total losses in bowl games was a good start.  The Big Ten lost four of its last five bowl games including both “New Years Six” bowls against major-conference opponents.

The Pac-12, who won one of those NY6 games against the Big Ten, had a good bowl showing, but they have a really weak collection of bowl games and did not have a strong enough showing against other conferences during the season.

So the SEC, despite all the bumps in the road early on, ended up the clear winner.  By my count, the SEC went 17-8 against games against the major conferences (and Notre Dame).  No one else finished more than one game over .500 in such games (and that was the Pac-12, which went 8-7).

Other than the Rose Bowl game I mentioned, the Pac-12 didn’t really beat anyone to write home about.  These are the seven other wins: Florida St., Northwestern, Nebraska, Michigan St., Illinois, Texas Tech, and Ole Miss.

The Big Ten beat USC, Auburn, and Notre Dame and has such excusable losses as Alabama, Oregon, and Clemson.  So despite the bowl record, I’m still going with the Big Ten as #2 over #3 Pac-12.

Other Major Conferences and the American Conference

The Big XII had a similar record to the Pac-12 but with an even less impressive list of wins, so that was an easy choice for #4.

The American conference is next.  The AAC only suffered two losses that were not against a top conference or Notre Dame.  Only two of the losses that were to teams in major conferences (Georgia Tech and North Carolina St.) were to teams that did not make bowl games.  There wasn’t a list of great wins, but American teams did beat two major-conference bowl teams despite not having much chance at such wins in the bowl games themselves.

The ACC had a bad record (6-19) against other major conferences and only went .500 against the FBS.  Other than Clemson’s major wins, the only others are the ones I mentioned by North Carolina and Louisville. 

Remaining Conferences and Independents

That’s still more than #7 Mountain West has to brag about.  The Mountain West had a better record against major conferences but only beat two major-conference teams who made bowl games (Washington St. and Florida St.).  The MWC also lost ten games against other conferences to the ACC’s six.

The Sun Belt, which went 4-9 against the major conferences, is next.  Those wins include North Carolina and Tennessee, which both made bowl games.  Only two of the losses to the major conferences were to non-bowl teams.  The Sun Belt also lost to ten teams in other conferences, but two of those were to Memphis, which made a NY6 bowl.

Obviously, independents aren’t officially a conference, but I’d count them next.  Notre Dame got a lot more decent wins than all the other teams combined, but there were BYU’s wins over Tennessee and USC.  Those were the only wins not by Notre Dame over major-conference teams though.  It also didn’t really help the Irish that five of its wins were against the ACC.  Other wins were over Stanford, Bowling Green, and New Mexico.  Virginia and USC were good wins though.

The bottom of the barrel are the CUSA and MAC.  I have to go with the MAC last given its single win against a major-conference team (albeit a bowl team, Illinois). Ten games   There were nine wins against others, including a couple of bowl teams, so it wasn’t all bad.  The CUSA had three wins against the major teams, two against U. Miami, which made a bowl game. It had 12 wins against other teams, including multiple additional bowl teams.

Unbeaten, Untied, Unrivaled

I know it’s after midnight in most of the country, so I don’t want to write too much.  I just wanted to remind anyone who might come across this where to find my ratings of all the teams. 

LSU finished a very impressive 16^th in strength of schedule.  I don’t subtract out the losses inflicted on other teams, so they may very well have had the best schedule if I did make those subtractions.  Ohio St. was 42^nd, Clemson 54^th, and Oklahoma 61^st in strength of schedule to give you an idea of how hard it is to have a top-20 strength of schedule while having one of the best records, not to mention going undefeated.

I’ve had some minor health issues and have been very tired since I last wrote.  I always have a lot of work right before and right after the holidays.

In January 1959, the LSU Fighting Tigers completed their last undefeated season, beating Clemson 7-0 in New Orleans (all four championships since the start of the Poll Era were won in New Orleans).  Clemson was only #12 and it was only LSU’s second win over a ranked opponent that season though, so it wasn’t quite the same thing.  You also have to win four more games now to go undefeated. 

It’s also nice that we don’t have to wait until next December for one of the players from this team to win the Heisman like the 1958 team did.  Getting the Heisman when you already know you won’t win the national championship has to feel more like a consolation prize even if you won a national championship previously. 

