Post Title

by PB @ BON on Jan 10, 2008 7:25 AM CST in Football

BlogPoll ballots are due today, so I've given my best shot at a final Top 25 for the season. As always, the body of work more important than how good ya looked in the last game on teevee.

0 recs | Comment 17 comments

Read Related

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

so

you've bought into this "body of work" bullshit that's nothing more than an excuse for putting people wherever you want without any consideration for the fact that a team is supposed to improve throughout the season due to, oh, hell, I don't know, team ideas like coaching and chemistry.

It's poo. Oklahoma deserves to be dropped like a brick for their last game. You don't go into your biggest game of the season and crap yourselves like they did without consequences.

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation - Graduating more of our players than you are!

by cornnation on Jan 10, 2008 9:58 AM CST 0 recs

this "power ranking" is what's bullshit

it's just an excuse to put teams wherever the hell you want to based on who you personally think would win a game if they played now. that's entirely subjective. ranking based on "body of work" is not entirely objective obviously, but it's based on SOMETHING other than your fanciful thoughts of what might be.

like it or not, college football rewards the best season, not the best second half of the season. if the only thing that mattered was the second half of the season, then we'd just call the first half the "preseason" and ignore it completely.

by billyzane on Jan 10, 2008 10:24 AM CST up 0 recs

college football

rewards the best season now because it's convenient. It allows the powers that be to move LSU into the title game because that's really who they wanted there in the first place.

I don't disagree with you that 'power ranking' is subjective as well, but the idea that Oklahoma has to be ranked in front of Missouri because they beat them twice doesn't wash with me.

every one of the ways we rank these teams is going to be subjective in some way, even computer rankings have to start with some type of seed and weighting, but "complete season". Go tank a review at work or a final exam, and then come back and argue about a 'body of work'.

Better yet, how 'bout Chris Simms versus Major Applewhite? Which one you want behind the center? Easy game, Simms had all the tools, but everyone knows that Applewhite was a much better quarterback. That's the difference between "body of work" and judging someone on crunch time, when it counts.

and we do call the first part of the season "preseason", but only by another term. it's called "non-conference". same difference these days.

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation - Graduating more of our players than you are!

by cornnation on Jan 10, 2008 12:08 PM CST up 0 recs

Ask Michigan

how their preseason went.

by Wells on Jan 10, 2008 12:21 PM CST up 0 recs

yeah

and now everyone else will have to pay for that forever.

"Remember Appalachian State" will be the cry every time a BCS school schedules somebody beneath them.

You really want to use that as an example?

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation - Graduating more of our players than you are!

by cornnation on Jan 10, 2008 8:22 PM CST up 0 recs

Objection noted

But I don't buy it. There's no way to watch all these teams play.

If you want to gripe about my way of ranking, it should be based on the fact that I haven't had the time to be as systematic in evaluating the resumes as closely as a really strong resume ranking should. SMQ and Kyle both do a better job than I have this season.

--PB--

by PB @ BON on Jan 10, 2008 12:38 PM CST up 0 recs

problem with Body of work aproach

In sports where there is a playoff, i.e. pretty much all the sports except for div 1 football, there is a tournament at the end of the season to decide who is best. Body of work is only important to gain admittance to the tournament, after that all that matters is who is playing the best at the end of the season.

for example, Oregon without dixon is better than nobody in the 20 or so and should not be rated highly. some teams improve over the season because they have lots of young talent who gets played, some are hurt worse by injuries than others, etc.

What really counts in the final ranking is how good you are at the end of the season. What div 1 football really, really needs is a playoff.

by Kafka on Jan 10, 2008 6:29 PM CST up 0 recs

the thing about your analogies

is that they work better for me than for you.

Tanking a final exam: that's too bad, and it will affect your grade over the entire semester, but what you did earlier in the semester counts too. If you did great on the midterm, it balances out.

Tanking a review at work: say you have a yearly review, and at the end of one year, they say "you did poorly the first half of the year and well the second half so you're getting half your bonus this year. But keep up the good work for the whole year next year and you'll get the full bonus." Sounds like body of work to me.

Simms/Applewhite: this doesn't work at all. You're telling me that just by looking at them and their skill sets, one would think Simms was a better QB than Applewhite. I don't disagree with you there. But then you say that "everyone knows" that Applewhite is a better QB than Simms. How does everyone know that other than by how well Applewhite has played his entire career relative to Simms? "Just looking at them and making up your mind" is power-ranking. Looking at what each has done over their entire careers and coming to a conclusion based on their performances is resume-ranking.

by billyzane on Jan 10, 2008 12:46 PM CST up 0 recs

i think

you're missing my point. I don't dismiss entirely the entire season, but at the same time, I put a lot of value in the end of the season. It's not one or the other, but everything put together and I put more weight at the end.

