(01-14-2015 05:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Have the final 2015 Massey and Massey composite rankings come out?

Last week we were speculating whether Rice would move into the G5 Top 20 or Top 15, given our win (and LaTech's and CUSA's generally doing well, etc)

Well, the composite won't be "official" until I send mine (I've been under the weather all week and won't get my ratings done until later tonight) ....

(01-14-2015 05:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Have the final 2015 Massey and Massey composite rankings come out?

Last week we were speculating whether Rice would move into the G5 Top 20 or Top 15, given our win (and LaTech's and CUSA's generally doing well, etc)

Massey Composite has us at 67. So, #17 G5?

(01-14-2015 05:22 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 03:20 PM)picrig Wrote:  Some quick records I pulled over lunch:

Team/vs. 1 - 20/vs. 21-50/51-75/75+
Rice/0-1/0-7/1-3/24-4
LaTech/0-3/0-3/3-2/19-8
NcSt/1-7/0-4/2-7/15-2
Utah St/0-1/3-6/4-3/23-1

We're basically NC State. Sure, they have the one win over a top 20 team. But like many have contended, one signature win doesnt' change who you are as a program (even if it looks good). Utah State has clearly been a better program, and LaTech has been slightly better against the 51-75 teams. But worse against the dregs of FBS.

Great job-- thank you! So we are 1-11 vs. Top 75 opponents during our "historic, unprecedented" run of success, with the one win being Marshall in last year's home CUSA championship game. Keep in mind, teams ranked in the Top 50 - 75 range are NOT perceived by any college football fan as "good" teams. This only confirms that our unprecedented win totals the last 3 years have come exclusively by beating up on the dredge of college football. Yes, it's progress that we are no longer perceived amongst the dredge, but that's about it.

Yes, and we need to get better. But I think the data for teams that we want to emulate will help fill out the picture and make it more clear what realistic goal we should strive for. I want to know how we perform in the grand scheme of things, rather than in a absolute sense.

For example, one might think a MLB player only hitting 1/3 of the pitches he sees as being a sign that he is not very good at hitting. But once you put that into context and notice that the average for the whole is below .270, you realize that this guys is a pretty good player. Context is everything.

(01-14-2015 05:23 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 05:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Have the final 2015 Massey and Massey composite rankings come out?

Last week we were speculating whether Rice would move into the G5 Top 20 or Top 15, given our win (and LaTech's and CUSA's generally doing well, etc)

YOU were speculating. Many of us think such a comparison and ranking is absolutely meaningless to the national football audience.

Where we need to go, according to our AD, Joe Karlgaard:

AP Top 25: Final Ranking
Records through Mon Jan 12, 2015

Rank Team Record
1. Ohio St. (59) 14-1
2. Oregon 13-2
3. TCU 12-1 note the one loss season
4. Alabama 12-2
5. Michigan St. 11-2
5. Florida St. 13-1
7. Baylor 11-2
8. Georgia Tech 11-3
9. Georgia 10-3
10. UCLA 10-3
11. Mississippi St. 10-3
12. Arizona St. 10-3 the Toad
13. Wisconsin 11-3
14. Missouri 11-3
15. Clemson 10-3
16. Boise St. 12-2 two losses, oft-mentioned model, victory over #19 team
17. Mississippi 9-4
18. Kansas St. 9-4
19. Arizona 10-4
20. USC 9-4
21. Utah 9-4
22. Auburn 8-5
23. Marshall 13-1 note the one loss season, highest CUSA team
24. Louisville 9-4
25. Memphis 10-3

Others Receiving Votes:

Notre Dame 28, Stanford 27, Nebraska 22, Air Force 21, Duke 18, LSU 12, Utah St. 11, Arkansas 10, Minnesota 9, Texas A&M 7, Oklahoma 7, Northern Illinois 4, Colorado St. 2

Im surprised TCU finished 3. Was expecting them to jump Oregon given their demolition of Ole Miss.

