I’m not here to argue that it’s unreasonable to believe Alabama is one of the four most-talented teams or to argue that there is no circumstance in which Alabama should be in the Playoff. What I am going to argue is that Alabama should only be considered if a conference champion hardly did anything important on the national level other than win that championship game.
I’m OK with Alabama being #5 as long as it doesn’t mean that if Georgia loses to Auburn or LSU, Alabama gets a playoff spot. Until the championship games are played, all one-loss teams are one-loss non-champions, so it doesn’t really bother me that much if you think Alabama is the best one-loss non-champion.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban reacts to the LSU touchdown with 6 seconds left in the first half in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. The Tigers led 33-13 at that point.
It should be a completely different conversation when comparing a one-loss non-champion to a one-loss champion. Rather than giving Alabama the benefit of the doubt, as it seems college football voters (the committee still votes; it’s just a more complicated process than the polls) always do, any one-loss champion should get the benefit of the doubt instead.
For instance, if LSU had one loss, the Tigers could point to the win over Florida and the win over Texas. Alabama can point to Tennessee and Duke. That doesn’t overcome champion versus non-champion. Unless Clemson loses, the only team I can think of that might give me pause is Utah. If Utah beats Oregon, they’ll be 1-1 against the top 30 (I consider USC top 30 even though the polls don’t, and maybe the latter will change after USC wins over Cal and UCLA), just like Alabama will be if they beat Auburn.
Maybe you could argue that the only reason Texas A&M won’t be in the top 30 is the fact that the Aggies have four currently top-5 teams on their schedule (they already played Clemson and Alabama and have Georgia and LSU left), not to mention #12 Auburn (who also beat them). So maybe it would then be fairer to say even without a championship game Alabama is 2-1 against teams that have reasonable capability of beating a top team whereas Utah will be only 1-1 even with the benefit of the championship.
So I’ve laid out what kind of argument might work for me. I just don’t see any potential one-loss major-conference champion apart from Utah or Clemson (whose best win might be Texas A&M) failing that test. I could also see a one-loss non-champion such as Ohio St. or Minnesota belonging ahead of Alabama.
Just thought this was funny. If you don’t get it, it’s a reference to the 2015 Sugar Bowl loss to Cardale Jones and Ohio St. in conjunction with the loss to former Ohio St. backup Joe Burrow on Saturday.
I’ve mentioned resumes, so let’s break down the resumes. I start with the various teams’ current ranking, then I discuss what could happen to that ranking down the line. This is relevant because I don’t accept the argument that a team was tough to beat just because they were ranked highly when you played them. Polls can be wrong, especially early in the season. Remember how Nebraska (4-5 and has only played one of the top three teams on its schedule) was ranked in both polls after Week 1?
Alabama:
Top-50 Wins – #13 Auburn (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if not)
#43 Texas A&M (who might be higher if they beat LSU and will be lower if they don’t)
Loss – #1 LSU (will be clear favorites in remaining games)
If Oklahoma wins out:
Top 50 wins:
#6 Baylor, probably twice (obviously would fall in that scenario)
#28 Texas (losing to Baylor and winning the other two probably won’t hurt the Horns and may even result in a higher ranking)
#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be about the same if they beat Baylor and lose to the Sooners, will probably be lower if they lose to both)
Loss: #30 Kansas St.
If Baylor wins out:
Top-50 wins – #16 Oklahoma, probably twice (would fall slightly in that scenario; the Sooners would benefit from wins over Oklahoma St. and TCU)
#28 Texas (might be about the same if that is the only loss, will be lower if they also lose to Iowa St.)
#30 Kansas St. (could be a bit higher since they already lost to the Bears and will probably be favored in remaining games)
#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be a bit lower if they lose to the Bears and the Sooners)
Most likely losses – Texas or Oklahoma
If Minnesota wins out:
Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (if the Buckeyes make the Big Ten championship, but of course they would lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota)
#5 Penn St. (may lose a few spots by losing to Ohio St. and several spots by losing to Indiana), possibly twice if the Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes.
#20 Wisconsin (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#48 Illinois (probably won’t lose ground by losing to Iowa and beating Northwestern)
Most likely losses – See list of top-50 wins
If Penn St. wins out:
Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (would lose a few spots of course)
#4 Minnesota (likely Big Ten championship opponent; would lose a few spots of course)
#19 Michigan (will be higher if they beat Ohio St., probably about the same if not)
#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#36 Indiana (probably would finish about the same if they beat Michigan, lower if two or more losses in the last three games)
#39 Pittsburgh (would improve by beating Va. Tech and Boston College, probably even an improvement if they also lose to Clemson).
Loss – #4 Minnesota (would be hurt by any loss; see above)
If Oregon wins out:
Top-50 wins – #15 Utah (in Pac-12 championship; probably would not change much if they win the other remaining games)
#25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to win remaining games)
#35 Washington
Loss:
#13 Auburn (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if they lose to both)
If Utah wins out:
Top-50 wins – #7 Oregon (would drop by losing to Utah)
#34 BYU (will probably lose ground if they lose to San Diego St. regardless of other wins; will gain slightly if they beat the Aztecs)
#35 Washington (will improve with wins over Colorado and Washington St., will drop if they lose either or both)
Loss – #25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to win remaining games)
I already talked about Utah. Oregon in this scenario would have played 11 major-conference opponents, including all of the good teams in the Pac-12 and Auburn. I don’t want the Ducks penalized for playing a good non-conference opponent in August and not losing again even if Alabama beats the team they lost to in late November. The wins are still more important.
Even if Baylor loses to either Texas or Oklahoma and then wins the Big XII championship, I’m still more impressed by that.
Resumes aside, I’m against a team like Alabama being able to game the system like this.
I’m in favor of the 8-game SEC schedule because I want teams like Florida and South Carolina that have tough annual rivalries to be able to play other competitive games out of conference and still have a couple of games to catch their breaths. But it shouldn’t be used by teams like Alabama to play 10 games against mediocre (or worse) opponents and only have to win one of two games against really good opponents.
The Gamecocks overdid it this year by scheduling North Carolina and Appalachian St., but maybe they thought both would be worse than they have been. Alabama didn’t do any of that. Maybe when Alabama scheduled Duke, they didn’t sign on to play any weaker of a team than Florida did when they scheduled Miami; but Alabama doesn’t have an annual series either cross-division or out-of-conference that’s worth anything. Florida already knew they had LSU and Florida St. in addition to the SEC East. South Carolina already knew they had Texas A&M and Clemson annually in addition to the SEC East (I’m not sure how recently they realized they were also playing Alabama this year).
A team should never have an easier road to the Playoff by losing a game, and that’s what Alabama thinks they deserve just like they thought they deserved it in 2011. They don’t. If they have a clearly better resume, I understand just taking the four teams with the best resumes; but if there is any doubt at all, the committee should lean toward conference champions and against potential rematches. Also, just like in 2011, I think losing at home should doubly mean you don’t deserve a second shot.
It’s not only resumes, it’s not only fairness for this year’s teams, the idea should also be to discourage bad scheduling. Duke has had some good seasons in the past, but they never had beat-Alabama (or other serious title contender) levels of talent. When the Tide played USC or Virginia Tech in earlier seasons, there was at least a chance they’d be facing a challenge. They knew all along Duke wasn’t going to be a challenge. The other three would have been bigger upsets than have ever happened to my knowledge.
I also don’t believe for a second that New Mexico St. was the best team they could get that week when Saban went on his little rant. There are a ton of better programs who would have loved the exposure of a nationally televised game in Tuscaloosa. Troy or UAB would have been better opponents. They certainly wouldn’t have required large travel budgets or had trouble selling their ticket allotments.
It’s also not right that the only two teams who can challenge Alabama (Auburn and LSU) play Georgia and Florida respectively every year while Alabama plays Tennessee. If Alabama doesn’t win despite the uneven playing field and despite playing the eventual champion at home, they don’t deserve sympathy or special consideration. I don’t care if the entire offense already has NFL contracts waiting.
I know there were a couple of other big games, but I only have time to write about LSU right now.
The Bama game was about what I expected apart from a few details. Tua had almost exactly how many yards per pass that I thought (8.32) until the long bomb to get the Tide within 5 with 81 seconds left put him over the 10 ypa mark. I expect College Football Nerds to celebrate how they lucked into that one even though they’d be the first to cite such a circumstance to show they weren’t really so wrong in some other game. I haven’t listened to their whole video, but they’re still saying Alabama has a better offense than LSU.
Joe Burrow, Ed Orgeron, and his wife Kelly are front and center celebrating the LSU win in Tuscaloosa Saturday.
I think more important than total yards was the fact that Tua threw 19 incompletions to Burrow’s 8. That’s usually what ends up hurting you in ypa average when you don’t get 85 on one play (and over 60 on another). Burrow also got 64 yards on the ground to Tua’s -5. LSU still got better QB play and still got more yards on the ground. Everything I brought up was in the context of LSU at least playing it close, and I did pick LSU to win.
