The Other Bayou State Team

Props to Louisiana Tech.  So often in college football, we spend the first half of the season only paying attention to the undefeated teams that we know will matter, that we fail to acknowledge the great runs some lesser teams may have.

The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are very unlikely to go undefeated this season, and more than likely will lose their first game this weekend to a ranked SEC team (Texas A&M).  After all, there high scoring offense, averaging 53.2 points per game, is very much countered by no defense that makes each game look like an Arena Football League.  Nonetheless, they are 5-0, and despite playing in the lowly MAC, they have two wins on the road against BCS teams (Illinois and Virginia).

There success was rewarded this week when the AP Poll voted them #23 in the nation.  This is the highest Louisiana Tech has ever been ranked, and only the second week they have ever reached that level.  The previous time came in 1999 when the Bulldogs narrowly reached #25 in the nation.  After losing their first two games to #1 Florida State (eventual National Champion) and #6 Texas A&M, Louisiana Tech rallied to win 8 games in a row, reaching the #25 ranking for the final week of the regular season.  Unfortunately for them, they were blown out in their final game that year, losing to a mediocre USC team.  Perhaps this year, the Bulldogs can find a little more magic and keep their great start alive.

Remaining Undefeated FBS Teams in 2012 (16):

1. Alabama 5-0
2. Cincinnati 4-0
3. Florida 5-0
4. Kansas State 5-0
5. Louisiana Tech 5-0
6. Louisville 5-0
7. Mississippi State 5-0
8. Notre Dame 5-0
9. Ohio 6-0
10. Ohio State 6-0
11. Oregon 6-0
12. Oregon State 4-0
13. Rutgers 5-0 
14. South Carolina 6-0
15. Texas-San Antonio 5-0
16. West Virginia 5-0

Remaining Winless FBS Teams in 2012 ():

1. Eastern Michigan 0-5
2. Massachusetts 0-6
3. Southern Miss. 0-5
4. Tulane 0-5

Overrated Seminoles and ACC Mediocrity

It's October which means it's that usual time of the year where we find out just how overrated the ACC is in football...yet again.  Year after year, the voters seem insistent on throwing as many teams at the top 25 in the preseason to see how many can stick.  More often than not, those teams do not stick, and those who do, rarely are rated as high as they were in the preseason.

Since the ACC has come to its current existence (2005), the conference has had on average 3.5 teams ranked each preseason.  This year, they had only 3, although all of them were ranked within the top 16 to begin the year.  Now, a mere six weeks into the season, the ACC is sporting a pathetic 11-15 record against out-of-conference FBS teams.  For comparison, the Big East which more often than not is mediocre (although consistently rated far worse) is 12-9 on the year.

This includes losses such as Preseason #16 Virginia Tech who lost handily to Pitt, only two weeks after Pitt lost to Youngstown State.  If anything, Pitt is doing an excellent job of proving to everyone else that they will fit in the most overrated conference just fine next year.  In addition, today we saw Boston College lost to Army, an Army program that was not beaten, but rather run over by Stony Brook University just last week.

The catch is, the ACC gets so overrated in the Preseason polls that when an upset does occur, it is magnified far too much.  Props given to the North Carolina State Wolfpack tonight for defeating the Florida State Seminoles.  However, make not mistake, these Seminoles were not the 3rd best team in the nation as their ranking this week would indicate.  They merely took their exaggerated preseason ranking (7th), and passed the couple of top ten teams that have lost.  However, now the voters will see NC State beat the #3 team in the nation this week, and they will likely be ranked close to 20th come Sunday afternoon.

Florida State is perhaps the epitome of being overrated in the college football world.  I don't feel that people understand that what FSU did in the 1990s should have no baring on what they do two decades later.  In fact, since the current ACC setup came around in 2005, the Seminoles have been ranked in the preseason AP poll every season but once (2008):

2005 - 14th
2006 - 11th
2007 - 19th
2009 - 18th
2010 - 20th
2011 - 6th
2012 - 7th

In only one of those seasons did they even manage to remain ranked as high as they began the season:

2005 - 23rd (8-5)
2006 - Unranked (7-6)
2007 - Unranked (7-6)
2009 - Unranked (7-6)
2010 - 17th (10-4)
2011 - 23rd (9-4)
2012 - ?????

