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Topic: ESPN's Rating the 21 BCS-to-Now Champs
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rolltidefan · « **Reply #14 on:** July 27, 2018, 10:03:24 AM »

Quote from: ELA on July 27, 2018, 07:44:19 AM

Yeah, it wasn't based on that game alone. I agree the '11 defense was a half step ahead of the '12 defense, but I think the '12 offense was a full step ahead. Splitting hairs though, because, why not.

11 and 12 are close.
i go back and forth on them, but right now i'm leaning 12 is slightly better than 11.
11 offense was slightly less productive, but mainly because coaches were letting mccarron ease into his role.
12 d was slightly less suffocating, but only allowed more than 2 tds 3 times: @ lsu (17) who finished top 15, aTm (29) the week following lsu and finished top 5, and uga (21) in sec title game and finished top 5.
11 had 1 score more than 2 tds, ga southern (21) using wishbone. but they also didn't face any offenses as good as aTm and uga were the following year.
as for overall list, i'd drop 08 us 3-5 spots, drop 13 fsu about 10-12 spots, raise clemson 3-4, raise 02 osu 5-6 spots, raise 10 au 3-4, and drop bama 17 a few spots.

utee94 · « **Reply #15 on:** July 27, 2018, 10:57:42 AM »

i'd definitely put the 2002 Buckeyes higher up the list. A 2-loss champion is going to have to be last place for me.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #16 on:** July 28, 2018, 12:23:26 AM »

I like what Sagarin does or tries to do, but having seen them and what happened with them, I can't swallow any list that has '98 Tennessee anywhere far from the bottom.

Good running game, QB that avoided screw-ups, and a decent defense, sure. But the game @ Syracuse should've been a loss, the game vs Arkansas was literally handed to them, and they faced FSU with its backup QB. None of those would show up in a statistical analysis, but are definitely part of the context of the team season.

FearlessF · « **Reply #17 on:** July 28, 2018, 03:56:19 PM »

agreed on 98 Vols

probably not any better than 97 Vols

ohio1317 · « **Reply #18 on:** July 28, 2018, 04:14:18 PM »

A loy of this depends on what you are ranking. I think this is seasons as a whole (which is the approach I prefer), but lists looks very different depending on whether looking how team was at end of the year vs. how they were throughout. 14 OSU for instance not all thay great for much of the season but progressed and then hit another level for last 3 games. Ranking just how they were at end would put them much higher to me than simply taking a kind of season average (but championships are earned over a year and not a game).

TyphonInc · « **Reply #19 on:** July 29, 2018, 12:06:52 AM »

'02 OSU versus '02 Miami Championship game: I recall there was a report before the '06 title game with ESPN saying something along the lines of, "people claiming that OSU was a weak champion should know, there were more players drafted to the NFL who played in that game than any other championship game. And perhaps it was really was an epic battle between to Titans and not the a David vs Goliath upset.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #20 on:** July 29, 2018, 02:12:00 AM »

The difficulty is taking regular seasons like 2002 Ohio State and 2012 Notre Dame, and determining which is actually the fraud and which could or does measure up to their record. Everyone and their mother knew ND was going to get spanked by Bama that year - and at least 4-5 other teams would've been favored over the undefeated Irish. But while OSU had some verrrrry unimpressive wins, 13-0 in the Big Ten is a major feat.

I'm not saying 02 OSU should've been picked to beat Miami by anyone, either, but there has to be something different between the 02 Buckeyes and the 12 Irish we can learn from, no?

ELA · « **Reply #21 on:** July 29, 2018, 12:01:13 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on July 28, 2018, 12:23:26 AM

I like what Sagarin does or tries to do, but having seen them and what happened with them, I can't swallow any list that has '98 Tennessee anywhere far from the bottom.

Good running game, QB that avoided screw-ups, and a decent defense, sure. But the game @ Syracuse should've been a loss, the game vs Arkansas was literally handed to them, and they faced FSU with its backup QB. None of those would show up in a statistical analysis, but are definitely part of the context of the team season.