As I commented on The Late Kick, another channel I follow (that also picked Alabama to beat the spread), I thought the winner would score in the high 30s instead of the mid-40s, but that’s a minor issue. The pass at the end (or not getting the punt return TD) and one more stop by Bama (or one fewer turnover, such as at the end of the first half) would have caused that to happen. I didn’t think Burrow would get out of quite as many jams as he did since I’ve been assured so many times how much better this defense was than the likes of Texas. So it was a little surprising that he didn’t seem any more affected by the pass rush than he did against Texas.
Harris of Alabama ran a little better than I expected, but my point in discussing Alabama running the ball was it wasn’t going to be anything close to the passing yards, and when you count the negative plays it was almost 300 yards fewer.
Early on, to Alabama’s credit, LSU struggled to get a traditional running game going; but the Tigers still made good use of the backs as blockers and receivers. Edwards-Helaire was ultimately responsible for 180 yards, 10 fewer than Harris. More than 70 of those yards were after contact on the rushing plays, probably another 50 were after contact on the receiving plays.
Clyde Edwards-Helaire catches a touchdown pass with 6 seconds left in the first half to put the Tigers up 33-13 in Tuscaloosa Saturday.
Sometimes a team in a hostile environment has to feel things out for a little while before they get comfortable. Obviously that wasn’t the case here. LSU early on seemed much more comfortable in a big-game environment, and I was right to question how capable Alabama would be in such a scenario. The Tide settled in of course, but the lack of experience of THIS Bama team probably decided the game.
Speaking of the road environment, I’m going to add this to my LSU/Alabama series blog. LSU has done better on the road against Alabama than at home not only for the last 12+ years (three of the four LSU wins in that span have been in Tuscaloosa) but for the last 50 years. All seven LSU wins from 1970 to 1999 (inclusive) were in Alabama. LSU won 7 of the next 8 (and 9 of 12) games overall starting in 2000 (Saban’s first year with the Tigers), so where the game was played didn’t matter quite as much in that span. Still, from 1970 to today, LSU has gone 13-12 against the Tide in Alabama (including 4-4 in Birmingham) and only 4-21-1 in Louisiana (including 0-1 in New Orleans).
One other bit of trivia: The 87 points scored on Saturday by both teams were the most in an LSU-Alabama game by 12 points, beating the 41-34 LSU win in 2007, the last season the Tigers won the national championship (and before Saban recruited his own defense). The third-highest point total was only 58, a tie between the 1989 Alabama win and the 2000 LSU win (which had been the first Tiger win at home since 1969).
As I’ve been doing with these series recaps, I’m
only going to focus on a portion of Auburn’s rivalry with LSU. The rivalry did pick up intensity in the
1990s as I’ll explain, but the really interesting time was 2000 to 2007.
My original entry in the Rivalry Series covers mostly the same games, but there are different emphases. Here I won’t talk as much about the records or rankings of teams going into the game, and I won’t refer back to the significance of each game within the greater rivalry.
Deciding the SEC West and Home Field Advantage
When LSU became relevant in SEC title races starting
around the time Saban showed up, the main obstacles every year were Florida and
Auburn. Except for Arkansas in 2002 and 2006 (the Hogs had the benefit of not
having an annual series with either Georgia or Florida), the winner of the
LSU-Auburn game would represent the SEC West in the title game every year from
2000 to 2007.
By the way, for some reason, the SEC calls you a winner of the division if you don’t play in the title game; but the way I look at it is if you lose the tiebreaker for first you’re second. You’re not still in the broken tie for first. So when I talk about winning the SEC West, I’m going to mean winning the tiebreaker as well.
LSU has still never won the SEC West in an even year largely because the Tigers play both Auburn and Florida on the road in even years (and historically LSU is less likely to beat Alabama at home than on the road anyway). You’ve probably seen it mentioned that LSU hasn’t lost to Auburn at home since 1999, but for a while that was mutual. Nick Saban went 0-3 at Auburn as LSU head coach, and Les Miles also lost his first game at Auburn. Miles would win two of the next three before losing his last two, the last of which lost him his job.
Auburn players celebrate the win in 1999. LSU has had its longest home winning streak against Auburn in the years since.
LSU would end that streak in 2008, but speaking of
Nick Saban, that was when Alabama became the team to beat in the division. LSU beat Alabama and Auburn to win the SEC
West in 2011, and Auburn beat LSU and Alabama to win the SEC West in 2010. The three teams went 1-1 against each other
in 2013; but LSU lost to two other teams (Georgia and Ole Miss), so that
allowed Auburn to win a two-team head-to-head tiebreaker. I think we all know who won the other 8 SEC
West titles since then.
In addition to being less important for the
division, those three games just didn’t have the drama to go into much
detail. The 2010 game was the relatively
close one, decided by only 7; but the LSU defense and offense both seemed
defeated once Auburn took the lead with a about 5 minutes to go. Auburn could
have scored again at the end of the game but ran out the clock instead. They took the last snap from the LSU 3.
The 2012 LSU win, which at the time was only the
second win at Auburn since 1998, was close; but Auburn turned out to be a
terrible team. Gene Chizik has not been
a head coach since that season and may never be one again. There were also only 6 points scored after the
first quarter – a field goal by Auburn in the second quarter and a field goal
by LSU in the third quarter. I like to watch good defenses more than most fans,
but there are only so many ways to describe not scoring points.
Other than it being an important game since one or
both teams has been a major force in the conference (if not nationally), it’s
also been a close game – again, not unlike LSU-Florida.
The Making of a Rivalry: 1993 to 1999
Unlike Florida though, it was typically a competitive
game even going back before 2000. It
wasn’t even an annual series until 1993. That first game wasn’t very close, as
Auburn went undefeated that season (but since they were on probation they weren’t
considered in the national-title hunt), but that changed in a hurry.
LSU led 23-9 in 1994 before Jamie Howard threw three pick-sixes and the Bayou Bengals lost 30-26. Auburn had a quarterback named Nix, but other than a field goal drive in the second quarter, he was unsuccessful. The four defensive scores were enough for the Plainsmen though.
In Death Valley the next year, the home team won by only
6 points. That would be LSU’s first
winning season in 7 years.
In 1996, LSU won on “the night the barn burned”. It wasn’t a barnburner as neither team was
able to get to 20 points. It was 17-15 with
38 seconds to go when the home-standing War Tigers decided to go for two. That backfired (no pun intended) as LSU
returned the botched conversion attempt for two points. The game was given the nickname because an
old gym caught on fire during the game.
The next year, an Auburn touchdown in the last
minute of the game would make the difference as LSU was only ahead by 4 before
the score.
Both programs went downhill the following two
seasons with the road team winning fairly easily both times. However, Auburn made a coaching change
between 1998 and 1999, while LSU waited until after the 1999 season. Auburn’s new coach Tommy Tuberville happened
to have been the coach of Ole Miss when they beat LSU in 1997, which in
retrospect would keep LSU from winning the SEC West for the first time.
After that 1999 win by Auburn, Tuberville smoked
cigars with his team on the field. He
rationalized it by saying it was only Auburn’s third win there since World War
II, but he didn’t mention that it was also Auburn’s third win at LSU in four
tries. Now he explains that it was also
his birthday, but you don’t have to linger in an opponent’s stadium to
celebrate your birthday. Even if he just
had shared a big cake on the field with his team, that would have been
weird.
2004 to 2007 Game Narratives
That wouldn’t be the end of the weirdness. It was a big game, but none of the games were
very interesting or exciting the next few years.
Then in 2004 it got interesting again. I know a lot of people blame Les Miles for
ushering in low-scoring games, but the offense wasn’t always exciting in Saban’s
last year either. LSU led 9-3 after 58
minutes of play. Auburn would score on third and 12 from the LSU 16, but the
extra point was blocked. Apparently a new rule had been implemented in the
offseason that if you land on another player after attempting to block or
successfully blocking a field goal, it was a personal foul. Auburn got to try
again and would win by that one point.
Since 2004 would become known as the extra point
game, it only followed that we needed a field goal game. This would happen 13 months later when the
two teams would miss a combined 7 field goals in 10 attempts.
LSU led 14-10 after Auburn made its one field goal in the second quarter and the teams exchanged touchdowns in the third. The Plains Tigers would score another touchdown with just under 5 minutes to go in the game. LSU would get its first field goal a few minutes later to tie the game at 17 and eventually send it to overtime. LSU would have the ball to begin the overtime and would settle for a field goal. The Bayou Tigers had gotten one first down to help out the kicker Chris Jackson. Auburn would go nowhere during their possession, and John Vaughn would miss from 39 to end the game, his fifth miss of the game.
Auburn K John Vaughn collapses to the field after missing a field goal (his fifth miss of the game) to give LSU the win in 2005.
2006 was another weird low-scoring game. Les Miles was the coach, but he had inherited
his offensive coordinator from Saban.
That was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jimbo Fisher. But somehow (with the help of the referees of
course), he only managed to guide the Tigers to 3 points for the whole
game. Auburn didn’t need any field goals
and won 7-3 despite LSU having gained about twice as many yards.
Nonetheless, Fisher would do an impressive enough
job with LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell the rest of the season to be offered
a similar position with Florida St. but with more incentive and under an aging
head coach being gently nudged into retirement.
