@RestingB!tchFace :
This has been explained to you repeatedly and you have generally chosen snark and trolling rather than understanding and discussion but I'll give it one more shot:
First, as
@ELA alluded to, the purpose of this tier-based projection system is mainly to do several things:
- To level out the sometimes severe differences in SoS. I don't care that one team's record is better than another team's record until I look at who they have played.
- To avoid overreacting to winning or losing streaks that are primarily a product of schedule. Ie, if a team wins four straight it might mean that they are doing really well or it might just be that they played three home games and a road game against one of the conference's bottom-feeders. Conversely, if a team loses four straight it might mean that they are having issues or it might just be that they played three road games and a home game against one of the top teams in the league.
- To have a reasonably accurate projection of how the season will play out.
Now onto Minnesota:
Almost half way into the season they are a little above .500 at 5-4 in the league which, as you pointed out, is better than several teams that we have ranked ahead of them and the team that we have ranked even with them:
- fellow tier-5 team Ohio State is just 3-6
- tier-4 Iowa is 5-5
- tier-4 Indiana is 3-6
That is because our tier system is a little bit more sophisticated than simply looking at records. As I mentioned above, I don't care about records until I look at who they have played. In Minnesota's case their nine opponents/results are:
- 2 point road loss to tier-1 Michigan
- 15 point home loss to tier-3 Maryland
- 7 point road win over tier-4 Wisconsin
- 5 point home win over tier-4 Iowa
- 20 point road loss to tier-5 Ohio State
- 7 point home win over tier-6 Nebraska
- 27 point road loss to tier-7 Illinois
- 1 point home win over tier-7 Penn State
- 18 point home win over tier-7 Rutgers
The two
bolded results are "upsets" by which I mean that the tier system projected the opposite result. The other seven games all resulted in what we would expect for a tier-5 team.
You have talked a lot about Minnesota's road win over Wisconsin. That is a nice win, no doubt about it. You have failed to address Minnesota's 27 point loss to Illinois. That is a bad loss. From my perspective, they cancel each other out. Minnesota has one positive upset (the win at Wisconsin) and one negative upset (the loss at Illinois) and they have exactly the record that we would project for a tier-5 team at this point in the season.
Wisconsin has the upset loss at home to Minnesota. We know that. They also have two positive upsets. They beat the Wolverines and they won in Iowa City. Thus, Wisconsin is ahead of where we would project them to be and we now project them to finish 12-8.
Minnesota will get moved up if, and only if, they win some games that they are not projected to win. Going forward:
- vIL tonight - projected win
- @PU on 2/3 - projected loss
- vUW on 2/6 - projected win
- @MSU on 2/9 - projected loss
- @UNL on 2/13 - projected loss
- vIU on 2/16 - projected win
- vM on 2/21 - projected loss
- @RU on 2/24 - projected win
- @NU on 2/28 - projected loss
- vPU on 3/5 - projected loss
- @UMD on 3/8 - projected loss
We project that your Gophers will go just 4-7 in their last 11 games. Maybe you are right and they'll do better than that. If they win some of those games that we project them to lose (and don't lose offsetting games that we project them to win) then we'll adjust accordingly. For now, there isn't any reason to elevate them because the two upsets offset and they are exactly where we would project them to be.
