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re: Are Any Strength of Schedule Polls Out?
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:46 am to Zamoro10
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:46 am to Zamoro10
quote:
The only SOS that matters is how many Top 25 teams you played at the end of the year with their final ranking and not when you played them
I used to agree with that, but now I'm not so sure. It's ridiculous to think that Alabama in 2007 was the same team when they played ULM that they were when they played LSU. When they played us, they were ranked in the top 20, were coming off a blowout win over Tennessee followed by an open date to get over any letdown situation and played the best they were capable of. After losing to us, the wind was out of their sails and they lost to MSU and ULM. Their final ranking (UR) was no indication of the team they were when they played us. Their ranking at the time they played us was a MUCH more accurate indicator.
I don't deny that ranking at the time played is sometimes irrelevant, particularly when it's a very early game before the team has had any real tests. Beating a preseason top ten team in the season opener generally means nothing if the team actually sucks and has a horrible season, but even that is subject to some exceptions like Tennessee in '05, IMO. They played a tough, close game at Florida, then played a very determined game against LSU before their season fell apart in a loss to Georgia a few weeks later. After that, they were not the same team and the bottom fell out.
quote:
This idea, well they were #10 when we played them is the worst logic used in college football.
Far from it.
1
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:51 am to Chinaski
you can't judge SOS until the season is over
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:55 am to Nuts4LSU
quote:
It's ridiculous to think that Alabama in 2007 was the same team when they played ULM that they were when they played LSU.
they played ULM like 2 weeks later
quote:
After losing to us, the wind was out of their sails and they lost to MSU and ULM.
MSU was a better team than bama last year, so i don't think that should count
quote:
like Tennessee in '05, IMO. They played a tough, close game at Florida, then played a very determined game against LSU before their season fell apart in a loss to Georgia a few weeks later
dude
we lost to a shitty team who was ranked WAY too high to start the year
they played close against a so-so UF team
they didn't even play well against LSU. coaching and stamina just gave out in that game. throwing a bunch of 5 yard outs against a CB playing 15 yards out wasn't playing a gutsy game. we were up 21-0 in that game
UTenn had a shaky running game and absolute shite at QB that year. their D was also not very good
UTenn was just not that good in 2005
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:57 am to Zamoro10
quote:
Away games and how far you travel mean EVERYTHING
If it's a road game, how far away it is means practically nothing. Moving Auburn another 500 miles away from Baton Rouge would not make it any tougher for us to win there. Ditto Florida. LSU fans are going to travel wherever we play (45,000+ ticket orders for possible Rose Bowl game in LA). It's the ticket allotment that limits our numbers at away games.
Also, in addition to the imbalance of fans in the stands, another real problem with a road game is that you are out of your routine, not in your normal surroundings, while the other team is. That factor is no different if you're 300 miles away from home or 1500.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:58 am to Nuts4LSU
yeah if LSU was playing against hawaii, or in europe, then how far we traveled would matter. but we're not
Posted on 8/18/08 at 9:59 am to Nuts4LSU
quote:
If it's a road game, how far away it is means practically nothing
Eh, it might not count into SOS, but I would say it does matter. Moving multiple time-zones will frick with your body whether you like it or not. It's scientifically proven.
This post was edited on 8/18/08 at 10:00 am
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:00 am to SlowFlowPro
quote:
they played ULM like 2 weeks later
LSU played Florida and Auburn on the road two weeks apart in 2002. Do you think we were the same team in both games?
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:20 am to Nuts4LSU
there are other reasons that are much more logical than this "the team changes its entire identity in 2 weeks" line of thinking. sometimes teams just drop the ball, like USC-Stanford or WV-Pitt. Bama did that with ULM last year
*ETA: like LSU with UTenn in 2005
*ETA: like LSU with UTenn in 2005
This post was edited on 8/18/08 at 10:21 am
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:22 am to SlowFlowPro
I follow the GBE ratings every year. They have a pretty good and unbiased formula for calculating SOS and the best teams.
LINK
LINK
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:27 am to Proejo
the inherent flaw with SOS rankings is they rank all 12 games as equal, when they're not
once you get past about 45-60, all teams are equally shitty and should count as such (this includes 1-AA opponents)
and with good teams (who SOS matters with), they only are challenged MAYBE 4 times a year. most really good teams have 1-2 truly hard games. unlucky teams get 3-4.
SOS should reflect this. your SOS should be based solely on the top 1/3 (or 4) teams that you play.
where are they ranked? 1-119
where did you play? then decide the difference in home/away (add 33-50% to a ranking when you play that team at home)
average it out. the team with the lowest # has the hardest schedule. 2nd lowest is #2. etc
once you get past about 45-60, all teams are equally shitty and should count as such (this includes 1-AA opponents)
and with good teams (who SOS matters with), they only are challenged MAYBE 4 times a year. most really good teams have 1-2 truly hard games. unlucky teams get 3-4.
