Steele's 2017 Toughest Schedule Rankings - ESPN Insidera

[outofyourmind]

Because shitty teams are better at the beginning of the season and worse at the end of the season, DUH!!!

I never really understood the Nov thing.
I'd much rather that be the first game of the season to get tuned up on.
Why play a hard Conference game right out of the gate.

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[RoyUte]

I never really understood the Nov thing.
I'd much rather that be the first game of the season to get tuned up on.
Why play a hard Conference game right out of the gate.

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It's so they can get an additional bye week right before they play their rival. You don't think Utah would have rather played Southern Utah the second to last week instead of Oregon (who was bad last year but still capable of beating them, obviously). Plus the players have a recovery week headed into the final game.

 

[4down20]

All SOS metrics use total wins, which there would have been 7 less for the SEC last year. So there are 0 fans of SEC teams that don't thump their chest about how many ranked opponents they are playing or how many bowl teams their conference had?

Utah does open against North Dakota, at the beginning of the year, not the week before their rivalry game to get an extra bye. I'm ok with 1 FCS game at the beginning of the season, not scattered throughout the season. And a team should (at a minimum) play most of their conference.

No, all SoS metric do not use total wins. Some don't use wins directly at all(what I generally think of as the good ones). I did computer rankings in the past and my SoS method used team strength, not wins.

Wins are just an easy/basic way of measuring team strength. However, it's extremely flawed because it would suggest teams with equal records are equally strong, and that's just not the case. A team that goes 10-2 in a major conference is going to be stronger than a team that goes 10-2 in the AAC. But win% formulas see these teams as equal and that's flawed.

People talk about ranks, wins, win% and those other things, not the good metrics. Which is fine because it's a ball park figure, and it's just chatter. But it's not without it's flaws.

In any event, like I showed in the math - it's such a small % of the schedule it doesn't have much effect. The other 90 games as a whole have much more weight.

BCF Toys - 2016 SOS Ratings

This is the SoS metric I go to. It also doesn't use wins to figure out it's SoS. It uses the FEI, which is advanced metrics to determine team strength. Then it looks at how an elite team would likely do against every teams schedule.

You're ok with when you play a cupcake, but have problems with how another team does it? Get over it. Auburn has a cupcake game the week before Alabama does, so what the fuck does it even matter? Your team plays cupcakes early because the philosophy is that it's better for the team because it gives them extra practice before getting into the meat of the schedule. Alabama opens with a top5 team this coming year in week 1 and saves a cupcake before it's rivalry game.

At best Auburn could have cried about it a few years ago because Auburn was playing Georgia the week before Alabama when we first moved our cupcake there. But now Auburn plays Georgia a week earlier and plays a FCS team the week before the Iron Bowl, so nobody gets an advantage.

I'm betting come week 1 when Utah is playing North Dakota and Alabama is playing Florida St, we won't hear shit about this topic just like every other year.

 

[4down20]

It's so they can get an additional bye week right before they play their rival. You don't think Utah would have rather played Southern Utah the second to last week instead of Oregon (who was bad last year but still capable of beating them, obviously). Plus the players have a recovery week headed into the final game.

Damn these teams taking a week to get healed up a bit before they play the most important game of the season.

It's fucking ruining the game having football players healthier when they face off I'm telling you!

 

[RoyUte]

Damn these teams taking a week to get healed up a bit before they play the most important game of the season.

It's fucking ruining the game having football players healthier when they face off I'm telling you!

Damn near the entire SEC does it and many of them play OOC opponents as their rival. Which does give them a competitive advantage against the opponent who didn't take the week before off.

So you think there is no difference in difficulty if Alabama opens with Florida State and having Mercer (2nd bye) before Auburn or Alabama opening with Mercer and having Florida State before Auburn?

You know damn well that it would much, much more difficult in the second scenario.

In Utah's case they would open with Washington and have North Dakota before playing Colorado. I would take that all day because even if Washington wins, it's an early season loss that is forgiven and then they would get a free win (2nd bye) before playing Colorado.

 

[4down20]

Damn near the entire SEC does it and many of them play OOC opponents as their rival. Which does give them a competitive advantage against the opponent who didn't take the week before off.

So you think there is no difference in difficulty if Alabama opens with Florida State and having Mercer (2nd bye) before Auburn or Alabama opening with Mercer and having Florida State before Auburn?

You know damn well that it would much, much more difficult in the second scenario.

In Utah's case they would open with Washington and have North Dakota before playing Colorado. I would take that all day because even if Washington wins, it's an early season loss that is forgiven and then they would get a free win (2nd bye) before playing Colorado.

You're just too fucking stupid to talk to. I hope for your sake you are trying to troll.

 

[jon2tanman]

Did an SEC team lose late to a cupcake? If they're all conference games they go 6-6. Not rocket science to schedule pussies to get more teams into bowl games.

 

[jon2tanman]

^7-7 not sure why I put 6-6. Either way 50% of the conference gets an extra loss. end thread....