I grew up hearing about that 1958 team, but that seemed more like some kind of ancient legend than anything the likes of which I would see myself.  I classified it in my mind somewhere next to Greek mythology and Jonah being swallowed by the whale.  This is LSU’s third national title in 17 years.  If you had told 10-year-old me (I turned 11 during the season we went 2-9) I would see three in 70 years I would have taken it.

I’m still processing everything, but I do plan to write more about what happened this season. 

One thing of note: the SEC beat the Big Ten in a tiebreaker for the better collection of teams in the top 40.  The SEC had passed up the Big Ten a while back in best average team, but it took an 8-2 postseason record to pass it up in the top-40 list that I include.  The American Conference was a surprise #3 in both measures.  I might have to start including them in the divisional standings next season.  You can see “Conferences & Divisions” and “SoS” in the top left corner of my site for more.

I wish more of my relatives could have seen this LSU season, but I’m glad my parents and most of my aunts and uncles are still here for it.  By the way, early happy birthday to my grandmother, who turns 90 next week.

Week 2 Conference Report and Rankings Comments

I mostly wanted to post an update about inter-conference games so far, but I came across an interesting argument on “College Football Nerds” that basically said Texas should have stayed at the same spot or better in the major polls.

“We have two weeks of actual data, and we reshuffle based on the preseason poll…  We don’t vote with our eyes, we vote with who won and who lost.”

What are we supposed to reshuffle if not the preseason poll?  Last year’s final rankings?  Do the records from last year carry over?  If so, I’m not sure 11-5 Texas with two losses in the last four games should be in the top 10 either. 

Assuming that’s not what he wants to do, two games isn’t a lot of “data” that he wants us to rely on.  Looking a certain way in those two games doesn’t necessarily say how the rest of the season will go. The important factor is having a loss right now is significantly worse than not having a loss.

The second guy says you have to be insane to think Auburn would beat Texas.

I honestly don’t know who would win.  Making Joe Burrow look like a runaway Heisman winner makes me think Texas might make Bo Nix look at least above average, and he did look good at the end of the Oregon game.  There is a pretty decent possibility based on what I’ve seen that Auburn has a better defense than LSU does, so maybe with some ball control (which LSU didn’t have) they can hold Texas to two fewer touchdowns (24 points) and score 27 like they scored against Oregon. 

What overwhelming evidence do we have that Texas plays defense better than Oregon?  None.  Losing a game like that at home doesn’t prove that Texas would have beaten Oregon at a neutral site as Auburn did.  Yes, Auburn only beat Tulane 24-6; but if your defense is doing that well, why take chances on offense?  That doesn’t say anything about what you can do when a team is making you score points to stay in the game like Oregon did. 

LSU won a similar game against Tulane on the way to winning the 2007 national championship, by the way.  The Tigers ended up winning by 25 (after a 10-9 first half), but Tulane would only win 4 games that year. I would suspect this year’s Green Wave is at least one touchdown more competent.

Of course, theoretically playing a close game and possibly beating Texas doesn’t count as much as actually doing so, so that’s why LSU is a good number of spots ahead of Auburn.  Theoretically losing to LSU (ESPN gives Auburn only about a 20% chance of winning that game right now) isn’t as bad as actually losing to LSU, so that’s why Auburn isn’t as far down as Texas is.  A 20% chance of winning a scheduled game is better than a 0% chance.

Also, unlike the polls, I had Auburn ahead of Texas at the beginning of the season, so my default position is Auburn is a better team anyway.   If I thought Texas was better going in, I would probably still have Texas ahead; but another difference between me and the polls is I didn’t expect Oregon to beat Auburn.  So I’m not saying the polls are completely right and these guys are completely wrong, but it’s not as hard to see the logic as they pretend it is. 

I do accept the point that Texas played a lot better than Michigan on Saturday, but that’s why Texas actually went up a spot and Michigan went down 5 spots.  That doesn’t mean the Michigan team that on paper in preseason looked like a much better team than Texas should drop below Texas as long as Michigan has a better record than Texas. 

Michigan forced the fumble above to beat Army in double overtime.

After about another month, I’m all in favor of discarding preseason and looking at resumes, but there isn’t enough information from this season to do that now.  In evaluating opponents, you would still need to guess at how good they are and not just look at the opponents’ resumes.  Tulane or Army, for instance, could win 10 games (they both won bowl games last year after all) or they could win 5 games (which would be much more typical of those two programs), we don’t know. 

