I mentioned in the last blog that my ratings were delayed this week. I realized while I was compiling them that not enough credit was being given for playing a series of good opponents. I’m ok with giving undefeated teams or teams with very good records against mediocre to bad opponents the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not OK with James Madison being #6, Liberty being #11, and Troy being #17. I think if any of those teams played a random selection of top 25 opponents every week, their record would be about 1-9 or 2-8 right now.
Adjusted Approach to Top 25 and Possibly to Ratings
In recent years I added what I called weights to “good” games.
To explain how this came about, my original formula from about 18 years ago was sort of based on a 10-point scale. If you beat every team you played and those teams beat every team they played apart from you, you’d be between 9 and 10 depending on how good the opponents of the teams you beat were. This was the entire rating at first, but it later became sort of the first round where I used that number to decide how much credit you got for a win or how much you got subtracted for a loss.
Realistically the best teams can hope to be around 7 (Ohio St. right now is 6.676). So what I did with the “weights” was if you played teams better than 5 points (which right now is 14 teams), you’d have a certain number added to your overall rating. Another 16 teams are between 4.25 and 5, so I would add a smaller number for playing those teams.
This was regardless of whether you won or lost because you already lost points, so getting some of them back because it’s a good team isn’t a bad thing. I don’t just want to reward beating them. I wouldn’t want to reward Texas for beating Alabama and losing to Kansas St. (if the Longhorns had lost over the weekend) where I would not reward another team (like LSU) for beating Missouri and losing to Alabama. I actually think it’s better if you consistently beat teams lower than you and only fall short if you have a very good opponent.
Anyway, I’m starting to question if that’s the best approach. Wherever I draw the line is ultimately going to be kind of arbitrary. I mentioned the 5-point thing. Kansas is 4.98. How much less credit should you get for beating them than you do for beating Louisville at 5.01?
I also didn’t want to go backwards and introduce more subjectivity on my part. What I decided to do was just to add that initial number to what I have been publishing as the computer ratings. I could only use a fraction of that number because the other ratings right now tops out at 0.93. For most top 25 teams, the largest number is about 10x the smallest number, so I though the fairest thing to do was divide the largest number by 10 and then add the two together.
I’m still giving myself the leeway to move teams up to three spots for the top 25. I might go down to two next week, and I will let you know if I made a change to the published ratings. I want to see how it plays out. Sometimes when I make changes, they’re great for one week but I quickly see problems going from one week to the next. That’s fine for my top 25, but I don’t think it’s good for the computer rating. It’s good to be able to compare numbers over longer periods of time.
Big Picture for LSU after Bama Loss
I had a couple other quick thoughts about Saturday’s game. I’ve mentioned LSU’s personnel issues on defense. I also mentioned that the LSU defense was put in a really difficult spot in the fourth quarter when Alabama received the ball at the LSU 25 after an interception only a few seconds on the clock after the previous Alabama offensive drive (3 minutes and 65 yards).
I don’t blame Jayden Daniels for trying to make a play, the ball getting tipped, etc., but giving up a touchdown after the quick turnaround is not proof of a bad defense in that moment. No LSU fan goes on about how bad the 2019 defense was, and no one wanted Dave Aranda to be fired; but LSU gave up 41 points in that game. The Tigers gave up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and the SHORTEST touchdown drive was 75 yards. I highly doubt that if Joe Burrow threw an interception two plays after one of those drives that the defense would have stopped the Tide from scoring.
“Hot seat” isn’t nearly dramatic enough for Baton Rouge media personalities when they get worked up about something.
So I’m not on the “Fire Matt House” bandwagon that others are on. I know that in hindsight we should have tried to spy more because knowing what we know now, the offense didn’t get close to enough points for the defense that we played. Maybe LSU would have gotten lucky and there would have been a bunch of drops and bad passes. However, we don’t know if more open receivers would have backfired. I don’t hear anyone saying Nick Saban and his defensive coach are incompetent for sacrificing QB rushing yards for more pass coverage. Jayden Daniels ran for more yards than Jalen Milroe, and the former left the game with 13 minutes left.
If both teams had scored in the 40s in an LSU win like four years ago, everyone would be happy. But LSU commentators are going on the radio or on YouTube and saying giving up 40+ to Alabama is never OK regardless.
Even though he’s one of those who I think has been too much of an alarmist about the defense, Matt Moscona pointed out an interesting thing Kelly has been dealing with. You’d think no matter how badly things went off the rails, if you take over a team less than two years after a national championship, you’d have a pretty good recruiting class coming of age. But no, there are only three players left who were recruited in the wake of that championship. The rest of the team is either players Kelly brought in or players that came to play for a team that was going .500. The older players in the subsequent classes who stayed with the team are great. I always have a soft spot for overachiever types, but to think there isn’t a significant talent gap just because we escaped with a win over Alabama last year is silly. Having a better personality and recruiting in a better location than Saban was only getting Coach O so far.
Speaking of which, I want to compare with Saban for a moment. Saban went 26-12 (68.4%) in his first three years at LSU. Kelly is at 69.5% right now. Pretty good for having almost no junior class last year and almost no senior class this year. LSU has a chance to go 4-0, but let’s say they go 3-1 the rest of the way. That would give Kelly a 70.4% mark going into next season. In his last three Division I stops, there was a significant improvement in year three; but even if there isn’t, far too many fans are overreacting.
Granted, LSU had a worse record the two years before they hired Saban than they did the two years before they hired Kelly, but there wasn’t a transfer portal back then. There were good players who had come in after respective 9- and 10-win seasons in 1996 and 1997 who didn’t have a good option other than to stick it out. (By the way, there was only an 11-game regular season back then.). Gerry DiNardo, Saban’s predecessor, won 69.7% over his first three years, so it’s not like Saban blew away anything anyone had seen in recent years right away.
To make some less big-picture comments and get back to the rankings, I think it still makes sense to put Texas ahead of Alabama. That may change if Oklahoma loses again and LSU wins out. I’ve mentioned that LSU can get some meaningful positive points in each of the next few weeks. They’ll definitely be favored in the next two and they haven’t lost to Texas A&M in Baton Rouge since 1994 (the year before DiNardo started), so chances are pretty high they’ll be favored in that one too. Unfortunately, Georgia St. (who is in between Florida and Texas A&M) has lost two in a row though. They still may be the second-best team in Georgia.
College Football Playoff Rankings
I think it’s ridiculous that the committee thinks Oregon is the top one-loss team. The Ducks have the 82nd-best schedule. I know they played undefeated Washington, but the Huskies have played the #99 schedule. I don’t even factor in opponents’ opponents’ records as much as many similar blogs do. Some count that equally to opponents’ record because it’s a much narrower range from team to team. Utah, the Ducks’ best win, has a top-50 schedule but two losses.
The big difference comes after Oregon’s marquee win. The highest-rated opponent after that is Colorado, which is #69 overall. Alabama and Penn St. have each beaten four teams who are better than Colorado. Ole Miss, Texas, and Louisville have each beaten five teams who are better than Colorado. I can understand giving some credit for having one close loss to an undefeated team, but it shouldn’t compensate for about every other game being against a team in the top half of the FBS versus about 20% of games being against such teams. Any other team that’s a candidate for the college football playoff would be all but guaranteed to be 8-2 against the Ducks’ schedule, and most would probably beat Utah, my number 20 and the CFP’s #18.
I also don’t think Oregon St., who played no one of note out of conference, is close to the best 2-loss team. I don’t know where they get the idea the Pac-12 is so great. Arizona lost to Mississippi St. and is now half a game out of third place. Notre Dame has suffered a third loss now, but they beat USC (who actually is third place) easily. Wins over Wisconsin and TCU (albeit by lesser teams) have lost their luster.
There isn’t reason to get too annoyed yet, but the committee’s disregard of quality of opponents is something to watch out for going forward.
Comments about My Top 25
I think Purdue is better than their record, but Michigan hasn’t added as many points per week as other major-conference teams do on average. Even with USC’s struggles, they’re worth a lot more than Purdue. Alabama and Texas both added high-quality wins as well. Texas was a lot closer to losing at the end, but I don’t factor that in.
Georgia and Michigan can each get a good number of points next week though. Penn St. (who is playing Michigan) and Ole Miss (who is playing Georgia) are right behind them, but neither the Nittany Lions (Rutgers and Michigan St.) nor the Rebels (UL-Monroe and Mississippi St.) have nearly as many potential points to gain in the last two weeks of the season as the Bulldogs (Tennessee and Georgia Tech) and Wolverines (Maryland and Ohio St.) do.
