SEC Bias

[ctchamps]

There are too many quotes in this thread that I could reply to with the same statement so here goes...

People who complain about SEC bias in football are just like those who complain about BE bias in hoops. The talent is better, the competition is better, the fan bases are better, the atmosphere is better, the overall product is better. There is no comparing to BE Football and SEC Football, just like there is no comparing BE Hoops and SEC Hoops. We are so far inferior to the SEC in football it is beyond crazy to me that people are questioning it. Take off your blinders. Yeah, Rutgers and Louisville are undefeated, it doesn't mean they are on par with South Carolina, Miss St, Florida or Bama. That's like saying, "Your BMW gets you from point A to point B? So does my Kia, my Kia is just as good as your BMW!" Its delusional and so far out of touch with reality its boarderline insane

And some years the BE shows their prowess in the NCAA bb tournament and some years the big boys of the BE get bounced out pretty early. That happened two years ago (with one glorious exception) when the BE sent nine teams to the tournament. Pitt is the perennial poster child for going in with a great rep and going down early.

The SEC is the conference to beat in football as far as I'm concerned. But set up a format that allows for them to prove it in a tournament and not on perception alone. The travesty isn't tzznandrew's contention. The travesty is the corralling of the postseason in the manner that leaves fans arguing whose better without the opportunity to see things played out on the field. Run the postseason like the 1-AA tournament. The SEC should still be the best conference and fans will still find something to argue about, but at least things get measured on the football field and not in some person's head.

 

[tzznandrew]

The SEC is the conference to beat in football as far as I'm concerned. But set up a format that allows for them to prove it in a tournament and not on perception alone. The travesty isn't tzznandrew's contention. The travesty is the corralling of the postseason in the manner that leaves fans arguing whose better without the opportunity to see things played out on the field. Run the postseason like the 1-AA tournament. The SEC should still be the best conference and fans will still find something to argue about, but at least things get measured on the football field and not in some person's head.

This is my point, more or less. I've never argued that the SEC was not the best conference. I've argued that we don't really know. We can put money into computer systems and trust those all, but the fact is we discount those when we talk about basketball--and they have a larger sampling to be more accurate there--so I more or less do the same thing here.

Someone said the SEC bias was akin to the BE basketball bias. Here's why that's wrong. Go back to 2010-2011, when UConn won the title but was 9th in the BE. Look at the best OOC wins (by Sagarin, to keep it consistent)

Cincy (Dayton, 85)
Connecticut (Kentucky, 5)
DePaul (Central Michigan, 275)
Georgetown (Missouri, 40)
Louisville (Butler, 22)
Marquette (Bucknell, 93)
Notre Dame (Wisconsin, 12)
Pitt (Texas, 10)
Providence (Alabama, 48)
Rutgers (Miami-FL, 61)
Seton Hall (Alabama, 48)
South Florida (VCU, 37)
St. John's (Northwestern, 50)
Syracuse (Michigan, 32)
Villanova (UCLA, 46)
West Virginia (Purdue, 13)

Compare that what I posted earlier from the SEC. There's some heft here (remember, too, I only picked the best win), as opposed to in the SEC. Marquette has a poor best OOC--they lost to a bunch of good teams (Duke, Wisconsin, etc.)--and obviously DePaul as well, who was terrible. But everyone else beat good teams. You could call them the best conference because they proved it on the court. SEC is the best conference because people watch games and imagine they would win. Would they? Maybe. Probably? We can't really tell, and yet people go around acting like they can.

 

[ctchamps]

This is my point, more or less. I've never argued that the SEC was not the best conference. I've argued that we don't really know. We can put money into computer systems and trust those all, but the fact is we discount those when we talk about basketball--and they have a larger sampling to be more accurate there--so I more or less do the same thing here.

Someone said the SEC bias was akin to the BE basketball bias. Here's why that's wrong. Go back to 2010-2011, when UConn won the title but was 9th in the BE. Look at the best OOC wins (by Sagarin, to keep it consistent)

Cincy (Dayton, 85)
Connecticut (Kentucky, 5)
DePaul (Central Michigan, 275)
Georgetown (Missouri, 40)
Louisville (Butler, 22)
Marquette (Bucknell, 93)
Notre Dame (Wisconsin, 12)
Pitt (Texas, 10)
Providence (Alabama, 48)
Rutgers (Miami-FL, 61)
Seton Hall (Alabama, 48)
South Florida (VCU, 37)
St. John's (Northwestern, 50)
Syracuse (Michigan, 32)
Villanova (UCLA, 46)
West Virginia (Purdue, 13)

Compare that what I posted earlier from the SEC. There's some heft here (remember, too, I only picked the best win), as opposed to in the SEC. Marquette has a poor best OOC--they lost to a bunch of good teams (Duke, Wisconsin, etc.)--and obviously DePaul as well, who was terrible. But everyone else beat good teams. You could call them the best conference because they proved it on the court. SEC is the best conference because people watch games and imagine they would win. Would they? Maybe. Probably? We can't really tell, and yet people go around acting like they can.