I at least want to see LSU play Florida before I decide losing to LSU at home by 7 is better than being undefeated with a questionable performance against a “mid-major” type of team. 

I also agree with the point that Auburn will likely have more losses than Texas does, but right now I think there are 5 SEC teams (and Auburn plays all of the other 4) who would all go 3-0 against numbers 3 through 5 of the Big XII (assuming Texas and Oklahoma are the first two), so that could account for a few additional losses even if Auburn is the better team.  I’m not going to penalize a team for having a tougher schedule down the road.  I want to see how they do against that schedule and not just guess.

Anyway, there are only two conferences with winning records against teams of Power 5 conferences.   You could probably guess that the SEC (at 62.5%) is one of them.  The other is the Mountain West (54.5%), which is actually 1-0 against the SEC with the Wyoming win over Missouri.

It looks like the SEC will not be as deep as recent years though. There is a big gap between beating Texas and losing to Georgia St.  Missouri, which dominated West Virginia, is the only team that has both one of the Power 5 wins and one of the apparently bad losses.  Maybe Wyoming will turn out to be a good team, but I doubt it. 

After a disappointing opening against Wyoming, the Missouri defense nearly shut out West Virginia in the Tigers’ home opener.

Ole Miss is probably about #11 in the SEC, so I don’t mind too much their losing to Memphis, one of the best AAC teams in the last two seasons. It is something to take into consideration before giving the SEC too much credit for being far ahead of the other major conferences in terms of Power 5 record though.

In interconference FBS record, the SEC is more pedestrian at only 65%, which is actually fourth.  It’s a much closer fourth though.  It’s only 1.7% back of the ACC and Big XII, who are tied for second.

I would say the Big Ten is the best overall since it only has three total losses to the SEC’s seven.  The 1.7% I mentioned is more than made up by the SEC’s strength of schedule, so I’d rate the SEC second right now. 

I put the Pac-12 third.  It’s only won 60% of its FBS games, but lesser teams in the conference have lost to opponents like Cincinnati and Oklahoma St., so there is relatively little room to criticize.

I considered putting the MWC third, but the 53% record in FBS games made me reconsider.  I think fourth is fair given what I said earlier.

Fifth and sixth are the ACC and Big XII.  Pretty similar numbers, both 33% against Power 5, both 67% against FBS.  I put the ACC ahead because they’ve played twice as many games against the FBS though.  Also, one of the non-FBS teams was Boise St.

The only two left with winning records overall are the AAC and the Sun Belt.  Except for against Power 5 teams, the AAC has better records.  Also, the two have the same number of FCS opponents, but since the Sun Belt has fewer teams the Sun Belt has a weaker schedule as a result. 

The Independents aren’t a conference of course, but I would put them in between if you want to consider them as a group.  They have the same winning percentage against Power 5 as the Sun Belt.  Wins over Louisville and Tennessee are better than wins over Kansas and Tennessee (sorry Les).  The Independents have two non-Power-5 losses to the Sun Belt’s three.

The MAC and CUSA have done almost nothing positive out of conference.  The CUSA is 1-0 against the MAC, but since there are no other wins, that doesn’t help much.  The MAC’s only win is over Coastal Carolina, but since the Chanticleers have a win over a Big XII team, that’s at least some reason to be positive.  Also, the MAC doesn’t have a loss to an FCS opponent.

So if you didn’t follow or want to read all that, this is my current order:

1. Big Ten
2. SEC
3. Pac-12
4. MWC/Mountain West
5. ACC
6. Big XII
7. AAC/American
8. Independents
9. Sun Belt
10. MAC
11. CUSA

The Truth about the SEC and Coach O

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and the first round of the NFL playoffs.

Unlike what a lot of professional journalists seem to be able to do, I appreciated the opportunity to see what other people are saying without any kind of agenda of my own.  Whenever I do that, I am reminded of certain things that I feel need explaining.  Both professional commentators and common fans put a lot of false narratives out there. I’m not going to mention anyone in particular because I was so relaxed in my consumption of other media I didn’t even make note of who they were.

SEC Teams and Bowl Games

One thing is that bowls are the end-all and be-all of team or conference comparisons.  SEC teams don’t tend to lose Sugar Bowls, for instance, because the Big XII participants are superior.  I covered some of this last year when people apparently thought Alabama had a good chance of losing because they were playing in New Orleans.  A common circumstance is a team goes into the SEC Championship Game hoping to compete for a national championship.  Said team loses that game and gets the Sugar Bowl as a consolation.  Are they really going to play their best game when it’s the first game they know for a fact that the goal of a national championship is off the table? 