The last time Ole Miss played Georgia, Rebel QB Chad Kelly led the team to a 45-0 lead in Oxford in 2016. Bulldog QB Jacob Eason (right) was only able to complete 44% of his passing attempts and failed to throw a touchdown. Somehow the Bulldogs’ long-awaited chance at revenge is not the SEC game of the week. I wish Ole Miss would go back to those uniforms. by the way.
So if you want to see an SEC team in the playoff, you need to be for Georgia (even if you’d rather see Alabama). If you want to see a Big Ten team, you need to cheer for Michigan (even if you’d rather see Ohio St.). I’m not saying the CFP committee always agrees with me, but high-quality wins are usually important to them in the end. Even if two or three one-loss teams make it, I doubt either one will be Penn St. or Ole Miss.
The order of Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. is mostly explained by what I said earlier about bad losses.
I liked not having to drop Missouri, Kansas St., and LSU too far. Part of that is due to Tulane and Toledo playing fairly weak opponents (even though Tulane barely won again). Losses by USC and UCLA helped too.
USC almost stayed in the top 25 given that the Washington loss didn’t hurt much, but there is only so much room for 3-loss teams. The rest of the honorable mentions are from outside of the major conferences.
They didn’t make the honorable mentions, but Duke, Arizona, North Carolina St., and U. Miami are the other major-conference three-loss teams in the top 40. North Carolina still only has two losses but has a relatively low schedule strength. It’s interesting how many ACC teams are in the 30s. Clemson (despite four losses) has a good chance of joining that group in the next few weeks.
I’m still moving toward my completely objective top 25; but if you just want to know what the computer says, go here. Last week, it was less than 1/3 objective. Today, it’s roughly half. The initial list I made was 60% objective, but I still allowed myself to move teams by up to 5 spots after that. The only exception was Ohio St., whom I moved six spots. There is a good chance the Buckeyes will be near #1 on their own merit next week anyway (if they beat Penn St. of course).
This might be the last week I can have Georgia ahead of all the one-loss teams though. Texas has the #3 schedule, and Georgia has one of the worst in FBS. Adding a bye week doesn’t help. The Bulldogs have a gauntlet after that (three games against ranked teams, one on the road, and two other good teams away from home), so they’re not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes to get back to the Playoff; but this is meant to be a snapshot. They should not be in the top four or even the top eight if the season ended now. Not only was Vanderbilt a weak opponent, but all of the Bulldogs’ best three opponents so far (Kentucky, South Carolina, and Auburn) lost to teams the Bulldogs have not yet played or will not play.
Just like last week though, most teams did not move more than a couple of spots from the improvised formula. There may still be some volatility in the coming weeks because for many teams next week’s result will still make up 1/6 of their FBS opponents, so it counts for about twice as much as a game does at the end of the year. Also, I’m going to continue to give myself less power to smooth out any transitions up or down the rankings.
The top 9 should make a lot of sense based on last week.
Iowa is exactly where the formula put them. If Penn St. loses, the Hawkeyes may fall a spot or two, but I think this is fair for right now. North Carolina is undefeated and has played a significantly better schedule than Georgia has, so I thought that spot was good for them.
Louisville followed up on the win over Notre Dame with a loss to Pitt, so this allowed LSU to move ahead of the Irish despite having a much less impressive win. The only loss by either of the two teams who beat LSU was to Alabama, so LSU’s two losses look much more excusable right now. Pitt already had four losses and had no FBS wins going into last week. They had a significant drop-off from last season. Former Pitt (and USC) quarterback Kedon Slovis going to BYU didn’t seem to do either side any good.
Michael Penix, Jr., of Washington prepares to attempt a pass against the Oregon Ducks in Seattle on Saturday. While both teams did have some success on the ground, the anticipated quarterback battle largely delivered. Although Penix threw for fewer yards and a lower completion percentage and threw the game’s only interception, he made up for it by throwing for two more touchdowns and about half a yard more per attempt than Oregon’s Bo Nix threw.
Oregon is still a good team despite the setback in Seattle. Their loss is similarly excusable to LSU’s losses, but there just isn’t a quality win like LSU and Notre Dame have. Missouri also only has one loss, but obviously I think hosting LSU is a step down from traveling to Washington right now.
Five of the remaining nine teams in my top 25 are in the Pac-12. It took me a while to sort them. I think it’s easier to explain in reverse order. Despite two losses in a row, Washington St. deserved to stay ranked because they beat Wisconsin, the team I would otherwise have put #25. Colorado St. isn’t bad for a second-best out-of-conference win either.
I don’t know why Wazzu lost to Arizona so badly, but margin of victory (or loss in this case) isn’t a big concern for me going forward. The week before, the Cougars lost to UCLA, so I put the Bruins higher. Oregon St. beat UCLA, and I think they only ended up losing to Washington St. because the game was in Pullman. Also, it’s a singular loss. The Beavers also beat Utah, so I think putting them between Washington St. and Utah made sense.
USC lost, but it was out of conference to Notre Dame, so I don’t have a problem with leaving the Trojans ahead of Oregon St., UCLA, and Washington St. You could argue about Utah, but it helps that the Utes beat Florida, whom I have #32 right now. Baylor isn’t having the best season, but going to Waco is still a strong second-best out-of-conference game. I don’t think USC has beaten anyone nearly as good as Florida. The Utes are 1-1 against the rest of the top 25 (win over UCLA, loss to Oregon St… another reason the Beavers are ahead of the Bruins), which is of course better than 0-1.
I squeezed Duke ahead of USC because they played Notre Dame closer and also because Clemson is creeping their way back toward the top 25 like Florida is.
I wasn’t blown away by the fact that Tennessee beat Texas A&M at home, but I like the way that they were able to grind out a low-scoring win and never seemed panicky or particularly at risk of losing. There were times last year when the Volunteers were out of their element when a defense was able to slow them down. I’m seeing some maturity and consistency that I’m not seeing from teams that are lower; and I mentioned Florida vis-a-vis Utah, so I’m more forgiving of that loss than the combinations of two losses below or the singular loss to Pitt.
I moved James Madison as far down as I could, so I don’t think the Dukes would beat the Volunteers on a neutral field right now; but this is a normal consequence of the computer formula. I could be wrong though. I would have sworn all last year that Tulane wouldn’t have beaten USC on a neutral field, for instance. I have Tulane #31, by the way, between the five honorable mentions and Florida. Kansas St. is right after Florida, which explains in part why Missouri is still as high as they are. Kentucky isn’t a bad #2 win for a one-loss team either.
I actually have two blogs of material this week since I didn’t have time to post the other one last week. I finally did get around to entering all the FBS results into the spreadsheet for my computer formula.
I thought posting the rankings blog was more important to get more back on schedule. I haven’t even promoted them like I usually do because most people aren’t really interested on Thursday and Friday.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels keeps the play alive in the first quarter in Columbia on Saturday. Daniels was responsible for 389 total yards and four touchdowns (with no turnovers). It should have been more scores, but we don’t need to get into why he didn’t get credit for more.
LSU/Missouri Recap and Reaction
I wanted to include a couple of comments about LSU’s win over Missouri even though my next blog will in part be about the game before.
It was nice to get Mizzou back for the first game after Covid, when LSU’s rising star quarterback Myles Brennan played a great game in Columbia but got hurt and was never seen in meaningful action again. I’m torn between saying LSU deserved to win that game and that LSU was lucky they competed in any games in 2020 and 2021.
Anyway, that was also the only season I know of when the LSU defense was nearly as bad as it is this year. I have barely even watched LSU play defense the last two games, by the way. Auburn’s offense isn’t as good as that of Mizzou or Ole Miss, so I’m hoping it might be more tolerable next game.
The second half of the Mizzou game was not bad though, to be fair. Six of the home Tigers’ 8 possessions did not result in points. Ideally LSU would like to force the other team to punt more, but missed field goals and interceptions result in the same number of points that “three and outs” do.
Preface of Rankings
For the rankings this week, it’s still mostly subjective; but there is an objective element now. I gave each team a score that was a combination of my subjective and objective ratings, and then I allowed myself to move teams a maximum of five spots from the order the improvised formula put them in. For most teams, it was only one or two spots though. The objective ratings aren’t as thorough as they will be (for instance, no credit was given for quality of FCS opponents), but they’re complete enough to give a strong idea of who the most accomplished teams are.
Oklahoma was the best team in my formula, but it’s partly because they beat 6 FBS opponents (none of which were very good before last week). So I felt the need to move them up considerably. I haven’t been impressed with them in “the eye test” since Caleb Williams transferred to USC, which is partly why they weren’t higher going into the week; but I couldn’t move Georgia any higher given the rules I made above. Florida St. has had two lucky wins, so I didn’t want to put them in the top 3 either.
