🏈 another point of view. what do the stats show?

[pop]

thanks its good to be aboard.
you guys have great board.
I expected a good fight, just like I expect a good one in the game too. I wouldn't want anything less.

 

[TerryP]

thanks its good to be aboard.
you guys have great board.
I expected a good fight, just like I expect a good one in the game too. I wouldn't want anything less.

If you were a Boston College fan...gloves are off. I've got one down the street that I'm tempted to...well. we'll just leave it at that.

Hmmm...I wonder what a BC fan would say coming into this game? Just sayin'..

 

[Guest]

Saying our best win against TCU isn't valid because Bama lost to a better florida team, doesn't make any sense.

Don't have time right now, but I will address this nugget... How does win or loss make a difference where statistical ranking is concerned? Do offensive and defensive statistics only matter if you win?

Bullcrap argument there pop.

 

[pop]

TCU is the most statistically impressive team in your hand. They rank #20 in scoring offense, and #2 in scoring defense.

Here is the problem...

They are Hoover High school.

Comparatively, the best team on Alabama's schedule (Total offense & defense) was Florida. You are welcome to research where their stats were in comparison to TCU. Down the line, every team on Alabama's schedule played a tougher schedule than the opponents of Utah.

Lets not forget this simple fact. You lost to Florida. So comparing the two is apples to oranges. You can't compare a loss to a win. So why don't we take your best win. That seems more or less comparable.

Your best win, statistically, would be against Mississippi (8-4). 32nd off. 14th def

def:
Memphis 66
Wake Forest 17
Samford ? (15 in FCS so that would be an 115)
Vanderbilt 25
1 Florida 5
South Carolina 28
4 Alabama 6
Arkansas 93
Auburn 15
La.-Monroe 93
LSU 65
Mississippi St. 58

Avg def ranking of the best team you beat was 48.8. So they faced a more difficult defensive schedule. Scored less and are ranked below TCU. makes sense right. just like you said, inflated. Well lets withhold judgment, lets take a look at the off first before we jump to any conclusions.

off ranking:
Memphis 44
Wake Forest 97
Samford ? (62nd in fcs we will call that 162)
Vanderbilt 104
1 Florida 3
South Carolina 92
4 Alabama 30
Arkansas 91
Auburn 111
La.-Monroe 79
LSU 34
Mississippi St. 116

avg offense your best win faced: 75.4 omg. you didn't just post something without looking into it, right? SO your best win amassed their 14th best offense against teams with WORSE potency offenses than TCU did. you wouldn't make a supposition without it being based on something you looked up, not an assumption. never.

So based on the same analysis you performed on TCU you would have to conclude that Mississippi's defense would have to be considered overated. And they held Bama to 24 points. Thats the exact argument you just made. But it doesn't hold water, because all you are doing is taking a set of data that looks good for alabama and looking at it in a completely biased way. Take the data and don't mine it for Bama favored results and you'll see these two teams are well matched. It will be close.

 

[Guest]

thanks for keeping the level of discourse high. Resorting to name calling would be amateurish and diminish the facts that we seek to achieve.

I'm going to argue that the idea of a difference in level of competition makes alabama the favorite by a blowout. The argument is that because we play weaker opponents our stats are invalid. That is the argument I hear that overrides the theme of this discussion. If that were true certain we should be able to make claims that hold up to that fact. Its difficult however to find significantly relevant material to test that claim, only 3 games have met the criteria to be analyzed. The claims are that the line should favor the team with a harder schedule from a harder conference, and the results will be above the odds line in favor of that team.

Lets start with Utah vs pitt 2004. utes favored by 21. never any question in anyones mind that this was a mismatch. no odds maker or reasonably intelligent person picked pitt. I leave the stats alone for this one. Pitt had a SOS of 66th. Utahs was 67th. The argument doesn't hold. A weaker schedule didn't predict the outcome correctly. zero for one, in the claim that a harder schedule makes the stats meaningless.

