NCAA football

[tiffy33]

beat #5 UGA and won out, until last night their resume earned them a #1 rating compared to ORE and ALA.

How is beating Georgia an accomplishment? Georgia is a fumble by Tennessee in OT from being 4-4. They arent good and were just as overrated as Clemson. Beating a 0-0 team opening day does not make you a great team.

Lets look at Clemson's other wins this season:
SC State: DII cupcake
NC State: 3-3 and 0-3 in ACC play
Wake Forest: 4-3 and has only beaten bads like Presbyterian College and Army
Syracuse: 3-4
Boston College: 3-3
Man those are some quality wins against some powerhouse schools.

Im all in favor of getting rid of rankings for this very reason. Unless you won the crystal football the previous season no one else has any right to be ranked until the first BCS rankings are released. Just have the winners of the major conferences play each other until only two are left and then they play for the championship. Rankings are just worthless. They are just a product of who ESPN hypes up the most.

ESPN is the Fox News of sports.

[Sayl]

oh yeah i know why, that $2,200,000,000 ESPN deal the SEC has

That sure sounds familiar.

ESPN has a $3.6 billion contract with the ACC, so... your "reasoning" is rather self-defeating.

[tiffy33]

oh yeah i know why, that $2,200,000,000 ESPN deal the SEC has

Well who else are they going to show? They are going to carry the good teams. Its ESPN remember. Its the reason all you see during baseball season are the Socks and Yanks. Then when NBA comes around and its all Heat. Then college hoops its all Duke and UNC. They have to get ratings and showing the best teams is the way to do that. Dont like ESPN showing 9 SEC games on Saturdays? Tell the other guys to L2Play. No one is going to sit in front of their TV and watch Temple play New Mexico State.

[Sayl]

Nick Aliotti is pissed that WSU kept throwing against Oregon making their D look bad to scouts. Which, Connor Halliday knocked off Brees for most pass attempts and tied the record for completions.

I was pretty amused by his reaction. Did he expect the Cougs to pull their starters when he did, or maybe just stop playing? It's not like they have anything vaguely resembling a rushing offense anyway, although I guess it's improved from the 349 yards they gained on the ground all last season. They're still dead last in the FBS.

If Halliday were my QB, I'd want him to get as much practice throwing to his own team as possible.

[cubby]

I was pretty amused by his reaction. Did he expect the Cougs to pull their starters when he did, or maybe just stop playing? It's not like they have anything vaguely resembling a rushing offense anyway, although I guess it's improved from the 349 yards they gained on the ground all last season. They're still dead last in the FBS.

If Halliday were my QB, I'd want him to get as much practice throwing to his own team as possible.

I'm a die-hard Duck fan and even I thought Aliotti's comments were a bit off.

I get what he's saying, but at the same time, your point is valid - what were the Coug's going to do? Just stop trying to win? I guess they could have practiced some running, but at the same time, Halliday does need all the practice he can get.

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And the BCS rankings are out. Not really surprised with FL St ahead of Oregon, albeit a slim margin. Oregon will get on top after their back-to-back top 15 games against UCLA and then Stanford (assuming they win out).

1 Alabama .9841
2 Florida St .9348
3 Oregon .9320
4 Ohio State .8553
5 Missouri .8219
6 Stanford .7414
7 Miami (FL) .7200
8 Baylor .7120
9 Clemson .6249
10 Texas Tech .6220
11 Auburn .5058
12 UCLA .4807
13 LSU .4552
14 Virg Tech .4408
15 Oklahoma .4204

(not sure how to show the tab between names and percentages - it's there when I open it to edit)

[Pendulous]

I was surprised to see Baylor so high, but considering they're scoring as much if not more than Oregon, and are undefeated, I shouldn't be. I was not expecting Virginia Tech to be on there at all though. I guess when they started unranked, and lost to Alabama week one, I didn't expect them to bounce back. Though, all their wins are against shit teams.

[Stommped]

It really sucks that Mizzou lost Franklin for the year, I think they would have a had a decent shot with their weapons on offense.

I would be really interested to see if a 1 loss Alabama who beats an undefeated Mizzou in the SEC Championship gets in over undefeated Ohio St. Buckeye nation would lose their shit after not getting in after 25-0 in the Urban era.

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Also, I love looking at the computer rankings. I love NIU, but not sure how this JS computer has them ranked 5th overall and Oregon St ranked 6th overall. Oregon St. lost to Eastern Washington... Stanford ranked 15th and Oregon St. 6th? How could whoever is in charge of this specific computer justify that ranking? Scroll to the right for computer rankings.

[Sayl]

I love NIU, but not sure how this JS computer has them ranked 5th overall and Oregon St ranked 6th overall. Oregon St. lost to Eastern Washington... Stanford ranked 15th and Oregon St. 6th? How could whoever is in charge of this specific computer justify that ranking?

