Maybe the Grass Isn’t Greener After All

I don’t know what the rankings will be yet with all the upheaval, but I couldn’t help but be amused by some of the results over the weekend.  It was a bad day to be a fan of a ranked team from Texas (I’ll mention the two big ones, but Houston and Baylor also lost), and it was a good day for Sun Belt teams to notch some historical road wins.  (I only recently realized Marshall had joined the Sun Belt after previous stints in the MAC and CUSA.)

Bryce Young of Alabama miraculously avoids a safety against Texas in Austin on Saturday.  He should have been flagged for intentional grounding, but he was not.  The Tide eventually defeated the Longhorns 20-19

The grass was really looking greener to LSU fans who wanted Jimbo Fisher or Billy Napier, for instance.  I think Notre Dame fans (even if they are genuine about having grown tired of Kelly) were insecure about their choice of Marcus Freeman, who had never been a head coach before; but their way of expressing it in most cases was to attack Brian Kelly any way they could and pretend to be overjoyed that he had been replaced.

Last week (last two sections in the link below), I wrote about reminding myself as an LSU fan not to take anything for granted.  Wearing the jersey and helmet and playing in Tiger Stadium might all but guarantee you beat Southern, but it doesn’t guarantee you anything against an SEC schedule. 

LSU/FSU Reactions and Season Outlook

More on Nebraska

I also mentioned in a separate blog how unless you were Oklahoma, Nebraska was pretty much untouchable for most of the 1970s and 1980s.  I think there is a lesson here for some of the LSU fans who are always unhappy with whomever the coach is. 

Rivalry Series: LSU vs. Florida St.

I didn’t mention it because they didn’t play LSU after that, but the Huskers kept it going through the 90s (I found out they had the second-best record among FBS teams in the decade after Florida St.) and had some good teams in the early 2000s.  After having two losing records (both on the recent end) from 1961 to 2014, the Huskers have only finished with a winning record once since then. 

To get to their current situation, they just lost to Georgia Southern, who was playing in the Southern Conference of FCS 10 years ago.  It wasn’t just one fluke loss either.  The Huskers have now lost eight consecutive games against FBS opponents.  The last such game that was a win was over Northwestern, 56-7.  You would have thought that at least the Huskers could stay better than that team, but they lost to the Wildcats at a neutral site just a couple of weeks ago.

After I wrote the above, Nebraska decided to part ways with head coach Scott Frost.  Mickey Joseph, who for whatever reason stayed loyal to Ed Orgeron and LSU from 2017 to 2021 as the wide receivers coach, will step in as the interim head coach.  He was obviously not retained by Brian Kelly but was classy all the way.  I wish him the absolute best of luck in that position.  If he doesn’t end up being a head coach, I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned at some point.

Joseph is the sixth man to coach Nebraska (including interims) since Frank Solich was fired in 2003.  Solich was the last coach to leave Nebraska after successfully avoiding a losing season for his tenure.  Only two men (Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne) coached Nebraska over the 36 seasons before Solich was hired.  There was another LSU connection as former Tigers defensive coordinator Bo Pelini was hired from Les Miles’s staff after the 2007 season.  Let’s just say he experienced mixed reviews, but he has had far and away the best winning percentage and longest tenure since Solich left. 

Another more indirect LSU connection: Solich employed Joe Burrow’s father Jimmy (whom he first hired as a graduate assistant at Nebraska) as defensive coordinator at Ohio from 2005 to 2018.  Solich himself retired after the 2020 season.

Recent Comments by LSU and Notre Dame Fans

Speaking of Joe Burrow, 2018 and 2019 (which his father had retired to witness) had the best combined winning percentage (89.3) of any two back-to-back seasons in LSU history.  Even though I think an average Power 5 head coach could have managed to go over .500 the next two seasons and Orgeron didn’t, it still looks bad that those great seasons only bought him two additional years.  I don’t know who they think is coming to the rescue if they run Kelly out of town without a fair shot at building the program back up.

At least one of the notions they had got knocked down a peg this weekend when Jimbo and Texas A&M lost at home to Appalachian St., a program Les Miles beat easily (with probably his worst team) the year after they upset Michigan in 2007.

Freeman, we were told, had already begun to correct for Kelly’s various misdeeds in recruiting and game strategy even though he started 0-2.  Well, Oklahoma St. (in the bowl last season) and Ohio St. (who beat the Irish in the opener) were certainly much better teams than Florida St. at least.  That last sentence is true enough, but I’m not so sure you could say the same about Marshall.

Marcus Freeman with his players after the home loss to Marshall on Saturday. After Notre Dame led 28-7 a minute before halftime of the Fiesta Bowl last season–Freeman’s first game as head coach–the Irish have been outscored 70-38.

The Jimbo crowd started going nuts last year when the Aggies knocked off Alabama (and LSU struggled in some early games) and then pretended the losses didn’t matter.  I think I prefer the way things have been at LSU.  When we beat Alabama, we’re going places that season.  These are the wins over Alabama since Saban was hired and the season results:

• 2007, National Championship (12-2)
• 2010, won Cotton Bowl to finish 11-2
• 2011, National Runners-up (to Alabama, 13-1)
• 2019, National Championship (15-0)

Texas A&M did go 11-2 in 2012, also winning the Cotton Bowl, but didn’t even keep the Tide from winning the SEC West as LSU at least helped to do all four years above.  Alabama finished fourth in the West in 2010, but they were still very much alive for a berth in the SEC title game (with wins over LSU and Auburn, to whom they would later lose by only a single point) when they visited Tiger Stadium that year.

Though I would take 8-4 before the bowl any kind of way this season, finishing 8-4 despite beating Alabama seems like a waste in your fourth year somewhere like A&M.

Kevin Sumlin, Jimbo’s predecessor, beat Alabama exactly once too.  He had a slightly better record in his first 50 games than what Jimbo has after 50 games with the Aggies.  This is despite the fact that Texas A&M has increased the head coach’s salary by about 50% since Sumlin left.  Almost two years of additional salary was paid to Sumlin to go away.  Jimbo’s most-recent extension takes him through 2031.  This makes his contract very similar to the one Kelly has.  Kelly makes $1 million more in base salary, but I’m not sure how the overall compensation compares.  Regardless, I’ll be interested to see which head coach has more success over the next 10 seasons despite Jimbo’s four-year head start. 

Jimbo Fisher, with former Texas A&M QB Zach Calzada (who is now third string at Auburn), during a similarly disappointing offensive performance in Denver last season

Good and Bad News from the SEC

Anyway, while in a way I’m disappointed that the SEC didn’t look nearly as good this week as it did in Week 1, I am somewhat encouraged by seeing some vulnerability in a few of the teams on LSU’s schedule in addition to Alabama (more on them later in the week) and Texas A&M:

• Tennessee needed overtime to beat Pitt, and that was against a backup QB who seemed like he was playing hurt after the starter had to leave the game.
• Kentucky beat Florida by 10 in the Swamp after the Gators failed to score an offensive point in the last 35 ½ minutes of the game. (Tennessee and Florida are LSU’s only two SEC East opponents.). Oh by the way, yet another contingent of LSU fans (they may overlap with some of the others) was angry that the Tigers didn’t hire Billy Napier, the former coach at UL-Lafayette and new coach at Florida.
• Auburn only beat San Jose St. by 8 points at home after trailing at halftime.

Interestingly, those five teams all had the same home/away status last week as they will against LSU.  So hopefully Alabama and Tennessee continue to have trouble on the road and the others continue to struggle at home.

I’ll have more to say when I post the rankings later in the week.

Rivalry Series: LSU vs. Florida St.

• Highlights (mostly lowlights for LSU), updated after the 2022 game.
  • Florida St. leads, 8-2 overall, 6-1 in Baton Rouge, and 1-0 in Tallahassee.
  • The two have won one neutral-site game apiece.
  • The games at neutral sites were the only games decided by 4 points or fewer, but Florida St. won by 5 points in both 1979 and 1983. Only those four were decided by single digits.
  • Florida St. had the largest margin of victory and obviously the smallest (39 points in 1990 and 1 point in 2022).
  • The game with the highest point total was LSU’s 55-21 win in 1982.
  • The game with the lowest point total was Florida St.’s 16-0 win in 1980.