(01-14-2015 05:48 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 05:23 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 05:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Have the final 2015 Massey and Massey composite rankings come out?

Last week we were speculating whether Rice would move into the G5 Top 20 or Top 15, given our win (and LaTech's and CUSA's generally doing well, etc)

YOU were speculating. Many of us think such a comparison and ranking is absolutely meaningless to the national football audience.

Where we need to go, according to our AD, Joe Karlgaard:

AP Top 25: Final Ranking
Records through Mon Jan 12, 2015

Rank Team Record
1. Ohio St. (59) 14-1
2. Oregon 13-2
3. TCU 12-1 note the one loss season
4. Alabama 12-2
5. Michigan St. 11-2
5. Florida St. 13-1
7. Baylor 11-2
8. Georgia Tech 11-3
9. Georgia 10-3
10. UCLA 10-3
11. Mississippi St. 10-3
12. Arizona St. 10-3 the Toad
13. Wisconsin 11-3
14. Missouri 11-3
15. Clemson 10-3
16. Boise St. 12-2 two losses, oft-mentioned model, victory over #19 team
17. Mississippi 9-4
18. Kansas St. 9-4
19. Arizona 10-4
20. USC 9-4
21. Utah 9-4
22. Auburn 8-5
23. Marshall 13-1 note the one loss season, highest CUSA team
24. Louisville 9-4
25. Memphis 10-3

Others Receiving Votes:

Notre Dame 28, Stanford 27, Nebraska 22, Air Force 21, Duke 18, LSU 12, Utah St. 11, Arkansas 10, Minnesota 9, Texas A&M 7, Oklahoma 7, Northern Illinois 4, Colorado St. 2

And we're working on getting there.

Isn't the whole argument not about where the eventual target is, but how quickly we will get there?

(01-14-2015 05:23 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-14-2015 05:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Have the final 2015 Massey and Massey composite rankings come out?

Last week we were speculating whether Rice would move into the G5 Top 20 or Top 15, given our win (and LaTech's and CUSA's generally doing well, etc)

YOU were speculating. Many of us think such a comparison and ranking is absolutely meaningless to the national football audience.

Many of us?

At any rate, I was definitely not the only one who was interested or commented on how the bowl season would impact that ranking.

It's fine if you don't care. If there are others who don't want to know, that's good too, but I don't recall anyone else saying they were totally disinterested, even GoodOwl. I'm sure anyone who agrees they don't want to know will kick their two cents in. People aren't generally shy on this board.

(01-12-2015 06:36 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-12-2015 12:35 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(01-11-2015 11:37 PM)Antarius Wrote:  The position that I understand Rick and OO to be taking is that progress may not be as fast as we would like, but it is 1. happening 2. if we were to replace Bailiff with someone else, would they be able to achieve more? Truth is, we don't know the answer to #2. And if we were to consider a replacement, who would it be?

Not bad, Ant. you win thee perceptivenss award for the Parliament, but still, the second one needs clarifying.

of course, if Bailiff is replaced, the new guy may be able to do more. Or he might do less, a lot less. ask our friends at SoMiss how that works. what I don't buy is that replacing Bailiff is an automatic upgrade. Call it what it it is, a gamble. as for names, we have been given a couple: Leach, and "some young humgry guy".

I get that progress may be too slow. Sure a lot slower than I would have liked, but as with any gamble, we must assess what we are risking against the hoped for gains, amd the liklihood of achieving them. Anybody But Bailiff seems like a bad gamble to me. Hire Urban Meyer sounds good. iHire unnamed assisstant? How much better than Bailiff must the guy be to warrant that bet?

show me a good bet and I will line up with yalll to get him. Don't and I won't.

But once again, OO, the question to many of us is not whether it is a gamble, but whether Bailiff can ever get us to where we want to be, or in the time window for the next round of conference realignment. And if the answer to that question is no, then the risk becomes more attractive, even when one recognizes the potential down side. Also, while no once can debate the progress that has been made over the past 9 years, it is far less clear whether Bailiff has reached his peak performance as a coach, and that the program has reached a plateau (rather than a point of continued progress). This past season was a step down from last season by almost any standard.