Of course almost every team faces that reality at some point, but they’re not necessarily playing a top 15 team away from home the first time they do so, so they can get away with having less motivation.  Also, I think it’s different trying to get back on track the week after a loss than it is losing a game and then waiting a month when you know it’s just one final game.  If Georgia had lost their second game in Week Five, for instance, there would be a desire to finish strong and maybe win the SEC East, so they would still be very motivated in Week Six.  That’s not the case in a bowl game.

SEC detractors will pretend we don’t have another Big XII-SEC game as a reference point.  Of course that was when Alabama played Oklahoma, winners of close games against Sugar Bowl participants Texas and Georgia.  Even though Alabama played a closer game and looked likely to lose well into the fourth quarter, Alabama’s win over Oklahoma was never really in doubt.  So even if Clemson wins on Monday, Alabama was still tested against one of the top four teams (I would argue one of the top three teams) and came out on top.  They’re not just in the top two because of some inflated perception of the SEC, especially not the SEC relative to the Big XII.

Tua Tagovailoa fights off a tackle from Oklahoma’s Robert Barnes in the Orange Bowl. Although he lost out on the Heisman to Kyler Murray (also of Oklahoma), he led the Tide to a 45-34 victory with 4 touchdowns, only 3 incompletions in 27 attempts, and 318 passing yards.

Anyway, the other participant in the Sugar Bowl, Texas, also lost their conference title game; but what the Longhorns were playing for in that game was a berth in the Sugar Bowl, so they didn’t have the goal from their most-recent game taken from them like Georgia did. 

Imagine an NFL team is eliminated in the second round of the playoffs and a month later they play a team that didn’t even make the playoffs.  The former team isn’t going to be anywhere close to as intense as they were in the playoffs.  The latter team would be disappointed they didn’t make the playoffs and have something to prove.  Not only that, the latter team would display the intensity that it would have had in the playoffs if given the opportunity.  One of the top NFL teams is the Saints.  A couple of weeks ago, they needed a comeback at home to beat the Steelers, a team that narrowly missed the playoffs.  If they Saints were to lose their first playoff game and have a rematch with the Steelers at a neutral site, I know which team I’d bet on.  It’s not the one everyone knows had a better regular season.

Anyway, Georgia is the only SEC team in the top three of either division that lost its bowl game.  I don’t have to use tiebreakers or anything, so I’m not manipulating the rankings to make that point.  There are exactly three teams in each division who won 5 SEC games or more. I didn’t even mention Florida’s Peach Bowl win over Michigan.

If you know how bowls work, it’s not surprising that the other teams lost.  The SEC had four teams in the “New Years Six” Bowls, so that meant that the top available SEC team Kentucky was fifth (and that’s generous since they lost to Texas A&M).  They played the top available Big Ten team, Penn St., even though Penn St. was third in the Big Ten (fourth in conference record; but Northwestern lost three games out of conference, and Penn St. lost none apart from the bowl).  So when you have a lot of good teams at the top, that means teams in the middle end up playing teams at the top of other conferences.  Kentucky won anyway; but a similar calculus went into matching Mississippi St. against Iowa, and Iowa narrowly came out on top.

Kentucky RB Benny Snell led the Wildcats to the 27-24 Citrus Bowl win over Penn St. and in the process because the program’s all-time season leader in rushing yards. Kentucky also won 10 games for the first time since 1977.

Outside of Georgia’s Sugar Bowl loss, the only loss by the SEC top six the whole season to a team of another conference was Texas A&M’s controversial two-point loss to Clemson.  There were only six interconference losses by the whole conference before the bowls: three of those were to teams in the four-team Playoff, and two of the rest were by Arkansas.  (The sixth was Tennessee’s loss to West Virginia.)

Auburn, one of the SEC teams who beat Texas A&M, absolutely dominated Purdue (the fourth major Big Ten/SEC bowl) for the other SEC bowl win.  They’re a good example of a team who lost the first game after their main goals for the season were eliminated.  There was a reasonably strong shot at advancing to the SEC Championship with one loss (their first loss came by one point to LSU) and possibly winning the national championship but very little chance of either with two losses (the second loss was by 14 to Mississippi St.), so the week after their second loss, they picked up their third loss against Tennessee. 