(The below was written before the 2022 game. A reaction will be posted in a subsequent blog that will be linked at the “Rivalry Series” page.)

I don’t want to sugarcoat it.  Among teams LSU has played seven times or more, the Tigers’ worst record is against Florida St. 

LSU has won a higher percentage against Alabama (about 33% versus 22%), but the Alabama/LSU percentage is a fairer reflection of the relative strengths of the two programs since they started playing annually in 1964 and played about every other year for a couple of decades before then.

A more analogous series is the one against Nebraska, which was six games (LSU failed to win any but tied one).  In the series against Nebraska, all games took place between 1970 and 1986.  That was not the worst time period for LSU, but it was a very good time period for Nebraska.  The Huskers only lost 21 games in those 17 seasons, and the majority of those losses were to Oklahoma.  Nebraska and Oklahoma won or shared 5 national championships in those years and one of the two played for a national championship in several other years.

All but one of the the LSU/Florida St. games played thus far was played between 1979 and 1991.  These were all before the Seminoles won their first national title in 1993, but it was as Florida St. was arriving on the national scene and (like the LSU/Nebraska series) was far removed from the Tigers’ closest national championships of 1958 and 2003.

While they’re not Alabama or Ohio St., you’re probably used to LSU being among the royalty of college football unless you started watching in the last two years.  But I started following college football just about in time for LSU to have six consecutive losing seasons and eight losing seasons in eleven years.  The beginning of this stretch was when the last three LSU/Florida St. contests took place, and obviously those were also the ones that came closest to the 1993 national championship year for the Seminoles.

1989 to 1991

So I’ll start with those three, the only ones of which I have some recollection.

You wouldn’t have expected any of those three games to be close, but only the 1990 game went completely as expected.  That game was a 42-3 rout by Florida St.

The Tigers played respectably in 1989 in Tiger Stadium, even briefly leading 21-17 in the fourth quarter after being down 17-6 early in the third quarter. However, the Seminoles immediately responded with an 8-play, 73-yard touchdown drive to take the lead for good en route to a 31-21 victory.  LSU had over 200 yards passing in this game, but Tommy Hodson was outshined by Peter Tom Willis, who threw for 301 yards.  Florida St. also gained more than 80 more yards on the ground for 522 yards of offense to LSU’s 362. 

Bobby Bowden, with Casey Weldon (quarterback for the last two), led the Seminoles to all seven victories over the Tigers

In 1991, the next time the Seminoles went to Baton Rouge, the Tigers went out to a 7-0 lead when Chad Loup connected with Todd Kinchen for a 65-yard pass on only the second play from scrimmage.  Unfortunately, the Tigers would not find the end zone again; but they did lead 13-0 after the first quarter, 16-7 at the half, and 16-14 after three quarters.  The two first-quarter field goals were from 27 and 35 yards, respectively, so LSU left some potential points out there that could have helped them hang on.  Looking at some of the stats, the game shouldn’t have been close at all though.  LSU had only 29 net rushing yards (after subtracting sacks and bad snaps) and went only 3 for 11 on third down.  The good news for LSU was that Loup threw for 233 yards, and Casey Weldon threw for only 109 yards. 

Brad Johnson, father of Max Johnson (who recently transferred from LSU to Texas A&M), helped close the gap with another 39 yards passing, but what really came in handy for the Seminoles was the use of four running backs who ran for over 20 yards apiece.  That might not sound like much, but LSU had no runnings backs with over 20 yards.

1991 was the one year in the Curley Hallman era the Tigers might not have deserved to finish with a losing record.  Two weeks after pressuring Florida St. (who finished 11-2) until late in the game, LSU finished only a field goal behind Alabama (who finished 11-1).  Four of LSU’s six losses that season came to a team that finished with 10 wins or more, with a fifth loss coming at Georgia (who finished 9-3).  10 wins weren’t as easy to come by when most teams played an 11-game regular season.  Speaking of which, in both 1989 and 1990, Florida St. would finish 10-2.

LSU finished 5-6 in both 1990 and 1991 after going 4-7 in 1989.  1989 was just one year removed from sharing the SEC title with Auburn in 1988 and two years removed from going 10-1-1 in 1987.  So 2019 to 2020 wasn’t the first steep drop in wins I experienced, although it was the most dramatic.

Since that exhausts my personal memory, I’ll just work backwards from the 1989 game.

Games between 1968 and 1989

1984 (which ended with a loss to Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl) to 1988, in which LSU finished first or within a half of game of first in the SEC every year, was arguably LSU’s best five-year stretch between the national championship seasons I mentioned, but they did not play Florida St. in any of those seasons. 

You had to go back to 1983, the last losing season before 1989, in which LSU also went 4-7, to find the previous game against the Seminoles.  LSU did not win a single SEC game that season, so in hindsight it was no surprise they lost to a Florida St. team that would finish 7-5.  Florida St. only ended up winning by 5, but they led by 19 with a minute left in the game.  Like the 1991 game, the Tigers did have a good first quarter, in this case going out to a 14-0 lead before 33 consecutive points by the Seminoles.

1982 was one of the two LSU wins.  After a heartbreaking 27-24 loss against Mississippi St. the week before (the Tigers would have finished undefeated in the SEC [albeit behind undefeated and untied Georgia] but for that loss), LSU blew out Florida St., 55-21.  There was a feeling of redemption as the Tigers would not have made the Sugar Bowl anyway, and Orange Bowl was a pretty good consolation prize.  Fans were so hopeful for that consolation prize that they brought oranges to throw at the field in celebration.  It was all downhill from there though.  The next week, the Tigers lost at home to Tulane for the first time in generations and went on to lose that Orange Bowl to (you guessed it) Nebraska.  Florida St.’s final record of 9-3 turned out to be better than LSU’s final record of 8-3-1.

There isn’t much to say about the 1980 and 1981 games.  Over the two seasons, LSU went 10-11-1 with no bowl game and went 1-1 against both Rice and Tulane, two traditional doormats.  Incredibly, the loss to Tulane in 1981 was LSU’s worst loss in New Orleans in the approximately 75 games LSU has played in that city.  Tulane beat LSU by more points than that only once in the 98-game series that goes back to 1893.  Anyway, Florida St. went 16-7 over those two seasons and beat LSU by a combined score of 54-14.

There were two other close games.  In 1979, Florida St. would start 11-0 before running into Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.  Florida St. was one of three teams on LSU’s schedule who would finish with 11 wins or more.  LSU lost all three games, but they only lost them by a combined 13 points.  Alabama (which won the Sugar Bowl and the consensus national championship won by only 3, USC (which went undefeated and won the Rose Bowl) won by 5, and Florida St. also won by 5, all in Baton Rouge.  LSU also lost road games to a mediocre Georgia team and yet another to Tulane.  Although it was unusual for 6-5 teams back then, the Tigers were invited to a bowl game in which they beat previously 8-3 Wake Forest in the Tangerine Bowl (forerunner to the Florida Citrus Bowl).  This season is better known by LSU fans as the final season of the Charles McClendon era.  He is the winningest coach in LSU history but never won a national championship and only led the Tigers to two Sugar Bowls (and two Orange Bowls, which at the time was usually the second-best option for SEC teams) in 18 seasons.  More on McClendon at the end.

As to the game itself, LSU never led but was within one point for about 17 ½ minutes of game play, including the entire third quarter.  Steve Ensminger, who would later be Les Miles’ tight ends coach and Ed Orgeron’s offensive coordinator (including for the 2019 national championship), threw a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to close the gap to 24-19 but couldn’t complete the two-point-conversion attempt to make it closer and that was the final score.  Ensminger threw a desperation pass with 17 seconds left, but it was intercepted.  Unfortunately, Ensminger completed only six other passes through the course of the game, three of them during the last touchdown drive.  Like some of the later games, LSU couldn’t pass very well or defend the pass very well overall.

