Rivalry Week Top 25 and CFP Reaction

CFP Reaction

I ended up agreeing with the committee regarding the top 5.  I’ll be really surprised if two of the current top 4 lose this weekend.  I had said before last week that I thought Ohio St. would be one of the stronger non-champions were they to lose to Michigan.

Neither Tennessee nor Alabama, who each have two losses, had a non-conference game that was worth very much to compensate for the extra loss.  The SEC is better, but it’s not so much better that you don’t need either a very good non-conference game or a ninth conference game. 

I did think that LSU would have deserved consideration if they had finished with 2 losses, but the Tigers did get the ninth conference game when they qualified for the SEC Championship Game.  This would have given LSU a second win over a team who finished with a winning record in conference.

Anyway, as to who #6 should be, I disagree with those who have Tennessee behind Alabama.  Tennessee not only played the #1 team in the country by virtue of playing in the SEC East, but they also beat both of the top teams in the SEC West.  Alabama didn’t beat anyone in the top 6 (there are 7 teams per division) of the SEC East, and they also didn’t beat the only team with a winning conference record (LSU) in the SEC West.  The Tide did lose two games in the last second, but I think beating more good teams should count for more than how close the losses were.  Alabama didn’t have to beat a team like either team who beat Tennessee.  Texas was a better non-conference opponent than Pitt, but that doesn’t make up for Alabama playing Vanderbilt as the extra cross-divisional opponent while Tennessee drew LSU, not to mention Georgia and South Carolina.

Ratings and Other Thoughts

I don’t think this technicality matters as far as Playoff arguments but something else that annoys me is if you lose a tiebreaker for the conference championship game, you’re still considered a divisional co-champion.  Even though LSU lost after clinching the spot in the championship game, Alabama can now claim they’ve won the SEC West 10 of 11 years (the exception being 2019).  I prefer the NFL approach.  If you lose the tiebreaker to the team that advances as the winner of the division, you’re not called a champion or co-champion.  The previous time the Tide lost it outright was also to LSU, in 2011.  Since divisions will cease to exist in about two years, I hope we can get at least one more outright win in the next two years.

Back to my rankings/ratings, you may have noticed the “weighted rank” doesn’t penalize as much for losses anymore.  I’ve compensated for that by making it a smaller component of the overall total, but it still does take record into consideration to some extent.  For instance, Vanderbilt had to play four of the five best teams by conference record in the SEC and is only #39 in the weighted rankings because the Commodores also have 7 losses.  Alabama only played two of those teams and is #15 in the weighted rankings largely because there were no other losses.

So, although when I first introduced the weighted rankings they were meant to stand alone, in no universe did I think LSU was #1 last week or that Oregon St. is #2 this week (after Georgia); but those are the teams (other than Georgia) most deserving of bonus points if you will given a combination of a good record and quality opponents.  I also think it’s right that Clemson lost an extra spot (from what they are in the original unweighted formula) because their weighted rank fell to #24.  Clemson just barely edged out LSU and Oregon St. 

Sometimes you have to hold onto your hat in the last 20 minutes of a Rivalry Week game.

One might come to the conclusion that I don’t give conferences other than the SEC enough of a chance with the weighted component, but there are five Pac-12 teams in the weighted top 10 and only three SEC teams.  All things being equal, LSU and Tennessee having such tough conference slates would have caused them to finish lower than Alabama in the standings, but they both beat the Tide and ended up with the same number of conference losses as the Tide. 

USC was the only one of those five Pac-12 teams to have a better weighted rank than unweighted rank.  This was because the other four all finished with three overall losses.  It also helped that the Trojans played Notre Dame.  This compensated somewhat for USC not having played Washington and Oregon.

The other teams in the top 10 of the weighted rankings are Texas and Michigan.  Michigan is doing well being that they only played two teams in the top 40 in my overall ratings, but of course being undefeated helps.    Texas has the opposite situation: a number of top-40 opponents (4) but also a number of losses (4).  Texas has also played 5 teams that finished between numbers 41 and 65 with only one opponent (ULM) below #85.

There are only a couple of the lower teams I thought needed a little bit of explanation beyond the results of last week.

It really hurt Florida St. that Clemson and LSU lost because those games were largely responsible for the Seminoles’ having an unweighted ranking of 14 and a weighted ranking of 16 last week.  Notre Dame’s loss to USC also had some collateral effect upon the ACC as a whole as well given that the Irish beat both of the ACC title contestants and another team (Syracuse) who went .500 in conference and finished 7-5 going into the bowl game.

The only other team who seems somewhat out of place is Boise St.  The win over Utah St. wasn’t the most impressive (although to be fair, the Aggies had won 5 of 6 going into the game), but the three teams who had beaten the Broncos all had “good” weeks.  The Broncos’ worst loss, UTEP, is still not a good team; but the Miners improved their strength of schedule considerably by playing UTSA.  You probably know what happened with Oregon St. (who beat Boise St. in Week 1) and why their stock improved.  Also, BYU improved its strength of schedule with the win over Stanford (who played in a good conference and somehow beat Notre Dame…. Best wishes to departing head coach David Shaw, by the way. How he made it so long is beyond me).

Boise St. LB Ezekiel Noa sacks Fresno St. QB Logan Fife in the third quarter of what was at the time a close game in Boise on October 8. The Broncos outscored the Bulldogs 20-0 in the last 20 minutes of the game to win 40-20. A rematch will be played for the Mountain West title tomorrow, also in Boise.

I also noticed there were some games that weren’t included the last time or two I had updated the weighted rankings, so that may have played some role in why Florida St. fell after a loss and why Boise St. rose so far after a win over a now-6-loss opponent.  I think that’s also the main reason UCLA fell so much last week and rose so much this week. Without correctly factoring in how good USC was, it made the loss to the Trojans look worse than it should have; and this is now corrected.

Regardless, I like the process I’ve followed this year because it’s been a lot more stable.  I don’t like to say a given team is top 10 one week and not in the top 25 the next or that six or seven teams are in this week’s top 25 but weren’t in last week’s.  We don’t really find out that much about a team in one game, especially not when it’s 1 of 12 games, so I don’t like to see much volatility later in the year even if there are some adjustments in the methodology.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Michigan	4
3	Texas Christian	3
4	USC	7
5	Ohio St.	2
6	Tennessee	8
7	Alabama	9
8	Penn St.	10
9	Clemson	5
10	LSU	6
11	Oregon St.	16
12	Texas	18
13	Oregon	11
14	Utah	12
15	Kansas St.	21
16	UCLA	23
17	Tulane	20
18	Florida St.	13
19	Boise St.	—
20	Washington	24
21	Notre Dame	15
22	Troy	14
23	S Carolina	—
24	Mississippi St.	—
25	TX San Antonio	22
—	N Carolina	17
—	Ole Miss	19
—	Coastal Caroliina	25

For the detailed ratings of all 131 teams, see here or follow the link in the heading for “Knights Ratings” at any time while browsing the site.

Week 8 Reactions and Top 25

This was almost completely written over the weekend (and I updated the records on the Ole Miss blog), but it was just one of those weeks where everything took twice as long as it should have.  I have a salaried position; so if things take longer, that just takes away my free time.

