CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => SEC => Topic started by: OrangeAfroMan on November 15, 2020, 03:29:09 PM
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The traditional fans tend to treat head-2-head as the ultimate arbiter of ranking 2 teams with identical records.
The more statistically-inclined crowd tend to treat h-2-h games as 'just another game' or data point, and don't give it special weight.
Which group is right? Are either? Both?!?
A&M beat Florida at home. It was a tie game late, and with Florida nearly in position to kick a FG, they fumbled and A&M wound up kicking a FG as time expired. Basically the closest outcome you can have, short of overtime.
Does anything else matter? A&M is 5-1. Florida is 5-1. Same conference. Played each other. H-2-H is the tie-breaker, nothing more to see here.
Well....maybe. Maybe not. What harm does it do to look deeper?
Fortunately for us, there are no wildly-imbalanced cupcake games to slant a strength-of-schedule look. And because of that, margin-of-victory may be more useful as well.
A&M's opponents:
0-6 Vanderbilt
6-0 Alabama
5-1 Florida
2-4 Miss State
3-4 Arkansas
2-5 Carolina...........total record, 18-20....nearly .500.
Florida's opponents:
3-4 Ole Miss
2-5 Carolina
5-1 A&M
2-3 Missouri
4-2 Georgia
3-4 Arkansas..........total record, 19-19....right at .500.
Their schedule strength has been roughly the same.
Then we should look at margin-of-victory versus nearly-even schedules.
A&M has a +50 point differential in 6 games.
Florida has a +95 point diff in 6 games.
That's a little surprising - Florida's is nearly double that of A&M's. But how? Well, A&M only beat Vandy by 5 points. And their win over Florida was by 3. But the biggie influencer on this stat is their loss: 28 points to Bama. A total blowout.
So while the Aggies' win over Carolina is more impressive than Florida's was, so too was Florida's win over Arkansas compared to A&M's. And Florida's only loss, to A&M, was on a last-second FG.
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No, none of this is super-important. If they both win out, Florida will get its own shot vs big, bad Bama and would then leapfrog A&M with a win. But until then, there seems to be more people using h-2-h over MOV.
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I'd rank Florida ahead of A&M, to the extent it matters, as you say. I think Florida has improved over the season a fair bit.
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A&M beat Florida a relative short time back. IMO it would be asinine to rank Florida over their beaten opponent. However Florida seems to have the hype machine behind them. It doesn't matter because Florida gets to play Alabama who beat A&M. Win that game and you have Florida who beat Alabama who beat A&M.That would legitimize Florida's claim vis a vis A&M.
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A&M beat Florida a relative short time back. IMO it would be asinine to rank Florida over their beaten opponent. However Florida seems to have the hype machine behind them. It doesn't matter because Florida gets to play Alabama who beat A&M. Win that game and you have Florida who beat Alabama who beat A&M.That would legitimize Florida's claim vis a vis A&M.
Some might say playing the who-beat-who game is asinine, because you'd wind up with Kent State with a claim to the national championship every year.
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Syllogism doesn't work in CFB. It is known.
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I agree that syllogism in college football is not absolute. It would be more than foolish to argue that the Stanford team that defeated USC as a 35 point underdog was the better team. However, if two teams have relatively similar track records head to head is probably the best factor in determining the better team. That's simple logic.
Florida is a scary team and very well might win the SEC and the NC, but at this point there is no matrix other than hype that indicates that Florida is a superior team to A&M.
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imo, it's more of a sliding scale than and hard/fast rule either way.
generally, h2h is just another data point, but at some point, when the data set are close enough that the true answer is lost in the fuzz, then h2h becomes the deciding factor.
uf/aTm are approaching that point. their data set are pretty similar.
interestingly, i think depending on what you're asking, i'd give different answers. if you're asking who would win in a rematch, i'd pick florida (mainly because i trust trask much more than mond, though mond hasn't been bad this year). but if you're asking if the season stopped today, who would i put in higher bowl slot/cfp, i'd say aTm deserves it due to h2h (and because the remainder of the data doesn't separate uf enough to overcome h2h). normally i'd say that is a moot point cause we definitely have more season to play. not so sure this year.
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Florida is a scary team and very well might win the SEC and the NC, but at this point there is no matrix other than hype that indicates that Florida is a superior team to A&M.
So say they played their game week 1. And Florida goes on the warpath and A&M does what it's doing. How far removed do things begin to become indicators?
