Being Rated is Overrated

I really do apologize for not posting as regularly as I did last year (apparently according to my post log, it's been about a month since the last one! (The Illinois game it seems)). This year has been a bit busy in terms of academics and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life that this just kind of slid down the priorities list. But don’t worry, I’m hopefully foreseeing that we’ll be back on a weekly basis starting this week. With that said I should probably do a giant recap. 

Giant Recap:

Nebraska is off to it’s best start since 2001 where they went 11-2 with a Heisman winner and almost national championship aspirations, and well, that’s looking pretty plausible right now (ok maybe not the national championship part). With Nebraska’s schedule, 11-2 is very doable at the moment, considering the current speed bumps are going at Wisconsin and at Ohio State….in back to back weeks. But we’ll hit those bumps next week and discuss further then. But let's take a tiny transition and take a look at this...just let this sink in for a minute (or two, I get ranty in a second)

Brief Intermission/Rest of the World In College Football:

 

I’ll also go ahead and take my brief “rest of the world in college football” tangent here as I’ll go on to discuss some of the rankings, which will eventually circle back to Nebraska and the recap. Which yes, I’ll also say that I will not be having any of my formulated rankings because I just do not have the time and it’s already what, week 8? Yeah not happening. Maybe I’ll give my personal rankings, maybe. But right now I need to take a deep breath. And laugh.

These AP voters man (insert multiple laughing cry emojis here). Who’s bright idea was it to put Tennessee as a 1) National Contender? 2) SEC Championship Contender? 3) Top 10 Team? 4) Top 15 Team? These are the kinds of problems I wanted to tackle/laugh at when I started doing this, and that is debunking all of these god damn overrated teams (actually also to help prove that there could very well be an SEC bias). And I don't even need my numbers to point out the disaster that has been Tennessee! My biggest issue with the AP rankings is that they start with pre-season rankings when we have minimal data on how a team will perform. We can generate a general idea based on returning starters and etc, but if the damage is enough then there are some pretty bold claims that are made in the preseason and I’ll highlight two of them as each go their own way:

Firstly, Washington was a preseason Top 15. This was a bold move as the only thing we could’ve known about Washington at the time was that last year they started trending in the right direction, and did not lose very many players (and of those that they did lose, were not superstars by any means), and their coach is the great mastermind Chris Petersen. “Who’s Chris Petersen?” *points to Boise State 2006-2013* that beauty is Chris Petersen. He put a program on the map and dared the AP voters to rank a mid-major team on his VERY FIRST YEAR. (which they are currently struggling to grasp that concept with Western Michigan this year). He’s a wizard I say! Now it took him a bit with Washington, with taking half of his career losses in three years at Washington alone. But look where Washington is at now, undefeated with a Heisman contender. I’ll ignore the fact that the Pac-12 has become wide open with Oregon falling off the face of the earth after they came to Nebraska and with Stanford finally realizing they’re overrated (McCaffery can only do so much! He has an undisclosed injury but I'm going to bet it's a back injury for carrying Stanford for the last few seasons) But it’s what Washington has done with the cake made of Pac-12 teams. Just absolutely devoured them. While it was a bold claim to say that in the preseason, is more so accurate now.

And secondly…my good ol’ friends from Tennessee (Kids and those with innocent eyes may want to fast forward these next three paragraphs, this gets a little NSFW. When you stop seeing excessive caps lock, you're safe. Tl;dr Tennessee is overrated). Oh man. Where do I begin. They’ve been overrated for years and I've appropriately hated them for years because no one fricken realizes how overrated they are!!! ESPECIALLY THESE FRICKEN AP VOTERS! “Huh they had a pretty meh season last year and the team isn’t changing much, they could maybe be an 8-4 team I guess…fuck it let’s put them Top 10” WHYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!!? Why why why whywhwhwywhwhwhwhwhy. NAME ME ONE TIME IN RECENT HISTORY THAT TENNESSEE WAS ACTUALLY GOOD. The difference between Washington and Tennessee here in this instance is that Washington had some momentum towards the end of last year, and some current respect.  Tennessee was just a blind eye on the SEC bias from these damn AP voters. 