Oklahoma’s Nic Anderson catches the winning touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel in Dallas on Saturday. Gabriel did not complete as many passes or throw for as many yards as Texas’s Quinn Ewers, but he threw no interceptions and Ewers threw two as Oklahoma got revenge for a 49-0 loss to the Longhorns last season.
Speaking of USC, I’m not impressed with them much at all once I sat down and looked at who they’ve beaten and the records of those opponents. They just went to triple overtime against Arizona, who lost to Mississippi St., possibly the worst team in the SEC West. The Trojans are undefeated though, so I thought I would put them ahead of the best two-loss team, Notre Dame. I would not be surprised to see USC lose to the Irish or any of the ranked Pac-12 teams though.
There were a couple of other large movements in the rankings. Louisville is another undefeated team who had a big, somewhat unexpected win over the weekend. North Carolina also made a big jump, but I am still concerned by the narrow home win over Appalachian St. One of the things I do when I move to more objective rankings is to de-emphasize margin of victory though. I added a couple of Big Ten teams with understandable losses, as well as adding LSU back.
Even though I understand it can look bad to move teams too dramatically, I still think it was the right choice to take LSU out when they fell to 2-2 against FBS opponents (which included a 3-point home win over Arkansas) going into the Missouri game. I also still think I was right to put Mizzou ahead of the four teams who fell out (as I’ll explain, formerly #21 Kansas didn’t fall far), but at any rate it makes sense for LSU to be a bit higher than those other Tigers now.
I can defend most of the choices I made last week, but the idea is to be as accurate as possible now, not to put last week on a pedestal and see who deserves to move up or down a set number of spots based on a preconceived idea of how good last week’s respective opponents were. I continue to think it’s the right thing to start evaluating teams differently around this time of year. Preseason, knee-jerk reactions to one or two early results, and margin of victory should count for very little going forward.
I’ve hardly had any teams from the G5 (those outside of the Power 5 conferences) ranked this season, but four of the best five unranked teams by both the computer and the overall formula are G5. They are as follows: James Madison, Kansas, Liberty, Memphis, and Wyoming.
I was going to leave it at that, but since I mentioned Liberty, it will be interesting to see how former Liberty and Ole Miss head coach and current Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze does in his first trip to Tiger Stadium since 2016. He was winless in three contests there as the head coach of Ole Miss, most notably in 2014 when his undefeated #3 Rebels were upset 10-7 in one of those Les Miles defensive and ball-control classics. When I get a chance, I’ll try to get caught up on the rivalry blogs.
My vacation has been over for more than a week, but I’m only about 1/5 of the way through adding results for an eventual computer rating, which I hope to have some semblance of by next week. Given that a team playing tonight is in my top 25, I couldn’t wait any longer to put up another subjective top 25.
LSU and Florida could well be among the best 25 teams; but consistent with my approach last week, I think if you have two losses right now, that’s too many to remain ranked. Also, either could seemingly lose several games by being unable to stop teams with any regularity when on defense.
Since Kentucky beat Florida easily and is undefeated, that seemed like a good option to take the Gators’ place. I haven’t thought Texas A&M was deserving of a ranking since last September; but in hindsight, the Aggies seem to have meaningfully improved from last year judging by the first couple of SEC games. Since their only loss is to U. Miami, who is undefeated, I thought it made sense to give the Hurricanes the final spot given that I’d decided it could not go to Florida or LSU.
Kentucky RB Ray Davis scored 4 touchdowns and ran for 280 yards against Florida in Lexington on Saturday.
I don’t have that much to say about the LSU game itself. I thought they would lose by single digits if they had a good day, and they basically would have lost by three if you take out two disastrous plays (and leave everything else the same): a blocked field goal from fairly close range that was returned for a touchdown, at least partly because all but a couple of players on the field forgot the rules (a 10-point swing), and an interception deep in LSU territory that resulted from a ball that was falling to the ground that hit an LSU helmet instead (this set up a fairly easy touchdown drive).
I’m not surprised that Alabama and Tennessee went ahead of LSU in bowl consideration given that they each only have two losses. I would argue if LSU had beaten Texas A&M, but my guess is that didn’t matter either. Rightly or wrongly (obviously wrongly in my view), Alabama was seen as the best SEC team after Georgia; and Tennessee’s win over LSU would have been a tie-breaker for a New Year’s Six bowl even if one didn’t punish LSU for the extra loss.
LSU is a superior team to Purdue, but sometimes it can be hard to be enthusiastic about playing such a game. I think the Boilermakers will be relatively excited to play in the game and probably would be to play in any bowl.
I do think Tennessee should have gone to the Sugar Bowl, but I guess we didn’t need another game between Alabama and Clemson to take place in the Orange Bowl. All the other New Year’s Six Bowls were fairly obvious match-ups according to the guidelines. USC vs. Tulane in the Cotton especially made sense as the two westernmost teams not bound to the Rose Bowl. They will play one another in a bowl for the first time since the Trojans won the Rose Bowl after the 1931 season. That game might have helped inspire the creation of the Sugar Bowl a few years later. USC and Tulane also split a home-and-home in the 1940s.
I had said Friday that Ohio St. should move up if another team fell out of the top four. I didn’t realize that TCU and USC were far enough ahead of Tennessee and Alabama that they could afford a loss and stay in the top five. Actually, my first draft of the ratings had USC ahead of Ohio St.; but then I realized that somehow Utah was being counted as a better opponent than they were. Not to bore the reader with the details, but I try not to penalize teams as much for losing a close game on the road, but that wasn’t meant to treat the winner as one of the top teams in the country as the weighted ratings do if not corrected.
The Trojans did beat one more top-25 team than Tennessee did. It hurt the Vols that LSU lost in a way because now the Tigers are not in the highest classification of the weighted ratings. Had LSU won, Georgia would not have fallen out of that classification (which right now is the top 8 teams). In the bigger picture, USC beat 8 Pac-12 teams and Notre Dame whereas Tennessee only beat 6 SEC teams and Pitt. You can think the former is more impressive while still having the SEC as the best conference.
I’ve written about Clemson playing a deceptive number of quality opponents, so that’s why they’re ahead of Alabama. The Tigers only beat one top 25 team (the same number Alabama has beaten), but they’ve beaten five other teams in the top 42 to Alabama’s one. Illinois is #39 and was a missed field goal from beating Michigan, and #37 Pitt took Tennessee to overtime, so I’m not talking about opponents that anyone can take for granted. (For an even better example, Florida is #51 and beat Utah.). Alabama does have better losses, but that doesn’t make up for that volume of decent wins.
Florida LB Amari Burney intercepts a pass to win the game against Utah in Gainesville on September 3. In hindsight, it’s another reminder that there are a lot of teams (including those who fall well outside of the top 25) who are threats to some of the best teams, even eventual Power-5 conference champions. On Friday, the Utes beat USC to claim the Pac-12 title and eliminate the Trojans from Playoff consideration.
I think it’s appropriate that the respective Big XII and Pac-12 champions round out the top 10. I don’t think Tulane, Troy, and UTSA would beat many of the 5 to 10 teams immediately below them, but I don’t mind that in my system teams like that are in the top 20 as long as they’re not in position for the Playoff. I’m glad not to be in New Orleans to hear from the Tulane fans who don’t know anything about national college football listing all the SEC teams they’d beat with their one good team in a generation though. I have mixed feelings about Troy playing UTSA in the Cure Bowl. On the one hand, it’s good that they’re both playing a ranked team; but on the other hand, I wonder how they would do against one of the lower Power-5 bowl teams.
I know the Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams, but one or two of those teams being non-Power-5 champions is fine with me. I will want most Power 5 teams to be eliminated with three or four losses. This isn’t the NFL; I’m not willing to take a team seriously as the potential national champion if they lost 1/3 or more of their regular-season games.
I don’t like Oregon being ahead of Oregon St. even though I do think the Ducks have been the better team overall this year. USC didn’t beat Oregon (both “civil war” teams played Utah), so it doesn’t hurt Oregon for the Trojans to lose. USC did beat Oregon St. It also helps that Oregon’s best non-conference opponent solidified its claim as the best team in the country. Oregon St. played Boise and Fresno, and neither is as good as LSU anyway, so there wasn’t as much of a gain there (there was a slight improvement to strength of schedule though).
My formula did put the Egg Bowl rivalry in the “correct” order (according to head-to-head results) though, with Mississippi St. at #25 and Ole Miss at #26. Of course, it helps that Mississippi St. played Georgia instead of Vanderbilt (all the other conference opponents were the same, and the two teams have the same record).
