Losses:
Texas - lost @ Texas Tech 39-33
Florida - lost vs. Ole Miss 31-30
Oklahoma - lost vs. Texas 45-35
Alabama - lost vs. Florida 31-20
Southern Cal - lost @ Oregon State 28-21
Texas Tech - lost @ Oklahoma 65-21
Penn State - lost @ Iowa 24-23
Looking at these losses, we would rank the teams based on their one loss as follows:
1. Texas
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma
4. Penn State
5. Florida
6. Southern Cal
7. Texas Tech
Add in the two mid major undefeated teams, and here is an examination of one strength of schedule measure (SOS rank in parenthesis).
1. Texas (1)
2. Florida (2)
3. Oklahoma (3)
4. Texas Tech (5)
5. Penn State (17)
6. Utah (24)
7. Alabama (32)
8. Southern Cal (42)
9. Boise State (69)
Taking the two factors together, given that Texas has what we would consider the best loss and the highest strength of schedule, we are going with 1. Texas 2. Florida 3. Oklahoma, and so on, and so forth.
Lucky for Oklahoma fans, the blogpoll doesn't crown any "mythical" national champion.
Similarly, we are keeping the Eagles in the poll this week at No. 20. Seems a bit unfair to drop them out of the poll entirely (like the AP) because the Eagles had to play an extra game while Georgia Tech and Florida State were sitting in the clubhouse. We were down to our backup, redshirt freshman QB making his second career start and the defense looked completely gassed (fourth consecutive "must win" game). A 9-4 season is enough in our opinion to warrant getting some poll love. Coulter Krugman award be damned.
However, we didn't treat Missouri and Ball State with those same kid gloves. Missouri drops 5 to No. 23 and Ball State is out this week. Really, what was their excuse?
As always, comments/thoughts are welcome.
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
| 1 | Texas (11-1) |  1 |
| 2 | Florida (12-1) | 1 |
| 3 | Oklahoma (12-1) | 1 |
| 4 | Alabama (12-1) |  3 |
| 5 | Southern Cal (11-1) | -- |
| 6 | Texas Tech (11-1) | -- |
| 7 | Utah (12-0) | -- |
| 8 | Penn State (11-1) | -- |
| 9 | Boise State (12-0) | -- |
| 10 | Ohio State (10-2) | -- |
| 11 | Georgia Tech (9-3) | -- |
| 12 | Cincinnati (11-2) | -- |
| 13 | TCU (10-2) | 1 |
| 14 | Oklahoma State (9-3) | 1 |
| 15 | Georgia (9-3) | 1 |
| 16 | Michigan State (9-3) | 2 |
| 17 | Oregon (9-3) | 3 |
| 18 | Pittsburgh (9-3) | 3 |
| 19 | Virginia Tech (9-4) | 5 |
| 20 | Boston College (9-4) | 3 |
| 21 | Mississippi (8-4) | 1 |
| 22 | Oregon State (8-4) | 4 |
| 23 | Missouri (9-4) | 5 |
| 24 | Brigham Young (10-2) | 1 |
| 25 | Florida State (8-4) | 2 |
Dropped Out: Ball State (#16), West Virginia (#22), Northwestern (#25).
Welcome! Oregon State
Waiting Room: Northwestern, Iowa, Ball State
1 comment:
That's an interesting SoS measure. I'm guessing it's doing some sort of win-loss analysis which is killing OU since Washington and Chattanooga are like the two worst teams ever.
I think considering the aggregate possibility that a team could loose is a better SoS measure though. Think about it this way:
Texas non-common opponents were Colorado, Rice, Arkansas, UTEP, and FAU. I'd say the chance those teams could beat UT are something like: Colorado (3%) Rice (1%), Arkansas (1%), UTEP (1%), FAU (1%)=total (7%).
The chances of OU loosing to their non-commons might be something like: Washington (0%), Chatt (0%), Nebraska (4%), TCU (6%), Cincy (4%)=total (14%).
Regardless of whether you agree exactly with my %s, the point is that while Rice/Ark/UTEP/FAU are all way better than Washington and Chatt, they're still so awful that they have effectively the same shot at winning as Wash/Chatt. At least OU played some teams that could conceivably at least challenge them (acually, I'd say TCU gave us our 3rd best game). Once you reach a certain level of crappyness, what difference does it make?
[Aside: The only reason we played Chatt this year is because Clemson and then MTSU backed-out of contracts to play us. Not that it matters for SoS, I just don't want people thinking we actually schedule teams like that normally.]
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