Football

The powers that be want to add a seventh post-BCS bowl?

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Why? Okay, I get that they want to add an auto bid for the best team not from a New Year’s Day bowl conference, but couldn’t they just tell the selection committee to select at least one such team for the other bowls? Are they that greedy that they’d rather add another bowl, even if that means extending the new postseason to December 30 and ruining its elegance, rather than allow the big conferences to lose a single spot?

Combine that with reports that this is as much about giving the Big 12 and Pac-12 a backup tie-in (like what the SEC and Big 10 want for the Orange Bowl) as anything else, and it seems like the non-New Year’s Day bowls are sinking fast; in years they’re not hosting a semifinal, they’re basically holding pens for whatever leftovers are still around after the semifinals and New Year’s Day bowls make their picks, to give the bowl a reason to exist as part of the rotation. Hell, in years when none of the New Year’s Day bowls are semifinals, you might as well book a non-BCS v. Big 12/Pac-12 matchup for whatever New Year’s Eve bowl isn’t a semifinal without adding a seventh game, and take the pressure off the selection committee’s shoulders entirely.

2012 College Football Rankings – Week 4

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This will be my penultimate year of the college football rankings. There are a couple reasons for this, not just the new playoff – namely, conference realignment is making college football unrecognizable to me (the Princeton-Yale Title is going to be unified with the 2010 TCU title this week, shockingly early in the season, and the move of West Virginia to the Big 12 is almost solely responsible for it) – but the fact that we’re getting a playoff, one where a selection committee is making the decisions and so there’s less emphasis on “rankings” to try to influence people, is the main one. The monstrosity that has been the BCS has attempted to make its decisions with a combination of polls and computer rankings, though they’ve increasingly neutered the latter; as such, there’s a lot of emphasis on where teams stand, and my rankings were an attempt to contribute to that debate. Now, there are fewer people to be swayed and they’re less likely to be swayed; as such, if I were to continue the feature, its most appropriate form would probably be a “bubble watch”.

The week 3 rankings showed that the national consensus isn’t far off, with Alabama and LSU top three. The Tigers took a bigger tumble in the C Ratings this week after not only letting a mediocre-at-best Auburn team keep it closer than they should have, but having Washington not play and the other two teams they played lose. Just as in the polls, Oregon takes advantage of its squash of Arizona to take LSU’s spot. But in both weeks, there’s an interloper. Say what you will about their impact on conference realignment and the economics of college sports, but the Texas Longhorns will be good whenever they want to be. Their squashes of their first three opponents, especially an admittedly-weak SEC team, should serve notice to the rest of the country that they could be headed to Miami when all is said and done.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking one-tenth the difference between the team’s B Rating and the average of his opponents’ B Ratings and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