Walt. Glad to see that finally someone stated that this past season was a step down. I thought I was alone in thinking that. 8-5 in an awful conference. We beat one winning team. Lost 5 games and were not in the game but one. We could have easily lost two of our wins. Play calling did not improve from the previous year. Larry was not an upgrade. Defense took a step back.

GoodOwl. - working with an old Ipad, so I cannot quote and answer point by point, butin general I feel like thoughts have been mischaracterized by you. And my poker play certainly has been. It's as if you think I am advocating trying to win a marathon by sprinting from the gun, or trying to win a 100 dash by pacing myself. Odd to be accused of holding on blindly in rsponse to a post in which I say I will swich sides under certain circumstances.

odd you mention pocket jacks. Listened to two pros discuss themlastnight, and they love them. tell you more later.

in the context in which I was speaking, a good season might be something like 9-3, which would disappoint those who feel any old joe could hit 11-1 or 12-0 next year. i think it is a sign of progress to be disappointed in9-3. I Think it is OK to have reasonable expctations and hope to exceed them, rather than have unreasonable expectations, and feel bad if they are not attained.

regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive. aybe time THENto reevaluate. But let's play thenext seasonfirst.

I remember saying 10-15 years ago that TCU was headed in the right direction and we needed to follow their lead. I'm pretty sure I was posting that on whatever board was in effect 10 years ago. The reaction I got might best be characterized as, "OK, so you are saying we should forget academics?" To which my response was, no, we should keep our academic standards but we should emulate the OTHER things TCU is doing.

The night it was announced that we missed out on the move to the XII, I told Bobby May that I thought it could be the best thing that ever happened to Rice athletics. My thinking was that if it shook us out of the, "Losing is okay as long as you have a good enough excuse," and, "If you don't know where you are going, the path of least resistance will get you there," line of historic thinking, it would be the best thing possible. But like the addict who hadn't hit bottom yet, we did pretty much nothing. TCU on the other hand got high behind doing what was needed to get them back into the upper echelon, and the results are pretty clear. If we had responded the way TCU did, we probably wouldn't be quite where they are because they have been incredibly lucky on a few counts in addition to doing a lot of things right. Then again, the better you take care of business, the luckier you get.

I'm hoping that with Ranger Rick we hit bottom. We have to continue to improve football, make a quantum leap in basketball, and keep baseball where it is. If we can do those things, and for goodness sake do some actual MARKETING at some point, then we will move back up and at some point should have an opportunity to rejoin the big kids if we want to. If they're paying players a salary and have totally divorced athletics from education (which I think is a distinct possibility) then I'm pretty sure we don't want to join them.

(01-14-2015 11:57 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  GoodOwl. - working with an old Ipad, so I cannot quote and answer point by point, butin general I feel like thoughts have been mischaracterized by you. And my poker play certainly has been. It's as if you think I am advocating trying to win a marathon by sprinting from the gun, or trying to win a 100 dash by pacing myself. Odd to be accused of holding on blindly in rsponse to a post in which I say I will swich sides under certain circumstances.

odd you mention pocket jacks. Listened to two pros discuss themlastnight, and they love them. tell you more later.

in the context in which I was speaking, a good season might be something like 9-3, which would disappoint those who feel any old joe could hit 11-1 or 12-0 next year. i think it is a sign of progress to be disappointed in9-3. I Think it is OK to have reasonable expctations and hope to exceed them, rather than have unreasonable expectations, and feel bad if they are not attained.

regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive. aybe time THENto reevaluate. But let's play thenext seasonfirst.

I feel for you typing on that ol' eyepad.

Ok. I think we're actually getting close to some consensus, then.

First, I was not criticizing your actual poker play, which I am confident is decent. I meant to create an analogy of how what I was perceiving to be your logic in the coaching situation appeared to me.

