Things that make you go hmmm!

[Rolltide94]

The fact is Bama's had the opportunities to play in the CCG and NCG. Had they been playing the real gauntlet of final AP top 10 SEC teams in the regular season, the OP's stat suggests the Bama wouldn't have had those opportunotties.

That's all.

The real fallacy of the above argument is that when you play teams that are ranked in the top 10 and beat them then they tend to fall out of the top ten...think LSU last year, Florida and Arkansas in 2010 etc... Conversely when you lose to a team just outside the top ten, when you are ranked in the top ten, it tends to put them in the top ten...think A&M last year. It is a zero sum game, if one team wins the other has to lose, and we have done a lot of winning lately. If you doubt this statement, then find me a team that has a better record against year end ranked top ten than they do against game ranked top ten...I'll wait.

So, you and the OP can "suggest" any stats you want, but as they say, figures lie, and liars figure. All I know is that Saban has won 3/4's of the games I considered big at the time and he's had us in every game we've played with the possible exception of Utah. I will take that any day of the week and hope it continues for awhile, because I remember well what the pre-Saban desert looked like.

 

[metal_frk_334]

Chill out. wth does it matter if Bama has a tough time with the toughest teams, in the toughest division of the toughest conference. I still see a team that people dread to play and a room full of hardware. We've all seen Bama play in the biggest of the biggest games and come out on top every time. Won the SEC twice in four years. I don't care what stat sheet anyone put together. Bama set the bar.

 

[Hornsstampede2.0]

Just in the past 4 years Alabama has went into the NCG ranked #2 and beaten #1.
In each of those games it was done handily. That's 3 wins against #1 teams
right away.

That is irrelevant to the point of the OP.

The unique point of the trivia question was to show that ALABAMA does not have a slew of dominant regular season victories that we all seem to remember.

ALABAMA uses the perception of regular season domination to get voted in over anyone else.

I was amazed to see how little regular season big game wins they have had.
1-19 was stunning.

I thought they had at least 5 or 6 quality wins in the last 15 regular season SEC seasons.

It sort of creates a paradox of sorts.

They get to play the title game based on their ability to win the title game.

A minor argument could be made that ALABAMA sort of gets a free pass to the title game despite having only 1 win versus a top 10 conference opponent in its last 20 tries (1-19)

It is nothing to freak out and lose your mind over.

Alabama just happens to have the worst record of anyone in this particular category.

 

[Gator]

I didn't know that I was creating a fire storm when I started this thread!!!

All I know is that when it comes to beating teams that finished the year in the top 10 in the BCS era nobody comes close to Oklahoma and USC. .

??? What?

Here are the top 15 schools in terms of winning percentage against teams that ENDED the year in the AP Top 10 from 1998 to 2012.

1 Florida St. (18-26-1)--0.411
2 Miami (FL) (18-28-0)--0.391
3 Florida (25-41-1)--0.381
4 USC (17-33-0)--0.340
5 Ohio St. (13-27-2)--0.333
6 Notre Dame (17-36-1)--0.324
7 Oklahoma (13-28-0)--0.317
8 Auburn (16-36-1)--0.311
9 Michigan (15-38-1)--0.287
10 LSU (15-42-0)--0.263
11 Nebraska (12-34-0)--0.261
12 Alabama (12-35-0)--0.255
13 Tennessee (15-46-1)--0.250
13 Boise St. (2-6-0)--0.250
15 Texas (9-29-0)--0.237

College Football Trivia

As far as your topic goes...Some notable programs that have faired worse than VT against teams that finished in the top 10. Clemson, Penn St, South Carolina, and Georgia.

VT has plenty of company....Clemson, PSU, South Carolina, UGa...(all games in BCS era)