1 Alabama SEC ’06 Boise St.
4-0 LW: A Rat: .935 B Rating: 26.029 C Rating: 22.864 AP: 1 Coaches: 1
Alabama has picked up right where they left off last season.
2 Texas B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .845 B Rating: 24.513 C Rating: 21.711 AP: 12 Coaches: 10
If Texas can do to Oklahoma State what they’ve done to their other opponents so far, the whole country will realize how good this Longhorn squad really is.
3 Oregon P12 BCS Title
4-0 LW: #15 A Rat: .823 B Rating: 23.253 C Rating: 20.569 AP: 2 Coaches: 2
One big win over a good Arizona team, and suddenly Oregon looks a lot like the team USC was supposed to be – or the team from two years ago.
4 Texas Tech B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .901 B Rating: 20.427 C Rating: 17.982 — —
When you never score less than 44, your rating is going to be good no matter what – and they actually account for Texas State’s only loss this season. But another unbeaten is next.
5 Florida State ACC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .900 B Rating: 18.657 C Rating: 16.813 AP: 4 Coaches: 4
With the Big East finally losing AQ status, the ACC becomes the new laughingstock conference – but their flagship team is back with a vengeance and out to prove they deserve their seat at the table.
6 Stanford P12 ’09 Boise St.
3-0 LW: A Rat: .704 B Rating: 13.660 C Rating: 12.258 AP: 8 Coaches: 9
No Andrew Luck? No problem. Stanford’s out to prove they’re going to be a power in the Pac-12 for a long time to come.
7 Kansas State B12 BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .773 B Rating: 14.056 C Rating: 12.201 AP: 7 Coaches: 8
Did Kansas State just pull off a huge upset? Not according to the C Ratings, where Oklahoma wasn’t even on the top 25.
8 Notre Dame BCS Title
4-0 LW: #18 A Rat: .792 B Rating: 11.999 C Rating: 10.224 AP: 10 Coaches: 11
The Golden Domers certainly look to be back. Navy’s squash of VMI for their first win of the season plays as much of a role in this ranking as anything.
9 LSU SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .816 B Rating: 11.951 C Rating: 9.829 AP: 3 Coaches: 3
Sorry LSU, but national championship contenders don’t let a mediocre Auburn team get that close to victory.
10 Florida SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .761 B Rating: 10.990 C Rating: 9.365 AP: 11 Coaches: 12
Florida remains unbeaten despite three SEC games already, two on the road. But LSU awaits in two weeks.
11 Georgia SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .823 B Rating: 11.074 C Rating: 8.994 AP: 5 Coaches: 5
Despite demolishing Vanderbilt, Georgia runs into the same problem as LSU: the other three teams they played all lost by sizable margins. But the Bulldogs may be making some real noise this year.
12 South Carolina SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .823 B Rating: 9.616 C Rating: 7.523 AP: 6 Coaches: 6
If South Carolina were in any other conference, they’d be a favorite for the conference title. Instead, they’re third best in their own division.
13 Ohio State B10 Probation
4-0 LW: #12 A Rat: .749 B Rating: 9.485 C Rating: 7.309 AP: 14 BlogPoll: 14
Remember the effect USC’s bowl-ineligibility had on the Pac-12 South race last year? Ohio State may have that effect on the entire conference. Its next-best team isn’t on the Top 25.
14 Arizona State P12 BCS Title
3-1 LW: #17 A Rat: .585 B Rating: 7.441 C Rating: 5.830 — —
Why is Arizona State our first one-loss team? They’ve never scored less than 37 or allowed more than 14 in a win, and their one loss was by only four.
15 West Virginia B12 Prncton/Yale
3-0 LW: #23 A Rat: .757 B Rating: 6.847 C Rating: 5.772 AP: 9 Coaches: 7
West Virginia has won every game by at least ten – but none of them have been quite like the team whose 2010 TCU title is getting unified this Saturday.
16 Iowa State B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .774 B Rating: 6.153 C Rating: 5.405 — —
There’s reason for skepticism about the Cyclones – taking a week off right after facing a I-AA team, the 9-6 win over Iowa – but they beat down that I-AA opponent and account for Tulsa’s only loss.
17 Louisiana Tech WAC BCS Bowl
3-0 LW: #53 A Rat: .667 B Rating: 7.162 C Rating: 4.399 — —
Huh? A team from the dying WAC is ranked this high? Take a look at their impressive win over an Illinois team whose other loss came to a team ranked even higher.
18 Cincinnati BST BCS Title
2-0 LW: #27 A Rat: .850 B Rating: 4.475 C Rating: 4.168 — —
It’s easy to be 2-0 when you’ve only played two teams, one of them a I-AA school – but they’ve been by impressive margins and Pitt just put up an impressive win of its own.
19 Clemson ACC BCS Title
3-1 LW: #14 A Rat: .500 B Rating: 4.402 C Rating: 4.104 AP: 17 Coaches: 16
Florida State is seen as a national title contender, and it was high-scoring enough that a 12-point loss doesn’t affect score ratio too much. But it could keep the Tigers out of the conference title game.
20 Ohio MAC BCS Bowl
4-0 LW: #20 A Rat: .729 B Rating: 5.460 C Rating: 3.850 BlogPoll: 25 —
It’s easy to be skeptical of the Bobcats, especially with a win by only three over Marshall, but it’s hard to argue with their results.
21 TCU B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: A Rat: .907 B Rating: 5.045 C Rating: 3.275 AP: 15 Coaches: 14
TCU has come into its new conference guns blazing with three squashes – and they might not even be in the top half of the conference. Look out, SEC.
22 Rutgers BST BCS Title
4-0 LW: #22 A Rat: .774 B Rating: 5.006 C Rating: 2.856 AP: 23 Coaches: 25
The Scarlet Knights will not play an FBS team currently with a winning record until Kent State the last week of October. Keep that in mind as they climb the polls the next few weeks. In other news, the Big East is mediocre.
23 Oregon State P12 BCS Title
2-0 LW: #43 A Rat: .640 B Rating: 2.983 C Rating: 2.712 AP: 18 Coaches: 21
The Beavers have played two games, both within a score. Still, both were against above-average teams, which bodes well for their chances against reeling Arizona.
24 Baylor B12 BCS Title
3-0 LW: #54 A Rat: .703 B Rating: 3.943 C Rating: 2.087 AP: 25 Coaches: 24
Surviving against a good Louisiana-Monroe team shows their bona fides, but it doesn’t bode well for a road trip to Morgantown.
25 Mississippi State SEC BCS Title
4-0 LW: A Rat: .900 B Rating: 18.657 C Rating: 16.813 AP: 21 Coaches: 19
Impressive win, albeit over an FBS newcomer. The schedule, and a 6-point escape over Troy in their only road game, are concerns, though, and they’ll fall off next week for idle hands.