For shits and giggles, let’s explain why the fuck not Tennessee real quick though based on what they’ve done and how well that’s worked out for the AP voters this year. FIRST GAME OF THE YEAR, at home versus App State, not exactly a class A team but their mid-major status knows no bounds as they’ve transitioned from the FCS levels a few years ago. Tennessee…supposed SEC/National contender, FIRST GAME, FIRST EASY FOE, AT FLIPPING HOME, NEEDED OVERTIME. But wait! Here’s the kicker! Tennessee was the team that FORCED overtime because App State was slightly incompetent in their last drive, but they had more than their fair share of attempts to win that game that Tennessee should be ashamed of. They got away with one there. Appropriately they get a drop out of the Top 10, but the way the AP works (which I’ll bitch about further here in a minute after I get done bitching about Tennessee), we get to see that Tennessee is back in the Top 10 after a few weeks of struggling. They now host Ohio, not Ohio State, just regular old Ohio, another decent mid-major team, and struggle to beat them by a possession. Nothing from the AP. They actually went up because how the AP is designed. Now we get to see them go to Georgia, again not exactly high caliber, but a very manageable game for a supposed Top 10 team. Needed a fricken Hail Mary to win. Next week, hosting Texas A&M, down by quite a bit, A&M was about ready to put the hammer down, but Fumbling at the 1 Yard Line disease seemed to hit their locker room, and I’ll give some credit to Tennessee for driving it down the field to force overtime, BUT THEY SHOULDN’TVE. THEY HAD SEVEN, COUNT EM, SEEEEVVVVVEEEEEEEN TURNOVERS IN THAT GAME! SHOULDN'TVE BEEN CLOSE! Fortunately A&M put them in their place after 2OT. 

BUT HEY WERE THE AP VOTERS WE CAN DO WHATEVER THE EF WE WANT SO WE’LL KEEP TENNESSEE IN THE TOP 10 FOR WHEN THEY PLAY ALABAMA. BECAUSE RATINGS RIGHT? And I’ll admit I like Saban and Bama unlike a lot of the country, but even if I wasn’t an ok fan, I’m SUPER GLAD, that they put Tennessee where they belong. In the fucking trash. Last I checked a Top 10 matchup should not be a 30 some point blow out…especially when the team getting blown out is the home team. Fucking pathetic. Wait wait, don’t believe me? FACT CHECK: Michigan vs. Wisconsin, @ Michigan, only lost by a touchdown. Ohio State vs. Wisconsin, @ Wisconsin this time, only lost by a touchdown but this went into OT. THAT’S HOW YOU DO A TOP 10 MATCHUP (and now I’m scared for Wisconsin but again we’ll get there in a week)

(Squeamish eyes can look now) *sigh* Ok. Rant over. But let’s go back to these AP voters. They go off of preseason rankings and just move teams up or down a few spots accordingly. They DO NOT shake the boat as often as they should. Tennessee should have never ever been a Top 10 team, they have ZERO quality wins and I'll categorize losing to A&M in 2OT as a quality loss, but everyone knows that it should'ntve been. The fact that it took a merciless beat down by Alabama in Knoxville for the AP voters to finally realize what they have done is just sad. Tennessee is a Top 20 team sure, but they’re not. That. Good.

Back to the Recap:

Getting back on topic though is Nebraska and that picture above, and the fact that well, they’re not exactly a Top 10 team either. The only good win Nebraska has was against Oregon and they’ve quickly diminished the value of that victory (barely lost to an ok Colorado team, blown out by both Washingtons, one of which was at home). The only reason Nebraska made it to the Top 10 is because all the AP voters do is bump teams up for winning and bump them down for losing accordingly. They have very minimal accountability for quality of wins and losses. The only ok thing the AP voters have done is keep Wisconsin in the Top 10 despite 2 losses. When you lose to Ohio State and Michigan by a touchdown each (and take one of those teams into overtime) I'd say that's still worthy of Top 10 consideration, in fact I'd put Wisconsin above Nebraska, because well, next week....hahahah that'll be fun right? 

The offense has looked alright, playing Indiana wasn’t their best showing but that’s what you get when Westerkamp, Carter, and Ozigbo are all injured (and I think Moore saw limited action?) The defense however is really stepping up in a big way. The run defense has always been solid, but the pass defense is actually getting their shit together (yay), and probably at the best time of the season as Nebraska is hitting the meat of their schedule. But that's the issue. Nebraska can't have too many of these "struggle bus" games against Indiana, and sorta kinda Northwestern. Like yeah they were on the road buuuuuuuttttt stillllll.......

