Week 1 Reaction and Top 25 2023

Since the last blog…

Sometimes long weekends are the worst scenario.  It was basically Wednesday by the time I was able to review some of the things that went wrong during the LSU game. If I had waited to review all of them, I might have never written another blog.  Obviously I’m not a beat reporter in Baton Rouge, so I rely on public statements and coverage from the people who are based around the program.  That process was delayed by a day or more given that the game took place on Sunday night.  I did have Friday the 1st off, but nothing had happened yet.  I had decided to go out of town to a baseball game on Saturday, so I couldn’t write live reactions about the teams who played on Saturday. 

On Sunday, I barely made it back in time for the game, and then Mondays are workdays for me whether I go into work or not.  My bosses check to make sure I’ve made enough progress on Tuesday mornings, and I have the type of job where I always have to spend time preparing for the next day the night before anyway.  Unfortunately, I don’t just clock in and clock out without having to think about it until I clock in again.

LSU-Florida St. Reaction and Historical Comparisons

Anyway, I do feel a little good right now that at least I didn’t pick LSU to win the SEC West or make the playoff.  I’m not throwing in the towel though.  There have been teams with rough starts who ended up doing well in the SEC, but it’s pretty rare to be one of the top teams nationally.  Ohio St. got run out of their own stadium against Virginia Tech in the first week of September 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff, but that’s kind of the exception that proves the rule.  

Also, the Buckeyes had two months before they had to play a major-conference opponent who would finish with 9 wins or more.  That was a long time to fix the issues in the Virginia Tech game, and there was even a close call against a Penn St. team (which would finish 7-6) in the interim.  I think LSU has a lot less time.  Mississippi St., LSU’s opponent a week from today, will win 9 games or more.

In Columbia on October 6, 2012, Marcus Lattimore gained as many yards on the ground (109) as Georgia QB Aaron Murray gained in the air. LSU handed South Carolina its first loss the following week. The Bulldogs would win the SEC East over the Gamecocks and the Gators.

A couple of years before that, Georgia got blown out by South Carolina, 35-7. in early October but came just a couple of yards short of beating Alabama to win the SEC and make the BCS championship game (which they most likely would have won given how easily the Tide handled Notre Dame).  I think that’s a more realistic example for LSU to hope to follow (possibly making the SEC title game and playing better than last year).  Georgia of course had to overcome that game to win the East whereas LSU’s loss to Florida St. does not count in the SEC standings.  Unlike the Ohio St. example, the Bulldogs’ next big game (in hindsight and at the time) was just a couple of games later against Florida, who would finish 11-2.  The only bad thing about following that Georgia example would be having to wait another 10 years to actually win a national championship. 

I’ll update the Florida St. rivalry blog another time, but it’s just crazy how cursed LSU seems to be in the series.  Of course, I still think LSU would have done quite well if they had played the Seminoles annually from about 2001 to 2019 (minus a couple of losses to Jameis, I suppose).

Thoughts on Brian Kelly

I said I’m not throwing in the towel on this season.  I’m also not throwing in the towel on Brian Kelly.  This was Kelly’s 15^th game.  Ed Orgeron lost to Troy in his 13^th game in charge (two weeks after a 30-point loss at Mississippi St. that I still argue was worse).  Les Miles lost his 12^th game by 20 to a Georgia team that finished 10-3.  Say what you will about Miles and Orgeron after the respective national championships, but no one was whining about it taking too long to get there at the end of 2007 (Miles’ third year) or 2019 (Orgeron’s third full year) seasons.  By the way, 2014 was Urban Meyer’s third year at Ohio St., and Nick Saban didn’t win his first at Alabama until his third year (he had taken four years to win one at LSU).  So even if it’s safe to assume a national championship is off the table already, I never thought it was a highly realistic goal for this year anyway.

LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly went on a bit of a rant at the end of his press conference on Tuesday.

Kelly can be a smooth talker, so I don’t always hold too much stock in his press conferences and whatnot, but I liked his rant at the end of his week-opening press conference.  I disagree somewhat with faulting the enthusiasm gap, but I think it was a good message to put out there, and it showed he took onboard many of the issues fans and media pointed out.

“I could go through a number of different situations.  We don’t get to the chains on third and 5… We’ve got a drop on third and 6 trying to get upfield… We’re 4^th and 1 and we’re trying to make a play instead of reading what the defender is giving you.  I could elaborate on defense.  We’re spinning down a safety[, and] he’s watching the quarterback.  We could have been more creative with play-calling.  We could have been better defensively and [made fewer] spy calls and [brought] more pressure.  I could attack the whole thing.  The bottom line is I’ve got to get our football team thinking the right way and play[ing] with a competitive edge.” 

I tried to clean up some of the grammar.  He usually speaks better than that, but I’ll forgive it.  I’ll accept some grammatical hiccups in exchange for his not sounding like a politician sometimes.

Other Results and Reactions

At least Kelly has been overshadowed somewhat by the hysterics about Dabo after Clemson’s loss to Duke.  My prediction of those Tigers being the team to beat in the ACC isn’t looking too good right now.  But that 2014 Virginia Tech team was in the ACC and ended up losing 6 games, 5 of them in conference, so we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions about that conference either.  Even if Clemson continues to disappoint, I might still be right that the ACC champion will have a good shot at the Playoff though.

If I were a betting man (sports betting is still illegal where I live anyway), I would have taken Colorado +20.5.  Although I did leave TCU ranked, I wasn’t very convinced they were going to be a competitive team this year.  Deion performed better than many more experienced coaches in getting a bunch of transfers and other new players to support each other and have the needed enthusiasm.  Whatever happens this season, he definitely did something right in preparing for Week 1.

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders confers with his son, S Shiloh Sanders, on Saturday in Ft. Worth. Sanders’ other son, Shadeur, threw for 510 yards in the upset win.

I don’t believe in making drastic changes after one week unless necessary, so I’m not dropping LSU and Clemson from the top 25.  TCU was low enough that they will drop out though.  I don’t really have the time and energy to re-work the whole thing even if I wanted to.  I don’t really have a long list of teams that were just outside of the top 25 either. 

I also wanted to put some of the conference talk into perspective.  South Carolina has a much lower status in the SEC than North Carolina has in the ACC.  The Tar Heels were the ACC runners-up in 2015 and 2022 and represented the conference in the post-2020 Orange Bowl.  They would have been #2 in the conference had Notre Dame not temporarily joined.  The Gamecocks have only made one SEC championship game, and that was back in 2010.  They have only won 8 games or more twice since the 2013 season.

