Northern Illinois and Fresno State

[billybud]

right, but the thesis presented has not been clearly acknowledged.

As you say, NO ONE would pick Fresno over FSU. That said, everyone recognizes that the miracle of miracles could happen. And if that does happen--that Fresno were to actually beat FSU, then it would not under any circumstances prove Fresno is a better team, because, hey, FSU had a very off game, and several other improbable events. But what it does mean is that Fresno gets the trophy in that case. Why? Because winning, even if it's an upset, always trumps being the better team. And because those are the rules of the game, W/L record trumps team power or SoS, even if those other things are a factor in the final consideration. Therefore, W/L should at least be the most important factor in rankings, even if a significant weight is attached to SoS or other subjective metrics.

**Therefore, team rank that places 1-loss Mizzou very close to unbeaten Fresno does not appear to be unreasonable at all, at least to me.

Oh my God...let us please make room for miracles.....Fresno State (who did squeak by with a one point win over a mediocre Boise ) should play Mizzou who lost in OT to a ranked South Carolina. The Vegas line would be double digit in favor of Mizzou.

Let's just ignore win quality ...Let's put up 9-0 NIU vs undefeated Alabama (of course NIU was undefeated last year as well until losing by 21 points to two loss FSU in the bowl).

Sure, 7-2 Montana is the same as 7-2 LSU...Yeah..miracles abound out there. Give the baby seals a chance to be clubbed into red spots in the snow.

Such foolishness...

A Koi is the king in the goldfish pond...but in the shark tank, he's just dinner.

[billybud]

Excuse the sarcasm Mr. Duke...but you stepped into on onging argument of 7 years running...

Your premise that a team who eeks out a one point win over a mediocre team makes a team more worthy of ranking then a team with a close OT loss to a ranked team, has been the core of my raging argument over the years.

Wins and losses have a value in my book....

Mizzou looked every bit as good as ranked South Carolina and was not beaten in regulation....Fresno looked about like Boise.

Of course, we all look at ranking differently. I tend to rank on straight power (who do I think are the best of the best of the 121 BCS teams...who would beat who).

Some folks just rank on beating your schedule. Thus, a few years back, we had CCR ranking Ball State in the top of the country. Ball State was killing their schedule...but they were the Koi in the goldfish pond....

[Cane from the Bend]

of course NIU was undefeated last year as well until losing by 21 points to two loss FSU in the bowl)

Northern Illinois was actually 12-1 going into the Orange Bowl . . . they lost to Iowa last year.

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[RazorHawk]

Just catching up and read most of the thread, and have one question.
I know CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival) has made some great music, including Bad Moon Arising , but not sure how they fit in this discussion.

Maybe they should be added with Condoleezza Rice to the committee.

[Spence]

Just catching up and read most of the thread, and have one question.
I know CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival) has made some great music, including Bad Moon Arising , but not sure how they fit in this discussion.

Maybe they should be added with Condoleezza Rice to the committee.

John Fogerty is an LSU fan of course. You are behind Razor.

[Eric]

right, but the thesis presented has not been clearly acknowledged.

As you say, NO ONE would pick Fresno over FSU. That said, everyone recognizes that the miracle of miracles could happen. And if that does happen--that Fresno were to actually beat FSU, then it would not under any circumstances prove Fresno is a better team, because, hey, FSU had a very off game, and several other improbable events. But what it does mean is that Fresno gets the trophy in that case. Why? Because winning, even if it's an upset, always trumps being the better team. And because those are the rules of the game, W/L record trumps team power or SoS, even if those other things are a factor in the final consideration. Therefore, W/L should at least be the most important factor in rankings, even if a significant weight is attached to SoS or other subjective metrics.

**Therefore, team rank that places 1-loss Mizzou very close to unbeaten Fresno does not appear to be unreasonable at all, at least to me.

Oh my God...let us please make room for miracles.....Fresno State (who did squeak by with a one point win over a mediocre Boise ) should play Mizzou who lost in OT to a ranked South Carolina. The Vegas line would be double digit in favor of Mizzou.

Let's just ignore win quality ...Let's put up 9-0 NIU vs undefeated Alabama (of course NIU was undefeated last year as well until losing by 21 points to two loss FSU in the bowl).

Sure, 7-2 Montana is the same as 7-2 LSU...Yeah..miracles abound out there. Give the baby seals a chance to be clubbed into red spots in the snow.

Such foolishness...

A Koi is the king in the goldfish pond...but in the shark tank, he's just dinner.

But my only question is why the knee-jerk favoring of Missouri? Their best wins came against a severely banged up probable 6-6 Florida, a banged up Georgia, Indiana, and Toledo. Throw in South Carolina without Connor Shaw for an entire half at home. Not an easy schedule, but it wouldn't be ridiculous for Fresno State, in some alternate universe, to also post a 7-1 record with this. Maybe they upset South Carolina in the same fashion that Tennessee did and maybe they lose to Georgia on the road; still a 7-1 record. If anything you're left with a shrug of the shoulders wondering what if, but many would consider Missouri still as the tougher team instead of calling it a draw at this point. Fresno might have posted a worse record against that slate of teams, but we can't really know, we can only have our opinions.

