SEC Bias

[whaler11]

In your own scenario, there's no point arguing with you. Results don't matter, so if Rutgers is 11-1 and plays South Carolina, and then wins--well, it was just one game. That means nothing.

I think there is a clear difference between a USC/Texas game and an NCSU/Florida State game. In the first, two undefeated teams play. Pundits assumed USC was better, but we couldn't tell, and in Southern Cal, Texas won. I'd say that I'd call them the better team. I'm not sure how you determine a better team if not by that.

As for NCSU/FSU--let's see where they are at the end of the year. It's a little early to make a judgment on this. I suspect we'd find FSU will go into bowl season with a loss or two, and NCSU with maybe four. In that case, I think we can say it was a fluke. But if NCSU finishes with the same record? I mean, in a 12 game season you got to go on something...

If Rutgers goes 11-1 and beats South Carolina in a bowl they will be recognized in the final rankings. If they are for real they get the chance to prove it against Cinci and Louisville. It's a shame they play Kent State and Army in late October.

Of course the results matter. You'd like to harp on a couple of upsets to say that rankings are wrong when you deem them incorrect.

I used NCSU and FSU to just illuminate the point that the better team doesn't always win. There aren't enough games in college football to ever be certain who the best team is. Texas may have been better than USC - but if any one of a dozen plays doesn't go their way they lose the game - if USC had won on late game heroics would you say they were clearly better?

Were the Giants better than the Patriots when New England was 18-0 and had beaten the Giants on the road in the regular season - or is something like the helmet catch enough to prove the Giants were really a better team and not just one who happened to be good enough to win one game.

 

[tzznandrew]

If Rutgers goes 11-1 and beats South Carolina in a bowl they will be recognized in the final rankings. If they are for real they get the chance to prove it against Cinci and Louisville. It's a shame they play Kent State and Army in late October.

Of course the results matter. You'd like to harp on a couple of upsets to say that rankings are wrong when you deem them incorrect.

I used NCSU and FSU to just illuminate the point that the better team doesn't always win. There aren't enough games in college football to ever be certain who the best team is. Texas may have been better than USC - but if any one of a dozen plays doesn't go their way they lose the game - if USC had won on late game heroics would you say they were clearly better?

Were the Giants better than the Patriots when New England was 18-0 and had beaten the Giants on the road in the regular season - or is something like the helmet catch enough to prove the Giants were really a better team and not just one who happened to be good enough to win one game.

Again, you seem to have ignored a major point. In all of the games I mentioned, the teams had similar or the same record. Hell, that's why I refused to say anything about NC State not being better than Florida State. Season isn't over yet, and who knows?

You judge a better team not solely by head-to-head, but by body of work. You can never fully connect all the teams in FBS--which is why computer rankings are so tenuous--but you can get closer in the NFL. You take body-of-work and you compare it with head-to-head. For instance: I think in 1999, UConn was better than Duke. Sure, they won a close game--but those things matter. They had similar records (so, despite the book-keepers--who adjust based off gamblers), and, head-to-head, UConn won. That's USC-Texas. That's Ohio State-Florida. That's Boise-Oklahoma (a little more wiggle room here, I confess).

If New England played and lost to a 14-2 team, or even a 13-3 team, I might say that team was better. I think, objectively, you look at a 18-1 team and say they are better than a 14-6 team. But that's not the comparison I made above.

 

[Marty Jackson]

If Rutgers goes 11-1 and beats South Carolina in a bowl they will be recognized in the final rankings. If they are for real they get the chance to prove it against Cinci and Louisville. It's a shame they play Kent State and Army in late October.

Of course the results matter. You'd like to harp on a couple of upsets to say that rankings are wrong when you deem them incorrect.

I used NCSU and FSU to just illuminate the point that the better team doesn't always win. There aren't enough games in college football to ever be certain who the best team is. Texas may have been better than USC - but if any one of a dozen plays doesn't go their way they lose the game - if USC had won on late game heroics would you say they were clearly better?

Were the Giants better than the Patriots when New England was 18-0 and had beaten the Giants on the road in the regular season - or is something like the helmet catch enough to prove the Giants were really a better team and not just one who happened to be good enough to win one game.