Next up. #5 BSU vs #7 oklahoma. The argument here was that BSU weak schedule meant they were not good enough to even keep up with ok. I mean come on, its oklahoma right? they face top 10 offenses week in and week out. BSU rating is inflated and so are their stats. That was the argument then, oklahoma was favored by 7-8.5pts in that game. SOS of ok was 32. BSU was 90th. outcome of the game BSU 43- ou 42. uh oh this isn't looking good. So why was oklahoma the favorite. There must be something that there were better at statistically that made odds makers think that it was worth 7 pts. Right? BSU 2nd in the nation scoring offense. OU 19th. Its inflated, irrelevant. dismissed off hand without data to support the claim. scoring def. will favor OU right? this has to make sense. Odds makers wouldn't drop a TD favorite line on a worse team. RIGHT? OU 19th, BSU 20th a difference of 0.4pts/game. Buts its irrelevant OU has to face harder opponents so really that stat is useless. What could possibly account for being a TD favorite but at very best being a statistical equal. It doesn't make sense. OU was favored by a TD because of their name and their conference, thats it. 7 pts for playing in a BCS conference and being in BCS bowl game. 0 for 2 in the claim. Its almost like this notion is turning out to be a fallacy, a logical inaccuracy not proven to be of use in this type of situation.

Well one more to go. This one has to make more sense. I'll keep my fingers crossed. #10 Hawaii vs. #4 Georgia. Betting line -22 for Georgia. SOS for Georgia 23rd. Hawaii's 132nd in sagarin. worst in the league. Here we go this one we will all feel better about. Hawaii scoring off/def- 1st/46th. Georgia 34th/18th. Ah thats better this one fits. The line was appropriate -22, a blowout for sure. And there it was Hawaii 10- geogia 41. Claim is 1 for 3.

This time around Utah SOS is 70. alabama 58. Definitely had harder competition. Utahs scoring off/def-15th/12th. Alabama off/def-30th/6th. But its all irrelevant. No questions.

The stats don't back up the 10pt line, and if history is correct you get 7pts added just for being from the SEC.

The claim that playing in a harder conference and your opponents having harder schedules is not an accurate predictor of the outcome of these games. It only predicts 1/3 of the BCS games featuring non-aq teams. Its a fallacy to make that argument. You make logical assumptions that aren't valid to discredit utah's wins, and then turn right around and use the same stats and fallacies to prove how Alabama is going to win by a blowout.

It wont happen. There is not a significant data set to compare the SEC to the MWC. "Trickle down" analyses increase their error with every analysis step. The closest opponent we have together is the TENN-WYO connection. Besides that there are no relevant MWC-SEC data points to prove your continued assertion that a harder schedule equals a blow out win.

Again, no time to go into detail.

You are missing the boat. Your opponents are statistically irrelevant because the level of competition they are playing against so far off of the curve as to be categorically "Epic Fail." You need to go back and read the trickle down columns to have a clue what it is about - it has been extremely accurate on the season. Recruiting and personnel are considered and weighted - to the 3rd level. I used the formula to predict the Alabama - Arkansas game TO THE POINT. I nailed the score. When I watch your team, I feel like I am looking at Arkansas part deux.

At BEST this is a 14 point game. The single most important position on the field at any given time is the offensive and defensive line. You simply do not have the players to match up, and you will get obliterated. I don't give two shakes what Boise did to Oklahoma...that is part of the problem with you MWC people...you want to talk about the reasons you deserve to be respected, followed immediately by some reference to an irrelevant issue. Beat us. DO IT. Then you get respect. We don't disrespect you now...we just think that the 2008 Utah football team is a terrible matchup. You have mediocre players on the line - we have 3 all Americans. First teamers. These are guys who will be playing on Sunday in 9 months...you have guys who might not start on some high school teams. Dead serious - The strongest lineman on your team would be our 3rd strongest RUNNING BACK.

This game is a physical mismatch. You would have been MUCH better off if you had been matched against a patty-cake Big 12 team. We play the masculine version of Football.

Bama scores 31 +
Utah scores 14 -

 

[reger60]

smack!

 

[pop]

A loss and win are completely different when you are making a game to game analysis. In an overall season you can make valid comparisons based on season statistics. However, you wanted to discount TCU based on your loss to Florida. The reason it isn't a valid statistical comparison is because you didn't perform at a level required to win. IF you want to compare seasons, Florida would stay in, but you want to compare games. It should be a game where you performed at a level required to win that football game.

Essentially though, this amounts to a different methodology. I don't believe game to game analysis shows a teams true capability because variation in play will bias results. But a season analysis should iron out the bumps some to make it more valid.

