Bowls/CFP Projections

#127      
ChiefGritty
lstewart53x3 said:
It’s a scam. Always has been. Always will be.
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I think this kind of skips the strongest argument actually, because I think your diagnosis is quite right, that the process goes 1. recruiting rankings = 2. preseason rankings = 3. strength of schedule inflation

However, in the early to mid 2010's, it was just flatly true that the SEC had schools all the way to the lower middle class of the conference that just went much deeper into their roster with great athletes than the rank-and-file elsewhere. It didn't show up on the field every single time they played nonconference games, but it did show up a lot, there were top stars all over the country, but in the parts of the game where the rotational depth of your front seven, for instance, was critical, those SEC factories just outclassed everybody else.

How did they get and keep those guys? The slander of the time was right, they were paying them!

Well, NIL has changed everything, everybody else can pay their guys too, and now that guy who was the 3rd DT at Auburn has better and higher paying options elsewhere. The larger and wealthier alumni bases of the Big Ten have arrived at the party, and the results on the field have changed accordingly.

But these poll and committee voters are operating with too much inertia, they are huffing the fumes of recruiting rankings from ten years ago.

I am not generally a fan of this kind of conference politicking, I don't care to play lawyer for our hated rivals and I feel like this stuff all tends to work itself out over time. But Bama ahead of UCLA and Tennessee ahead of Indiana are bad ones that can't be rationally justified, there's no two ways about that.
 
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#128      
BZuppke
Rooftop said:
I was there. Stadium was electric and the Illini crowd was loud and into it.

But, I believe that was Tony Eason--not Trudeau. Tony almost single-handedly carried us to the win. Running around for his life. If he doesn't get hurt and have to step out for Jenner for multiple plays, we win.
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I was there as well. Super cold night. Jenner was 3-3 😖
 
#129      
Second place is 1st loser
lstewart53x3 said:
Yesterday, I shared the post about LSU and Minnesota.

Today, let’s compare LSU with… Illinois. We’ll look at the past 3 seasons (this season and the previous 2):

Weeks spent in the AP Poll:

LSU: 31
Illinois: 20

Overall record:

LSU: 22-13
Illinois: 25-10

Record vs Top 25 teams:

LSU: 3-9
Illinois: 6-4

Record vs P4 programs:

LSU: 15-13
Illinois: 19-13

Illinois has a better overall record, a better record vs top 25 opponents, a better record vs P4 opponents, yet has spent 11 less weeks ranked over the past 3 seasons.

It’s a scam. Always has been. Always will be.
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Drill down a little further into record and games vs top 10 and top 5 teams. That's the complaint the SEC has. Playing #17, #20 and #24(grabbed those out of thin air) is different than playing #1, #5 and #9.

Depth of conference and week in, week out competition is their real beef.

If we were in the SEC, we wouldn't have the benefit of playing the likes of Purdue, MSU, MD and Nebraska in 4 of the last 6 games. You'd never, ever get that type stretch in that conference.

What's helped the Big 10 is that we've had the best team the last 3 years. That's the argument in return. We can't really say that Indiana played a gauntlet of a schedule last year however, which is the opposing opinion.
 
#130      
ChiefGritty
ChiefGritty said:
Bama ahead of UCLA and Tennessee ahead of Indiana are bad ones that can't be rationally justified, there's no two ways about that.
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Another damning way to look at it, three big SEC games last week pitting ranked teams against each other needing to prove themselves. Texas over Mizzou, Bama over LSU and Tennessee over Kentucky.

Winners move up and losers move down, but the CFP rewarded the winners more than they punished the losers. ALL SIX of those teams are higher in the CFP rankings than they are in the AP Poll, 16 spots higher combined. "Eye test" my foot.
 
#131      
Scoregasm
Dkayak said:
Your methodology filters out much of the presumed higher strength of all SEC teams, focusing instead on W-L records against teams with recognized strength.

SOS would reintroduce the false assumption of strength across the entire SEC, which already infects the top 25 polls, as noted by @Joel Goodson in another thread.
https://twitter.com/x/status/2120373379308159231
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This really irritates me. Can we get kenpom and torvik for football?
 
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