2013 NCAA Football Thread

[Popeye_Card]

OHST and FLST are the most overrated undefeated teams in recent history

FSU is pretty legit from what I've watched. tOSU is not all that good, but you only have to go back to Notre Dame last year to find a worse team.

mehh i mean j winston is the real deal....but who have they played?

Their schedule has been ok, depending on the relative strength of the Big 10 to other conferences. Sure they played a close game against a mediocre Michigan, but rivalry games are a tough barometer.

Meanwhile, I think you can reasonably question if the SEC is a bit down this year. Mizzou and Auburn are in the championship game. None of the top teams really challenged a top non-conference team outside of Georgia (lost) and SC (won) playing Clemson.

Ohio State went undefeated while staying in the top 5 all season long. They have top talent and a pretty good coach. Are they the best team in the country? I don't know, but I don't really have any reasons to think they are weaker than Auburn or Mizzou. Alabama is still probably the best team--they just [expletive] themselves in the wrong game.

[MrCrowesGarden]

FWIW, Jerry Palm projects Mizzou at 4th in BCS standings.

http://cbsprt.co/BCSProjections

[Popeye_Card]

FWIW, Jerry Palm projects Mizzou at 4th in BCS standings.

http://cbsprt.co/BCSProjections

That looks like 5th to me.

[lukethedrifter]

FWIW, Jerry Palm projects Mizzou at 4th in BCS standings.

http://cbsprt.co/BCSProjections

That looks like 5th to me.

he updated it. That Sagarin #8 hurts.

So beat Auburn.

[JL21]

SEC non-con vs. other major conferences (spoilered for size):

[SHOW]

-Georgia beat Ga. Tech (#33 in the S&P prior to this weekend) without 6 or 7 key players, including their Heisman contender QB
-Carolina beat North Carolina (#35), Clemson (#7), and UCF (#20)
-'Bama beat Virginia Tech (#9)
-Ole Miss beat Texas (admittedly #61 in the S&P, but also 7-1 in the Big XII)
-Mizzou beat Indiana (#41)
-LSU beat TCU (#52)
-Vanderbilt beat Wake Forest (#74)
-Auburn beat Washington St. (#58)
------------------------------------------
-Florida lost to Miami (#25)
-Mississippi St. lost to Oklahoma St. (#14)
-Tennessee got demolished by Oregon (#9)
-Kentucky lost to Louisville (#12)
-Georgia lost to Clemson (#7)

Granted, those wins aren't against top teams other than Clemson and, arguably, Va. Tech. But in their only exposure against the other major conferences (mostly the ACC and Big XII), they did really well. 10-5, with all five losses coming to S&P top 25 squads, and four of those five losses coming from the conference bottom dwellers (and I'm throwing in the Louisville game for good measure; they aren't really a major conference team but their strength makes them pertinent).

Or if you'd rather think of it this way, SEC bowl-eligible teams went 10-2 against major conference opponents.

I don't really bring that up as concrete proof of the strength of the SEC. It's just data. Do with it what you will. Just for fun now, let's do the B1G (spoilered):

[SHOW]

-Iowa beat Iowa St. (#87)
-Michigan beat Notre Dame (#37)
-Northwestern beat Cal (#100)
-Ohio St. beat Cal (#100)
-Wisconsin beat BYU (#22)
-------------------------------------
-Michigan St. lost to Notre Dame (#37)
-Nebraska lost to UCLA (#28)
-Wisconsin lost to Arizona St. (#10)
-Indiana lost to Missouri (#11)
-Purdue lost to Notre Dame (#37)
-Illinois lost to Washington (#21)

5-6 vs. major conferences, three losses by eligible bowl teams, although those losses are all respectable. Then again, half of their wins are against Cal (1-11) and Iowa St. (3-9). If you want to include Cincinnati as a major non-con, the conference picks up one more win (Illinois) and one more loss (Purdue), although Cincinnati is #59 in the S&P. And yes, I'm aware of the whole Wisconsin-Arizona St. thing since every Badger fan on earth has been whining about it for 2 months straight.

For whatever it's worth, Sagarin ranks the conferences as such: 1. SEC West, 2. Pac 12 South, 3. Pac 12 North, 4. SEC East, 5. Big Ten Legends, 6. Big 12, 7. ACC Coastal, 8. Big Ten Leaders

As for the individual teams involved, Mizzou has the #41 strength of schedule; Ohio St. is #61; Auburn is #26; and Florida St. is #66. Is that enough to overcome the perceived lesser talent on Auburn or Mizzou? I don't really think it does, but that's just personal opinion. You could convince me that Mizzou and Auburn have played better than Ohio St. this year, but not so much that it overcomes the fact that each has a loss while Ohio St. doesn't.

(sorry for the 33esque tome)

[lukethedrifter]

Wait, the Illini beat Washington? Not WashU?

[JL21]

Crap, sorry about that. I fixed it now. I guess I saw the giant "W" logo for the Huskies and subconsciously took it to mean "WIN".