1968 Peach Bowl

That leaves only one other game, the Peach Bowl after the 1968 season.  1968 was between two of McClendon’s best seasons.  In 1967, the Tigers won the second of two Sugar Bowls in the McClendon era (the second such win in five seasons; there was also a Cotton Bowl win between the two).  LSU did lose three games that season, but they were given some mercy since the three losses were all to good teams were by a combined six points. 

In 1969, the Tigers were holding out to a chance to play for a national championship after suffering only one loss (to Archie Mannings’ Ole Miss Rebels by a field goal) all season.  Only two of the wins were by fewer than 20 points.  Texas was undefeated and as the Southwest Conference champions was guaranteed the Cotton Bowl, so that was the destination LSU had in mind.  As such the Tigers declined all other bowl invites.  The Cotton went week after week without inviting any other team, so it seemed the interest was mutual.  All the other major teams that seemed like major bowl targets got invites and all the other major bowls were full.  Then, to the surprise of the college football world, Notre Dame announced it was interested in a bowl game for only the second time in its history and the first time since 1924.  The Cotton wasn’t going to say no to that offer, so LSU was left out in the cold.  Texas won narrowly and won the consensus national championship; but given that Notre Dame’s only win over a team with a winning record had come over 6-4 Air Force, many were convinced that LSU should have played in and won that game.

Anyway, so the lead up to the national championship that wasn’t began in December of 1968.  While LSU was 7-3 heading into bowl season, the Tigers had not beaten a single team that would finish better than 3-7, so their propensity for beating anyone since the bowl win over Wyoming the season before remained a question mark.

The answer to that question was dubious for most of the game, the first between the two schools and probably the best.  The Tigers (specifically, Glenn Smith) fumbled the opening kickoff, committed additional turnovers on the first three offensive possessions, and then went three and out on the fourth and fifth offensive possessions. 

It was a small miracle they only trailed 13-0 at that point.  I can’t find his first name anywhere, but someone named Burns decided to take matters into his own hands and ran the subsequent Florida St. punt back for a touchdown to bring the Tigers to within one possession.  This seemed to turn the tide, and LSU finally took the lead, 17-13, early in the third quarter, and expanded that lead to 24-13 as time expired in that quarter.

With the next possession, Florida St. went 72 yards on 13 plays to get within 5 points.  The two-point attempt was intercepted by Burns, apparently the same guy who scored the touchdown on the punt.  The ensuing kickoff was fumbled, again by Smith and again recovered by Florida St., the Tigers’ fifth turnover (one was an interception) and fifth fumble (LSU recovered one) of the game.  This time, the Seminoles took 10 plays to drive 37 yards and succeeded in the two-point conversion to go up by three with 6:09 to play.

LSU had scored touchdowns in two of its three offensive possessions of the half, so things weren’t too dire yet.  The Tigers would only face one third down during the drive, but it was a dramatic one.  Mike LeBlanc was the primary tailback in the game and appeared to convert a third and three, but there was a hold.  This put the Tigers into a desperate third and 19 at the Florida St. 37, out of field goal range.  Mark Lumpkin, the LSU kicker, had made a field goal from 22 and missed one from 24.  Quarterback Mike Hillman hit WR Tommy Morel (who’d caught an absolute majority of the Tigers’ receptions that season) for 20 yards to the 17.  No other passes would be needed.  LeBlanc gained three yards the next play, followed by a QB keeper for 11, and then back to LeBlanc for the touchdown and a 31-27 lead.  The possession was 9 plays for 61 yards and left only 2:33 on the clock.

Florida St. would complete three straight passes on the ensuing possession to get to the LSU 44 but ran out of luck and three incompletions followed.  (The third completion had only been for one yard, so the third incompletion was on fourth and 9.). LSU was able to run out the clock.

I’m not sure which play this was, but I imagine that’s LeBlanc with the ball and Hillman in the background.

Hillman threw for 8 more yards in 12 fewer attempts than Bill Capplemen of Florida St.  LeBlanc was just three yards short of 100 to lead all rushers.  Morel gained a total of 103 yards in his six receptions to lead all receivers.  Morel did not score a touchdown, but I’m glad I looked up the details to give him credit.  Even though the total offensive numbers were close, I think the right team won given that LSU had the best quarterback, best receiver, best running back, and better defense that day; but, as mentioned, it could have been a blowout the other way had Florida St. taken more advantage of those turnovers.

Conclusion

Even though Florida St. has dominated the series, there were only two games with somewhat evenly matched teams.  In one, LSU snatched defeat from the jaws of victory before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat; and in the other LSU won in a blowout. 

Also, LSU won the only game at a neutral site.  I know people are claiming that the geography makes the Superdome not neutral, but I guarantee you you’ll be able to hear the Florida St. fans much better than you would if the game were at Tiger Stadium.  I’m not sure which fan base attended the 1968 Peach Bowl at a higher rate.

A 12-team Playoff Is a Horrible Idea

As you might have noticed, I didn’t blog much last year.  My main interest in writing about college football is to discuss methods of evaluating and ranking teams, especially my own system.  I don’t think there is any good way to do that when some teams play 5 games and others play 12 games.  I don’t think there is any good way to do that when several major conferences don’t play any (or at least not any meaningful) interconference games.

I was going to wait until after the College World Series for my next blog.  In past years, I’ve done sort of a summary of the major sports for the academic year.  I guess this year I’ll include the 2019 football season since that was the only major championship in the previous academic year.

Anyway, those plans changed when I saw the proposal to triple the size of the College Football Playoff.  It so happens that at least LSU baseball is over for the season today, but I started writing this Friday.

The best argument for expanding the Playoff AT ALL (putting aside adding 8 teams) is that the current format doesn’t give access to teams from outside of the Power 5 (P5; SEC, Big XII, ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12) conferences. 

I’ve criticized the committee for going out of its way to denigrate Group of 5 (G5; the other football conferences) teams, but nothing about even an undefeated G5 team like Central Florida made me question the legitimacy of the 2017 Playoff, for instance.  The last two games the Knights played that year, they needed two overtimes to beat then-#20 Memphis in Orlando and won another close game over 3-loss Auburn, who was then ranked 7^th. 

Shaquem Griffin sacks Auburn Quarterback Jared Stidham during the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day 2018.

The Knights had a great season, don’t get me wrong, but playing exciting games against teams like that doesn’t mean people need to you see playing for a national championship.  Even if we assume the same result would have taken place had the game been at Auburn in early December, I don’t think being blown out by Alabama or Clemson in the quarterfinals would have made any team feel better or been enjoyable for the fans.

Regardless, if we went back to a more statistical model like the BCS (which was originally half objective and later reduced to 1/3), there would likely be G5 teams who finished in the top 4. 

In 2010, for instance, TCU (which was then in the Mountain West) actually finished third in the BCS.  All of the people who happily responded to the abolition of the BCS because they didn’t have to do math anymore should re-evaluate that decision rather than giving the committee control over the postseasons of 12 teams rather than 4.  Let’s also remember that it wasn’t the objective criteria that put two teams from the same division in the championship in 2011: it was the voters.

Based on what we’ve seen from the committee, any G5 team will have to play on the road against a team the committee ranked #5-8.  Then if they win that, they can then be one of 8 teams to play for the championship.  Since it would require 4 wins, one on the road, that’s not an extremely realistic path to a national championship.  It would be a much better path to have a neutral-site game between the #4 P5 team and the best G5 team every year for the last spot in a 4-team Playoff (meaning 3 total wins, all at neutral sites).  In short, adding 8 teams to the equation rather than one isn’t the best way for a G5 team to have a chance, so let’s drop that pretext.    

The quality of the arguments for this arrangement goes down from there.

One is the conference championship games (CCGs) should be for a spot in the Playoff.  Unless all 10 conferences are sending teams, that just deepens the separation between the P5 and the G5. 