Ole Miss @ LSU and the Final Score

LSU and the top 25 finally aren’t completely separate topics, but I’ll address and elaborate upon that game first and most extensively.  LSU had the best knockoff of a top team (I wanted to say upset, but it wasn’t one) in the win over Ole Miss.  I had the Rebels 5^th and LSU 19^th, but the major polls had the Rebels 7^th and LSU unranked.  Las Vegas and I both picked LSU to win though.  I heard that the amateur bettors (misled by polls and sports shows, I guess) picked Ole Miss in droves to keep the line close.  Ole Miss may still make a New Years Six bowl though, because I don’t know who other than Alabama is likely to beat them.  The Egg Bowl may be close, but Texas A&M and Arkansas look bad more than they look good these days.

I did pick a much closer game, but it could have been 28-10 at the half (rather than 20-17) without a great play by Jaray Jenkins to catch an underthrown touchdown pass through double coverage and without Ole Miss settling for two field goals.  Ole Miss would have also scored in the final minutes of the third quarter without an interception by Joe Foucha in the end zone on a second-and-goal from the 9.  Despite being much shorter range, that was even more of an underthrow than there was for the Jenkins touchdown (due in part to the pressure on the quarterback). 

It was the opposite of the Tennessee game, where all the breaks before and after halftime went the other way and put the game out of reach for the Tigers.

I’ll explain further why I don’t think I was terribly wrong in my estimation of the Ole Miss offense or the LSU defense; but I did say that if the game got to a point where Ole Miss needed to rely on Jaxson Dart (more on him in a moment), they were probably in trouble.  When LSU scored on the ensuing drive after the interception that kept it a 4-point game, I didn’t see a realistic way back for the Rebels.

LSU could have done the 4-down kneel to avoid the last touchdown late in the fourth quarter, and that would have put them only three points over the 35 I predicted; but I don’t think scoring on a run up the middle is running up the score.  If you had told me LSU would have the ball for nearly a quarter more than Ole Miss did, I would have increased LSU’s score on that basis too. 

On the other hand, if you had told me how many total yards the two teams would have, I might not have changed my score prediction.  LSU did a much better job of making their yards lead to points.  That hasn’t always been the case.

Regardless, if you followed the score I predicted, you won money on both the point spread (LSU -1.5) and the over/under (64), so I don’t feel bad that LSU won by about 20 more points than I thought they would.

Freshman LSU LB Harold Perkins pursues Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart Saturday in Tiger Stadium. Both Dart and head coach Lane Kiffin commented on Perkins’ impact on Ole Miss, particularly in passing situations.

Jaxson Dart

I do want to say that I didn’t mean my remarks in the preview about Dart to be insulting.  I actually like him, and I’m glad he transferred from USC to a team I don’t mind cheering for most of the time.  I just thought he and the offense as a whole had some limitations that LSU could exploit.  I watched him play against BYU last year, and they nearly won that game even though it was toward the end of a terrible season for the Trojans.  I still remember his positive attitude during and after that game.  I also respect the way he hung in there Saturday despite all the hits.  His interview with the media struck a good tone as both an opponent and as a teammate.  He seems more mature than Lane Kiffin does, to be honest. Dart was also one of the scholar athletes of the game, so it’s OK if I’m correct that he’s not one of the best quarterbacks in college football.  He’ll probably be fine if he doesn’t go pro.

Rating LSU, Ole Miss, and the ACC Atlantic

As in the polls, there was too much of a gap for LSU to surpass Ole Miss in the rankings regardless of the final score.  Even though Florida St. has only lost to ranked teams (more on their division in a moment), their three losses are too much of a drag on LSU.  Although LSU’s schedule otherwise has been better than Ole Miss’s, there is still the FCS win over Southern and the win over New Mexico, probably one of the five worst FBS teams. 

I’m a little surprised only one voter in either poll voted for Clemson as #1.  I know their wins haven’t been by large margins, but two different teams (Wake Forest and Syracuse) can credit their only loss to Clemson.  North Carolina St. only has two losses, one to Clemson and one to a team (Syracuse) whose only loss is to Clemson. Florida St. has three losses: Clemson, Wake Forest, and North Carolina St.  There are no ties, so all of these other teams had to account for wins against one another at some point; but no outside team has beaten any of the five.  I think they’ll all be favored in the remaining games not against each other also.

After four turnovers by otherwise-reliable offensive starters, Clemson backup QB Cade Klubnik (2) led the Tigers to just another routine win over an undefeated opponent. It was Clemson’s 38th straight home win, an ACC record.

I do think the winner of Tennessee and Georgia (if undefeated) will likely overcome Clemson at some point.  Right now, I think Tennessee would win; but I believe in getting credit for the wins that have actually happened once they occur and not before.  That’s why I wouldn’t have wanted Ole Miss higher than they were.  Just because they would eventually have a mostly SEC schedule doesn’t mean they should have gotten special treatment when they had only played a few SEC teams, two of them in the bottom fourth of the conference.

Additional Top 25 Commentary

Ohio St. moved down and back up based on something I had entered incorrectly into the computer formula, so their increase isn’t apropos of anything.  By the way, it’s also possible that the eventual winner of Ohio St. and Michigan could pass up Clemson. 

Another possibility of Clemson being passed up without losing would be after the conference championship games.  Right now, North Carolina (who lost to Notre Dame and barely beat Appalachian St.) leads the ACC Coastal by a game and a half over Duke and Georgia Tech. 

Teams like Illinois and Utah didn’t do anything wrong, but you can get passed up when you don’t play.

Tulane, Liberty, and the aforementioned North Carolina join the top 25 for the first time this year.  I don’t think they would beat now-unranked teams like Texas (who lost to Oklahoma St.) and Mississippi St. (although Liberty versus Mississippi St. would be an interesting game given the two head coaches); but none of the three has shied away from competition, and they only have one loss apiece.  Newly arrived Troy has two losses, which is why they are the last of the new teams, but one of those losses was after giving up a Hail Mary touchdown to Appalachian St. (making them just barely worse than North Carolina through the lens of the common opponent anyway) and the other was to Ole Miss.

Kentucky only fell out due to a bye week, and Mississippi St. only fell out due to losing to Alabama, so either could be back shortly.  Another SEC team, South Carolina, is getting close to consideration for a ranking.  Other than the ones who just fell out, other teams in my top 35 are Kansas St., Coastal Carolina, Texas-San Antonio, Houston, and Cincinnati. 

For the full list of 131, follow the link above to “Knights’ Ratings” or go here.  I’ve now included conference ratings (simply based on average rating) below the team ratings.

Top 25

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

Weeks 4 and 5 & Return to Objectivity

Top 25s

I apologize for the long period of time between posts.  I haven’t stopped working on and thinking about the blog.

I was on vacation for about 10 days.  My return was somewhat well-timed because this is when I like to begin transitioning into my computer ratings anyway.  I meant to post a new top 25 while I was away.  I made the new list but never got around to posting it.  I prefer to look at an objective rating at the end of September, but I tried something a little different.  I looked at the very early version of a computer rating that I did before that week; but I had no way to update it with the results from two Saturdays ago, so it was just my best estimation of what the rankings would have been if I’d had that ability.

Since the ratings are the most overdue and urgent part, I’ll start with those.  Two weeks ago first and then the one from earlier this week.

My new rankings are about 50/50 between objective and subjective.  What I did was take the computer top 40 and then rank them 1 to 40 myself.  So they each got a value between 1 point and 40 points.  I divided that number by about 40 and also got a percentage of the best computer rating, which belongs to Ohio St.  The final rating is a percentage of those two smaller amounts added together.  I only made a few small changes if teams where within 1%.  It so happened that LSU’s next opponent and two best prior opponents were nearly tied.  So I decided to put the undefeated team the Tigers haven’t played first, followed by the one who beat them by a point, followed by the one LSU beat by 15.

