SOS Rankings Comparison

MOAN

All-American
Aug 30, 2010
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Yes I got to much time on my hands lol! I was in a discussion with a Notre Dame fan,(FriendlyIrish), on another thread, http://www.tidefans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187499&page=18 ,and he brought up Jeff Sagarins strength of schedule rankings, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc12.htm to prove his point.

I countered with TEAM RANKINGS strength of schedule rankings, http://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/strength-of-schedule-by-team . While looking at both rankings I noticed something peculiar about the differences and what the BCS final standings were. Then I thought why not? I got time LOL! So here goes! ;)

BCS FINAL STANDINGS----------------TEAM RANKINGS SOS--------------------JEFF SAGARIN SOS
1. Notre Dame--------------------------Texas A&M--------------------------------Missouri
2. Alabama------------------------------Alabama-----------------------------------Kansas
3. Florida---------------------------------Florida-------------------------------------Baylor
4. Oregon--------------------------------Georgia------------------------------------Oklahoma
5. Kansas State-------------------------LSU-----------------------------------------Iowa State
6. Stanford-------------------------------South Carolina-----------------------------Texas
7. Georgia--------------------------------Missouri-------------------------------------TCU
8. LSU------------------------------------Mississippi----------------------------------Florida
9. Texas A&M----------------------------Oklahoma State----------------------------Auburn
10. South Carolina-----------------------Oklahoma----------------------------------Oklahoma State
11. Oklahoma-----------------------------TCU-----------------------------------------California
12. Florida State--------------------------Kansas State------------------------------Oregon State
13. Oregon State--------------------------Baylor--------------------------------------USC
14. Clemson-------------------------------Texas---------------------------------------Texas A&M
15. N. Illinois------------------------------Oregon State------------------------------West Virginia
16. Nebraska------------------------------Nebraska-----------------------------------Stanford
17. UCLA-----------------------------------Kansas-------------------------------------Kentucky
18. Michigan-------------------------------Wisconsin----------------------------------Kansas State
19. Boise State----------------------------USC-----------------------------------------Mississippi
20. Northwestern--------------------------Michigan------------------------------------Michigan State
21. Louisville-------------------------------Stanford------------------------------------Arkansas
22. Utah State-----------------------------Arkansas------------------------------------Arizona
23. Texas-----------------------------------Kentucky-----------------------------------Tennessee
24. San Jose State-------------------------Mississippi State--------------------------UCLA
25. Kent State------------------------------Michigan State----------------------------Washington State

Several things jump out to me right off. How close TEAM RANKINGS is to the final BCS compared to Sagarin for one. How much weight TEAM RANKINGS give the SEC and how much weight Sagarin rankings give to the Big 12. Sagarin even has the Big 12 as the top ranked conference go figure! ;)

While Bama is ranked #2 in both the BCS and TEAM RANKINGS, Bama is 35th in Sagarin, hmmm. I guess there is not any rhyme to this madness except for regional bias. Notre Dame's SOS in TEAM RANKINGS is #29 and in Sagarin's is #27, very comparable!

Sagarin has Bama ranked as the #1 team and Notre Dame #2 even though Notre Dame's strength of schedule is higher than Bama's and Bama has a loss! Now thats a head scratcher to me! But I tell you what this exercise in futility has accomplished for me! I will go by TEAM RANKINGS SOS! Makes the most sense to me! Got no choice but to go with the BCS! I also think Jeff Sagarin forgot that Mizzou is in the SEC now! ;)
 

KrAzY3

Hall of Fame
Jan 18, 2006
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For the record, the SoS rankings are still jumping around. A couple of days ago Alabama was 33 and Notre Dame was 31. They will all change again before they play each other. In this instance, Western Kentucky losing a close one and Michigan St. winning a close one probably weighed heavily on the change. Either game could have gone either way.

USC, LSU, Miss. St., Georgia, Stanford, and Florida have yet to play for instance.

It will end up telling us a lot more after these games, and two in particular will weigh heavily and should. Ole Miss vs. Pitt should tell us a lot. Alabama dominated Ole Miss, and Notre Dame should have lost to Pitt. If Ole Miss wins this game, Notre Dame fans should be worried. The Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M game is the other way around. Alabama lost to Texas A&M and Notre Dame dominated Oklahoma (in similar fashion to how Alabama beat Ole Miss). If Oklahoma wins, Alabama fans should be worried.