Do people remember how bad some teams in major conference championships have been?  In 2011, UCLA had to get a special exemption just to be bowl-eligible when the Bruins fell to 6-7 after losing to Oregon.  Obviously, the Bruins didn’t win the game, but upsets between teams that shouldn’t be close on paper have happened in these games.  One of the big CCG upsets was back in 2001 when LSU (with 3 conference losses) beat Tennessee.  It was very exciting that the Tigers got back to the Sugar Bowl (or any major bowl) for the first time in 15 years, but it would have been silly (and potentially embarrassing) for them to play for a national championship.  They also played another conference champion, Illinois.  The Big Ten has been good lately, but that wasn’t always the case.  Wisconsin won the Big Ten despite 5 losses in 2012.  Having a shot at winning the Rose Bowl wasn’t reward enough?

LSU quarterback Matt Mauck, not to be confused with former Missouri quarterback Maty Mauk, evades pressure in the 2001 SEC Championship Game. Mauck ran for 50 yards and threw for 67 in relief of Rohan Davey before being named MVP of the game.

Those were entertaining bowl games, but Numbers 1 to 4 shouldn’t risk injury by having to beat such a team just to get into the semifinals.  I think it’s actually one of the good things about college football that you can win a major post-season game and end your season on a high note without winning the whole thing.    Winning the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl in a non-championship year will be little more than a participation trophy for a top program if in order to even be in the game, you have to be outside of the top 12.  I think both bowls have been cheapened enough by mediocre teams who finished second or worse in their conference but who made the game because the better conference teams were in the Playoff.

The last thing I want to mention isn’t really a rebuttal, but it’s an important argument against the expanded Playoff.  It’s the fact that you take the importance out of the regular season. 

If you do give the automatic bids to winners of conferences, non-conference games become even more like preseason games.  If you want your team to last through a 9-game conference schedule (in most major conferences), a CCG, and 3 or 4 more post-season games, why take your chances with another major-conference opponent?  As I mentioned earlier, this also takes away an important tool in comparing teams.  I don’t actually want conferences like the SEC to get by on their reputation.  We should try to figure out who the best teams are every year and not just guess that the SEC champion is automatically one of the top 4 teams. 

I’ll give an even older example from my many years of following LSU.  In 1988, the Tigers won the SEC despite 2 non-conference losses.  This is completely unthinkable now, but the SEC evolved into the best conference from being rather mediocre back then.  Even 16 years later, Auburn went undefeated and couldn’t play for the championship.  Important context is when LSU shared the national title with USC the prior year, it was only the SEC’s fifth national title since 1980 (it would have only been 4 had the BCS been adopted in 1996).  Another important aspect was that there were only three non-conference games in 2004.  The Plainsmen played The Citadel, Louisiana-Monroe, and Louisiana Tech.  But I think adding additional games to the end of the season will make such a selection of opponents commonplace, especially as compared to LSU intentionally playing teams like Ohio St. and U. Miami (which finished #2 in both polls) in 1988.  So without something to show changes in conferences, evaluations will be more about prior years than the current year.

I’ve been told people will still insist on maintaining big rivals and will still prioritize them, but I don’t believe that.  Think how many annual rivalries have been lost as conference schedules have grown and realignment has taken place.  Texas doesn’t play Texas A&M, Pitt doesn’t play West Virginia (or Penn St., for that matter), Auburn doesn’t play Georgia Tech, Notre Dame doesn’t play Michigan, and Oklahoma doesn’t play Nebraska (although they will this year).  I don’t have a dog in any of those fights really, but they were still games I would often look forward to and enjoy.

Even rivalry games that will continue won’t mean as much.  I can assure you from my vivid memory of 10 years ago that it’s more important for LSU to finish ahead of Alabama during the post-season than during the regular season.  That game would have been much less exciting if it were known that the loser was overwhelmingly likely to play for the national championship anyway.  Michigan-Ohio St. in 2006 was another game that would have been much less exciting.  People discussed the possibility that there could be a rematch (and that the loser could still win the national title), but it was far from a guarantee and didn’t happen. 

#1 Ohio St.’s Beanie Wells breaks a tackle to get into the secondary in the second quarter against #2 Michigan in 2006. Wells would score on what would be a 52-yard run. The Buckeyes ultimately won, 42-39, to get into the BCS title game, which they would lose to Florida.

It might be difficult, but let’s imagine for a moment that Michigan isn’t as good as they were in 2006 and played Ohio St. after already being eliminated from conference and national contention.  How exciting might it be to potentially keep Ohio St. out of the Playoff?  The Buckeyes might still win the conference and a major bowl, but Michigan would still have that accomplishment if nothing else.  If Ohio St. is guaranteed a spot in the Playoff by winning the Big Ten the next week anyway, it won’t mean much.  There would even be an argument that Ohio St. should rest some of their key players.  It wouldn’t even be very good bragging rights.

In some cases, it could be better to lose a regular-season game and not make the CCG.   Alabama was in the top 2 in 2011 after not making the CCG, and then they were in the top 4 in 2017.  So if the top 4 teams get a bye into the quarterfinal anyway, an Alabama would essentially get two byes. 

If it’s a situation where a non-champion doesn’t get a bye, they could still have an advantage over whatever team they play in the first round if that other team had to play a CCG.  I don’t think it would be four rounds of playoffs starting in late December.  The first round would probably be at campus sites the week after CCGs.  So let’s say Penn St. loses to Ohio St. and they don’t have a great strength of schedule since they don’t have to play the best two teams from the Big Ten West.  Would it be really fair if they had a week off and then played Georgia, who just lost to Alabama the week before or Oklahoma, who just won the Big XII CCG? 

The only reason I was for a top-2 or top-4 national championship was so we didn’t leave teams who may very well win national titles out of the process. In 1994, there was an undefeated Penn St. team who didn’t get a shot at Nebraska because they had to go to the Rose Bowl.  That kind of thing happened many times.  I mentioned the 2004 Auburn team who couldn’t get into the top 2.  Maybe there is some team that will be a big sob story and cast a shadow over a winner of the 4-team playoff, but I haven’t seen anything like that yet.  If such a scenario is at risk of happening, which I doubt, why is the solution to add 8 more teams instead of one or two?

The college football big-wigs should just admit this is just a cynical ploy for more money.  Not likely, I know, but fans could at least not do their bidding by concocting weak arguments in favor of this proposal even if it means their team has a better shot to make the 12-team playoff than it does to make the 4-team playoff.

Week 5 Rankings and Comments

This is the first week that I have published my computer rantings; but as I mentioned I did some trial runs before.  I won’t be following the order too closely for now, but that will partly explain some teams that may be in surprising places.

Part of the transition from subjective to objective rankings (for this year anyway) is a strict rule that the ranking of a given team can only vary 6 spots from the computer formula.  For instance, Georgia and Washington were 9 and 10, but they ended up 3 and 16. Likewise, teams that started 13 spots apart could be one spot.  If 6 seems like an arbitrary number, it is. I wanted the flexibility to put a team like Oklahoma with no losses ahead of a team like Oklahoma St. with a loss to Texas, whom I was barely able to include in the top 25. I had to leave Berkeley ahead of the Sooners though.

For now I’m keeping the top 5 the same as I had it last week, but I probably won’t next week even if none of them lose. I will give myself less leeway to deviate from the computer, and I expect at least Alabama to have a lower computer rating due to missing out on points entirely during the bye week.

North Carolina had no chance of getting what would have been the go-ahead two-point conversion try in Chapel Hill on Saturday.

Partly because margin of victory for the most-part doesn’t factor into my philosophy (except to fill in the gaps early on and except for certain narrow home victories), I am keeping Clemson #1.  I need some pretty strong evidence a team is the best to make a change at #1; it’s not purely about who had the best 5 weeks and picking a team in a vacuum.  The other candidates don’t have the quality wins necessary yet.  Georgia, with the win over Notre Dame, had the best argument on paper; but their second-best win is Arkansas St., so that doesn’t do it for me.  Alabama hasn’t beaten anyone in the computer top 50, and that may not even change if they beat Texas A&M.in two weeks.  Alabama and Clemson are a much closer 1 and 2 to other teams than earlier in the season, but I’m giving it another week.