Some teams moved up or down more than they normally would given how many teams didn’t play. I hadn’t worked on the weighted formula in a few years and it was still new before COVID, so there were still some kinks to iron out. Given that most of the changes still made sense given the results and there was no turnover in the top 25, I don’t think I changed anything too abruptly.
I’ve updated the ratings after the Army-Navy game before, but this year I’ll just treat is as a bowl game since neither will play an actual bowl game.
For the ratings of all 131 teams and all FBS conferences (and independents), see here or click “Knights’ Ratings” above at any time while browsing this site.
I wanted to start by saying happy Thanksgiving. I thought it was best to get this out today since there is only one game, which is probably not of crucial importance.
Because they have been so dominant until now, Georgia is the only one-loss team I can see finishing ahead of either LSU with two wins in the final games or USC with two wins in the final games. The loser of Ohio St.-Michigan will not have anything on their resume similar to Georgia’s wins over Oregon and Tennessee. It could be an interesting argument if TCU loses or if both LSU and USC lose though. I don’t automatically discount non-champions (even with the same number of losses), but I believe they should be looked at more skeptically.
Strength of Schedule
I touched on this last week, but something that many basic fans either don’t grasp or don’t bother to look into is how much schedules vary. Most conferences are not like the Big XII where it’s a pure round robin; but even in the Big XII, there are still three non-conference games.
I wanted to go over who is on the schedule of the following teams that have a realistic chance at the playoff. I’ll go over the top four teams of the respective conferences and the biggest non-conference game. I’ll mention TCU last because I think most people’s sense of their schedule is accurate.
LSU: Georgia (plays December 3), Alabama (win), Tennessee (loss), Ole Miss (win), Florida St. (loss).
Georgia: LSU (plays December 3), Alabama (did not play), Tennessee (win), Ole Miss (did not play), Oregon (win).
USC: Oregon (not played; possible conference championship opponent {NPPCCO}), Washington (NPPCCO), Utah (loss), UCLA (win), Notre Dame (play on Saturday).
Ohio St.: Michigan (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Notre Dame (win).
Michigan: Ohio St. (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Connecticut (win).
Clemson: North Carolina (plays December 3), Florida St. (win), Pitt (did not play), Duke (did not play), Notre Dame (loss).
TCU has beaten the following: Kansas St., Texas, Oklahoma St., Baylor, and Texas Tech. Out of conference, the best win was over 6-5 SMU. As I discussed in the last blog, the Horned Frogs will play either Kansas St. or Texas for a second time in the championship game.
Former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV (pictured above throwing on the run against Florida in Jacksonville last month) helped lead Georgia to its first national championship since 1980 and has the Bulldogs well-positioned for another.
Early Resume Comparison
I’m not making predictions about the remaining games, but I’ll discuss the teams as if I’m comparing them at the end of the season. For instance, if I say LSU will have beaten Georgia, what I’m talking about is the only scenario in which LSU is a contender. I don’t expect LSU to come particularly close to beating Georgia.
The committee does not consider the wins a team would have at the end of the year, or Clemson and USC would be higher. Those are the only two above who have two really decent opponents left. I think it’s harder to have to win successive games like that. Even moreso with USC because it would be three strong wins in a row: UCLA, Notre Dame, and then the #2 Pac-12 team.
If Iowa beats Nebraska, which is highly likely, LSU and TCU will be the only teams to have played every other top-five team of their respective conference. I do think the quality of LSU’s top opponents would make up for the extra loss if TCU were to lose a game.
I know it doesn’t seem like either Big Ten team would be missing a big resume bullet point by not playing Purdue, but Purdue has one fewer loss than Illinois, which led Michigan with about one second left on the clock last week. Also, if you’re not really missing any competition by not playing one of the top five teams of your 14-team conference, that doesn’t say much about your conference schedule.
As I suggested, I’ll be impressed by USC if the Trojans manage to win the next two weeks, and I would not be bitter about it if they were to edge out LSU. I tip my hat to the committee for having LSU #5 right now. I think it shows they understand the lists above, and if the last two games barely put USC ahead of LSU, so be it.
That’s not to say I don’t think LSU would have an argument. One key point is USC’s loss thus far. Utah lost to a mediocre SEC team and beat USC. That suggests to me that USC would have more than one conference loss if they played at least four teams who finished higher in the SEC than Florida did.
This comparison only takes place if LSU wins, so we would either have an SEC non-champion having blown out USC’s best win at the beginning of the year or we would have USC avoiding one of the more dangerous teams in its conference.
Teams Who May Lose Late and Be Considered; Why Clemson Might Deserve a Spot if They Do
Putting LSU aside, Ohio St. would be a very interesting contender if they lose to Michigan. I think they would compensate for having two fewer games against the Big Ten West as a result of the non-conference game against Notre Dame. This argument becomes even stronger if USC is knocked out of the running by Notre Dame.
Ohio St. WR Emeka Egbuka stretches for a touchdown against Notre Dame in September in Columbus. Although the Irish have had a couple of ugly losses since then, this still may be a key win for the Buckeyes.
One-loss Michigan would be a poor contender against anyone but a one-loss TCU though. I know Connecticut beat Liberty and became bowl-eligible, but Connecticut is not a good team. TCU is the only team in this discussion with a similar lacking best non-conference opponent.
Maybe the committee disagrees, but I would prefer a one-loss Clemson to a one-loss Michigan. The ACC wouldn’t be the reason, but playing two non-conference opponents with the kind of quality wins that South Carolina and Notre Dame have would make the difference for me. It would be two good non-conference opponents to zero.
As I discussed in the previous blog, one reason I give Clemson more credit so far than others do is if you play a series of let’s call them high-medium teams (not ranked but above average) such as Louisville and Wake Forest, you’re still exposing yourself to risk of a loss to a higher degree with each game. Just ask Tennessee and Ole Miss. They didn’t show signs of being vulnerable to teams like that over the previous month or two, but they got to the point of playing too many teams that were high-medium or better and apparently didn’t get up enough for every one.
On the other hand, based on the above, you can imagine what the committee has probably said. Even if these other teams are in equal conferences (the ACC is probably the worst of the bunch), Clemson has only played one team in the top five of its conference, and they lost to the only team they’ve played so far who would be in the top five of their conference.
This conversation would probably only come up in seeding, but I wanted to address it anyway. Some are assuming that Georgia will definitely be ahead of LSU even if they lose to the Tigers, but I’m not so sure. If Georgia had to play Alabama and Ole Miss, it’s certainly possible they’d be entering the championship with a loss. Right now, I think the non-conference game against Oregon resolves any doubt; but it becomes a more open question if both Oregon and Florida St. have three losses at the end of the season. This wouldn’t matter in my ratings, but obviously how that SEC championship game plays out would influence this discussion.
First, I want to note that I’ve updated the LSU-Arkansas series blog. I didn’t mention that if you didn’t watch the game, the final score is misleading. The LSU defense was extremely dominant, and the 13-3 late edge seemed almost insurmountable, although of course one more late play could have made the difference in the game. This was the third consecutive game in the series that was decided by three points and the third consecutive win by the road team, both firsts in series history.
Assuming I have time, I’ll write more about potential playoff scenarios later, but I’ll just make general comments about the ratings. I did wait to publish this until after the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings.
The Race for #5
Since someone will lose between Ohio St. and Michigan, both currently ranked highly enough to make the four-team playoff, there is a lot of interest in who #5 is or will be.
Although in my rankings (and in the CFP’s), LSU stayed ahead of USC, I don’t necessarily fault the rankings that allowed the Trojans to go ahead. Obviously, UCLA is significantly better than UAB and the combination of UCLA and Notre Dame is significantly better than the combination of UAB and Texas A&M; but I just hope that LSU and USC can switch places just as easily if LSU beats a much better team on December 3. Even in my ratings, I expect the Trojans will go ahead with a win (over Notre Dame) after the games this weekend.
The CFP committee doesn’t let us know how close USC is to overtaking LSU, so we will just have to guess there, but I do think if they didn’t move USC ahead now, it would indicate that either (1) they aren’t going to move the Trojans ahead next week either or (2) if they do, it would be a very close call and can be just as easily switched back by LSU beating a better team in the conference championship game. Despite what Bo Nix says, I think Oregon (assuming they make the title game… more about the “civil war” opponent below) is still a good bit behind Georgia. If Oregon loses, that makes it worse for USC regardless of whether the Ducks still make the championship game (I think they would need Washington to lose in that scenario.)
I do have Clemson ahead of LSU right now, but I also think a win over Georgia would overcome the deficit. It may be closer than I would have thought previously given South Carolina’s win over Tennessee. The Gamecocks have a reasonable chance of winning the in-state rivalry though. That win by an SEC team would also give LSU a higher rating in comparison to other competitors for #4.