Auburn WR Darius Slayton scores one of many early touchdowns for Auburn against Purdue. The Tigers led 56-7 at halftime and went on to win 63-14 in Gus Malzahn’s second bowl win as head coach.

Teams like Auburn are cited by SEC detractors every year as proof that the SEC isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, but only one team can make the title game out of the SEC West in a given year.  No other conference has as many aspiring national-title contenders. I don’t think any other conference has five teams who would have beaten Auburn. There might have been three in the Big Ten, maybe two in the Big XII. The eventual Pac-12 champion couldn’t even beat Auburn at a neutral site. Clemson probably would have, but I don’t know if anyone else in the ACC would have.

Tennessee’s other conference win came under similar circumstances when the Vols beat Kentucky the week after the Wildcats were eliminated from contention in the SEC East.  So if Tennessee (which didn’t even qualify for a bowl game) can get a win against one of the top six SEC teams, it’s not a surprise that Texas was able to get such a win.

I didn’t even mention how many players skipped their bowl game for the purpose of improving their NFL chances.  The top SEC teams tend to put the most players in the NFL, so I suspect this phenomenon affected the SEC more than other conferences.

Coach O and LSU

The other narrative I wanted to talk about is Ed Orgeron.  I also talked a little bit about this narrative last year. He’s far from perfect, but I’m still skeptical of the notion that LSU would have been better off with someone like Tom Herman or Jimbo Fisher.

Refer to the chart for the details, but the easiest shorthand way of comparing coach’s records is to say how many losses they have.  Other than a couple of Sun Belt coaches (who left for other conferences anyway), the only coaches with fewer losses than Orgeron in a comparable number of games since Orgeron was hired at LSU were Nick Saban of Alabama, Dabo Sweeney of Clemson, James Franklin of Penn St., and Urban Meyer of Ohio St.  Meyer won’t be coaching anymore, and I just mentioned what happened to Penn St. against Kentucky – and Franklin only had two fewer losses anyway.  So there are really only two continuing coaches who are clearly doing better at their current schools in the same time frame.

This list is limited to head coaches who have been in their positions from October 1, 2016, to present.

LSU had to cancel the 2017 game against South Alabama and unlike most of these schools has not competed in a conference championship game since Orgeron was hired before the game against Missouri on October 1, 2016.  So that partly accounts for fewer games played.

As I’m sure most readers are aware, Les Miles hasn’t coached a game since Orgeron was hired at LSU (although he will coach one in August), but I also looked at his last 34 games.  He was 23-11. In his last 38 games, he was only 25-13.  So even if Orgeron goes 0-4 to start next season (Georgia Southern, @Texas, his alma mater Northwestern St., and @Vanderbilt), he’d only fall into a tie over 38 games.  If he goes 4-0, he would be at 76.3% compared to Miles’ 65.8%.  If he goes 3-1, he would be at 73.7%, just a couple of decimal places above where he is now. 

The chart of course doesn’t account for strength of schedule.  To focus in on this year, LSU went 10-3 against a schedule that included five teams who were in the top 10 when the Tigers played them and three other teams who were ranked.  U. Miami and Auburn shouldn’t have been in the top 10 in hindsight; but if you want to use that standard, we should reduce Notre Dame’s opponents in the top 10 from two to one (since Stanford shouldn’t have been in the top 10) and Washington from three to two (since Auburn shouldn’t have been in the top 10), for instance.

Some might say I shouldn’t be that happy with Coach O being that LSU narrowly escaped the Fiesta Bowl with a victory, but actually it was a small miracle Central Florida was able to keep it that close.  The Tigers out-gained the Knights 555 to 250, had almost twice as many first downs (32 to 17), and had the ball about three times as long (44:31 to 15:29). 

It may not have been his intention, but this interception may have reminded some of the LSU coaches why they wanted JaCoby Stevens to play wide receiver going into the year.

LSU dominated a very good Louisville team two years ago in Coach O’s first bowl game as a head coach, and apart from some controversial calls and non-calls would have beaten Notre Dame last year.  I would argue these are increasingly challenging bowl games, which reflects positively on LSU in the first place, and winning two of the three is impressive regardless of the final scores.  LSU was also playing backup wide receivers in the defensive secondary for most of the Fiesta Bowl. 

