Week 15 Top 25 Discussion Thread

[Hook'Em0608]

1. Auburn
2. Florida St
3. Ohio St
4. Stanford
5. Missouri
6. Baylor
7. Michigan St
8. Alabama
9. South Carolina
10. UCF
11. Oklahoma
12. Arizona St
13. Oklahoma St
14. Louisville
15. Clemson
16. Georgia
17. LSU
18. Virginia Tech
19. UCLA
20. Duke
21. Notre Dame
22. Wisconsin
23. Oregon
24. Northern Ill
25. Texas A&M

 

[BigAppleBadger]

That's appalling.

 

[ArrogantBAMAFan]

LOL @ Auburn being #1...it might happen in January.

 

[uncfan103]

He uses a computer system. He doesn't actually think Auburn is better than FSU or that D00k is better than Oregon. His computer just tells him that.

His computer system is also projecting for how teams do in the bowls I think, so it probably has Auburn defeating FSU

 

[Hook'Em0608]

His computer is broken if it tells him Missouri goes in front of Bama. Bama has actually beaten several ranked teams this year. If it wasn't for head to head and the extra tough game against Missouri I would put them in front of Auburn. Their regular season resume is better than any 1 loss team in the country. No way any computer system puts them at #8. Watch when they come out. I know certain people are sensitive about criticizing their computer poll, but come on man. This is why I don't like them in a poll. Put them all in their own category and we would probably get a really nice top 25 as they all offset each others outlier rankings.

 

[uncfan103]

His computer is broken if it tells him Missouri goes in front of Bama. Bama has actually beaten several ranked teams this year. If it wasn't for head to head and the extra tough game against Missouri I would put them in front of Auburn. Their regular season resume is better than any 1 loss team in the country. No way any computer system puts them at #8. Watch when they come out. I know certain people are sensitive about criticizing their computer poll, but come on man. This is why I don't like them in a poll. Put them all in their own category and we would probably get a really nice top 25 as they all offset each others outlier rankings.

His computer told him Michigan State had a better SOS than Alabama. And, Mizzous was better than both of them.

 

[Hook'Em0608]

His computer told him Michigan State had a better SOS than Alabama. And, Mizzous was better than both of them.

I would like to see the algorithm that tells him that…Not to mention Alabama only loss to his #1 team...

 

[uncfan103]

I would like to see the algorithm that tells him that…Not to mention Alabama only loss to his #1 team...

I don't have it. He'll have to explain it.

 

[4down20]

Bowl games are not yet entered. Probably next week they will get entered.

Auburn is #1 because they have beaten Alabama and Missouri and won the SEC west. They have played a tough schedule and have only 1 loss.

Florida St has an extremely weak schedule. Sure they have blown people out, but they haven't blown anyone big out except for Clemson, who also lost to South Carolina and isn't top10 quality.

Missouri has also played a tougher schedule then all the ones mentioned thus far.

SoS Rankings:

Missouri: 19
Auburn: 25
Ohio St: 50
Alabama: 77
Florida St: 87

And that is the difference.

As I have said multiple times, most of you guys around here bitch and moan about how people come to their rankings, and you talk about how SoS and all these other factors should be most important, but when it's actually done - you don't like the results. Because in the end, all you are doing is throwing your own biases out there and cherry picking data points to back it up.

These rank the best seasons. If you want to know what it see's as the best teams, without losses taken into account, the results are much different:

1. Florida St - would be predicted to beat everyone.
2. Alabama - would be predicted to beat everyone except Florida St.
7. Ohio St - would be predicted to win against 95% of all teams.
15. Missouri - 89%
22. Auburn - 82%

So the next time you want to sit around and talk about SoS being so important, just remember - you don't actually believe it.

 

[Hook'Em0608]

I'm not doing anything that you are accusing me of. I have a computer ranking system also that I use for ranking basketball teams. It isn't all that different than what I have as my opinion poll. You have some extreme outliers in your computer rankings. Your formula needs to be tweaked for football apparently. I bet it works great for basketball where you have more games to enter data on.

Here is mine.

1. Auburn
2. Florida St
3. Alabama
4. Stanford
5. Michigan St
6. Ohio St
7. Baylor
8. Oregon
9. South Carolina
10. Missouri
11. Oklahoma St
12. Oklahoma
13. Arizona St
14. UCLA
15. UCF
16. Clemson
17. LSU
18. Wisconsin
19. Georgia
20. Washington
21. USC
22. Notre Dame
23. Texas
24. North Dakota St
25. Louisville

Not all that different from my opinion poll for the most part. You are wrong in your accusation that SOS means nothing to any of us. We just don't agree with your assessment that SOS is the only thing that matters. A combination of SOS and the human element is a better ranking system.

 

[uncfan103]

Bowl games are not yet entered. Probably next week they will get entered.

Auburn is #1 because they have beaten Alabama and Missouri and won the SEC west. They have played a tough schedule and have only 1 loss.

Florida St has an extremely weak schedule. Sure they have blown people out, but they haven't blown anyone big out except for Clemson, who also lost to South Carolina and isn't top10 quality.

Missouri has also played a tougher schedule then all the ones mentioned thus far.

SoS Rankings:

Missouri: 19
Auburn: 25
Ohio St: 50
Alabama: 77
Florida St: 87

And that is the difference.

As I have said multiple times, most of you guys around here bitch and moan about how people come to their rankings, and you talk about how SoS and all these other factors should be most important, but when it's actually done - you don't like the results. Because in the end, all you are doing is throwing your own biases out there and cherry picking data points to back it up.