LSU’s offense seemed to work just fine without him
in 2007 (although you can’t really say the same for the 10 years
afterward). LSU-Auburn was another close
game though. Auburn led 17-13 going into
the fourth quarter. Matt Flynn led the home
team on an 8-play 85-yard drive to put LSU up 20-17. After a punt, the Fighting Tigers expanded
that lead to 23-17. Auburn responded
with a 9-play, 83-yard drive to go up 1 with 3:21 remaining.
Unlike the last time Auburn played in Tiger Stadium,
K Colt David was having a good day, having gone 3 for 3 on field goals. It seemed like that was what LSU was playing for.
There was a number of running plays (including
spontaneous runs by the QB) that took time off the clock as Flynn drove the
Tigers downfield. LSU also converted a
key third and 3 from the Auburn 41 to keep the drive going (on a Richard Murphy
run). Jacob Hester, the hero of the Florida game a couple of weeks before,
would come in with his own 10-yard run.
When LSU had a third and 7 from the 23 with just under 10 seconds left, Auburn probably expected another run to set up a field goal (LSU still had a timeout). Instead Flynn threw to the end zone just to the outside of Demetrius Byrd, who turned at just the right time to catch the ball (see here if the picture doesn’t do it justice).
Along with Jacob Hester’s winning touchdown (see the final picture) two weeks earlier, Demetrius Byrd’s catch in the final moments against Auburn was one of the iconic plays in LSU’s national-championship season in 2007.
Since the extra point was taken with 1 second left,
a lot of people thought the pass was an unacceptable risk. I never bought into that since Byrd began to
catch the ball with :04 showing on the clock.
It just didn’t really matter whether they stopped it at 4 seconds or 1
second at that point. If he had dropped
the ball or missed it completely, it probably would have been 3 seconds. Maybe if he had juggled it several times and
then dropped it, it would have run out the clock though.
2016
One second would make all the difference 9 years later, but I’d rather not rehash that game again. SBNation did a good job though. You can’t tell for sure that the center wasn’t beginning the snap in the picture though.
(I already said all I needed to say about the games from
2008 to 2015.)
2017
I mentioned in the Florida summary how LSU had two
ugly losses in the first five weeks of the season in 2017 but came back to beat
Florida by 1. The next week, it looked
like the Tigers were going to have three ugly losses in seven weeks when #10
Auburn went out to a 20-0 lead in Tiger Stadium.
See my 2017 blog about the game for details, but I’ll just set up how LSU reduced the lead to 9 before halftime.
The defense holding Auburn to a field goal (meaning
it was 20-0 and not 24-0) wouldn’t have meant anything if the LSU offense hadn’t
gotten into gear on the next drive. LSU wouldn’t even require a single pass to
be thrown. Six rushing plays got the Fighting
Tigers 90 yards and touchdown (70 of the yards by on a carry Russell Gage).
Auburn looked ready to bring the lead back up to 20
a couple of drives later, but once again the defense bent but didn’t
break. After a first and goal from the
10, Auburn was only at the 8 before settling for a field goal.
LSU took possession back with 2:16 left. Given the passing struggles, success didn’t
seem likely, but that didn’t stop Danny Etling.
On the drive, Etling completed 5 of 6 pass attempts for 67 yards and a
touchdown.
The comeback wasn’t complete yet, but a 9-point
deficit at halftime looks a lot better than a 20-point deficit early in the
second quarter.
2018
I didn’t even talk about the details of the last LSU-Auburn game last year, I just debunked some of the whining after the fact by Auburn fans.
LSU went out to an early 10-point lead midway
through the second quarter, but Auburn roared back to go up 21-10 with about 25
minutes to go in the game.
Like in the previous year, it just seemed like the
LSU defense drew a line in the sand at that point. Auburn went three and out on their next
drive, then after one first down Stidham threw an interception in LSU territory. The next drive, Auburn missed a 52-yard field
goal. The only reason they got that far
downfield was a targeting call, and Auburn would not get beyond their own 30
again.
LSU also had to score in the meantime of
course. After one three and out, LSU was
able to vary run and pass to get into first and goal at the Auburn 8 but had to
settle for a field goal.
The next drive was really quick, too quick to watch in real time. Here is the slow-motion replay.
Derrick Dillon catches a pass over the middle before running for the end zone on a 71-yard completion to bring LSU within two at Auburn last year.
But LSU couldn’t get the two-point conversion. As mentioned, Auburn could do nothing on
offense, so LSU had to win the game with a field goal.
LSU had a third and 11 right away, but that’s when
there was one of the major pass interference calls I talked about in the blog
above. After an incompletion on first down, Burrow ran a few yards on second
down to make it a more reasonable third and 7, which the Fighting Tigers just
barely converted.
Burrow also ran on the next second down (which was
also 2nd and 10), but he was tackled for a loss on third down. Again, LSU was just able to get past the
marker, this time to Stephen Sullivan. After yet another first-down
incompletion, another pass interference was called on third down. This put LSU into field goal position, and of
course Cole Tracy made it.
This Year
Until the game last week (when LSU settled for field
goals on the first three offensive possessions), I might have said how Auburn
shouldn’t expect to hold this offense out of the end zone for long stretches of
time. LSU would eventually score as many
points against Mississippi St. in the first half as they scored against Auburn
the whole game last year though, so I’m still expecting this year’s LSU team to
easily outscore last year’s in this game.
I watched parts of the Auburn games against Oregon
and Florida. Although, the LSU defense
hasn’t always been great (though it is underrated by people who look at scores
rather than watching games), I still think there will be stretches where Auburn
can’t score. Auburn scored only 3 points
in the first four drives and 6 in the first nine drives against the Ducks Against Florida, which let’s remember allowed
42 to LSU, Auburn couldn’t score for the last 40 minutes of the game.
I do think Auburn’s pass rush will cause some
incompletions and might get sacks (unlike Florida’s), but the defensive
backfield might be even less able to keep up with LSU wide receivers.
Auburn does have a good front, hence the concerns
about the pass rush, but pass rush and run defense aren’t the same thing. If Auburn sends too much pressure, that could
leave open lanes for Burrow or one of the backs. If Auburn is trying too hard to defend the
run, that often requires staying near the line of scrimmage rather than rushing
the backfield.
Auburn also has a good offensive line, so LSU could
have some of the same dilemmas. But I’m
more confident in Burrow making good decisions in a game like this than Auburn
fans should be in (the younger) Nix even if Nix ends up with more time. Whitlow ran for about 4.5 yards per carry against
both Oregon and Florida, but he won’t be playing. Kam Martin (who had a few good carries
against Florida but ran poorly against Oregon) ran well in his first full game
as Whitlow’s replacement, but I don’t know how comparable running against
Arkansas is to running against LSU.
I would lean toward taking the points. I know I guessed wrong about Florida, but Auburn
can probably score about what Florida did and maybe hold LSU out of the end
zone on one or two more drives. Maybe
LSU just doesn’t have that final score to go up double digits like they did
against Florida. I would give Auburn
about a 1 in 3 chance to win. I think
having a week off after Florida and not having to do anything fancy against Arkansas
could be a slight advantage. Florida did
beat Auburn, but I think it was harder for the Gators to get back up for the
LSU game than it will be for Auburn. Also,
despite the eventual loss by 14, Florida did still have a decent chance to win
late.
I didn’t get around to posting a mid-week blog last week, but I may have a couple of them this week. I forgot to link them last week, but I’ve published my computer ratings for the second time this season. Maybe it’s good that I didn’t link them, because I had made a couple of mistakes that I’ve since caught.
It wasn’t the most eventful week. Thirty-four teams had the week off. There were a couple of losses by mid-range top-25 teams, but they were conference road games. None were particularly shocking. There was also the Auburn-Florida game. Most people I saw picked Auburn, but I don’t think anyone was too shocked Florida won.
In the late game, Stanford beat Washington. I found out that Stanford’s kicker is named Jet Toner, which sounds like printer ink. Anyone can beat anyone in the Pac-12 it seems, but Oregon is still probably the best bet to compete for a playoff spot since the Ducks have no conference losses. The Rose Bowl is not a semifinal this year, so the Pac-12 champion is guaranteed at least that.
Anyway, the main tricky team I got in the computer was Auburn, and that was largely because the Florida loss barely damages the Tigers right now. As an opponent, Florida is overrated in my system at the moment because their two games against FCS opponents don’t damage the strength of schedule. As a team, they don’t get much credit for those two games though. That’s why the computer doesn’t put the Gators ahead of Auburn even though they’re one of the “best losses” possible. It will be fairer if Florida loses because then the Gators will be harmed in winning percentage (4-1 is a lower percentage than 6-1, but 5-0 isn’t a lower percentage than 7-0).
LB Jonathan Greenard and the Gators defense had an easier time than expected keeping Auburn quarterback Bo Nix from doing a lot of damage (in Gainesville, Fla., Saturday). We will see how they do against LSU QB Joe Burrow in Baton Rouge next Saturday night.
I tinkered with a few different ideas of addressing
this before deciding that I would just move Auburn down the normal variation I
allowed myself for this week, which is four spots. There were more undefeated teams I wanted to
put ahead of Auburn, but I don’t think numbers 7 to 10 would beat Auburn
anyway.