I think I value many of the same things the committee does, but I think they have a dim view of Clemson for a few reasons. For one, they just don’t seem that capable of scoring the points to keep up with a good offense; and it’s just very rare that your defense can be dominant enough against a good team (and they were anything but against Notre Dame) to compensate. In my ratings, you can win every game 7-3 and you get the same number of points as if you win 77-3 or 77-73. (I do take off a little if you win close games by three or fewer at home though.). For another, although they have played a long list of above-average teams, they’ve only played two teams in the top 20, and they’re only 1-1 against those teams. Also, those two teams each have three losses apiece. When I add in the “weighted” ratings, that’s meant to give extra credit for playing some of the best teams; but the overall ratings do not have the extreme focus on best opponents that the committee has.
Shifting ratings of prior opponents has some impact upon teams moving up and down in my ratings, but I think they’re still pretty stable being that there were only two teams that fell out of the top 25 (and they both obviously deserved to).
Although I think every reasonable ratings system has Georgia #1, there are some shortcomings being that the Bulldogs didn’t play any of the top three teams of the SEC West. If they’d played Alabama or Ole Miss, it would help LSU more to win that game. At least before the Texas A&M game, Auburn (whom Georgia plays every year) looked like the worst team in the SEC West. Mississippi St. isn’t the best either, although maybe those Bulldogs will win the Egg Bowl. I think a two-loss LSU would be a deserving #4 regardless, but I’m just talking about the numbers right now.
Other Developments in the Rankings
Tennessee’s falling four spots was reasonable. I think they should remain ahead of Alabama. I don’t think head-to-head is a good reason alone (given that it means the worse loss is worse for Tennessee), but the fact that Tennessee has played Georgia and Alabama hasn’t is a good reason. Both Tennessee and Alabama have played LSU in the same stadium, and we know how those games went.
It’s also helping LSU that Florida St. has been increasing its standing. Although I generally like Florida St. better, I’m used to having more mixed feelings in their games against Florida because I usually want to make LSU look better. But in this year, it’s the opposite since (although LSU has played both) I think it’s better if a team LSU lost to increases its rating instead of the fourth or fifth team the Tigers will have beaten doing so.
You might have expected some of the teams to fall more due to losses, but a loss to a good team this late in the year doesn’t hurt too much given that each successive game is a lower percentage of the total. Even a loss to a team that is destined for a less-than-impressive bowl game isn’t catastrophic. I have a couple of SEC results in mind. If you’re Central Florida, you can’t lose to Navy though.
Oregon St.’s rise may seem unusual, but all of their best prior opponents have been improving. Fresno St. lost its first four games against FBS opponents but has won all six since then. Boise St. started 1-2 against FBS opponents and is now 7-3 in such games. Washington St. has won three games in a row to improve to 7-4 overall. You’re probably already familiar with the gradual improvements of USC, Utah, and Washington. Although USC was high in the polls all year, they didn’t justify it much until later in the season.
Without commenting on the Playoff, USC appears to be the team to beat west of the DFW Metroplex. After struggling to score at times in the first half, the Trojans scored touchdowns, including the one above by WR Kyle Ford on the first play of the fourth quarter, on their first four possessions in the second half to take a 10-point lead in the Rose Bowl on Saturday. After UCLA threw a late interception, USC held on for a 48-45 win.
Finally, Texas has improved in recent weeks as the Oklahoma win has gotten stronger and the Alabama and TCU losses have been hurting the Longhorns less. Some may wonder how they could possibly be ahead of Kansas St., but you can’t just look at records and conference membership.
Even within the same conference, a better strength of schedule can compensate for a loss. Obviously, Alabama is a much better team than Tulane, and even Texas’s second-best out-of-conference opponent (UTSA) is comparable to Tulane (and they actually rate better as an opponent although not overall). It also helps that Texas did not play an FCS team. Kansas St. not only played an FCS team, but that team is only 3-7 within the FCS (3-8 overall). I think TCU playing Texas again would make for a better game, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.
The Horned Frogs finish with Iowa St. and most likely Kansas St., two of the old Big XII North opponents (only three of which remain in the Big XII after the departures of Nebraska, Colorado, and Missouri). The Wildcats play Kansas, the only other former Big XII North team still in the conference. If Kansas St. wins, they’re in the championship game. If not, they’d need Texas to lose to Baylor. Even though I already think Texas is the better team, I suspect the committee would like TCU better if they beat two-loss Kansas St. rather than three-loss Texas.
Being that it’s a bye week, I don’t have anything to say about the prior LSU game other than what I said to accompany the previous top 25 blog. I won’t do a detailed LSU/Alabama preview like I did with Ole Miss, but I have a few general thoughts. I don’t usually post blogs this late, but I thought with it being Halloween and there being an NFL game with a bunch of former LSU players in it, people would be up.
This is the best preview I’ve heard so far. You can skip the first few minutes and the last minute or so.
I don’t really believe in astrology, but I guess it’s sort of appropriate subject matter today. I wanted to note for any who find it interesting that since the last time either of these teams played a game, both Brian Kelly and Nick Saban have had birthdays (Saban’s is today), so they’re both Scorpios like I am (although I was almost a Sagittarius, and Kelly was almost a Libra… maybe that’s what stopped me from being a multimillionaire with a job in sports).
Their respective ages (Saban Is 9 years and 360 days older, for what it’s worth) are seen by many as a detriment, especially in this era of 30-something offensive coaches. Even if I were impartial though, I would look forward to this game because I think you have two coaches with some patience and wisdom (they’re not going to panic if they’re down a couple of scores or try to do anything weird to put the game away if they’re up) but also coaches with high expectations and attention to detail who will let players know promptly if they mess up. Some people might think it’s mean or regressive, but I relate better to coaches who are willing to vent a bit than I do to the easygoing “player’s coaches” or the ones who just robotically move on to the next play. I like to see a more old-school combination of professionalism and emotional investment.
Early Thoughts About Saturday
I see a range of outcomes, sort of like I did with Tennessee. LSU winning easily is unlikely for myriad reasons, but anything from a close game to an Alabama blowout seems realistic. There might be a few good plays on defense that help, but for the most-part I think the LSU defense is going to be beaten more often than not, along the lines of Alabama/Tennessee this year, LSU/Alabama in 2019, and the Alabama/Clemson national championship games. I don’t think LSU allows 52 unless Alabama has a very high number of possessions and/or very good field position (due to turnovers, three-and-outs, bad special teams, etc.), but high 30s may be unavoidable.
After being behind 28-10 midway through the second quarter in Knoxville on October 15, Bryce Young led the Alabama offense to 39 points in the next 2 quarters. I think LSU will need to keep them below that number for the game.
The Tigers have had sustained drives in recent weeks, sometimes multiple drives in a row; but I think it will be more difficult to do that against Alabama than it was against Ole Miss and Florida. I also don’t think LSU can afford its characteristically slow starts because I don’t think the Alabama offense will just sort of hit a wall like Mississippi St.’s and Ole Miss’s did while the Tigers can take the lead and pull away over multiple possessions. You can’t just diagnose their schemes and watch Bryce Young become ineffective like you could for some other quarterbacks. Alabama might have a slow 10 minutes of game play at one or two points, but the offense never really shuts down.
I didn’t save the link or a time stamp or anything, but I did hear some commentary from the LSU media that annoyed me. There is a show I normally like called Hunt and Hill, where former LSU running back Jeremy Hill talked about how when he played the Miles coaching staff would bring up Alabama a month ahead of time. Hunt Palmer (the co-host if you couldn’t guess) defended the former coaching staff for adding hype to the Bama game. He said it wasn’t possible to pretend it wasn’t a big game.
That’s a false dilemma. Whatever you tell them or whatever routine you have isn’t going to stop them from knowing that they have to raise their level of play more against Alabama than they did against New Mexico, for instance; but there is a danger of increased insecurity and trying too hard.
You don’t have to lie in order to concentrate on one game at a time and not act like a given game is life and death. You can’t tell a team that their whole lives rest on a single game for a month and then expect them to lose that game and be ready to play the next. Even if they win, the next week can be difficult to get up for.
I think Nick Saban exaggerates a little when he calls these greater narratives that the media hypes up “rat poison,” but the point is you do all you can to avoid it in order to minimize and counteract its impact to the extent possible. A team is much more confident if you instill a sense of routine.