Would it really be a big shock if they lost five games on the year and finished the season ranked in the low 20s?  The only purpose Florida State has served in the ACC since 2005 is to inflate the rankings of the many teams who continue to beat them each season.

The ridiculousness that is the overrating of these teams doesn't end with Florida State, they are simply the most frequently occurring.  Since 2005 (not including this year), the ACC has had 25 teams ranked in the preseason.  Of those 25 teams, only 5 have seen their ranking improve over the course of a season, and 1 has stayed the same.

That leaves 19 of 25 (76%), including the five FSU examples above, that have finished the season ranked worse than where they began.  Some programs included in this are four times by Virginia Tech, and likely a fifth this year.  Miami has seen the preseason polls three times since 2005, losing 8 spots one year, and finding themselves unranked the two other seasons.  Four appearances combined by North Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest during the preseason has never seen any of them hang around until the end of the year, and all of them lost no less than five games each.

It truly is a stale story at this point, but time and time again, the ACC has proven that it is nothing more than a mediocre conference.  As a fan of a Big East team, I've never thought much of anything about the Big East itself.  It is middle of the road at best.  Nonetheless, despite the ACC's constant raids, and the Big East refueling with C-USA members, history has proven that the Big East consistently has been on par if not better than the ACC.  Therefore, it would only make sense to conclude that the ACC is nothing more than a mediocre mid-major conference sporting "name" state schools over directional schools.

Computers Don't Kill Polls, People Kill Polls II

Last month I called out Ray Ratto of the Comcast Sports Bay Area for not simply ranking Texas State (who had only played one game at the FBS level t the time) in his top 25, but for ranking them 16th overall.  It was a ridiculously pathetic move to try to gain attention in my book.  Ratto is known for doing this on a regular basis, and I simply have to wonder why he is even allowed to vote in this poll when his only goal seems to be chaos.

This week, I noticed he did it again, and I find it only fair to bring attention to it despite it being in favor of my alum Rutgers Scarlet Knights.  Rutgers has found its way into the bottom fifth of the AP, and probably rightfully so, 22nd/21st, in the two major polls.  Nonetheless, I see that Ratto is out there to shake things up again.  He currently has the Knights sitting 12th in his poll, a position that no one in their right mind could suggest at this point in the season.  No one else has them higher than 17th (and that is a local New Jersey writer at least).

Again, I strongly stress the point that the computers don't screw up the system so much as the humans who vote in it.  CFEC anyone?  The College Football Electoral College?  Just a thought.

More Playoff Teams = Bad for Competition

First, my apologies for disappearing for a month.  A combination of a lot of travel, work, and a laptop that passed away led me away from here.  Now that things are getting back to normal, I hope to find more time to devote to here.

One thing I've claimed in the past, and continue to stick by, is that large playoff formats are bad for competition.  The NHL and NBA allowing more than half of the league into the postseason does little more than create chaos rather than reward teams who played well over the 82-game season as opposed to a hot streak in the spring.  Even in college football, I'm a fan of a smaller playoff, four to eight teams at the very most, because I've never heard any sort of argument as to why the 12th ranked team should have a shot at a National Title merely because they won the C-USA.

Over the years, baseball was the one exception to the rule.  For everything that people don't like about baseball, I believe they get more right than wrong.  No salary cap?  It hurts, but notice which league the lockouts have occurred in over the past 14 months (NFL, NBA, NHL).  Nevertheless, that's a post for another day (and I promise there will be one on that).  Prior to this season, baseball had been allowing eight teams to reach the playoffs each season out of thirty.  I've never been a big fan of the wildcard, but I can understand the need for a multiple of four when it comes to teams.

This year, Bud Selig in his continued attempt to make a name for himself with no regard for the game, added two more teams to ten.  Of course, fans of this move will point out it is a one-game series (played today for both the American and National Leagues), and it leaves the winners in the same position as the previous wild card teams.  If there was a Congressional bill that declared it would remain this way for the next century, I could live with it, but sadly I feel this is just the beginning of expanding the playoff system.  Look at the history of every other league, and you will see the expansion just builds off of itself.