Florida is obviously a more successful program in the big picture than Utah is, but the Gators lost 5 SEC games (and two other games) last season and 6 the season before, going 6-7 overall both seasons.  Utah went 10-4 in each of the last two seasons, winning the Pac-12 both years.  I know Florida beat Utah anyway last year, but you can’t expect the SEC to win every game like that.

LSU-Florida St. was the only game of the three that was an apples-to-apples comparison. 

It is interesting that the Pac-12 is disintegrating at the same the conference had the most successful Week 1; but other than Colorado, nothing is too impressive based on recent seasons.

I considered ranking Purdue in preseason, and Fresno St. beat the Boilermakers on the road. I thought it was good to make sure one team from outside of the major conferences (and Notre Dame) was included. I also considered Wyoming, which beat Texas Tech; but the Cowboys rarely sustain their early-season successes whereas Fresno St. is often one of the top teams in the Mountain West. I also take overtime wins with more of a grain of salt.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Georgia	2
3	Michigan	3
4	Alabama	4
5	Florida St.	11
6	Southern CA	7
7	Penn St.	8
8	Utah	9
9	Texas	10
10	Tennessee	12
11	Notre Dame	13
12	Ole Miss	14
13	Oregon	15
14	Duke	—
15	LSU	5
16	Clemson	6
17	Kansas St.	18
18	Washington	21
19	UCLA	16
20	N Carolina	—
21	Oregon St.	20
22	Mississippi St.	23
23	Pittsburgh	24
24	Fresno St.	—
25	Colorado	—

Out of Top 25: (17) TCU, (19) S. Carolina, (22) Boise St., (25) Texas Tech

Week 3 Top 25 and Conference Report

Week 3 Conference Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Week 3 Top 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last Week

2021 Week 1 Top 25

I’m still a bit thrown by last year’s COVID season. I was on vacation recently, but even if I weren’t, I don’t really know how to do a preseason ranking when I had no real method of comparing teams last year with vastly different lengths of seasons and many major-conference teams playing one or no inter-conference games. Also, because of that vacation, I didn’t get to complete my blog about the previous academic year. I’ll get to it, but I didn’t want to just put up a list without talking about it.

The last time I didn’t have a previous season of my own rankings to look at was the first time I started ranking teams myself back in 1995; so like then, I’m just relying on a vague notion of how good teams are as reported by others.

Since Clemson lost, I felt it was only right to put the two most credible teams on an annual basis who aren’t Clemson in the first two spots. Those are Alabama and Ohio St. For #3, why not the team who beat Clemson? Georgia is also no stranger to big games and major bowls in recent seasons. Tulane was theoretically the home team, I’m not on the Boomer Schooner after a 5-point win over the Wave in Norman. I have to stay with the current SEC even though that makes three of four. #4 for me is Texas A&M based on last year’s 10-1 season and Orange Bowl win combined with a lack of drama in Week 1.

In what was supposed to be the big heavyweight match-up, there was one touchdown.. by a defensive player (Christopher Smith, #29). Either things are changing in college football or maybe they’re not such heavyweights after all.

Clemson needs to find more offense somewhere, but I can’t find any other credible #5 team at the moment.

Cincinnati also only lost one game last year on the way to the Peach Bowl, also losing to Georgia in that game, so they’re #6.

Penn St. started out with a true road game against a good program in Wisconsin, so I’d like to give them credit. Unlike the polls, I don’t feel some obligation to only move them up a limited number of spots.

Iowa also won an early Big Ten contest between ranked teams, beating Indiana at home. Indiana probably isn’t a huge player on the national scene permanently, but it’s something.

Florida and Oklahoma seemed like two appropriate teams to round out the top 10 since both went into the Cotton Bowl as top 10 teams last season. Since Oklahoma won by 35, I’ll give the Sooners the nod for #9. Tulane isn’t great, but they went .500 going into the bowls last season, so they may be better than Northern Iowa (who lost narrowly to Iowa St.), for instance.

In that process, I’ve ranked two teams who played 10 or more games last year with only a single loss: Texas A&M and Cincinnati.

Next I’m just going to rank the teams in that category who haven’t lost yet this year. Again, I don’t operate with similar constraints to the polls. Even though polls technically don’t matter anymore there is still this custom of not ranking teams without major conference schedules very high because what if they keep winning? Because later someone might have to cogitate a bit and not just automatically move teams up for not losing. That doesn’t bother me at all.

Also, I’ve already listed almost every team that finished ranked with two losses last season if that team has not yet lost this season. Other than Iowa St., the highest-ranked team in the AP poll with 3 losses (Texas) was only #19, so I don’t feel like I’m being unfair to teams with better schedules than these.

11. Liberty, which won the non-major Super Bowl over the next team…
12. Coastal Carolina
13. BYU

Liberty handed Coastal Carolina its only loss last season on this blocked field goal in overtime by #55 Elijah James.

Maybe it’s because when I first watched college football, there were still ties, but overtime wins don’t sit well with me. I don’t regard those as 100% wins. But Notre Dame didn’t lose in Week 1 and the Irish did only lose two games last season, one to Clemson, so I’ll put them #14.

The next group is the 3-loss teams that finished ranked last season. Of those, I will put U. Miami last since they lost, but losing to Alabama isn’t really evidence the Hurricanes don’t belong.

15. Texas
16. Iowa St.
17. Oklahoma St.
18. U. Miami

The next two teams had really good seasons last year, especially for them, so I’m not going to be too harsh as a result of losing to teams already ranked above.

19. Indiana
20. UL-Lafayette

So far, I have not considered any Pac-12 teams. They didn’t play enough of a season last year and certainly didn’t do enough against other conferences to warrant inclusion. The only two that I will rank happen to be cross-town rivals. Oregon played in a major bowl with only 4 wins. In my view, they shouldn’t have even been considered. Beating Fresno by 7 in Week 1 this year doesn’t make me feel any differently.

21. USC
22. UCLA

Two other teams won bowl games last year after entering the bowls with one loss. They didn’t play full schedules either, but I think they deserve some recognition. They also happen to be in the same conference as one another.

23. Ball St.
24. Buffalo

Looking at last year and the preseason consensus, the best team that I won’t rank is probably North Carolina. I won’t rank the Tar Heels because they lost to…

25. Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech QB Braxton Burmeister ran for one touchdown and threw for another in the first half, but the Hokies’ game against North Carolina was also largely a defensive struggle. The Tar Heels were defeated by a score of 17-10.

I think this is a reasonable mix of teams from various regions and conferences giving due regard to last season’s level of success and the Week 1 opponents. You might not like which teams I put in what order, but this makes a lot more sense to me than the way the polls do things.

