FBS vs FCS games

Good article in todays Guardian about the games between FBS and FCS schools and why they happen - here

Things I'm looking forward to in week 5

• Texas at Oklahoma State - Texas haven't really caught much attention so far. But they are a contender in a fairly open Big 12, so this could be a big win for them. Can they win a tough road game?
• Arkansas at Texas A&M - first SEC win for Texas A&M?
• Ohio State at Michigan State -on the face of it, an excellent match up between two well matched teams. But it could have some very odd consequences. Ohio State could end up winning their division, being the highest ranked Big Ten team and in neither the Big Ten championship game or a Bowl game due to NCAA sanctions. Hopefully this game is just a good game.
• Oregon State at Arizona - Oregon State could prove to be the wild card in the Pac-12 race. Can they follow up last weeks impressive win over UCLA?

Should Florida State be Gator fans for the rest of the season?

Florida State are currently ranked 4th and with a relatively easy schedule should be looking at making a run at the National Championship Game. But can they do that? The relatively easy schedule may be the biggest obstacle to achieving that. While Virginia Tech shouldn't be underestimated, as things stand they do not play a ranked side until their annual game with Florida.

A second factor that would hinder Florida state would be the perceived strength of the ACC. To put it bluntly, the SEC is seen as the strongest, followed by the Big 12 and Pac 12, then its probably the ACC and Big 10. This means that the title game is likely to be between the SEC champions and an undefeated or 1-loss Big 12 or Pac 12 champion.

So how could Florida State get to the National Championship Game? I think the following would need to happen as a minimum:

• Florida State must win the ACC, probably undefeated.
• There must be no more than 1 undefeated team from the SEC/Big 12/Pac 12.
• Florida must have a strong season but then lose to Florida State.

The above may not be enough but without all 3 I don't think they'll be in Miami on January 7th. The last one is important because it would give Florida State a high profile non-conference win over a ranked opponent, something currently missing from their season. If Florida arrived in Tallahassee with 6 or 7 wins, the win will be ignored. But if they arrive with 9 or 10 it will be impossible to ignore it. For this reason, Florida State should be Gator fans from now until 24th November, it could be the difference between Miami for the Orange Bowl, or the National Championship game

A few thoughts on week 4

• Clemson at Florida State certainly lived up to the hype. And the Seminoles were very impressive in the second half.
• Clemson have fallen 7 places in this weeks AP rankings to 17. That's a bit harsh for me as I think this game showed the rankings were about right for both teams.
• However, Florida States strength was supposed to be its defence. In its first real test it concedes 37 points. Is it good enough to challenge for the national title?
• Are Notre Dame for real this year, or was the Michigan game just more evidence for a poor year for the Big 10?
• Denard Robinson again struggled against a good defence. I'm starting to suspect he is what would be referred to in cricket as a flat track bully.
• LSU struggled to beat Auburn. Is this a sign that they are ranked too high? Or a sign that they are a good side who win even when they play badly?
• The SEC East could be very interesting this year with South Carolina, Georgia and Florida all making impressive starts to the season. We'll know a lot more about this on 6th October when Georgia are at South Carolina and Florida play LSU.

Things I'm looking forward to in week 4

• Clemson at Florida State - possibly the game of the season so far. I say possibly because this depends on if Florida State deserve their ranking of 4. Clemson have a decent opening day win over Auburn but so far Florida State haven't been tested, and so this will be the first big test.
• Michigan at Notre Dame- Are Notre Dame back? Are Michigan as bad as Alabama made them look or the top 10 side of pre-season expectations?
• Kansas State at Oklahoma - Oklahoma have beeen a bit quiet so far this season but this game will be the first chance to truly gauge where they are. Also a big chance for Kansas State to make a mark on the season.
• BYU at Boise State - This is Boise State's last chance to make a statement with a notable non-conference win. Lose this and their chances of a non-AQ BCS berth are gone.
• LSU at Auburn - LSU begin their SEC schedule with a tricky game on the road. They should win but this will tell us a lot about how close to Alabama they are.