Outside of the top 3, Auburn still has too many question marks despite being the computer #1.  Ohio St. is also up there, but the Buckeyes need a better win than Cincinnati (I never bought into the Nebraska hype, and neither does the computer). 

I decided to leave Boise St. ahead of Notre Dame.  While the Irish have the better win against an ACC team (since Virginia beat Florida St.), the Broncos beat Air Force. Notre Dame’s second-best win is over Louisville.  The Irish also have a loss, but I think Boise St. would have also lost, so that wasn’t a major factor.

Arizona St. (which beat Cal Friday in Berkeley) might not have an impressive offense, but the Sun Devils have had two impressive road wins with ball control and defense.

There are some unexpected teams after that.  Arizona St.’s being 2-1 against the top 20 with a third OK FBS win (over Kent St., whose only other loss is to Auburn) is pretty good right now.  Wake Forest is undefeated and didn’t come as close to losing to UNC as Clemson did.  SMU is also undefeated with a win over TCU.  Colorado beat Arizona St. but lost to Air Force.  More on the Falcons below.  Michigan St. lost to Arizona St. but has three fairly decent wins.  Appalachian St. is undefeated and also beat UNC more easily than Clemson did.  Berkeley is 1-1 against the computer top 10 with no other losses, so that was as low as I could put them.

I could have ranked Air Force and Virginia, but I preferred to keep undefeated Iowa and one-loss Texas.  Although LSU hasn’t had depth in its schedule yet, I think the Tigers look like a better team than Boise St. or Notre Dame.  Also, the Longhorns beat a better team (Oklahoma St.) than anyone Virginia beat. Air Force did beat Colorado, but I want to see if they can follow that up with anything before I kick Texas or someone who hasn’t lost out of the top 25. In the next five weeks, the Falcons play Navy, Hawaii, Utah St., and Army.

Not only did Kansas St. lose to Oklahoma St., but the Wildcats’ win over Mississippi St. lost its luster when the Bulldogs got blown out by Auburn.  So Virginia and Kansas St. are the only two teams to fall out from last week.

Hawaii’s Cedric Byrd II celebrates one of two touchdown catches in Reno on Saturday.

I had to rank Hawaii due to the six-spot rule, but I think the Warriors deserve it.  In addition to blowing out Nevada on the road Saturday, they’ve played three Pac-12 teams and only lost to Washington.  Oregon St., as usual, isn’t good; but the Beavers gave Stanford a game.  Arizona hasn’t lost to anyone else yet, although UCLA gave them a scare.

Speaking of the Pac-12, that conference has the highest computer rating per team.  There aren’t any undefeated teams, so the Pac-12 is outnumbered in the top 10 by the SEC.  However, the Pac-12 has more teams in the top 25 and doesn’t have as many teams below 100.  The SEC leads 3-1 in the latter category (Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Tennessee against just UCLA). 

Top 25

rank	team	last
1	Clemson	1
2	Alabama	2
3	Georgia	3
4	Auburn	4
5	Ohio St.	5
6	Boise St.	7
7	Notre Dame	25
8	Wake Forest	9
9	Wisconsin	13
10	Arizona St.	22
11	SMU	11
12	Colorado	20
13	Michigan St.	23
14	LSU	10
15	Florida	6
16	Washington	21
17	Penn St.	14
18	Oregon	24
19	Appalachian	16
20	UC-Berkeley	8
21	Oklahoma	19
22	Oklahoma St.	—
23	Iowa	18
24	Hawaii	—
25	Texas	15

Out of rankings: (12) Virginia, (17) Kansas St.

2019 Preseason Rankings Intro

I’ll publish the top 25 in a couple of days, but I’m going to keep you in suspense while I talk about my philosophy and some of the turnover that you may notice from the end of last season.

There are a few things I want to say about my philosophy when it comes to preseason rankings.  Although I do pride myself on a team having a good season after I started them unusually high or a bad season after I start them unusually low, I’m not trying to have the exact top 25 that will be in place at the end of the year. 

I’m also not trying to have the exact top 25 that will be in place before the bowls.  It sounds strange, but a lot of people will make the top 4 the teams they think will be in the playoff.  If there is a close call at #4 and #4 loses to #1 by 40 while #5 wins a big bowl, #4 going into the playoff is not going to stay #4.  There could even be a #6 or #7 that pass them up.  But if I were still on a site with a lot of comments, people would show up and tell me I’m crazy for thinking three SEC teams will be in the Playoff.  I wouldn’t even want that to happen if I honestly believed the best three teams were in the SEC.

Anyway, what I do believe in is a best guess as to who is going into the season with the toughest team.  So with that in mind, I don’t care how easy your schedule is.  Some people seem to think rankings are a list of most likely teams to go undefeated.  For instance, I read something that touted Nebraska as a potential ranked team since they don’t play any of the best teams in the Big Ten.  That tells me nothing about how good Nebraska is, so I don’t care.  Maybe they’ll get fewer injuries that way and will therefore be harder to beat in the bowl than they would have been otherwise.  But that’s one reason this isn’t as much about who’s good later in the year. 

Nebraska didn’t win its first game last year until October 20 (pictured). The Huskers finished the year 4-8 (a couple of plays from 6-6), but I’m still skeptical of a drastic improvement.

However, I do expect some correlation between the best teams going into the season and the best teams at the end of the season.  And by going into, I mean those with the best prospects on paper, not necessarily the teams who will have the most successful first few weeks.

For a while I focused just on returning starters and how good a team was last year, but I’ve been led astray too many times recently and decided to look more in depth.  If Alabama only had 9 returning starters (RS), for instance, I’d still have them in the top 5.  In past years I may have expected a team like that to fall from 14-1 to 10-4, but I don’t know if any number of returning starters no matter how small would cause Alabama or Clemson to lose four games this season.  Last year, the Tide only had 10 RS.

Tua Tagovailoa (pictured during the 2018 national championship) may feel spoiled as Alabama increases to 12 returning starters from 10 last season.

Such programs just get too many great recruits, and their coaches are attentive and hardworking enough to make even recent high-school players elite college players in just a few months. Teams like that seem most vulnerable early in the year (which I maintain is why Alabama has lost to Ole Miss recently but not LSU), so I guess that’s one caveat to what I said about who’s best going in, but Alabama has also lined up against some decent teams in the first game and blown them out.

Conversely, the two teams with the most RS are UCLA and Texas St.  If you put all of their returning starters on the same team, I still wouldn’t put that team in my top 25.  UCLA could be in the top 25 at the end of the year for all I know, but it would take a lot of improvement that I’ve seen no evidence is forthcoming from that particular program.  I had the Bruins 95^th at the end of last season, so even if they improve 65 spots (jumping over half the teams in FBS football), they still wouldn’t be in the top 25.

The worst team last year that I’m ranking here is Florida St. (whom I had #61 in the final ratings), but since their schedule was so tough last year, their record wasn’t very indicative of talent level.  The Seminoles finished the year against five consecutive ranked opponents (beating one). The only loss to an unranked opponent was to Syracuse, which finished ranked #15 in both major polls and which nearly beat Clemson.  I decided that was as low as I was willing to go though.  I had Virginia Tech many spots lower and after some consideration opted to leave the Hokies unranked despite 16 returning starters.

Florida St.’s one-point loss to Miami, in hindsight, resulted in the Noles’ first season without a bowl game since 1982.

There were three other teams I considered moving into the rankings now despite not finishing last year ranked, but I’ll wait and see for now (last year’s final ranking), Mississippi St. (30), Baylor (47), and Wisconsin (48).

The only ranked teams from last season that I ruled out immediately were in the Mountain West. Boise St. has lacked consistency in recent years and only returns 13 starters, which do not include last year’s quarterback.  Fresno St. and Utah St. return only 9 starters apiece.  The “mid-major” teams can have difficulty with continuity even with a large number of returning starters.  I did decide to give Appalachian St., which returns 16 starters, the benefit of the doubt though.  By the way, RS numbers do not include kickers. 

