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Topic: B1G Power Rankings, week 3

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medinabuckeye1

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #28 on: November 09, 2020, 04:01:48 PM »
Love this idea, but it's a little too noisy because of the lack of data points.

Any chance you're going to update this week to week?
I'll probably keep up with it.  

I agree, very noisy with only three (and in some cases two) data-points but I've used this before near the end of the season and it works well then.  It looks like Wisconsin IS playing this week so hopefully we'll have more data after Saturday and this will make more sense.  

Brutus Buckeye

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #29 on: November 09, 2020, 04:22:03 PM »
I'll slot them in at 13 for now, since they could probably beat the Illini short handed.
1919, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 44
WWH: 1952, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75
1979, 81, 82, 84, 87, 94, 98
2001, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

betarhoalphadelta

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #30 on: November 09, 2020, 05:55:12 PM »
1) Ohio State: this should really just be a power ranking of the remaining 12 or 13, depending on Wisconsin's health.
Competent:
2) Indiana: holy cow! How in tarnation is this possible. Wins, including two (tarnished) Helmets.
3) Northwestern: winning matters.
4) Purdue: ditto (wins don't look as *quality* as Northwestern's).
5) Iowa: two losses, but to teams ahead of it; pretty good whupping of Sparty.
...
[DQ]
6) Wisconsin: if this team returns to play, it should be ok, but depends a lot on the personnel available, and the Badgers will have to knock off a lot of rust in a hurry. This is as good a place holder position as any.
...
Incompentent:
7) Maryland: that was a quality win for the Big East division of the Big Ten.
8) Michigan: someone has to go here--at least it has a win.
9) Rutgers: HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!? Because it beat MSU, I suppose.
10) MSU: getting curb-stomped at Iowa kinda knocked the bloom off the rose, and reminded everyone about the loss to Rutgers.
11) Minnesota: has a win.
12) Penn State: worse than 0-3, this team was down 35-7 to Maryland. MARYLAND!!!!!!
13) Nebraska: fleeting signs of a pulse.
14) Illinois: ooph; this team sucks.
:57:

betarhoalphadelta

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #31 on: November 09, 2020, 06:05:55 PM »
I think part of this is that we never really decided on a "standard" power ranking concept here.

Power rankings IMHO should be "who would win on a neutral field?" rankings. Because it's not about record, it's not about anything that happened in past weeks, it's about who they are going forward. That doesn't mean past weeks don't matter, because they can tell us a lot about a team, but that if a fluke upset (say Purdue's 49-20 rout of OSU in 2018) aren't indicative of the relative strengths of the teams going forward, they shouldn't impact a power ranking.

And I think while power rankings may take injuries into account, in my mind a power ranking shouldn't really take in transient injuries.

For example, even going into last week I might have considered Clemson above Notre Dame in a "power ranking" even though I knew Trevor Lawrence was out that week [because all expectations were that it is transient], and now that he's back I don't see it as ridiculous to put Clemson above Notre Dame in a "power ranking" even though ND now has the H2H victory. 

Now, if Trevor Lawrence had gone down with an ACL tear two weeks before the Notre Dame game, that probably changes. Because if you know he's out the whole season, the team simply isn't as good without him as it is with him. 

So IMHO I don't really consider any of this COVID stuff to be important in a power ranking. COVID is basically a transient "injury" like the flu to most college-age athletes. It's not like Wisconsin or Illinois lost players for the season, or lost them in a way that we have any reasonable expectation they won't return at 100%. 

So if I participated in these, I'd still have Wisconsin pretty high, regardless of COVID, because they're a good team. And I'd still have Illinois low, regardless of COVID, because even at full strength I think they'd suck. 


Abba

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #32 on: November 09, 2020, 07:41:50 PM »
Yeah, I agree with you.  I don't always take head to head results into account all that strongly when doing these rankings.  There are upsets and fluky results that happen.  I would have to move MD up based on the win over PSU, but if PSU gets right the next few weeks and MD falls apart, I'm not going to cling to that result for the whole season.

Brutus Buckeye

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #33 on: November 10, 2020, 06:27:53 AM »
Even so, I am inclined  to rank a team that is willing to give it a go without any kickers higher than a team that cancels a game or two that they could have played.

It would have been easy to say "we can't beat these guys without our special teams intact, let's just cancel that game." and no one would have blamed them. But instead they rolled out what they had and gave it a go.

1919, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 44
WWH: 1952, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75
1979, 81, 82, 84, 87, 94, 98
2001, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

NorthernOhioBuckeye

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #34 on: November 10, 2020, 07:16:02 AM »
Even so, I am inclined  to rank a team that is willing to give it a go without any kickers higher than a team that cancels a game or two that they could have played.

It would have been easy to say "we can't beat these guys without our special teams intact, let's just cancel that game." and no one would have blamed them. But instead they rolled out what they had and gave it a go.


I assume you are referring to Wisconsin in this post.

IMHO, I don't believe they were trying to dodge playing a game without their best players as much as they were trying to avoid spreading the virus to others. I know that if they had been scheduled to play Ohio State and if I were Ryan Day, I would have seriously considered NOT playing that game for fear of losing MY best players for the next 3 weeks due to a Covid infection. I can imagine that Wisconsin did not want to be in a position to be blamed for spreading this virus around the league. 

847badgerfan

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #35 on: November 10, 2020, 07:34:45 AM »
Illinois fans are blaming Wisconsin for giving it to them.