I just combined them into one chart. People get confused or distracted otherwise.

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

Kansas safety O.J. Burroughs (5) breaks up a pass to Iowa State wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson (8) during the first half In Lawrence on Saturday.

Kansas was the biggest jump, but I don’t consider just inside the top 25 to just inside the top 10 unreasonable for a transition week such as this one.  I prefer to give undefeated teams who have faced major-conference opposition the benefit of the doubt at this point anyway.  In the Jayhawks’ case, that’s three of five games against Power 5 opponents and a fifth against Houston of the AAC.  This is not unrelated to why they are rated so highly at this point. All three Power 5 games were within one possession, so I don’t expect them to continue this.  They may not even win another game.  My ratings aren’t meant to be predictive though: they’re meant to give credit to accomplishments to this point.

I don’t have an “others receiving votes section,” but this is the remainder of the Top 40 in order: Kansas St., James Madison, Illinois, Texas Tech, Washington St., Liberty, Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Tulane, Memphis, North Carolina, Utah, Duke, Appalachian St., and UNLV.

There may be some other teams I would subjectively put in the top 40, but I didn’t even apply a subjective rank to teams that weren’t in the computer top 40. Air Force, Minnesota, Purdue, and Notre Dame come to mind as additional possibilities in the coming weeks. Although a couple of them are on the list above, it’s difficult for two-loss teams to have much of a shot at this point in the season.

I wasn’t sure where to mention this, but this isn’t penalizing Georgia for a close win. Although Oregon has looked good, Georgia’s average opponent isn’t as good as Alabama’s average opponent. Even if Georgia-Missouri and Alabama-Arkansas were identical final scores, I think Arkansas is a much better team both on paper and in reality. Notre Dame is slowly rehabilitating itself to make Ohio St.’s schedule thus far look stronger than Georgia’s as well. It helps the Buckeyes that they have not faced an FCS opponent or had a bye week yet.

It’s unusual that my top 10 is this consistent during a transition week. The top 6 remained in tact with just a few minor changes to the order, and numbers 8 and 9 stayed exactly the same.

LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, and Objectivity

Back to LSU, with the win over Mississippi St. a couple of weeks ago, Brian Kelly became the first LSU head coach since 1995 to win his first conference game in his first full season.  Now he’s won his first two.  1987 was the last time a new head coach started 3-0 or better in SEC play.  Three different head coaches (Stovall, Arnsparger, and Archer) started their inaugural seasons with 4-game SEC winning streaks in the 1980s.

Given the inconsistencies of both sides, I’m not making a prediction regarding the game tomorrow; but I do think Tennessee is appropriately placed outside the top 10.  Unlike the major polls, I constantly revisit earlier games.  The major polls continue to give the Vols credit for a shaky win (prevailing in overtime against a backup quarterback) over a Pitt team that did not lose to Georgia Tech, for instance, while I think the fact that the Yellowjackets beat the Panthers without overtime is a big negative against Tennessee. The Vols also beat the team (Florida) who beat Utah, but I still don’t see why Utah was as highly rated as they were going into the season.  As it stands, the Utes don’t even make my top 35.

As badly as LSU played in the win over Auburn (and at times against the other two Power 5 opponents) though, Tennessee could win easily.  I would note that the Vols are favored by about as much as Mississippi St. was when the Bulldogs visited Baton Rouge though.  Regardless of LSU’s shortcomings, I think Las Vegas is well aware of Tennessee’s.  So while as I said, I don’t have a predictive model, I think I do have some commonalities with bettors in that I try to be objective and take into account the big picture and all aspects of a team.  In addition to amnesia about why they moved teams up (or down) in the first place, I think the polls are more impressed by how historical a program is and flashy highlights. Good team defense on third down or good blocking on special teams or a long hang time aren’t likely to make SportsCenter countdowns.

I guess if LSU’s wins I’ll be happy for any undeserved credit for beating a top-10 opponent.

One of the most bizarre football games I’ve ever witnessed (even though I turned it off before it was over) took place the last time Tennessee went to Baton Rouge, in 2010.  That also featured a top-10 team, but in that case it was the home team.  For the overall series against Tennessee, see here.  If you follow the second link, you’ll see the same discussion regarding 2010 but not the videos.  I still can’t believe that 10 turned into a 16.

LSU RB Stevan Ridley (you can only see the side of his pants and the bottom of his leg) scores the winning touchdown against Tennessee at Tiger Stadium on October 2, 2010.

Another thing I did while you didn’t hear from me was update the Auburn series.  I added a detailed summary of the game that took place while I was gone.

Week 4 Final Thoughts & Why I Don’t Like Notre Dame

1. I found it interesting that the Sun Belt was 2-0 against the MAC this weekend.  ULL beat Ohio U., and Troy beat Akron. This is in addition to Georgia St.’s win at Tennessee and Coastal Carolina’s win at Kansas (more about Kansas below). I’ll also mention another big win below (App St. over UNC). Maybe the SBC isn’t the doormat of conferences anymore. 

LB Dylan Tonkery sacks Carter Stanley as CB Keith Washington closes in. Washington would catch the key interception in the Mountaineers’ win in Lawrence, Kansas, on Saturday.

2. Another victim of a Sun Belt team (in Week 2) was Les Miles’ Kansas. Jayhawk QB Carter Stanley had a good game (11 ypa, 3 TD) except for having some trouble with the pass rush and throwing a pick in the fourth quarter that led to a WVU touchdown.  That probably made the difference as the Mountaineers won 29-24.  Next up for the Jayhawks is TCU, who lost to SMU at home Saturday.  Maybe KU can win their first conference road game since 2008 in that contest.  If not then, it may be a while.  Their other road games are Texas, Oklahoma St., and Iowa St., who each have one loss apiece but to good teams.  Les going back to Stillwater will be interesting.  Speaking of Les in Stillwater, his first Oklahoma St. team only went 4-7, so I think there is still reason to be hopeful things will turn around in Lawrence even if the Jayhawks don’t have more than a couple more wins coming this season.

3. I did want to comment about the targeting calls late in the LSU game.  I don’t understand how blocking a guy (who could otherwise make a tackle) face to face is a foul at all not to mention targeting.  It wasn’t “blindside” like the ref said, and it wasn’t a defenseless player unless everyone on the field is defenseless now and I didn’t get the memo.  Like when you’re on offense and you block the defense so they don’t tackle someone trying to go downfield, why aren’t they defenseless?  I guess we should only play third string players in the fourth quarter going forward, even the third string special teams.  At least the guy flagged was like the 5^th receiver we have and the next game is Utah St.  Not to insult Utah St., but I’m more afraid of the SEC teams left (with the exception of Arkansas; we don’t play Tennessee).

Then the LSU backup QB Myles Brennan was hit helmet to helmet, not with the crown of the head; but the defender launched (in my understanding of the word) and his head was moving in an upward motion toward Brennan’s head.  How was that not targeting when what was called against LSU is targeting?  Even if Brennan had been attempting to tackle the defender who caught the interception, that would be targeting if you want to be consistent.  And how does an illegal hit (even if it wasn’t targeting, the referee called it roughing) during the play not invalidate the defensive touchdown?  I hope there is some clarity on the rules so players and coaches can know all the normal football plays that are not allowed now and all the things that used to be personal fouls that somehow became legal at the same time.

