The Unranked, Undefeateds

An Aggie fan was complaining to me at lunch today that the Aggies were getting no love, even though they are undefeated. Let's look at all the undefeated teams that are not ranked in the Coaches top 25:

(Team / Record / Sagarin Schedule Ranking / Best Win)

• South Florida / 4-0 / 131 / Florida State
• Auburn / 4-0 / 107 / West Virginia
• Wisconsin / 4-0 / 86 / Tie between Fresno State, Michigan State, Northern Illinois
• UCLA / 3-0 / 62 / Tennessee
• Texas A&M / 4-0 / 177 / Utah State

I'm not saying the Aggies schedule has been easy, but this is the Texas A&M schedule poster this year.

All the teams aside from Cash Machine U that have been shunned have played and defeated a team from a BCS automatic qualifying conference. The next two weeks against 1-2 Arkansas (best 1-2 team in the land) and Oklahoma State will tell us much more about year 2 of The Shermanator.

Breaking Down the Polls

• Florida lost one of their first place votes in the Coaches Poll. I checked. UTEP Coach Mike Price must have a vote, nor does Lane Kiffin. I'm not certain what Florida did wrong in their 41-7 win on the road at Kentucky. Was the Horns victory against UTEP that impressive?
• LSU's 4 point rout of Missisippi State propelled them three spots up to #4. The MSU Bulldogs are now an impressive 2-2 this year, only losing by 25 to Auburn and blowing out Vanderbilt by 12 and dominating Jackson State. LSU was 8-5 last year, and boasts victories over Washington (8 pts), Vandy (14 pts), La-Lafayette (28 pts) and MSU (4 pts). LSU will really hit their stride after games against Tulane and Louisiana Tech later this year.
• Southern Cal's home victory over the hapless Washington State Cougars earned them the opportunity to vault over the Sooners for the 7th spot in the polls. I'm interested to see how the polls play out next two weeks...the Sooners travel to #21 Miami, and the Trojans travel to #19 California. If both win, and the Sooners beat the Baylor Bears at home during the Trojans' bye week, will OU leapfrog the Trojans? Seriously, what part of a 21 point victory to a team that has only beaten Ty Willighman coached Washington, Portland State and Southern Methodist in their last 16 games is impressive?
• Cal dropped from 6th to 19th after eking out a 39 point loss to previously unranked Oregon.
• Oregon went from unranked to being ranked 25th. They are six spots lower than the team they just beat by 39 points. Oregon's only loss is to 5th ranked Boise State. Oregon hosts Washington State next week, so look for them to jump into the top 10 next week after a victory.
• Virginia Tech's pasting of Miami FL helped them vault from 12th to 6th. I have no issue with this. After the Hokies lost to the higher ranked Crimson Tide the first week, they fell from 7th to 15th. That was pretty harsh for losing to a team ranked higher.

This will all shake out in the coming weeks - or at least most of it.

Playoffs

I've always thought an eight-team playoff was too few, as the process for getting to eight would still leave many out in the cold that are potentially worthy. However, here are the bowl results to date of the teams ranked 9-16 in the BCS standings.

16th ranked BYU lost to unranked Arizona, 31-21;
15th ranked Georgia beat 18th ranked Michigan State, 24-12;
14th ranked Georgia Tech was obliterated by unranked LSU, 38-3;
13th ranked Oklahoma State was beaten by 17th ranked Oregon, 42-31;
12th ranked Cincinnati was beaten by 19th ranked Virginia Tech, 20-7;
11th ranked TCU beat 9th ranked Boise State, 17-16;
10th ranked Ohio State plays 3rd ranked Texas Monday.

In summary, 7 teams have played so far, with only two matching up against one another. The three teams playing ranked foes, but lower than 16, are 1-2, and each game was decided by more than one score. Two teams playing unranked opponents laid an egg, each losing their game by double digits.

What does this mean? Beats me. Anytime you put 100 18-21 year old kids in a new city with lots of "entertainment options" you have a few variables in play that create anamolies. Seems to me like 16 is just as flawed as 8.

Hypocrisy in the media

Austin American Statesman writer Kirk Bohls makes the brilliant argument that Texas should be ahead of OU because they beat them on the field, and that it shouldn't matter that it was several weeks ago. He's being quite hypocritical. Courtesy of the analysis at www.pollspeak.com one can analyze his votes. With this logic, I point out the following discrepancies.