Clemson is still in the top 3 in the computer formula with three wins against the top 60, so I still don’t think it makes sense to make a change. Ohio St. has more impressive wins so far, but there isn’t the kind of signature win that justifies becoming #1 in my mind. Maybe Wisconsin in a couple of weeks will do it, depending on how the SEC sorts itself out by then.
Although I tried to stay within the four spots, I did make a few exceptions based on losses (or lack thereof).
I liked that there was a group of undefeated teams
followed by a group of one-loss teams (with Oklahoma thrown in… see below), so
I didn’t think it made sense to put Oregon ahead of more undefeated teams,
especially now that the team they lost to has a loss itself. So I moved the Ducks
one extra spot down.
I moved Oklahoma one extra spot up because I think
the Sooners should be ahead of Texas since they’re undefeated. If the Longhorns are better, they don’t have
to wait long to prove it on the field. Switching them before the game doesn’t
accomplish anything.
Third, I excluded Washington from the top 25 despite a computer rank of 20th. If you’ve lost 40% of the FBS games you’ve played (to teams with 3 losses combined), that’s not top-25-worthy even with a good schedule. Again, it’s a problem that can be easily rectified on Saturday. If they beat Arizona (#27 in the computer formula), they’ll be in. If not, they won’t be.
Stanford K Jet Toner was responsible for 11 of the Cardinal’s 23 points against Washington Saturday night. Stanford dominated in both time of possession total yards largely due to the success of RB Cameron Scarlett (not pictured).
Michigan St. did take the last spot despite two losses, but I think 4-2 vs. FBS (which is what Washington would be with a win on Saturday) is easier to justify than 3-2 with an FCS win. Also, one of the Spartans’ losses is to the computer #1. The Huskies’ better loss is to #31.
As for undefeated teams, Memphis, Baylor, and Minnesota all joined the top 25 by virtue of being undefeated. All the teams who fell out of the top 25 lost on Saturday. Colorado fell the most spots, but that was partly due to Air Force’s loss to Navy. Michigan and Cincinnati moved back into the top 25 despite earlier losses. Ohio St. and Wisconsin are two of the top four teams in the computer formula though, so I didn’t see those respective losses as a reason to keep the Wolverines or Bearcats out. Both had decent wins over the weekend. Michigan beat Iowa; and Cincinnati beat Central Florida.
A few teams have been seesawing, such as LSU (from 4th
to 14th and back up to 3rd) and Notre Dame (from 25th
to 7th and back down to 16th), but that’s part of the
volatility that takes place in the first weeks of the transition to the
computer system. It’s also partly
mistakes on my part in anticipating what the computer formula will do.
LSU gained from beating Utah St., which isn’t a bad team; but Georgia Southern finally won a game, so that gives the Tigers more credit for that win (so it was like two wins in one week). The Tigers also benefited from the rule changes I made to my top 25. Georgia and Alabama were too far back in the computer formula, and Auburn lost, so that accounts for all three spots that I moved the Tigers from the computer formula. This had minimal affect on the ranking, but I also feel like LSU addressed some of its issues in the way it played against Utah St. I’m less impressed by some of the other undefeateds. I’ll write more about LSU later in the week.
We will know more about a lot of teams this weekend, not just LSU. Hopefully that will clarify things and help limit the erratic movements from week to week.
I’ll include my thoughts about the most-recent LSU
game when I go into detail about Vanderbilt later in the week. I’ve been waiting to write about the
LSU-Vanderbilt series for a while, but there is only so much to say about it
since Vandy has not won since 1990.
There is a bit more to say about the top 25 games that weren’t against FCS opponents and the new members of the top 25. This is still primarily subjective, but I did try out my ratings system for the first time. It’s pointless to even look at it before everyone plays an FBS opponent, so that’s why I hadn’t looked before. Now that that’s happened, the system has given me a little bit of guidance; but it’s still somewhat limited.
For the new teams last week, I just added teams who beat opponents I previously thought were good. That didn’t work out particularly well. USC promptly lost to BYU, and Maryland promptly lost to Temple. I don’t believe BYU or Temple belong in the top 25. BYU should have lost to Tennessee, who I wouldn’t even put in my top 75. Temple is closer, but I put that win down to Maryland being inconsistent (as usual) more than I put it down to Temple being very good. Cal, the third team I added after last week, did win; but the Bears didn’t do very much to separate themselves from their opponent North Texas, whose only win is over a basically winless FCS team (I don’t count wins over Division II or lower).
BYU’s Dax Milne catches a 30-yard touchdown pass from Zach Wilson to put the Cougars ahead of USC in the second quarter in Provo on Saturday.
There are very basic observations this early that my computer system is not capable of. For instance, it doesn’t realize Texas is harder to beat than USC. They both faced three FBS opponents, and they’re both 2-1. The opponents of both Texas and USC have a total of 3 wins against FBS opponents (LSU and Louisiana Tech combine for three as do BYU and Stanford). I don’t add any inputs for how teams did last season or in any recent seasons, so it takes time to differentiate quality wins better.
Number 1 on the computer list is Auburn. Only 7 teams are 3-0 against FBS teams at this point. Only one of the Tigers’ three opponents has a loss to another team, and two of those opponents have wins over an FBS team. All three have wins over FCS teams. Eighty-five of 130 teams have FCS wins, so it’s hard to have a better schedule so far among the unbeaten teams. You could argue Ohio St. has a better schedule because their opponents had four wins over FBS team. However, one of the four FBS wins by the Buckeyes’ opponents (Cincinnati over UCLA) was over a completely winless team, and the three other wins by Buckeyes’ opponents were over teams who are winless against the FBS.
It only goes downhill from there. In the computer, the worst 3-0 (vs. FBS) team is Alabama, who beat South Carolina (which counts for zero points since they’ve only beaten a winless FCS team) and New Mexico St. (who is completely winless). Alabama did beat Duke, who beat Middle Tennessee; but as you might guess Middle Tennessee is also winless against FBS opponents. Anyway, this is why I said this early you have to look at more than wins and losses even though later in the year I move away from that. I think we’ve seen more evidence of the ability to win championships by Alabama than Auburn even though Auburn has had more accomplishments so far.
Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa has been able to wear down the defenses he’s faced so far, but his coach expressed frustration that the Tide hasn’t been tested against better opponents.
Anyway, I’m not relying on the computer rankings to tell me if one team is better than another, but I did use it to find suggestions for teams to add to the top 25. Three were teams I was already strongly considering: Arizona St. (which beat Michigan St.), Iowa (which beat Iowa St.), and Wake Forest (which beat North Carolina). I’m not about to put them in the top 10 like the computer has them, but I think they’ve had a good enough 3 weeks to belong where I put them.
Kansas St. was not one I was thinking of, but the Wildcats are 3-0 and have a win over Mississippi St. Otherwise they beat a bad FBS team and a good FCS team. Another candidate was Virginia, who has a very similar profile; but I think it’s harder to beat Mississippi St than Florida St. right now, especially since the Wildcats went on the road to beat the Bulldogs while the Cavaliers beat the Seminoles at home.
Despite what I said about the North Texas game, I still think Cal’s win over Washington will turn out to be a very good one. So I’m not inclined to take the Bears out of the top 25 unless there is a loss. They go on the road to face Ole Miss before two fairly tough in-conference opponents (Arizona St. and Oregon), so we will soon see how much of a fluke the Washington win was.
I mostly wanted to post an update about inter-conference games so far, but I came across an interesting argument on “College Football Nerds” that basically said Texas should have stayed at the same spot or better in the major polls.
“We have two weeks of actual data, and we reshuffle
based on the preseason poll… We don’t
vote with our eyes, we vote with who won and who lost.”
What are we supposed to reshuffle if not the
preseason poll? Last year’s final
rankings? Do the records from last year
carry over? If so, I’m not sure 11-5
Texas with two losses in the last four games should be in the top 10
either.
Assuming that’s not what he wants to do, two games isn’t a lot of “data” that he wants us to rely on. Looking a certain way in those two games doesn’t necessarily say how the rest of the season will go. The important factor is having a loss right now is significantly worse than not having a loss.
The second guy says you have to be insane to think
Auburn would beat Texas.
I honestly don’t know who would win. Making Joe Burrow look like a runaway Heisman winner makes me think Texas might make Bo Nix look at least above average, and he did look good at the end of the Oregon game. There is a pretty decent possibility based on what I’ve seen that Auburn has a better defense than LSU does, so maybe with some ball control (which LSU didn’t have) they can hold Texas to two fewer touchdowns (24 points) and score 27 like they scored against Oregon.
What overwhelming evidence do we have that Texas plays defense better than Oregon? None. Losing a game like that at home doesn’t prove that Texas would have beaten Oregon at a neutral site as Auburn did. Yes, Auburn only beat Tulane 24-6; but if your defense is doing that well, why take chances on offense? That doesn’t say anything about what you can do when a team is making you score points to stay in the game like Oregon did.
LSU won a similar game against Tulane on the way to winning the 2007 national championship, by the way. The Tigers ended up winning by 25 (after a 10-9 first half), but Tulane would only win 4 games that year. I would suspect this year’s Green Wave is at least one touchdown more competent.
