BCS Non-Conference Performance
by Peter Bean on Oct 30, 2007 8:16 PM CDT
in Football
18 comments
Earlier today, in putting forth his first draft BlogPoll ballot, Brian @ MGoBlog posited a theory: the SEC ain't all it's cracked up to be this year. Take it away, sir:
Brian goes on to provide a rundown of the SEC's out-of-conference travails with fellow BCS schools in support of his argument. I didn't necessarily disagree with Brian's point, but I was curious what other BCS conferences' rundowns would look like. If the Mississippi State transitive wart theory hurts the SEC, I'm curious what warts might plague other conferences.
So let's take a look:
BREAKDOWN
Pac 10: 2-1
Big 12: 0-2
Big East: 2-0
SEC: 0-0
ACC: 0-1
Non-BCS Losses: 4
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 1
Impressive Wins: 1
CONCLUSION: There is The Horror that was the beginning of Michigan's season to account for. When the team that gets rolled by Oregon and tripped up by Appy State is running through the conference just fine, that's perhaps cause for concern. Brian concedes this point, of course. The Big 10 ain't all that this year. (And I do subscribe to the idea that Michigan entered some bizarro world for two games before returning to being a real football team again.) Aside from Michigan's early misstep, the other notable point is the lack of quality out-of-conference wins. Half the conference relies on Notre Dame being a quality win each year. Not the case in 2007.
BREAKDOWN
Pac 10: 0-2
Big East: 0-0
SEC: 1-2
Big 10: 2-0
ACC: 2-2
Non-BCS Losses: 5
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 1
Impressive Wins: 2
CONCLUSION: Kansas, Texas, and Texas Tech don't have any out-of-conference BCS opponents on their resumes. Colorado, which has dispatched of both Texas Tech and Oklahoma, lost to Florida State in Boulder. The Cowpokes were smoked in Athens and terrible in a loss to Troy. Oklahoma's thrashing of Miami was impressive, and Missouri gets a nod for their win over Illinois, but it's slim pickings beyond that. The Big 12 may be better than last season, but it's definitely relative.
BREAKDOWN
Pac 10: 0-1
Big 12: 2-1
Big East: 1-2
Big 10: 0-0
ACC: 2-1
Non-BCS Losses: 0
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 0
Impressive Wins: 3
CONCLUSION: Brian's got this pretty well covered.
BREAKDOWN
Big 12: 2-0
Big East: 1-1
SEC: 1-0
Big 10: 1-2
ACC: 0-0
Non-BCS Losses: 5
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 2
Impressive Wins: 3
CONCLUSION: It gets messy here in the Pac 10. ASU has a nice win over Colorado, Oregon pummeled Michigan, and Cal dispatched Tennessee with relative ease. There are some definite warts, though: Oregon State, 31 point losers to Cincinnati, have defeated Cal. UCLA managed to lose to Utah by 38 and Notre Dame period, but own victories over Oregon State and Cal. USC's premier non-conference win is against a fast-sinking Nebraska team, and they lost to Stanford (who lost UCLA by 28 and TCU by 2).
BREAKDOWN
Pac 10: 0-0
Big 12: 2-2
Big East: 2-4
SEC: 1-2
Big 10: 1-0
Non-BCS Losses: 2
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 1
Impressive Wins: 4
CONCLUSION: As bad as the ACC's perceived to be, they do have four solid wins - one from Virginia, one from Miami, and two from Florida State. Beyond that, it gets ugly.
BREAKDOWN
Pac 10: 1-1
Big 12: 0-0
SEC: 2-1
Big 10: 0-3
ACC: 4-2
Non-BCS Losses: 2
Non-BCS Losses By Contenders: 0
Impressive Wins: 5
CONCLUSION: At least by non-conference BCS performance, the Big East has as much or more to be proud of as anyone. If UCONN had gotten by Virginia, this really would be interesting. Though Pittsburgh and Syracuse are doing their parts to reinforce the notion of deep suckitude in the Big East, the rest of the bunch haven't fared as I'd have thought. Louisville could have made this conference resume something pretty if it hadn't wet the bed against Utah and Kentucky.
FINAL ANALYSIS?
Meh, I got nothing grand to conclude here. I pledged before the season not to get caught up in conference superiority wars, and I won't start now. Consider this a presentation of data above all else. I'll let folks do with it what they will; for me, it's helped me rethinkink my BlogPoll ballot a bit. I've got a couple teams over- and under-valued. Of course, that's how this conversation got started in the first place. And that's why I do enjoy the BlogPoll so much - we're actually encouraged to talk out our theories.