• Oregon State defeated USC on Sep 25. Kirk voted the Beavers 17th and the Trojans 5th.
• Oregon State lost to Stanford to open the season. Stanford received no votes from Mr. Bohls.
• Ole Miss beat Florida 31-30 in Gainesville on Sep 27th. Florida was voted 4th by Mr. Bohls, and the Rebels did not receive a vote. Kirk even mentions this game in his pitch for Texas over the Sooners. To expand further on Ole Miss, they've lost by 2 at Wake Forest, by 4 at Tuscaloosa, by 6 at home to Vanderbilt and by 7 at home to South Carolina. That's a pretty solid 7-4 team he's ignoring.
• Georgia Tech was voted 19th, yet none of the three teams that beat the Yellowjackets are rated ahead of them.
• Boston College is ranked 20th per Kirk, but he gave no votes to North Carolina or Clemson, who both beat the Eagles.
• Cincinnati, who lost to Connecticut, was voted 15th, while the Huskies did not receive a vote.
• Penn State lost to Iowa two weeks ago, yet Penn State is voted 9th and Mr. Bohls did not cast a vote for the Hawkeyes.

Wow, I'd have never thought of that

Catching up on google reader tonight. Seems Matt Hinton at Dr Saturday on Yahoo! and Tim Griffin at espn.com have both figured out that if OU beats two top 1 teams in the next three Saturdays, they might be ranked ahead of the Longhorns at season's end. Well, I thought that a week ago, I just have fewer readers. I mean a lot fewer.

BCS Analysis

The BCS Guru has broken out the different scenarios for the Big 12 South. In the interest of efficiency, here's the link.

A potential chaotic scenario

Do you all remember last year's chaos, where Ohio State and LSU both lost their last home games, but went on to the BCS Championship game courtesy of several other folks losing? Well, here's a doozy for you...

Texas Tech loses to Oklahoma on Nov 22
Oklahoma loses to Oklahoma State on Nov 29
Florida loses to Florida State in Tallahassee on Nov 29
Alabama loses to Florida in the SEC Championship game
Texas is upset by Missouri in the Big 12 Championship game
Penn State runs the table
USC and Oregon state win the remainder of their games in the Pac 10.

A verly likely result in this scenario:

Penn State plays USC for the national championship game. Oregon State goes to the Rose Bowl as the Pac 10 champion (presently with no BCS ranking whatsoever), and USC is the Pac 10 runner up. In spite of the season long dominance of the top 10 by SEC and Big 12 teams, no reps from those conferences make the Championship game.

Your BCS talking points

With the Harris poll and Coaches poll making up 2/3 of the BCS, the Sooners are likely going to have to overcome a) Texas Tech; b) the Joe Paterno lifetime achievement award; c) Oklahoma State; d) Harris and Coaches poll voters likely to vote Texas over Oklahoma b/c they beat them on the field. Alas, here are your talking points:

• Oregon State only received 5 votes in the Harris poll even though they beat USC , who is presently ranked 7th.
• Michigan State is ranked 18th and has lost to California, who is ranked 21st.
• Florida is ranked ahead of Ole Miss, who beat them. Ole Miss receives no votes in the polls.
• Penn State has the easiest schedule of the undefeated and one loss teams that are BCS automatic qualifiers.
• If OU is to defeat Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, the Sooners will have gone 3-1 against Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU and Texas, who are all ranked above Penn State's most formidable foe, Ohio State.
• Assuming the two wins over OSU and TT, the voter's will like vote the Sooners ahead of Texas Tech, but behind UT, based upon head to head competition. I'm not sure how that makes sense with the 39-33 victory that TT had a week ago over UT.

Big 12 South Hopes

Earlier this week, I came across the BCS Guru site, written by Samuel Chi. I emailed Sam and posed the question: If the Dust Pirates beat Boone State, and the Sooners beat the Aggies, Dust Pirates and Boone State, will the Sooners be able to leapfrog the Horns in the BCS?

Following is Sam's response: "In your scenario, Texas will still end up representing the Big 12 South. A TT loss to OU would occur late in the season, dropping them lower in the standings, that leaves OU and UT, and most voters will opt for UT because they beat OU head-to-head. And also, in that scenario, UT would be the only one who didn't have a "home" game, for they defeated OU at a neutral site. Keep in mind that when it's that late in the season, most computer ranking will no longer matter - the human voters will decide everything. That is a major flaw in the current formula.

I think a one-loss Big 12 champ would be ranked behind Florida if it beats an unbeaten Bama in the SEC title game. That's why this week's LSU-Bama game should be a big deal to Big 12 fans. They want Bama to lose this week."

So, that was depressing. Unfortunately, Sam's response is consistent with what I heard from Brad Edwards on Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN Radio on Wednesday.

I would agree with Sam that the humans have too much of a say in the process. However, during the latest rounds of resetting the formula, the computer must not have had good representation.

So, the Sooners need to root for the Les Miles coached Tigers (tough for me to do) and for the Baylor Bears and/or Texas Aggies to upset the Horns.