That'll never happen because Jeff Sagarin's system is entirely proprietary and confidential, and he doesn't reveal anything interesting about its mechanics... ever. But we won't have to deal with it next year so it won't really matter. It's honestly not relevant now, either -- but people seem to love arguing about all this minutiae prematurely, when all that really matters is the final BCS standings. ESPN and ABC just made a spectacle out of releasing the numbers halfway through the season, and people unfortunately have gobbled up the marketing of it all.

One of the reasons these little anomalies crop up is because the system is working with an incomplete dataset. It's a snapshot in time, but not a reliable indication of the future. Sagarin's predictive component says NIU is going to get its ass kicked in the future and finish poorly (same with OSU for that matter), but the BCS doesn't use that component in its calculations. For now, it's probably something as simple as NIU being undefeated and having won five of its seven games on the road, two of which came against B1G teams, which the system obviously favors compared to the MAC.

The picture's going to look a lot different in the next two weeks let alone by December, so I'm not sure why anyone bothers getting terribly invested in it before then.

[Stommped]

I'm not terribly invested, I just think it's odd for one computer to have such a vastly different ranking than all the other computers for a team. If you look just at Oregon St: NR, 22, 24, 18, 6, 21. That's a pretty big anomoly and none of the other computers seem to be thinking the way that one is.

[Sayl]

I'm not terribly invested,

Sorry, I wasn't directing that comment at you specifically or insinuating anything. I was just venting in general.

I just think it's odd for one computer to have such a vastly different ranking than all the other computers for a team. If you look just at Oregon St: NR, 22, 24, 18, 6, 21. That's a pretty big anomoly and none of the other computers seem to be thinking the way that one is.

That happens pretty frequently though, so I'm not sure why it merits special attention. It's just temporary.
(Virginia Tech is also #5 according to Wolfe, yet not rated according to Billingsley.)

Generally the earlier in the season it is, the greater the disparity you can find between computers. Those tend to even out as more games are played.

[cubby]

Should be an interesting but mostly uneventful weekend in NCAA. Tennessee at Alabama might be challenging. The Oregon vs. UCLA game should be a blast.

[Pendulous]

I don't expect Alabama to have any issue with Tennessee. South Carolina versus Missouri is the more interesting SEC game. I wanna see Missouri smoke em, and get into the SEC title game. Because at this point, they seem to be the only team in the east that deserves it.

[Projali]

I'm really curious how Oregon State will fare against Stanford. I don't think Mannion is a Heisman contender like some people do but I feel OSU is much better on offense this year. Their defense was absolutely unprepared for their season opener.

Vegas has Stanford as 4 point favorites.

[Badpaladin]

I'm really curious how Oregon State will fare against Stanford. I don't think Mannion is a Heisman contender like some people do but I feel OSU is much better on offense this year. Their defense was absolutely unprepared for their season opener.

Vegas has Stanford as 4 point favorites.

Stanford has a decent secondary, but so far nobody seems to be able to contain Brandin Cooks, and Stanford has given up 12 passing touchdowns so far this season. Should be a good game.

[cubby]

I'm really curious how Oregon State will fare against Stanford. I don't think Mannion is a Heisman contender like some people do but I feel OSU is much better on offense this year. Their defense was absolutely unprepared for their season opener.

Vegas has Stanford as 4 point favorites.

I'm looking forward to it too (although my game day game is OR vs UCLA). Selfishly, I want Stanford to win so OR's win over them next week will be "worth" more. That being said, I think OR St is good this year, despite their unbelievable blunder in their opening game (going to sting them all year, as well as the Pac-12).

I didn't know the line was just 4 points. Interesting.

[Pendulous]

Would be nice to have at least one good game on early. I get to watch Vandy/Texas A&M before work. Lovely...

[cubby]

Would be nice to have at least one good game on early. I get to watch Vandy/Texas A&M before work. Lovely...

I hear you there.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Pac-12, with it's goal of overtaking the SEC, continues to schedule games for a 10:30 ET start time.

Seriously? Miami down by 4 to Wake Forest?

[Pendulous]

Seriously? Miami down by 4 to Wake Forest?

Minnesota's up on Nebraska too. Vandy just threw a pick 6 first play of the second half. And they were actually closing in on A&M.

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Wake scores and goes up with 4 minutes left. This is much more interesting than watching A&M blowout Vandy.

[cubby]

Minnesota's up on Nebraska too. Vandy just threw a pick 6 first play of the second half. And they were actually closing in on A&M.

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Wake scores and goes up with 4 minutes left. This is much more interesting than watching A&M blowout Vandy.

I agree, wish my provider had it live. Gamecast for me. Miami is going to pull it out though, I can just feel it.

And there's the last minute touchdown by Miami. Crap.

[Pendulous]

When it says it starts at 3:30, I wish that actually meant the game, not "the players aren't even in the damn stadium yet".