Of course, theoretically playing a close game and possibly beating Texas doesn’t count as much as actually doing so, so that’s why LSU is a good number of spots ahead of Auburn. Theoretically losing to LSU (ESPN gives Auburn only about a 20% chance of winning that game right now) isn’t as bad as actually losing to LSU, so that’s why Auburn isn’t as far down as Texas is. A 20% chance of winning a scheduled game is better than a 0% chance.
Also, unlike the polls, I had Auburn ahead of Texas
at the beginning of the season, so my default position is Auburn is a better
team anyway. If I thought Texas was
better going in, I would probably still have Texas ahead; but another
difference between me and the polls is I didn’t expect Oregon to beat Auburn. So I’m not saying the polls are completely
right and these guys are completely wrong, but it’s not as hard to see the
logic as they pretend it is.
I do accept the point that Texas played a lot better than Michigan on Saturday, but that’s why Texas actually went up a spot and Michigan went down 5 spots. That doesn’t mean the Michigan team that on paper in preseason looked like a much better team than Texas should drop below Texas as long as Michigan has a better record than Texas.
Michigan forced the fumble above to beat Army in double overtime.
After about another month, I’m all in favor of discarding preseason and looking at resumes, but there isn’t enough information from this season to do that now. In evaluating opponents, you would still need to guess at how good they are and not just look at the opponents’ resumes. Tulane or Army, for instance, could win 10 games (they both won bowl games last year after all) or they could win 5 games (which would be much more typical of those two programs), we don’t know.
I at least want to see LSU play Florida before I decide
losing to LSU at home by 7 is better than being undefeated with a questionable
performance against a “mid-major” type of team.
I also agree with the point that Auburn will likely have more losses than Texas does, but right now I think there are 5 SEC teams (and Auburn plays all of the other 4) who would all go 3-0 against numbers 3 through 5 of the Big XII (assuming Texas and Oklahoma are the first two), so that could account for a few additional losses even if Auburn is the better team. I’m not going to penalize a team for having a tougher schedule down the road. I want to see how they do against that schedule and not just guess.
Anyway, there are only two conferences with winning
records against teams of Power 5 conferences.
You could probably guess that the SEC (at 62.5%) is one of them. The other is the Mountain West (54.5%), which
is actually 1-0 against the SEC with the Wyoming win over Missouri.
It looks like the SEC will not be as deep as recent years though. There is a big gap between beating Texas and losing to Georgia St. Missouri, which dominated West Virginia, is the only team that has both one of the Power 5 wins and one of the apparently bad losses. Maybe Wyoming will turn out to be a good team, but I doubt it.
After a disappointing opening against Wyoming, the Missouri defense nearly shut out West Virginia in the Tigers’ home opener.
Ole Miss is probably about #11 in the SEC, so I don’t mind too much their losing to Memphis, one of the best AAC teams in the last two seasons. It is something to take into consideration before giving the SEC too much credit for being far ahead of the other major conferences in terms of Power 5 record though.
In interconference FBS record, the SEC is more
pedestrian at only 65%, which is actually fourth. It’s a much closer fourth though. It’s only 1.7% back of the ACC and Big XII,
who are tied for second.
I would say the Big Ten is the best overall since it
only has three total losses to the SEC’s seven.
The 1.7% I mentioned is more than made up by the SEC’s strength of
schedule, so I’d rate the SEC second right now.
I put the Pac-12 third. It’s only won 60% of its FBS games, but lesser
teams in the conference have lost to opponents like Cincinnati and Oklahoma St.,
so there is relatively little room to criticize.
I considered putting the MWC third, but the 53%
record in FBS games made me reconsider.
I think fourth is fair given what I said earlier.
Fifth and sixth are the ACC and Big XII. Pretty similar numbers, both 33% against
Power 5, both 67% against FBS. I put the
ACC ahead because they’ve played twice as many games against the FBS
though. Also, one of the non-FBS teams
was Boise St.
The only two left with winning records overall are the
AAC and the Sun Belt. Except for against
Power 5 teams, the AAC has better records.
Also, the two have the same number of FCS opponents, but since the Sun
Belt has fewer teams the Sun Belt has a weaker schedule as a result.
The Independents aren’t a conference of course, but
I would put them in between if you want to consider them as a group. They have the same winning percentage against
Power 5 as the Sun Belt. Wins over
Louisville and Tennessee are better than wins over Kansas and Tennessee (sorry
Les). The Independents have two
non-Power-5 losses to the Sun Belt’s three.
The MAC and CUSA have done almost nothing positive
out of conference. The CUSA is 1-0
against the MAC, but since there are no other wins, that doesn’t help
much. The MAC’s only win is over Coastal
Carolina, but since the Chanticleers have a win over a Big XII team, that’s at
least some reason to be positive. Also,
the MAC doesn’t have a loss to an FCS opponent.
So if you didn’t follow or want to read all that,
this is my current order:
As you might expect, I have a few things to say about the SEC’s performance in the opening weekend. It wasn’t nearly as bad as ESPN’s David Hale and others made it out to be though. I’m surprised he didn’t attack LSU for only winning the second half 13-0 like he attacked Georgia for only winning the second half 9-0 after a 21-6 halftime lead. He basically ends with “So what if the SEC might have six really good teams, Wyoming could be third in the SEC East!” Nothing in the results suggested Wyoming would beat Kentucky or Vanderbilt (Georgia and Florida are considered the top 2), but I’ll elaborate more below.
I’ll start with the positives. Alabama, Georgia, and LSU didn’t do anything to complain about, although I suppose Bama could have started a little faster. LSU had to punt only once in the first half and only allowed one meaningful drive to take a 42-3 lead into halftime, so I can’t complain about that one. Florida, my fourth SEC team, looked mediocre against Miami, but I didn’t hold it against them for my Preseason/Week 0 rankings.
LSU QB Joe Burrow threw 5 touchdown passes (and led the Tigers on a 6th touchdown drive) before being benched early in the second half to give backup Myles Brennan playing time.
Auburn, a surprise top-10 pick of mine, looked terrible for much of the game, especially on offense. I still think Gus Malzahn needs help calling plays – he had stopped for good reason – but they showed a lot of toughness in the fourth quarter. LSU often plays Auburn in early games, and it’s been a consistent problem over the years.
I know Oregon was supposedly #11, but they haven’t had double-digit wins since 2014 and have only won 18 games in the last three seasons. I don’t care how many returning starters they have, they didn’t deserve #11 in my view. I do give Auburn credit for the win, especially QB Bo Nix for hanging in there and playing like a veteran at the end, but it wasn’t spectacular. They also need better coaching in my opinion.
I was nonetheless content
with 5 wins, 4 of them over Power 5 opponents, by the SEC top 5. There are 5 other SEC teams that I would
rather not be associated with right now though.
Last season Arkansas went from a team that could hang in there against a tough schedule (despite winning only 11 games combined in Bret Bielema’s last two seasons) to a bad team by major-conference standards. The Razorbacks showed few signs of recovery in a close win over Portland St. (although the defense wasn’t terrible), but I’m afraid Tennessee may be joining the Hogs among the ranks of bad teams. Despite having more returning starters and winning more than twice as many games as Georgia St. did last season, somehow the Vols lost to the Panthers at home. I guess the Vols are still pretty much a lock against Chattanooga, but I wouldn’t be confident in them beating BYU, UAB, or ANY SEC team. They probably will win at least a couple of games, so I don’t want to be too dramatic, but this looks really bad.
I’m very disappointed in South Carolina for losing to North Carolina. The Gamecocks beat the Tar Heels in 2015 despite only finishing with a 3-9 record that year. The Heels went on to have a perfect regular-season ACC record. South Carolina has to be significantly better than that team (they were my last pick in the preseason top 25), and I imagine North Carolina is much worse than that team. Maybe this series will be a reverse bellwether.
I saw some people suggest ranking Missouri, and I considered it before thinking about how hard it might be to replace Drew Lock and rebuild the offense (it didn’t occur to me that the defense would be that much worse). I had the Tigers 35th last year, so I wasn’t confident they would even be that good, not to mention 10 spots higher. I still didn’t think they would lose to Wyoming, who finished 86th in my ratings and had two fewer returning starters. Allowing 27 points in a quarter to them is just embarrassing even though it was a close final score.
These guys look really rebellious.
Least distressing of
the four SEC out-of-conference losses was by the team whose mascot used to be a
Rebel before it became a bear and then a shark.
I was hoping Ole Miss would beat Memphis, but I knew the odds were
against it. The Rebels (I think I’m
still allowed to call them that) had a 10-win team who lost there,
coincidentally also in 2015. Memphis has
given Central Florida problems in the last couple of seasons while Ole Miss
hasn’t beaten anyone since October 13 (when they barely beat Arkansas), so it
made sense that Memphis was favored. At
least the Tigers didn’t beat the spread.
By the way, I wish former Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze a speedy recovery (from his back surgery and staph infection) and good fortune in trying to build a FBS program at Liberty. Personal indiscretions (and possible recruiting violations) aside, I respected his ability and his teams when he coached in the SEC. It’s good to see him as a head coach again, albeit in a hospital bed.
It’s hard to see, but the reclined man in the red hat is new Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze.