Great thing about the nfl, it doesn't matter. Nobody cares who was perceived to be the better team. Nobody debates who won the super bowl.

The giants were unquestionably the Super Bowl champions. What's left to debate? If the pats were better they would have won.

 

[whaler11]

Great thing about the nfl, it doesn't matter. Nobody cares who was perceived to be the better team. Nobody debates who won the super bowl.

The giants were unquestionably the Super Bowl champions. What's left to debate? If the pats were better they would have won.

Yeah that's just kind of dumb though. Do you think the best team always wins in professional sports?

The two things are separate. Who is the best team and who won the championship. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

In the specific case of the Giants and Patriots - are you really going to determine who was better based on a play where a receiver who played on offense about once every three years caught a ball against his helmet. The Giants are better because he made that play and if he doesn't the Patriots are better?

 

[businesslawyer]

Yeah that's just kind of dumb though. Do you think the best team always wins in professional sports?

The two things are separate. Who is the best team and who won the championship. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

In the specific case of the Giants and Patriots - are you really going to determine who was better based on a play where a receiver who played on offense about once every three years caught a ball against his helmet. The Giants are better because he made that play and if he doesn't the Patriots are better?

The point is not that the Giants were "better." The point is the Giants are champions. No one cares who is better -- just who is champion. (Well, no one cares except those who can't accept what Edsall accomplished here.)

 

[lv99]

The important thing to understand about Rutgers, for any conference that might be thinking of inviting them, is that we need to go along too. It is only through their rivalry with us that they have been able to be as good as they are. If you take away their rivalry with us, they will turn into being a really bad team. What made Rutgers what they are today is us. So while I guess you could give some credit to their coaching staff or whatever, I would make the argument that we are the more important piece of the puzzle. It would be one of the stupidest things any conference could do to invite them and not us at the same time. We are the more important part of the equation in making Rutgers the great team they are, than they are themselves. So if anyone out there reading this board is from a conference doing team shopping, you'd be wise to pay attention to what I've said here when it's time to add some more teams to your conference.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Let me save you all some time...I once tried discussing this with Nelson a few years ago when he was arguing that the SEC was the fifth best conference. He will point out that Vandy lost to some Sun Belt team to prove his argument. He will ignore who wins championships and who puts the most players in the NFL.

Feel free to continue to argue....maybe its a nice distraction from HCPP talk....but you are wasting your time.

In 2008, the SEC was the 5th best conference. There was some jaw-dropping non-conference losses, like Tennessee to Wyoming, and the computer rankings supported my position.

You understand that teams change from year to year, right? Sometimes they have up years, sometimes they have down years. That is why they play the games.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

This is the beauty of computers. They have no bias based on reputation. (They may have other biases, but none having do with name or conference.)

Looking at composite rankings from 100 formulas, So Car is #10, Rutgers #17.
http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm
My count might be slightly off but ~75 of the computers have SC higher, while ~25 have RU.

They do not account correctly for home and away. Several of the computer services ignore it completely. They also put a huge premium on simply winning, rather than quality of opponent. There is no way you can accurately compare non-conference records unless you account for the fact that one league plays less than 25% of its non-conference games against major conference opponents and about 15% of its games on the road, and the other league plays about 40% of its non-conference games against major conference opponents and about 45% of its games on the road.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

by the way, Billingsley, one of the BCS computer services, does have a human factor in its rankings. The fact that this clown is even in the BCS, since he has a fudge factor and he is not a statistician, shows what a joke the BCS is.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Are we ignoring that LSU played Oregon last year? Washington this year(41-3). Bama beat Michigan. SC finishes the season at Clemson. UGA with GT. Florida @ FSU. Tenn beat NCSU. Ole Miss played UT and lost.

With only three non conference games, most of them play one good non conference team and two weaker ones. Often the one is a rivalry game late in the season.

I agree we need a playoff to avoid an all SEC championship like last year.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Are we ignoring that LSU played Oregon last year? Washington this year(41-3). Bama beat Michigan. SC finishes the season at Clemson. UGA with GT. Florida @ FSU. Tenn beat NCSU. Ole Miss played UT and lost.