--PB--
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MGoBlog is cool, but you should include
Brian's article on coaches and their winning %'s against top 25 teams. Really good stuff.
http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/...
I should note that of the dozen coaches that Brian looked at, Mack Brown had the highest percentage of unranked teams on his schedule.
Two things are guaranteed to Longhorn faithful while Mack is here: Greg Davis as OC and creampuffs on the football schedule.
by DogTown on Oct 30, 2007 6:20 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Thanks for the tip
I enjoyed those stat comparisons; great post with splendid stat work.
by whills on Oct 30, 2007 8:31 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Creampuffs: Good or Bad & Who to Blame?
DogTown, thanks for the link to a fascinating and revealing article. Think what Brown's stats would be like if he were not forced to play OU each year: his unranked percentage would be even higher. During the off-season alot of us debated the relative merits of a tough vs easy non-conference schedule, given the current operation of the BCS. I think, if you just want your 10-win seasons to mount up, go for the easy schedule, but if you are serious about being #1, prove it on the field (rather than hoping the computers spit out the right answers). Schedule tough opponents and leave no doubt in the minds of the voters (or the computers). But how much of the scheduling is up to Brown and how much determined by Dodds?
by OBdoc on Oct 31, 2007 7:50 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Good questions. I have no idea about the answer
I guess this is the most controversial topic for fans. I haven't made up my mind if it's bad or good. What annoys me the most is Mack's penchant for data mining and using statistics to mask his shortcomings.
Does he have a ton of 10 win seasons? Yes. But the only teams that match us in terms of talent are OU, ATM, occasionally OSU, and every few years a team from the North division. Essentially we play 13 games, and only 3 or 4 of them are against opponents that can match our recruiting, money, and facilities.
I used to love Mack, but this season has killed me. Watching horrible players not get benched for their awfulness just reinforces the fact that Mack is FAR too secure in his job. If he was on the hot seat (like any NFL coach) you damn well know Muck and Norton would be starting from UCF on. We're 7-2 this year and could end up with 10 wins. Yet we have a horrible home loss to an inferior team who straight up whipped us, and we have ANOTHER loss to ou in the RRS. 10 wins a season against cream puffs and inferior B12 teams means that Mack never feels heat, which means that we never ditch GDGD, which means that we loose to ou 5 years out of 6 until Bob Stoops leaves. I'm so damned frustrated.
Rant over
by DogTown on Oct 31, 2007 9:35 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
what's more interesting to me
about that article is the last chart comparing the percentage of unranked teams on a coach's schedule to the other coaches. predictably, as you note, Mack has the highest percentage of unranked teams. Mack's not exactly lighting the world on fire with his OOC scheduling. we know this.
but look who has the second most unranked teams by percentage on his schedule: Bobby Stoops. and their percentages are almost equal too. 74% of teams that Texas has played under Mack are unranked while 72% of teams OU has played under Stoops are unranked.
i think this underscores just how much the Big 12 plays into the relative mediocrity of our schedule year-in and year-out. it's just been a bad conference for about 5 years now and there's very little we can do about that.
by billyzane on Oct 31, 2007 9:59 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
The difference being......
.....that Bob Stoops has evolved his philosophy about OOC completely. As he expanded the talent pool, he made efforts to add recently successful programs to their OOC. So his future teams will have a substantial opponent prior to playing the RRS. They'll be better prepared, while our team will still be expecting OU to hit like a Rice marshmellow.
- Cincinnati
@Washington
- @Miami(FL)
Tulsa
- Florida State
Air Force
Cincinnati @ Paul Brown Stadium
- @Florida State
Tulsa
- Notre Dame
- Notre Dame
- Tennessee
- Tennessee
by HornChamps on Oct 31, 2007 1:42 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Why not TCU?
Does anybody recall when they formed the Big 12, why they invited Baylor over TCU? Having TCU rather than Baylor would have strengthened the conference most years. Another thing thay would help the conference would be to throw Iowa State under the bus and try to steal a better team from another conference, like Arkansas or LSU. Iowa State and Colorado don't even field a baseball team, if I recall. Maybe they could use that as an excuse.
by OBdoc on Nov 1, 2007 8:28 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Because
Baylor has lots of lawyers, who work in the state government.
Pretty much the state legislature threatened to take away UT's funding if they did not take Baylor with them.
by Wells on Nov 1, 2007 8:47 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Plus ...