This was LSU’s first win in what is now called a New Years Six Bowl (at the end of the BCS system 10 teams went to such bowls instead of the current 12) since the Tigers won the BCS National Championship following the 2007 season. The only appearance since then had been the BCS National Championship loss following the 2011 season.

I’m still not happy we didn’t give Alabama more of a game and we were certainly good enough for a couple more wins, but in what many (including me) thought would be a rebuilding year where we would be an average SEC team (or worse), 10 wins including the Fiesta Bowl is what I’d call a success.

Week 12: Not Rivalry Week Yet

Apart from some remotely possibly upsets of top teams (I mentioned Clemson and Notre Dame in the Rankings blog), I’m not wildly excited about any of the matchups this week.   I still thought of somethings I’d like to talk about. 

The Former Rivalry Week

I miss the days where this was THE main rivalry week. 

The Big Ten used to finish up for good, but now they have 3 more weeks including the championship.  Tomorrow it will be exactly 11 years since Ohio St. beat Michigan, probably with no suspicion that they were about to be involved in the craziest ending to a college football season in recent memory.  Although the Buckeyes were ranked only #7 going into that final game, they would enter the bowls as the #1 team in the BCS standings.  Despite its second loss coming in the last regularly-scheduled game, LSU would become the surprise #2 after winning the SEC championship on the same day Numbers 1 and 2 in the BCS (Missouri and West Virginia) both lost. 

LSU LB Ali Highsmith gets to the ball before Ohio St. QB Todd Boeckman can throw it in LSU’s 38-24 championship win in New Orleans on January 7, 2008.

Anyway, I bring that up because the normal time of year for Ohio St. to play Michigan going back to the 1930s was between about November 17 and November 24.  2007 just happened to be the last time the game was on the 17^th.  The end of the Big Ten season got pushed closer to the end of November in 2010; and then with the start of the Big Ten Championship game in 2011, the Big Ten season now extends into December.. 

Some Big Ten teams finished conference play even earlier.  For instance, in 2005, Wisconsin played its last Big Ten game on November 12.  There were 11 teams in the Big Ten then, so I guess the Badgers were the odd men out for the rivalry week.  Other end-of-season rivalries in the Big Ten were Minnesota-Iowa, Michigan St.-Penn St., Purdue-Indiana, and Illinois-Northwestern.

Althoughit was often played later (and only became the traditional final regular-seasongame in 1977), Florida played Florida St. on November 17 as recently as 2001.  2001 was also the last time UCLA played USC onNovember 17.  Sometimes there was a latergame for one or both schools, but it was the second-to-last Saturday inNovember going back to the 1970s.

17 Nov 2001: Kevin Arbet tackles Craig Bragg as USC upsets UCLA 27-0 to qualify for a bowl game in Pete Carroll’s first year with the Trojans.

Another big rivalry that used to be the second-to-last Saturday in November was Oklahoma-Nebraska.  It was permanently moved to the last Saturday in November in the early 1990s before it stopped being an annual game in 1998.  Of course Nebraska was a much more important team in those days than they are today.  The date would sometimes vary a week or so, but the rivalry had been played around that time of year since the 1940s.

The Iron Bowl was played between November 17 and November 23 every year from 1993 through 2006.  Those were the first 14 seasons in which I had a meaningful interest in college football on the national level, though I followed LSU for about 5 years before that. 

Anyway, so I think that’s enough explanation of why I always feel like something is missing this week, especially since it became the week for the SEC to take it easy. 

How the SEC Schedule for Mid-November Deteriorated

Although it had been done occasionally a few times before (for instance, South Carolina played Middle Tennessee the week before Clemson in 2006; and LSU played Conference-USA opponents before Arkansas a few times in the 1990s), Alabama led the way with a real commitment to this trend. 

Startingin 2007, the Tide has usually had a bye before the LSU game, so since theycouldn’t have another bye before Auburn, they played UL-Monroe.  The ended up losing to LSU, Auburn, and ULMin 2007; but that didn’t deter Alabama from that strategy.  In 2008, the Tide did the opposite (byebefore Auburn, non-conference game before LSU), and it worked.  Alabama only went a combined 3-3 against LSUand Auburn between 2009 and 2011, but they’re a combined 11-2 in regularly-scheduledgames against the two rivals since.