Lets do florida though just for fun, though

defenses faced:
Hawaii 72
Miami (Fla.) 56
Tennessee 11
20 Mississippi 14
Arkansas 93
LSU 65
Kentucky 40
16 Georgia 64
Vanderbilt 25
South Carolina 28
Citadel 103 in FCS makes 203 here
Florida St. 32
4 Alabama 6

55 not crazy. but lower rankings that Mississippi, so by your logic they are a touch overated because the defenses they faced are a little bit worse than mississippi. So already we can devalue florida's top 5 rating at least a little bit. ok moving on.

off. faced:
Hawaii 68
Miami (Fla.) 47
Tennessee 111
20 Mississippi 32
Arkansas 91
LSU 34
Kentucky 84
16 Georgia 29
Vanderbilt 104
South Carolina 92
Citadel 44 in FCS makes 144 here
Florida St. 27
4 Alabama 30

giving 68 overall. not too bad. Wait ... wait a second. Thats WORSE than TCU. What. I don't get it. Whats going on here? Its almost like your assuming all this stuff about tough schedule, and not really looking objectively to make bold, hubris filled predictions about blowouts. They're padding their numbers with FCS teams, shit. Almost like taking single game results and discounting entire seasons doesn't really make sense. I don't get it. If you want to devalue TCU's def then you have to do it to Florida too. TCUs def has better numbers against stronger competition than florida, and this is using your analysis. I don't believe for a second TCU would hold up against florida, but using this method we would have to assume that they would do just that.

ok your turn. I'm having fun. If your football team is half as good as your forum, this will be a fun game.

GO UTES!

 

[Guest]

Loss or win are irrelevant when talking statistics. Whether or not the team posted a "W" does not have any bearing on whether or not it applies to statistics. When you say "We are ranked (X) in category (Y), that takes into account all teams played, not just those who you beat - or lost to. I don't know why you are having such a hard time with that concept. You brought up statistics - then did not like where it went. Changing the rules in the middle of the analysis is a lose/lose proposition.

Your comparison was for the basis of statistical comparison, not win loss record.

Win loss record would be entirely relevant if you are discussing like competition. There are no less than 5 SEC teams who would *probably* have gone 12-0 against your schedule. You may not like that, but it does not make it any less true.

I have had a bear of a day (final Sunday before Christmas), but I will try to do a thorough response to your comments shortly.

 

[Guest]

^^POP

 

[NTT]

Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky. What do these teams have in common? All of them would be undefeated if they had the same schedule as Utah. With the rest getting honorable mention.

 

[milliondollarfan19]

I cant wait for this game and the Ute fans to be coming back here trying to explain what went wrong... this is going to be a blow out. What yall cant get through yalls head is that the MWC sucks. I would love to see your top 3 teams come into the SEC and try and go 4-8. I think that even Vandy could beat yall. IMO and i think alot of people around the nation will agree that the SEC is the best conference in the nation. The SEC has 2 NC in the past two years and about to have a 3rd.

 

[pop]

I appreciate your responses. Sorry you had a tough day. I'm just getting my first real break from my 3rd year of medical school (I'm usually in the hospital like 70 hours a week), so I found some time to devote to football stuff. So I can sympathize with a tough day sometimes. Take your time, no rush really. Just a friendly internet stats battle.

Just to clarify some things. I started with a season comparison because I believe that to be more valid than game by game. You countered with the idea that comparing our best win against your best loss would clarify how the rankings of TCU don't stand up to Florida. I argued that in a game by game analysis the result matters, which is a difference of opinion. I then broke down Miss and Florida with the same methods used to break down TCU, and the results were not convincing. I did not take the discussion to a game by game, I was only trying to respond based on criticism of the argument, and responded in kind. I would much rather look at a season level of statistics. I would rather keep those statistics that are nationally recognized, and not formed de novo by an observer with interest in the outcome.

I appreciate the idea of your trickle down stuff. I would be interested to see your prediction percentage by the level of confidence of the prediction and the 95% confidence interval compared to a purely random predictor from all seasons. As well as when it is applied to other teams. Without those in place there really is no way to validate your process. All prediction methods vary based on three major factors; bias, chance, and truth. So arguing one data point (predicting a game to the point) doesn't really do anything unless its seen in context. And throwing out all data on opposition based on an unproven assumption, subjects your predictions to a heinous amount of bias. If you want to to that you need to take out all FCS competition from your rankings, not just your opponents from other conferences.

I would argue that the results of your predictor method is the result of significant bias, and not likely to be much better than pure chance in this game.