Anyway, there needs to be an NCAA office that issues suspensions and ensures some type of uniformity.  One awful officiating team should not be able to affect a future game.  If it’s a borderline judgment call, even if it’s not clearly wrong, they should be able to say there will be no further suspension, especially if it happened at the beginning of the third quarter, for instance..  If there is a targeting that is found later or was incorrectly waived off, maybe they can get a full game suspension.  Maybe that way some players can just admit to targeting and it doesn’t have to be reviewed.  Vanderbilt probably wouldn’t have done this because a touchdown was on the line, but if it were a roughing after an incompletion with borderline targeting, the player would have preferred to give up the rest of the meaningless half rather than an entire future game.

Eastern Michigan’s Matthew Sexton blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown after Central Connecticut St. faced a 4th down with 10 seconds left and a 1-point lead.

4. The escape of the week goes to Eastern Michigan, who blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown with 10 seconds left.  It would have been a big upset by FCS Central Connecticut State had the Blue Devils managed to run out the clock.

5. Florida St. blew another big lead (21 points to Louisville), but the difference this time was the Seminoles regrouped, took the lead back, and ended up winning by 11.  FSU may finally be heading in the right direction to vindicate my preaseason ranking of the Noles.

6. I don’t have anything good to say about my preseason #25 South Carolina.  They just lost to Missouri by 20 Saturday.  The Gamecocks (who also lost to UNC) may end up losing to Appalachian St. as well.  South Carolina almost certainly will be unranked when they play Clemson as well.  Will Muschamp said this was his best team since he’s been there.  Maybe his next job should be defensive coordinator.  At least I picked Appalachian St. higher in my preseason top 25.

Boston College kicker David Gordon follows through on the winning field goal in the November 20, 1993, game against #1 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

7. In addition to what I said about Georgia in the rankings comments, I’ve never liked Notre Dame even though I’m from a Catholic area and upbringing.  I preferred Boston College among the Catholic sports programs and sort of resented the favoritism in the media that Notre Dame got.  There was a time when the SEC programs were seen as second rate, and you would hear 10x as much about Notre Dame as any SEC team.  Alabama (which was never disregarded as much as other southern teams going back to their Rose Bowl invites) won in 1992, but that was the first SEC national champion since 1980 (which was before my time), and then it was right back to hearing about how great Notre Dame was in 1993.

I thought when the Irish lost to Boston College, who was not a major national team, that was the end of that, but someone forgot to tell the Irish fans.  Auburn went undefeated that year, but no one even talked about them being the best team.  Maybe Florida St. and Nebraska (who played each other in the Bowl Alliance championship) were better, but it still bothered me.  I nonetheless accepted that since Auburn couldn’t play in a bowl game (due to probation), the winner of the Florida St./Nebraska gams was the rightful champion.  The Notre Dame fans wouldn’t. 

I also liked Florida St. back then, partly because of the fact that they played Florida (that was the LSU rival I disliked the most in the 1990s), partly because I didn’t like Miami either (though I preferred Miami to Notre Dame), partly because they were the closest major team to the Florida panhandle where my family used to vacation, partly because I at least indirectly knew people affiliated with the program, and partly because I liked Bobby Bowden.

I still remember my response to the “but Notre Dame beat Florida St.” argument: “Florida St. beat Miami, who beat Boston College, who beat Notre Dame.  Florida St. also beat Florida, who beat West Virginia, who beat Boston College, who beat Notre Dame.”  I especially liked the second one (even though it was more complicated) since it was a reminder that the best SEC team wasn’t even in the Sugar Bowl and the SEC team still beat an undefeated Big East team easily.

I’ve mentioned in other blogs there were some close games against LSU that I wasn’t very happy with since then (LSU and Notre Dame are 2-2 against one another in bowl games since 1997 with a couple of regular-season games in the late 1990s as well), but I already didn’t like Notre Dame before all of that.

Remaining opponents against ranked teams going into Week 4

8. I wanted to post this graphic, but I didn’t want to detract from the good pictures I got for the main blog.  You can cross out TCU for the reason mentioned in Section 2, although I suspect another Big XII team will end up ranked.  Michigan is still ranked for the moment. 

To be fair, A&M could fall out by losing to Alabama; but they won’t deserve it nearly as much as Michigan would with a loss in the upcoming weeks. I have a feeling the CFP committee will treat the Aggies more leniently than the polls have.  If Auburn really is the 7^th-best team, A&M could conceivably be one of the top eight teams even with five losses (since they also play LSU and Georgia).  The 7 wins they would have in that scenario wouldn’t justify a high ranking, but I’m just saying they could in reality be better than all but the teams they lost to and just two or three others.

If Maryland plays anything like how they played against Syracuse, Penn St. could have trouble staying in the top 25 after tonight as well. The Terrapins also lost to Temple though.

Week 2 Recap and New Top 25

Top 25

rank	team	last
1	Clemson	1
2	Alabama	2
3	Georgia	3
4	LSU	4
5	Ohio St.	5
6	Notre Dame	7
7	Auburn	8
8	Florida	9
9	Wash. St.	10
10	Oklahoma	11
11	Michigan	6
12	Texas A&M	12
13	Utah	13
14	Texas	15
15	C. Florida	16
16	Michigan St.	17
17	Penn St.	19
18	Appalachian	20
19	USC	—
20	Maryland	—
21	Cincinnati	21
22	Boise St.	22
23	Oregon	23
24	Iowa St.	24
25	UC-Berkeley	—

Out of top 25: (14) Washington, (18) Syracuse, (25) Stanford

Comments

LSU/Texas Recap and Significance

I considered making LSU comments a separate blog, but since it was the only big game this weekend worth delving into, I’m doing it here. 

I wasn’t wrong about LSU winning, but I was wrong about a couple of other things.  I would have been right both about LSU not beating the spread and about LSU not getting to 45 points on offense if only the Tigers had failed in the two-point conversion attempt, so I wasn’t far off.

Anyway, I’m happy to be wrong about LSU being able to get the same number of points Oklahoma did in the Texas win in Dallas last season and happy LSU beat the spread.  I did expect one late score to make the difference though, so my reasoning for picking Texas to beat the spread was sound.  The win didn’t feel secure until LSU went up 12 (14 with the conversion) with 2:27 left in the game, and then the game wasn’t really over until the onsides kick failed with 22 seconds left.  The field was just a couple of inches too narrow for Texas to recover.

Despite some problems that will need to be fixed, it’s at least somewhat encouraging that LSU did 10 points better than Oklahoma did on defense last year in the first game against the Horns.  I thought that was the most impressive Texas game last year, so that’s why it was my point of comparison in the preview.  I wasn’t sure if Texas would be equally impressive on offense in this game, but they were in my opinion. 

I don’t think the LSU offense is quite at the level of the Oklahoma offense last season, but the relative inexperience of the Texas defense (which I thought was the main reason the Longhorns would lose) made it look like that.

Anyway, I’ll add some stats I found interesting.  LSU once again looked extremely good against a top 10 team not named Alabama.  The Tigers are 6-0 in such games under Orgeron and have won 4 of the 6 by at least 7 points.  This game was closer than average, but the offense did about 2 touchdowns better than the average number of points in the previous 5 such games. 

One reason the game was close was the fact that it was on the road.  LSU had never won a road game against a top-10 opponent out of conference; although under Les Miles alone, the Tigers did beat #16 West Virginia in Morgantown in 2011 and #15 Arizona St. in Tempe in 2005.  This was the second LSU win in Austin and first since 1938.

