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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Wow! Pretty Good Weekend of Football!

I just want to get this out of the way now: as an OSU alum, I am still recovering from the abuse my boys suffered at the hands of the SEC officiating crew. I won't argue the targeting call other than to say that the NCAA really needs to change the rule. But there is no doubt in anyone's mind (except for the minds of Clemson fans and UM fans and the pea brains that pass for the minds of SEC officials) that it was a catch and a fumble. And the punter thing should have been the 5 yard penalty, not 15. There, I got it off my chest. I will address the true causes of the OSU loss below. Moving on...


OU v LSU

OU's "improved" defense was, as I said before, only improved compared to last season's historically abysmal team. It was only through the grace of Coach Eaux that Burreaux didn't have 10 passing TD's and the score wasn't 80 bajillion to zero.

Jeaux Burreaux will be the #1 pick in the NFL draft unless the Bungles bungle that as well.

OU was missing some key players, no question, but would they have mattered? It's possible that Perkins could have helped a D-line that rarely gave Burrow concern, but my opinion is that he would not have slowed the machine that is the LSU offense.

Honestly, I don't know if anyone can slow Burrow and the Tigers. I used to think OSU could, and of all the teams they had the tools to do so. Moot point now.

I actually took a nap in the second half. That is not hyperbole. Needed the rest to deal with the 4 friggin hour ridiculousness that has become the norm for televised CFB games.

The Sooners were simply over matched in all areas of the game. Jalen Hurts cannot do it all by himself, and by keying on him LSU's defense looked very good against a very good offense. There's not much to analyze here, really. LSU was firing on all cylinders, and OU looked like a Group of 5 team. Sorry Sooner fans. Maybe next season.

Here's an interesting tidbit: In my final pre-playoff rankings, I had Oklahoma #4 based on the formula used. That formula includes the SRS scores that I pulled from Sports Reference which are modified to account for "non-major" teams. My system does not reward FBS schools for playing FCS teams, and my SRS numbers are different. I didn't figure out how to calculate SRS until recently, so I could not include my numbers in the rankings. But now that I know how, I re-ran the numbers using my SRS scores and Oregon is #4. I'm not saying the outcome would have been different, but who knows? Maybe Herbert has something for LSU's D?


OSU v Clemson

OK, I will do my absolute best to keep the homer glasses off here, but it will be hard for me. Please be gentle.

First - holy smokes, what a game! Glad I got my nap in because this was worth staying up for.

Now, I have watched every OSU game this season, but I've only seen Clemson twice. Shame on me, I know, but I decided to start this ranking thing very late in the season and had no need to watch them.

My takeaway from OSU: that was the team we've seen all season, but we really only got to see them for about a quarter and a half (and for the Buckeyes, it was at the wrong end of the game). Yes, there was the targeting call that flipped the game around, but while I disagree with the rule and its current application, it was called correctly based on NCAA rules. Shame on Wade for lowering his head. The fumble call was simply wrong. The running into the kicker call should have been the 5 yard penalty, not the 15 yard (watch it again). But none of that should have mattered. If you put your team into a situation where a few calls cost you the game, it wasn't the calls that cost you the game.

Let's talk about 3 FG's in the red zone from a team that was a monster in the red zone all season. That's 12 points (or at least 9) left on the field because Day wasn't brave enough to go for it. This was a major knock against OSU last season that everyone thought they had solved.

How about the conservative play calling that dominated OSU's O after going up by 16? I get that Dobbins was hurt, but we've seen Teague run wild this season and yet the O-line stopped getting pushes and poof! the run game was gone.

Quite possibly the most egregious call of the game, though, was during the next to last drive. 3rd and 5 on the Clemson 40, out routes are killing Clemson, the field is ridiculously slippery (though I don't recall seeing quite as many Tigers on their butts as I saw Buckeyes?), and Day calls a bubble screen?

No, it wasn't the officials that killed OSU. It was bad and conservative play calling.

My takeaway from Clemson: for a team with a ridiculously bad SoS, Clemson is the real deal. They did what championship teams are supposed to do. They got punched in the nose and hung in there. They took the opportunities given to them and made the most of them. And most importantly, when they needed Lawrence the most he took them 94 yards in 1:18 and scored the game winning TD.

OSU essentially dominated the game, hanging 516 yards on a Clemson D only giving up half of that. OSU's D held the Tigers to more than 100 yards under their season average. None of that mattered in the least, as Clemson just kept getting back up and limiting the damage and staying in the game until they could take the lead.

The Clemson defense was really quite good, all things considered. I figured Dobbins would have about 300 yards rushing, but the Tiger LBs really stepped up their game, and Venables called a masterful final half.

The mobility of Lawrence was very much a surprise to the Buckeyes, and man did Dabo make the most of it. That last TD with the fake run and pass to a mostly ineffective Etienne was just brilliant. Experience in the biggest of games came through when it mattered.

In the end, Clemson looked OK, but eye tests don't matter, right? They beat the best team in the country, period. The question is, can they do it twice?

By the numbers, LSU should win. I am predicting they will win. The story is too good: "2nd tier" SEC team with the transfer QB and Cajun coach everyone loves playing for it all in Nawlins? Yeah, I can't see how Clemson competes with that, outside of the talent of Burrow and Company. But while I called the Clemson/OSU matchup a coin toss, in my heart I expected a full game of the 1st quarter. Dabo is super smart, Lawrence is pretty darn good, and this might be the best D LSU sees all year (yes, even better than Georgia's - more imagination from Venables).

Other games

I did not watch much of the Notre Dame game. That one felt like a dis of the Irish, and the score didn't do much to change how I see it. I mean, Iowa State had 45 yards rushing. Total. That was a waste of a potentially good bowl game. ND vs App State would have been better.

Penn State and Memphis was entertaining. I felt like PSU would simply squash the Tigers, but that didn't happen. Memphis only had 63 yards rushing, but had 479 yards passing against what was supposed to be a pretty stout Nittany Lion defense. Lots of fun watching this one, though I have to wonder if PSU felt slighted by the selection of their opponent. Franklin did a great job of keeping his guys' minds right.