I hope your days are a little easier over the next few days.
Merry Christmas!

 

[pop]

I cant wait for this game and the Ute fans to be coming back here trying to explain what went wrong... this is going to be a blow out. What yall cant get through yalls head is that the MWC sucks. I would love to see your top 3 teams come into the SEC and try and go 4-8. I think that even Vandy could beat yall. IMO and i think alot of people around the nation will agree that the SEC is the best conference in the nation. The SEC has 2 NC in the past two years and about to have a 3rd.

Show me the data that proves that assertion. Tradition? Talent? Coaching? higher quality opponent? all are way too subjective. Too related to the interest of the observers making the distinctions to be accurate.
There isn't any objective data because the match ups don't happen. MWC and the SEC don't play each other. The only game this season was Wyoming-TENN, both of those teams suck. And the result is not generalizable to the rest of the conference.

All I'm asking for is the data that shows a top MWC can't compete with a Top SEC team in 2008. Because that is the claim everyone seems to make, but other than speculation and assumption there is no evidence to support that idea.

 

[Outlaw]

Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky. What do these teams have in common? All of them would be undefeated if they had the same schedule as Utah. With the rest getting honorable mention.

You're kidding, right?

There's three teams in a row that I believe without a doubt would be undefeated in your post. The other 4? Not so sure.

 

[pop]

Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky. What do these teams have in common? All of them would be undefeated if they had the same schedule as Utah. With the rest getting honorable mention.

You're kidding, right?

There's three teams in a row that I believe without a doubt would be undefeated in your post. The other 4? Not so sure.

Based on what? I'm trying to base my argument on the facts at hand. I'm working with the statistics we have as a measure of how good a team really is. Are they perfect? no. But they are a hell of a lot better than just saying something is good without backing up that claim with any sort of data. The whole argument being made is based on a assertion that is wholly unproven.

I didn't ask for teams that could go unbeaten in the MWC or more hubris about how good the SEC is. All I'm asking for is the data to back up that assertion. All I'm asking for is the data that shows a top MWC team can't compete with a Top SEC team in 2008. I never hope to convince anyone of a utah win, or for respect, or anything like that. I wanted to know where all this blow out stuff comes from. I read through posts and got the sense that there is an assumption being made about the quality of opponent. I made an argument to elicit that assumption, and then asked for the data that proves that assumption that all this blow out talk comes from. So far it isn't there. I can't find it. Explain it to me, using an objective analysis of the facts at hand.

 

[SkinyUte]

I cant wait for this game and the Ute fans to be coming back here trying to explain what went wrong... this is going to be a blow out. What yall cant get through yalls head is that the MWC sucks. I would love to see your top 3 teams come into the SEC and try and go 4-8. I think that even Vandy could beat yall. IMO and i think alot of people around the nation will agree that the SEC is the best conference in the nation. The SEC has 2 NC in the past two years and about to have a 3rd.

Don't worry, we'll come back and take our lumps if we lose. Hell, I'll be the first one to start a "Big_Fan was right" post if the game turns out to be the blowout he is predicting. However, I would hope to receive the same treatment if the game turns out more in Utah's favor. Deal?

Oh, and Vandy? Please... :roll:

P.S. There's some excellent stat work from both Pop and Big_Fan going on here. Keep it up gentlemen, it makes for fantastic reading.

 

[Crimson Hawk]

I guess it's a good thing the stats don't suit up & actually play the game.

 

[Guest]

Does playing a DivII team not help in the stats department?

And why all the talk about WYM and Tenn? Why not Georgia and Hawaii or does that not count?

Given that Hawaii was unbeaten last year we know what happend there. You want to compair WYM to Tenn. Given Tenn replaced there coach... Seems off to me, but o well.

 

[SkinyUte]

And why all the talk about WYM and Tenn? Why not Georgia and Hawaii or does that not count?

WY/Tenn is the only actual head-to-head SEC vs. MWC comparison we have, hence the talk about it. I would guess the reason there's not much talk about Georgia/Hawaii is because a) that was last year, and b) Hawaii plays in the WAC (a statistically far weaker conference), not the MWC.

Given Tenn replaced there coach... Seems off to me, but o well.

To be fair, Wyoming announced the firing of their coach before that game too.

 

[Biff Grub]

I'm not going to bother debating your stats (there's nothing I could say that would chance anyone's mind.

Yet you immediately do just that.