QB Joe Burrow throws downfield in Austin on Saturday. Burrow went 31/39 for 471 yards.

This was also the first time in LSU history that the Tigers had three receivers with over 100 yards each (Jefferson, 163; Chase, 147; and Marshall, 123).  Joe Burrow’s 471-yard performance on Saturday is second in the Tiger record books only to that of Rohan Davey, who threw for 528 yards against (unranked) Alabama in 2001.  Davey (with Josh Booty) also contributed to more total passing yards (485) in the win over Western Carolina in 2000, but neither quarterback exceeded 300 yards.  For possible future reference, the individual home record is held by Tommy Hodson, who threw for 438 yards in a loss to Tennessee in 1989.

Other games

Other people are moving LSU up to the top 4, but since I had them there already, I think the top 10 (apart from Michigan, who needed overtime to beat Army and still deserved to lose) is fine how it is.

The only other big game going into the week was Texas A&M at Clemson.  It went about what I’d expect with the #1 team playing at home against the 6^th-best SEC team.  I didn’t make a specific mention of the game; but you can see my preseason top 25 if you don’t believe that was how I viewed the respective teams.

There were two Pac-12 games that were somewhat surprising, especially the endings.  Stanford looked good against USC for about a quarter and a half, but then the Trojans scored the last 35 points of the game to win 45-20.  The Cal (UC-Berkeley) Bears used a lot of ball control late in the game to give themselves a chance against Washington.  It took until about 1:30 a.m. local time (due to a 2-hour lightening delay), but the Bears scored the winning field goal with 8 seconds left after Washington had scored a go-ahead field goal from about 50 yards with just over 2 minutes left.

The only thing else that was surprising was Maryland beating Syracuse by 43 points.  I wouldn’t have been surprised by a closer Maryland win since it was a Terps home game, but the Orange was blown away on defense in both rushing and passing.  It could be a long day when Syracuse faces Clemson next week.

Anthony McFarland, Jr., (no relation to the former LSU player) runs for one of his three touchdowns against Syracuse in College Park, Md., Saturday.

Due to Stanford, Syracuse, and Iowa St. (who was idle after needing 3 OTs to beat FCS foe Northern Iowa), no games within the AP top 25 will be played next weekend.  I left the Cyclones in though, so the battle for the Cy-Hawk trophy is unusually interesting this year.

LSU “Gigged” by Aggies; Top 25 after Week 13

I’m going to delay rankings commentary until the CFP standings come out (I used the weighted rankings), and I think it’s important to set the record straight about the game right away.

I would like to congratulate A&M for ending the 7-game losing streak to LSU (see updated Rivalry post; but they didn’t end it, the referees did. If the rules had been applied correctly, LSU won the game at least twice. I’m going to address three officiating mistakes, but there were others.

Before I go into detail, I wanted to clarify something. When I said earlier this year that I felt LSU lost the game in Gainesville more than Florida won it, that was in no way an indication that the correct team didn’t go down as the winner. That was more about criticizing LSU for how it played in a game that I think they would have won had they not gotten discouraged too easily. There is plenty of criticism for how LSU performed at various stages of the game on Saturday as well; but in that case, the correct team did not get the win.

So I don’t often go around saying my team won games it didn’t officially win. I don’t even say it about the game Alabama won in 2014 after a nonsense personal foul call (at least nonsense that it was only against one team) that deprived the Tigers of a touchdown opportunity and a chance to take more time off of the clock. Maybe had the call not been made, LSU would have done something else stupid to stop the clock. Maybe they would have ended up with only a field goal anyway. Maybe if Alabama knew they had less time, they would have gone downfield for their own field goal even more quickly. I understand there are a lot of variables. The only other recent game I would say LSU won but didn’t get the credit is the bowl game against Notre Dame where the Tigers not only had a touchdown unjustifiably taken away, but there was a clear uncalled penalty on the Irish on the very play in which they took the lead (with under 90 seconds to play). It usually takes a combination of plays for me to make that assertion, and it’s the same thing here.

I don’t always agree with Tim Brando’s opinions about good teams, but I think he understands the rules.

So back to Saturday’s game, the first time LSU won in my view was in the final minute of regulation when Kellen Mond, the Texas A&M quarterback, threw an interception, which only left LSU to run out the clock (the Aggies were out of timeouts). After the play and resulting celebration, it was determined that the play ended when Mond went down to one knee to recover the dropped snap. No replay clearly showed that he had established possession while his knee was touching, so the call of the field should have stood.

One announcer apparently agreed with the call on the theory that Mond did not have to have control of the ball to be down, but I think he misremembered the rule. Rule 4, Article 3: “A live ball becomes dead and an official shall sound his whistle or declare it dead (b) When any part of the ball carrier’s body, except his hand or foot, touches the ground or when the ball carrier is tackled or otherwise falls and loses possession of the ball as he contacts the ground with any part of his body, except his hand or foot.” If you need to read the standard of review again, it’s from Rule 12, Article 2: “The replay official may reverse a ruling if and only if the video evidence (Rule 12-6-1-c) convinces him beyond all doubt that the ruling was incorrect. Without such indisputable video evidence, the replay official must allow the ruling to stand.”

So if Mond had possession of the ball initially and began to drop it at the same time or after his knee touched, the play should have been whistled dead (the rule is often summarized as, “the ground can’t cause a fumble”). I think the announcer wrongly applied that rule. However, the rule does NOT say that the play should be whistled dead when a player who is already down touches the ball but does not yet gain possession. I don’t think it was clear that he had possession until he was able to pick the ball up (which he did with one hand after his knee started to go up). When there is a scramble for the ball during a live ball, the play is never whistled dead merely because a player whose knee is touching the ground grabs the ball with one hand without picking it up. It’s always left to determine who establishes control by bringing the ball next to or under their body (or who picks it up and runs). Recovery of a live ball isn’t a different concept because there aren’t other players nearby or because it was a fumbled snap rather than another type of fumble.

Another time LSU won was when the Tigers recovered a fumble in the first overtime. After LSU kicked a field goal, Mond completed a pass to TE Jace Sternberger who had both hands on the ball, brought it in, and began to run toward the end zone. After the fumble (see here for the play), the referees inexplicably blew the whistle and pretended it was an incompletion. Although Orgeron apparently argued the call, there was no apparently official review (Orgeron said after the game he was told that it was already reviewed). Either way, the call on the field was wrong and deprived LSU of the victory. I know it’s not how it works, but it’s absurd that they ruled Sternberger didn’t have possession of the ball before the fumble but Mond did with his knee down before the interception.

Furthermore, even if you don’t believe any of that, the streak was still ended by the referees because Texas A&M was only allowed to score the winning points after a phantom pass interference call on DB Greedy Williams after the first attempt at the two-point conversion fell incomplete. There was very brief mutual contact as the receiver entered the backfield before continuing on his route, but if anything it was pass interference on the receiver because his back was to the ball. But since the receiver’s route was not obstructed in any way, there should have been no call at all. Rule 12, Article 8(c) provides: “Defensive pass interference is contact beyond the neutral zone by a Team B player whose intent to impede an eligible opponent is obvious and could prevent the opponent the opportunity of receiving a catchable forward pass.” Of course on this occasion, LSU didn’t win the game, they merely earned an eighth overtime period (if you ignore the two occasions during which they earned a victory prior to the second overtime).

This is an illegal formation before the snap where Texas A&M scored the tying touchdown. Also no call.

In sum, there are three different ways that A&M didn’t earn a win on Saturday, and I didn’t even include all the controversies. I’ve had enough of SEC referees. Maybe we should join the Big XII.