29 Georgia (5-37-1)--0.128
35 Texas Tech (4-30-0)--0.118
36 Virginia (3-24-0)--0.111
38 Arizona St. (4-36-0)--0.1
38 Virginia Tech (3-27-0)--0.1
42 Arkansas (5-48-0)--0.094
43 Washington St. (3-30-0)--0.091
44 Purdue (4-42-0)--0.087
47 Oregon St. (3-34-0)--0.081
47 California (3-34-0)--0.081
49 West Virginia (2-23-0)--0.08
50 Oklahoma St. (3-35-0)--0.079
51 Penn St. (3-37-0)--0.075
54 South Carolina (3-42-0)--0.067
54 Georgia Tech (2-28-0)--0.067
56 North Carolina (1-22-1)--0.062[4]
58 Kansas (2-34-0)--0.056
59 Iowa St. (2-35-0)--0.054
60 Mississippi (2-36-0)--0.053
61 Rutgers (1-19-0)--0.05
62 Mississippi St. (2-39-0)--0.049
64 Missouri (2-44-0)--0.043
66 Clemson (1-28-0)--0.034
67 Pittsburgh (1-29-0)--0.033
67 Maryland (1-29-0)--0.033
69 Syracuse (1-30-0)--0.032
70 Northwestern (1-34-0)--0.029
71 Minnesota (1-35-0)--0.028
72 Arizona (1-40-0)--0.024
73 Kentucky (1-45-0)--0.022

but what surprised me was that Beamer had such a poor record vs Top 10 teams. In the BCS era Beamer (and VT) have been ranked in the final AP poll 13 of the 15 seasons yet they are only 3-27 vs AP top 10 teams (including OOC, CCG and Bowl games)!

 

[BamaTee1]

That is irrelevant to the point of the OP.

The unique point of the trivia question was to show that ALABAMA does not have a slew of dominant regular season victories that we all seem to remember.

ALABAMA uses the perception of regular season domination to get voted in over anyone else.

I was amazed to see how little regular season big game wins they have had.
1-19 was stunning.

I thought they had at least 5 or 6 quality wins in the last 15 regular season SEC seasons.

It sort of creates a paradox of sorts.

They get to play the title game based on their ability to win the title game.

A minor argument could be made that ALABAMA sort of gets a free pass to the title game despite having only 1 win versus a top 10 conference opponent in its last 20 tries (1-19)

It is nothing to freak out and lose your mind over.

Alabama just happens to have the worst record of anyone in this particular category.

So what year should they not have been there with all this fake regular season persona? Undefeated 2009? 2011 when they lost by 3 in OT to #1 LSU and whipped everyone else(OSU loses to 26 pt underdog Iowa St and squeaked by several more) or last year when there only loss was to Texas A&M and Oregon lost late to Stanford and Kansas St was walloped by Baylor? If you want to say another team has some type of argument fine but to say Alabama did not belong is just assenine! Why oh why even try?

 

[BamaTee1]

A minor argument could be made that ALABAMA sort of gets a free pass to the title game despite having only 1 win versus a top 10 conference opponent in its last 20 tries (1-19)

Do you realize how stupid your summary above is? There's this funny thing that happens when deciding these things. They consider the CCG, quality of the team in top 10 when they played, out of conference games against quality opponents. This eliminates a team that beats #1 USC at the beginning and falls like a meteor! They look at ALL those top 10 teams Bama beat when they played and they don't penalize them like this stupid thread because that team is still good but ranked # 12 or something. And they also don't say that win doesn't count because it was a non conference win. Seriously Horns?

 

[BamaTee1]

And of course the eye candy test too!

 

[WhiteMamba]

 

[KansasSooner]

Trivia brings out the worst in people. That's why I never understood why the game "Trivial Pursuit" was so big back in the 80s. I saw more heated arguments over that game than anything I can remember. I think it was probably responsible for a few divorces back then, too.

 

[whomperwauson]

The problem I see is that this does not reflect the teams overall value, if you dominate 11 opponents and lose by 1-3 points to your only in conference top 10 team then your obviously a solid team. Just straight wins v losses does not really tell the whole story.

Also the stats for Beamer and JoePa are misleading, the losing record shown is vs top 10 teams only while they were only ranked in the top 10 seven times. Thus in a idealistic reality when on a close to level playing field they are both just under 50% going 3-4, the other losses would be times when they were ranked but not in the top 10, but they were playing against top 10 competition thus they would be expected to lose.

 

[whomperwauson]

Teams have bad games, players have bad games, and coaches have bad games. One game does not reflect a season, and each season you average 20 something new players and 20 something players lost. You would expect teams to lose most of the games where they play against highly ranked teams especially when they themselves are not highly ranked. The fact that coaches can continue to lead their teams to winning most of their games is more indicative of their ability to coach than a select statistic against the best opponents they faced.

 

[WhiteMamba]

The problem I see is that this does not reflect the teams overall value, if you dominate 11 opponents and lose by 1-3 points to your only in conference top 10 team then your obviously a solid team. Just straight wins v losses does not really tell the whole story.

