No Season Left Behind - 2017

2017 Our second look backwards in time

-Superhero movies in order of gross sales (man, there were a lot of them)

• #3 Wonder Woman
• #4 Guardians of the Galaxy 2
• #5 Spiderman: Homecoming
• #7 Thor: Ragnarok
• #9 Logan
• #11 Justice League

-#1 and probably the worst Star Wars movie ever (worse than the comically awful Holiday Special even) The Last Jedi. Ick.

-Also, with a 16 minute inaugural speech (one of the shortest in history) The Donald was sworn in. Let the Twitter weirdness commence!

-Russia banned the sharing of pictures implying Putin is a gay clown. Not kidding.

And we watched some college football!

If you don't recall the utter crap that was the CFP that season, I don't blame you. I've deliberately suppressed that memory as well. But for a frame of reference, this is what happened:

Wk 1: #1 Bama beat #3 UF. #3 team that ended up 4-7. But the voters just know, right?

Wk 2: The Mayfield flag plant, #5 OU beats #2 OSU

Wk 9: The Comeback, by JT Barrett IV, #6 OSU defeats #2 PSU

Wk 11: A little chaos. #5 OU beats #8 TCU, #7 Miami defeats #3 ND, and #10 Auburn downs #2 UGA

Wk 13: #6 Auburn takes down #1 Bama

Wk 14: #1 Clemson defeats #7 Miami, #3 OU beats #11 TCU again, #6 UGA avenges earlier loss, beats #2 Auburn, #8 OSU beats #4 Wisky

Plus the weird losses: OSU losing to Iowa after the PSU win, Auburn losing to unranked LSU, OU losing to Iowa State, and others.

By the way, when I refer to utter crap I mean the CFP

Here's a quick reminder of the rules:

• I stop all data at the conference championships. No bowl games are included, as the idea is to provide us with a top 25 that we would have selected playoff teams from.
• All calculations are exactly the same as the current Ray's Rankings calculations.
• I will introduce the top 25 in reverse order
• I will compare RR/CFP/AP rankings
• I will provide 3 different playoff scenarios

• 4 team seeded
• 8 team with conference champions and 2 at large, seeded
• 16 team seeded

• We can all have a good laugh at how different things would have been. Or we can all stare slack-jawed in amazement at how closely Ray's Rankings matches human polls.

Ready?

25	Washington State	9-3
24	Iowa State	7-5
23	Louisville	8-4
22	Michigan	8-4
21	Michigan State	9-3

Iowa State here is the evidence of my system working. 7-5 but with huge wins over OU and TCU. These are the kinds of wins that can buoy a team in the rankings. We have been taught to value losses too much and wins not enough. Change the paradigm!

20	Louisiana State	9-3
19	Iowa	7-5
18	Virginia Tech	9-3
17	Central Florida	12-0
16	Northwestern	9-3

Something to consider here: Coach Eaux had LSU moving in the right direction before the arrival of Burreaux. Of course, they lost to Troy, too. UCF in at #17 means no natty for them. This is where history and my system are against the Group of 5 schools.

15	Oklahoma State	9-3
14	Miami (FL)	10-2
13	Texas Christian	10-3
12	Auburn	10-3
11	Stanford	9-4

Stanford. I had forgotten about them, to be honest. They lost a couple early, including one to USC whom they also lost to in the Pac-12 championship game. TCU was up and down, as was giant slayer Auburn. 

10

Notre Dame

9-3

The Irish had another tough season as far as scheduling goes. They had the 4th most difficult SoS in FBS, and their only losses were to UGA, Miami, and Stanford, all Top 25 teams. If they win any of those games they maybe make the top 4.

9

Southern California

11-2

USC was another team with potential, but losing to ND and WASU kept them from acquiring enough 1st level points to move up. Darnold had a good season, but had 13 picks against only 26 TDs.

8

Washington

10-2

This one is odd to me. UW made it up to #5 before playing ASU (hey, Ducks! check it out!), and then back up to #9 before losing to Stanford. Browning was a serviceable QB but seemed to lack that certain "something" that characterized Petersen's Boise teams. 

7

Alabama

11-1

Here we go again. I promise you that I do not hate the SEC. I hate all of everyone at ESPN drooling all over everything SEC, and I hate that voters do not treat them the same as they treat other conferences, but none of that is really the SEC's fault. But here is the Tide, a victim of scheduling Mercer before the Iron Bowl (basically a loss in my system as far as points go) and then losing the Iron Bowl.

6

Penn State

10-2

The Nittany Lions probably could have won in Columbus, but not without 3 pretty bad PI calls. That game wasn't as close as the score showed. And really, that wasn't the loss that hurt. The one that hurt was the following week in East Lansing to the Spartans. No excuse there.

5

Georgia

12-1

Fromm had a Fromm year, and another great D helped UGA to the SEC championship. Their only loss was to Auburn, and the avenged that loss in the SECCG. They also played Samford. Sorry guys, that FCS crap has to stop.

4

Wisconsin

12-1

The Badgers were #3 and undefeated coming into the B1G championship game. Their SoS was not stellar, but they handled their business until getting to Indy. OSU was just better that night, pretty much all the way around.


