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Topic: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era

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medinabuckeye1

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The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« on: December 04, 2018, 07:49:37 AM »
When the CFP was formed I really thought that it would result in fascinating debates after CG upsets.  In the five years of the CFP there have not been any major upsets in the CG's.  

2018:
  • #1 Bama beat #4 UGA in the SECCG
  • #2 Clemson beat nr Pitt in the ACCCG
  • #5 OU beat #14 TX in the B12CG
  • #6 tOSU beat #21 NU in the B1GCG
  • #11 UW beat #17 Utah in the P12CG
No surprises at all.  

2017:
  • #1 Clemson beat #7 Miami in the ACCCG
  • #6 Georgia beat #2 Auburn in the SECCG
  • #3 OU beat #11 TCU in the B12CG
  • #8 tOSU beat #4 UW in the B1GCG
  • #10 USC beat #12 STanford in the P12CG
Based on ranking, UGA>Auburn and tOSU>UW were both upsets but I remember that tOSU was favored and neither was particularly shocking.  

2016:
  • #1 Bama beat #15 UF in the SECCG
  • #3 Clemson beat #23 VaTech in the ACCCG
  • #4 UW beat #8 Colorado in the P12CG
  • #7 PSU beat #6 UW in the B1GCG
  • no B12CG
Based on ranking, PSU>UW was an upset but it was 7vs6 so hardly a shocking one.  

2015:
  • #1 Clemson beat #15 UNC in the ACCCG
  • #2 Bama beat #18 UF in the SECCG
  • #5 MSU beat #4 Iowa in the B1GCG
  • #7 Stanford beat #20 USC in the P12CG
  • no B12CG
Based on ranking MSU>Iowa was an upset but it was 5vs4 and nobody was surprised.  

2014:
  • #1 Bama beat #16 Mizzou in the SECCG
  • #2 Oregon beat #7 Zona in the P12CG
  • #4 FSU beat #11 GaTech in the ACCCG
  • #5 tOSU beat #13 UW in the B1GCG
  • no B12CG
Technically Wisconsin was favored over Ohio State but it was close and Ohio State was the higher ranked team.  

It is frankly amazing that in all of these CG's the two biggest uspets (at least according to ranking) were #6 UGA over #2 Auburn and #8 tOSU over #4 Wisconsin both in 2017.  Neither of those results were truly surprising.  
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ELA

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2018, 07:51:34 AM »
I was actually thinking that on Saturday, that as much chaos as we typically get in college football, very little seems to occur on championship weekend.  1998 and 2001 are the two examples that come to mind.  Two decades ago.
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2018, 08:11:43 AM »
Quote from: ELA on December 04, 2018, 07:51:34 AM
I was actually thinking that on Saturday, that as much chaos as we typically get in college football, very little seems to occur on championship weekend.  1998 and 2001 are the two examples that come to mind.  Two decades ago.
As an Ohio State fan the one that immediately occurred to me was 2007 when #3 Ohio State didn't have a CG and needed either #1 Mizzou or #2 WVU to lose to either #9 OU or nr Pitt respectively.  As it turned out, BOTH upsets happened such that when the dust settled Ohio State was an obvious selection and the controversy was over #2 between 2-loss league champs:
  • 11-2 SEC Champion LSU
  • 11-2 ACC Champion VaTech
  • 11-2 B12 Champion OU
  • 10-2 P10 Champion USC

The OU>Mizzou "upset" wasn't much of an upset.  I pretty much expected that one as Mizzou was mostly a product of their schedule and had already lost to OU earlier in the season but unranked Pitt over #2 WVU was huge.  The Panthers came into the game at 4-7 coming off of back-to-back losses to Rutgers and South Florida.  Moreover, Pitt wasn't even the home team.  Their upset over #2 WVU happened in Morgantown.  

1998 and 2001 were pretty crazy as well.  Tennessee was all but beaten in the SECCG and that would have sent tOSU to the inaugural BCS Title game but then they managed to win.  
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Cincydawg

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2018, 09:16:18 AM »
Part of this is because Team A is often a LOT better than Team B from the other division.