Most if not all of the non-major teams would probably finish near the bottom of the SEC, but we don’t know how good much of the SEC is right now. LSU might beat every single one of the non-majors above, but they lost to a team that rightly was not ranked. LSU and the other SEC teams rightly were not ranked last season and have done nothing yet to show things are different this season. Ole Miss had a great bowl win last year, but they still finished behind LSU in the SEC. Lamar Jackson hasn’t played for Louisville in a few years, so I’m not giving the Rebels (are we still allowed to call them that?) a spot in the top 25 for beating the Cardinals.

I think after one game it’s OK to still largely consider last season. Also, many of the non-major teams were willing to play whomever was available. It’s not their fault that conferences like the SEC wouldn’t even give them a chance to schedule opponent from that conference. It would be different if some of these conferences played 10 games against the SEC and lost every single one of them last season. I don’t think it’s appropriate to look back to before last season to support rankings this season.

Also, since I’m not considering any rankings from last season official, I want to give credit to those teams that took advantage of the opening last season provided to show something special. UL-Lafayette, for instance, deserves recognition even though I don’t think they’ll ever be the best team in the state talent-wise or a serious national contender. They couldn’t play an SEC opponent last year, so they played a Big XII opponent, and not even a close one. Still they traveled there (to Ames to play Iowa St.) and won. I’m not going to take that away from them because they lost to another well-regarded Big XII team to start out this season.

If the Cajuns deserve to be where I put them, then teams that didn’t lose their opener are appropriately placed here too.

SEC and Overall Rankings Weeks 2 and 3

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to write anything last week. I wouldn’t have had time this week if it weren’t for the holiday today.  I’m still trying to catch up at work from everything that wasn’t done during the shutdowns.  Last time I wrote about how badly LSU did in a game they won in a blowout the next week.  It would be nice to have a repeat of that. 

I definitely didn’t think both Florida and LSU would be coming off of a loss before the season or even going into last week.  LSU has four games against currently top-15 teams on the schedule.  Even with wins in the other three (Ole Miss has a great offense, and Arkansas has a win and two close games against good teams; I don’t have anything too complimentary to say about South Carolina, but they may be as good as or better than the Missouri team LSU just played), that would leave the Tigers with a 4-6 record.  If there is ever a year when you need a non-conference schedule it’s when you have 5 returning starters, and two of the big ones have missed three games combined.  There have been years without a winning record in conference since LSU’s last losing season in 1999 (3-8), but this year a losing record in conference is a losing record period.  I’m not sure if 5-5 gets a bowl game this year.

The development of the passing game, led by Myles Brennan, has been one of the few bright spots for the LSU team so far.

More details about the games and teams later.  I’m going to show the Week 2 lists first.  I think it’s better than trying to do two weeks at a time.

Week 2 (these are based on SEC weeks) Rankings

SEC

1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Auburn
6. Arkansas
7. Ole Miss
8. Mississippi St.
9. LSU
10. Texas A&M
11. Kentucky
12. South Carolina
13. Vanderbilt
14. Missouri

Inter-conference group

1. Clemson
2. U. Miami
3. Cincinnati
4. Notre Dame
5. North Carolina
6. Oklahoma St.
7. S. Methodist
8. Virginia Tech
9. Brigham Young
10. UL-Lafayette

Week 3 Rankings and Comments

SEC

1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Florida
4. Texas A&M
5. Auburn
6. Tennessee
7. Arkansas
8. Ole Miss
9. Kentucky
10. Missouri
11. Mississippi St.
12. LSU
13. South Carolina
14. Vanderbilt

Inter-conference group

1. Clemson
2. North Carolina
3. U. Miami
4. Cincinnati
5. Oklahoma St.
6. Notre Dame
7. S. Methodist
8. Virginia Tech
9. Brigham Young
10. UL-Lafayette

Rankings commentary

I was impressed by Georgia’s win over Auburn, but I still have some doubts due to their narrow win over Arkansas.  Arkansas is greatly improved, but they’re not a national-championship contender.  Tennessee doesn’t tell me much since the Volunteers have only beaten two of the five worst teams on my list.

Going back to Arkansas, they really should have beaten Auburn, but the officials were so anxious to blow the whistle on a spike they didn’t notice it went backwards.  I still think it’s appropriate this early on to group together teams with the same records though.

Texas A&M barely beat Vanderbilt, which has been blown out by LSU and South Carolina, so that’s why I couldn’t put them ahead of Florida.  They did just beat the Gators, but they were at home (with a real crowd… God bless Texas), and I really believe the Aggies only won because they were the last team with the ball.

Kentucky narrowly lost to Ole Miss and easily beat Mississippi St., so it made sense to put them a couple of spots ahead of the Bulldogs and one spot behind the Rebels.  Mississippi St. did better against LSU than Missouri did, but Missouri was missing a lot of players and has had a more difficult schedule. Mizzou also didn’t lose badly to a 1-2 team.

I don’t think anyone outside of the SEC would beat Clemson or even come close right now, so I considered not moving U. Miami down at all, but I was impressed with North Carolina’s win over Virginia Tech.  Not much else interesting has happened in the last couple of weeks.  SMU beat Memphis the week before last, so that’s why they’re there and the Tigers aren’t.

LSU

Missouri Recap and Criticisms

Back to those other Tigers.  I know Missouri is the Tigers too, but to avoid confusion I won’t call them that.  First, I want to say that Miles Brennan played great despite several incompletions (many not his fault), and I’ve already seen a good bit of improvement from the first week.  He’s also getting better at avoiding big sacks, so it’s more than just the stat line.  WR Terrace Marshall, the one veteran with extensive experience, and true freshman TE Arik Gilbert are also doing well. 

Those are the only places where I don’t have criticism.  For some reason, LSU refused to run the ball in the first half.  It’s not that they can’t run the ball.  Apart from three runs from the Mizzou 1 (on only one of which he scored), Tyrion Davis-Price gained more than 6 yards per carry; and John Emery, Jr., had two carries for 7 yards.  It’s not unusual for the running game to improve as the game goes on, especially with a productive passing attack to go along with it.  Obvious rushing situations also tend to work better when you find some kind of way to get the ball lateral to spread out the defense rather than just trying to pound it forward.

Weaknesses on defense are easier to exploit than weaknesses on offense.  There have been some good pressures; but if the opposing quarterback can avoid them and make a decent throw, there is a good chance it will be a touchdown. If it’s a pass out of the backfield or only a short distance downfield, it can go for 25 or 30 yards.  Missouri had three lost fumbles and a turnover on downs after a poorly conceived fake punt.  A team without those mistakes (especially if the Fighting Tigers don’t learn some ball control) could score 70 against LSU, especially if you consider that Mizzou was without some of its best receivers. 