For itspart, LSU played Tulane the week before the Alabama game in 2008 and 2009,which did not work.  Then LSU went to thebye before Alabama (which worked for two years and hasn’t worked since), but theprecedent was already set.  Sometimes it’sin late October instead of November, but the Tigers have had a late-seasonnon-conference game most of the years since. They did not have one in 2016 only because of rescheduling that resultedfrom the hurricane that hit Florida. 

Auburn has been more consistent.  Except for 2013 when the Plains-Tigers were able to use a second bye before Alabama, Auburn has had a non-conference opponent the week before Alabama every year since 2011.

Georgia originally scheduled its late-season non-conference opponent before Auburn, but in 2014 the Bulldogs changed it to the week before Georgia Tech.  I’m not sure why it wasn’t done that way last year, but Georgia is back to that pattern this year. 

A few of the less significant SEC programs are still playing regular games, but the SEC schedule leaves a lot to be desired…

Ole Miss-Vanderbilt Headlines This Week’s SEC Schedule

Anyway, so we are now at the stage where the big SEC rivalry game this week is Ole Miss-Vanderbilt.  I’ll explain why.

Arkansas has played Mississippi St. annually since 1992, but the Bulldogs have won 5 of 6 in the series, and the Hogs are only 2-8 on the season.  Arkansas could back into a single-digit game like they did against LSU last week, but I hardly expect high drama.  So that’s not a game to watch. 

Missouri and Tennessee (the CBS game of the week) have slightly better combined records than Vanderbilt and Ole Miss, but that’s only been a rivalry (of sorts) since Missouri joined the SEC in 2012.  It hasn’t been a very interesting one either.  Missouri ended both 2015 and 2016 really badly and lost to the Vols in the process.  The Tigers won the other games.  The only game of the six decided by fewer than 8 points was in 2012 (when each team would finish 5-7).

Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, however, is a competitive longstanding rivalry between fairly evenly-matched teams. Since 2005, the only SEC team against which the Commodores have a winning record is Ole Miss (7-6).  Vanderbilt won 5 of 6 in the series from 2007 to 2012, but Ole Miss responded by winning the next 3.  The two programs have exchanged home wins over the past two years.  The Commodores have won 4 of the last 6 games played against the Rebels in Vanderbilt Stadium. 

The three touchdowns by Vanderbilt RB Ralph Webb (#7) were the difference in Nashville two years ago. The Commodores had ended a 3-game series winning streak by the Rebels.

As for this year’s respective teams, both are near .500 and have identical 1-5 conference records.  Nonetheless,Vanderbilt could still guarantee a bowl game by finishing the season with home wins over the Rebels and the Volunteers, their two biggest historical rivals.  The Rebels are still on probation and ineligible for a bowl, but I’m sure there is motivation to avoid a losing record and potentially finish with a winning record (which they could do by beating Vanderbilt and winning the Egg Bowl over Mississippi St.).

LSU and Rice Renew a Rivalry Few Missed

One other rivalry I’d like to mention is LSU-Rice.  It was before my time, but this used to be an annual series.  Other than in-state (former/sporadic) rival Tulane, LSU has played Rice more than any other team that is currently outside of the SEC. LSU and Rice played each other every year between 1932 and 1952 and every year but one between 1955 and 1983.  The only meetings between 1983 and this season were in 1987 and 1995.

Rice has only beaten the Tigers once since 1966.  However, despite LSU winning a national championship in 1958, it was a competitive series between 1955 and 1966.  Rice had a 5-4-2 record against LSU during that span. 

The most notable Rice win was in 1961.  The Owls denied the Tigers a chance at second national championship in four seasons.  After losing the opener to Rice 16-3, LSU would win the next 10 games including the Orange Bowl.  Rice would finish 7-4 and lose in the Bluebonnet Bowl, the Owls’ last bowl appearance until 2006.

Rice made 5 bowl games from 2006 to 2014, winning 3 of them, their only wins in bowl games since 1953 (they also lost the 1957 Cotton Bowl and the 1960 Sugar Bowl). 

The Owls have returned to their prior form since that 2014 bowl win though.  After falling just one win short of qualifying for a bowl for the fourth consecutive year in 2015 (with a 5-7 record), Rice has only won 5 games since the start of the 2016 season.  Two of those wins were over FCS opponent Prairie View A&M, including in the opener this year, which was Rice’s only victory in its last 21 contests.  Two of the other wins since 2016 were over UTEP, which finally ended a 20-game losing streak two weeks ago against Rice. The fifth win was over UNC-Charlotte, which only began playing in the FBS in the past few years.