Other ranked teams that fell out between the final ratings of last season and now are Kentucky (#12, 8 RS), Army (#14, 11 RS), Stanford (#24, 9 RS), and Iowa (#25, 10 RS).  Kentucky has improved or maintained its record from the previous season every year since 2014, but all good things must come to an end.  I considered keeping Army as the Black Knights have responded well in the past to personnel turnover, but there were too many talented major programs that have more potential to reach major bowls.

I’ve given you a few hints, but check back for the preseason top 25 in the coming days.

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.  

Alabama Offense vs. LSU Defense

For more on what to expect from the LSU offense and general comments, please see Part I published on Wednesday.  This page links the major previous discussions of the LSU-Alabama Series.  LSU seems to have better kickers, but I’m not going to spend any time on that point.

Proposition: Alabama runs away with the game to score 40+ again (Intro)

What made me decide to split this into two blogs was how annoyed I was with how many people were picking Alabama to score 40+ while picking LSU to score <22. I listened to a couple of somewhat credible prognosticators on YouTube who did that based on Alabama’s stats.

One of them (SECfans, which I mentioned before) actually replied to my comment and asked if I thought Alabama’s offense was severely overrated due to the schedule.  I said that I didn’t think they were severely so, but in all the years I’ve been watching college football (I would say I had something like an adult appreciation of it starting in the mid-90s), there hasn’t been a top team who scored over 40 every game.

Historical Precedent in General

In the video, they had mentioned the 2005 Texas team that scored 41 points in the title game against USC.  A neutral-site bowl game isn’t really analogous to Tiger Stadium.  What might be analogous was when the Longhorns went to Ohio St. that year and were held to 25 points.  Also, late in the season the USC team in question had allowed 42 points at home to a Fresno St. team that would finish with 5 losses.

Vince Young runs for a touchdown in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

The best offense I’ve seen through 8 games was probably 2010 Oregon.  They had an even higher average (by less than a point, but still) than Alabama does now at 54.8 points per game.  That was despite having played a top 10 team at home and a top-25 team on the road, neither of which the Tide has done.

The 9th game was consistent with that, but in their 10th game, the Ducks went on the road to play the unranked Cal Bears and only won 15-13.  That was a Cal defense that would allow three different teams to score 48 or more against them.  Cal finished with a losing record that year.  I’d say it’s pretty likely LSU has a better defense this year than that team did then.

The Cal (Berkeley) defense held Oregon to about 40 fewer points than the Ducks’ average in their 2010 matchup.

One of the best SEC offenses was the 1996 Florida. Early on the Gators beat #2 Tennessee on the road, but apart from that game the Gators averaged 54 points per game through the first 8 games.  Then in early November, the Gators escaped Nashville (hardly an intimidating road environment by SEC standards) with only a 28-21 win.  A few weeks later, Florida St. held Florida to 21 for the Gators’ only loss of the season.  Of course Florida would then run away with the national championship against the Seminoles, 52-20.

Florida’s Danny Wuerffel led the Gator offense to over 50 points per game before being brought back down to earth in Nashville and Tallahassee (pictured).

I don’t mind if people are picking Alabama to score 35, for instance.  Maybe this Alabama offense is able to produce points just as well as and just as consistently as 1995 Nebraska, who was only held under 40 twice and never below 35.  That was the only team since World War II that won each game by at least 14, but the team who got within 14 was unranked and playing in Lincoln.  I just need to see this year’s Alabama play a better defense than Texas A&M or Missouri to believe they’re better than that Nebraska team.  Despite the Cornhuskers’ having won the national championship in 1994, the voters in 1995 were skeptical of Nebraska and did not move them up to #1 until the Huskers had beaten top-10 teams in consecutive weeks.

Historical Precedent in LSU-Alabama Series

I can also refer to past games in the LSU-Alabama rivalry. I mentioned the 2013 game in the last blog. LSU didn’t keep Alabama very far below their average, although they were on pace to do so for most of the game. More relevantly to this blog, the Tigers had averaged 40 points per game going in, and Alabama held LSU to less than half of that average.  The Tigers have a lot of work to do if that’s the best their defense can do this year, one reason I think the Tide wins, but 27 points wouldn’t make it an impossible task.

Alabama teams of the last few years probably don’t compare to this one in terms of how strong the respective offenses and defenses are, but I think we may also be able to learn a little from 2011 and 2009.

People act like in retrospect the 2011 regular season game was destined to be in the single digits, but it really wasn’t.  I don’t remember the over/under, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 16. Alabama was averaging 39 points per game and had only been held below 37 twice (27 @ Penn St. and 34 against Vanderbilt).  LSU had almost the exact same average despite having played Oregon and West Virginia, two eventual winners of BCS bowls. Only Mississippi St. had held the Tigers below 35 (like this year, LSU scored only 19 against the Bulldogs).

Granted the points given up were lower in both cases in 2011 but not ridiculously so. LSU has only allowed one team to score over 21 this year (but two right at 21).  They’d allowed two to score over 11 in 2011.  Alabama has only allowed two teams to score more than 14 points this year.  In 2011, they’d allowed double digits 3 times. So maybe not 9-6, but 20-17 wouldn’t be a shockingly low score.

I want to mention one other Alabama team, and that’s 2009.  That was Saban’s third year and his first team there that really tipped the SEC off about what was to come.  The Tide opened against #7 Virginia Tech and then played four unranked opponents, two in SEC play and one on the road. That’s not a body of work similar to what they have now, but in those five games the Tide scored at least 34 points in each one and averaged 40 points.

Patrick Peterson grabs an apparent interception in Tuscaloosa in 2009. The pass was ruled incomplete. LSU may not have won the game in Tuscaloosa, but a different call here could have changed the score.

The Tide went to #20 Ole Miss and point production fell by 45% as they only scored 22. A similar reduction in this case would result in the Tide only scoring 30. Ole Miss had a good defense in 2009, but maybe LSU’s is better this year. The Rebels did allow 33 to Auburn and 41 to Mississippi St. that year. I don’t envision LSU giving up that many to an unranked team this year.

Comparison to Other Games This Season

It’s odd for two teams in the same division to have only one common opponent at this point, but in this case it doesn’t tell us very much.  It was Ole Miss, who really didn’t have much of a chance in either game.  I think the games worth considering are ones where either LSU or Alabama had to get out of their comfort zone in some way.  The Rebels did not force either team to do that.

Again, the best team Alabama has played is Texas A&M, who I believe is justifiably outside of the top 25 in the coaches poll.  The Texas A&M defense, which made Mississippi St.’s Nick Fitzgerald look like a Heisman contender doesn’t compare favorably to LSU’s defense at all.  Mississippi St. scored a combined 16 points against LSU, Florida, and Kentucky, 12 less than A&M gave up.  The point being that we really don’t have a model when it comes to how Alabama does against a defense that can really affect an offense the way LSU’s affected Fromm of Georgia and Fitzgerald.

If it’s a similar game with Alabama holding the opposing offense in the low 20s, LSU will likely take at least one touchdown opportunity away that A&M couldn’t, especially given that A&M was playing in Tuscaloosa.

I haven’t seen anyone suggest this, but I did want to add a caveat. I wouldn’t be upset if someone thinks Alabama wins 41-34. That wouldn’t show LSU’s defense is almost as bad as A&M’s; it would show Alabama’s offense had to keep going in high gear the whole game when it could pretty much relax in the second half against A&M. I’d be surprised to see that much offense from LSU, but they did score 36 against Georgia despite settling for field goals 5 times and despite a quarterback who could only complete half of his throws.

A better measuring stick for Alabama offense (though the Tide defense did extremely well) is the Missouri game. That was the best comparison I could find to a tough game Georgia had to play (partly because it was on the road) before coming to Baton Rouge. Missouri had been the only team to score more than 17 against the Bulldogs (they scored 29) and the only team to come within 14 points (and that was despite a defensive touchdown by Georgia).

Tua Tagovailoa is sacked by Missouri’s 
Kobie Whiteside in Tuscaloosa on October 13.