All that said, LSU still should have won the game.  There is the obvious goal line stand at the end where they could not score from the one in four attempts; but on the drive before that, they had a first down from the Missouri 22.  If they manage a field goal there, a field goal on the last drive wins.  Instead, LSU suffered a sack and a delay of game penalty that set up a 3^rd and 18.  They would try a field goal anyway, but it was blocked.  It may not have been had it been from a shorter distance with less need to drive the ball though.

LSU-Florida Recent Series

There haven’t been enough games between LSU and Missouri to do one of these, but here is my Rivalry Blog that covers LSU and Florida.

This rivalry has been played every year since the 1970s with only brief interruptions in the decades before that.  I’m definitely NOT calling an LSU win, but there has been a fair share of upsets in the history of the series, most prominently when Florida was the only team to beat LSU in 2003 (which they did in Baton Rouge), when the Tigers won the national championship.  In 1997, LSU was the first team to beat the Gators after the Florida national championship the year before.  The most-recent major upset was in 2017 when LSU rebounded from a loss to Troy by beating the #21 Gators (then led by current Razorback Feleipe Franks) in the Swamp.  That game started a tailspin for Florida that ended in the firing of HC Jim McElwain. 

I mentioned the location of a couple of the games since neither team has seemed intimidated by the other’s home stadium over the last couple of decades.  Part of it is they’re at similar latitudes (the heat and humidity, sometimes well into the season, gets to some of the opponents) and accustomed to big crowds and big games.  LSU has gone long stretches of time (such as November 2008 to September 2014) with no home losses except to Florida and Alabama, and LSU is often one of the few with a recent win at Florida.  For instance, LSU and Florida St. were the only two teams who won at Florida between November 2014 and early October 2017, when LSU won for the second time in a row at Florida. LSU was the only team to win at Florida between the end of the 2003 season and the last week of September 2007.  LSU, Auburn, and Ole Miss were the only teams to win there between the end of the 2003 season and October 2010 with LSU being the only one to do it twice. 

I mention in the Rivalry Blog that the most interesting part of the series in my recollection has been when Les Miles was LSU’s coach and Urban Meyer was Florida’s.  Both started with the respective schools in 2005.  Meyer left Florida after the 2010 season, and Miles was fired from LSU in September 2016.  Anyway, in those six seasons the two teams were even at 3-3.  All three LSU wins were by 4 points apiece while all three Florida wins were by 10 or more, but only one was a blowout.  The two teams combined for three national titles and five SEC championship appearances during that period. The fortunes of the programs have fluctuated; but the close games have continued after Meyer and Miles left their respective schools, including five in a row between 2014 and 2018.

Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who averaged over 10 yards per carry in the game, scores on a touchdown run against UF last season, helping LSU to a rare double-digit win over the Gators.

In the last 9 years, LSU has gone 6-3 against the Gators but only 2-2 under Orgeron.  Dan Mullen is 1-1 against the Tigers as the Florida HC.  He was only 2-7 against LSU while the Mississippi St. HC, but the two wins were in his last four years with the Bulldogs.  Mullen beat Orgeron the only time he faced him as the Bulldog HC, 37-7, in 2017.

I just updated the Vanderbilt Rivalry Blog

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Rivalry Week Top 25 and SEC Bowl Update

Rivalry Week and Bowl Ramifications

I thought Mississippi St. would win.  People will say they didn’t deserve it because of the stupid celebration penalty, but Ole Miss didn’t deserve to get a first and goal from a phantom pass interference call. 

Mississippi St. is going to a bowl game for a 10^th consecutive year for the first time, but they don’t mention that they made it one year without a winning record because there weren’t enough bowl-eligible teams by virtue of six wins (but you can’t have 7 losses, and at least five of the wins have to be over FBS opponents).

Mississippi St. RB Kylin Hill led the offense with 132 yards, which not only led all rushers but was more yards than any of the game’s three quarterbacks had passing. The Bulldogs won the Egg Bowl in Starkville on Thursday, their first home win in the series since 2013.

Congrats to Virginia for finally beating Virginia Tech. In the short term, that probably means a loss to Clemson, but that could also come with an Orange Bowl berth. 

I’m somewhat shocked that TCU lost its chance at bowl eligibility in a home game against West Virginia.  I guess they get up for the good teams and not so much for some of the others.    

The combination of the TCU loss and the Missouri bowl ban being upheld apparently gives more room for G5 conferences.  An Ole Miss win would have made yet another spot available.  I don’t believe it will be necessary to make other teams eligible this year. 

SEC Bowl Projections

If Missouri had been eligible, there would have been 10 SEC bowl teams.  As it stands, the Independence, Birmingham, and one other bowl (possibly the Belk) will have to do without SEC teams.

It’s expected Georgia and Alabama will be in NY6 bowls.  It’s possible Georgia could be in the Playoff along with LSU.  The mostly likely candidate for the Citrus will be Florida.  Cue the clips of Steve Spurrier mocking Tennessee for being in that game.  Auburn would probably be good for the Outback.  The Outback is officially even with the other bowls (apart from Independence and Birmingham), but it seems like in most years it gets the team that just barely misses the Citrus.  Auburn has better wins but one more loss, including a loss to Florida.

Texas A&M would make the most sense for the Texas Bowl, and Tennessee would make the most sense for the Music City Bowl since they can make pretty easy respective bus rides.  The Liberty Bowl (in Memphis) also might make a play for Tennessee.  Kentucky will probably get whichever Tennessee bowl is left over.  That would leave Mississippi St. for the Gator Bowl.  I don’t see any cause for upset or massive controversy with any of those. 

One more of those bowls mentioned in the last paragraph would be without an SEC team if a third SEC team ends up in a non-playoff  NY6 bowl.

LSU-Texas A&M Game and Series

Speaking of the SEC, I’ve updated the blog for the LSU-Texas A&M Series. That series of blogs is written as neutrally as I can, but I’m going to have to break objectivity for the moment.  I watched the game until the end hoping for more points by LSU’s second-team offense, but I don’t know if LSU will ever break the series margin of victory record that the Aggies set in 1914 (54 points).  On the show Off the Bench, someone asked what final score it would take to get the bad taste out of ones mouth from last year.  I said 75-0, but 50-7 will have to do. 

Ja’Marr Chase runs for a 78-yard TD catch. Chase averaged over 28 yards per catch and had a total of 197 receiving yards against the Aggies yesterday in Baton Rouge.