In fairness, he only has one rating listed for his older stuff, and I think it's his MOV removed, BCS rating

TyphonInc · « **Reply #22 on:** July 29, 2018, 04:50:36 PM »

Quote from: TyphonInc on July 29, 2018, 12:06:52 AM

'02 OSU versus '02 Miami Championship game: I recall there was a report before the '06 title game with ESPN saying something along the lines of, "people claiming that OSU was a weak champion should know, there were more players drafted to the NFL who played in that game than any other championship game. And perhaps it was really was an epic battle between to Titans and not the a David vs Goliath upset.

I'm having trouble finding the proper numbers to use for comparison purposes.
my best guesstimate is to just take the 3 drafts after the game.
Miami '02-'04 had 29 people drafted.
OSU '02-'04 had 28 drafted.
That's a pretty impressive 3 year span for each school.
That stat I can no longer find was was concerning players who actually played in the championship game. So some of those drafted players may have been on the bench, or a super freshman may have played the game, but didn't declare until their 4th year. And again we are now talking about 12 year old fuzzy memory, but I thought the total was 49 players got drafted who played in that game, and just grabbing the 3 drafts adds up 57 so not quite right.

Brutus Buckeye · « **Reply #23 on:** July 29, 2018, 05:01:17 PM »

Weird how both OSU NCs were hybrid rosters recruited by two different coaches.

Both were chock full of upperclassmen recruited by a previous administration that had been criticized for the slipping of their recruiting in their later years; sprinkled with some stud underclassmen that were recruited by the new coaching staff.

Neither coach was able to win another NC, once they had an entire roster of their own creation.

bayareabadger · « **Reply #24 on:** July 29, 2018, 05:44:09 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on July 28, 2018, 12:23:26 AM

I like what Sagarin does or tries to do, but having seen them and what happened with them, I can't swallow any list that has '98 Tennessee anywhere far from the bottom.

Good running game, QB that avoided screw-ups, and a decent defense, sure. But the game @ Syracuse should've been a loss, the game vs Arkansas was literally handed to them, and they faced FSU with its backup QB. None of those would show up in a statistical analysis, but are definitely part of the context of the team season.

I mean, only some of that would show up in numbers, unfortunately.
I do find it interesting because a national title team is as much a narrative and story as it is a statistical season. A Tennessee fan will see the other parts, and I imagine you could give a similar hole-poking treatment to many of the teams ranked behind them.
Bill Connolly did a sort of hybrid of his rankings working off points per game. This is how everyone shook out (I think it's in points above average though he also uses percentiles, and after 2005 is a slightly different formula).
2005 Texas 29.3 (No. 2)
2012 Bama 28.5
2015 Bama 27.8
2011 Bama 27.5 (No. 2)
2001 Miami 27 (Maybe a hint worse than the year before)
2016 Clemson 26.9 (No. 2, behind a tremendous Bama team)
2014 OSU 26.2
2013 FSU 25.6
2008 Florida 25.0
1999 FSU 24.6
2004 USC 24.4
2009 Bama 24.0 (No. 2)
2010 Auburn 23.9 (No. 2)
2003 LSU 23.4
2000 Oklahoma 22.9 (No. 3)
2003 USC 22.6 (No. 2)
2007 LSU 22.6 (No. 2)
2006 Florida 22.1
2017 Bama 20 (No. 2)
1998 Tennessee +18.3 No.4 nationally (two-ish points worse that 1997 Vols)
2002 Ohio State 17.6 (No.6)
I think the one that irks the most folks is 2001 Miami, which gets hurt by a Big East schedule and a few non-conference opponents faltering. It's interesting to see that another metric also like Texas that high.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #25 on:** July 29, 2018, 07:57:33 PM »

The Miami argument is more talent than 'traditional' scores/stats measures. For me, when ranking 'best' college teams of all time, I have no idea what draft picks has to do with it. I don't care what potential an NFL GM sees in a college player.

Take a first round pick like Ed Reed. When discussing the '01 Canes, what Reed did on the field made him a great member of the team, not the fact that he was a first round pick.