We do see apparent upsets in the Final Four of course judging by seeding, but those are all good teams.
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ELA

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2018, 11:05:27 AM »
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on December 04, 2018, 08:11:43 AM
As an Ohio State fan the one that immediately occurred to me was 2007 when #3 Ohio State didn't have a CG and needed either #1 Mizzou or #2 WVU to lose to either #9 OU or nr Pitt respectively.  As it turned out, BOTH upsets happened such that when the dust settled Ohio State was an obvious selection and the controversy was over #2 between 2-loss league champs:
  • 11-2 SEC Champion LSU
  • 11-2 ACC Champion VaTech
  • 11-2 B12 Champion OU
  • 10-2 P10 Champion USC

The OU>Mizzou "upset" wasn't much of an upset.  I pretty much expected that one as Mizzou was mostly a product of their schedule and had already lost to OU earlier in the season but unranked Pitt over #2 WVU was huge.  The Panthers came into the game at 4-7 coming off of back-to-back losses to Rutgers and South Florida.  Moreover, Pitt wasn't even the home team.  Their upset over #2 WVU happened in Morgantown.  

1998 and 2001 were pretty crazy as well.  Tennessee was all but beaten in the SECCG and that would have sent tOSU to the inaugural BCS Title game but then they managed to win.  
Yeah I was thinking actual CCG, and Pitt over WVU wasn't one.  Like you, I expected Oklahoma to handle Missouri.
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Cincydawg

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2018, 11:06:40 AM »
Another related item is the old saw about it being tough to beat the same team twice in a season, and yet it more often happens when it is possible.

Of course, when it happens it nearly always is because both teams are pretty good to very good.
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FearlessF

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2018, 11:28:45 AM »
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on December 04, 2018, 07:49:37 AM
When the CFP was formed I really thought that it would result in fascinating debates after CG upsets.  In the five years of the CFP there have not been any major upsets in the CG's.  
oh, don't worry, the upsets are coming
unless the conference office is controlling the Refs AND the underdog coaching staff
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OrangeAfroMan

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2018, 12:55:21 PM »
Here's the plus side of motivated, big-boy teams with all their goals on the line.  They don't whiff.  
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FearlessF

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #8 on: December 04, 2018, 12:58:47 PM »
some whiffs are coming
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2018, 04:01:50 PM »
Quote from: FearlessF on December 04, 2018, 12:58:47 PM
some whiffs are coming
I think there is no doubt about this.  When you look at this year's five match-ups, I think it would be safe to bet that on average at least one of the underdogs would win.  None won this year but a year will come in which two or three underdogs win P5 CG's and then it will be utter chaos figuring out the final CFP rankings.  
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FearlessF

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2018, 04:05:39 PM »
I'm looking forward to it, unless it's the Huskers getting upset

I really will think it's karma when a huge upset happens in the Big 12

It happened in the Big 12 back in the day quite often, and there's no need for it to happen now that they have a round robin schedule

Do you think the Sooners needed the bump they recieved for playing the Horns and beating them in the champ game?

or would they have been voted the 4th slot w/o that game?
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #11 on: December 04, 2018, 04:45:06 PM »
Quote from: FearlessF on December 04, 2018, 04:05:39 PM
I'm looking forward to it, unless it's the Huskers getting upset

I really will think it's karma when a huge upset happens in the Big 12

It happened in the Big 12 back in the day quite often, and there's no need for it to happen now that they have a round robin schedule

Do you think the Sooners needed the bump they recieved for playing the Horns and beating them in the champ game?

or would they have been voted the 4th slot w/o that game?
I think that would have been an awfully close call between 12-1 B1G Champion tOSU and 11-1 B12 Champion OU.  
Oklahoma still would have obviously had the "better" loss.  They lost by 3 to a top-15 team at a neutral site.  The problem for the Sooners would have been that they would have had definitely less quality wins.  tOSU and OU wins over final CFP top-15 teams (assuming no redemption for OU over Texas in the B12CG):
  • tOSU over #3 Michigan by 23 at home
  • tOSU over #12 Penn State by 1 on the road
  • OU over #16 WVU by 3 on the road
  • tOSU over #22 Northwestern by 21 at a neutral site
  • OU over #24 ISU by 10 on the road

Looking at that list, OU has a big problem.  Ohio State's signature win is VASTLY superior to anything they can offer and Ohio State has the second (blowout over NU) and third (close over PSU) best wins.  Oklahoma's close win over WVU and their 10 point win over ISU would be clearly inferior to all three of Ohio State's wins over ranked teams.  