After their losses, Nebraska and Purdue fans would be doing the same.
U RAH RAH! WIS CON SIN!

ELA

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #36 on: November 10, 2020, 09:22:30 AM »
My Week 3 leaning fully into the transitive property (because my eyes don't know what they are seeing) rankings


  • OHIO STATE - class by themselves
  • INDIANA - 9 windiana in a 9 game season?
  • WISCONSIN - impossible to rank right now
  • NORTHWESTERN - the only defense that has stopped the mighty Terps
  • MARYLAND - what a difference two weeks makes
  • PENN STATE - definitely the best 0-3 team in the country
  • PURDUE - playing Northwestern this week in the "please get one more game canclled Bucky" Bowl
  • IOWA - any truth to the rumor Kirk Ferentz tried to upload the game tape to PornHub?
  • RUTGERS - nobody behind them seems even slightly inclined to jump them
  • NEBRASKA - the Scott Frost offense, after that first quarter, continues to sputter, but maybe Northwestern's defense is that good
  • MICHIGAN STATE - weird that continuously putting 6 men in the box again Iowa doesn't work
  • MICHIGAN - at this point, if it just ends with a loss at Ohio State anyway, I'm not sure Michigan fans want Harbaugh to "fix this" to 6-3
  • MINNESOTA - finally found an offense bad enough for their defense to stop
  • ILLINOIS - they punted on 4th and goal



medinabuckeye1

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #37 on: November 10, 2020, 12:30:09 PM »
Results posted, votes through @ELA , 17 voters.  Before compiling I took the adjustments by @847badgerfan and @Brutus Buckeye into account so that we are all ranking all 14 teams.  

These results are weird.  There is unanimous agreement that Ohio State is the best and Illinois the worst team in the league.  After that the only things that more than half of us agree upon are that Indiana is second to Ohio State and the Northwestern is fourth.  No other spot has more than eight out of 17 votes for one team.  

Note that Michigan, Minnesota, Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska, and Michigan State are all effectively tied for 8th through 13th place.  

FearlessF

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #38 on: November 10, 2020, 01:57:16 PM »
Illinois fans are blaming Wisconsin for giving it to them.

After their losses, Nebraska and Purdue fans would be doing the same.
I'm blaming Wisconsin for UNL's loss to Northwestern
"Courage; Generosity; Fairness; Honor; In these are the true awards of manly sport."

medinabuckeye1

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #39 on: November 10, 2020, 04:27:50 PM »
Even so, I am inclined  to rank a team that is willing to give it a go without any kickers higher than a team that cancels a game or two that they could have played.

It would have been easy to say "we can't beat these guys without our special teams intact, let's just cancel that game." and no one would have blamed them. But instead they rolled out what they had and gave it a go.
I disagree with you on two counts:
  • You keep implying that UW cancelled games to "duck" opponents and/or avoid losses.  I do NOT believe that.  I think they are being cautious about the virus and I'll take Barry at his word.  
  • I think Ohio State is the best team in the league.  As such, when I rank the rest, one thing I often ask myself is which team that I haven't ranked yet do I think is the biggest threat to Ohio State.  I think the biggest threat to Ohio State is Wisconsin.  You might not agree that they are the biggest, but by ranking them #13 you are (to my way of thinking) saying that UW would be the second easiest possible B1G opponent for our Buckeyes and that isn't just wrong it is flat out absurd.  


Benthere2

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #40 on: November 10, 2020, 04:42:35 PM »
and thinking of a weekly rankings if you think Wisconsin was the biggest threat when they were not playing then you need to rethink- just saying

as stated, when Wisconsin returns to playing they will be judged and ranked on their on the field performance like everyone should be.  

Barry is not stupid, he did not cancel the games to duck team(especially Nebraska) 

each person has their own ranking criteria and such is why this is a fun thread - where did MCTwerps(sp) go he always made this thread interesting with his whacko criteria and system for ranking

Brutus Buckeye

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Re: B1G Power Rankings, week 3
« Reply #41 on: November 10, 2020, 05:09:45 PM »
I disagree with you on two counts:
  • You keep implying that UW cancelled games to "duck" opponents and/or avoid losses.  I do NOT believe that.  I think they are being cautious about the virus and I'll take Barry at his word. 
  • I think Ohio State is the best team in the league.  As such, when I rank the rest, one thing I often ask myself is which team that I haven't ranked yet do I think is the biggest threat to Ohio State.  I think the biggest threat to Ohio State is Wisconsin.  You might not agree that they are the biggest, but by ranking them #13 you are (to my way of thinking) saying that UW would be the second easiest possible B1G opponent for our Buckeyes and that isn't just wrong it is flat out absurd. 


There was a year when Maryland opened by stomping Texas. Initially we all ranked them high, but then their QBs began to drop like flies to the point where they were, as you put it, playing mascots and cheerleaders at the QB position. At that point we all started ranking them at or near the bottom of the ladder, regardless of the fact that they were one of the top teams when they were "at full strength."

So you will have to forgive me for being a little confused about when we are supposed to base our rankings on reality vs what they might be like in some parallel universe where they are "at full strength." I mean, they can't even play right now. I've never seen a team so thoroughly depleted into ineptitude. Ranking them ahead of illinois is merely a symbolic nod to the fact that they won the head to head, and to illustrate just how poorly the Illini have performed.
1919, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 44
WWH: 1952, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75
1979, 81, 82, 84, 87, 94, 98
2001, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

 

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