Saban made a less dramatic point this week when he talked about an individual player, former LSU defensive back Eli Ricks: “I think it’s important that he just, y’know, goes into this game and bes (sic) himself and doesn’t think he has to do something fantastic.” Obviously if he follows his assignments and also does something fantastic (that’s not unduly risky), Saban isn’t going to complain; but the point is the first priority is to concentrate on adhering to the system in place and the plays that are called. If there is a little bit of extra energy you can channel into such tasks, great. Regardless of this game potentially deciding the SEC West, the game means something personal to Ricks; but the same applies to players who might be tempted to take chances or depart from things they normally do well and consistently because it’s a big game.
Historical Notes and Observations
I don’t think this game is like some of the Alabama/LSU games 8-12 years ago where LSU loses its primary goals and lacks enthusiasm afterward, but I’m glad we have a coaching staff that isn’t likely to lose its focus and professionalism for a given opponent. Other than his statement that it’s a privilege to play important games like this rather than a reason to be nervous or insecure, there wasn’t a single sound bite to focus on, but Kelly made similar general points during his press conference.
Going into the 2015 game in Tuscaloosa, LSU was undefeated and ranked #2 in the country with a Heisman leader at running back, but the star running back of the game turned out to be Derrick Henry (2) rather than Leonard Fournette. LSU lost the next two games as well and fell out of the top 25. Alabama would defeat Clemson for another national championship.
Transfer Portal
I think there are a couple of things about the current transfer portal era that help too.
First is that I think Alabama has been weakened by the addition of players who weren’t originally recruited to go there and either continued bad habits from high school or picked up bad habits at their prior program. This is probably part of the reason we saw a much sloppier Alabama team against Tennessee than we’re used to. I also think LSU is much sloppier now than they were in the early years of Les Miles and than they will be in future years under Brian Kelly, but Alabama and LSU are much closer in that regard than they have been in prior years.
Also, despite the ability of Bryce Young to improvise, Alabama is usually much more robust on third down than they are this year. LSU was mediocre in some games this season, and they still do better on third downs than Alabama does. I’m not minimizing the difficulty I believe LSU will have in taking advantage of mistakes or failures of the Alabama offense, not am I minimizing Saban’s ability to clean up any sloppiness in a bye week.
The other benefit I can see from the teams being a higher percentage of transfer players is that LSU doesn’t have this complex about playing Bama instilled into them, and Alabama doesn’t have a feeling of superiority that no matter what they’ll find a way to win. I think it was overblown by some in the media, but I think we got a hint of this in the pregame against Tennessee. Saban even said the team was more reserved than normal. They weren’t chanting and didn’t seem as loose. You’d think that if you dominated a series like that you’d be more confident even if you are on the road, but I just don’t think there is the same continuity with prior seasons as there was for those great LSU/Alabama games in the past.
Obviously, in this case, the veteran players do remember LSU beating Alabama. Even though LSU was a much more disadvantaged team last year, they hung in there pretty well on the road, only losing by 6. The 2020 game against Alabama was horrendous for LSU, who didn’t have a good quarterback at the time and had a terrible defense; but if it didn’t affect things last year, I don’t think it affects things this year.
LSU QB Joe Burrow runs for a big gain in Tuscaloosa in November 2019, in LSU’s only win over the Tide since the 9-6 OT win in 2011. Burrow was less impressive in the game against the Browns tonight, but a number of Browns are also former Tigers.
Lessons from 2012 and 2014
I’ve covered some of this in my past blogs about the LSU-Alabama series, but I don’t think I approached it in response to this specific argument before.
I don’t think this affects the current players who were in elementary school at the time (if any are reading, stop now), but I wanted to recap a couple of games where I thought the players and coaches let Alabama get in their heads too much. It would be nice to finally get one back at home.
(The last two LSU wins, in two fairly memorable years of 2011 and 2019, were in Tuscaloosa. Since Bear Bryant’s hiring in 1958, LSU has only beaten Alabama five times in Baton Rouge. Nick Saban won two of the five for LSU {in three tries} and lost only one of the five for Alabama {against six wins in Tiger Stadium as the Alabama head coach). The one loss by Saban was in 2010, the last year in which his team lost more than two games in a season.)
LSU did lose to Alabama in overtime in 2008, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with what the players or coaches did leading up to the game. LSU QB Jarrett Lee had a big problem with interceptions (particularly pick-sixes) that year, but it was a general problem and not specific to Alabama. Then, as I mentioned parenthetically, LSU did beat Alabama at home in 2010. I think both teams played normal games and the team that was a little better ended up winning. The better respective teams also won close games in 2007 and 2009 {some say LSU was the better team on the day in 2009, but Alabama did go undefeated and LSU did finish with four losses} in Tuscaloosa.
Looking back, it all changed in the 21-0 national championship game in January 2012, as many know; but many don’t realize that it didn’t have to be that way.
In the game the next November, the Tigers went down 14-3 after the first half. The halftime score was as bad as it was because of a failed fake punt and a missed field goal. I believe there was another trick play by LSU as well. There is a lot of psychology that goes into trick plays and field-goal kicking, and obviously the decision to call the fake punt might have betrayed some insecurity by the coaching staff. Even though 52 weeks before that LSU had beaten Alabama to take a 5-2 series lead since Miles took over, it showed the coaches were approaching the game as if Alabama was a vastly superior team that they were trying to get lucky and knock off. After the missed field goal that would have cut the lead to one point, the Tide took over and scored a touchdown right before half. If LSU had just taken what they were given, the Tigers might have had better field position, leading to a touchdown or at least a closer field goal attempt and possibly would have prevented Alabama from scoring a touchdown at the end of the half.
Despite having been outscored 35-3 by Alabama over six quarters and having another disappointing end to a half, LSU still didn’t act defeated. The defense would force four punts and a fumble to start the second half. After a three-and-out to start the half, the LSU offense drove deep in Alabama territory four consecutive times. So basically the game was even in the first half apart from the bitter and, and LSU had dominated the second half. LSU just didn’t have the points to show for it.
I mentioned the missed field goal in the first half. After the third offensive drive of the second half though, LSU was nonetheless ahead 17-14. I don’t know if it was more on the players or the coaches (I suspect the coaches), but it seemed like everything after that backfired.
After a 35-yard pass from Zach Mettenberger to Odell Beckham to set LSU up at the Alabama 33, it seemed like the coaches were content to play for a field goal. Normally a 6-point lead rather than a 3-point lead isn’t the best strategy at the end of a game, but there was still about 10 minutes left, so it made some sense if they had stuck with it. They called two runs and one short pass. But since this set up a 4th and 1, they then decided to gamble and go for it, even though it seemed like this move contradicted previous play calls and it should have been a red flag how much trouble the Tigers had running the ball on the two prior plays that set of downs. Of course, LSU was stuffed, and Alabama took over on downs.
The LSU defense responded with a three-and-out despite what had looked like a shift in momentum. The LSU offense also seemed undeterred. After some more runs and shorter passes (I don’t know why they didn’t take more chances against what seemed to be a tired secondary when they had Jarvis Landry and Beckham to throw to, but that was not uncommon for LSU offenses of that era), there was a 13-yard pass to Landry and a 22-yard pass to Beckham. All they had to do was keep the pressure on. But no, the coaches wanted to play for a field goal again. This was much less defensible now since Mettenberger had become more confident and now there were only about 2 ½ minutes to play. Unlike the last time, it was pretty cut-and-dried that Alabama would take over with a chance to take the lead in the final minute whether you made the field goal or not.
People focus on the screen pass for a touchdown on the ensuing Alabama drive, but the LSU defense should have never been put in that position. I also don’t think prevent was the best strategy in the plays leading up to that. If they had scored with 2 minutes left, that would have been better than having them score with 51 seconds left.
Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon scores the winning points in Baton Rouge on November 3, 2012. This was the start of a 5-game winning streak for the Tide in Tiger Stadium, which LSU hopes to break on Saturday. (It was the second of 8 straight wins overall in the series.) Alabama went on to win the national championship over Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish the following January.
So I don’t think that feeling of inevitability of a loss against Alabama was really established until the second game of the 2012 calendar year.
2014 is a much simpler narrative. With the convincing loss in Tuscaloosa in 2013, it was now a three-game losing streak against Alabama. Still, the Tigers were able to play a close game, more along the lines of 2011 than 2012; but it was still a good contest.
After LSU had opened the second half with a field goal to tie the game at 10 (it was the opposite of 2012, when the Tigers punted on the first possession of the half and then played well offensively), there was nothing but punts by both teams until Alabama took over at their own 1 with 1:50 to play. On second down from the 5, the Tide fumbled, giving LSU a huge gift. Unlike in 2012, it seemingly didn’t matter whether they played for a field goal or not. All they had to do was make sure the clock ran and kick a field goal on fourth down if needed. Of course, it didn’t work out that way.