Anyway, I'll check back on this stat right before the big game and see what it tells us...
 

KrAzY3

Hall of Fame
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Oklahoma got dominated by ND? No sir. That game was close until the end. To me, just my opinion, you can throw that one out.
It was 30-13. That is a dominant performance. I understand a lot happened in the fourth quarter, but you don't lose badly and say you barely lost. Alabama only beat Ole Miss 33-14, and while I agree Alabama was a more dominating performance, Alabama was held to a fairly meager 305 yards offense. You can nitpick any performance, but bottom line is if you get beat by more than two TDs you got your butt kicked.
 
It was 30-13. That is a dominant performance. I understand a lot happened in the fourth quarter, but you don't lose badly and say you barely lost. Alabama only beat Ole Miss 33-14, and while I agree Alabama was a more dominating performance, Alabama was held to a fairly meager 305 yards offense. You can nitpick any performance, but bottom line is if you get beat by more than two TDs you got your butt kicked.
I see where you are coming from but sometimes the stats are miss leading. ND's game was in doubt, Bama's never was. I know that formulas don't account for that but bring human does. Bowl season games are totally different and the match ups are not usual. I can't base what Bama and ND will do based on the scores unless it is a total blowout, kinda like I think Ole Miss will do to Pitt. SOS should no longer be calculated but it is, so we get to have a lil more fun with it.
 

KrAzY3

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I see where you are coming from but sometimes the stats are miss leading. ND's game was in doubt, Bama's never was. I know that formulas don't account for that but bring human does. Bowl season games are totally different and the match ups are not usual. I can't base what Bama and ND will do based on the scores unless it is a total blowout, kinda like I think Ole Miss will do to Pitt. SOS should no longer be calculated but it is, so we get to have a lil more fun with it.
I do think SoS tells us a lot, and is of value but it can be manipulated to. I think it's main use is to exclude teams rather than to tell us who is best. For instance, Boise St. has an SoS of 108 and that tells us that even at 11-2 they're still just (at best) a mid level team in a BCS conference. I don't think you can read too much into it beyond that sort of thing.

Personally, I expect Ole Miss to win, but I'm not sure about the other match-up. I think you figure out the hurry up, or you don't (just look at Washington/Stanford or Arkansas/LSU respectively). If Oklahoma beats Texas A&M and Ole Miss beats Pitt then we'll be faced with the fact that it's just a matter of which teams show up for the championship game.
 
I do think SoS tells us a lot, and is of value but it can be manipulated to. I think it's main use is to exclude teams rather than to tell us who is best. For instance, Boise St. has an SoS of 108 and that tells us that even at 11-2 they're still just (at best) a mid level team in a BCS conference. I don't think you can read too much into it beyond that sort of thing.

Personally, I expect Ole Miss to win, but I'm not sure about the other match-up. I think you figure out the hurry up, or you don't (just look at Washington/Stanford or Arkansas/LSU respectively). If Oklahoma beats Texas A&M and Ole Miss beats Pitt then we'll be faced with the fact that it's just a matter of which teams show up for the championship game.
Yep, I agree with you there. I expect a great Bama team to show up. It's about to get exciting starting today, better clinch up!
 

bamacpa70

1st Team
Nov 17, 2003
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It was 30-13. That is a dominant performance. I understand a lot happened in the fourth quarter, but you don't lose badly and say you barely lost. Alabama only beat Ole Miss 33-14, and while I agree Alabama was a more dominating performance, Alabama was held to a fairly meager 305 yards offense. You can nitpick any performance, but bottom line is if you get beat by more than two TDs you got your butt kicked.
The ND-OU game was 13-13 with 5 minutes left in the 4th qtr. Then OU turned it over on downs on their own 20 late in the game & ND took it in for the TD. Only know because this was on the other night.

We were up 27-7 at halftime. The games really aren't comparable.
 

BigBama76

Suspended
Oct 26, 2011
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The ND-OU game was 13-13 with 5 minutes left in the 4th qtr. Then OU turned it over on downs on their own 20 late in the game & ND took it in for the TD. Only know because this was on the other night.

We were up 27-7 at halftime. The games really aren't comparable.
Actually ND scored a TD to make it 20-13 with 5:05 left in the game breaking the 13-13 tie but your point is well taken. It wasn't the blow-out the score would indicate.
 