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I think Florida would win 7 times out of 10 if they played again, just a guess obviously.
I'm more interested in the much more probably UF-Bama matchup.
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Our defense has to keep improving a lot for a game vs Bama to not lose by multiple scores.
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You only get one shot in CFb to prove who the best team is. This year, it was A&M, without a doubt.
I thought Florida was going to give Alabama a run for it late in the third but Fla keeps giving them the ball and can’t stop them. It was exciting at 35-31.
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Yes, much more exciting than 52-24.
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Are you saying A&M is the best team in the country and should be in the playoffs? I believe you meant to say A&M deserved to be in the playoffs which I don't necessarily disagree with. I would like to hear your logic.
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No, I meant H2H. You (usually) only get one shot to prove who's best. If both teams have similar records, whoever wins H2H is the best team. That's who gets the trophy (if there is one).
I will confess that sometimes one team is good but has an off day or some other factor (losing the HC, scandal) that can influence the outcome. So if say an 8-4 team beats an 11-1 team you could make an argument that the 11-1 team was better overall. For example, the 1998 Aggies defeated Kansas State, won the Big 12 but finished behind KSU in the final ranking. Alabama has not played in the SEC championship game at least once but went on to win the playoff.
No doubt, in 2020, A&M was and is better than Florida.
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Yes, much more exciting than 52-24.
Didn't age well.
Poor Gators.
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Didn't age well.
Poor Gators.
Tell us about the last time Tennessee played a meaningful game in November.
I'll hang up and listen.
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No, I meant H2H. You (usually) only get one shot to prove who's best. If both teams have similar records, whoever wins H2H is the best team. That's who gets the trophy (if there is one).
I will confess that sometimes one team is good but has an off day or some other factor (losing the HC, scandal) that can influence the outcome. So if say an 8-4 team beats an 11-1 team you could make an argument that the 11-1 team was better overall. For example, the 1998 Aggies defeated Kansas State, won the Big 12 but finished behind KSU in the final ranking. Alabama has not played in the SEC championship game at least once but went on to win the playoff.
No doubt, in 2020, A&M was and is better than Florida.
They certainly had the better season.
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Tell us about the last time Tennessee played a meaningful game in November.
I'll hang up and listen.
Probably 2016, when we lost to Vandy, and sealed Butch Jones fate (more or less), after costing us the Sugar Bowl.
But, hey, kick us while we're down. I've gotten accustomed to it. Doesn't even hurt anymore.
Still fun to gig a Gator, though, even if vicariously through other football programs.
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Probably 2016, when we lost to Vandy, and sealed Butch Jones fate (more or less), after costing us the Sugar Bowl.
But, hey, kick us while we're down. I've gotten accustomed to it. Doesn't even hurt anymore.
Still fun to gig a Gator, though, even if vicariously through other football programs.
Try again.
Tennessee already had lost the East before they played Vanderbilt that year.
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Try again.
Tennessee already had lost the East before they played Vanderbilt that year.
I don’t need to try again.
I said lost the Sugar Bowl, not the east, which was lost late Oct, coming off a bye week, to a hapless, and overmatched USC team. Inexcusable.
We were still the favorite for the Sugar Bowl until Vandy happened.
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With 3 SEC teams ranked in front of you in the CFP poll? Mkay.
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With 3 SEC teams ranked in front of you in the CFP poll? Mkay.
With 3 SEC teams ranked in front of you in the CFP poll? Mkay.
Right....
That’s why 8-4 Auburn played in it huh?
If not for the inexplicable Vandy loss UT would have been 9-3 and in the Sugar Bowl. Not that hard.
Not really sure why you continue belaboring the point.
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That was a bit of an odd year in the SEC, Bama was very good and the next best record was 9-4 by UF and Tenn.
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Right....
That’s why 8-4 Auburn played in it huh?
If not for the inexplicable Vandy loss UT would have been 9-3 and in the Sugar Bowl. Not that hard.
Not really sure why you continue belaboring the point.
Because Tennessee didn't matter in late 2016, lol.
I mean, just the sentence, "If we had beaten Vanderbilt..." LOL
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Because Tennessee didn't matter in late 2016, lol.
I mean, just the sentence, "If we had beaten Vanderbilt..." LOL
Finally mattered in early 2016 and beat Florida's ass. LOL
There was a few bright spots.
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For sure, when I looked at their season, it was especially cruel - beat Florida and Georgia, then fall off a 3-game cliff. That's rough, but you guys are used to it.