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I'd agree with popeye that the SEC is not as strong as it was a couple years ago. But, that's like saying that so and so is the shortest center in the NBA. The SEC is pretty clearly the best conference in the NCAA and even in a down year is still far ahead of the ACC and B1G. I just made that up in my head, but it looks like JL21 has some pretty good info that backs it up.

Per the use, the NCAA is completely worthless and doesn't have a system set up to determine a legit #1 team. If tOSU beats Michigan State and Florida State beats Duke or whatever horrible team the ACC has to play FSU and then Winston becomes ineligible and tOSU beats a dilapidated FSU team, I absolutely will not believe that tOSU is the best team in the nation. Fair or not, it's a [expletive] system and I'm glad they're expanding it.

Regardless, for the two best conferences to not be represented in the championship game is kind of absurd and really a gleaning example of why the system is broken.

[Popeye_Card]

SEC non-con vs. other major conferences (spoilered for size):

[SHOW]

-Georgia beat Ga. Tech (#33 in the S&P prior to this weekend) without 6 or 7 key players, including their Heisman contender QB
-Carolina beat North Carolina (#35), Clemson (#7), and UCF (#20)
-'Bama beat Virginia Tech (#9)
-Ole Miss beat Texas (admittedly #61 in the S&P, but also 7-1 in the Big XII)
-Mizzou beat Indiana (#41)
-LSU beat TCU (#52)
-Vanderbilt beat Wake Forest (#74)
-Auburn beat Washington St. (#58)
------------------------------------------
-Florida lost to Miami (#25)
-Mississippi St. lost to Oklahoma St. (#14)
-Tennessee got demolished by Oregon (#9)
-Kentucky lost to Louisville (#12)
-Georgia lost to Clemson (#7)

Granted, those wins aren't against top teams other than Clemson and, arguably, Va. Tech. But in their only exposure against the other major conferences (mostly the ACC and Big XII), they did really well. 10-5, with all five losses coming to S&P top 25 squads, and four of those five losses coming from the conference bottom dwellers (and I'm throwing in the Louisville game for good measure; they aren't really a major conference team but their strength makes them pertinent).

Or if you'd rather think of it this way, SEC bowl-eligible teams went 10-2 against major conference opponents.

I don't really bring that up as concrete proof of the strength of the SEC. It's just data. Do with it what you will. Just for fun now, let's do the B1G (spoilered):

[SHOW]

-Iowa beat Iowa St. (#87)
-Michigan beat Notre Dame (#37)
-Northwestern beat Cal (#100)
-Ohio St. beat Cal (#100)
-Wisconsin beat BYU (#22)
-------------------------------------
-Michigan St. lost to Notre Dame (#37)
-Nebraska lost to UCLA (#28)
-Wisconsin lost to Arizona St. (#10)
-Indiana lost to Missouri (#11)
-Purdue lost to Notre Dame (#37)
-Illinois lost to Washington (#21)

5-6 vs. major conferences, three losses by eligible bowl teams, although those losses are all respectable. Then again, half of their wins are against Cal (1-11) and Iowa St. (3-9). If you want to include Cincinnati as a major non-con, the conference picks up one more win (Illinois) and one more loss (Purdue), although Cincinnati is #59 in the S&P. And yes, I'm aware of the whole Wisconsin-Arizona St. thing since every Badger fan on earth has been whining about it for 2 months straight.

For whatever it's worth, Sagarin ranks the conferences as such: 1. SEC West, 2. Pac 12 South, 3. Pac 12 North, 4. SEC East, 5. Big Ten Legends, 6. Big 12, 7. ACC Coastal, 8. Big Ten Leaders

As for the individual teams involved, Mizzou has the #41 strength of schedule; Ohio St. is #61; Auburn is #26; and Florida St. is #66. Is that enough to overcome the perceived lesser talent on Auburn or Mizzou? I don't really think it does, but that's just personal opinion. You could convince me that Mizzou and Auburn have played better than Ohio St. this year, but not so much that it overcomes the fact that each has a loss while Ohio St. doesn't.

(sorry for the 33esque tome)

I hope that I didn't insinuate that the Big 10 is better than the SEC. My points were basically that while OSU lacks a statement win, they've won 24 straight games and most of them blowouts. I see no real reason to think they are overrated, though the D kinda sucks.

Meanwhile 1 loss SEC teams may not mean as much this year as it has in past years. You stick Mizzou or Auburn in the Big 10, and do they go undefeated? Probably. But they haven't really shown me that they're better than Ohio State with a statement win either. Mizzou's statement win is what, Georgia? Auburn's is obviously Alabama, but that's a game that Bama choked away as much as Auburn won it.

Alabama is pretty clearly the top team in the country, IMO. I'm not certain that because Auburn kinda flukishly beat them means that they deserve a chance at a national title with 1 loss ober two undefeated teams.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Alabama's FG kickers were 0-4 last night with 1 fg blocked, 1 fg returned for a TD, and 1 punt blocked.

Of course, none of that matters if they put Auburn away in the first half and don't allow them back in the game, or catch passes in the endzone, or convert a 4th and 1, ornot had any number of other mishaps that uncharacteristically were present and would have tilted the scales heavily in Alabama's favor.