Despite what some SEC
detractors say, there was nothing wrong with Mississippi St. or Kentucky. UL-Lafayette (I refuse to call a regional
university “Louisiana” when there is another “Louisiana” that still goes by
UL-Monroe) ended up only losing by 10, but they were down by 21 going into the
final 10 minutes. At no point in the fourth
quarter did the Ragin’ Cajuns have even a 3% chance of victory. Also, ULL was a bowl team last year; they
weren’t Georgia St..
Kentucky, which had
by far the fewest returning starters in the SEC, struggled a bit in a 14-14
first half against Toledo, but the Rockets only scored 3 points in the 28
minutes and 58 seconds after halftime.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats scored 24 points in that span. It annoys me that people suggest ULL’s touchdown
with 2:45 left and Toledo’s touchdown with 1:02 left meant the outcomes were in
doubt late in the game.
Vanderbilt lost to a
good team in Georgia, so no complaints about them. And no, David Hale, losing to Georgia by 24
isn’t proof that Wyoming would beat them.
I don’t know how Georgia made Vanderbilt look bad at the same time
Vanderbilt made Georgia look bad, but that’s typical SEC-hater logic.
Outside the SEC
First I wanted to
mention Army, the final team that I decided NOT to rank. I’m glad I didn’t rank them, because they
didn’t score the final go-ahead touchdown against Rice until less than four
minutes remained in the game. The Black
Knights only scored a total of 14 points against a team that suffered an
11-game losing streak last season.
(This paragraph is a
bit of a digression, but I found it interesting.) Last year by contrast, LSU took less than 22
minutes to score 28 points against Rice.
The LSU offense looked great in the first game this season, but it wasn’t
great late last year. Don’t bring up
Texas A&M: it was only 31 all at the end of regulation, and the Aggies were
not playing good defense. For instance,
they gave up 28 to Mississippi St. a few weeks before. Against LSU, Florida, Kentucky, and Alabama
COMBINED the Bulldogs scored only 16 points.
So maybe in hindsight I’ll regret ranking Florida St. and South Carolina (also, Iowa St. took 3 overtimes to beat FCS Northern Iowa), but at least I correctly recognized that Army and Missouri weren’t bringing top-25 teams into this season. I’m also glad I decided not to rank Virginia Tech, a loser to Boston College.
In my defense, I’ll also
note that Florida St. showed the kind of team I imagine being #22. When they play a team that’s at least
competing for a ranking, they might do something like score 31 points in 26
minutes while only giving up 13. At
another point in the season against a team just as good, they might not score
at all in 34 minutes while giving up 23 points.
The Noles just happened to do both things in the same game. I’m holding out hope they’ll figure out how
to keep the offense going in future games against decent teams.
Maybe I should have given Boise St. the benefit of the doubt in preseason. I just thought they would struggle against a “big boy” opponent like they did last season against Oklahoma St.
Hugh Freeze isn’t the only recently-successful SEC coach who made his debut yesterday. There was a guy known as the Mad Hatter on the sidelines in Lawrence, Kansas, facing Indiana St. It looked like a reasonably good start as the Jayhawks at one point led 16-3, although the offense could have been better.
It should have been a larger lead. After four consecutive first downs in the second quarter while running a hurry-up offense, Kansas had a first and 10 at the 16. RB Khalil Hebert fumbled for a loss of 4 yards. KU recovered, but they went right back to struggling and had to settle for a field goal.. The Jayhawks didn’t score an offensive touchdown until 8:40 remained in the third quarter. Then they missed the extra point.
It didn’t look like a
problem at first as the Sycamores went three and out, but then a Jayhawk
turnover on the next offensive drive led to a touchdown on the subsequent
Indiana St. drive. After an exchange of
punts, Kansas got the ball back deep in its own territory. Facing a third down and a possible safety, QB
Carter Stanley began to try to throw the ball rather than taking a sack. Before he could get it off, it was knocked
out, leading to an Indiana St. touchdown and one-point lead. Stanley was able to shake it off and led the
Jayhawks down the field. The drive
stalled at the Sycamore 33, but Stanley threw for 11 yards on 3rd
and 6 to WR Andrew Parchment to keep the drive alive. On the next play he threw a 22-yard touchdown
pass to WR Daylon Charlot with 2:20 left.
Then came the only high-quality Mad Hatter play (if you don’t count I-formation after I-formation). On the two-point try, Kansas engineered some kind of end-around reverse with a TE wheel route. Parchment almost fell down evading the rush, but TE Jack Luavasa was wide open in the end zone, so Parchment didn’t have to have his feet set very well. The conversion wasn’t necessary in hindsight anyway since Indiana St. couldn’t get another first down, but it was entertaining.
Kansas head coach Les Miles meets and greets supporters after winning his first game with the Jayhawks.
It remains to be seen
if Kansas can struggle like that on offense (the touchdown I didn’t mention was
a pick-six) and win a Big XII game though.
Maybe the Kansas QB Stanley will play more like he did at the end of the
game going forward. To go almost back to
the beginning of this blog, I could see some parallels with Auburn. Auburn is much better than Kansas (and Oregon
is much better than Indiana St.) – don’t get me wrong – but both offenses were
painfully bad until well into the second half; on the other hand, both
quarterbacks (despite having good reason to doubt themselves) were able to hang
in there for comeback wins late in the fourth quarter.
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.
Since the top 25 will be almost purely mathematical from now on (I do have three paragraphs about the changes I made to the top 7), I plan to talk more about what happened on the field Saturday than why I like one team better than another.
LSU-Georgia and Comparisons
I wrote extensively about the 2003 game, LSU’s previous home win over Georgia, in my update to the LSU-Georgia Series Blog (since updated to add the result), so it was interesting to see the Advocate’s Scott Rabalais bring that game up here. That was one of the top games in the rivalry in my opinion because at that time they were the last two SEC champions facing off, and it was the first time either team faced opposing head coaches Nick Saban and Mark Richt, respectively. Also, LSU was one of only two teams to beat the Bulldogs that year (which they did twice). Both teams lost to Florida, who somehow lost 5 games on the season; but LSU would win the BCS national championship in the following January.
It’s funny how the start of games can be so different from the way they play out. I almost feel bad for Georgia fans, because I would have been really frustrated. I don’t have to think back very far to recall such a feeling.
After LSU took a 3-0 lead, Georgia took the field and was able to run on LSU almost at will after Florida ran for over 200 yards against the Tigers the week before. I thought it was going to be a long day. Then one running play didn’t work out for the Bulldogs setting up a 2nd and 9, and they largely gave up on the run.
Two incompletions followed, and then on 4th and 9 they ran a fake kick. They gave up on Holyfield and Swift and flipped the ball to Rodrigo Blankenship? That was one of the dumbest set of downs I’ve seen from a major program this year. The Bulldogs didn’t run the ball the next possession either, a three and out. By this time LSU led 13-0. In the next 3 runs the Bulldogs averaged 4.3 yards, but I guess the scoreboard kept them from committing to the run in any kind of consistent way. Georgia ran for 71 yards in the drive that set up the fake field goal (before the lost yardage on the fake) and ended up with only 113 rushing yards for the game, but to be fair a few good runs were canceled out by negative plays.
In LSU’s game at Florida, the Tigers were doing great on both sides of the ball early on. The Tigers had one touchdown drive to start up 7-0. The Gators got one first down on their next drive but stalled immediately afterward. Then LSU took only 5 plays to get down to the Florida 28, and Burrow fumbled it on first down. The Tigers didn’t establish that kind of rhythm again the rest of the game. Even in the only other touchdown drive, it was only four plays and 78 of the 80 yards came on two runs by Nick Brossette, so that’s not really what I’d call a rhythm.
Here is the Mississippi St. rivalry blog if you want to look ahead to that game. It’s not talked about as much as some other series, but LSU has actually played more games against Mississippi St. than any other opponent. Something else I just noticed is LSU’s next three opponents will all be coming off of bye weeks.
Georgia QB Jake Fromm (being pressured by LSU LB Devin White) completed only 47% of his passes, significantly reduced from his previous season average of 73%.
Other Games Saturday
Another thing that had made me a little nervous at the early going of the Georgia game was the way Auburn and Florida had looked against Tennessee and Vanderbilt, respectively. Auburn lost, but Vanderbilt had led Florida 21-3 before losing 37-27.
I guess we’re just at the time of the season that you can’t really take anything from one week to the next as teams get into the heart of their conference schedules. No conference punishes you the way the SEC does if you don’t get up for a given game, but we still saw teams like West Virginia and U. Miami lose road games that on paper they should have won.
I mentioned Auburn and U. Miami, who both lost, but there was another prior LSU opponent who almost lost as well. That was Ole Miss, who really seemed down and out. The Rebels missed a field goal with 13:47 left in the game while down 9.
Arkansas did a good job running the clock and setting up disadvantageous field positions for the Rebels, but the Razorbacks didn’t score again. Ole Miss took advantage with 84- and 97-yard touchdown drives in the final 7 minutes. Arkansas will attempt to end its 6-game losing streak next week against Tulsa before facing Vanderbilt, another victim of a significant comeback. The Razorbacks will have a bye week before hosting LSU on November 9.