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3

Ohio State

11-2

Yes, a 2-loss team in the top 4. Again, the system rewards wins more than it punishes losses. The Buckeyes beat 12-1 Wisky, 8-3 UM, 9-3 MSU, and 10-2 PSU. The losses to OU and Iowa are only zeroes to average against. I swear, I am not manipulating the numbers - you can crunch them yourselves.

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2

Oklahoma

12-1

Bake Mayfield was amazing. OU beat OSU, the other OSU, TCU twice. More than enough to offset a single loss to Iowa State. And if we cared about post season, they lost a 2-OT semifinal. This OU team was stacked. 

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1

Clemson

12-1

This was the year Syracuse beat Clemson. And yes, they played the Citadel so in my system that's another loss. But they beat Auburn, Louisville, VaTech, NC State, and Miami, who all had good to great seasons. This was a well deserved #1.

How different was the CFP from what RR would have been?

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CFP	School	Conf	RR	Diff
1	Clemson	ACC	1	0
2	Oklahoma	Big12	2	0
3	Georgia	SEC	5	2
4	Alabama	SEC	7	3
5	Ohio State	B1G	3	-2
6	Wisconsin	B1G	4	-2
7	Auburn	SEC	12	5
8	Southern Cal	Pac-12	9	1
9	Penn State	B1G	6	-3
10	Miami (Fl)	ACC	14	4
11	Washington	Pac-12	8	-3
12	Central Florida	AAC	17	5
13	Stanford	Pac-12	11	-2
14	Notre Dame	Ind	10	-4
15	Texas Christian	Big12	13	-2
16	Michigan State	B1G	21	5
17	Louisiana State	SEC	20	3
18	Washington State	Pac-12	25	7
19	Oklahoma State	Big12	15	-4
20	Memphis	AAC	29	9
21	Northwestern	B1G	16	-5
22	Virginia Tech	ACC	18	-4
23	Mississippi State	SEC	26	3
24	NC State	ACC	28	4
25	Boise State	MWC	35	10

We're looking at the Diff column. In general, it's pretty close but different enough that the playoff would have looked quite different. Positive numbers mean CFP ranked higher than RR, negative mean ranked lower. How does it add up? On average, the SEC was ranked 3 places higher than in my computer, the Big-12 2 places lower.

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Conf	Avg dif
SEC	3
B1G	-1
Big12	-2
Pac-12	1
ACC	1

But we can trust AP voters, right?

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AP	School	CONF	RR	Diff
1	Clemson	ACC	1	0
2	Oklahoma	Big12	2	0
3	Georgia	SEC	5	2
4	Alabama	SEC	7	3
5	Ohio State	B1G	3	-2
6	Wisconsin	B1G	4	-2
7	Auburn	SEC	12	5
8	Southern Cal	Pac12	9	1
9	Penn State	B1G	6	-3
10	Central Florida	AAC	17	7
11	Miami (FL)	ACC	14	3
12	Washington	Pac12	8	-4
13	Texas Christian	Big12	13	0
14	Notre Dame	Ind	10	-4
15	Stanford	Pac12	11	-4
16	Louisiana State	SEC	20	4
17	Ok State	Big12	15	-2
18	Michigan State	B1G	21	3
19	Memphis	AAC	29	10
20	Northwestern	B1G	16	-4
21	Wash State	Pac12	25	4
22	Virginia Tech	ACC	18	-4
23	South Florida	AAC	45	22
24	Miss State	SEC	26	2
25	Boise State	MWC	35	10

Maybe not so much. What I'm starting to notice is that at the top the differences are smaller than middle to lower rankings. Not always, but enough to pick up a trend. I'll have to look at this more.

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Conf	Avg dif
SEC	3
B1G	-2
Big12	-1
Pac12	-1
ACC	0

Again, voters put the SEC 3 spots higher on average, and this time the B1G 2 places lower.

This isn't the post for going after the voters again, but pay attention to the numbers as we continue this trip down memory lane.

Using a 100% objective ranking system, the 2017 playoff would have looked like this:

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	CFP
1	Clemson
4	Wisconsin
2	Oklahoma
3	Ohio State

Clemson vs that Wisky D and OSU vs OU in a revenge game. Might have been fun, even though we're missing a couple of conference champs. Is this better than UGA vs Bama? Maybe a little? If only because of Wisky? Honestly, I would say other than SEC fatigue it's about the same.

How about the 8 team seeded? Remember, all 5 P5 conference champs, top G5 team, 2 at  large:

Now I think we're on to something. I swapped USC and PSU to keep from in-conference 1st round games. Here we go: UGA at Camp Randall and USC in the Shoe in friggin December! Who doesn't want to see that (except Kirby Smart and Clay Helton)? And Penn State in Norman? Only questionable game is UCF, and considering how well they played against Auburn, who knows?

Let's do 16:

Again. moved a few teams to avoid in-conference 1st rounds. I'm telling you, I'd be excited by all of these games. Yes, even Northwestern at Clemson. These are the games we want to see, right? 

Why in the world would we not want this? Am I crazy? You tell me. Leave a comment, and don't forget to subscribe!