Rankings - Still Just Guesswork?

In his latest power rankings column on SI.com, Andy Staples is most accurate when he says: "We're still just guessing.". There is still far too much uncertainty over how good everyone is, and even over the value of wins that teams already have.

Take the number 1 team, Alabama, for example. On the face of it they have impressive wins over Michigan and Arkansas. But how good were they? The Big 10 may be struggling this year (see here for example) so it remains to be seen how good Michigan actually are, and hence the value of Alabama's win. And as for the Arkansas win, well they are clearly not as good as was anticipated by many.

Another example of the guesswork is the low position of Stanford in 21st after week 2. This was based on their performance last year and the assumption that they couldn't be that good after losing several starters including Andrew Luck, arguably the best Quarterback prospect in years. Then they beat USC who were ranked 2nd. But was that ranking accurate? How good are USC?

I'm not going to claim that Alabama aren't the best team or that Stanford won;t end up ranked around 20th though. Just that as yet things aren't clear enough and there is far too much guesswork going on.

A few thoughts on week 3

• USC's loss to Stanford is the headline of the week. But only because USC were ranked number 2, a position based on the pre-season guesswork and not losing their first 2 games. In reality this was always going to be a tough road game so the loss shouldn't be that surprising.
• Alabama's demolition of Arkansas means they will stay at number 1 for the next few weeks. However, a couple of plays early on in the game highlight how important special teams can be. Firstly a bad snap on an Arkansas punt led to great field position and a very quick touchdown for Alabama. Then another bad snap led to a missed Arkansas field goal. Would Arkansas have won without this 10-point swing from 2 bad snaps? Very unlikely but it gave all the momentum to Alabama early on and they didn't let it go for the rest of the game.
• Louisiana-Monroe nearly did it again.
• Notre Dame's defence looked impressive against Michigan State. The defensive line in particular had a dominant day. But they are still unconvincing on Offence for me. A 3rd down conversion rate of 1 from 14 is poor and on another day they will get punished for that.
• Florida could be about to challenge in the SEC East. South Carolina and Georgia still look the teams to beat, but after 2 big conference wins on the road Florida shouldn't be discounted.
• The AP rankings are still settling down and so shouldn't be taken too seriously yet. The influence of the pre-season position is too great. A couple of examples of this: Have USC (13) had a better start to the season than Florida (14)? And Florida State haven't been tested yet and so are in 4th mainly due to their pre-season ranking of 7 and the performances of those who were above them.

Things I'm looking forward to in week 3

• Louisiana-Monroe at Auburn - this looks an easier game than at Arkansas if you believe the rankings, so can they repeat the upset win?
• Alabama at Arkansas - after last weeks shock loss will there be a reaction from Arkansas or will Alabama win comfortably? Which Arkansas team will show up, the team the pre-season polls expected them to be? Or the team that lost to Louisiana-Monroe?
• Florida at Tennessee - a key game for both teams as a loss could rule them out of the race for the SEC East already. A win would give them momentum as conference play in the SEC continues.
• USC at Stanford - an early test for USC in the PAC-12. Are they as good as everyone thinks? How much will Stanford miss Andrew Luck this year?
• Notre Dame at Michigan State - Based on the rankings, the game of the week. Two top 20 teams in action.

A few thoughts on week 2

• Louisiana-Monroe beating Arkansas! Who saw that coming? Have we had the years biggest upset already?
• Arkansas needs to block the pass rush better. If a Sun Belt team can get at the Quarterback that often, what will Alabama do next week?
• The flaws in the rankings having a starting point in the guesswork that is the pre-season rankings were exposed as Wisconsin, Nebraska and Oklahoma State all joined Arkansas as ranked teams losing to unranked teams.
• Huge win for Florida based on a massive second half performance from the defence.
• Quote of the weekend from Will Muschamp. When asked what he'd learnt about his Quarterback in the win - "Not one thing, I knew it going in."
• USC looked good. Mainly because I don't think they ever hit top form and still won comfortably.
• Penn State need a kicker.
• Get well soon Devon Walker.