Other than the WVU-Iowa St. and U. Miami-Virginia games I referred to earlier, I can’t tell you too much about the non-SEC games. Notre Dame didn’t look very impressive in the quarter or so I watched against Pitt; but as usual the Irish were just good enough to beat a lesser opponent. I only watched Washington-Oregon briefly. I can’t stand watching defenses who can’t tackle.
I was going to turn on Michigan-Wisconsin after the SEC games, but it was already a blowout. I don’t understand how that game was chosen over LSU. The best team Michigan beat was Maryland, the only team Wisconsin beat that wasn’t terrible was Iowa, and both teams had losses (Wisconsin’s was to BYU). At least Lee Corso looks dumb, not that it was the first time.
Top 25 Comments
I’m keeping Alabama #1 for this week, but there is a good chance I will replace the Tide next week if Clemson wins (against N.C. St.) and becomes the computer #1 over idle Notre Dame. It’s not that Bama isn’t playing well; but they haven’t played any of the top 9 teams (in my opinion including non-conference games) in the SEC, and their only game in the next two weeks is against Tennessee. The Vols just beat Auburn; but being that it was their first SEC win since 2016, they’re not one of the top 9 teams in the SEC either. The Tide also don’t have a non-conference win that does them much good: Bama’s three opponents are only a combined 5-11 in FBS play, and two of them play in the Sun Belt.
The only other change from the computer was to move Ohio St. up two spots to be ahead of Texas and Florida. Texas did lose to a Big Ten team after all. I didn’t want to move the Buckeyes higher since they really haven’t played anyone… anyone who didn’t just lose to Michigan St. anyway. Ohio St. belonged ahead of LSU going into the week even though my computer didn’t have them ahead, but with the win (and Penn St.’s loss) LSU is now 3-1 against teams in my top 40 when Ohio St. hasn’t played any of those teams. LSU has beaten 5 teams in the top 65 to Ohio St.’s 2; so however you look at it, I think LSU’s quality wins overcome the one loss at this point. It helps Ohio St. a little bit that the Buckeyes haven’t played an FCS opponent, but still for Ohio St. to be 96th in FBS strength of schedule and for LSU to be 3rd explains how LSU can afford a loss.
Florida did beat LSU and has a better loss than Texas, which is why they’re ahead of the Longhorns; but I didn’t think the Gators had the quality wins to overcome the loss to Kentucky. LSU and Mississippi St. are the only top-50 wins according to my computer rankings. One of those two will lose value next week since they play one another, and Florida will lose value since they have the week off. It just makes sense to keep Ohio St. ahead for now when most likely Florida will fall next week anyway. Texas is off next week as well.
I want to talk about LSU-Alabama of course, but I also wanted to talk about a couple of other things first.
Really briefly, I’ve made previous reference to my dislike for politics seeping into sports. Accordingly, I won’t go into details about any one issue. I feel that since a certain point of view is being pushed by much of the sports media, I should at least recommend someone who says mostly correct things about such topics (this is an interview he gave): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lqeseEV5_w.
I didn’t get that into this baseball season; but as I mentioned in the last blog, I have enjoyed the World Series. While of course I’m happy for former LSU player Alex Bregman, I’m especially happy for the players I’ve been watching for 10 years or more like Carlos Beltran, Justin Verlander, and Francisco Liriano. As a long-term fan of the Cardinals and Mets, I’m especially happy for Beltran, who may have had his last chance at the age of 40. I thought the Dodgers had a strong advantage going into Game 7, but they make you play the game for a reason.
Carlos Beltran with his teammates after they held a memorial service for his fielding glove. Beltran spent most of his career as an outfielder, but the Astros rarely needed him to take the field defensively this season.
Along those lines, I think there are some college football teams who are not being given as much of a chance as they have in reality. I haven’t been picking lines much this season, although I did go 4-1 in my recommendations in Week 1 or 2. The following underdogs are all ones I’d be tempted to put a little bit of money on: Texas A&M +15 (vs. Auburn), South Carolina +23.5 (@Georgia), Iowa +17.5 (vs. Ohio St.), LSU +21.5 (@Alabama), and Oregon +17.5 (@Washington).
Before I go into details about the LSU-Alabama game, I wanted to wish Nick Saban a happy 66th birthday. I have no reason to believe he won’t be around for a while, but I think such milestones are a cause for reflection. Although I’ll be glad to see him go for some reasons, I think part of me will miss him. I honestly enjoy listening to a lot of his press conferences. He has important perspectives to share when he’s not berating reporters for asking dumb questions, and you can’t complain about a guy raising the bar for his opponents.
Alabama DB Daniel Wright sings “Happy Birthday” to Nick Saban
So I had the occasion to check out Saban’s Wikipedia page and remind myself of a couple of things. I had forgotten that Jim McElwain was his offensive coordinator from 2008 to 2011, which included two national championships. Of course the offensive coordinator for his first national championship (the one at LSU) was another coach now on a bit of a hot seat by the name of Jimbo Fisher.
Other than LSU-Alabama, the biggest SEC game (in my opinion) is South Carolina-Georgia, which will be two former defensive assistants under Saban facing off as head coaches. Georgia’s Kirby Smart obviously was the defensive coordinator at Alabama recently. Will Muschamp was a Saban assistant at LSU and with the Miami Dolphins but has never been an assistant at Alabama.
Alabama often gets LSU’s best shot.
Despite the repeated losses, LSU has typically played better against Alabama than they should have on paper. I mention all of this in my LSU-Alabama series of blogs (this is the main one), but I thought it was worth rehashing a few things.
In 1993, LSU ended Alabama’s 31-game unbeaten streak. As most LSU wins of the past few decades have been, that was on the road. Like this game, that was a betting line of more than 20 points (it was 27 actually). The Tigers were much worse back then though. It had been 5 years since LSU even made a bowl game at that point.
Ivory Hilliard of LSU returns an interception deep into Alabama territory in Tuscaloosa in 1993. LSU would win, 17-13.
LSU would not beat Alabama again until 1997 when the Tide was having a bad year, but 5 of the Tide’s 7 losses that season were by 12 points or less, and 4 of the losses were by one possession. The only ones that were decided by more than 12 points were Tennessee’s 38-21 win (the Vols finished 11-2) and LSU’s 27-0 win (the Tigers finished 9-3). So in short, LSU should have won; but they shouldn’t have won by that much.
The respective fortunes reversed the next season, but despite finishing with a 4-7 record, LSU played the Tide close, only losing by 6. Alabama would lose 4 games to teams who would win 9 games or more apiece on the season and finished 7-5. It was the same margin the following year, in which LSU finished 3-8 and Alabama finished 10-3.
The series ceased to be a really meaningful rivalry until 2005 when Alabama entered the game undefeated and LSU entered the game on a 6-game winning streak after losing the conference opener in a weekday game that had been delayed by Hurricane Rita. The Tigers would win in overtime in another road game.
LSU’s JaMarcus Russell escapes an Alabama defender in Tuscaloosa in 2005.
The Tide kept the game close in Nick Saban’s first season in 2007, but they were ultimately overmatched by an LSU team on the way to a national championship.
Alabama would partially avenge LSU’s 5-game winning streak in the series by winning the next two, but the Tigers still played better than they should have. 2008 was probably LSU’s worst year under Les Miles, and yet they took the Tide to overtime. Alabama won the SEC West that year and probably would have won the national championship had they not lost to Florida in the SEC Championship. In the following year, Alabama beat everyone and LSU would finish 9-4, but the Tide only won by 9. That was despite a crucial LSU interception that was ruled incomplete.
Patrick Peterson grabs an apparent interception in Tuscaloosa in 2009. The pass was ruled incomplete.
Alabama’s 19-game winning streak was ended by South Carolina in 2010, but a number of people still favored the Tide in the SEC Championship race because they would have represented the West had they won out even though Auburn was undefeated at the time. But first they ran into LSU, who had just lost to Auburn the week before. LSU won in an upset, 24-21, in Baton Rouge. Although the SEC West was out of reach, Alabama would still nearly beat Auburn in the Iron Bowl before falling 28-27.
The 2011 regular-season game was as close as a #1 vs. #2 game should be, and I don’t need to recount how much of a disappointment the national championship game was, but since then, LSU has been generally competitive even when they really shouldn’t have been.
Alabama was on the way to another national championship in 2012 and LSU had already registered a 14-6 loss to Florida, but the Tide needed a last-minute touchdown to win by 4. The Tide pulled away late to win by 21 in 2013, but it was a 7-point game going into the last 11 minutes and a tie game going into the last 20 minutes. Alabama was #1, and LSU had already lost twice and was ranked #13.
I’m still angry about the way LSU lost in 2014. The Tigers recovered a late fumble near the Alabama end zone in a tie game. Under normal circumstances, LSU wins, but after some routine mutual pushing and shoving, there was a personal foul called which pushed LSU back and kept crucial seconds on the clock for the next Alabama possession. After the field goal to go up 3, the idea was for LSU to kick a low bouncing ball in the middle of the field. It was the kind of kick the coaches had in mind except for how it bounced out of bounds. Had LSU scored a touchdown, which would have been a strong possibility without the personal foul, Alabama would have nonetheless needed a Hail Mary to win. Anyway, after these turns of events, Alabama was able to kick the tying field goal at the end of regulation before winning in overtime. I was happy when Alabama lost to Ohio St. a couple of months later, but the feeling from that loss still lingers. By the way, that was one of 5 LSU losses that season.