On the bright side, maybe we’ll be more motivated next year when it might count for more. “This is the team that stole a 7-overtime game from you last year,” might get players more excited than, “This is the team you’ve beaten 8 times in a row.”

Anyway, other than the fact that LSU won by a somewhat normal SEC score (31-24 or 34-31) rather than A&M winning 770 to 768 or whatever, it was a good game.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Prev.
1	Alabama	3
2	Notre Dame	2
3	Clemson	1
4	Georgia	4
5	Ohio St.	7
6	Oklahoma	6
7	Michigan	5
8	LSU	9
9	C. Florida	10
10	Kentucky	11
11	Florida	15
12	Penn St.	14
13	Wash St.	8
14	Washington	19
15	Texas A&M	22
16	Missouri	23
17	Boise St.	12
18	Army	20
19	Syracuse	—
20	Miss. St.	25
21	Utah	16
22	Utah St.	21
23	App. St.	—
24	NC State	—
25	W. Virginia	17

Out of Top 25: (13) Texas, (18) Fresno St., (24) S Carolina

NOTE: In the unweighted ratings, Texas fell only to #15, and Fresno St. stayed #18.  Utah St. and NC State are out of the top 25 in the unweighted ratings. 

Top 25 after Week 12

After relying on my original computer formula for 100% of the list below last week, I just couldn’t do it this week.  I am switching #1 and#2.  Notre Dame has the better schedule for the moment by just a whisker (mostly because the Irish played Michigan),but Southern California (Notre Dame’s next opponent) will have a worse rating than South Carolina (Clemson’s next opponent) next week.  In addition, the Gamecocks (who are already bowl-eligible) will be able to pad their record with a win over Akron on December 1.  The Trojans, assuming they lose, will be done for the season (and ineligible for a bowl).

The Irish looked good, both in uniforms and in playing ability, against Syracuse and became my computer #1. Irish safety Alohi Gilman is pictured intercepting a pass
in Yankee Stadium on Saturday .

One other difference is the last four teams in the list below are the four teams(in order) that appear in the top 20 of my weighted ratings (which better mimic the CFP committee considerations by giving priority to how many of the best teams you play over your average opponent… to the extent the CFP committee is based on wins and losses and an objective evaluation of strength of schedule anyway), but did not appear in the top 20 of my older formulation.  Utah St. was #21 in both, so I thought it made sense to put those teams after the Aggies. If you were curious, the teams omitted as a result of this decision are Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Troy.  It’s three omitted teams instead of four because Missouri would be ranked either way.  The Tigers are just two spots higher this way. 

Syracuse, Auburn, and Northwestern are the three teams in the top 25 of the weighted ratings but not listed below.  Had I followed the weighted ratings exclusively, they would have replaced Texas, Fresno St., and Washington.

A perfectly average SEC team would be ranked #30, so that makes it much easier for the SEC teams to get the extra points awarded in the weighted ratings.  The Big Ten has the second-best average rating, but a perfectly average Big Ten team would only be ranked #48.

Auburn (Alabama’s next opponent) has a very similar rating to South Carolina, so I don’t think the Tide will be able to narrow the gap much if at all.  Alabama may pass up Notre Dame though, another reason not to make the Irish #1 right now.

I normally only use this top 25 blog entry to talk about why the ratings are what they are, but I wanted to make a couple of comments about Alabama.  It’s a coincidence that this demotion comes after their worst first half of the season, but I guess it’s fitting.  I thought LSU should have used the option against Alabama, and I think the Citadel’s performance in the first half supported that idea.  LSU won the 2011 “Game of the Century” by using more option than Alabama expected as well.  Nick Saban said probably none of the Citadel players could play for Alabama (maybe one or two could be decent walk-ons), and it still made them competitive for a while.  That’s not the case with LSU obviously.  Maybe it’s something we can work on in the offseason.  I don’t mean become one of those all-option all-the-time teams that almost never throw the ball (like Georgia Tech and the service academies), but we need ways to spread out defenses like Alabama’s horizontally in order to sustain drives and limit opponents’ possessions.

LSU fell two spots after playing possibly the worst team at the FBS level (they lost to the other candidate, UTEP, but the Owls have faced a stronger schedule).  If Michigan and LSU win next week, the Tigers should move back ahead of the Buckeyes. Washington St. may be ahead for good, although of course the Cougars could lose to Washington or Utah (which clinched the Pac-12 South).  Oklahoma and Georgia could also suffer losses in the next two weeks.  In my weighted ratings, LSU is still #6 behind Michigan. 

Rank	Team	Prev.
1	Clemson	2
2	Notre Dame	3
3	Alabama	1
4	Georgia	4
5	Michigan	5
6	Oklahoma	6
7	Ohio St.	8
8	Wash St.	9
9	LSU	7
10	C. Florida	12
11	Kentucky	18
12	Boise St.	13
13	Texas	16
14	Penn St.	11
15	Florida	14
16	Utah	21
17	W. Virginia	10
18	Fresno St.	—
19	Washington	20
20	Army	17
21	Utah St.	22
22	Texas A&M	—
23	Missouri	—
24	S Carolina	—
25	Miss. St.	—

Out of Top 25: (15) Cincinnati, (19) Buffalo, (23) Duke, (24) UAB, (25) Iowa St.

Top 25 after Week 5

Before I begin, I know I missed the midweek blog. I had a baseball fantasy team (I won the championship of 10-team league), but that’s obviously over. I had a couple of other obligations last week as well.

I also should mention that I was sad to hear the news about LSU basketball player Wayde Sims. It’s going to hurt the team, but that’s a small consideration compared to a life cut short like that. I’ve lost a couple of other people prematurely who were important in different ways to my sports fandom in other Septembers, so I’m always glad for September for the cooler weather to commence.

Speaking of cooler weather, that’s usually when the Ole Miss game is played, but it was early this year. Here is the updated information about the LSU/Ole Miss series. I don’t have a whole lot to say about the game though. It was sloppy on both sides, but LSU just has a lot more talent. There were a couple of fumbles, but Ole Miss had a lot more penalties than LSU did (one of which negated a fumble), so it balanced out. It was nice for Burrow to do well statistically, although I’m not sure how well the land plankton compare to other SEC defenses. I plan to talk about the upcoming Florida game later this week. I heard an interesting discussion about it today that I’ll talk about as well.

LSU QB Joe Burrow accounted for 388 total yards against Ole Miss.

If you didn’t notice, I did complete my first official computer rankings of the year. I’m obviously not following them exactly in this list, but there were only two teams below whom I moved more than 4 spots. The first was Auburn, which I thought belonged one spot ahead of Washington, which it beat. The Plains Tigers just have low-value wins like Alabama St., Southern Miss, and Arkansas that makes their computer numbers look relatively bad. The second was Central Florida, who has a 17-game winning streak and lost out on potential points due to the hurricane. I will not move either team as much next week or in future weeks though.

There will probably be only a handful of deviations overall from the computer order next week. Some people have been confused about why I change the approach from week to week, but I just think people don’t realize the transition in other mediums. You start with preseason, which is only about how good you think teams will be, maybe with a little bit of consideration for how good they were in prior years. Then when it comes to bowls and the playoff, you want to exclusively base it on how well a team did this season.