And that's the problem. We don't know, we just assume. In basketball, there is at least a modicum of ability to examine relative conference strengths because of all the scheduled games that take place between the various conferences. That's not the case in football. There is limited ability to examine good wins or bad losses as long as conferences isolate the regular season within their own conference and play patsies to complete their schedules. The ratings are too predicated on the original assumptions made by people before the season begins and their is limited opportunity to question those assumptions.

WV was in the national championship hunt until the TT game. That game exposed them. What would happen if the best teams played other power conferences better teams? Would more of them get exposed? We just don't know and that is why this whole system in college football is a sham. They had to change 1-A to FBS because it is FULL of BULL .

 

[businesslawyer]

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.

Which means that USCE has shown slightly more to date, but the two teams have not been separated by a wide margin on schedules with no common opponent and no one should be more than mildly surprised if Rutgers won that neutral field game.

 

[whaler11]

I didn't realize you were so unbiased. Sorry for challenging such a disinterested person.

In a 12 game season, if the result on the field doesn't matter, what does? There seems no way to tell who the best team is.

Also, that's a pretty weak response on your part. So Boise won a game on a Statue of Liberty play. The prognosis was that Oklahoma was going to kill them. Even if it is true that Oklahoma was better, people were wrong that Boise wasn't on the same playing field. Look at the others:

• Utah whipped Alabama 31-17. Seems Utah was better.
• Florida whipped Ohio State 41-14. If you didn't think Florida was better, not sure what to tell you. That was the year people thought the B10 deserved two teams in the title game.
• Texas proved itself at least as good as USC (better, in my books, for winning). These experts you were touting thought they were way better.

So there are examples where people were wrong. Do you need examples of when they were right? Of course sometimes experts and computers and gamblers are wrong.

And I disagree that one single result between USC and Texas proves who is better. Is NCSU better than Florida State?

Do you think the MLB structure awards the World Series to the best team too?

I am pretty unbiased. If I thought Rutgers was better than South Carolina I'd say so. Where Rutgers season is headed couldn't be clearer. They will finish 11-1 or 10-2 and get blown out when they step up in class in bowl season. Hopefully they get to play a credible opponent. Even they must be tired of Kent State and Army by December.

 

[baggerbob]

Computers are only as good as the info put into them, you still have humans creating the programs to compute the information put in. Look at the difference in where all the teams are ranked in the computers, and you can see its based upon different variables according to human being's, otherwise all computers would be ranked the same.

 

[UC990411]

Computers are only as good as the info put into them, you still have humans creating the programs to compute the information put in. Look at the difference in where all the teams are ranked in the computers, and you can see its based upon different variables according to human being's, otherwise all computers would be ranked the same.

So more SEC guys are doing the computer rankings than BE guys?

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Computers are only as good as the info put into them, you still have humans creating the programs to compute the information put in. Look at the difference in where all the teams are ranked in the computers, and you can see its based upon different variables according to human being's, otherwise all computers would be ranked the same.

I can agree with this.

There is a myth that using computers for something somehow reduces human fallabilities and increases objectivity. I'm also sure it will remain a myth - only those who've pounded out a million lines of code for projects they know will fail ever see the truth of it.

 

[whaler11]

Computers are only as good as the info put into them, you still have humans creating the programs to compute the information put in. Look at the difference in where all the teams are ranked in the computers, and you can see its based upon different variables according to human being's, otherwise all computers would be ranked the same.

Right but if you take an average of 100 computer programs either they are all biased in the same direction or they give a pretty decent proxy for ranking
teams in an imperfect system.

I for one will always value the opinion of people who make their living determining the point spreads in these games because they take real positions backed by serious money.

I'm pretty sure everyone agrees Florida has a very good team. When the Gators open as only a 4 point favorite over Georgia that means Georgia is an awfully good football team. When your league has Alabama, Florida, LSU, Georgia, Texas A&M, South Carolina and Mississippi State at the top and your bad teams are Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Mississippi attempting to argue that another league is stronger is pointless. Rutgers would probably be the 6th best team in the SEC. They might only be the 8th best.

 

[tzznandrew]

So there are examples where people were wrong. Do you need examples of when they were right? Of course sometimes experts and computers and gamblers are wrong.

And I disagree that one single result between USC and Texas proves who is better. Is NCSU better than Florida State?

Do you think the MLB structure awards the World Series to the best team too?

I am pretty unbiased. If I thought Rutgers was better than South Carolina I'd say so. Where Rutgers season is headed couldn't be clearer. They will finish 11-1 or 10-2 and get blown out when they step up in class in bowl season. Hopefully they get to play a credible opponent. Even they must be tired of Kent State and Army by December.

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...

 

[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.