Did the 2001 Cornhuskers stink because they had a 3rd round WR under center? Of course not. They had the Heisman trophy winner at QB.....THAT'S what matters.

So back to Miami. They had a great pass D. Only allowed a 45% completion %, only 140 yards per game, and picked off 2.5 passes per game! That's great. But why in the hell did they allow 135 yards rushing per game?!? And if you assume it's teams running out the clock because the Canes are way ahead, why did Miami give up 3.1 yards per carry? That's merely good for a given season, but comparing it with other national champions, it's not very good.

If superstar NFL Miami was that great, they'd have shut down the run along with the pass. They were ballhawks and led the country in turnovers, but they could've been better against the run. The 2002 Canes were even softer vs the run. They were just as stingy vs the pass, but their problem was where did the turnovers go??? Less than half as many caused by the defense.

The talent level didn't really fall off from 01 to 02, because the incoming talent was as good as the outgoing talent. But they win the ring in 2001 and not in 2002. Both squads led by the same QB who the NFL largely ignored. But because one of their players had 9 ints one year and that position didn't have 9 ints the next year, we're to cite the NFL draft picks of the champs and remain silent about the other that didn't win.

bayareabadger · « **Reply #26 on:** July 29, 2018, 09:44:11 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on July 29, 2018, 07:57:33 PM

The Miami argument is more talent than 'traditional' scores/stats measures. For me, when ranking 'best' college teams of all time, I have no idea what draft picks has to do with it. I don't care what potential an NFL GM sees in a college player.

....

So back to Miami. They had a great pass D. Only allowed a 45% completion %, only 140 yards per game, and picked off 2.5 passes per game! That's great. But why in the hell did they allow 135 yards rushing per game?!? And if you assume it's teams running out the clock because the Canes are way ahead, why did Miami give up 3.1 yards per carry? That's merely good for a given season, but comparing it with other national champions, it's not very good.

To the first part, they did average winning by 32.9 points a game, with only two opponents coming within 22 points (a Va. Tech team that pushed them and BC for some reason). The did legitimately kick the hell out of most everyone.
The last part sent me down a weird rabbit hole because on the one hand, the per carry number is probably around the 33rd percentile of national title teams. What's very weird about it is opponents ran against them 42.5 times a game. That was 85th that year, despite the fact they were just trampling most teams.
Now those stats are often noisy with sacks counted in and draw plays in the fourth quarter of blowouts. From watching the competitive parts of the FSU game, their tackling seemed to come and go, and draws/QB scrambles proved to be problematic. Still, some of these numbers are odd.
FSU ran 48 times in a 49-27 loss. 140 came in the first half when Miami went up 21-0 and FSU made it 21-13, but then Miami went up 35-13.
VT ran a logical 39 times (to 16 passes) in a close loss
Pitt ran 42 times in a 43-21 loss, when they were down a lot much of the game
WVU ran 55 times to 21 passes in a 45-3 loss.
Syracuse ran 46 times to 20 passes in a 59-0 loss
Washington ran 45 times to 36 passes in a 65-7 loss
Temple and Troy each had 40 carries and lost 38-0 and 38-7
My gut is that's more a statistical quirk than anything. It's interesting. They were blowing folks away, and yet only were thrown on 38.3 percent of the time.

FearlessF · « **Reply #27 on:** July 29, 2018, 10:58:54 PM »

in Pasadena the Huskers ran on the canes 49 times for 197 yards

after the canes 27 point 2nd quarter and a 34 point deficit at the half, the Huskers knew the game was over and simply wanted to run clock and get the game over

perhaps that was part of the equation for other teams that season?

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Topic: ESPN's Rating the 21 BCS-to-Now Champs

rolltidefan

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utee94

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OrangeAfroMan

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FearlessF

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ohio1317

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TyphonInc

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OrangeAfroMan

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ELA

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TyphonInc

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Brutus Buckeye

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bayareabadger

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OrangeAfroMan

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bayareabadger

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FearlessF

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