42 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #27 USC (was #21), Oklahoma State (was #16), #33 Georgia Tech (was #19), #35 Arizona (was ), #48 UCLA (was #25)

Unbeaten teams not on Top 25: #30 Louisville, #40 Northwestern, #45 Minnesota, #49 Texas-San Antonio (all in positive B Points, Minnesota and Texas-San Antonio not in positive C)

Rest of Watch List (all 3-1 unless otherwise noted): #26 Texas A&M (2-1), #27 USC, Michigan State, Oklahoma State (2-1), Nevada, Pittsburgh (2-2), #33 Georgia Tech (2-2), #34 San Jose State, #35 Arizona, #36 Tennessee*

Other Positive B Ratings: #37 North Carolina* (2-2), #38 Boise State (2-1), #39 BYU (2-2), #41 Fresno State* (2-2), #42 Nebraska (3-1), #43 Toledo (3-1), #44 Central Florida (2-1), #46 Oklahoma (2-1), #47 Utah State* (3-1), #48 UCLA (3-1), #55 Northern Illinois (3-1), #57 Middle Tennessee State (2-1) (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #51 Western Kentucky, #52 Kentucky, #56 Louisiana-Monroe, #58 Maryland, #83 Utah

Bottom 10: #115 SMU, #116 Houston, #117 Akron, #118 Eastern Michigan, #119 Army, #120 Southern Miss, #121 Hawaii, #122 Colorado, #123 Tulane, #124 Massachusetts

Best game of week: Texas Tech @ Iowa State, 4pm PT, FCS

Why not even the Debacle in Seattle will bring the real refs back

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By now you’ve heard all about the controversial play at the end of Monday night’s Packers-Seahawks game, the nadir of the NFL’s ongoing Replacementgate. With the entire country blowing up around it, surely this is the incident that forces the NFL’s hand and gets them to finally bring the lockout of the real refs to a conclusion.  Surely with the replacement refs backfiring so horribly, Roger Goodell has egg on his face and is desperately trying to end this before the replacement refs do any more damage, right?

Meanwhile, as many people are watching the games as ever.