I think we're at the River with DBD this season. We will see what happens. I have repeated many times on several threads that while I am suspect of him, I am amicable to playing this season with him and then reevaluating my present assessment. I would be interested to see who JK would choose to take over the reigns in football, but we'll have to wait and see what happens in 2015.

OK, so 9-3 makes for a good season to you. And, it makes for a good season to me as well (surprise). I do notice that 9-3 leaves room for losing the opportunity games against a down Texas, an up Baylor, and the best 3rd team we will play next season (whoever that will be), but that seems to be the out you want to reserve for him.

I'm at the point where it is time for him to beat a down Texas already. 9-3 without that is "good" but doesn't move the needle, as it most likely puts us in another G5-G5 bowl with no real opportunity to make a big statement that is somewhat transformative and Nationally relevant. The 11-1 or 12-0 Scenario #1 I laid out in my post #69 on page 7 of this thread, difficult and unlikely though it might be, would actually move that needle as Rice would spend a significant time during the second half of the season being repeatedly mentioned in the national Media as a possibility for the access bowl game.

As far as mischaracterizations, how many times do I have to say I don 't expect Scenario #1 of 11-1 or 12-0. I merely see those as plausible, and I will definitely be rooting for DBD to make them happen. However, I believe Scenario #2 (regression to 6-6, 7-5 or worse) is far more likely based on the last 8 years of this coach.

I also never said "any old joe could go 11-1 or 12-0." I actually said that I did not believe DBD was the only coach who could have done what he has done over these last 8 seasons, which are two entirely different statements.

Lastly, we both agree that "regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive." The only small nit I have with that statement is that word generally. It is a small sample of only 2 seasons after the 6 that came before it which are highly erratic and tend as much to the downside as to the up. As well, the quality of wins in those two seasons is highly suspect, as has been espoused by Walt and other posters, including myself. Therefore I have no confidence which way it will go this upcoming season. It's a coin-flip.

(01-15-2015 01:10 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Lastly, we both agree that "regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive." The only small nit I have with that statement is that word generally. It is a small sample of only 2 seasons after the 6 that came before it which are highly erratic and tend as much to the downside as to the up. As well, the quality of wins in those two seasons is highly suspect, as has been espoused by Walt and other posters, including myself. Therefore I have no confidence which way it will go this upcoming season. It's a coin-flip.

So I actually did a quick trend analysis.

Since the '09 season (6 years of data), which one could argue was on Graham for gutting the recruiting class we would have relied on that year, we have a positive, linear trend in games won. The r-squared value is 0.80, which is an insanely high r-squared value for real world data. If we go less than 9-3 next year, we hurt this argument and it becomes a less defined trend, but anything 9-3 and above keeps us moving upwards.

There is no question that, based on the number of games won, we are still on a very significant, upward trajectory. Whether we can maintain it is the question.

(01-15-2015 07:42 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:10 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Lastly, we both agree that "regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive." The only small nit I have with that statement is that word generally. It is a small sample of only 2 seasons after the 6 that came before it which are highly erratic and tend as much to the downside as to the up. As well, the quality of wins in those two seasons is highly suspect, as has been espoused by Walt and other posters, including myself. Therefore I have no confidence which way it will go this upcoming season. It's a coin-flip.

So I actually did a quick trend analysis.

Since the '09 season (6 years of data), which one could argue was on Graham for gutting the recruiting class we would have relied on that year, we have a positive, linear trend in games won. The r-squared value is 0.80, which is an insanely high r-squared value for real world data. If we go less than 9-3 next year, we hurt this argument and it becomes a less defined trend, but anything 9-3 and above keeps us moving upwards.

There is no question that, based on the number of games won, we are still on a very significant, upward trajectory. Whether we can maintain it is the question.

But that's based entirely on starting with the 2009 season? Why not start with 2007, when the DBD began? Or if you start with our winning 2010 season, which was the first with Bailiff recruits playing a major role (even if our upperclass leaders and stars were not recruited by him), you'd get a very different result. In reality, we have been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride with Bailiff as head coach, with the only consistency being our inability to beat-- or, in the vast majority of cases, even compete-- with Top 75 teams.