These rank the best seasons. If you want to know what it see's as the best teams, without losses taken into account, the results are much different:

1. Florida St - would be predicted to beat everyone.
2. Alabama - would be predicted to beat everyone except Florida St.
7. Ohio St - would be predicted to win against 95% of all teams.
15. Missouri - 89%
22. Auburn - 82%

So the next time you want to sit around and talk about SoS being so important, just remember - you don't actually believe it.

How does your SoS get calculated? Because it has Ohio State and Michigan State having a tougher schedule than Alabama, but I'm pretty sure 99% of team SEC fans would disagree. Same with Mizzou, is their schedule that much better than Alabama or is the SEC just overrated by humans?

 

[4down20]

I'm not doing anything that you are accusing me of. I have a computer ranking system also that I use for ranking basketball teams. It isn't all that different than what I have as my opinion poll. You have some extreme outliers in your computer rankings. Your formula needs to be tweaked for football apparently. I bet it works great for basketball where you have more games to enter data on.

Here is mine.

1. Auburn
2. Florida St
3. Alabama
4. Stanford
5. Michigan St
6. Ohio St
7. Baylor
8. Oregon
9. South Carolina
10. Missouri
11. Oklahoma St
12. Oklahoma
13. Arizona St
14. UCLA
15. UCF
16. Clemson
17. LSU
18. Wisconsin
19. Georgia
20. Washington
21. USC
22. Notre Dame
23. Texas
24. North Dakota St
25. Louisville

Not all that different from my opinion poll for the most part. You are wrong in your accusation that SOS means nothing to any of us. We just don't agree with your assessment that SOS is the only thing that matters. A combination of SOS and the human element is a better ranking system.

It's only written for football, and it wouldn't at all be compatible with basketball because it's based on stats and game predictions and is way more complicated than some kind of win/loss formula.

I have no use for the human element.

 

[Hook'Em0608]

It's only written for football, and it wouldn't at all be compatible with basketball because it's based on stats and game predictions and is way more complicated than some kind of win/loss formula.

I have no use for the human element.

Well, then I assume you don't believe Alabama deserved to play against LSU a couple years ago? I've yet to see a SOS system that had Bama higher...

 

[4down20]

How does your SoS get calculated? Because it has Ohio State and Michigan State having a tougher schedule than Alabama, but I'm pretty sure 99% of team SEC fans would disagree. Same with Mizzou, is their schedule that much better than Alabama or is the SEC just overrated by humans?

First thing that happens is that all the game stats are adjusted based on who they play against. For example, rushing for 200 yards against Alabama is more valuable than rushing for 200 yards against Georgia St. This is done to every game that is played, and this gives me a kind of base value for the teams. These are done in different categories, such as rushing, rushing defense, passing, passing defense, points scored etc.

I then take those stats and they are used for game predictions. This would be passing vs passing defenses, etc. I predict every team vs every other team on a neutral field. So Alabama vs everyone but Alabama, Florida St vs everyone but Florida St, etc. That gives me a power score, which is the % of teams that team is predicted to win against. So Florida has a power score of 100, because they are expected to beat everyone. Alabama has a power score of 99.19 because they are expected to win 99.19% of the time(losing to Florida St basically).

The raw/overall SoS is the average power score of the teams they face. But when it comes to ranking, can't use the raw SoS. Instead, when it's ranked you get the amount of points of the power score of the team you beat. So for example, Auburn gets 99.19 points for beating Alabama. Losing to a team equals a loss of points, 100-team power. So losing to Alabama results in -0.81 points for the game. Losing to say a team with a power score of 30.40 gives you a -69.60 score, and winning gives 30.40. And each game they play gets them points, which is then averaged out.

That's the short answer.

Alabama has played a weak schedule this year. Most people just want to look at the top end of the schedule and ignore the cupcakes. I don't. Alabama played a bunch of easy/pathetic teams. Most fans have extreme views of everything and act like there is no middle, but even a top50 team can be difficult for a top team and there is a large difference between playing top50 teams week after week than playing teams ranked 100+. I call it the Boise St argument where they focus on only a few games of the year and act as if everything else is equal, but it's not.

 

[4down20]

Well, then I assume you don't believe Alabama deserved to play against LSU a couple years ago? I've yet to see a SOS system that had Bama higher...

I had Alabama #2 and LSU #1. Ok St was #7. The only time raw SoS actually applies is if teams are undefeated. Otherwise you have to look at the losses, and the Iowa St loss was a big downer for Oklahoma St.

Overall I had their schedules pretty close, Ok St was like 3% more difficult. Hardly anything to write home about, and certainly no where near the difference of Auburn and Florida St this year.

 

[Hook'Em0608]

How convenient...

 

[HizzleRocker]

1. Auburn
2. Florida St
3. Ohio St
4. Stanford
5. Missouri
6. Baylor
7. Michigan St
8. Alabama
9. South Carolina
10. UCF
11. Oklahoma
12. Arizona St
13. Oklahoma St
14. Louisville
15. Clemson
16. Georgia
17. LSU
18. Virginia Tech
19. UCLA
20. Duke
21. Notre Dame
22. Wisconsin
23. Oregon
24. Northern Ill
25. Texas A&M

 

[4down20]

That's actually kind of low for Arizona St. The rankings composite has them #9 currently(when full it uses 125 different rankings, right now it's at 72). Arizona St has a very good SoS, I have them #18 overall right now.

Georgia in the same rankings is #18, so I have them a tad higher than average. 5th toughest SoS in the country.

Virginia Tech is #32 in those same rankings, so I have them a good bit higher than everyone else(highest of all right now, but another also has them #18). But 8th overall SoS.

 

[4down20]

Btw, why doesn't anyone mention Oregon @ #23. That's the one I think is crazy.

 

[Hook'Em0608]

I think the whole thing is crazy so no need to mention Oregon! I give you credit for the hard work though.