I go into more detail in the blog of course, but I also wanted to mention it was LSU’s largest margin of victory in series history, which had been 37 (in 1971, Gene Stallings’ last season).  That win had also followed a two-point upset loss in the previous year that ended a significant LSU unbeaten streak in the series (10 in that case; it had been 7 going into last year’s game).

Playoff Competition

In the top 25, Memphis and Cincinnati essentially switched places.  The Tigers will have to beat Cincinnati again to win the American Conference.

I said that Oklahoma, Baylor, and Utah (the three possible one-loss major-conference teams) would move up relative to other teams, and two of the three (Oklahoma and Utah) passed up Notre Dame on the strength of their wins Saturday.  None of them passed up Boise St., but those same two are a fraction of a point away from doing so.  Oregon, Baylor, and Oklahoma would all count for more than Hawaii, whom Boise will be playing in the Mountain West championship game. 

It would be tough to pass up Memphis if the Tigers win their championship game, but I honestly don’t see why Memphis shouldn’t be in the conversation other than the fact that the committee doesn’t like G5 teams. 

The American right now isn’t really inferior to how the Big East used to be.  In 2007, West Virginia would have played for a national championship had they not lost to a losing Pittsburgh team for the second loss on the final week.  Virginia Tech did play Florida St. for the national title in 1999.  In 2009, the top four of the final BCS standings included Cincinnati of the Big East and TCU of the Mountain West.

In those years, you had to be in the top two.  So it’s not far-fetched that a team like Memphis could be in the top four when you’re going to have a winner of a conference with only a couple of ranked teams and a weak non-conference schedule as competition.  I know the programs are mostly different now, but I think Memphis, SMU, Cincinnati, and Navy are better than West Virginia, Rutgers, and Louisville right now. 

I also think it’s harder to go undefeated against Cincinnati, SMU, and Navy than it is to go undefeated against Baylor and whatever teams tied for third in the Big XII you want to pick to compare.  The most direct point of comparison is that SMU beat TCU, who took Baylor to overtime and gave Oklahoma a scare before the referees bailed out the Sooners. 

As for Utah, if they beat Oregon, that will be the only top-25 win.  Second- and third-best wins would be BYU and Washington, who have 5 losses apiece.  There is no reason to think the better American teams wouldn’t have a good chance against those two either.  So even if I grant that Cincinnati is a lesser opponent than Baylor or Oregon (and I’m not convinced they are), I think we need to look past the best team you beat.  South Carolina has the best win in college football this season (whether you ask me or the committee), but they didn’t even have a mildly successful season.

As for overall strength of schedule, I have Memphis 63^rd, Utah 76^th, Oklahoma 89^th, and Baylor 105^th.  That is only an average of the FBS opponents, but I don’t think it’s very important to talk about who had the best FCS opponent (it was probably Memphis anyway since Southern beat Grambling to qualify for the SWAC championship game, and none of the others had successful conference campaigns). 

Anyway, the point of all this is if Memphis comes out ahead of one of these conference champions, I don’t think that’s an indictment of my system.  Just like it wasn’t an indictment of (what I now call) my unweighted system in 2009 when I agreed with the BCS about Cincinnati being #3.  We just have a committee now that uses “the eye test” (which I think is mostly a prestige test in reality) instead.  The point of computer ratings (at least for me) is to take out that kind of bias.

The loser of either (or both) the Big Ten or SEC championship could be ahead of the winners of the Big XII, Pac-12, and American conferences for that fourth spot here (and possibly with the committee) anyway.

Conference Comparisons

As far as conference strength, the SEC almost caught up with the Big Ten in best average team.  I thought they would improve by going at least 3-1 against the ACC on the final weekend, but I wasn’t sure if they could overtake the Big Ten.   The Big Ten also has a slight edge in top 25 teams on my list, 6 to 5. 

One area where the SEC is better is against other Power 5 opponents.  The SEC is 9-6 in such games, and the Big Ten is 5-5.  So playing 50% more opponents in that category with the same number of teams says something for the SEC. On the other hand, the SEC has played a lot more FCS opponents, so I guess it balances out somewhat.  The SEC has also played four games against potential champions of the six best conferences (A&M and South Carolina lost to Clemson, Ole Miss lost to Memphis, and Auburn beat Oregon), while the Big Ten has only played one (Ohio St. beat Cincinnati).

Top 25

rank	team	last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	LSU	2
3	Clemson	3
4	Georgia	4
5	Memphis	13
6	Wisconsin	14
7	Boise St.	8
8	Oklahoma	12
9	Utah	10
10	Notre Dame	6
11	Baylor	11
12	Penn St.	7
13	Florida	18
14	Cincinnati	5
15	Michigan	9
16	Oregon	17
17	Appalachian	19
18	Auburn	22
19	Alabama	16
20	SMU	21
21	Minnesota	15
22	Air Force	24
23	Navy	23
24	Iowa	20
25	UL-Lafayette	—

Out of top 25: (25) USC

2019 Preseason Rankings Intro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 25 after Week 2

I do plan to write blogs other than rankings soon, but there weren’t a lot of extra days in the first two weeks. I posted the preseason rankings right before Week 1 started, and there were 5 playing days followed by the midweek Week 1 rankings. I’ll definitely have something to say about the upcoming LSU-Auburn game, possibly on Thursday.

I’m dropping Clemson because from what I saw they didn’t deserve to win. I’ll take a controversial close win over a major unranked team on the road if you’re #20 maybe, but not if you’re #2. Later in the season, it just counts as a win, but when we have relatively little information about the teams, you have to look at how they won.

If you didn’t see the game or highlights, Texas A&M came close to scoring the potentially tying touchdown in the last few minutes, but the ball was knocked loose. The ruling on the field was a touchback. Although from every angle, it looked like that was wrong, the call stood. I’ll elaborate in the next paragraph, but I’ll warn you it’s a bit of a rant.

I don’t think there is any way to create this image if the ball crossed the goal line before going out of bounds.

I don’t blame the referee if he simply couldn’t tell and made a guess, but the problem I have is that even if the referee has to flip a coin to decide, you have an incredible burden of proof to change the call. I wish there were an option where the referee could appeal directly to the replay booth if he didn’t see or couldn’t tell. Regardless, the call should have been overturned. Every angle shouldn’t have to be 100% clear. I don’t believe it’s possible that the ball went through the end zone. Never mind that this is the most completely unfair rule in football in the first place. If the ball goes out at your own 1, you keep it, but if you make it 99 yards down the field and you fumble forward (but not backward), it’s a turnover? Absurd.