But you got that Simms/Applewhite thing correct.

If you're only seeing one or the other, you're missing the whole picture. :)

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation - Graduating more of our players than you are!

by cornnation on Jan 10, 2008 8:25 PM CST up 0 recs

Both OU's are too high

Body of work for Oklahoma includes a loss to CU and losses in 2 of their last 4 games. I just don't see how they could be ranked in front of USC, tOSU, VT,

Texas beats a Dixon-less Ducks team by 3 TD's.

by Horncasting on Jan 10, 2008 10:00 AM CST 0 recs

I think it would be much closer

Because from what I saw at the Sun Bow,l Oregon ran alot of misdirection and kept South Florida completely out of rhythm. The one gripe that I had about their offense is that when they ran zone reads, the quaterback never ran it. It was always either a dropoff/screen pass or a hand off to the RB. Speaking of which, that RB (Stewart I think) is just unreal. Seriously, he can run between the tackles, bounce off the linebackers, and out run the DBs on the same play. But I guess it all depends on which Texas team shows up; if it's the one that played A&M we lose, if it's the one that played in the Holiday Bowl, we win relatively easily.

by bamfor on Jan 10, 2008 7:00 PM CST up 0 recs

Yes, alot would depend on which Texas team showed

up, and I'll admit Oregon surprised me in their bowl game. Digging a little deeper the bowl win was against a team that, although it had quite a bit of early season hype, finished the year 4th in the Big East, with a 4-3 conf. record.

Oregon lost 4 conf. games, including their last 3. The only possible way that you could have them higher than Texas is if you assume they win 2 of those last 3 games with Dixon. If you go down that route, then why not assume Texas beats OU and A&M with a healthy Limas Sweed?

by Horncasting on Jan 11, 2008 12:13 AM CST up 0 recs

Texas was 4th in the Big 12

And ASU, irregardless of the circumstances, were co-Pac-10 Champs.

And we saw the results.

USC pulls in major talent due to the access to USC tail, but past that the Pac-10 isnt ever worth much. Ask Aaron Rodgers.

by BoddickerIsClutch on Jan 11, 2008 10:05 AM CST up 0 recs

time taken to adapt

Oregon didn't just lose Dixon to injury, Leaf got injured as well, and their third string QB wasn't in the best shape. That's a large portion of why they hit a skid at the end - Stewart could only do so much.

I'm told (my brother is an Oregon alum) that by the time the Ducks got to their bowl game, they had worked in their freshman QB of the future, as it were. So that was a large part of the turnaround.

by DC Trojan on Jan 11, 2008 10:36 AM CST up 0 recs

Perspective

Now that the Big 12 basketball season is about to start, I find I have no further interest in last year's football. (And I'm looking less forward to spring football than to the start of baseball. I guess that's what a sorry season does to you.) If college football doesn't care enough to put on a playoff to determine the best team, why the hell should I care enough to try to figure it out myself?

by Caradoc on Jan 11, 2008 1:05 AM CST 0 recs

Kansas Up, OU down

I would have rated Kansas and UT a litle higher and OU, BC, and Illinois a little lower, but in a year with such parity and so many top 25 teams losing to "inferior" opponents and close calls in other games, you could make a good argument for almost any number of rankings. For example, you've got OU at #4 and UT at #15, but OU may have been a fumble away from losing in Dallas. Finally, I would again like to make my case for eliminating "overtime." It drags out games indefinitely (often running into the next scheduled televised game)and it doesn't seem fair to slap the same loss on a team that loses in triple over-time that another team has that loses by 30 in regulation. This year, without OT, we would be crowning an "undefeated" MNC rather than one with 2 losses.

"Only angry people win football games." --DKR

by OBdoc on Jan 12, 2008 8:52 AM CST 0 recs

Not really on 3 OTs

LSU was put into the BCSCG because of the close nature of their losses which were apparently and appripriately viewed as less damning than those of other teams.

Les Miles notion that they were "ties" was impressively silly, even for him, but the close nature of the games was indeed considered.

marshalld

by duras on Jan 12, 2008 7:34 PM CST up 0 recs