(01-15-2015 07:51 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 07:42 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(01-15-2015 01:10 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Lastly, we both agree that "regressing to 6-6 or even another 7-5 would be just that, a regression. Then we would have a negative trend, where now we are generally positive." The only small nit I have with that statement is that word generally. It is a small sample of only 2 seasons after the 6 that came before it which are highly erratic and tend as much to the downside as to the up. As well, the quality of wins in those two seasons is highly suspect, as has been espoused by Walt and other posters, including myself. Therefore I have no confidence which way it will go this upcoming season. It's a coin-flip.

So I actually did a quick trend analysis.

Since the '09 season (6 years of data), which one could argue was on Graham for gutting the recruiting class we would have relied on that year, we have a positive, linear trend in games won. The r-squared value is 0.80, which is an insanely high r-squared value for real world data. If we go less than 9-3 next year, we hurt this argument and it becomes a less defined trend, but anything 9-3 and above keeps us moving upwards.

There is no question that, based on the number of games won, we are still on a very significant, upward trajectory. Whether we can maintain it is the question.

But that's based entirely on starting with the 2009 season? Why not start with 2007, when the DBD began? Or if you start with our winning 2010 season, which was the first with Bailiff recruits playing a major role (even if our upperclass leaders and stars were not recruited by him), you'd get a very different result. In reality, we have been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride with Bailiff as head coach, with the only consistency being our inability to beat or compete with Top 75 teams.

I explained my reason, but here you go:

2007-present: low r-squared of 0.11. But the 2008 record is an obvious statistical outlier. When it is removed, it gets bumped to a healthy 0.75.

2010-present: Still a very healthy 0.76 r-squared value.

In reality, from a record stand point, we haven't been on a roller coaster, but a pretty slow and steady climb. That '08 season was an anomaly, both statistically and actually. Bailiff was the coach that season, but we all pretty much agree that we were helmed by one of our best QBs of all time and two of our best WRs of all time.

edit: We talk one here about a recent, upward trend with regard to winning, and often point to 2012 as when that started, the first year since '08 without a losing record. But if you look at our win totals, this past year is the first year since '09 where DB and co. have won less games than the year before. Competition has changed (but if I remember, the average rating of teams played actually hasn't moved much) but if we are talking about trends, it's pretty darn clear, IMO, where we are RIGHT NOW. Next year will help define the picture even more.

Here's the rest of the data on the so-called "next up" G5 teams. Parentheses after each team are the # of teams ranked worse than 100/200 that they've played over the period.

Team/vsT25/vsT50/vsT75/vs75+

Boise St/0-2/3-3/6-3/22-1 (17)(1)
UCF/1-3/2-5/5-0/23-1 (18)(2)
ECU/0-1/2-4/1-5/23-3 (17)(4)
NIU/0-2/1-2/7-1/27-2 (19)(6)
UTSA/0-2/0-5/1-6/18-4 (12)(6)
UConn/0-0/1-7/2-8/7-11 (10)(2)
Cinci/0-1/1-6/5-2/22-2 (12)(4)
Memphis/0-2/0-5/2-4/15-9 (15)(1)
Marshall/0-0/0-4/5-3/23-5 (14)(7)
Rice/0-1/0-7/1-3/24-4 (19)(3)

Total/1-13/10-48/35-35/204-42

Unscientific and extremely quick observations. These teams basically don't beat top 20 teams. Nor do they play top 20 teams (average of 0.47/year). They really don't beat top 50 teams very much, either. If you take out Boise St. and UCF (the teams w/the best resumes on the list) and just leave the other 8, record against T50 is 5-40 (11%). So if we win our next game against the top 50, we'll be right on that average:-p. Teams are 35-35 against T51-75, which shows pretty convincingly that these teams probably fall in that range. These teams almost all dominate those ranked below 75. Memphis and UConn are the exceptions to that. But, everyone else should feel pretty confident against anyone ranked >75.