The replacement refs backfired? On the contrary, everything is going exactly according to plan. Roger Goodell knows that the refs have zero impact on whether or not you watch. People don’t watch the NFL because the “integrity of the game” is so strong; hell, people watch pro wrestling knowing that it’s all staged. The NFL is first and foremost entertainment, the ultimate reality show; people watch for all the football action they’ve come to love, for the drama the sport brings, because their sense of self-worth is bound up in the fortunes of their favorite team, because of their fantasy players. Those things would have been affected by the arrival of replacement players, but with replacement officials the action is all the same, only the outcome is different. And ultimately, we don’t really care that much how the outcome is derived. It’s just one more thing for us to talk about around the watercooler.

And ultimately, that’s what the replacement refs debacle comes down to, and why Roger Goodell couldn’t be happier. It’s one more thing for the massive ecosystem of shows debating the NFL to discuss ad nauseam, one more way for the NFL to be at everyone’s lips at watercoolers around the country, a way that doesn’t involve the word “concussions” (a far bigger threat to the long-term viability of the NFL). That’s why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth for the real officials to come back simply leads Goodell to lean back in his chair, twiddle his fingers, and mutter “Excellent” like Mr. Burns.

Perhaps what happened in Seattle will cause some owners to start revolting and wondering whether the issues the NFL is holding its ground on in the lockout negotiations are really that big a priority that they justify what the league has turned into. But if it isn’t enough of them, the lockout will end when the real officials start feeling the very real pain of not collecting their checks, and not a moment sooner.

The Super Bowl XLVI lineal title was on the line in Monday night’s game. The Packers could very easily say they have a claim to it.

Acknowledging the Big 12’s new rights agreement

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The Big 12 has announced a 13-year rights agreement with ESPN and Fox that will earn the conference about $20 million per year per school, about on par with other BCS conferences.

This agreement was so delayed that it held up the final release of the TV assignments for early-season football games and ultimately was finalized after the first week of football games. As such, it’s been rumored for so long that it’s mostly a formality, aside from the fact that Fox will have no role in broadcasting basketball, and as such I don’t have much to say about it (you can read a bit more about it here), so let’s just go to the scorecard.

Sport-Specific Networks
9.5 11.5 5 4.5 0 1.5

My picks for every NFL game this season

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That’s right: I may not be doing the NFL schedule this season, but I am picking all 256 games, plus all 11 playoff games, before the season even starts. Winning teams are listed in bold. Lineal title holders are in italics.

Week 1:
Cowboys @ Giants
Colts @ Bears
Eagles @ Browns
Rams @ Lions
Dolphins @ Texans
Falcons @ Chiefs
Jaguars @ Vikings
Redskins @ Saints
Bills @ Jets
Patriots @ Titans
Seahawks @ Cardinals
49ers @ Packers
Panthers @ Bucs
Steelers @ Broncos
Bengals @ Ravens
Chargers @ Raiders

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Setting the stage for the next week

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My laptop is on its way to HP. Under the circumstances, it looks like I’m probably going to be working off Mom’s computer for all of next week, and maybe into the week after that.

The FF50 challenge looks to be in good shape. I may have to either move Tuesday’s drafts later, or move at least the noon one to 9 AM PT, due to various commitments, but other than that everything should proceed swimmingly, aside from Mom’s attempts to get me to do other, more productive things.

Naturally, after my promises to keep webcomic posts to a minimum while my laptop is getting fixed, next week may prove to be a rather webcomic-heavy week. QC and Homestuck definitely, Gunnerkrigg Court maybe. The HS post will be rather general in nature; I’m going to hold off on posting on Act 6 Intermission 3 probably until it’s over, intentionally this time, partly because of the three daisy-chained exploration non-flashes that either start or consist the intermission that are probably intended to form one long non-flash, partly because of how buggy it is still; even in the preferred Chrome browser on Mom’s computer, sometimes the sound will spontaneously shut off for no reason, so I’m going to wait until my computer comes back to go through the other non-flashes.

Between webcomics and other things, I have plenty of ideas to fill out the next week of posts already.

