cubucks
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RE: Remaining Undefeated, 1-Loss, and Winless Teams after Week 11
(11-12-2019 10:24 AM)JRsec Wrote: (11-12-2019 07:35 AM)CliftonAve Wrote: (11-10-2019 11:03 PM)JRsec Wrote: (11-10-2019 10:25 PM)ohio1317 Wrote: I could see the schedule looking better/worse depending on how bowl season goes. Not having a big home and home hurt the strength of schedule some and having Penn State/Michigan to end has a bit too. That said, Cincinnati might have been a better opponent for the year than TCU and Wisconsin is pretty decent. Indiana really isn't terrible this year either. Regardless, if the Buckeyes look anything like have so far vs. Penn State and Michigan this might be the best Buckeye team I've seen. It could all unravel of course (this is college football), but think schedule is more so so than bad compared to others and will be fine by end of year. That said, very much want a few more big out of conference games.
The top of the Big 10 is smaller than usual. I think you have Ohio State at the top. Then I think you have Michigan, Penn State, and Minnesota step below, but a big step. Wisconsin is in between those 3 and Ohio State IMO. Where the Big 10 is improved this year is that schools like Purdue and Indiana have stepped it up, but unfortunately schools like Iowa and Michigan State have disappointed.
The bottom however is putrid. Maryland, Rutgers, Northwestern and Nebraska have wreaked.
That said the SEC's middle has deteriorated. The bottom of the SEC is as horrible as it has been in the last 30 years or so. Vanderbilt and Arkansas are at severe low points even by Vandy's standards. South Carolina and Tennessee failed to make for a strong middle and Missouri is totally a mystery, but in a bad kind of way. South Carolina is Jekyll and Hyde.
Ole Miss, Kentucky and Mississippi State are the middle along with a disappointing Texas A&M.
The upper echelon will prove to be L.S.U., Alabama, and Georgia. Florida and Auburn are higher than expected but both have had tough schedules.
So while the SEC has some traditionally strong teams the conference as a whole is weaker this year. So much so that we won't fill our quota of bowls, and may miss that by as many as 3 unfilled bowls.
The ACC is broadest at the bottom and middle, but there isn't a program within 3 steps of Clemson.
The PAC is virtually all middle. Utah and Oregon are a step above but below Wisconsin, Auburn, and Florida, and probably on par with Penn State, Minnesota and Michigan. Oregon / Michigan might make a helluva Rose Bowl. The PAC doesn't have any really putrid teams like the other conferences.
The Big 12 has no defense again. Kansas State's is probably the best and Baylor's may be good but here we are in week 11 and nobody knows if the Bears are for real. I kind of place OU on par with Oregon and Utah.
So overall there is more parity, less excellence, but a larger bottom than usual which is why 5 G5 schools are ranked.
Could it be that the middle to bottom are so thin because the top of the G5 is strong. Have to think a number of those P5 schools are being out recruited by Cincinnati, Memphis, UCF, SMU, Boise, San Diego State, Houston, etc.
No. The issue isn't recruiting. The issue is coaching. The successful schools are "developing" the talent they get. The unsuccessful ones are not.
The cream of the Power 5 exist of schools whose coaching staffs develop the talent they recruit. Then you have a long list of coaches who have been associated with talent developers in the past, but who are not talent developers themselves, but were hired with the hopes that they were.
The cream of the Gang of 5 is no different. These are coaches (usually younger and without a long history with other talent developers) who also know how to develop talent but their history is in doing it at a lower level where the other component is not present, the development and containment of boosters. Where the fail occurs between top G5 coaching talent and top P5 coaching talent is that the top P5 coaches are better at smoozing donors and delegating authority to subordinates. Gus Malzahn can't delegate authority except to the defensive side of the staff (which Gus knows little about). So Auburn's defense excels while its offense is micromanaged by a guy who can't develop QB talent.
Each coach has his own set of limitations and the highly successful names Saban, Meyer, and now Swinny all are great at spotting and developing coaching talent and then delegating away the things those coaches do well. Swinny's strategy is to keep his associates as long as he can and Saban's has been to promote them out to keep things "fresh". I think Swinny's approach will keep a higher sustained rate of success until as a staff they become stale while Saban's approach produces more success over a much wider span of time. What that translates into is that Clemson's run will be more intense and may produce as many titles within a decade as Saban has produced within his stints at Michigan State / L.S.U. / and Alabama.
What's bad about all of this is that the top G5 coaches will continue to be hired away as fast as they emerge and of those maybe 10% will have the skill sets to achieve their goals at the higher level. That doesn't mean they are bad coaches, it just means they haven't been trained at the G5 level to handle the donors, the press, and the delegation of authority because they have fewer monied people demanding their attention, less media personalities to assuage, and much smaller staffs to manage.
Spot on and if I may add another point. Boise State was so successful because they were able to keep Petersen around so long and build the program. He is a great developer of talent and built Boise State into a national name. That's what it takes and like JRsec mentioned, coaches at that level are always in waiting for something "bigger".
Maybe Cincinnati is able to keep Coach Fickell around to build the Bearcats up to a National contender? Look at Miami, Florida State, Wisconsin, Northwestern etc... It only took that "one" coach to turn the whole thing around.
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