 

[Rolltide94]

Did an SEC team lose late to a cupcake? If they're all conference games they go 6-6. Not rocket science to schedule pussies to get more teams into bowl games.

Says the guy whose team only made the playoffs because they played Rutgers, Idaho and Portland State...and who is following that up with Rutgers, Montana and Fresno St.

My bad, the Rutgers game is in Piscataway...kudos for opening with a tough road test...LOL.

Que "we were only 3 plays away from winning that game" in 3, 2, 1....

 

[RoyUte]

You're just too fucking stupid to talk to. I hope for your sake you are trying to troll.

So you have no answer because you're a dumb shit and you know I'm right. Thanks

 

[4down20]

Did an SEC team lose late to a cupcake? If they're all conference games they go 6-6. Not rocket science to schedule pussies to get more teams into bowl games.

But apparently, doing the math to see that you are talking about 3% of the entire schedule is rocket science for some of you.

 

[4down20]

So you have no answer because you're a dumb shit and you know I'm right. Thanks

You don't even have the ability to follow a conversation and I doubt you understand a single thing I say.

Meanwhile, I use to run my own metrics and predicted the winners of games etc using only stats(right about 75% of the time). I actually do have a clue what I'm talking about.

 

[socaljim242]

But apparently, doing the math to see that you are talking about 3% of the entire schedule is rocket science for some of you.

Playing a cupcake instead of another conference game affects at least 16% of your schedule. Playing the cupcake and not playing conference game affects your total schedule and your conference schedule if you sit down and factor in 7 less losses for the conference its a pretty sizable advantage when some SEC teams would have won only 6 and 5 games. I'm guess you skipped math .

 

[4down20]

Playing a cupcake instead of another conference game affects at least 16% of your schedule. Playing the cupcake and not playing conference game affects your total schedule and your conference schedule if you sit down and factor in 7 less losses for the conference its a pretty sizable advantage when some SEC teams would have won only 6 and 5 games. I'm guess you skipped math .

Not sure where you get 16%. For the way you are talking it would be a little over 8%.

But when you are talking about the opponents strength for the purpose of SoS, it's not 12 games, it's 96 games among 8 teams, with a maximum change of 7 losses - and that's only the most extreme case(7.2%). In the case of an SEC west team you'd be looking at more like 1-3 extra losses at best. Aka, between 1% and 3.1%

In terms of the entire conference, that would be 7 extra losses among 112 games, again that is the max and assuming you are replacing wins with losses in every case. That would be a max of 6%.

 

[socaljim242]

Not sure where you get 16%. For the way you are talking it would be a little over 8%.

But when you are talking about the opponents strength for the purpose of SoS, it's not 12 games, it's 96 games among 8 teams, with a maximum change of 7 losses - and that's only the most extreme case(7.2%). In the case of an SEC west team you'd be looking at more like 1-3 extra losses at best. Aka, between 1% and 3.1%

In terms of the entire conference, that would be 7 extra losses among 112 games, again that is the max and assuming you are replacing wins with losses in every case. That would be a max of 6%.

1 game out of the entire schedule would be around 8%. But not playing that cupcake affects more than one game because you wouldn't be playing just another team you would have two SEC teams playing each other.

 

[4down20]

1 game out of the entire schedule would be around 8%. But not playing that cupcake affects more than one game because you wouldn't be playing just another team you would have two SEC teams playing each other.

Potential opponents you would add to Alabama's schedule that apparently warrants all this crying from you:

Georgia
Florida
----------
Missouri
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Kentucky


So about 33% of the time you have the possibility of adding a quality team, or on average about 1 every 3 years.

 

[socaljim242]

Potential opponents you would add to Alabama's schedule that apparently warrants all this crying from you:

Georgia
Florida
----------
Missouri
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Kentucky


So about 33% of the time you have the possibility of adding a quality team, or on average about 1 every 3 years.

Whats the percentage if you constantly schedule Mercer - Chatanooga and Charlston Southern? And always at home? If you played one more conference team you might get Florida @ Florida . Is that the same as Mercer @ home? Whats the percentage there?

 

[4down20]

Whats the percentage if you constantly schedule Mercer - Chatanooga and Charlston Southern? And always at home? If you played one more conference team you might get Florida @ Florida . Is that the same as Mercer @ home? Whats the percentage there?

Are you suggesting it would make a difference if Alabama scheduled Mercer as an away game?

 

[socaljim242]

Are you suggesting it would make a difference if Alabama scheduled Mercer as an away game?

Hmm pretty sure it was take away the extra cupcake (Mercer) and play a conference game which might be an away game. But nice try again. You certainly give it a good shot. lol

 

[4down20]

Hmm pretty sure it was take away the extra cupcake (Mercer) and play a conference game which might be an away game. But nice try again. You certainly give it a good shot. lol

Whats the percentage if you constantly schedule Mercer - Chatanooga and Charlston Southern? And always at home?

Yes, you did in fact make a big deal about playing Mercer at home.