Illinois #23 in 11/26 CFB Playoff Rankings

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#53      
skyIdub
RabidDawgClassic said:
Rooting for Chaos

Illinois chances to reach the CFP are, at best, extraordinarly long. The absurd cascade of events that would have to take place for that to happen is not even worth mentioning.

Having said that... let me mention that absurd cascade, and how you should root for Illinois to sneak in to one of. the 12 spots.

Oklahoma State over Colorado
Texas over Texas A&M
Mississippi State over Ole Miss
Texas San Antonio over Army (or Navy over Army the following week)
Nevada over UNLV
Memphis over Tulane
Houston over BYU
Arizona over Arizona State
Kansas State over Iowa State
Auburn over Bama
Cal over SMU
Oregon State over Boise State
Vandy over Tennessee
Syracuse over Miami
USC over Notre Dame
Purdue over Indiana
Georgia Tech over Georgia
South Carolina vs Clemson? -- Probably South Carolina

To be clear, not all of these things need to happen -- but MOST of them do. And, there's no guarantee even that if every one of them happened, Illinois would get the nod. So it's probably easier to just appreciate a possible 9 win regular season and go get win number 10 against a high power SEC team which will probably see a lot of its players sit out the bowl game. But at least you now have a checklist for this weekend.
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*Drunkenly walks over to Sportsbook to place $100 parlay
 
#54      
altgeld88
LockportIllini70 said:
#23 is very low considering all that happened last weekend. Seems more like a name ranking
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Sagarin rates us at #38, ~ even with Virginia Tech (5-6), which has been as unlucky in close outcomes this season as we have been lucky, and Nebraska. Michigan is rated #28. Colorado is #23 (they're #25 in the CFP rankings.) Sagarin has Missouri #26 and Kansas State #13. We and UNLV (#48 in Sagarin) are the only teams in that #21-25 CFP slice highly overrated relative to Sagarin. Didn't look at those #20 and higher.

Frankly, it's surprising that we're rated in the polls' Top 25. I'll take it, of course, as it's great for recruiting and the program. But we're not as good as our record indicates we are (relative to others). We're simply blessed to have some explosive receivers, a QB who can make it happen when the chips are down, and some solid red zone defense much of the time. Thank goodness.
 
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#55      
Bucktown
altgeld88 said:
Sagarin rates us at #38, ~ even with Virginia Tech (5-6), which has been as unlucky in close outcomes this season as we have been lucky, and Nebraska. Michigan is rated #28. Colorado is #23 (they're #25 in the CFP rankings.) Sagarin has Missouri #26 and Kansas State #13. We and UNLV (#48 in Sagarin) are the only teams in that #21-25 CFP slice highly overrated relative to Sagarin. Didn't look at those #20 and higher.

Frankly, it's surprising that we're rated in the polls' Top 25. I'll take it, of course, as it's great for recruiting and the program. But we're not as good as our record indicates we are (relative to others). We're simply blessed to have some explosive receivers, a QB who can make it happen when the chips are down, and some solid red zone defense much of the time. Thank goodness.
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Sagarin seems to way underrate actually winning. Illinois teams will likely always be underrated by his measurement because of how conservatively Bielema plays. Kansas and Nebraska are both ahead of Illinois.
 
#56      
7 Year Illini
altgeld88 said:
Sagarin rates us at #38, ~ even with Virginia Tech (5-6), which has been as unlucky in close outcomes this season as we have been lucky, and Nebraska. Michigan is rated #28. Colorado is #23 (they're #25 in the CFP rankings.) Sagarin has Missouri #26 and Kansas State #13. We and UNLV (#48 in Sagarin) are the only teams in that #21-25 CFP slice highly overrated relative to Sagarin. Didn't look at those #20 and higher.

Frankly, it's surprising that we're rated in the polls' Top 25. I'll take it, of course, as it's great for recruiting and the program. But we're not as good as our record indicates we are (relative to others). We're simply blessed to have some explosive receivers, a QB who can make it happen when the chips are down, and some solid red zone defense much of the time. Thank goodness.
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agree completely. We have had a great year and a bunch has gone our way. We could have easily lost to Purdue and others. So let's bask in the great year. End it with 2 straight wins and build momentum.
 
#57      
altgeld88
Bucktown said:
Sagarin seems to way underrate actually winning. Illinois teams will likely always be underrated by his measurement because of how conservatively Bielema plays. Kansas and Nebraska are both ahead of Illinois.
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Sagarin predicts the comparative ex-ante likelihood of winning among teams. His model has strong predictive power, which is why it persists. The fact is that we've been quite lucky. Kansas has a losing record, yes. They also have the 9th toughest schedule in the nation (v. #47 for the Illini and #68 for Indiana.)