After a first-down run, there was some pushing and shoving on the line. The referee who made the call should have been fired on the spot since there was no reasonable way not to either call no foul or to call offsetting penalties, but you still don’t give them that opportunity. Fall down and play dead. If Alabama doesn’t stop the after-the-play shenanigans then, you’ll get a call from one of the refs. If they do, you get the last laugh anyway. Anyway, so the penalty stopped the clock. It also took a realistic possibility of a touchdown off the table, and LSU was only able to run the clock down to 50 seconds before kicking the go-ahead field goal. Then, instead of kicking it away, they tried to be cute and call a squib kick. That kick went out of bounds, setting up Alabama at the 35 with no time taken off the clock. Even if it had not gone out of bounds, a squib kick only takes a few seconds off; and I think it would have been better to give Alabama farther to go to get into field-goal range.
Like in 2012, the LSU defense had finally been battered just enough that they gave up points. This time it was only 3 points, but it didn’t matter in the end since Alabama would win in overtime.
I don’t fault the coaches for not doing this, but I actually thought LSU should have broken the unofficial rules and gone on offense first. This would have given the defense more of a break. I wasn’t surprised that after the Tide drove 55 yards in 50 seconds they were able to drive for a touchdown with unlimited time. I also wasn’t surprised that the LSU offense went four-and-out after being so ineffective since the first drive of the second half. Maybe once regulation ended it a tie, it was all over anyway.
January 2012 might have been when the mortal was turned into a vampire or the day the coffin was built, but I think that day was the first nail in the coffin of the Les Miles era. Too bad we had to deal with some kind of undead Dracula/Frankenstein abomination for nearly two more years.
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.
I apologize for the long period of time between posts. I haven’t stopped working on and thinking about the blog.
I was on vacation for about 10 days. My return was somewhat well-timed because this is when I like to begin transitioning into my computer ratings anyway. I meant to post a new top 25 while I was away. I made the new list but never got around to posting it. I prefer to look at an objective rating at the end of September, but I tried something a little different. I looked at the very early version of a computer rating that I did before that week; but I had no way to update it with the results from two Saturdays ago, so it was just my best estimation of what the rankings would have been if I’d had that ability.
Since the ratings are the most overdue and urgent part, I’ll start with those. Two weeks ago first and then the one from earlier this week.
My new rankings are about 50/50 between objective and subjective. What I did was take the computer top 40 and then rank them 1 to 40 myself. So they each got a value between 1 point and 40 points. I divided that number by about 40 and also got a percentage of the best computer rating, which belongs to Ohio St. The final rating is a percentage of those two smaller amounts added together. I only made a few small changes if teams where within 1%. It so happened that LSU’s next opponent and two best prior opponents were nearly tied. So I decided to put the undefeated team the Tigers haven’t played first, followed by the one who beat them by a point, followed by the one LSU beat by 15.
I just combined them into one chart. People get confused or distracted otherwise.
Kansas safety O.J. Burroughs (5) breaks up a pass to Iowa State wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson (8) during the first half In Lawrence on Saturday.
Kansas was the biggest jump, but I don’t consider just inside the top 25 to just inside the top 10 unreasonable for a transition week such as this one. I prefer to give undefeated teams who have faced major-conference opposition the benefit of the doubt at this point anyway. In the Jayhawks’ case, that’s three of five games against Power 5 opponents and a fifth against Houston of the AAC. This is not unrelated to why they are rated so highly at this point. All three Power 5 games were within one possession, so I don’t expect them to continue this. They may not even win another game. My ratings aren’t meant to be predictive though: they’re meant to give credit to accomplishments to this point.
I don’t have an “others receiving votes section,” but this is the remainder of the Top 40 in order: Kansas St., James Madison, Illinois, Texas Tech, Washington St., Liberty, Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Tulane, Memphis, North Carolina, Utah, Duke, Appalachian St., and UNLV.
There may be some other teams I would subjectively put in the top 40, but I didn’t even apply a subjective rank to teams that weren’t in the computer top 40. Air Force, Minnesota, Purdue, and Notre Dame come to mind as additional possibilities in the coming weeks. Although a couple of them are on the list above, it’s difficult for two-loss teams to have much of a shot at this point in the season.
I wasn’t sure where to mention this, but this isn’t penalizing Georgia for a close win. Although Oregon has looked good, Georgia’s average opponent isn’t as good as Alabama’s average opponent. Even if Georgia-Missouri and Alabama-Arkansas were identical final scores, I think Arkansas is a much better team both on paper and in reality. Notre Dame is slowly rehabilitating itself to make Ohio St.’s schedule thus far look stronger than Georgia’s as well. It helps the Buckeyes that they have not faced an FCS opponent or had a bye week yet.
It’s unusual that my top 10 is this consistent during a transition week. The top 6 remained in tact with just a few minor changes to the order, and numbers 8 and 9 stayed exactly the same.
LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, and Objectivity
Back to LSU, with the win over Mississippi St. a couple of weeks ago, Brian Kelly became the first LSU head coach since 1995 to win his first conference game in his first full season. Now he’s won his first two. 1987 was the last time a new head coach started 3-0 or better in SEC play. Three different head coaches (Stovall, Arnsparger, and Archer) started their inaugural seasons with 4-game SEC winning streaks in the 1980s.
Given the inconsistencies of both sides, I’m not making a prediction regarding the game tomorrow; but I do think Tennessee is appropriately placed outside the top 10. Unlike the major polls, I constantly revisit earlier games. The major polls continue to give the Vols credit for a shaky win (prevailing in overtime against a backup quarterback) over a Pitt team that did not lose to Georgia Tech, for instance, while I think the fact that the Yellowjackets beat the Panthers without overtime is a big negative against Tennessee. The Vols also beat the team (Florida) who beat Utah, but I still don’t see why Utah was as highly rated as they were going into the season. As it stands, the Utes don’t even make my top 35.
As badly as LSU played in the win over Auburn (and at times against the other two Power 5 opponents) though, Tennessee could win easily. I would note that the Vols are favored by about as much as Mississippi St. was when the Bulldogs visited Baton Rouge though. Regardless of LSU’s shortcomings, I think Las Vegas is well aware of Tennessee’s. So while as I said, I don’t have a predictive model, I think I do have some commonalities with bettors in that I try to be objective and take into account the big picture and all aspects of a team. In addition to amnesia about why they moved teams up (or down) in the first place, I think the polls are more impressed by how historical a program is and flashy highlights. Good team defense on third down or good blocking on special teams or a long hang time aren’t likely to make SportsCenter countdowns.
I guess if LSU’s wins I’ll be happy for any undeserved credit for beating a top-10 opponent.
One of the most bizarre football games I’ve ever witnessed (even though I turned it off before it was over) took place the last time Tennessee went to Baton Rouge, in 2010. That also featured a top-10 team, but in that case it was the home team. For the overall series against Tennessee, see here. If you follow the second link, you’ll see the same discussion regarding 2010 but not the videos. I still can’t believe that 10 turned into a 16.
LSU RB Stevan Ridley (you can only see the side of his pants and the bottom of his leg) scores the winning touchdown against Tennessee at Tiger Stadium on October 2, 2010.
Another thing I did while you didn’t hear from me was update the Auburn series. I added a detailed summary of the game that took place while I was gone.
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The Bayou Blogger 
Alabama, Arizona, College Football, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kansas St., Louisville, LSU, Mississippi St., Missouri, Notre Dame, Ohio St., Ole Miss, Oregon, Oregon St., Pac-12, SEC, TCU, Texas, USC, Wisconsin
Week 10 Top 25 2023
In College Football, General LSU, Rankings, Rankings Commentary on November 8, 2023 at 4:51 PMI mentioned in the last blog that my ratings were delayed this week. I realized while I was compiling them that not enough credit was being given for playing a series of good opponents. I’m ok with giving undefeated teams or teams with very good records against mediocre to bad opponents the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not OK with James Madison being #6, Liberty being #11, and Troy being #17. I think if any of those teams played a random selection of top 25 opponents every week, their record would be about 1-9 or 2-8 right now.
Adjusted Approach to Top 25 and Possibly to Ratings
In recent years I added what I called weights to “good” games.
To explain how this came about, my original formula from about 18 years ago was sort of based on a 10-point scale. If you beat every team you played and those teams beat every team they played apart from you, you’d be between 9 and 10 depending on how good the opponents of the teams you beat were. This was the entire rating at first, but it later became sort of the first round where I used that number to decide how much credit you got for a win or how much you got subtracted for a loss.
Realistically the best teams can hope to be around 7 (Ohio St. right now is 6.676). So what I did with the “weights” was if you played teams better than 5 points (which right now is 14 teams), you’d have a certain number added to your overall rating. Another 16 teams are between 4.25 and 5, so I would add a smaller number for playing those teams.