To be fair, the now 10 teams out of 30 (1/3 obviously), still make it the smallest playoff field of any of the major leagues.  The NFL is the next smallest at 12 out of 32 teams.  However, while fans in St. Louis or Los Angeles or Milwaukee might enjoy seeing their team play meaningful games in late September, fact of the matter is that they didn't deserve to be.

There is always going to be the argument that it makes for a better playoff race in September, but does it really?  In another decade, some will argue that if we added two more wild card spots, all the teams above .500 could be in the race.  The Major League Baseball season is 162 games for a reason.  It isn't meant to cater to every average team.  The only grueling part about the sport of baseball is the length of the season, so finishing a 162-game season above everyone else should be followed by a reward like the post-season.

An article on Yahoo by a former detractor of the new system has given praise to it now, saying it made the race far more interesting.  I could not agree less.  Let's look at the National League first.  Suffice to say there was not much to be said for the last week of the MLB season.  The Los Angeles Dodgers trailed the St. Louis Cardinals by three games, and they cut the lead to two.  That is the only additional excitement this new wild card added to the NL this season.  If it was not there, the playoffs would have been locked up one week earlier with the Braves grabbing the last spot, and they still gave the Washington Nationals a little bit of a chase for the division title.  Therefore, I think we can conclude the wild card did nothing here.

In the AL on the other hand, no one knew who was making the playoffs until this past weekend, BUT that did not have to do with the new wild card.  Ironically, the new format played no role at all in this equation except for keeping the Tampa Bay Rays in the race longer.  The wild card teams of the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers will face off today in a one-game series.  If there was no additional wild card team, these teams having already tied in the standings...would have faced off today in a one-game series.  IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE TO THE OUTCOME!

The article points out the great races in the AL this year, but they were for division titles and had no baring on the new wild card spot.  All three division titles in the AL were decided this past weekend, with or without the extra spot!

For anyone who might shrug this year off as an anomaly, does one recall the end of the 2011 MLB season?  Last year may have been the best playoff races since the wild card was introduced in 1995.  On the final day of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays capped off amazing comebacks on the final day of the season to beat the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. It was arguably the most terrific September for baseball I recall, and that's coming from a Mets fan who saw his team finish with 85 losses.  Introduce a second wild card for last year, and the entire month would have been ruined because rather than a playoff race, you have all of the aforementioned teams in the playoffs, including those who choked on their way out.

For a more analytical point of view, let's look at it this way.  If we ignore the National League division winners (Washington, Cincinnati, and San Francisco), and look just at the remaining NL teams, we can get an idea of how much better the Braves were over the Cardinals (the two wild card teams).  After all, the MLB season is 162 games, and the best teams compared to the worst ones only win about 30% more of their games.

Atlanta: 94-68 (.580)
St. Louis:  88-74 (.543)
...
Houston:  55-107 (.340)

Let's suggest the entire season was replayed without the three division winners.  Maybe the records wouldn't be quite the same, but they should be close.  After all, we're taking the best team from each division out, so all the teams should do slightly better.

If we determine the best remaining team (Atlanta Braves) is 100% better than than the last place team (Houston Astros), we can say 39 games is the exact difference between the first and last place teams, and it was here.  The Cardinals finished six games back of the Braves.  Assuming the Braves are 100% better than the Astros by record alone, we can decide that (6/39 = .154) the Braves are 15.4% better than the Cardinals.

That number probably does not seem like a lot, but in baseball, that 15.4% is huge.  If the best team each year went 162-0, and the worst went 0-162 (think about football where undefeated records and winless season are not impossible), that would put the Cardinals an entire 25 games back of the Braves.

For you NFL fans, in 2007, the New England Patriots went 16-0 on the year, and the Indianapolis Colts went 13-3.  Would anyone have really suggested the Colts were as good as the Patriots following the regular season that year?  The difference between those two teams were merely 18% when you look at their record.

The point is, in baseball, all the teams generally finish within a winning percentage of .325-.625, a small margin that when played over 162 games looks only slightly larger, so when a team finishes six games back in a playoff race, do they really deserve a shot at the team that finished six games ahead?  Making matters worst, should a series ever be decided by one game when a team consists of a five-man rotation?  The Cardinals only need one Cy Young candidate to pitch one good game, and they will have passed a team that truly outdid them over the course of a season.

