No Season Left Behind: 2015

2015 was the year we lost Tom Bradford, Count Dooku, and Mr Spock (LLAP).

We were also blessed with

- Left Shark
- Caitlyn Jenner (not hating, just chuckling at the big deal that was made)
- Drake's weird video
- Jared ain't getting no Subway in prison
- Africa went an entire year without naturally occurring polio (yay vaccines!)

Top movies:

1. Star Wars: TFA (ugh - my childhood has been ruined by JJ Abrams)
2. Minions
3. Inside Out (my wife loved this one)
4. Spectre (I didn't like Craig as Bond initially, but he grew on me)
5. MI: Rogue Nation (say what you will about Cruise, he makes entertaining movies)

And college football!

Regular season Top 10 matchups

• Week 2
  • No. 5 Michigan State defeated No. 7 Oregon 31-28
• Week 7
  • No. 10 Alabama defeated No. 9 Texas A&M 41-23 
  • No. 6 LSU defeated No. 8 Florida 35-28
• Week 10
  • No. 4/7 Alabama defeated No. 2/4 LSU 30-16
• Week 12
  • No. 10/10 Baylor defeated No. 6/4 Oklahoma State 45-35
  • No. 9/9 Michigan State defeated No. 3/2 Ohio State 17-14
• Week 13
  • No. 3/5 Oklahoma defeated No. 11/9 Oklahoma State 58-23
  • No. 8/8 Ohio State defeated No. 10/12 Michigan 42-13
  • No. 9/13 Stanford defeated No. 6/4 Notre Dame 38-36
• Week 14
• No. 5/5 Michigan State defeated No. 4/4 Iowa 16-13
• No. 1/1 Clemson defeated No. 10/8 North Carolina 45-37

MSU-Oregon was a fun game early in the season. The Big 12 was a lot of fun if you like offense (as usual). MSU-OSU was weird (Zeke with only 12 carries in crappy, cold, wet conditions?).

This was also the season where the mighty mighty Gamecocks of Jacksonville State took Auburn to OT, with the Tigers needing a last minute TD just to tie it.

This was a pretty tame season as far as chaos goes, though Georgia Tech over #9 Florida State was a good one!

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.

25	Tennessee	8-4
24	UCLA	8-4
23	Southern Cal	8-5
22	Wisconsin	9-3
21	Oregon	9-3

Oregon played Michigan State early, which was a bold OOC move for both squads. USC  and UCLA both floundered a bit, though the Trojans at least made the Pac 12 championship game. Wisky lost to Bama in Sept, another strong OOC game for those schools. Need more of this.

20	Western Kentucky	11-2
19	Northwestern	10-2
18	Florida	10-3
17	Utah	9-3
16	Oklahoma State	10-2

WKU. Kind of amazes me how often they show up. Northwestern, Florida, and Utah had good seasons, just had a few stumbles. OkSt had a horrendous OOC schedule, and closing the season with back to back losses is never good.

15	Houston	12-1
14	Baylor	9-3
13	Michigan	9-3
12	Mississippi	9-3
11	Notre Dame	10-2

Baylor had some good wins (over OkSt ini particular). Ole Miss actually beat Alabama, but we'll get to that. ND lost to Bama but another 10 win season is nothing to sneeze at. UM lost to OSU again. Houston, though - a ridiculous loss to UConn late in the season torpedoed their run to a top 10 final ranking.

10

TCU

10-2

Year in and year out, Gary Patterson makes a lot out of not much. Never has a top recruiting class, but is always in the discussion (even when he has a down year). Losing to both OK schools kept them out of the playoff.

9

Florida State

10-2

Funny, but it seems like longer ago that FSU was relevant. Jimbo Fisher did a great job with them, and really only the GaTech loss hurt them.

8

North Carolina

11-2

The Heels started with a loss to South Carolina, then rattled off 11 wins in a row before losing to Clemson in the ACC championship game.

7

Michigan State

12-1

The Spartans beat OSU on a last second field goal, but if we're being honest that was more a function of terrible game plan by the Buckeyes. Still, MSU had a great run through the B1G championship game.

6

Iowa

12-1

And who did Sparty beat in that game? The Hawkeyes, of course. Iowa ran through the B1G West like nothing, the closest game being a 10-6 road win over Wisconsin.

5

Stanford

11-2

For anyone who doesn't think one player can carry a team, here's evidence you're wrong. Christian McCaffrey's 2664 yards from scrimmage (over 2000yds rushing) vaulted Stanford into contention. Losing to Northwestern week 1 wasn't so bad, but losing to unranked Oregon in Nov hurt them.

4

Ohio State

11-1

Well, I'm done defending the system. This is just how it works out, and I will swear on whatever talisman you like that I am not manipulating the numbers. Ohio State could have been 13-0 if it hadn't been for Ed Warinner. FWIW, OSU was probably the most talented team that year (kinda like this year).