SOS should reflect this. your SOS should be based solely on the top 1/3 (or 4) teams that you play.
where are they ranked? 1-119
where did you play? then decide the difference in home/away (add 33-50% to a ranking when you play that team at home)
average it out. the team with the lowest # has the hardest schedule. 2nd lowest is #2. etc
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:33 am to SlowFlowPro
quote:
you can't judge SOS until the season is over
I generally agree with this, but I also agree with Nuts assertion about how good a team was playing at a particular point in time. For example, there is no way anyone can say that in the 02-03 season, Texas beat the same LSU team that stomped Fla earlier that year.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:36 am to Obi-Wan Tiger
quote:
the same LSU team that stomped Fla earlier that year.
but these are generally exceptions
just like stanford beating USC and losing to ND
LITERALLY 2 poles of the 1A spectrum
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:49 am to SlowFlowPro
quote:
they didn't even play well against LSU. coaching and stamina just gave out in that game.
Stamina certainly did, but the coaching in that game was reasonable. With a 21-0 halftime lead, especially if you know your team may have a stamina problem in the second half, a conservative offense and loose almost prevent-style isn't a bad way to go.
That's what we did, gambling that it would take them more than 30 minutes to erase a 21 point lead. Through about 19 minutes of those 30, it was working, and Tennessee had only managed to trim the lead from 21 to 17. Things only got away from us when we went away from the plan on offense and had JR (then still a very young and inexperienced QB) roll out and throw to the sideline deep in our own territory, resulting in what was essentially a pick-six (return to the 1 followed by immediate TD).
Also consider that our offense really hadn't done all that much even in the first half when we got the lead. Two of our three TDs came off an interception in the Tennessee end zone and a 1-play 20-yard "drive" off a Tennessee fumble. We had a young QB (who had already made a mistake at the end of the first half that cost us three points), and it wasn't a bad idea to call plays that minimized the chances that he would make a make mistakes.
Defensively, I agree that we could have been more aggressive, but then we multiply their chances of getting quick scores, the avoidance of which was the whole basis for the strategy.
The conservative game plan for the second half was working, and probably would have worked well enough to get the win if we had stuck with it.
quote:
MSU was a better team than bama last year, so i don't think that should count
MSU was a better team than Bama was after the LSU game last year. If Bama plays MSU the same way they did ANY game prior (with the possible exception of Houston), they beat MSU.
quote:
they played close against a so-so UF team
Florida wasn't a so-so team. They beat Georgia and ACC champion Florida State, played a tough, close game at LSU and beat a pretty decent Iowa team in their bowl. Their only bad games were at Alabama and South Carolina, two teams that were really motivated in those games and were better than people thought they were at the time the game was played.
quote:
UTenn was just not that good in 2005
They played on the road against Alabama, a team that went 10-2 and finished #8 and was undefeated and ranked in the top 5 at the time they played, and it took an absolute fluke/miracle for Bama to beat them. The only two teams who really handled them that year were Georgia and Notre Dame, two very good teams. Losses to South Carolina and Vandy were flukes that only occurred after the season was in the toilet and they had pretty much quit.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 10:54 am to SlowFlowPro
I really like the idea of not differentiating, at least not to any great degree, between beating teams that are, say, #64 and #91. These are teams that top 10-15 teams should beat without any problem and it skews the numbers to give this 27-place difference the same value as the difference between playing, say, #4 and #31. It is a MUCH bigger deal to beat #4 than #31, but a top team beating #64 is only marginally more difficult than beating #91. Unfortunately, I don't think the SOS numbers really take this into account.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 11:01 am to N.O. via West-Cal
quote:
Unfortunately, I don't think the SOS numbers really take this into account.
they don't
it's like an exponential function...beating a top 5 team is a lot harder than a top 10 team
beating a top 10-15 team is a lot harder than beating a top 25-30 team
beating #2 and #60 shows a whole lot more than beating #30 and 32, but they count the same in SOS
Posted on 8/18/08 at 12:33 pm to Geauxtiga
Georgia Tech played Georgia and ND out of conference last year. Won't find many teams with a harder OOC schedule than that. They didn't know that ND was going to suck that bad when they played them and ND was just coming off two BCS bowls in the last two years.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 2:19 pm to RedHawk
quote:
They didn't know that ND was going to suck
Who gives a shite whether they knew it or not? The issue is how tough their schedule was. Playing a 3-9 team is playing a 3-9 team, no matter what you thought they would be when you scheduled them.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 2:33 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:
there are other reasons that are much more logical than this "the team changes its entire identity in 2 weeks" line of thinking
Teams change completely (and often suddenly) within a season on a fairly frequent basis. A crushing emotional loss, the loss of an important player, accumulation of bumps, bruises and fatigue or any number of other factors can greatly influence how a team plays.
In 1994, LSU was playing pretty well until the freakish fourth quarter of the Auburn game. For the next several games, we were nothing like the team we had been at the beginning.
When Alabama played LSU in 2005 and in 2007, they were on a roll, riding high and contending for the SEC West championship. Both years, they suffered heartbreaking emotionally devastating losses, and were not the same afterward. Fortunately for them, they only had one more regular season game after they played LSU in 2005 (against Auburn, and they played like complete crap), so they didn't have the four-game tailspin they had in 2007.
There is absolutely no question that Georgia, Florida State and LSU beat a MUCH better Alabama team than MSU, ULM and Auburn did. To judge the performances of UGa, FSU and LSU by the state of the Alabama team at the end of the season would be misleading and inaccurate.
Posted on 8/18/08 at 2:42 pm to Chinaski
LSU's SOS is week according to some!
Posted on 8/18/08 at 4:40 pm to Geauxtiga
(no message)
This post was edited on 10/26/12 at 2:02 pm
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