The answer to the above mentioned questions is a simple no.

Computers Don't Kill Polls, People Kill Polls

It always annoys me when people suggest the Bowl Championship Series is flawed because "computers decide championships".  The computers are far from perfect, mainly because the BCS wants to keep it that way.  For instance, they don't take into account the score of any games, only the results (win or loss).  However, computers only make up one fraction (1/3) of the equation while the Coaches' USAToday Poll and Harris Interactive Poll (both human polls) each make up another third.

For as much as the computer rankings take the heat, they really deserve it the least.  The computers are not biased towards teams or conferences.  They rely on the far more sound mathematics than the human based polls.  Never mind that the USAToday is filled out either by coaches who don't watch many games (because they are coaching their own), or graduate assistants who only have so much other responsibility.  The Harris Poll is made up of a bunch of former players, coaches, media personalities, and other randoms who have admitted in the past to being apathetic to voting.  Time after time, the system obviously fails, but it is the computer who still take the brunt of the insults.

This week, the biggest fault in the human polls goes to a component no longer associated with the BCS, but is equally regarded: the AP Poll.  This poll made up of journalists (because who better to make decisions in this country than journalists?) is independent of others, but still equally flawed and biased.  When looking at the polls each week, I always like to see the additional teams to receive votes that didn't crack the top 25.  This week, not only was I shocked when I saw the Texas State Bobcats listed, but that they received 10 points in the poll (good for 34th overall).

My suspicions were that this was one voter who voted Texas State high in the poll (16th) versus a couple of voters having a nervous breakdown and voting for them.  Sure enough, I was right, and the culprit was Ray Ratto of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area.  The only part that surprised me is that he had been writing in the Bay Area for over 30 years with little ties to the state of Texas or Texas State.

For those who aren't sure if they've heard of Texas State before, you're correct.  This is only the Bobcats first full season at the FBS level, essentially making this past week their first official game.  Yes, they did upset the Houston Cougars, but Houston is not a highly regarded team by any means this year.  This isn't an Appalachian State, North Dakota State, or James Madison either that is joining the higher ranks.  This is a team that last year as an FCS finished with a 6-6 record.

Based on his assessment, the 1-0 FBS Bobcats are a better team than Arkansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, and six other Big 12 teams that inhabit that same region.  Texas State isn't his only hiccup, just the most obvious one to someone who wasn't looking for a mistake.  Of the 64 other AP voters, no one ranked Florida State (3rd), Michigan State (5th), Nebraska (10th), and Notre Dame (15th) any higher than he did, not to mention Texas (9th) who only one voted higher.  In addition, each of the other 64 voters voted West Virginia as 15th or better, yet Ratto is by far the lowest vote at a pathetic 24th.  He is one of only four not to vote for Michigan this week, and voted LSU (7th) and Arkansas (17th), far below where almost all other voters had them.

Ratto's poll alone will have little affect on the grand scheme of things, and hopefully he receives enough nasty emails that point out why he should not be allowed to vote.  However, this is not an event that won't happen again.  There will be many more horrible ballots just this year.  If it hasn't already, it should become apparent that the biggest problem in the college football system is not the computers, but the human polls.

Class of Tony Banks or Kevin Kolb?

NFL Draft Classes vary from season to season for all positions, but no position is analyzed greater than that of the Quarterback.  My goal here wasn't to look simply at how much NFL quarterback talent came out of each draft.  The 2012 of Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III can not and should not be measured against the class of 1983 (John Elway, Jim Kelly, and Dan Marino) until the careers of all those 2012 QBs have come to an end.

I'm more interested in the flip side of the equation as in which draft classes were so terrible that simply no one was competitive enough to remain in the NFL as a fixture.  A recent "failure" of a class would likely be the 2007 class.  Most notable for being a flop was the #1 overall pick in the draft, JaMarcus Russell.  However, the disappointments do not end there.  Of the 11 QBs taken in that draft, only one remains as an NFL starter, Kevin Kolb of the Arizona Cardinals, and even he is considered a significant disappointment.  John Beck and Tyler Thigpen as backup QBs on the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills respectively.  Meanwhile, the top two, Russell and Brady Quinn haven't seen an NFL field since 2009, and four others haven't seen it since 2010.

