The Trouble with "Patsies"
by Xerxes on Sep 3, 2007 9:38 AM CDT
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PrintDid Michigan get a lesson? What about Texas?
Is barely beating a patsy that you are suppose to beat by 30-40 points any worse than losing to an Ohio St.?
Of course in matters in the win/loss sense but it could be an important factor when comparing teams with even records and relative positions for bowl bids.
Most top level teams did exactly what was expected to there patsies, beat them to a pulp.
I give a lot of credit to Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. for aiming high and taking a chance. If I was say an AP voter I would definitely take it into account when considering team with equivalent records.
So towards the end of the season when there is a traffic jam at 8-2 or 9-1, what will the Texas win look like?
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it won't matter
bowl bids have nothing to do with your ranking or your OOC wins unless it's for the national championship game or you're Notre Dame.
Bowls have conference tie-ins so the cotton bowl gets the 2nd best big XII team (or, rather, the best one that isn't in a BCS game) and the 4th best SEC team. That has nothing to do with OOC games, but rather only a team's record in-conference.
Furthermore, if you're trying to get into the national championship game (something I sincerely doubt Texas will be faced with this year), if you're undefeated from a BCS conference, you're in 90% of the time, regardless of how poorly you played in the first game of the year. If you have 1-loss and are trying to get in the national championship game, voters might look back on it and drop you a bit, but it won't affect your computer ranking.
And more than anything, how voters evaluate teams at the end of the year almost always boils down to how teams play against a few "real" opponents. If Texas goes out there and beats everyone else the rest of the year, no one is going to look back and say, "yeah, but on September 1, in the first game of the year with a bunch of guys suspended and hurt, they played poorly against arkansas state, so who cares if they then pulled it together and proceeded to beat OU, TCU, Nebraska, and Texas A&M?"
Just win the game. That's all that matters in the season opener against a patsy.
clarification
Just win the game. That's all that matters in the season opener against a patsy.
By that I mean that winning is all that matters for rankings and bowl games down the road. Terrible play may portend an inability to actually win those "real" games later in the season, but if it doesn't, then winning sloppily against a patsy doesn't make a difference.
Also
margin of victory has been removed from the BCS equation, if I remember correctly, so at the end of the day in the rankings, OU's 79-10 blowout victory over UNT is basically equal to Texas'"squeaker" against Ark St.
this was the point I was trying to make
in the Ole Miss diary.
If we had played a top 25 team on September 1st, we wouldve lost. No doubt about it. We'd be 0-1 and our ranking might be somewhere around #20. We'd be on the outside looking in for most of the season. It wouldn't have strengthened our resolve any more so than if we played a tough team on Sept 8th.
As it stands, we're 1-0, just like we want to be, and we know what needs to be improved for us to beat TCU. If we don't improve those areas, we're in for a long season.
You need a game before "the game" to get back into the feel of things. Even if it's blowing them out of the water, you're getting your timing down and your backups some playing time. You also have some game film on the other team, as opposed to practice reports and previous season's tape.
by the other Andrew on Sep 3, 2007 12:27 PM CDT reply actions
Margin of victory..
..isn't technically a component of the BCS anymore. However, it certainly is a component of the poll voters' thought process. Coaches and the Harris polls count for 2/3 of a team's BCS score, so for voters who don't take their job seriously enough and just look at ESPN's BottomLine and see Texas 21 Arkansas State 13 and Oklahoma 79 North Texas 10 are sure to keep that in the back of their minds if one of these debates develops at the end of the season. Sad but true is the fact that the people who more or less control who goes to the national title game don't watch nearly as much football as they should... but that's a discussion for another day.
Agree with your sentiments on the poll voter's.
And you can already see it playing a factor with today's rankings and Texas dropping 3 spots in both the Coaches and AP polls.
But actually, strength of schedule does still play a part in the BCS formula but it's no longer an individual component and doesn't have as much an influence as it used to. Each of the computer polls still take into account strength of schedule in some manner or other (they all have their own formulas for determined SOS).
BZ right on the money
If you are looking down the road, 1-0 vs Podunk College is much better than 0-1 vs Juggernaut U. A win is a win is a win - see Utah 2004 or Ohio St 2000.
After you sort through the teams that won, then you can try and characterize the teams that lost.
what might make me feel better about it
is if they made the patsy preseason or whatever game a road game.
the only reason i went on saturday was to watch chiles play and i didn't even end up getting that. i guess it's just annoying to see 1/7 of your season ticket be something you don't really give a crap about seeing.
by Vice President Coco (40118) on Sep 5, 2007 1:06 PM CDT reply actions
Would you rather have six games?
Every other year? Becuase there is no way we go to a patsy. But if we schedule more home and away games, that means seven games at home one year, six the next.
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