For Alabama vs. Missouri, I’m more going to look to see what we can gather about things LSU might be able to do on defense.  Missouri did have the second-closest game with the Tide so far (after A&M), but more impressively (and more relevantly to this blog) the Tigers are the only team to hold Alabama below 40, and they did this in Tuscaloosa.

Giving up 39 isn’t that impressive on its own (unless LSU really does give up 41 without producing much on offense); but as I’ve said before, you can score into the 40s against almost anyone if you’re given easy points. Twice while the game was still competitive, Missouri committed a turnover deep in their own territory. So where it was 27-10 with 10 minutes left in the half, it probably would have been Missouri ball down only 17-10. I’m not that Alabama didn’t deserve to beat them like they did, but what I am saying is the Missouri defensive unit did even better than Alabama’s point total indicates.

It’s also somewhat impressive that Mizzou limited Tua to only 2 of 5 on third downs and 12 of 22 overall (though it was still an average of over 10 yards per attempt) with only one positive run. Missouri has neither a good pass rush nor a good secondary. I couldn’t get the stats on how many sacks and hurries they had against Bama, but I know they had one sack and no hurries against Georgia. That’s one reason LSU was able to limit Georgia to fewer scoring drives than Mizzou had.

LSU was able to improve significantly on what Missouri did with Georgia. Even if we cut out the defensive score, LSU roughly cut Georgia’s point-scoring in half. So I think the low end of Alabama’s point total (barring a disaster or freakishly low-scoring game) is a lot lower than some people have it. I would put it in the low 20s. So I think the route for LSU to win would most likely be LSU scoring between 24 and 31 and Alabama scoring 1-7 points fewer.

Prediction

My prediction is that LSU holds Alabama to 31, which is two touchdowns fewer than Texas A&M allowed, and that the Tigers score 24. I think chances are the Tigers score closer to their point total against Auburn and Florida than the point total against Georgia. Most other people seem to be picking either a narrow LSU upset or a complete blowout by the Tide, either of which could happen of course, but I think these are two really good teams and LSU is just slightly outmatched.

Week 10 Top 25 and Comments

Housekeeping

I haven’t been been doing my weekend blog with everything going on with the election. I don’t want to say anything about my political leanings here, although I would mention that since 1984 the LSU/Alabama game has corresponded with the party that won the presidential election. When a Republican won, LSU beat Alabama; and when a Democrat won, Alabama beat LSU. For more on the series see here and this is a list of other related blogs.

LSU-Alabama Rivalry since 2000.

Anyway, my weekly schedule may change slightly if I have a reaction to the first College Football Playoff rankings, which will be released on Tuesday afternoon. If I post on Tuesday, I most likely will not post on Wednesday. One reason I’m posting today is so the blogs can be more spread-out.

Contrast with Other Rankings

I usually ignore the polls, but I think there are some important things to address with the losses that took place over the weekend.

Apparently, because some teams lost, Nebraska essentially gets a mulligan. The best team the Huskers have beaten is Wyoming, but they stay in the top 10 despite a loss. I can’t even take that seriously. LSU lost to Wisconsin by 2 points and fell 16 spots, but now losing a close game to Wisconsin is like losing to Alabama I guess despite the Badgers’ two losses.

Other than now-#22 (my #30) Oklahoma St., Baylor has beaten NO ONE and now has a loss to a Texas team that didn’t even get a single top 25 vote THIS WEEK. But the Bears stay 13th.

I understand Western Michigan being a lot lower than I have them because for me they’ll keep going down while for the polls (assuming wins) they’ll keep going up despite not having any tough opponents coming up, whereas the only way a team like Baylor, West Virginia, or Nebraska fails to get quality wins in the coming weeks is if they lose again and fall below Western Michigan anyway. Nebraska might have to lose twice though.

I’m hoping the college football rankings exercise some greater degree of sense, but I suspect they’ll give the three Power-5 teams I just mentioned the benefit of the doubt more than they deserve.

Discussion of My Rankings

I didn’t have the time and energy to look it up for my last rankings blog, but I wanted to mention that last week is the first time Colorado has been ranked in my top 25 since September 30, 2007. The Buffs finished that season 6-7 after losing to Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide in the Independence Bowl.

Colorado QB Cody Hawkins throws a pass in the upset of Oklahoma in September 2007.

Due to the large number of losses, Colorado just barely remains in the top 25 this week despite the bye.

As I anticipated, Alabama remained #1 despite the Clemson win (while the Tide was idle). It also helped Bama that USC and Kent St. won.

Clemson had another close call, but being that the game was on the road, this does nothing to diminish how many points they get. I only lower the reward or penalty if the home team wins a close game (defined as overtime or within 3 points) since home field accords an advantage or about 3 points. The Tigers were just too far behind to surpass the Tide in one week.

Ohio St. won of course, but it also helped that Wisconsin (the Buckeyes’ best win) won. Texas A&M’s best win had been Tennessee, which lost. The Aggies also didn’t gain very much by beating New Mexico St.

Western Michigan fell two spots during the bye week, but this fall will probably continue as the Broncos will play the lower-rated MAC teams in the coming weeks.

Tennessee still has the best schedule, which is why they remain so high; and again, it also helps that so many other teams lost.

The Power-5 teams between 7 and 21 are well-positioned to move up into the top 5 or top 10 with quality wins. I don’t have some vendetta against the teams in that range, but some of them haven’t played the better teams in their respective conferences yet.

One example was Washington, who hadn’t really played anyone before this week. But they beat a good team this week, so they move up. Baylor lost to a mediocre team, so they remain un-ranked. The Bears still have chances for quality wins though.

Boise St. is another team that I expect will fall in the coming weeks since the Broncos do not play anyone better than #100 Hawaii until November 25.

Boise St. was upset by Wyoming, which as I mentioned played Nebraska earlier in the season. So this is one reason why the Huskers didn’t fall lower.

The conference standings tightened because Minnesota joined the top 40 while the number of SEC teams in the top 40 remained the same. Arkansas fell out as a result of its bye week, but Kentucky moved into the top 40.

South Carolina’s upset of Tennessee also hurt the SEC because it knocked the Vols out of the top 10 but did not add South Carolina to the top 40 (the Gamecocks are now #50). It may increase the number of bowl-eligible SEC teams when we get to that point though.

The ACC was hurt slightly by Clemson’s win over Florida St. since it knocked the Seminoles out of the top 25, while a loss may have put both in the top 10. Also, Wake Forest loss to Army, which took the Demon Deacons out of the top 40.

Top 25

rank/team/prev
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Michigan 3
4 Ohio St. 8
5 Texas A&M 5
6 W. Michigan 4
7 Penn St. 10
8 Washington 17
9 Boise St. 6
10 Louisville 9
11 Tennessee 7
12 Wisconsin 18
13 Auburn 15
14 Nebraska 11
15 Houston 21
16 Virginia Tech —
17 Wash. St. 20
18 Florida 23
19 Oklahoma 19
20 South Florida —
21 West Virginia 13
22 N. Carolina 12
23 App. St. 25
24 Utah 14
25 Colorado 22

All 128 teams

Out of rankings: (16) Florida St., (24) Navy

Week 8 Top 25 and Comments

Please see here for my blog about the LSU-Ole Miss series, the second-longest football series for LSU.

The conference standings are interesting. The standings on my site are only looking at the top 40.

There are FIVE SEC teams (LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, and Kentucky) in numbers 41-55, however. The winner of LSU and Ole Miss at the very least should join the top 40 next week, which would help the SEC assuming no one else falls out. Although it may help in traditional polls, the unexpected bye weeks did not help LSU and Florida in my ratings.

The ACC is higher in those standings because it has a mass of four teams (Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, U. Miami, and Georgia Tech) between 26 and 37.

This is also useful background for why Clemson came ahead of Alabama in the computer ratings. I am keeping Alabama #1, however, since if the Tide win next week they will certainly be #1. I had said I THOUGHT Alabama would be the natural #1 this week, but beating an undefeated team is better than beating a one-loss team. Also, Alabama isn’t as far from #1 now as they were last week. Clemson is idle next week, so they would be unlikely to remain #1. Texas A&M with a win could be #1, but I can’t be sure.