Alabama’s T. J. Yeldon fumbles, while Kendell Beckwith (#52) prepares to recover the ball in Baton Rouge in 2014.
The result in 2015 (Alabama winning 30-16) was consistent with how good the teams were, but I thought last year was much closer than it should have been on paper. Alabama ended up winning by 10, but it was a scoreless game going into the fourth quarter. Alabama was every bit as good as Clemson even though they didn’t win the national championship game at the end, and LSU finished 8-4 last year. So despite the losing streak, more often than not LSU does better than they theoretically should do against Alabama.
I’m not picking LSU to win, but I’d be at least mildly surprised if it’s a 14-point margin or greater. LSU has a better offense than they did at this time last year. The Tigers have a much better playbook, and LSU quarterback Danny Etling is improved. Alabama’s offense is also arguably better, but I think the difference between this year and last year for LSU is larger. Even if Alabama is just as superior as last year, I still don’t think they should win by more than twice as much.
Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Clemson, College Football, College Football Playoff, Duke, Georgia, LSU, Minnesota, Ohio St., Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn St., SEC, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Troy, UAB, Utah
Alabama Is Not a Playoff Team
In College Football, College Football Playoff, General LSU, Rankings Commentary on November 15, 2019 at 6:16 PMI’m not here to argue that it’s unreasonable to believe Alabama is one of the four most-talented teams or to argue that there is no circumstance in which Alabama should be in the Playoff. What I am going to argue is that Alabama should only be considered if a conference champion hardly did anything important on the national level other than win that championship game.
I’m OK with Alabama being #5 as long as it doesn’t mean that if Georgia loses to Auburn or LSU, Alabama gets a playoff spot. Until the championship games are played, all one-loss teams are one-loss non-champions, so it doesn’t really bother me that much if you think Alabama is the best one-loss non-champion.
It should be a completely different conversation when comparing a one-loss non-champion to a one-loss champion. Rather than giving Alabama the benefit of the doubt, as it seems college football voters (the committee still votes; it’s just a more complicated process than the polls) always do, any one-loss champion should get the benefit of the doubt instead.
For instance, if LSU had one loss, the Tigers could point to the win over Florida and the win over Texas. Alabama can point to Tennessee and Duke. That doesn’t overcome champion versus non-champion. Unless Clemson loses, the only team I can think of that might give me pause is Utah. If Utah beats Oregon, they’ll be 1-1 against the top 30 (I consider USC top 30 even though the polls don’t, and maybe the latter will change after USC wins over Cal and UCLA), just like Alabama will be if they beat Auburn.
Maybe you could argue that the only reason Texas A&M won’t be in the top 30 is the fact that the Aggies have four currently top-5 teams on their schedule (they already played Clemson and Alabama and have Georgia and LSU left), not to mention #12 Auburn (who also beat them). So maybe it would then be fairer to say even without a championship game Alabama is 2-1 against teams that have reasonable capability of beating a top team whereas Utah will be only 1-1 even with the benefit of the championship.
So I’ve laid out what kind of argument might work for me. I just don’t see any potential one-loss major-conference champion apart from Utah or Clemson (whose best win might be Texas A&M) failing that test. I could also see a one-loss non-champion such as Ohio St. or Minnesota belonging ahead of Alabama.
I’ve mentioned resumes, so let’s break down the resumes. I start with the various teams’ current ranking, then I discuss what could happen to that ranking down the line. This is relevant because I don’t accept the argument that a team was tough to beat just because they were ranked highly when you played them. Polls can be wrong, especially early in the season. Remember how Nebraska (4-5 and has only played one of the top three teams on its schedule) was ranked in both polls after Week 1?
Alabama:
Top-50 Wins – #13 Auburn (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if not)
#43 Texas A&M (who might be higher if they beat LSU and will be lower if they don’t)
Loss – #1 LSU (will be clear favorites in remaining games)
If Oklahoma wins out:
Top 50 wins:
#6 Baylor, probably twice (obviously would fall in that scenario)
#28 Texas (losing to Baylor and winning the other two probably won’t hurt the Horns and may even result in a higher ranking)
#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be about the same if they beat Baylor and lose to the Sooners, will probably be lower if they lose to both)
Loss: #30 Kansas St.
If Baylor wins out:
Top-50 wins – #16 Oklahoma, probably twice (would fall slightly in that scenario; the Sooners would benefit from wins over Oklahoma St. and TCU)
#28 Texas (might be about the same if that is the only loss, will be lower if they also lose to Iowa St.)
#30 Kansas St. (could be a bit higher since they already lost to the Bears and will probably be favored in remaining games)
#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be a bit lower if they lose to the Bears and the Sooners)
Most likely losses – Texas or Oklahoma
If Minnesota wins out:
Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (if the Buckeyes make the Big Ten
championship, but of course they would lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota)
#5 Penn St. (may lose a few spots by losing to Ohio St. and several spots by losing to Indiana), possibly twice if the Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes.
#20 Wisconsin (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#48 Illinois (probably won’t lose ground by losing to Iowa and beating Northwestern)
Most likely losses – See list of top-50 wins
If Penn St. wins out:
Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (would lose a few spots of course)
#4 Minnesota (likely Big Ten championship opponent; would
lose a few spots of course)
#19 Michigan (will be higher if they beat Ohio St., probably about the same if not)
#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)
#36 Indiana (probably would finish about the same if they beat Michigan, lower if two or more losses in the last three games)
#39 Pittsburgh (would improve by beating Va. Tech and Boston College, probably even an improvement if they also lose to Clemson).
Loss – #4 Minnesota (would be hurt by any loss; see above)
If Oregon wins out:
Top-50 wins – #15 Utah (in Pac-12 championship; probably would not
change much if they win the other remaining games)
#25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to
win remaining games)
#35 Washington
Loss:
#13 Auburn (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if they lose to both)
If Utah wins out:
Top-50 wins – #7 Oregon (would drop by losing to Utah)
#34 BYU (will probably lose ground if they lose to San Diego St. regardless of other wins; will gain slightly if they beat the Aztecs)
#35 Washington (will improve with wins over Colorado and Washington St., will drop if they lose either or both)
Loss – #25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to win remaining games)
I already talked about Utah. Oregon in this scenario would have played 11 major-conference opponents, including all of the good teams in the Pac-12 and Auburn. I don’t want the Ducks penalized for playing a good non-conference opponent in August and not losing again even if Alabama beats the team they lost to in late November. The wins are still more important.
Even if Baylor loses to either Texas or Oklahoma and then wins the Big XII championship, I’m still more impressed by that.
Resumes aside, I’m against a team like Alabama being able to game the system like this.
I’m in favor of the 8-game SEC schedule because I want teams like Florida and South Carolina that have tough annual rivalries to be able to play other competitive games out of conference and still have a couple of games to catch their breaths. But it shouldn’t be used by teams like Alabama to play 10 games against mediocre (or worse) opponents and only have to win one of two games against really good opponents.
The Gamecocks overdid it this year by scheduling North Carolina and Appalachian St., but maybe they thought both would be worse than they have been. Alabama didn’t do any of that. Maybe when Alabama scheduled Duke, they didn’t sign on to play any weaker of a team than Florida did when they scheduled Miami; but Alabama doesn’t have an annual series either cross-division or out-of-conference that’s worth anything. Florida already knew they had LSU and Florida St. in addition to the SEC East. South Carolina already knew they had Texas A&M and Clemson annually in addition to the SEC East (I’m not sure how recently they realized they were also playing Alabama this year).
A team should never have an easier road to the Playoff by losing a game, and that’s what Alabama thinks they deserve just like they thought they deserved it in 2011. They don’t. If they have a clearly better resume, I understand just taking the four teams with the best resumes; but if there is any doubt at all, the committee should lean toward conference champions and against potential rematches. Also, just like in 2011, I think losing at home should doubly mean you don’t deserve a second shot.
It’s not only resumes, it’s not only fairness for this year’s teams, the idea should also be to discourage bad scheduling. Duke has had some good seasons in the past, but they never had beat-Alabama (or other serious title contender) levels of talent. When the Tide played USC or Virginia Tech in earlier seasons, there was at least a chance they’d be facing a challenge. They knew all along Duke wasn’t going to be a challenge. The other three would have been bigger upsets than have ever happened to my knowledge.
I also don’t believe for a second that New Mexico St. was the best team they could get that week when Saban went on his little rant. There are a ton of better programs who would have loved the exposure of a nationally televised game in Tuscaloosa. Troy or UAB would have been better opponents. They certainly wouldn’t have required large travel budgets or had trouble selling their ticket allotments.
It’s also not right that the only two teams who can challenge Alabama (Auburn and LSU) play Georgia and Florida respectively every year while Alabama plays Tennessee. If Alabama doesn’t win despite the uneven playing field and despite playing the eventual champion at home, they don’t deserve sympathy or special consideration. I don’t care if the entire offense already has NFL contracts waiting.