In this quick study, QB Rating was used to grade how bad each draft class was.  I say "how bad" because itt isn't a great measure to determine how good some classes were.  Of the 32 years analyzed (1980-2011), no one would argue that one of the very best if not the best was 1983.  However, by QB rating, it ranks only 8th overall in the past 32 years.  Instead, it was beat out by a far lesser class like 1991.  The rating for 1991 is higher because a lone player, Brett Favre, weighed the class by himself since so many others didn't last long in the NFL.  Similar results can be found for 1998 where Peyton Manning and Matt Hasselbeck far out weigh the poor play of Ryan Leaf and Jonathan Quinn.

While it might not determine the best classes, I feel it does a good job of pointing out the classes that had little to no NFL talent and that is really the goal here.  The 1991 class might have been poor overall, but an NFL fixture like Favre was discovered.  Most classes will generally find one NFL starting QB that stands the test of time for seven to ten years at least.  One last catch is that these QB ratings are for the entire careers of the players in those draft classes.  Therefore, the more recent ones, think 2008-11, are going to likely vary significantly in the years to come.  Meanwhile, the previous ten years will likely have little to no adjustments while prior to that will likely never change due to the majority of those players having already retired.

The career QB ratings of each draft class can be found in this chart with the most notable classes labeled individually:

You'll notice the first couple seasons were rather poor.  In fact, 1980 and 1982 were two of three worst seasons on record.  However, as mentioned, things rebounded the following season with the tremendous class of 1983.  In addition to the well known names of Elway, Marino, and Kelly, you had solid to decent contributors like Ken O'Brien and Tony Eason.  The decade following the 1983 draft was rather steady in terms of production.  You had a high point with the aforementioned 1991 draft including Brett Favre, and a low point in 1986 where Jim Everett and Mark Rypien were the best the college world had to offer.  Note that in the mid 80s, the NFL had competition with the USFL.

If was after this 11-year steady period that the draft classes took an unexpected turn for the worst.  Between 1994-97, three horrendous classes were produced.  The lone exception, 1995, was still worse than each of the class from 1983-93 with the exception of 1986.  Most of the seasons still produced NFL regulars.  Names like Trent Dilfer, Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, and Jake Plummer before his sudden retirement were long time starting QBs.  The exception was in 1996 where the NFL Draft produced...Tony Banks?  Bobby Hoying?

The 1996 class is definitely the low point.  Banks is the only player to throw for more than 10,000 yards in his career (15,315).  Danny Kannell is behind him with 5,129 yards. To compare, Cam Newton is already at 4,051 yards in his career following only his rookie season.  Sam Bradford has eclipsed that mark already in only two seasons.  The percentage of passes completed from that draft class is a lowly 53.4%, second worst only to 1980.  One piece of trivia, Banks set the record for most fumbles as a rookie in 1996 before having the mark eclipsed by Kerry Collins and Daunte Culpepper in the future.

Despite how bad things got through the four years, the more remarkable part is the rebound from 1998-2001.  Those four seasons make up four of the seven best totals.  Again, not a great measuring stick for "the best", but it shows the remarkable improvement compared to the previous four seasons.  Since then, results have been extremely variable year to year.  2002 was among  the poorer seasons led by David Garrard and Joey Harrington followed only two years later in 2004 by one of the very best.

More recently, we've been plagued by the 2007 class, and to be honest, the 2010 class.  Sure there was Sam Bradford who had a great rookie season, but his sophmore campaign was as poor as his health.  He certainly isn't terrible, but thus far has produced middle of the road results while being the only remaining starter from a group including Tim Tebow, Jimmy Clausen and Colt McCoy.

The 2011 class has showed far more promise in their rookie seasons, and it will be interesting to see if they can take that any further this year.  In fact, the 2011 draft class nearly surpassed the 2010 class in half as many seasons.  They could pass the terribly 2007 class by the end of this season.