With only three non conference games, most of them play one good non conference team and two weaker ones. Often the one is a rivalry game late in the season.

I agree we need a playoff to avoid an all SEC championship like last year.

Rutgers beat Arkansas, Louisville and Western Kentucky beat Kentucky, Northwestern beat Vanderbilt.

The SEC will play a TOTAL of 10 true road OOC games this season. That is a ridiculous statistic.

 

[tzznandrew]

Are we ignoring that LSU played Oregon last year? Washington this year(41-3). Bama beat Michigan. SC finishes the season at Clemson. UGA with GT. Florida @ FSU. Tenn beat NCSU. Ole Miss played UT and lost.

With only three non conference games, most of them play one good non conference team and two weaker ones. Often the one is a rivalry game late in the season.

I agree we need a playoff to avoid an all SEC championship like last year.

Alabama beating Michigan was a good(ish) win. LSU beating Oregon last year was a great win. In my opinion, LSU deserved to be in the National Championship game. I don't think (despite the result of the game), Alabama should have been. If there were a playoff, and there were open spots for teams without conference titles, then yes. I'm hoping that one day we go to a 16 game tournament. That would be awesome. The four game tournament is a step in the right direction though.

But that last bit is a digression. Ultimately, you look at all the games at the end of the year. Clemson will have South Carolina and Florida will have Florida State, yes, but look around at other teams in that conference--and, perhaps you were arguing with Nelson, but I was looking primarily at this year, so LSU gets credit for beating a 3-4 Washington team, I guess. They couldn't know that Washington was not going to be good.

Edit: to head off any challenges--my position on Alabama is consistent: results matter, they lost to LSU...another team should have gotten a shot. I've never actually been arguing about who is better. I don't think that college football, as it currently stands, decides that for real (which is my actual point). I've been arguing about who should get a chance to prove they are best. South Carolina is not the best team in the country. Is Rutgers? I don't think so, but I don't know definitively like I do about South Carolina.

 

[businesslawyer]

Alabama beating Michigan was a good(ish) win. LSU beating Oregon last year was a great win. In my opinion, LSU deserved to be in the National Championship game. I don't think (despite the result of the game), Alabama should have been. If there were a playoff, and there were open spots for teams without conference titles, then yes. I'm hoping that one day we go to a 16 game tournament. That would be awesome. The four game tournament is a step in the right direction though.

But that last bit is a digression. Ultimately, you look at all the games at the end of the year. Clemson will have South Carolina and Florida will have Florida State, yes, but look around at other teams in that conference--and, perhaps you were arguing with Nelson, but I was looking primarily at this year, so LSU gets credit for beating a 3-4 Washington team, I guess. They couldn't know that Washington was not going to be good.

Edit: to head off any challenges--my position on Alabama is consistent: results matter, they lost to LSU...another team should have gotten a shot. I've never actually been arguing about who is better. I don't think that college football, as it currently stands, decides that for real (which is my actual point). I've been arguing about who should get a chance to prove they are best. South Carolina is not the best team in the country. Is Rutgers? I don't think so, but I don't know definitively like I do about South Carolina.

Last year, LSU beat the Pac Ten champ and the Big East champ and won the SEC. If ever a team deserved to play for a national championship ....

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I do think we will have fewer of these arguments once the playoff starts, and especially once it expands. If there are 16 playoff spots and 6 or 7 are automatic bids, you can't play 3 cupcakes non-conference and expect to get an at-large.

Even with a 4 team playoff, you will see conferences make a big push to upgrade scheduling to get their champion more quality wins. If Miss. State, Miss, and Auburn all play a bunch of cupcakes and even get picked off by 1 or 2 of them, that will hurt Alabama and LSU. If those 3 are going to lose, Alabama/LSU want them to lose to quality competition.

We will see a big improvement in scheduling once the playoff is in place.

 

[tzznandrew]

Last year, LSU beat the Pac Ten champ and the Big East champ and won the SEC. If ever a team deserved to play for a national championship ....

I'm confused. Isn't that what I said? LSU should have played in the NC Game. Alabama should not have.