You can’t make that transition and approach each week the exact same, but the polls tend to have this arrested development where they try to do that. I imagine them thinking, “I moved team A up 5 spots because they beat team B last week, and team B was in the top 10.” They’ll do that just as much in November as in September. They don’t think back and wonder if team B was only in the top 10 because of what they did this season or not, and then if team B loses to several other teams they don’t take away the extra credit they gave team A. They only reevaluate when it gets right to the end. I don’t understand what they’re waiting for.

I won’t have as much to say about my decision-making process going forward. Where I do make decisions I’m mostly just trying to provide a smooth transition from subjective to objective. It’s going to be more about why the computer formula reacts to input the way it does.

I will talk about the top teams a bit. I didn’t want to move LSU up another spot until they do something more impressive than beating Ole Miss at home. Ohio St. had a better win than Clemson did Saturday, but I’m no longer holding the closeness of the win over Texas A&M against them. The computer had the orange Tigers a good bit higher, so I followed that. Notre Dame is playing well just in time (and I believe Stanford is also better than Syracuse), so I’m now willing to look past the close final scores early on. Those are two examples of how margin of victory won’t really factor in going forward.

I’ve talked about Army and Duke in the last couple of weeks. Duke beat Army, so even though the Blue Devils lost and the Cadets won in big games last week, I decided they were close enough to put the winning team (especially with one fewer loss) ahead.

I’ll just briefly address the other new teams on this list. West Virginia held on in Lubbock to remain undefeated, which I considered in giving them an extra boost here. Florida had a good win in Starkville. I’m still skeptical of North Carolina St. and Indiana, but as I explained objective numbers are taking more of a role now. Indiana doesn’t get much credit for beating Rutgers, but it has moved up as other teams have lost or are no longer receiving extra subjective credit and did too well in the computer ratings to put lower. North Carolina St. got a numerically helpful win against Virginia and is undefeated. The Wolfpack and the Hoosiers are the only two teams to beat the Cavaliers, but we will see if that means anything soon (when Virginia plays U. Miami and Duke in the next two weeks).

Apart from Michigan, all the teams who fell out lost. The Wolverines are getting a lot of credit in other places for beating winless Nebraska (partly due to margin of victory). That doesn’t count for much here. Northwestern, the team they barely beat on Saturday, is 1-3 and lost to Akron. By the way, that’s an example of margin of victory the other direction. One reason I’m not that far away from many rankings who consider margin of victory is it tends to balance out. Anyway, I just didn’t see the logic in putting Michigan ahead of any team on this list, but they’re still close to the top 25.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Notre Dame 8
3 Clemson 7
4 LSU 4
5 Georgia 2
6 Ohio St. 3
7 Oklahoma 6
8 Kentucky 12
9 Stanford 5
10 NC State —
11 W. Virginia —
12 Auburn 10
13 Washington 21
14 Penn St. 9
15 Duke 11
16 Texas 22
17 Indiana —
18 Army —
19 S Florida —
20 Okie St. 24
21 Wisconsin 15
22 Florida —
23 U. Miami 20
24 Maryland 25
25 C. Florida 16

Out of Top 25: (13) UC-Berkeley, (14) BYU, (17) Michigan, (18) Miss. St., (19) S Carolina, (23) Texas Tech

Top 25 after Week 4

LSU had a good first 22 minutes and a good fourth quarter against Louisiana Tech, but it’s concerning to give up 21 consecutive points to two opponents in a row.

Apart from the touchdown drive at the end of the first half against Southeastern (SLU), LSU has not played well around halftime and the third quarter in any of its first four games.

The Tigers were way out in front of U. Miami and SLU; but in the case of U. Miami, ending a game with no touchdowns in your last 8 drives (not counting the kneel-down at the end) isn’t desirable in my opinion no matter what the score is. LSU may have been shut out in the second half against SLU if they had not recovered a fumble at the SLU 18 late in the fourth quarter.

The troubles started against Auburn after about a quarter and a half instead of two quarters, and that’s the same thing that happened against the Bulldogs on Saturday. We were up 24 against the Bulldogs instead of the 10-point lead at Auburn, but the play from that point until the fourth quarter was similar with identical results (outscored 21-0 in both instances). So there is a wide range of teams that could blow out LSU if the Tigers were to play like that for a full game. To look on the bright side, LSU could probably beat anyone if they eliminate that mid-game lag.

If the Tigers don’t play better, they may well lose the next game against Ole Miss. See here for more about that rivalry.

That said, I don’t see anyone other than LSU I want to put #4. Clemson’s game against Texas A&M and Oklahoma’s game against Army were more concerning, and no one has the pair of top-10 wins the Tigers have.

I thought about dropping Ohio St. due to not having played anyone except a team that just got beaten soundly by Texas, but I may have gotten some flak if the first three teams were all in the SEC. The Buckeyes’ strength of schedule should improve significantly in the next two weeks though, so I’ll leave them where they are for now.

Army’s ground game and ball control were almost enough to beat Oklahoma in Norman on Saturday.

I know I ranked Army #25 last week, but that’s not really a good excuse for Oklahoma to go into overtime against the Knights/Cadets at home. After an uninspired win at Iowa St. the week before, I’m not really feeling the Sooners right now. I’m phasing out the feeling element of this as I always do in late September, but going solely by the numbers wouldn’t even put OU in the top 10. I haven’t been impressed with other Big XII teams either, but the toughest games may be away from home: TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia, and Texas (in Dallas). The remaining home schedule is Baylor, Kansas St., Oklahoma St., and Kansas.

Auburn didn’t do anything wrong; but even assuming they win next week, 3 of their four wins will be Alabama St. (who has lost by at least 34 to every Division I opponent), Arkansas (who probably still won’t have any FBS wins), and Southern Mississippi (whose only FBS win is over Rice). It’s just time to start factoring in strength of schedule more. Auburn has Georgia and Alabama later of course, but they won’t get credit until they play one of them.

Central Florida, the (AU) Tigers’ opponents in the Peach Bowl, and Michigan were even further from a ranking in my formula, so they dropped more.

Mississippi St. lost to a team I already had ranked, so I thought a 10-spot drop was enough even though the Bulldogs are also not on my computer list.

After that, I knew which teams I wanted to rank (they were all selected from the top 25 of my computer), but when I couldn’t decide the order, I just ranked them by how good the teams who beat them are. For instance, Texas Tech and Maryland (which beat Texas before the Longhorns’ big wins of the past two weeks) had lost to unranked teams. Ole Miss (which beat Texas Tech) has only lost to Alabama, and Temple (which beat Maryland) lost two games, one of which was to Villanova—and it wasn’t in basketball—so that was pretty easy to sort out. I think Oklahoma St. lost to a better team than Texas Tech did, but I couldn’t put the Cowboys ahead of a team who just beat them 41-17 in Stillwater.

The five teams that are in the computer top 25 but not in this one are (in order): Buffalo (beat Temple; see above for discussion about Maryland and Texas), Indiana (lost to Michigan St. but is the only team to beat Virginia), Michigan St. (beat Indiana, although the Spartans lost to Arizona St.), San Diego St. (beat Arizona St., only loss is to Stanford), and North Carolina St. (nothing too special, but they are the only team to have beaten James Madison or Marshall; they play Virginia next).