Alabama will look to continue its success at Tennessee as the Tide return home to host the Texas A&M Aggies.

Given how high Penn St. is right now, Ohio St. may jump Michigan with a win next week; but I would not expect the Buckeyes to compete for #1 just yet. However, since Alabama has a bye week and Texas A&M plays New Mexico St. on the 22nd, Ohio St. could be playing for the #1 spot in the next two or three weeks.

The #1 spot is the only change I’ve made to the formula and the only change I plan to make going forward. I anticipate that regardless of what happens, I will follow my formula for #1 at the latest after the games of November 5 when Ohio St. will play Nebraska. Also on that date Alabama plays LSU, Texas A&M plays Mississippi St., Michigan plays Maryland, and Clemson (after playing Florida St. the week before) plays Syracuse.

I know Tennessee is oddly high for a two-loss team, but the Vols have had the best schedule by far to this point after playing four ranked teams in consecutive weeks. However, none of their future opponents are currently ranked and none have been ranked since early last season. Tennessee’s next three weeks are South Carolina, bye, and Tennessee Tech. Many teams will have the opportunity to pass them up during this time. I don’t envy the Tennessee coaching staff’s job in trying to keep the team motivated, so a loss in one of the remaining games is quite possible (November SEC opponents are Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt). Despite that, there aren’t huge point opportunities.

I’m still waiting on someone else to surpass the three-team “mid-major” group, but it may take a couple of weeks. The absence of another major team is one reason Tennessee did not lose a spot on this blog (although they were one spot higher in the computer last week). This could change on October 29, when Nebraska will play Wisconsin, Florida St. will play Clemson (as mentioned), and Washington will play Utah.

West Virginia, the Big XII’s best hope (in the near future anyway), may help itself with wins in the next two weeks, and the winner of Arkansas and Auburn should move up into that range as well.

rank/team/prev
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 4
3 Texas A&M 3
4 Michigan 2
5 Ohio St. 5
6 Tennessee 6
7 W. Michigan 9
8 Boise St. 8
9 Houston 13
10 Florida St. 15
11 Nebraska 20
12 N. Carolina 22
13 Washington 7
14 Louisville 24
15 West Virginia 17
16 Penn St. 11
17 Utah 21
18 Pittsburgh —
19 Oklahoma —
20 Stanford 19
21 Navy 12
22 Arkansas —
23 Auburn 25
24 Washington St. —
25 South Florida —

Full 128

Out of rankings: (10) Wake Forest, (14) Arizona St., (16) Wisconsin, (18) Virginia Tech, (23) Air Force

Post-Game Comments and Week 4 Top 25

I’ve updated the Mississippi St. Rivalry blog, and here is the one for Auburn.

LSU really needs to work on the end of the game. Everything was going great at halftime for the last two games, and the second half was underwhelming even though it didn’t hurt nearly as much against Jacksonville St. Against Wisconsin, the second half was better than the first, but the Tigers had the lead late in the fourth quarter and were in field goal position on the last drive before the interception that essentially ended the game.

There were a couple of bad calls in this one. There was a highly questionable pass interference call that set up one of the Mississippi St. field goals. Then Leonard Fournette appeared to have converted a fourth down play but was stripped as he crossed the line to gain. It was reversed by replay, although I don’t see how the video evidence was indisputable. Mississippi St. scored a touchdown on the ensuing possession then scored another touchdown 40 seconds later following an on-sides kick.

Fournette was effective most of the game, but a late fumble (his second of the game) helped keep the Bulldogs alive.

I do want to give some credit to the defense for that last series. They didn’t give State a chance at a tying or winning drive.

I think things are improving, but there is a long way to go before LSU can claim to be a top team. Going to Auburn is never easy even though the War Eagle Plains Tigers lost to A&M at home.

That’s all I have to say about that. There were some more significant developments elsewhere.

The Florida St.-Louisville game blew me away. If Louisville wins by a touchdown, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, but someone wrote that they made the Seminoles look like the Charlotte 49ers, which isn’t too far off. I mentioned before that I don’t like to move teams more than 10 spots in a week, but I had to make an exception and move them up 15 spots.

Louisville’s Lamar Jackson had no problems with the Florida St. defense.

It seems that Florida St. and Oklahoma are showing that having a top-4 season and a talented team doesn’t guarantee anything for the next year or even a couple of years later after a successful rebuilding year.

There were a couple of other dramatic movements that were necessary. Of course Florida St. had to go down pretty far, and so did Iowa for its loss to North Dakota St. The Bison would probably go about .500 (if not better) in the Big Ten West, but still.

I did the first trial run of my computer rankings. I only used them as a somewhat small part of the consideration this week, but next week I’ll do a full computer formula and a subjective top 25 and roughly average the two.

Since I am relying more on what’s happened on the field, I feel it is appropriate to move Michigan down even though I still think they’re a potential competitor for championships.

Since 9 of the 14 SEC teams started Week 1 against power 5 opponents and there have been a number of such games since then (both in conference and out of conference), it’s not really surprising that five undefeated SEC teams are in the top 10 in the formula. However, other teams will still get a couple more weeks to see what they can do in big games before I would rank those SEC teams so highly.

LSU’s win last night helped to bolster Wisconsin, so that’s why they’re up there. Oklahoma is almost certainly out of the running for the national title, but beating them still looks pretty good right now. Maybe they’re just not good and Houston and Ohio St. didn’t do anything special, but for now, it’s hard to justify not giving the Cougars and Buckeyes high rankings.

UCLA (who fell to the Aggies in Week 1) beat BYU and of course Texas A&M beat Auburn, so that’s why they move up again. Arkansas is also 3-0 with all games against FBS opponents, which is significant at this point.

As I mentioned, I moved Louisville up as far in one week as I was willing to. It will be interesting to see if they keep blowing out teams like this. I think Stanford’s results are what you expect of a #9 team, but I didn’t see anything that seemed to require that they move up. I’m also comfortable with where Clemson is. I’m OK with moving LSU up one spot because I do think they show some potential.

Florida goes up two spots. They’re also 3-0 against (not very good) FBS opponents, and they have won comfortably.

San Diego St.’s Week 2 win over Cal could be significant if the Aztecs make a run toward a New Years Day bowl.

San Diego St. beat Cal, and Cal looked pretty decent last night. Maybe Sports Illustrated was right to rank the Aztecs in pre-season. At least it looks good for the moment.

I only dropped Georgia one spot even though they looked pretty bad at times in a close win again. You win on the road in the SEC, and I can’t gripe too much about the margin. I wouldn’t be confident about the next two weeks (@Ole Miss and hosting Tennessee) if I were a Dawgs fan though.

I moved Nebraska up six spots for the win over Oregon even though the two teams scored the same number of touchdowns. Going for two every time is a losing battle.

I don’t think Notre Dame is anything special, and I didn’t think so in preseason either, so I kept Michigan St. in the same spot. I also saw no reason to move Boise St. or Washington.

I think of Oklahoma St.-Central Michigan as a tie roughly, and the Cowboys just beat the Pitt Panthers, so they seem to be good selections for 23 and 24. I thought about #25 for a long time, but Cal was pretty high in the computer ranking and Texas is a good win. I won’t penalize them any more for San Diego St. until the Aztecs have a loss.

I think we’ll have a much better idea about a lot of things next week. I count about 10 games that could have a major influence on how the divisions and conferences shake out at the end of the year.

rank/team/previous
1 Alabama 1
2 Wisconsin 5
3 Ohio St. 6
4 Tennessee 7
5 Houston 8
6 Arkansas 14
7 Texas A&M 16
8 Louisville 23
9 Stanford 9
10 Clemson 10
11 LSU 12
12 Michigan 3
13 Utah 11
14 Florida St. 2
15 Florida 17
16 Iowa 4
17 San Diego St. —
18 Nebraska 24
19 Georgia 18
20 Mich. St. 20
21 Boise St. 21
22 Washington 22
23 Okie St. 25
24 C. Michigan —
25 Cal —

Out of rankings: (13) Oklahoma, (15) Texas, (19) Oregon