I can't say that I've watched a single game this year against any of the six teams we've played that are ahead of us in his rankings (Oregon, PSU, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska and Minnesota) and afterward thought of the three that we won (two at home) anything beyond "geez, we pulled a rabbit out of the hat." IMO we won v. Michigan because of their utter incompetence at QB and that perfectly-executed fake punt. Had we played them last Saturday in Champaign, with Warren instead of Tuttle at QB, I'm not confident that we'd win. Minnesota was clearly a better team, and I remain amazed that the game in State College was basically ours to lose. That one IMO was our strongest performance all season.

I'm not slagging our team. I'm just noting that they've overachieved this season, which I put down to coaching, cohesion, and the fact that Luke and our receivers can make some magic happen at times late. As I and others have noted, most of us were expecting 6-6 at best this year. To be within reach of 9-3 is something.
 
#58      
Dkayak
altgeld88 said:
We're simply blessed to have some explosive receivers, a QB who can make it happen when the chips are down, and some solid red zone defense much of the time. Thank goodness.
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I’d attribute these strong points to outright skill and preparation rather than luck. By this point in the season there’s clearly a pattern, much more than a series of one-off flukes. Luck would be more randomly distributed across the entire team and would also tilt against us in some of those tight situations. It appears Sagarin’s model isn’t granular enough to reflect the effects our strengths in a bind.
 
#59      
Illini2010-11
Ty’s jump shot said:
The SEC would be up in arms if 5 big10 teams were in CFP. This coming from someone in the heart of SEC country.
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I can already hear the complaining if 4 B1G teams make CFP. "IU beat nobody and lost by a large margin to the only good team they played."
 
#61      
Illini in Italy
altgeld88 said:
Sagarin predicts the comparative ex-ante likelihood of winning among teams. His model has strong predictive power, which is why it persists. The fact is that we've been quite lucky. Kansas has a losing record, yes. They also have the 9th toughest schedule in the nation (v. #47 for the Illini and #68 for Indiana.)

I can't say that I've watched a single game this year against any of the six teams we've played that are ahead of us in his rankings (Oregon, PSU, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska and Minnesota) and afterward thought of the three that we won (two at home) anything beyond "geez, we pulled a rabbit out of the hat." IMO we won v. Michigan because of their utter incompetence at QB and that perfectly-executed fake punt. Had we played them last Saturday in Champaign, with Warren instead of Tuttle at QB, I'm not confident that we'd win. Minnesota was clearly a better team, and I remain amazed that the game in State College was basically ours to lose. That one IMO was our strongest performance all season.

I'm not slagging our team. I'm just noting that they've overachieved this season, which I put down to coaching, cohesion, and the fact that Luke and our receivers can make some magic happen at times late. As I and others have noted, most of us were expecting 6-6 at best this year. To be within reach of 9-3 is something.
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And thus we see the problem in using models to reflect reality . . . There may be a correlation, but reality has a value of 1.
 
#62      
aaeismacgychel
Ty’s jump shot said:
The SEC would be up in arms if 5 big10 teams were in CFP. This coming from someone in the heart of SEC country.
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Of course they would. And similarly the SEC would be up in arms if they had 5 2 or less loss teams and the CFP said to them we can only take 3 of those teams because we need to include 2 3 loss B10 teams who lost to mediocre opponents. And in fairness, the B10 would behave similarly. Everyone wants their teams in and vouches for themselves over others even if those others are more deserving.

It's why having historical precedent helps. And historically, if you're a 0 or 1 loss team from a major conference you're in the CFP top 12 100% of the time. If you're a 2 loss team from a major conference, you'll make the CFP top 12 84% of the time and if you're a 3 loss team from a major conference, for roughly every 5 2 loss major conference teams that get in, 1 3 loss team will make the Top 12 and that team almost always has at least 1 CFP Top 25 road win.

Now might there be some shenanigans now that the CFP field has increased to 12? Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it, however we do have a good idea of what a CFP Top 12 resume should look like. So in my opinion, teams with 3 losses can complain all they want about getting left out, but if they were truly deserving of a spot in the Top 12, they should've lost less than 3 games.
 
#63      
WyattEarp
Ty’s jump shot said:
The SEC would be up in arms if 5 big10 teams were in CFP. This coming from someone in the heart of SEC country.
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What’s the worst they could do?
SEC-cede?
(The last time the South took up arms it ended pretty badly for them; just sayin.)
IMG_4147.jpeg


Too Soon??
 
#64      
ktal
I can't remember what thread I saw it in, but someone had posted a gradient listing how many wins or losses teams had relative to their pre-season expectation, and the Illini were near the top (so, over-performing.) But what I found very suspect about the list is that Bama and Georgia were listed as on schedule. Really? Because I feel like the top of the SEC has been getting humiliated this year, so...was that predicted?