As if I wasn’t having enough trouble getting anything done this summer…

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So, the frame of the screen of my laptop has become disconnected from the screen itself in one corner, AND one hinge has come loose, so I’m going to have to send it in to be repaired and that could take over a week.

The timing on this could not be worse as it jeopardizes the FF50 competition; I will probably have to do the drafts on my mom’s computer, if I do as many as I had planned at all, as Mom’s probably not going to be happy about me monopolizing the computer for large chunks of the day, especially when I could be doing more productive things.

Also, I’m going to be keeping my webcomics posts to a minimum over the course of the week. It’s unfortunate with the current events in Gunnerkrigg Court and Questionable Content that could become post-worthy soon, but it’s probably necessary.

Starting Da Blog’s 2012 football season with a whimper

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It is with a heavy sigh that I have begun the process of preparing the site for the 2012 football season (last week’s fantasy draft didn’t count). I’ve been dreading this because of all the stuff I wanted to get done this summer that didn’t get done. Both lineal titles have their respective first games updated, and sometime before Thursday I’ll tweet out when you can expect the first rankings. Because of the Fantasy Football Fifty Challenge, those and the SNF Flex Schedule Watch may be the only things I do this year.

Shark League Draft Post-Mortem

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You may recall I was feeling pretty sure of myself after the first two rounds of my FantasySharks League draft, when I had Larry Fitzgerald and Maurice Jones-Drew in my possession.

That…feeling didn’t last. My next five picks ended up all being wide receivers, and I wound up drafting eight wideouts over the course of the entire draft. If Jones-Drew’s holdout doesn’t end and none of the injured running backs I picked are ready, I’ll only be able to play one running back Week 1. I have a hard time believing I’m going to have a worse draft when I fill out the other 49 teams over Labor Day Weekend.

It’s apparent that the lists I was relying on overemphasize wideouts so much compared to their Shark League value that it’s going to be difficult to correct for. Someone told me that the lack of trading in Shark Leagues has a bigger impact on the draft than I would have thought, effectively leading one to focus on drafting their starting lineup at the major positions in the first six picks, but I’m not fond of trading anyway, and it wouldn’t change the fact that I drafted a wideout in the first and third rounds and probably would have filled my entire bench with them thereafter. I’m now playing “Wide Receiver Survivor”, with my eight wideouts fighting not to be cut in the first few weeks in favor of free agents to shore up my situation at tight end, running back, and possibly quarterback, though it’s entirely possible Jay Cutler, who broke the run of wideouts in the eighth, could work out.

I joined the Shark Leagues to test how far my own “strategy”, to the extent it could be called such, could really take me. I now suspect that the rules of the leagues have been intentionally devised to attempt to weed out anyone remotely noobish, and undercut any crutches such as I might use. So I intend to stick with it another year, but I’m going to have to make some big changes to my strategy to allow it to hold up under the circumstances. Even then, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough.

Great, ANOTHER streak-filler post?

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I was planning on writing a post wrapping up the Olympics in more ways than one… but my day became completely occupied with my fascination watching the FantasySharks drafts over the course of the day. And my own league wasn’t even part of it, being stuck at for over nine hours. I may have to consider the first day of the FantasySharks drafts a personal day for me from now on.

For the record, I think I’ve done pretty decently drafting so far (I’m 11th, so I get two picks pretty much one after the other). I’ve picked up Larry Fitzgerald and Maurice Jones-Drew, and I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet because I came very close to spending my first two picks on wide receivers. (The Shark leagues are PPR leagues, but with two wideouts and no flex, so people are reticent to take wideouts too early. By the way, I feel like ESPN’s PPR rankings are the Matt Millen of PPR rankings; four wideouts in the first eight spots?) Regardless, despite the differences between fantasy and real football, anytime you pick up two players among the Top 50 resumes for the Hall of Fame, you must be doing something right. (If you want to follow the rest of my draft, I’m tweeting every pick and I might write a wrap-up when it’s done.)

That Olympics post may be up by the time you read this, or I may have scrapped the idea entirely because I wasn’t feeling it. Time will tell.