In comparing the two teams Ohio State would have an advantage over Oklahoma in both quantity and quality of wins over ranked teams.  Oklahoma would simply have to hope that the committee valued their "good" loss enough to put them ahead of the Buckeyes with their better wins and worse loss.  

That is a really fundamental question of which you think is more important:
  • Getting good wins (Ohio State wins), or
  • Avoiding bad losses (Oklahoma wins)
We've had that debate here probably 100's of times and I think we are fairly evenly split.  I have to imagine that the 13 member committee would probably also be pretty evenly split and it would probably come down to a 7-6 or maybe 8-5 type decision and I think it could go either way.  

As it happened Oklahoma's 12 point win over #15 Texas gave them the same quantity as Ohio State and rough parity in quality so I think the bad loss was the deciding factor.  
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2018, 12:06:29 PM »
To put this in some persepctive I am using the point spreads from the Worldwide Leader and an approximation of how often an underdog of that many points should win from a site called bettingtalk to come up with an approximation of how many of this year's CGs "should" have resulted in upsets:
  • Pittsburgh was a 28 point underdog, those should win almost never
  • Northwestern was a 16.5 point underdog, those should win 11% of the time
  • Georgia was a 12 point underdog, those should win 18.4% of the time
  • Texas was a 9 point underdog, those should win 25% of the time
  • Utah was a 4.5 point underdog, those should win 36.9% of the time

Ignoring the Pittsburgh longshot:
  • Northwestern should beat Ohio State roughly once in 10 tries, and
  • Georgia should beat Bama roughly once in five tries, and
  • Texas should beat Oklahoma once in four tries, and
  • Utah should beat Washington roughly once in three tries.  

Again ignoring Pittsburgh's longshot, 11%+18.4%+25%+36.9% = 91.3%.  

That isn't really how statistics work though.  I *THINK* the appropriate formula is to take the inverses and multiply them so, again ignoring Pittsburgh, the chance of the other four P5CG favorites all winning was:
89%*81.6%*75%*63.1% = 34.37%
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medinabuckeye1

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Re: The surprising lack of CG upsets in the CFP era
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2018, 12:37:12 PM »
Fun with numbers:

Ignoring the ACCCG, there were four P5CG in which the underdog had a reasonable (at least 10%) chance of winning.  Four games with two results makes for 16 total possible outcomes (2*2*2*2=16).  Here are all 16 possible outcomes to the B1G, SEC, B12, and PAC CG's this year with their statistical likelihood of occurring based on the aforementioned information:
#NU-tOSUUGA-BamaTX-OUUT-UW% Chance
1tOSUBamaOUUW34.37%
2tOSUBamaOUUT20.10%
3tOSUBamaTXUW11.46%
4tOSUUGAOUUW7.75%
5tOSUBamaTXUT6.70%
6tOSUUGAOUUT4.53%
7NUBamaOUUW4.25%
8tOSUUGATXUW2.58%
9NUBamaOUUT2.48%
10tOSUUGATXUT1.51%
11NUBamaTXUW1.42%
12NUUGAOUUW0.96%
13NUBamaTXUT0.83%
14NUUGAOUUT0.56%
15NUUGATXUW0.32%
16NUUGATXUT0.19%
All four favorites winning is the most likely outcome but it has only about a one-in-three chance of happening.  

In this case the P12CG was effectively irrelevant and the chances of Pittsburgh upsetting Clemson were close to nil but just looking at the other three:
#NU-tOSUUGA-BamaTX-OU% Chance
1tOSUBamaOU54.47%
2tOSUBamaTX18.16%
3tOSUUGAOU12.28%
4NUBamaOU6.73%
5tOSUUGATX4.09%
6NUBamaTX2.24%
7NUUGAOU1.52%
8NUUGATX0.51%
The chances of all three favorites winning were still only barely over 50/50.  
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