Anyway, despite losing the ball in this ridiculous and unfair fashion, the Aggies were able to get the ball back and score a touchdown anyway. They just weren’t able to get the two-point conversion. Maybe Clemson would have played differently if they’d gotten the ball up 2 instead of 8 (assuming the same unsuccessful conversion play), but either way they would have wanted to hold onto the ball until the clock ran out. There is a very high chance that had the ruling been correct Texas A&M would have won.

I did make a rule for this week that you need to have a win over an FBS opponent from now on, so that explains some of the turnover of teams.

I also lowered Notre Dame a little bit for their close win over Ball St., who now has a 10-game losing streak against FBS opponents.

I indicated last week that Minnesota and Duke were playing for potential rankings, so I stuck to that. Iowa was ranked at the end of last year, and they just beat Iowa St., who was also ranked for much of last year, so I thought it made sense to put the Hawkeyes back. I mentioned Maryland looked good in Week 1 and despite some trouble early on, they won decisively. Arizona St. got in by beating Michigan St., although the Sun Devils’ offense needs work (as does Iowa’s). Virginia Tech and West Virginia haven’t really impressed me. I don’t think Florida St. and Tennessee (their respective Week 1 opponents) are very good, but the Hokies and Mountaineers were both teams I considered ranking before the season and have done nothing to deserve not being ranked.

The only other team that moved a lot was USC. They lost to a good team but didn’t make it very close or beat a very good team in Week 1, so 8 spots seems reasonable.

Stanford RB Bryce Love tries to pad his yardage against USC.. He ran for 136 yards for the game.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 3
3 Wisconsin 4
4 Ohio St. 5
5 Oklahoma 6
6 Stanford 7
7 Clemson 2
8 Auburn 8
9 Miss. St. 12
10 Boise St. 14
11 Notre Dame 9
12 UCF 16
13 LSU 17
14 Michigan 18
15 Penn St. 19
16 TCU 21
17 Okie St. 24
18 USC 10
19 Minnesota —
20 Iowa —
21 Maryland —
22 Arizona St. —
23 Duke —
24 Va. Tech —
25 W. Virginia —

Out of top 25: (11) Washington, (13) Florida, (15) Fresno St., (20) Mich. St., (22) Memphis, (23) S Carolina, (25) U. Miami

Top 25 after Week 1 (and Week 0)

I don’t usually change the rankings too much after the first week, but I’ve modified my approach somewhat. I’ll explain with LSU and U. Miami, which of course was the main game I wanted to talk about anyway. I think U. Miami, for instance, is better than 25th; but they lost and didn’t play very well. That puts them behind most teams at the moment, so it’s a balance between the potential upside of this season and where you are after the one or two results each team has so far (none of the teams below have played two games yet.) In years past, I would have put both teams toward the middle of the top 25.

Nick Brossette’s 50-yard run was the only touchdown of more than one yard by the LSU offense against U. Miami (Brossette scored the other one as well).

I don’t want to put LSU in the top 15 though since there were still some weaknesses (mostly due to inexperience) exposed. It’s concerning that the Tigers had a worse third-down conversion percentage, fewer first downs, fewer pass completions, fewer yards per pass, and fewer total yards. Without the two interceptions (LSU committed no turnovers themselves), the Tigers would have had a very good chance of losing at the end. It would have changed the final score to 23-17, and that’s if U. Miami didn’t score on the drives in which the interceptions took place and if we assume a late Hurricane punt (rather than a fourth-down-conversion attempt) wouldn’t have given U. Miami good enough field position to score again.

Although no one in the top 25 had as disappointing a result as the Hurricanes did, there weren’t any performances by unranked teams that I thought merited them a spot in the top 25.

I have to say I was impressed by the performance of the SEC. Tennessee lost as expected, but they kept the game close for longer than I thought they would (West Virginia led only 13-7 at the half). Auburn-Washington was a bit of a coin flip, but I certainly wasn’t counting on that one. I thought LSU and Ole Miss (in Houston against Texas Tech) were likely to lose, but both won easily. I also wouldn’t have been shocked had Vanderbilt lost at home against Middle Tennessee, but they won by 28.

Kentucky committed 4 turnovers and was threatened in the first half by Central Michigan, but every other team won by more than I expected.

Notre Dame-Michigan was the only non-SEC game between ranked teams. I felt the need to put Michigan behind LSU, but I still expect the Irish and Wolverines to finish close together, as I had them in my preseason rankings.

The other major movement in my rankings was in dropping Penn St. and Michigan St. I was concerned by the level of experience in both respective teams, and the close results of their games (Penn St. beat Appalachian St. in overtime, and Michigan St. beat Utah St. by 7) raised my level of concern. Iowa and Maryland did better than I expected, so I’m not down on the Big Ten overall though. They’re both on my rankings watch list, as are Minnesota and Northwestern.

In the ACC, I feel vindicated by not ranking Florida St.; but Virginia Tech is another team I have my eye on. Duke is another possibility. There aren’t any other unranked teams worth mentioning right now, but that can always change with upsets.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Georgia 3
4 Wisconsin 4
5 Ohio St. 5
6 Oklahoma 7
7 Stanford 8
8 Auburn 10
9 Notre Dame 12
10 USC 14
11 Washington 6
12 Miss. St. 16
13 Florida 17
14 Boise St. 18
15 Fresno St. 19
16 UCF 20
17 LSU 24
18 Michigan 13
19 Penn St. 15
20 Mich. St. 9
21 TCU 21
22 Memphis 22
23 S Carolina 23
24 Okie St. 25
25 U. Miami 11

SYR @ LSU & Week 5 Top 25

Sorry for the lack of a midweek blog last week, but I’m planning a trip and have a lot of work responsibilities lately. Everything will be back to normal after Columbus Day.

Syracuse @ LSU

I don’t want to write a separate blog about LSU. It took a little while to get the offense going, and then we seemed to be fine; but I think the quarterback substitution was way too premature. Ed Orgeron said he wanted to give Miles Brennan some experience when the game was on the line, but the decision to put Brennan in PUT the game on the line late. When the game was really on the line in the last drive, Danny Etling was put back into the game.

Etling was originally pulled after completing 5 of his last 6 attempts for 159 yards and two touchdowns. Since it was only 21-10 when Brennan entered (and he returned to the field the last time up only 28-19), I thought LSU needed at least a couple more scores before taking the chance.

It briefly looked like the gamble paid off when Brennan’s first drive resulted in a touchdown, but Brennan only completed two short passes. He ended up getting credit for a bunch of passing yards, but that was because Darrel Williams (the main RB for the game) broke into the secondary after a short pass, not because Brennan showed any proficiency throwing the ball down the field. Brennan also threw a pass that could have been intercepted and returned for a touchdown, but it was thankfully dropped.