DzynKingRTR

TideFans Legend
Dec 17, 2003
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It was 30-13. That is a dominant performance. I understand a lot happened in the fourth quarter, but you don't lose badly and say you barely lost. Alabama only beat Ole Miss 33-14, and while I agree Alabama was a more dominating performance, Alabama was held to a fairly meager 305 yards offense. You can nitpick any performance, but bottom line is if you get beat by more than two TDs you got your butt kicked.
Did Cincinnati kick Dukes butt in their bowl game?
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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I do think SoS tells us a lot, and is of value but it can be manipulated to. I think it's main use is to exclude teams rather than to tell us who is best. For instance, Boise St. has an SoS of 108 and that tells us that even at 11-2 they're still just (at best) a mid level team in a BCS conference. I don't think you can read too much into it beyond that sort of thing.

Personally, I expect Ole Miss to win, but I'm not sure about the other match-up. I think you figure out the hurry up, or you don't (just look at Washington/Stanford or Arkansas/LSU respectively). If Oklahoma beats Texas A&M and Ole Miss beats Pitt then we'll be faced with the fact that it's just a matter of which teams show up for the championship game.
OU/TAMU is really two spread teams, with OU being much heavier on the pass. It's really hard to predict those games. A lot of it will be how Manziel shows up...
 

Crimson1967

Hall of Fame
Nov 22, 2011
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Why isn't the Barn's SOS higher on the list? They played us and Vandy instead of us playing them, Tennessee and Missouri. We had Michigan instead of Clemson but I'd say they had a tougher schedule than we did.
 

BAMA1979

All-American
Nov 15, 2006
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It was 30-13. That is a dominant performance. I understand a lot happened in the fourth quarter, but you don't lose badly and say you barely lost. Alabama only beat Ole Miss 33-14, and while I agree Alabama was a more dominating performance, Alabama was held to a fairly meager 305 yards offense. You can nitpick any performance, but bottom line is if you get beat by more than two TDs you got your butt kicked.
This is typically the case, but not always. See Cincinnati and Duke in the Belk Bowl.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/gameflash/2012/12/27/52370/index.html#boxscore
 

KrAzY3

Hall of Fame
Jan 18, 2006
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This is typically the case, but not always. See Cincinnati and Duke in the Belk Bowl.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/gameflash/2012/12/27/52370/index.html#boxscore
Heh, well granted if you score that many points I think it really obscures things quite a bit. I guess I could have said if you scored twice as many points instead, but 6-3 just doesn't feel like a blowout. I think we can name plenty of low scoring Alabama games that felt like blowouts, but didn't even meet the 14 point margin. I did say more than two TDs though, and it's usually a very hard sell to say you lost by 17 but it was a close game.

I discussed the margin of victory vs. percentage here earlier in the season. The notion was that winning 21-7 was far more dominating than winning 35-21. I think this applies to scoring twice as many points+a two TD margin because you're left with a lot of buts and ifs to try and explain that away. If only we'd made it on fourth down and if only we had done this and that, etc... For practical purposes though, a blowout shouldn't really matter if it happened in the first or the fourth quarter. If you are capable of stopping them when you have to, and scoring when you need to, and ultimately putting up a lot more points than them, you've blown them out.

I understand why people want to look down on Notre Dame, but I can't. I looked at their schedule at the start of the year and I felt it was one of the toughest I've seen. Sure, things didn't turn out as tough as they looked. USC and Oklahoma were not legit title contenders (although Oklahoma would have been in the mix had they not lost to Notre Dame). Michigan was not the elite team they could have been. Miami and BYU were closer to mediocre than great. It was still a tough schedule, and Notre Dame handled it quite well.

I honestly think a lot of Alabama fans are trying to reach to put down Notre Dame. I've seen several people here claim Notre Dame didn't even play a tough schedule. Really? That's absurd. Yes, Notre Dame is beatable, but so is Georgia, Texas A&M, and LSU. There's plenty of reason to believe Notre Dame gives Alabama just as much trouble as those teams did. In fact, there is logical ground to argue Notre Dame is better than those three teams.

I expect Alabama to win, but Notre Dame did not play a weak schedule, and Notre Dame is a very, very good team. They got lucky a couple of times, but so did Alabama. It takes a little luck to get in the championship game most years.
 

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