 

[businesslawyer]

I'm confused. Isn't that what I said? LSU should have played in the NC Game. Alabama should not have.

I was not disagreeing with you.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I'm confused. Isn't that what I said? LSU should have played in the NC Game. Alabama should not have.

I feel the same way. Bama had their chance in the regular season.

By the way, that 3-4 Washington team is, to my eyes, possibly better than Rutgers. The shouldn't have lost to Arizona, but played Oregon, Stanford, LSU and USC. Pretty brutal early schedule. If they can knock off Oregon St. they may win out.

 

[UC990411]

The important thing to understand about Rutgers, for any conference that might be thinking of inviting them, is that we need to go along too. It is only through their rivalry with us that they have been able to be as good as they are. If you take away their rivalry with us, they will turn into being a really bad team. What made Rutgers what they are today is us. So while I guess you could give some credit to their coaching staff or whatever, I would make the argument that we are the more important piece of the puzzle. It would be one of the stupidest things any conference could do to invite them and not us at the same time. We are the more important part of the equation in making Rutgers the great team they are, than they are themselves. So if anyone out there reading this board is from a conference doing team shopping, you'd be wise to pay attention to what I've said here when it's time to add some more teams to your conference.

So Rutgers can thank us for being competitive again? Huh? That one takes the cake in this thread, and this thread had someone say the BE was better than the SEC.

 

[lv99]

So Rutgers can thank us for being competitive again? Huh? That one takes the cake in this thread, and this thread had someone say the BE was better than the SEC.

Yes, you're reading me loud and clear. Rutgers should be down on their hands and knees thanking us for what we've done for them.

Let's take a look at the facts, shall we? Every single year of their existence before this year, Rutgers has been terrible at football. Rutgers was the first team to play college football. So they're not new at being terrible at football. They've had a lot of practice. I mean, it's not like they're suddenly just going to happen to get good. A hundred years is kind of a trend. Now, all the sudden, when Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia leave, they suddenly become good. Coincidence? Unlikely. Before, they were distracted by competing with those teams and couldn't focus on hating us, their true rival.

How about another example? Boston College left the Big East and they became terrible at everything. Without the ability to play us, the hate was gone. When they couldn't play with hatred in their hearts, they no longer could play at all. Every sport of theirs is terrible. They can't even play soccer.

Let this be a lesson to those of you out their doing team shopping for your conferences. You have been warned. If you only take Rutgers, you're just going to have another Boston College on your hands. You don't want that. Are you listening Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC? You need to take us too.

 

[John Greene]

Why should a 2 loss South Carolina team (one that just got killed, by the way), be ranked ahead of an undefeated team like Rutgers? South Carolina and one impressive win (Georgia)?

There is so much SEC hype that they usually schedule terrible OOC schedule, beat up on the bottom teams (Vandy, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Miss St [usually], Tennessee, Auburn, Missouri [this year]), and then when one of them comes out by beating one or two necessary good teams they need to play, they're suddenly in the BCS title game.

A couple of ramdom points.

This perception will remain until some non SEC teams start to beat SEC teams in the championship game. I don't believe that has happened to date.

Don't have any personal exposure to the other conferences but over the last three years I have seen 2-3 conference games each year in the BE, ACC, and SEC. There has been no comparison. The SEC games had better athletes and coaching. The speed, hitting etc. were on another level from either of the other two.

 

[blitz8ru]

WOW... an entire thread dedicated to Rutgers vs South Carolina on a UConn board...

Arkansas is BETTER than their record and I would be surprised if they end the regular season 6-6 and in a bowl vs a Big East or CUSA or MAC team and blow them out to go 7-6 on the season... You have to remember that WITH QB Tyler Wilson (will likely go in the top 20 of the 1st rd in the 2013 NFL draft), Arkansas doesn't lose to LMU (Arky was up 28-7 at the half before Wilson was injured for the 2nd half and all off the Alabama game) and Arky doesn't get blown out by Bama... Without the injury, Arky likely finishes the season 7-5 and RU would have gotten a win over a ranked opponent OOC (they would have been 2-1 entering the RU game)... If you remember before the Arky-RU game no one was giving us a chance off winning if Tyler Wilson was back 100% (which he was)...