After Syracuse was forced to punt, the Tigers were then pinned back on their own 1. I’m not sure if Etling would have avoided the safety (possibly with some kind of audible), but I didn’t feel good when I saw Brennan take the field. So that drive resulted in the safety and the next ended in an interception before Brennan was taken out. Meanwhile, Syracuse scored touchdowns on the two intervening possessions to get within 2. I also do not understand why Brennan was in the game the drive after the safety.

LSU wide receiver D.J. Chark scores the deciding touchdown.

On the last touchdown drive, Etling didn’t even attempt a pass, but he did have a crucial 8-yard run on second down, which allowed Nick Brossette to just barely pass the line to gain on the third down. One of OC Matt Canada’s tricky plays finally worked immediately after that when the ball was handed off to Chark in the backfield instead of to the running back, and D.J. Chark went around the left end for the 20-yard touchdown run.

The defense isn’t completely blameless for allowing Syracuse to get close of course, but they kept being put back on the field too quickly. It was also frustrating that there seemed to be a stop on 3rd and 19 when a personal foul was called for roughing the passer. It was just an unnecessary bump. The only good thing to say about that is it was the only LSU penalty that cost more than 5 yards the whole game. The automatic first down was a bigger problem than the yards.

In all, Syracuse was able to keep drives going 10 times after facing a third down (of which they had 19). The Orange had to get two of those on fourth down though. Also, the Orange ended up with 24 first downs to LSU’s 18. This is why Syracuse had a similar time of possession to LSU even though the Tigers won the rushing battle 151-76.

Also, it’s worth noting that LSU has played probably dozens of freshmen, and Syracuse had the most returning starters of any team going into the season. I think that’s one thing that kept them in the game, particularly when LSU intentionally put in less experienced players like Brennan.

Top 25

This week’s top 25 was easier to draft than last week’s. Some of the teams that seem good (like Alabama) are actually starting to prove it. It would have been difficult to keep Florida St. in if they’d won; but since they lost, I didn’t have to worry about it.

My procedure was to calculate the objective computer rating and to give the teams my own ranking. I averaged the two different rankings to arrive at the final top 25; and with only a couple of exceptions, I only gave myself the latitude to move teams more than two spots.

Alabama only ended up fifth in following this process, but I obviously was not going to remove the Tide from the top spot after they went on the road to beat a previously undefeated team 59-0.

Alabama literally ran away with the game at Vanderbilt.

Washington St. only ended up 29th in this calculation, but they’re playing USC next week. It just makes more sense to let that result determine whether they stay in or fall out. Their average was 25.5, so this wasn’t that big of a departure. Oklahoma St. was even lower, but it was similar logic there as the Pokes play Texas Tech next week.

If you’re curious, the excluded teams who scored higher than WSU are Navy, UC-Berkeley, Iowa, and Notre Dame. Cal and Iowa are both coming off losses even though Iowa looked like the better team for much of the night. Any of these teams could easily find themselves in the to 25 in the near future. Notre Dame’s only loss is to Georgia, and you can see how high they are. Navy has no losses, but their points will be limited until they play Memphis on October 14.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 3
3 Georgia 9
4 USC 8
5 Penn St. 4
6 Oklahoma 2
7 Michigan 7
8 TCU 22
9 Florida 16
10 Ohio St. 10
11 Virginia Tech –
12 Texas Tech –
13 Kentucky 11
14 South Florida 18
15 San Diego St. 15
16 Wake Forest –
17 Central Florida –
18 Wisconsin 5
19 Washington 17
20 Louisville 20
21 Memphis 19
22 Mississippi St. 13
23 Vanderbilt 14
24 Wash. St. 21
25 Okla St. 6

Out of top 25: (12) UC-Berkeley, (23) Oregon, (24) Florida St., (25) Auburn

2016 Final Conference Rankings

Bowls

I know what the television sports media does is look at bowl records as if that’s the end-all and be-all of a conference, rarely even giving credit for a large percentage of teams making bowls.

Before people tune me out, I will say upfront that the SEC did not have the best bowl season, but it was a strong second.

How is 50% (I’m not counting the national championship since I think it’s fairer to give each team exactly one bite at the apple) a strong second?

We need to look at how good the opposition is. For instance, not many conferences have their #9 team play the runner-up (who went 6-2 in conference, the third-best conference record) of a Power-5 (P5) conference. It was frustrating that Arkansas didn’t beat Virginia Tech after the Hogs built up a large lead, but even being in the game was an accomplishment.

I decided to break down the P5 conferences by team standings and bowl game. This is based on regular-season conference records. Ties are broken by head to head and, failing that, overall pre-bowl record.

Then I gave a projection of the approximate record a major conference should have had against that schedule. The first one I list is Alabama/Washington. Since it’s champion vs. champion, that’s a tossup. So the SEC should have expected ½ of a win (or .5). The SEC should have expected 0 from Arkansas/Virginia Tech, so that isn’t listed. If the SEC team had a better conference record in any matchup by more than half a game, that game would have projected 1 win. No such game took place.

So there were 6 approximately 50/50 games, and the SEC won 6 games. An average P5 conference would have only won 3.

(2) SEC
Alabama #1 8-0 W, Washington #1 8-1
Florida #2 6-2 W, Iowa #5 6-3
Auburn #3 5-3 L, Oklahoma #1 9-0
LSU #4 5-3 W, Louisville #2 7-1
Texas A&M #5 4-4 L, Kansas St. #4 6-3
Tennessee #6 4-4 W, Nebraska #6 6-3
Georgia #7 4-4 W, TCU #5 4-5
Kentucky #8 4-4 L, Georgia Tech #8 4-4
Arkansas #9 3-5 L, Virginia Tech #3 6-2
South Carolina #10 3-5 L, South Florida #2 7-1
Vanderbilt #11 3-5 L, N.C. State #9 3-5
Mississippi State #12 3-5 W, Miami U. #4 6-2

The AAC had a very good year (before the bowls), and South Florida lost only one game in conference with wins over Navy and Houston. The non-conference team who beat the Bulls just won the Orange Bowl. The 10th SEC team losing to them in overtime is not in any way a black mark on the SEC, and I’d say that if it were any other conference.

The rest were all against power-5 opponents. If the SEC were an average conference, it would have only been expected to win about 3 bowl games. See below for explanation.

I would have liked to have seen Vanderbilt and Kentucky do better, but both overachieved by making bowl games at all. As I’ve mentioned before, even the two non-bowl teams had decent resumes that included multiple wins over eventual bowl teams.