San Diego St. has a bye week, so they will be staying out; but any of the others could make it in by winning. I know it sounds silly, but this is especially true of Buffalo, which plays Army. Who knew New York could field decent college football teams, not to mention (possibly) three of them? The third is undefeated Syracuse, who fell just a few spots outside of the top 25 and will attempt to beat Clemson for the second year in a row on Saturday.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 2
3 Ohio St. 3
4 LSU 5
5 Stanford 6
6 Oklahoma 4
7 Clemson 7
8 Notre Dame 12
9 Penn St. 11
10 Auburn 9
11 Duke 15
12 Kentucky 24
13 UC-Berkeley 18
14 BYU 19
15 Wisconsin 20
16 UCF 13
17 Michigan 14
18 Miss. St. 8
19 S Carolina —
20 U. Miami —
21 Washington —
22 Texas —
23 Texas Tech —
24 Okie St. 10
25 Maryland —

Out of Top 25:
(16) Minnesota, (17) Iowa, (21) Boise St., (22) TCU, (23) Indiana, (25) Army

LSU-Auburn Recap and Notes

I wanted to address something before going into detail about the LSU-Auburn game. I saw some Auburn fans were incensed about the pass interference (PI) calls during the game; but honestly, the referees didn’t even call all of them. They also apparently had double standards (in Auburn’s favor) about what constitutes a taunting. The referees missed some holding calls too (probably on both sides), but no officiating staff can call every hold. The ones they did call were obvious, but I’m sure some Auburn fans complained about those too.

In the less egregious of the two PIs that were called on the final drive, the defender grabbed the receiver’s elbow before the ball arrived. It wasn’t one of those hand-check PI calls: it hindered the receiver’s ability to catch the ball. The receiver wasn’t tackled or anything, and defenders can get away with worse at times; but there are few if any officials who would have seen that play well and not called it. Earlier in the game, there was another PI call that was borderline uncatchable, but it has to be clearly uncatchable to overrule an interference. The interference took place right as the ball was being released, so it was very hard to say where the receiver would have ended up had the interference (it may have even been holding) not occurred.

I know coaches are careful to avoid saying anything that may result in a fine, but both head coach Gus Malzahn and defensive coordinator Kevin Steele (formerly LSU’s defensive coordinator) deserve credit for properly placing the blame on the way the plays were called and executed. I agree with them that the important thing is LSU made plays with the game on the line and Auburn didn’t.

The only thing I would quibble with is Steele blamed the coverage on the 71-yard touchdown play. Someone may have been a yard out of place; but I think it was mostly just a good offensive play, and no one could catch Derrick Dillon. He had four players right near him when he caught the ball, so the coverage couldn’t have been that bad. He and LSU quarterback Joe Burrow just saw and succeeded at hitting the small space on the field the defense left open. The whole field can’t be covered at all times, especially with LSU running or throwing very short passes on first down most of the time.

LSU WR Derrick Dillon catches a touchdown pass (what would be a touchdown pass after a sprint to the end zone anyway) over the outstretched arms of Auburn LB Deshaun Davis in the fourth quarter on Saturday in Auburn.

It’s been since the mid-1990s (that’s before Saban arrived in Baton Rouge) that either LSU or Auburn beat a team that would finish with a winning record in a road game in this series. LSU won such a game in 1995, and Auburn won one in 1997. When Auburn won in 1999 and when LSU won in 2008 and 2012, the wins came against teams that would finish with losing records and fired head coaches. So in all likelihood, this is one of the best teams to lose at home in the history of the series.

Another historical note: this was the first time since 1993 that LSU won on the road with the other team favored by 10 points or more. That was up the road in Tuscaloosa when a Tiger team that would finish with a losing record (one of six consecutive LSU teams to do so) beat the defending national champions, who had not lost a game in almost 26 months.

I know coaches take things one game at a time, but I don’t have to. I’m not going to pretend to take Louisiana Tech just as seriously as Auburn, so before talking about the next opponent in detail, I wanted to talk more about what I’m looking forward to the rest of the season as a whole. As I said in the last blog, I’m not convinced that LSU is all of a sudden a title contender, even for the SEC title, but I’m confident that the Tigers will return to a bowl game with a winning record already secured. Whether that will be 7 wins or 11 wins, I’m not quite sure. ESPN’s FPI gives LSU a 0.1% chance of winning all of its remaining games. I’m not sure it’s that low, but it’s low enough not to worry about right now.

The Tigers are given a 0.7% chance of winning the conference. That’s about 142:1. I’m not rich, but I’d put down $100 right now if you give me those odds.

Anyway, as to the number of wins, I like LSU’s chances at Arkansas and at home against Ole Miss, Louisiana Tech, and Rice. That’s how I get to 7. Even if we somehow lose one of those, I don’t think every other team (at Florida, Mississippi St., Georgia, Alabama, at Texas A&M) would beat us, so even falling to 7-5 (which would mean a 4-5 finish) probably won’t happen either.

I believe there is value to using computer systems, but I think descriptive ones (where you just value results so far) are better than predictive ones (where you try to calculate odds of winning). Anyway, I think the FPI I mentioned isn’t giving LSU enough credit.

It puts the Florida game as almost 50/50. I did think Florida was going to win that game going into the season, but I was worried about LSU’s inexperience. As I said in the last blog, the Auburn and U. Miami wins show that being young isn’t a huge problem even if those are the only really good wins away from home for the whole season. Florida’s 27-16 home loss to Kentucky shows their experience isn’t quite as helpful as I thought it might be. I’m not sure how the FPI works, but it doesn’t seem to take new information on board as well as it should.

The FPI also gives Mississippi St. a 57.5% chance of winning at Tiger Stadium. I expect a tough game, but I really don’t see Mississippi St. on the road being tougher than Auburn at home. The Bulldogs did beat LSU easily last year, but I think that was an LSU team that clearly wasn’t ready for SEC play in a tough road environment. They weren’t even ready for a good Sun Belt opponent at home. We will learn more about Mississippi St. after the Bulldogs play Kentucky and Florida though.

If Mississippi St. is being held against LSU because of last year, why isn’t last year being held against Texas A&M? The Aggies haven’t beaten LSU since the 1990s, and they’re given about a 63% chance of winning this year. A&M looked good against Clemson (in a loss); but Syracuse looked just as good against Clemson last year (actually better because they won), and where did that get the Orange? Obviously one game isn’t proof of how the whole season is going to go, or LSU’s two big wins are proof that the Tigers will win at least 10 games.

There isn’t too much to say about Louisiana Tech, but I hope we take them seriously. There isn’t much difference between a team like that and a team like Troy. The Bulldogs don’t have as many key wins (last beating an SEC team, Ole Miss, in 2011, after beating Mississippi St. in 2008), but the Bulldogs have made bowl games for 4 consecutive years and qualified for them in 6 of 8 years. They’ve played the following Power-5 teams within one possession, all on the road: South Carolina (2017), Arkansas (2016), Kansas St. (2015), Kansas (2013), Mississippi St. (2011), and LSU (2009). The Bulldogs have also beaten Illinois twice over that span. In 2011, Tech narrowly lost the Pointsettia Bowl to TCU, which finished 11-2 that year. In 2007, Tech lost to Hawaii at home by a single point. That Hawaii team suffered its only loss for the season in the Sugar Bowl.

Louisiana Tech RB Daniel Porter throws a touchdown pass to give the Bulldogs a 13-10 lead as time expires in the second quarter in Baton Rouge in 2009.

This is the first LSU-Louisiana Tech game since the 24-16 LSU win in 2009, which was only the third game in the series since the start of World War II. LSU is 18-1 all time with the only Tiger loss coming in 1904 (one of only five to be played in Ruston; there was one game on a neutral field). LSU has won by as much as 71, which they did in 1930. Since 1914, every game in the series (including this one) has been in Baton Rouge.