Notable Quarterbacks By Draft Class:

1980:  Marc Wilson (Oakland Raiders), Mark Malone (Pittsburgh Steelers), Eric Hipple (Detroit Lions)

1982:  Jim McMahon (Chicago Bears), Mike Pagel (Baltimore Colts)

1983:  John Elway (Baltimore Colts), Jim Kelly (Buffalo Bills), Tony Eason (New England Patriots), Ken O'Brien (New York Jets), Dan Marino (Miami Dolphins)

1991:  Todd Marinovich (Los Angeles Raiders), Brett Favre (Atlanta Falcons)

1994:  Trent Dilfer (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Gus Frerotte (Washington Redskins)

1995:  Steve McNair (Houston Oilers), Kerry Collins (Carolina Panthers), Kordell Stewart (Pittsburgh Steelers)

1996:  Tony Banks (St. Louis Rams)

1997:  Jake Plummer (Arizona Cardinals), Danny Wuerffel (New Orleans Saints)

1998:  Peyton Manning (Indianapolis Colts), Ryan Leaf (San Diego Chargers), Brian Griese (Denver Broncos), Matt Hasselbeck (Green Bay Packers)

2000:  Chad Pennington (New York Jets), Marc Bulger (New Orleans Saints), Tom Brady (New England Patriots)

2004:  Eli Manning (San Diego Chargers), Philip Rivers (New York Giants), Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh Steelers), Matt Schaub (Atlanta Falcons)

2007:  JaMarcus Russell (Oakland Raiders), Brady Quinn (Cleveland Browns), Kevin Kolb (Philadelphia Eagles), Trent Edwards (Buffalo Bills)

2008:  Matt Ryan (Atlanta Falcons), Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens), Chad Henne (Miami Dolphins)

2011:  Cam Newton (Carolina Panthers), Jake Locker (Tennessee Titans), Christian Ponder (Minnesota Vikings), Andy Dalton (Cincinnati Bengals)

Competition vs. Punching Bags

Now that nearly all teams have completed one game of the 2012 season, I think it is worth it to mention the teams who consistently schedule a real team for this time of year, and not simply a punching bag.  Looking through past schedules, there are only a dozen teams across the nation who have scheduled a BCS team to open their schedule consistently over the past three schedules.  Not surprisingly, only one of these programs is an actual BCS program itself, with the majority of teams being from the lower level MAC, Sun Belt, and Conference-USA.  Despite the low percentage of teams that consistently face these teams to open the year, it often seems worth it since I feel these games often provide the best chance for an upset.

For instance, Boise State has done this for years, and has come out on top more often than not by preparing more during the off-season for that one game.  Boise State has faced a BCS team the past four seasons, and has won three of those meetings.  Unfortunately for them, their winning streak came to an end this weekend when they lost as Michigan State.  Their wins included Oregon in 2009, Virginia Tech in 10, and Georgia in 11.

There are only two programs that currently have opened the season against BCS opponents, and hold a perfect record while doing so.  The longest winning streak is held by BYU who like Boise State went into their four consecutive opener against a BCS opponent.  They defeated the Washington State Cougars 30-6 on Friday after seasons of winnings against Oklahoma in 09, Washington in 10, and Ole Miss in 11.

The other program on this list sporting a winning streak is the aforementioned, single BCS team, Northwestern of the Big 10.  Their streak is only at three games currently with wins against Vanderbilt in 10, Boston College in 11, and most recently Syracuse.  On a side note, LSU beat a non-BCS team in North Texas, but had a streak running into this season at 3-0 themselves including wins over Washington, North Carolina, and Oregon.

It is worth noting that the majority of teams who consistently open against a BCS teams lose.  Western Michigan currently holds the longest streak, and is 0-8 over that time.  Memphis and Western Kentucky both snapped their streak of opening against BCS teams, but were 1-7 and 0-6 respectively.  Miami (OH) and San Jose State are 0-5 and 0-4 themselves.

Props to the teams who consistently schedule these tougher teams, and then are competitive with them each season.  Added props to teams like BYU, Northwestern, and until this year Boise State and LSU who consistently beat these teams, particularly Northwestern and LSU who earn wins that really do not count much to their overall season in the grand scheme of things.  As for BYU and their streak, the next two seasons they have Texas scheduled for Week 2 of the season with no opponent designated for Week 1.