ESPN has become such an SEC hack that they're simply unbearable. They can't report sports news, they have to report how the SEC is being victimized by the big, mean, cheating B1G.
 
#65      
AyoDos11
ktal said:
I can't remember what thread I saw it in, but someone had posted a gradient listing how many wins or losses teams had relative to their pre-season expectation, and the Illini were near the top (so, over-performing.) But what I found very suspect about the list is that Bama and Georgia were listed as on schedule. Really? Because I feel like the top of the SEC has been getting humiliated this year, so...was that predicted?

ESPN has become such an SEC hack that they're simply unbearable. They can't report sports news, they have to report how the SEC is being victimized by the big, mean, cheating B1G.
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That was from the KFord Ratings, not ESPN, so those projections were based off actual metrics.
 
#66      
lstewart53x3
ktal said:
I can't remember what thread I saw it in, but someone had posted a gradient listing how many wins or losses teams had relative to their pre-season expectation, and the Illini were near the top (so, over-performing.) But what I found very suspect about the list is that Bama and Georgia were listed as on schedule. Really? Because I feel like the top of the SEC has been getting humiliated this year, so...was that predicted?

ESPN has become such an SEC hack that they're simply unbearable. They can't report sports news, they have to report how the SEC is being victimized by the big, mean, cheating B1G.
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Here was the preseason expectation chart published by KFord before the season:

IMG_0241.png


It had Georgia 10-2 and Alabama 9-3.
 
#67      
ktal
lstewart53x3 said:
Here was the preseason expectation chart published by KFord before the season:

View attachment 37632

It had Georgia 10-2 and Alabama 9-3.
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Thanks, that explains it. I had thought I was looking at the aggregate of sports-pundit predictions, not the probability distribution of one guy's analytical model. I'm curious how many Alabama media-pundits predicted three losses. I would think they would get run out of town for such heresy, but maybe that's just a false impression.
 
#68      
RabidDawgClassic
The absurd cascade of events has begun!

✅ Memphis over Tulane
Oklahoma State over Colorado
Texas over Texas A&M
Mississippi State over Ole Miss
Texas San Antonio over Army (or Navy over Army the following week)
Nevada over UNLV
Houston over BYU
Arizona over Arizona State
Kansas State over Iowa State
Auburn over Bama
Cal over SMU
Oregon State over Boise State
Vandy over Tennessee
Syracuse over Miami
USC over Notre Dame
Purdue over Indiana
Georgia Tech over Georgia
South Carolina vs Clemson? -- Probably South Carolina
 
#70      
Navy_illini
RabidDawgClassic said:
The absurd cascade of events has begun!

✅ Memphis over Tulane
Oklahoma State over Colorado
Texas over Texas A&M
Mississippi State over Ole Miss
Texas San Antonio over Army (or Navy over Army the following week)
Nevada over UNLV
Houston over BYU
Arizona over Arizona State
Kansas State over Iowa State
Auburn over Bama
Cal over SMU
Oregon State over Boise State
Vandy over Tennessee
Syracuse over Miami
USC over Notre Dame
Purdue over Indiana
Georgia Tech over Georgia
South Carolina vs Clemson? -- Probably South Carolina
Click to expand...
Right now Bama would be in or would the Big 12 champ jump them?

ACC will likely knock out one of the teams in the top 12 SMU or Miami
 
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#71      
InDaAZ
RabidDawgClassic said:
The absurd cascade of events has begun!

✅ Memphis over Tulane
Oklahoma State over Colorado
Texas over Texas A&M
Mississippi State over Ole Miss
Texas San Antonio over Army (or Navy over Army the following week)
Nevada over UNLV
Houston over BYU
Arizona over Arizona State
Kansas State over Iowa State
Auburn over Bama
Cal over SMU
Oregon State over Boise State
Vandy over Tennessee
Syracuse over Miami
USC over Notre Dame
Purdue over Indiana
Georgia Tech over Georgia
South Carolina vs Clemson? -- Probably South Carolina
Click to expand...
Ill Be Back Jim Carrey GIF
 
#73      
RabidDawgClassic
The absurd cascade is starting to course correct. 🫤

✅ Memphis over Tulane
❌ Oklahoma State over Colorado
❌ Oregon State over Boise State
Texas over Texas A&M
Mississippi State over Ole Miss
Texas San Antonio over Army (or Navy over Army the following week)
Nevada over UNLV
Houston over BYU
Arizona over Arizona State
Kansas State over Iowa State
Auburn over Bama
Cal over SMU
Vandy over Tennessee
Syracuse over Miami
USC over Notre Dame
Purdue over Indiana
Georgia Tech over Georgia
South Carolina vs Clemson? -- Probably South Carolina
 
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