Baylor is the better team in most of the other sports ...
Great track team, women's hoops is solid, men's hoops pretty good, baseball very good ... and Baylor is better than TCU in the country club sports (golf, tennis)
And who cares if ISU and Colorado don't have baseball? I mean, there are only three men's swim teams in the conference. Texas doesn't have a wrestling team
by FreedomDip on Nov 3, 2007 10:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Agreed...
...When you sit back and look at the SEC's entire body of work, they are just a conference full of above average teams and one very good one. On any given week, each team in the SEC is capable of beating just about everyone in the country, or losing to anyone in the country. Witness the entire SEC East division. Florida was up 10 in Baton Rouge in the fourth quarter, and couldn't hold the lead. They blasted the current division leader (Tennessee) by 39, then they proceeded to lose at home to Auburn. Georgia is another ball of inconsistency. The Dawgs pulled a clunker at home against South Carolina, but played extremely well in this past weekend's Cocktail Party. It's a different animal every week. It's a very solid league, but definitely not the runaway #1 conference that many pundits claim it to be.
by Sweed4Heisman on Oct 30, 2007 6:31 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Dumb question
PB, I know you use the notation all the time, but I've never quite figured out what it means. Does a negative number signify the amount by which the team lost to the other team? Some sort of ranking-at-the-time valuation?
Also, you listed Illinois twice and left out Penn State from the Big Televen.
by Kahuna on Oct 30, 2007 6:57 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Yeah
A Texas box would say UCF +3, as in, we beat Central Florida by 3 points.
by Peter Bean on Oct 30, 2007 8:21 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
another way to look at it
Two statistics stand out:
Record against BCS teams - almost every conference hovers around .500, so no real discrimination there
Non-BCS losses with number of teams ranked in top 25 in parentheses
Big 12 5 (4)
Big 10 4 (2)
Pac 10 5 (3)
Big East 2 (3)
ACC 2 (4)
SEC 0 (7)
The SEC clearly stands out, probably because all their teams' losses were to another BCS team or to a SEC team and hence a large number of teams in top 25.
I do agree that the SEC is a league with one top team and 6 or 7 good teams and no bad ones. The Big 12 by contrast is a league with 3 really good teams (Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas) and only 2 good teams (Texas, KState) and and 3 really bad teams (Baylor, Iowa State, and Nebraska).
by burnt in ny on Oct 30, 2007 8:02 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Last Saturday night
In the open thread, BrooklynHorn said playing in the SEC is like playing the RRS every week. You have to emotionally get up for a very good rival in a 90,000-plus environment every single week
It's almost impossible to go through that conference undefeated and you must be a bonafide stud to escape with zero or one loss
Maybe that's why one-loss LSU (2003) and Florida (2006) teams had rather easy BCS title games. They had a rough sked, then a month to get ready for a team.
by FreedomDip on Oct 31, 2007 8:10 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
In the Big 10 box
at the very first, Illinois is duplicated and Penn State is left out.
You live too close to Joe Pa to mess with him now. He'll come run a catheter through ya.
by whills on Oct 30, 2007 8:11 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
The boys of the Big Ten..
...have been spinning in triplicate in their futile effort to somehow overcome the stomping their Big-Ten heroes (Ohio State) received at the hands of the Florida Gators 41-14! They lost...BIG! They need to turn the page and get over it.
If they face LSU this January, the BuckNuts will get mudholed yet again.
by HornChamps on Oct 30, 2007 8:42 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
ACC Stats incorrect
Your ACC Stat lines are a little wrong. You mixed NCSU and Clemson. I'd consider Notre Dame a BCS win as well for the teams that've beat 'em. Notre Dame is terrible but still technically BCSish.
Now, I'm an ACC fan and I'm really looking forward to showdown weekend after Thanksgiving. We've got FSU-UF, Clemson-USC(e), Wake-Vandy, and of course Tech-ugag. There's a lot of bowl movement dependent on those four games since all of those teams will most likely not make their respective conference title games. Plus, a lot of legitimacy is riding on those four games for both conferences. Frankly, it's a Southeastern showdown.
by JohnPTFE on Nov 1, 2007 12:49 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
also...
ACC is 3-4 vs. Big East:
UVA over Pitt
UVA over UConn
MD over Rutgers
WVU over MD
LU over NCSU
UConn over Duke
USF over UNC
by JohnPTFE on Nov 1, 2007 12:51 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
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