No Season Left Behind 2012

2012, the year of banishment for OSU, year one of the Urban Meyer era for the Buckeyes. To be honest, I thought it would last a lot longer than it did.

In 2012 we lost more than a few entertainment greats (some that I honestly don't recall from that time):

• Robert Hegyes and Ron Palillo. "Ooohhh ooohhh ooohhh Mr Kotter!" Signed, Epstein's Mother.
• Daydream Believer Davey Jones
• New Year's Rockin' Eve Dick Clark
• She was a Bad Girl and Hot Stuff who Worked Hard For Her Money before her Last Dance, Donna Summer
• Nobody gets Too Much Heaven no more. Barry Gibb
• Survey says Richard Dawson
• Sheriff Andy Taylor
• He moved on up to the East side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Sherman Hemsley
• We know who shot J.R., but you'd have thought Jeannie would have protected him. Larry Hagman.
• First man on the moon and Ohio native, Neil Armstrong

You know we love our movies here at Ray's Rankings!

1. Brave -I like a strong role model for my daughter and this princess didn't need no man.
2. Men in Black 3 - it was better than 2
3. The Hunger Games - my daughter LOVES Katniss, still
4. Madagascar 3 - can't go wrong marketing to kids I guess
5. The Amazing Spider-Man - I rather enjoyed Garfield's Peter Parker
6. Twilight part 2 - I had a hard time typing that
7. Ice Age: Continental Drift - uh...ok?
8. Skyfall - I didn't think I'd enjoy Craig as Bond, but I do
9. The Dark Knight Rises - and lays the foundation for Joker
10. The Avengers - assemble (lots of money)

Yay! Football!
Remember Manti Te'o? I often wonder how his girlfriend is doing (ok, that's a lie).

How about Johnny Football? Very few equivalent Heisman campaigns can match the excitement he brought to us every Saturday in 2012.

Do you recall the fall of USC and Matt Barkley? Pre-season #1 finishing 7-6? I still feel bad for Matt, mainly because we're both Mater Dei alums.

Stanford at Notre Dame anyone? Pretty sure that's a TD in OT.

This was the season K-State made it to #1 before getting blasted by unranked Baylor on the same weekend #2 Oregon lost to Stanford.

And of course, who can forget The Hit:

OK, let's get retro!

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	Wisconsin	8-5
24	Northwestern	9-3
23	Penn State	8-4
22	Texas	8-4
21	USC	7-5

Wisconsin won the B1G. Really. Utterly forgettable seasons all around with the exception of the fall from grace of USC

20	Oklahoma State	7-5
19	Northern Illinois	12-1
18	Nebraska	10-3
17	Michigan	8-4
16	South Carolina	10-2

You guys remember the Northern Illinois season here? They looked amazing until their bowl game. Could have been nerves, probably was the Seminoles being ultra insulted and taking out their frustrations on a G5 team.

15	LSU	10-2
14	UCLA	9-4
13	Oregon State	9-3
12	Texas A&M	10-2
11	Florida	11-1

Oregon State!!??!?! And Florida's 11-1 is important in that their lone loss was to UGA at home. UGA nearly knocked off Bama.

10

Clemson

10-2

When Florida State was still the ACC bully. Also, the Tigers lost to South Carolina under Spurrier. 

9

Florida State

11-2

Possible that the Noles are knocking at Bama's door without the loss to NC State (yes, NC State)

8

Ohio State

12-0

Surprised yet not so much. The B1G was pretty awful in 2012. I don't think anyone wanted to play OSU in a bowl, but if they'd beaten 8-5 Wisky for the conference championship they're definitely in the title game.

7

Oklahoma

10-2

2 losses and ahead of OSU? By 0.0001, to be exact. Another year of high powered O helped their SRS numbers enough. That, and a tougher SOS by far.

6

Georgia

11-2

The South Carolina loss hurt, but the loss in the SEC championship kept them out of the BCS Championship game.

5

Stanford

11-2

I had forgotten how good Stanford was. They lost to a better than they looked UW and to ND in OT, but really handled their business.