Reallocating the Electoral College

If you allocated electoral college votes based upon football seating capacity of Division 1-A football stadiums, Obama wins, 298-240, according to Associated Press results and projections.

Following are your President-elect for each conference, in the same manner:
ACC - Obama
Big 10 - Obama
Big 12 - McCain
Big East - Obama
Conf USA - McCain
Independent - Obama
MAC - Obama
MWC - Obama
Pac 10 - Obama
SEC - McCain
Sun Belt - McCain
WAC - Obama

No, I don't know why I did this calculation. Drowning my sorrow in data, perhaps.

What happens with a three way tie?

Several ifs and buts along the way, but let's pretend for a moment that a) UT wins out; b) TT's only loss is to OU. That would leave the Big 12 South in a three way tie for first, and the tie breaker goes to the highest ranking BCS team at that point. Link to rule here. The bcsguru.com projects UT to fall to 5th, just ahead of Oklahoma.

So, here's the food for thought: let's pretend for a moment that OU beats two offensive powerhouses presently ranked in the top 8 in the next three games.

Let's look at UT's final games. Texas finishes with Baylor, at Kansas (ranked 26th in USA Today/Coaches poll) and home against TAMU. After a murderous last four weeks, their strenght of schedule will drop a bit as they play the fifth and sixth best teams in the South. Oklahoma, on the other hand, will play two teams in the top 8, after a date with TAMU this next weekend. So, look for Oklahoma's SOS to climb considerably in the computer generated polls.

From that, it'll be interesting to see how, in late November, the human polls will evaluate the OU-UT matchup that was nearly two months prior. I think in that instance the Sooners might prevail.

Of course, it could also be possible that Texas loses to Kansas, Texas Tech loses to Oklahoma State and Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma after an upset loss on the road in Colorado. Then, you have a three way tie that is much less significant.

The real travesty is that with four teams in the top 8, only two will make their way into the BCS games. Of course, the only proper way to deal with that is for Big 12 teams 3-4 to absolutely destroy their foes in the Holiday and Cotton Bowls.

Polls - the problem

Here's the problem with the polls. Take our brethren to the immediate north, Oklahoma State. Reeling from a near bankrupt investment fund, travelling to Austin, where when they last won they were Oklahoma A&M and we were in World War II, they lost a game 28-24 to the #1 ranked Texas Longhorns. So naturally, you'd think they would solidify their #8 ranking in the coaches poll and 8th ranking in the Harris polls.


Nope. They fell. In the coaches poll, the Pokes fell from #8 to #10. Utah leap frogged 'em. Utah has an impressive victory over...no one. They had the week off. So Okie State loses by 4 to the top ranked team in the country, and these clowns look at that and say, "Wow, i forgot about Utah. They beat Oregon State a couple of weeks ago."Georgia leapfrogged Boone's team as well, but at least they had a decisive victory over a well regarded LSU team.


In the Harris poll, the Pokes had a 49 point lead over Georgia for the 8th spot in the polls. Georgia now leads the Pokes by 153 points. So relative to Georgia, they fell 202 points, for not beating the #1 team in the country.

I thought the computer polls might be different, but the BCS folks have neutered them, to where they must only consider win-loss and strength of schedule. The only difference in these polls is how they process this combo. Well, the Pokes fell hard. On a composite basis, they fell from 3rd to tied for 7th.

I hate to sound sympathetic for the Pokes and all, but that's just weird.

44 Texas Voters identified

Last week, 44 coaches voted to leapfrog Texas over the Crimson Tide of Alabama. I smelled a conspiracy, and did a little research. Following are real and imagined events that may have led 44 voters to pick the Horns over the Tide and Penn State this week.

1. Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech; Still feels bad about Ron Weaver scandal effecting Horns Sugar Bowl performance.
2. Mike Bellotti, Oregon; West coast Bias. Never even played an SEC team, how could he vote for one?
3. Bret Bielema, Wisconsin; Part of Big XII voting bloc...Stoops raiding of KSU staff allowed Bielema out of Iowa City, saving him from possible sexual assault by his own players.
4. Bobby Bowden, Florida State; Thinks he's coaching Texas.
5. Tommy Bowden, Clemson; Applying for graduate teaching position in Austin.
6. Art Briles, Baylor; Son played for Texas.
7. Mack Brown, Texas; Still coaches at Texas.
8. Neil Callaway, Alabama-Birmingham; Tide traitor who coached 12 years at Auburn.
9. Gene Chizik, Iowa State; former D Coordinator in Austin. Wished he was still at Texas.
10. Sylvester Croom, Mississippi State; Bitter about having to coach at Starkville; could have been fired from Tuscaloosa and retired by now.
11. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State; Hurt Saban left him in East Lansing. Wouldn't you be?
12. Butch Davis, North Carolina; Clearly has issues with Bama; turned down job in Tuscaloosa to work in Cleveland of all places. From what I understand, it's in Ohio.
13. Todd Dodge, North Texas; Played QB at Texas.
14. Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee; Once got food poisoning at Dreamland; big fan of the original Chuy's. Plus there's that lawsuit thing.
15. Turner Gill, Buffalo; Grew up in Texas.
16. Todd Graham, Tulsa; Joined Houston chapter of Texas Exes during his one year at Rice.
17. Pat Hill, Fresno State; Fight over last piece of chicken at Cleveland Browns coaches dinner in 1992 still haunts Hill.
18. Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville; Part of Big XII voting bloc - former Cash Machine U coordinator that was fond of orange.
19. Mike Leach, Texas Tech; Part of Big XII voting bloc.
20. Jim Leavitt, South Florida; Was assistant at K-State; also part of Big 12 voting bloc.
21. Urban Meyer, Florida; Emmanuel Moody asked him to vote for Texas.
22. Les Miles, LSU; Promised to vote Bama #1 when Saban wins with his own players.
23. Hal Mumme, New Mexico State; Grew up in Texas.
24. Rick Neuheisel, UCLA; Bitter towards Bama...Mark Gottfried completely wrecked his NCAA tourney pool one year.
25. George O'Leary, Central Florida; Resume says he was once UT-Austin President.
26. Gary Patterson, TCU; Thankful Coach Fran didn't take him to Tuscaloosa. Returns favor by voting for Horns.
27. Bo Pelini, Nebraska; Texas is one of the few states he hasn't worked in; still holding out hope.
28. Chris Petersen, Boise State; Any rival of Oklahoma is a friend of his
29. Gary Pinkel, Missouri; Wants another crack at beating #1 team.
30. Mike Price, Texas-El Paso; Clause in settlement prevents him from voting for Tide.
31. Mark Richt, Georgia; Leads internet Bible study with Colt McCoy.
32. Mike Riley, Oregon State; Sold his vote for right to recruit Jacquizz Rodgers.
33. Rich Rodriguez, Michigan; Hopes to work there someday.
34. Howard Schnellenberger, Florida Atlantic; Still bitter Bama regents wouldn't fire Bear and give him job in the 60s.
35. Mark Snyder, Marshall; Formerly coached at Ohio State; also hates SEC.
36. Frank Solich, Ohio; Strict DUI laws in Bama make him lean to the Longhorns.
37. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina; Friends with Stoops and ringleader of Anti-Saban voting bloc.
38. Bob Toledo, Tulane; Mercy vote in conciliatory gesture after the 1997 massacre in Austin.
39. Dick Tomey, San Jose State; Former Defensive Coordinator at Texas.
40. Jim Tressel, Ohio State; Hates all things SEC.
41. Tommy Tuberville, Auburn; Like he's voting for Alabama.
42. Charlie Weis, Notre Dame; Needs bathtub the size of Lake Travis, so he votes for Horns at every opportunity.
43. Tyrone Willingham, Washington; Jealous of Saban; always wanted to coach at a place with the lofty academic standards of LSU and Bama.
44. Ron Zook, Illinois; Coaching buddy of Fulmer - was D coordinator at Tennessee when Fulmer was O coordinator; hates Bama as a result.
    

LandThieves Stat of the Week

The last time Oklahoma and Alabama were ranked 1 and 2 in the AP polls was the 1975 preseason poll. Alabama kicked off the season by losing to the Missouri Tigers, coached by the immortal Al Onofria, 20-7 in Tuscaloosa.

Alabama ran the table the rest of the way and finished #3 in the final polls. The Sooners relinquished the #1 ranking to the Buckeyes during October, and fell even further after losing to the Kansas Jayhawks, led by QB Nolan Cromwell, 23-3. This was the first game I ever saw in person as a Sooner.

Nonetheless, the Sooners won out the rest of the way and leapfrogged the Tide in the Nov 25 poll. A look back to that week courtesy of cfbdatawarehouse.com tells us that Alabama had a bye week, and the Sooners dominated the #2 ranked Nebraska Cornuhskers 35-10. A win over Rick Leach QB'd Michigan squad in the Orange Bowl gave the Sooners their 5th national championship.

I'm sure someone out there awarded Alabama a national championship.

Rankings Info

If you're curious how the AP poll works, and want to see how the AP voters vote, pollspeak.com is an interesting little site. If you want to analyze who voted for a team, or how a particular AP voter voted, it's all there.