FYI we also lost our starting FB and 1st and 2nd string NTs for the season after the Arky game. So our run O and run D was actually a little better at the start off the year than it was after game 4. Though it is starting to get better with the b backups gaining more experience in those areas...

Our pass and run D is pretty good. We don't allow very many yards rushing and though we DO let up a lot of passing yards (partly due to all off our opponents so far playing from behind, there were only 3 games this year where we trailed at any point in the game). Our pass efficency D is top 20 with us leading the BE in INTs and PDs (#3 in the country in INTs) and our scoring D is #3 in the country (11.3pts/game), only behind ND and Alabama. Our special teams as you know are also pretty good... though our punt returns leave a LOT to be desired and our punting CAN be inconsistent...

Our O is inconsistent and WAS penalty prone... Penalties have gone down these past few games though... When our O gets hot it's hard to stop (ie. vs Temple where we scored 21pts in the 3rd quarter and 14pts in the early 4th quarter). Our main problem on O is consistency. Consistency run blocking, catching passes and throwing accurately... We are getting better every week in this area...

As for the SEC...

Rutgers would WIN 1/10 Times
Florida 7-0(6-0)
Alabama 7-0(4-0)
LSU 7-1(3-1)

Rutgers would WIN 4/10 Times
Georgia 6-1(4-1)
South Carolina 6-2(4-2)
Texas A&M 5-2(2-2)

Rutgers would WIN 7/10 Times
Mississippi State 7-0(3-0)
Arkansas 3-4(2-2)

Rutgers would WIN 8/10 Times
Vanderbilt 3-4(2-3)
Ole Miss 4-3(1-2)
Missouri 3-4(0-4)
Tennessee 3-4(0-4)

Rutgers would WIN 9/10 Times
Auburn 1-6(0-5)
Kentucky 1-7(0-5)

This year IMO we would be anywhere from the 4th to 6th best SEC team (we are arguably the best team in the BE)... 3rd or 4th in the SEC-West and 2nd or 3rd in the SEC-East... BTW if we had played Miss State's schedule... we'd be undefeated right now as well and would likely finish 9-3 and maybe 10-2 with that schedule...

JMHO...

 

[Marty Jackson]

A couple of ramdom points.

This perception will remain until some non SEC teams start to beat SEC teams in the championship game. I don't believe that has happened to date.

Don't have any personal exposure to the other conferences but over the last three years I have seen 2-3 conference games each year in the BE, ACC, and SEC. There has been no comparison. The SEC games had better athletes and coaching. The speed, hitting etc. were on another level from either of the other two.

Fair points... But when two SEC teams play in the NC because of the bias, doesn't really give anyone a chance...
And no, Alabama did not deserve to be in the NC.

 

[mets1090]

The playoff will at least give other conferences a chance. We will probably see 2 SEC teams and 2 non-SEC teams. Hopefully in that scenario the non-SEC teams will play the SEC teams in the first round giving them both a chance to win against an SEC team. Of course they could both get beat in the first round, but that just proves it isn't bias. Doesn't mean you have to like it, it just means it isn't unfair.

 

[RMoore1999]

Fair points... But when two SEC teams play in the NC because of the bias, doesn't really give anyone a chance...
And no, Alabama did not deserve to be in the NC.

BCS is not designed to identify the 2 most deserving team, but rather the 2 best teams. "Best" is obviously subjective. I agree there is validity to the argument that Bama was not necessarily most deserving last year, but I beleive they were a better team than OKST (and LSU).

 

[UC990411]

WOW... an entire thread dedicated to Rutgers vs South Carolina on a UConn board...

Arkansas is BETTER than their record and I would be surprised if they end the regular season 6-6 and in a bowl vs a Big East or CUSA or MAC team and blow them out to go 7-6 on the season... You have to remember that WITH QB Tyler Wilson (will likely go in the top 20 of the 1st rd in the 2013 NFL draft), Arkansas doesn't lose to LMU (Arky was up 28-7 at the half before Wilson was injured for the 2nd half and all off the Alabama game) and Arky doesn't get blown out by Bama... Without the injury, Arky likely finishes the season 7-5 and RU would have gotten a win over a ranked opponent OOC (they would have been 2-1 entering the RU game)... If you remember before the Arky-RU game no one was giving us a chance off winning if Tyler Wilson was back 100% (which he was)...