Random observation. NIU's schedule is horrendous. They tie (with Rice) for most games played against teams ranked 101-200. They are also tied (with UTSA) for most games played against teams ranked 200+ (6). That's a whopping 60% of their games played against teams ranked 100+, 14% against teams ranked 200+.

Do with the data whatever you wish:-)

Am glad to be on a board in which everybody speaks fluent statistics. other than me, of course, I forgot it all as soon as grades were posted 50 years ago.

i appreciate Lad's work, it confirms what I was feeling intuitively, that we are on an upward trend. Understand and agree that it is slower and shallower than any of us would like. to the kids in the back seat who keep asking, are we there yet?, I say no, not yet, but we are getting there.

The definition of good season - I picked on 9-3 Because it would be a season which most of us would deem good, not great. The talk about 11+ wins could raise expectations to the point where that 9-3 would be perceived as a failure. Did not allot losses to any specific game or project the season. right now a lot of us are ready to write off 2015 if we lose the first game. That is all I am cautioning about.

no coach in any sport should be allowed to rest on his laurels, whether they be meager or vast. it is the nature of the profession to constantly have to prove oneself.

(01-15-2015 09:59 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Am glad to be on a board in which everybody speaks fluent statistics. other than me, of course, I forgot it all as soon as grades were posted 50 years ago.

i appreciate Lad's work, it confirms what I was feeling intuitively, that we are on an upward trend. Understand and agree that it is slower and shallower than any of us would like. to the kids in the back seat who keep asking, are we there yet?, I say no, not yet, but we are getting there.

The definition of good season - I picked on 9-3 Because it would be a season which most of us would deem good, not great. The talk about 11+ wins could raise expectations to the point where that 9-3 would be perceived as a failure. Did not allot losses to any specific game or project the season. right now a lot of us are ready to write off 2015 if we lose the first game. That is all I am cautioning about.

no coach in any sport should be allowed to rest on his laurels, whether they be meager or vast. it is the nature of the profession to constantly have to prove oneself.

For me, what was surprising was the fact that we actually appear to be on a very steady rise. I had really just been looking at the past three years when evaluating Bailiff, since that is when our +.500 consecutive seasons started. I had forgotten that this past year was the first time in 6 seasons that we had lost more games than the previous year.

(01-15-2015 09:45 AM)picrig Wrote:  Here's the rest of the data on the so-called "next up" G5 teams. Parentheses after each team are the # of teams ranked worse than 100/200 that they've played over the period.

Team/vsT25/vsT50/vsT75/vs75+

Boise St/0-2/3-3/6-3/22-1 (17)(1)
UCF/1-3/2-5/5-0/23-1 (18)(2)
ECU/0-1/2-4/1-5/23-3 (17)(4)
NIU/0-2/1-2/7-1/27-2 (19)(6)
UTSA/0-2/0-5/1-6/18-4 (12)(6)
UConn/0-0/1-7/2-8/7-11 (10)(2)
Cinci/0-1/1-6/5-2/22-2 (12)(4)
Memphis/0-2/0-5/2-4/15-9 (15)(1)
Marshall/0-0/0-4/5-3/23-5 (14)(7)
Rice/0-1/0-7/1-3/24-4 (19)(3)

Total/1-13/10-48/35-35/204-42

Unscientific and extremely quick observations. These teams basically don't beat top 20 teams. Nor do they play top 20 teams (average of 0.47/year). They really don't beat top 50 teams very much, either. If you take out Boise St. and UCF (the teams w/the best resumes on the list) and just leave the other 8, record against T50 is 5-40 (11%). So if we win our next game against the top 50, we'll be right on that average:-p. Teams are 35-35 against T51-75, which shows pretty convincingly that these teams probably fall in that range. These teams almost all dominate those ranked below 75. Memphis and UConn are the exceptions to that. But, everyone else should feel pretty confident against anyone ranked >75.