Things I'm looking forward to in week 2

• Florida at Texas A&M and Georgia ai Missouri - SEC debuts for Texas A&M and Missouri and both games are very interesting. They will give a good early indication of were they are compared to the rest of the SEC. It's also a big game for Florida who were unconvincing in their win over Bowling Green.
• Air Force at Michigan - are Michigan a poor team or just made to look a poor team by Alabama?
• USC at Syracuse - Are USC going to be contenders for the national championship as expected?
• Oklahoma State at Arizona - another 84 points?
• On a personal note, I'm off to the Paralympics for the day on Saturday. Even though it means I won't get to see much of this weeks College Football I'm really looking forward to it.

Rankings - an American sporting quirk?

One of the things that puzzled me most when I started watching College Football was how some teams wouldn't be called by their name but would have a number attached. For example, Florida were 'Number 1 Florida' or Michigan would be 'Number 22 Michigan'. But then most of the teams didn't have a number. Why was this? This lead me into the peculiar and very American world of rankings.

It's something that doesn't really get used in the rest of the world because they all play what would be called in the US a 'balanced schedule'. Take the Premier League for example, every team plays each other twice, once at home and once away. Every team plays the same schedule and so it is clear who is the best at the end of the season.

In American sports, however, there is an unbalanced schedule in all sports. As a result it's not always obvious who the best team is and so there are the rankings as an attempt to decide it. Unfortunately (to me at least) these are very subjective. They are often a vote as to who's the best team and so will inevitably be influenced by the biases of the voters.

In College Football we have had just a single game and already the rankings have been released by AP (see here) but this is on top of pre-season rankings. How can any conclusions be reached after a single game is difficult to work out.

But for me the biggest problem is that at the end of the season, the rankings will basically match the records of the teams, with ties decided by the perceived strength of the conference they are from. This discourages teams from playing difficult opponents out of conference as a single loss can see them fall in the rankings even if they were expected to lose. Take the fate of Michigan this week for example. In the pre-season poll they were ranked 8th, and their opponents Alabama 2nd. So according to the polls they should have lost, which they did, suggesting the poll was right. But in this weeks poll after the game they have fallen to 19th, punishing them for scheduling a tough game.

So if the rankings will just reflect the records, why use them? And is there a better way? Personally I think there is and that's to take the subjective voting element out. The official BCS rankings include a computer based ranking. I would use something like this. And there is a precedent for this that is used in the UEFA Champions League.

The UEFA coefficient is a ranking system used for two main purposes. Firstly to decide how many teams from each country enter the Champions League, then to decide on seedings for the individual teams (but not for deciding the winner in this case). The system is open and relatively simple. Teams get points for winning games, and for progressing through the competitions. Everything is open. Of course there is some arbitrariness about the exact details of the formula but it has been running for some time now. Could College Football use something similar for the rankings?

A few thoughts on week 1

• Alabama look impressive. I'll be very surprised if they aren't top 10 at the end of the season
• I've never been convinced by Denard Robinson. There's clearly a lot of talent and he is capable of extraordinary things but there's something missing. I think he is lacking some of those intangibles that make the difference between a very talented player and a winner.
• The win for Clemson over Auburn was not just big for them, but big for the ACC. The ACC has struggled to get attention at the top of the rankings and had Clemson lost, all the ACC would have suffered as many would just have concluded that the ACC's best wasn't as good as an average SEC team.
• No major shocks among the big teams but many premature conclusions will be drawn on the basis of one game.
• How many points did Oklahoma State score?
• The Notre Dame - Navy game in Dublin was a sell-out so on that basis was a success. But 35,000 out of the 48,000 crowd had come over from the US which means its unclear how much the locals were interested in the game. That said, with that many travelling then further one-off games by other teams must be possible.

Early contender for stupid play of the year