3

Alabama

12-1

A no doubter here, even with the FCS win. Thing is, they lost to Ole Miss (#12) while OSU lost to MSU (#7) but it was OSU being left out of the CFP because not conference champs. But I guess that it was ok to not be conf champs in 2017? Hmmm...

2

Clemson

13-0

Surprise! Yep, Clemson came in at #2. I was a bit shocked myself. They had another year of dominating the ACC, and Dabo was being his usual brilliant self.

1

Oklahoma

11-1

I admit it, this one weirds me out. They lost to Texas, but beat the snot out of everyone else except TCU. When you check the numbers below, you'll see that they were good with 1st level points, not so good with 2nd level points, but pretty stellar with SRS.

Let's take a look at Ray's Rankings vs the CFP committee:

	CFP		RR	Difference
1	Clemson	ACC	2	1
2	Alabama	SEC	3	1
3	Michigan State	Big Ten	7	4
4	Oklahoma	Big 12	1	-3
5	Iowa	Big Ten	6	1
6	Stanford	Pac-12	5	-1
7	Ohio State	Big Ten	4	-3
8	Notre Dame	Independent	11	3
9	Florida State	ACC	9	0
10	North Carolina	ACC	8	-2
11	Texas Christian	Big 12	10	-1
12	Mississippi	SEC	12	0
13	Northwestern	Big Ten	19	6
14	Michigan	Big Ten	14	0
15	Oregon	Pac-12	22	7
16	Oklahoma State	Big 12	16	0
17	Baylor	Big 12	15	-2
18	Houston	American	13	-5
19	Florida	SEC	18	-1
20	Louisiana State	SEC	28	8
21	Navy	American	34	13
22	Utah	Pac-12	17	-5
23	Tennessee	SEC	25	2
24	Temple	American	33	9
25	Southern California	Pac-12	23	-2

-->This season looks tighter than we've seen in more recent seasons, and it is. Navy is the only seriously screwed up pick, and even then it's not as bad as some we've seen. Oregon, Northwestern, Houston, LSU, Utah and Temple could use a little help, also. And MSU/OSU need swapped. But overall it looks good. Do the numbers back that up?
-->

SEC	2.00
Big Ten	1.60
Pac-12	-0.25
Big 12	-1.50
ACC	-0.33

This is a much better spread than 2016. It's still wrong, and at some point it will matter for bowl selections and playoff considerations, but it's better. 

RR vs AP

-->

	AP		RR	Diff
1	Clemson	ACC	2	1
2	Alabama	SEC	3	1
3	Michigan State	Big Ten	7	4
4	Oklahoma	Big 12	1	-3
5	Stanford	Pac-12	5	0
6	Iowa	Big Ten	6	0
7	Ohio State	Big Ten	4	-3
8	Notre Dame	Independent	11	3
9	Florida State	ACC	9	0
10	North Carolina	ACC	8	-2
11	Texas Christian	Big 12	10	-1
12	Northwestern	Big Ten	19	7
13	Oklahoma State	Big 12	16	3
14	Houston	American	13	-1
15	Oregon	Pac-12	22	7
16	Mississippi	SEC	12	-4
17	Michigan	Big Ten	14	-3
18	Baylor	Big 12	15	-3
19	Florida	SEC	18	-1
20	Utah	Pac-12	17	-3
21	Navy	American	34	13
22	Louisiana State	SEC	28	6
23	Wisconsin	Big Ten	21	-2
24	Temple	American	33	9
25	Western Kentucky	C-USA	20	-5

When we eyeball the AP, it looks a little rougher than the CFP, at least to me when I scan the Diff column. But again, it only looks that way. Oregon, Northwestern, Navy, LSU, and Temple are the larger variances.

-->

SEC	0.50
B1G	0.50
Pac-12	1.33
Big 12	-1.00
ACC	-0.33

Much tighter than 2016. Like, night and day. I am finding it very interesting how much variance there is year to year in the variances. I'm starting to think that recency bias and status quo bias are equally at fault (I was leaning towards recency being a greater influence). We will examine the different biases and show examples in a future post.

The 4 team playoff would have looked a little different using a 100% objective and transparent selection method"

And the 8 team seeded (remember, all 5 P5 conference champs, top G5 team, 2 at large):

Other than the WKU mess, we have some intriguing matchups. Stanford/MSU in a traditional Pac10-Big10 tilt, and OSU/Bama in a more recent kinda rivalry (at least with fans). And Clemson/Iowa could be interesting depending on which Iowa shows up.

Now for the Big Show:

As usual, I moved teams a little to avoid in-conference games in the first round. High flying Houston vs Baker Mayfield's OU? How about some Seminolscicles when Florida State shows up in East Lansing in December? Yes, please!

100% objective. 100% transparent. No hidden agendas, no closed door meetings, no human biases.

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