SEC 52-34 (.605) #6.5
All 72-30 (.706) #4.17
P5 59-27 (.686) #4.4

Texas A&M wasn’t nearly as good of a team later in the season as earlier, but I put them first among the 4-4 teams because of their early-season overtime win over Tennessee. But no other team had as big of a swing as Miami U., which started 0-6 and entered the bowl game at 6-6. So when projecting how many the SEC should have won, it’s really hard to know how to treat that one, so
I’ll just say that was 50/50.

Hopefully you get the idea when I do this for other conferences below.

Bowl games SEC should have won:
#12 .5
#11 .5
#8 .5
#7 .5
#2 .5
#1 .5
Projected record: 3-9 = 25%
Actual record 6-6 = 50%
Difference +25

(1) ACC
#1 Clemson #1 7-1 W, Ohio St. #2 8-1
#2 Louisville 7-1 L, LSU #4 5-3
#3 Virginia Tech 6-2 W, Arkansas #9 3-5
#4 North Carolina 5-3 L, Stanford #5 6-3
#5 Florida St. 5-3 W, Michigan #3 7-2
#6 U. Miami 5-3 W, West Virginia #3 7-2
#7 Pitt 5-3 L, Northwestern #8 5-4
#8 Georgia Tech 4-4 W, Kentucky #8 4-4
#9 N.C. State 3-5 W, Vanderbilt #11 3-5
#10 Wake Forest 3-5 W, Temple #1 7-1
#11 Boston College 2-6 W, Maryland #10 3-6

#11 .5
#9 .5
#8 .5
#7 .5
#4 .5
#3 1
#2 1
#1 .5
Projected record: 5-6 = 45%
Actual record 9-2 = 82%
Difference +37

(3) Big Ten
#1 Penn St. 8-1 L, USC #3 7-2
#2 Ohio St. 8-1 L, Clemson #1 7-1
#3 Michigan 7-2 L, Florida St. #5 5-3
#4 Wisconsin 7-2 W, Western Michigan #1 8-0
#5 Iowa 6-3 L, Florida #2 6-2
#6 Nebraska 6-3 L, Tennessee #6 4-4
#7 Minnesota 5-4 W, Washington St. #4 7-2
#8 Northwestern 5-4 W, Pitt #7 5-3
#9 Indiana 4-5 L, Utah #6 5-4
#10 Maryland 3-6 L, Boston College #11 2-6

#10 .5
#8 .5
#6 1
#4 .5
#3 1
#2 .5
#1 1
Projected record: 5-5 = 50%
Actual record 3-7 = 30%
Difference -20

(4) Big XII
#1 Oklahoma 9-0 W, Auburn #3 5-3
#2 Oklahoma St. 7-2 W, Colorado #2 8-1
#3 West Virginia 7-2 L, U. Miami #6 5-3
#4 Kansas St. 6-3 W, Texas A&M #5 4-4
#5 TCU 4-5 L, Georgia #7 4-4

#5 .5
#4 1
#3 1
#1 1
Projected record: 3.5-1.5 = 70%
Actual record 3-2 = 60%
Difference -10

(5)Pac-12
#1 Washington 8-1 L, Alabama #1 8-0
#2 Colorado 8-1 L, Oklahoma St. #2 7-2
#3 USC 7-2 W, #1 Penn St. 8-1
#4 Washington St. 7-2 L, #7 Minnesota 5-4
#5 Stanford 6-3 W, #4 North Carolina 5-3
#6 Utah 5-4 W, #9 Indiana 4-5

#6 1
#5 .5
#4 1
#2 1
#1 .5
Projected record: 4-2 = 67%
Actual record 3-3 = 50%
Difference -17

(6) AAC
#1 Temple 7-1 L, Wake Forest #10 3-5
#2 South Florida 7-1 W, South Carolina #10 3-5
#3 Navy 7-1 L, Louisiana Tech #3 6-2
#4 Tulsa 6-2 W, C. Michigan #7 3-5
#5 Memphis 5-3 L, W. Kentucky #1 7-1
#6 Houston 5-3 L, San Diego St. #1 6-2
#7 Central Florida L, Arkansas St. #2 7-1

#4 1
#3 1
#2 1
#1 1
Projected record: 4-3 = 57%
Actual record 2-5 = 29%
Difference -28

For the record, I put the Big Ten third on that list because at least they qualified a large percentage for bowl games. The Pac-12 and Big XII (which is 10 teams) only had half their teams in bowl games.

Overall Conference Rankings

But this doesn’t answer what the best conference is.

Before I talk about my own ratings, I’m going to talk about the consensus of objective ratings. Excluding the three ratings (the two major polls and one computer rating) that only have a fraction of the teams rated, only three out of 92 other ratings have the SEC somewhere outside of the top two.

The ACC got a lot of 2s and 1s as well, but seven were outside of the top 2.

The SEC was on top in 57 ratings to the ACC’s 27 by my count. The other eight systems are nuts, I don’t know what more to say on that.

So in my own rating system, I suppose it comes as no surprise that the SEC is first, but the ACC made it very close, particularly with the national championship game. I don’t give that game any extra weight, but the way my system works is you get extra points for winning an extra game. No other team gets an extra game of that magnitude.

The ACC got some wins over SEC schools to be sure, but some of them were along the lines of Arkansas/Virginia Tech and Florida St./Ole Miss.

One thorn in the side of the ACC was Louisville, which lost both its last regular-season game and its bowl game to SEC teams that on paper the Cardinals should have beaten. The only ACC team to beat Louisville was Clemson, so all the other opponents were weighed down by their loss to the Cardinals, who also lost to Houston out of conference.

On the other hand something that might have given the SEC more of a buffer (at least in my ratings) was the two games that were not played as a result of moving the LSU/Florida game. As I mentioned last week, LSU would have moved up to about #20 with the addition of a win over South Alabama. Beating Presbyterian would have helped Florida in points slightly, but the Gators were too far behind Colorado to move ahead.

I think it’s fair to say this was a relatively weak year for the SEC at the top, but if it’s a weak year and the average team in your conference is better than the average team in any other conference, it’s hard to argue you’re not the best. Here are my averages:
1 SEC 0.441645
2 ACC 0.440546
3 Pac-12 0.314229
4 Big Ten 0.285768
5 Big XII 0.217209
6 AAC (American) 0.106448
7 MWC (Mountain West) 0.029324
8 SBC (Sun Belt) -0.008889
9 Independents -0.038589
10 MAC (Mid-American) -0.095654
11 CUSA -0.131416