For the record, I think Missouri may be better, just saying that the one mark already on their schedule should put them on par with Fresno State, at least until Missouri proves they can go into Oxford and take out Ole Miss and take out Johnny Manziel and A&M. Just because a team plays a harder schedule, it has nothing to do with whether or not they are the better team. You might feel more comfortable with a certain team because they have a larger sample size against better competition, but the question is still open-ended. Alabama could play and wipe out Sun Belt competition and wouldn't be any worse of a team for it. You'd have to rely on the old eye test, which some people do with Fresno State and conclude that they're justifiably ranked between 15-20 at this point and time. I don't think this is an absurd opinion. Most people relying on the eye test right now favor Missouri slightly, which I think is also justifiable.

I'm taking Wyoming over Fresno for the record, so I think this will be a moot point. All I'm talking about is the resume-to-date. I realize that I could be easily wrong and that Fresno can go undefeated. I don't think an undefeated record in the Mountain West, if that should happen, would be anything to deny them a BCS bowl for, especially when the American Athletic Conference is in line for an auto-berth.

It seems to me that, if the season ended today, Baylor would have been 7-0 with their best win coming against Kansas State or Buffalo. Someone with your mentality which just measures the W/L versus the schedule could have concluded that they shouldn't participate in an 8 team playoff. But given the opportunity, they smashed a top 15 team. The eye test should have told people that they were, at worst, one of the 10 best teams in America and should have been in the discussion. Among all the other factors, I think the eye test is the most important to voters because you can only rely on your interpretation of events. You have to experience watching the teams at the end of the day since who a team happened to get paired up against is not causally related to how good they are in fact.

[Cane from the Bend]

Also, just because 115 systems run a similar algorythm, doesn't make it a correct algorythm. For years intelligent people worked under the assumption the earth was flat. They probably used same argument to prove the guy who said it was round was nuts. I think if they should just eliminate all the rankings and make all conference winners play. I think if CFB is going to have a playoff they should quit letting any subjective influence into it. Kind of like the old days when you didn't win your conference you didn't go to a bowl at all.

Well, in all actuality, it was a very small sect of individuals who believed the world was flat.
Looking back into history, you'd find that ancient theories regarding the earth presents it round.
The earliest written perceptions as the world being a flat alternatively were in the renaissance.
Even then, the ideology was held in small circles & guilds.
The books which paint a different perspective are skewed.
Unfortunately, that is what is taught in the school system.
The truth gets mask to emphasize someone's point a view.

And for the record, I'm deliberately focusing on this post, because, I've debated the overall subject matter of this thread so much, that there simply isn't anything new to discus here . . . so much so, that Duke even posted one hypothetical that was nearly identical to this very same subject content about 8 years ago, also using the same assumptions, by answering what he figures someone would do, based on what he assumes they would do initially, even though it is a hypothetical --- without taking circumstance into account; such as injuries, final score, mistakes made, penalties, ect ...

That is more than I wanted to type, so, from here on out, I will just let the issue resolve itself.

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[billybud]

I think that we will see Baylor play Fresno in the Fiesta..that should be an interesting test for Fresno State.

[donovan]

Season is not over. Oregon got thrashed. Stanford had the ball for over 40 minutes. Stanford's defense had a well executed game plan. This is not be Oregon's last loss.

[billybud]

Oregon vs Stanford was interesting in that it was a match up of a speed team versus a physical team....and the lines were owned by Stanford on both sides of the ball.

In this game, big and smash mouth beat smaller and faster.

[Spence]

Oregon vs Stanford was interesting in that it was a match up of a speed team versus a physical team....and the lines were owned by Stanford on both sides of the ball.

In this game, big and smash mouth beat smaller and faster.

Oregon did ok when Stanford tried to stretch it out, but when Stanford ran up the gut Oregon couldn't stop it. The Oregon Dline could handle a power running game. By the end of the game, Stanford was knocking out 8 heard a whack. That is until Stanford got in the red one and Oregon could involve their safeties more to stuff the run.

[billybud]

http://siextramustard.files.wordpress.c ... =600&h=408

[Cane from the Bend]

[Duke1632]

Excuse the sarcasm Mr. Duke...but you stepped into on onging argument of 7 years running...I tend to rank on straight power...

There's no need to be sarcastic or to avoid the obvious conclusion. All I ask is this: If Fresno played FSU tomorrow, and Fresno actually won on a last second hail mary, would you attribute a higher power ranking to Fresno than to FSU in the billybud's power ranking the next day?

If that question were put to me, here's how I would answer: No, FSU is still the stronger team--in fact, that revered eye test tells me they are likely the best team in the country. They had a let down, which can happen to the best of teams. That said, I'm curious about your answer.

[Spence]

Excuse the sarcasm Mr. Duke...but you stepped into on onging argument of 7 years running...I tend to rank on straight power...

There's no need to be sarcastic or to avoid the obvious conclusion. All I ask is this: If Fresno played FSU tomorrow, and Fresno actually won on a last second hail mary, would you attribute a higher power ranking to Fresno than to FSU in the billybud's power ranking the next day?

If that question were put to me, here's how I would answer: No, FSU is still the stronger team--in fact, that revered eye test tells me they are likely the best team in the country. They had a let down, which can happen to the best of teams. That said, I'm curious about your answer.

That is the thing about settling it on the field. If you played best 5 of 7 you would be likely to get the best team, but that is impossible in football. So you have to be ok with the best team that day. Still you also can consider the entire body of work when ranking a team, and they may not be able to stand up to Florida State considering that. It isn't a very good way of doing things, but it is the system we have.