This was regardless of whether you won or lost because you already lost points, so getting some of them back because it’s a good team isn’t a bad thing. I don’t just want to reward beating them. I wouldn’t want to reward Texas for beating Alabama and losing to Kansas St. (if the Longhorns had lost over the weekend) where I would not reward another team (like LSU) for beating Missouri and losing to Alabama. I actually think it’s better if you consistently beat teams lower than you and only fall short if you have a very good opponent.
Anyway, I’m starting to question if that’s the best approach. Wherever I draw the line is ultimately going to be kind of arbitrary. I mentioned the 5-point thing. Kansas is 4.98. How much less credit should you get for beating them than you do for beating Louisville at 5.01?
I also didn’t want to go backwards and introduce more subjectivity on my part. What I decided to do was just to add that initial number to what I have been publishing as the computer ratings. I could only use a fraction of that number because the other ratings right now tops out at 0.93. For most top 25 teams, the largest number is about 10x the smallest number, so I though the fairest thing to do was divide the largest number by 10 and then add the two together.
I’m still giving myself the leeway to move teams up to three spots for the top 25. I might go down to two next week, and I will let you know if I made a change to the published ratings. I want to see how it plays out. Sometimes when I make changes, they’re great for one week but I quickly see problems going from one week to the next. That’s fine for my top 25, but I don’t think it’s good for the computer rating. It’s good to be able to compare numbers over longer periods of time.
Big Picture for LSU after Bama Loss
I had a couple other quick thoughts about Saturday’s game. I’ve mentioned LSU’s personnel issues on defense. I also mentioned that the LSU defense was put in a really difficult spot in the fourth quarter when Alabama received the ball at the LSU 25 after an interception only a few seconds on the clock after the previous Alabama offensive drive (3 minutes and 65 yards).
I don’t blame Jayden Daniels for trying to make a play, the ball getting tipped, etc., but giving up a touchdown after the quick turnaround is not proof of a bad defense in that moment. No LSU fan goes on about how bad the 2019 defense was, and no one wanted Dave Aranda to be fired; but LSU gave up 41 points in that game. The Tigers gave up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and the SHORTEST touchdown drive was 75 yards. I highly doubt that if Joe Burrow threw an interception two plays after one of those drives that the defense would have stopped the Tide from scoring.
So I’m not on the “Fire Matt House” bandwagon that others are on. I know that in hindsight we should have tried to spy more because knowing what we know now, the offense didn’t get close to enough points for the defense that we played. Maybe LSU would have gotten lucky and there would have been a bunch of drops and bad passes. However, we don’t know if more open receivers would have backfired. I don’t hear anyone saying Nick Saban and his defensive coach are incompetent for sacrificing QB rushing yards for more pass coverage. Jayden Daniels ran for more yards than Jalen Milroe, and the former left the game with 13 minutes left.
If both teams had scored in the 40s in an LSU win like four years ago, everyone would be happy. But LSU commentators are going on the radio or on YouTube and saying giving up 40+ to Alabama is never OK regardless.
Even though he’s one of those who I think has been too much of an alarmist about the defense, Matt Moscona pointed out an interesting thing Kelly has been dealing with. You’d think no matter how badly things went off the rails, if you take over a team less than two years after a national championship, you’d have a pretty good recruiting class coming of age. But no, there are only three players left who were recruited in the wake of that championship. The rest of the team is either players Kelly brought in or players that came to play for a team that was going .500. The older players in the subsequent classes who stayed with the team are great. I always have a soft spot for overachiever types, but to think there isn’t a significant talent gap just because we escaped with a win over Alabama last year is silly. Having a better personality and recruiting in a better location than Saban was only getting Coach O so far.
Speaking of which, I want to compare with Saban for a moment. Saban went 26-12 (68.4%) in his first three years at LSU. Kelly is at 69.5% right now. Pretty good for having almost no junior class last year and almost no senior class this year. LSU has a chance to go 4-0, but let’s say they go 3-1 the rest of the way. That would give Kelly a 70.4% mark going into next season. In his last three Division I stops, there was a significant improvement in year three; but even if there isn’t, far too many fans are overreacting.
Granted, LSU had a worse record the two years before they hired Saban than they did the two years before they hired Kelly, but there wasn’t a transfer portal back then. There were good players who had come in after respective 9- and 10-win seasons in 1996 and 1997 who didn’t have a good option other than to stick it out. (By the way, there was only an 11-game regular season back then.). Gerry DiNardo, Saban’s predecessor, won 69.7% over his first three years, so it’s not like Saban blew away anything anyone had seen in recent years right away.
To make some less big-picture comments and get back to the rankings, I think it still makes sense to put Texas ahead of Alabama. That may change if Oklahoma loses again and LSU wins out. I’ve mentioned that LSU can get some meaningful positive points in each of the next few weeks. They’ll definitely be favored in the next two and they haven’t lost to Texas A&M in Baton Rouge since 1994 (the year before DiNardo started), so chances are pretty high they’ll be favored in that one too. Unfortunately, Georgia St. (who is in between Florida and Texas A&M) has lost two in a row though. They still may be the second-best team in Georgia.
College Football Playoff Rankings
I think it’s ridiculous that the committee thinks Oregon is the top one-loss team. The Ducks have the 82nd-best schedule. I know they played undefeated Washington, but the Huskies have played the #99 schedule. I don’t even factor in opponents’ opponents’ records as much as many similar blogs do. Some count that equally to opponents’ record because it’s a much narrower range from team to team. Utah, the Ducks’ best win, has a top-50 schedule but two losses.
The big difference comes after Oregon’s marquee win. The highest-rated opponent after that is Colorado, which is #69 overall. Alabama and Penn St. have each beaten four teams who are better than Colorado. Ole Miss, Texas, and Louisville have each beaten five teams who are better than Colorado. I can understand giving some credit for having one close loss to an undefeated team, but it shouldn’t compensate for about every other game being against a team in the top half of the FBS versus about 20% of games being against such teams. Any other team that’s a candidate for the college football playoff would be all but guaranteed to be 8-2 against the Ducks’ schedule, and most would probably beat Utah, my number 20 and the CFP’s #18.
I also don’t think Oregon St., who played no one of note out of conference, is close to the best 2-loss team. I don’t know where they get the idea the Pac-12 is so great. Arizona lost to Mississippi St. and is now half a game out of third place. Notre Dame has suffered a third loss now, but they beat USC (who actually is third place) easily. Wins over Wisconsin and TCU (albeit by lesser teams) have lost their luster.
There isn’t reason to get too annoyed yet, but the committee’s disregard of quality of opponents is something to watch out for going forward.
Comments about My Top 25
I think Purdue is better than their record, but Michigan hasn’t added as many points per week as other major-conference teams do on average. Even with USC’s struggles, they’re worth a lot more than Purdue. Alabama and Texas both added high-quality wins as well. Texas was a lot closer to losing at the end, but I don’t factor that in.
Georgia and Michigan can each get a good number of points next week though. Penn St. (who is playing Michigan) and Ole Miss (who is playing Georgia) are right behind them, but neither the Nittany Lions (Rutgers and Michigan St.) nor the Rebels (UL-Monroe and Mississippi St.) have nearly as many potential points to gain in the last two weeks of the season as the Bulldogs (Tennessee and Georgia Tech) and Wolverines (Maryland and Ohio St.) do.
So if you want to see an SEC team in the playoff, you need to be for Georgia (even if you’d rather see Alabama). If you want to see a Big Ten team, you need to cheer for Michigan (even if you’d rather see Ohio St.). I’m not saying the CFP committee always agrees with me, but high-quality wins are usually important to them in the end. Even if two or three one-loss teams make it, I doubt either one will be Penn St. or Ole Miss.
The order of Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. is mostly explained by what I said earlier about bad losses.
I liked not having to drop Missouri, Kansas St., and LSU too far. Part of that is due to Tulane and Toledo playing fairly weak opponents (even though Tulane barely won again). Losses by USC and UCLA helped too.
USC almost stayed in the top 25 given that the Washington loss didn’t hurt much, but there is only so much room for 3-loss teams. The rest of the honorable mentions are from outside of the major conferences.
They didn’t make the honorable mentions, but Duke, Arizona, North Carolina St., and U. Miami are the other major-conference three-loss teams in the top 40. North Carolina still only has two losses but has a relatively low schedule strength. It’s interesting how many ACC teams are in the 30s. Clemson (despite four losses) has a good chance of joining that group in the next few weeks.
Top 25
Honorable mention: Tulane, Southern CA, Toledo, Memphis, Fresno St.