Random observation. NIU's schedule is horrendous. They tie (with Rice) for most games played against teams ranked 101-200. They are also tied (with UTSA) for most games played against teams ranked 200+ (6). That's a whopping 60% of their games played against teams ranked 100+, 14% against teams ranked 200+.

Do with the data whatever you wish:-)

This may be the most helpful post in the history of the many, many threads on Bailiff, thanks!

My takeaways:

-Record against 50-75 is not good and needs to improve, as some have asserted.

-BUT, if that record improves, even without any wins against 0-25, even with just a couple against 26-50, we're right up there statistically with the elite of the G5.

-I think it also strengthens the argument for "signature wins" - I was genuinely surprised at Boise's and UCF's records against 1-25. Maybe the Boise bowl game against OU and UCF's against Baylor created an impression which has colored how I perceive those programs... [Edit for clarification: I tended to think Walt and others overstate the importance of signature wins, now I think perhaps they don't...]


In the end this just confirms my gut feeling - we are annoyingly still in the gray area. I can't look at that chart and think "Fire Bailiff!" I can't look at the Marshall and especially La Tech games and feel confident we can start getting those 50-75 wins...

(01-15-2015 09:45 AM)picrig Wrote:  Here's the rest of the data on the so-called "next up" G5 teams. Parentheses after each team are the # of teams ranked worse than 100/200 that they've played over the period.

Team/vsT25/vsT50/vsT75/vs75+

Boise St/0-2/3-3/6-3/22-1 (17)(1)
UCF/1-3/2-5/5-0/23-1 (18)(2)
ECU/0-1/2-4/1-5/23-3 (17)(4)
NIU/0-2/1-2/7-1/27-2 (19)(6)
UTSA/0-2/0-5/1-6/18-4 (12)(6)
UConn/0-0/1-7/2-8/7-11 (10)(2)
Cinci/0-1/1-6/5-2/22-2 (12)(4)
Memphis/0-2/0-5/2-4/15-9 (15)(1)
Marshall/0-0/0-4/5-3/23-5 (14)(7)
Rice/0-1/0-7/1-3/24-4 (19)(3)

Total/1-13/10-48/35-35/204-42

Unscientific and extremely quick observations. These teams basically don't beat top 20 teams. Nor do they play top 20 teams (average of 0.47/year). They really don't beat top 50 teams very much, either. If you take out Boise St. and UCF (the teams w/the best resumes on the list) and just leave the other 8, record against T50 is 5-40 (11%). So if we win our next game against the top 50, we'll be right on that average:-p. Teams are 35-35 against T51-75, which shows pretty convincingly that these teams probably fall in that range. These teams almost all dominate those ranked below 75. Memphis and UConn are the exceptions to that. But, everyone else should feel pretty confident against anyone ranked >75.

Random observation. NIU's schedule is horrendous. They tie (with Rice) for most games played against teams ranked 101-200. They are also tied (with UTSA) for most games played against teams ranked 200+ (6). That's a whopping 60% of their games played against teams ranked 100+, 14% against teams ranked 200+.

Do with the data whatever you wish:-)

Thanks for the analysis, but you're playing right into Rick's hand here. Why are we comparing ourselves to other G5s when we aspire to elevate ourselves to the next level? If our 3 - 5 year goal is to position ourselves for the next P5 realignment, we need to start comparing ourselves to the 2nd tier P5 programs; not the upper tier G5s. You are who you compare yourselves to.

BTW, since there are only around 130 FBS division programs (vs. over 300 in baseball), how can you play teams ranked 200+?

(01-15-2015 10:12 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  -I think it also strengthens the argument for "signature wins" - I was genuinely surprised at Boise's and UCF's records against 1-25. Maybe the Boise bowl game against OU and UCF's against Baylor created an impression which has colored how I perceive those programs... [Edit for clarification: I tended to think Walt and others overstate the importance of signature wins, now I think perhaps they don't...]

I was thinking the same thing.