FYI we also lost our starting FB and 1st and 2nd string NTs for the season after the Arky game. So our run O and run D was actually a little better at the start off the year than it was after game 4. Though it is starting to get better with the b backups gaining more experience in those areas...

Our pass and run D is pretty good. We don't allow very many yards rushing and though we DO let up a lot of passing yards (partly due to all off our opponents so far playing from behind, there were only 3 games this year where we trailed at any point in the game). Our pass efficency D is top 20 with us leading the BE in INTs and PDs (#3 in the country in INTs) and our scoring D is #3 in the country (11.3pts/game), only behind ND and Alabama. Our special teams as you know are also pretty good... though our punt returns leave a LOT to be desired and our punting CAN be inconsistent...

Our O is inconsistent and WAS penalty prone... Penalties have gone down these past few games though... When our O gets hot it's hard to stop (ie. vs Temple where we scored 21pts in the 3rd quarter and 14pts in the early 4th quarter). Our main problem on O is consistency. Consistency run blocking, catching passes and throwing accurately... We are getting better every week in this area...

As for the SEC...

Rutgers would WIN 1/10 Times
Florida 7-0(6-0)
Alabama 7-0(4-0)
LSU 7-1(3-1)

Rutgers would WIN 4/10 Times
Georgia 6-1(4-1)
South Carolina 6-2(4-2)
Texas A&M 5-2(2-2)

Rutgers would WIN 7/10 Times
Mississippi State 7-0(3-0)
Arkansas 3-4(2-2)

Rutgers would WIN 8/10 Times
Vanderbilt 3-4(2-3)
Ole Miss 4-3(1-2)
Missouri 3-4(0-4)
Tennessee 3-4(0-4)

Rutgers would WIN 9/10 Times
Auburn 1-6(0-5)
Kentucky 1-7(0-5)

This year IMO we would be anywhere from the 4th to 6th best SEC team (we are arguably the best team in the BE)... 3rd or 4th in the SEC-West and 2nd or 3rd in the SEC-East... BTW if we had played Miss State's schedule... we'd be undefeated right now as well and would likely finish 9-3 and maybe 10-2 with that schedule...

JMHO...

You ignored the real question, does UConn being FBS make you better?

 

[Marty Jackson]

BCS is not designed to identify the 2 most deserving team, but rather the 2 best teams. "Best" is obviously subjective. I agree there is validity to the argument that Bama was not necessarily most deserving last year, but I beleive they were a better team than OKST (and LSU).

Interesting albeit convenient point.
Alabama did not deserve to be in the nc because they weren't the 2nd best team.

 

[RMoore1999]

Interesting albeit convenient point.
Alabama did not deserve to be in the nc because they weren't the 2nd best team.

True. They were THE best team. They convincingly beat LSU, the 2nd best team. I actually prefer a 4-team playoff to consist of the "best" deserving teams, i.e. the 4 best conference champs. I have no problem with the SEC team with the 2nd best record being excluded from the playoff, even if i think they're the best team, because a small playoff should be limited to deserving teams.

 

[uconnfan68]

Do you think this year's SC is the same as that year's SC?

Of course not. And I'm not sure Rutgers is the same as the Uconn team of that year either. I was somewhat impressed by them. Thought we had a slight chance, but they really waxed us in the second half.

 

[ZooCougar]

Our offense was pretty explosive that year. We could get it done on the ground and in the air.

Of course not. And I'm not sure Rutgers is the same as the Uconn team of that year either. I was somewhat impressed by them. Thought we had a slight chance, but they really waxed us in the second half.

 

[blitz8ru]

You ignored the real question, does UConn being FBS make you better?

off course not... what makes us better is being able to keep NJ's top recruits home while having a stable program... UConn being FBS doesn't help or hurt us...