QUOTE]

I totally agree. In the last 4 years that is Oregon in a nutshell.

All but 2 losses very close games (fg) against top 10 teams. both ooc and in conference.

 

[Codaxx]

The real fallacy of the above argument is that when you play teams that are ranked in the top 10 and beat them then they tend to fall out of the top ten...think LSU last year, Florida and Arkansas in 2010 etc... Conversely when you lose to a team just outside the top ten, when you are ranked in the top ten, it tends to put them in the top ten...think A&M last year. It is a zero sum game, if one team wins the other has to lose, and we have done a lot of winning lately. If you doubt this statement, then find me a team that has a better record against year end ranked top ten than they do against game ranked top ten...I'll wait.

So, you and the OP can "suggest" any stats you want, but as they say, figures lie, and liars figure. All I know is that Saban has won 3/4's of the games I considered big at the time and he's had us in every game we've played with the possible exception of Utah. I will take that any day of the week and hope it continues for awhile, because I remember well what the pre-Saban desert looked like.

-
Not quite a fallacy. IF you beat them and they win all of the rest of their games, they end up in the top 10. If you lose to them and they lose several other games it is a coin flip. Your game is merely 7% of the season with team X, so saying your game is the fulcrum security is a bit of a stretch. 2010 Florida lost 5 games. I doubt they are top 10 if they beat Bama. Arkansas was number 8 coming into the bowl game and lost. They probably get ranked in the top 10, but clearly each case is different

 

[4down20]

That is irrelevant to the point of the OP.

The unique point of the trivia question was to show that ALABAMA does not have a slew of dominant regular season victories that we all seem to remember.

ALABAMA uses the perception of regular season domination to get voted in over anyone else.

I was amazed to see how little regular season big game wins they have had.
1-19 was stunning.

I thought they had at least 5 or 6 quality wins in the last 15 regular season SEC seasons.

It sort of creates a paradox of sorts.

They get to play the title game based on their ability to win the title game.

A minor argument could be made that ALABAMA sort of gets a free pass to the title game despite having only 1 win versus a top 10 conference opponent in its last 20 tries (1-19)

It is nothing to freak out and lose your mind over.

Alabama just happens to have the worst record of anyone in this particular category.

It's not a category, it's narrowing things down to create some stupid meaningless stat.

Alabama has 5 losses TOTAL in the past 4 years. 3 of those came in 2010 when Alabama did not win a national championship. They have multiple wins against top10 teams. They have even more wins when you count top25 as most people do. But now suddenly today, top25 teams aren't quality wins.

Number of ways things have been narrowed down to create this "stat".

1. Date. Only counting the past 15 years, 10 years of which Alabama wasn't even sniffing a national championship.
2. Only counting conference games.
3. Only counting top10 teams.
4. Only using final AP poll results.
5. Not allowing anything outside the regular season. No SECCG and no CG.

 

[KansasSooner]

Number of ways things have been narrowed down to create this "stat".

1. Date. Only counting the past 15 years, 10 years of which Alabama wasn't even sniffing a national championship.
2. Only counting conference games.
3. Only counting top10 teams.
4. Only using final AP poll results.
5. Not allowing anything outside the regular season. No SECCG and no CG.

And that's why it's just trivia, obscure but funny. It's like making any obscure category and finding the answer, like what team kicked the most field goals in games decided by 10 points or less, in the rain? Trivial stat but probably someone knows the answer to it.

 

[TigerBait1971]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Mark Twain

 

[4down20]

And that's why it's just trivia, obscure but funny. It's like making any obscure category and finding the answer, like what team kicked the most field goals in games decided by 10 points or less, in the rain? Trivial stat but probably someone knows the answer to it.

Tell that to the dumbfucks who keep thinking it's somehow pointing out Alabama gets a free pass on things.

 

[TigerBait1971]

And that's why it's just trivia, obscure but funny. It's like making any obscure category and finding the answer, like what team kicked the most field goals in games decided by 10 points or less, in the rain? Trivial stat but probably someone knows the answer to it.

Prolly an SEC team.....




just saying.....

 

[BamaTee1]

Tell that to the dumbfucks who keep thinking it's somehow pointing out Alabama gets a free pass on things.

I already told you that because Alabama has won 3 of the last 4 NC's we're not allowed to defend our team or so I was told!

 

[KansasSooner]

Mark Twain

Wrongly attributed to Twain, it was Benjamin Disraeli who uttered that quote.