4

Oregon

11-1

Ah, when the Pac12 was relevant. Mariota gave us a glimpse of what was to come. Chip Kelly had that O firing on all cylinders.

3

Kansas State

11-1

So weird. I remember this. Bill Snyder did an amazing job with this team, with the exception of the Baylor loss. If it's not a blowout, maybe K-State plays ND?

2	Notre Dame	12-0
1	Alabama	12-1

Definitely more about the extra game for Bama here. The loss to A&M for Bama was propped up by voters, no question, but that doesn't change the fact that Bama was pretty awesome this year.

Without a playoff, I will be using the AP poll prior to bowl games and the final BCS rankings.  Let's check it out:

Ray vs the AP

	AP		RR	Diff
1	Notre Dame	Independent	2	1
2	Alabama	SEC	1	-1
3	Ohio State	Big Ten	8	5
4	Florida	SEC	11	7
5	Oregon	Pac-12	4	-1
6	Georgia	SEC	6	0
7	Kansas State	Big 12	3	-4
8	Stanford	Pac-12	5	-3
9	LSU	SEC	15	6
10	Texas A&M	SEC	12	2
11	South Carolina	SEC	16	5
12	Oklahoma	Big 12	7	-5
13	Florida State	ACC	9	-4
14	Clemson	ACC	10	-4
15	Oregon State	Pac-12	13	-2
16	Northern Illinois	MAC	19	3
17	UCLA	Pac-12	14	-3
18	Utah State	Mountain West	48	30
19	Michigan	Big Ten	17	-2
20	Boise State	Mountain West	30	10
21	Northwestern	Big Ten	24	3
22	Louisville	ACC	35	13
23	Nebraska	Big Ten	18	-5
24	San Jose State	Mountain West	55	31
25	Kent State	MAC	40	15

Kent State? SJSU? Utah State? What in the world is going on here?

Mean	3.880
Var	94.277
SD	9.710
SEC	3.17
Big Ten	0.25
Pac-12	-2.25
Big 12	-4.50
ACC	1.67

SD is huge, and as we've seen most years the SEC is the beneficiary of voter bias. Pac12 and Big12 are penalized for the same reason.

Ray vs The BCS

	BCS		RR	Diff
1	Notre Dame	Independent	2	1
2	Alabama	SEC	1	-1
3	Georgia	SEC	6	3
4	Florida	SEC	11	7
5	Oregon	Pac-12	4	-1
6	Kansas State	Big 12	3	-3
7	Louisiana State	SEC	15	8
8	Stanford	Pac-12	5	-3
9	Texas A&M	SEC	12	3
10	South Carolina	SEC	16	6
11	Oklahoma	Big 12	7	-4
12	Nebraska	Big Ten	18	6
13	Florida State	ACC	9	-4
14	Clemson	ACC	10	-4
15	Oregon State	Pac-12	13	-2
16	UCLA	Pac-12	14	-2
17	Kent State	MAC	40	23
18	Texas	Big 12	23	5
19	Michigan	Big Ten	17	-2
20	Boise State	Mountain West	30	10
21	Northern Illinois	MAC	19	-2
22	Northwestern	Big Ten	24	2
23	Oklahoma State	Big 12	20	-3
24	Utah State	Mountain West	48	24
25	San Jose State	Mountain West	55	30

Seriously weird choices here.

Mean	3.880
Var	85.610
SD	9.253
SEC	4.33
Big Ten	2.00
Pac-12	-2.00
Big 12	-1.25
ACC	-4.00

SEC and B1G are propped up by voters; no OSU because of the post-season ban. ACC is severely punished. Think about it. These differences are the average differences. This means that given the rankings of the AP and BCS, SEC teams should be moved down 3 or 4 spots while the ACC is confused. Pac12 should move up 2. 

That said, it looks to me like they got the top 2 right at least. This was still nothing more than the Big Bowl System when bowl money ran EVERYTHING. I think it will be interesting see how voters do vs computers the further we get from computing power and Moneyball analysis.

Here's my 16 team playoff for 2012, what do you think? It took a while to move the teams around to avoid 1st round same-conf games. Too many SEC schools.

2012 Top 25