Not much to see here. The undefeated teams remained so. There were some losses on the bottom of The top 25 (South Florida, Arizona State, Illinois), but they were not especially surprising. Those three teams probably didn’t belong there in the first place.
Just a few short notes:
- Indiana continued to look invincible by posting a 56-6 win over UCLA.
- Oklahoma State and Wisconsin continued their tribulations. State was shut out. Wisconsin finally scored a TD in the fourth quarter after 14 consecutive quarters without one.
- Kent State won their third game of the year!
- The quarterback for North Texas, who is only a freshman, passed for 608 yards. And it wasn’t one of those Drew Brees things where the kid aired it out 80 times. He pulled that off in 49 attempts. That wasn’t a big surprise. The North Texas Mean Green (I’ll bet you didn’t know their team name) came into the game as the highest-scoring team in the FBS, and they held that position. Their next game is an interesting contrast in offensive philosophies, as Mr. 600 Yards takes on Navy, a team that runs the ball about 80% of the time.
- Speaking of Navy … If the regular season were now over, Navy would be in the playoff! As I’ve noted before, there are only four strong conferences, but the top FIVE conference winners get an automatic bid. At the moment, Navy is the top-rated conference leader outside the Fab Four, and would get the #12 seed in the tournament.
Overrated teams o’ the week
If you’ve read down to this point, you already know that the most overrated team is Navy. The computers rank them #82, but the coaches’poll ranks them #23, and they would get the 12th seed if the season ended now. The AP places them just outside the Top 25 at #26. No other team is overrated by more than 25 places, but they are more than double that. If they actually got that #12 seed, they would probably be the worst team ever to make the playoff. I hope my middle son isn’t reading this. (He is an active-duty captain in the U.S. Navy.)
It would be a miracle if Navy finishes the season in the top 25, because they have not yet come to the hard part of their schedule. If they get by high-scoring North Texas next week, their next game is against Notre Dame. Following that, it’s South Florida and Memphis, two teams that have been in the top 25 at various times this year. Three of those four match-ups are road games. It’s a long row to hoe.
The full list, based on Sagarin’s computer ratings (listed first in parens) and the AP poll:
1. 56 places – Navy (82,26)
2. 24 places – Houston (46,22)
3. 22 places – Virginia (37,15)
4. 15 places – Georgia Tech (23,8)
5. 14 places – BYU (24,10)
5. 14 places – Cincinnati (31,17)
Virginia is the most overrated team in the top fifteen.
Georgia Tech is the most overrated in the top ten (by a whisker over BYU).
Sagarin’s rating system is junk. Probably need to stop referencing it. Oregon is ranked 2nd, and the undefeated team that beat them by 10 AT HOME is currently 3rd. Oregon’s best win according to that same ranking is current #18 (???) Penn St, a team that is now 3 – 4 on the season, has lost 4 games in a row, and fired their coach. After that, they’ve got four mid-level wins over teams in the 58 – 66 range. Meanwhile, IU has beaten #2 Oregon on the road, #17 Iowa on the road, and #33 Illinois by 53. I’m sure the ranking is punishing IU for playing the #215 Sycamores, but Oregon beat #153 OK St and #115 Ore St… Go Hoosiers!
When the computer looks at recent games (STRONG RECENT column), its conclusion is that there are only two teams that matter at all: Ohio State and Indiana. Every other team is far behind.
It’s difficult to dispute that.
There are some weird things in those ratings. The Texas Longhorns are clearly not a top ten team; Penn State, as you noted, doesn’t seem to be worthy of the top twenty; and I can’t find anything in Oregon’s record that would make it the second-best team in the country.
But I’ve matched his numbers up against polls, and his ratings do make it obvious when the polls are dramatically wrong.
But … Can the polls do better than the experts and the computers next week?
* The polls rank Vandy far above Texas. The bookies and Sagarin call it for Texas at home.
* The polls say Cincinnati is better than Utah. The bookies call it Utah by seven at home, Sagarinn says Utah by 10.
* The polls rank Navy higher than North Texas. Sagarin says North Texas by 11 at home, the bookies say North Texas by 7.
I think Vandy might win that Texas game. I always root for the ‘Horns, but it seems to me that Sagarin and the bookies have more faith in Texas than I do, despite the fact that both my daughter and I are alums.
Brian Kelly fired, we’re going to end up hitting $200 million in payments for fired college coaches this season. It’s absolutely insane. We live in a meritocracy though according to some.
Theoretical question – slightly off-topic – can a meritocracy co-exist with inherited wealth?
The playing field is never level.
More directly to your point – isn’t it the exact opposite of a meritocracy when we give somebody $20M because he didn’t do his job as well as we expected?
Ah, for the old days, when the response to a job poorly done was to secure the offender in a pillory in the town square.
Yes, my hat says MAMA – Make America Medieval Apace.
It’s never level, and nepo babies are further down on the list, but there’s some pretty low hanging fruit here that can be accomplished. Like public universities likely going to drop $250 mil in buyouts this season. Or David Zazlav at Warner Bros likely going to take in $500 million for running the company into the ground once it’s bought out.
We have all these algorithms used for everything in the world, meanwhile tying ratios of how much public universities pay failed coaches, terrible CEOs, or casino investment culture in the stock market to the base rate of what these places pay their most common employees would seem like the bare minimum.
It’s never going to be fair because there’s never enough information and what someone does can never be fully quantified, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be done. It’s like crime, crime will never be stopped, but that doesn’t mean through up your hands and say well, why bother with these pesky murder laws.
The simple fact of the matter is, there’s too much money floating around in college sports these days. TV deals, sponsorships, donors, boosters, NIL for the players. Ohio State’s athletic department brings in $280mil+ of annual revenue, and a $100mil budget doesn’t get you into the Top 50 anymore. With that kind of money at stake, everyone wants a bite at the apple, and too many schools believe the only path forward is competing for championships.
IU football has been terrible my entire life. If Brian Kelly had coached IU to a 34 – 14 record the last four years, there would be statues of him up and down Kirkwood Ave. Instead, a 75% win rate got him fired from LSU. Before Kelly, Ed Orgeron went 51 – 20, won a championship and got fired two years later. His predecessor, Les Miles, won 77% of his games, won a championship and got fired after a couple mediocre years. Every team in the SEC thinks they’re one coaching change from hoisting the Championship trophy next year.