The Big Red Breakdown:

So Purdue. Or don't. Whatever. Nebraska fielded a JV team against them on the road last year and got their booty's handed to. This year revenge HAS to be on the minds of the team and every Nebraska fan because losing to Purdue is absolutely unacceptable regardless what kind of players they're playing. Ok well at least I'm expecting some merciless revenge beat down, because why not take some frustrations out on Purdue? Basically what I'm also saying is that if Nebraska wants some legitimacy in being a Top 10 team, they need to beat the living daylights out of Purdue today. Nebraska can't afford any more "close-ish" games. Worth noting that Purdue is playing for something as they fired their head coach recently...apparently. Gotta get that "signature win" to attract coaches to coach...Purdue....lol

Nebraska O vs Purdue D: Advantage Nebraska. Still a bit banged up, no Westerkamp, not sure how the other injuries are holding up. But still this is Purdue...

Nebraska D vs Purdue O: Edge Nebraska. So this is the one category I'll actually give credit to Purdue, they have a fairly lit offense. Sure Nebraska's D has stepped up, but the pass defense will be tested a bit more by a fairly successful gun-slinging offense in Purdue 

Special Teams: Advantage Nebraska. RIP Foltz

Prediction: Nebraska 52, Purdue 20 <--At least it needs to be around this ballpark if Nebraska wants to feel good going into Wisconsin

A Work In Progress

Recap:

Editors Note: Apologies for no post last week. Experienced some technical difficulties and by the time I got it fixed/had time, it was already Saturday afternoon. Which stinks because last week was one of the biggest weeks in football. Oh well.

Update: Incorrectly stated that Nebraska hasn't allowed a passing touchdown this year (lol that would be the dream right?) Instead the stat I was thinking of was that they didn't allow a passing TD to just Oregon. Not quite as impressive but still cool. Statement has been properly updated.

As much as I thought we’d win last week, I’m still in shock and a bit confused that we still won. They played like crap, how did they win? Like…they weren’t shitty per se…but they certainly were not stellar. It was a very Nebraska game…they did enough to win, which for the first few games of their schedule, good enough is all we can ask for. We’ll ignore the fact that Oregon was stupid enough to go for 2 every single damn time. I can understand the first time, Oregon being Oregon (which also you’d think Mike Riley would know they’d do on the first touchdown after playing them what, 14 times at Oregon State?), I can understand the second time “It worked once let’s do it again!”. But you’d think after getting stopped you’d be like “oh darn they stopped us. Let’s just take the point” Guess not. Kicker issues I guess? They were never really in field goal range (either being too far away or just ended up scoring anyway) so the world will never know.

One More Warm-Up (vs. Wyoming)

Recap:

What a beautiful game that was, or at least what a beautiful second half. Getting drenched on the way and off and on during the first half wasn’t fun, neither was seeing Nebraska only up by 4 at the half. But they got it together enough for a solid win. It wasn’t the prettiest by all means, but for a first game against Fresno State, we can settle for good enough…for now. I was actually preparing for all of the feels for the Foltz tributes, and while they were touching, I was expecting some more water works (and not from the rain). The 10-man formation was well played, and is always great to see 90,000+ people be on the same page for these kinds of things. He will always be missed and I anticipate more tributes as the season progresses.

But let’s get back to the game for a bit. There was an interesting sequence of three pass attempts in a row by Armstrong at some point during the second quarter (think it was before halftime-ish?). It went like one really great throw followed by another, and at that point I’m like “Hey he’s throwing the ball better at least, that’s a great sign” and then the third throw was off the back heel, shoulders not square, and thrown into double coverage and almost intercepted. Jk lol. Take back everything I said. I didn’t think much of it at the time because the offense seemed to be firing on most of their cylinders, then I saw some numbers after the game: 13 pass attempts against 51 run attempts. Well damn that explains a lot. The good ol’ 2014 Cowboys method of not letting your mediocre quarterback throw the ball and run the damn ball with your tanks! But that does perplex the question: With so many talented receivers, what do they become? Well we saw some nice sweeps from Moore and Pierson-El, Reiley is known to run some sweeps as well when he returns to the team, Westerkamp not so much. However there seems to be a bond between Armstrong and Westerkamp. So here’s my proposition: If Armstrong throws, throw it ONLY to Westerkamp! There problem solved.

 

Wait, you’re saying Nebraska still has problems? You’re telling me there’s a thing called a defense? Ok ok. The run defense is picking up where they left off, which is fantastic to make teams one dimensional. Sure Fresno threw it 50 million times, but I don’t blame them when the run defense is that good to shut it down and they’re constantly playing from behind, they pretty much had to abandon any run game they had. I also don’t blame them because the secondary still looks non-existent and still shops at Target. I’d throw the ball all day long if my receivers got a 5 yard bubble all to themselves and the defender can’t tackle them properly. 

(Editor’s note: The first targeting call was BS. The second one actually should’ve been, really surprised they picked up the second one. But to those playing along at home; a flag WASN'T EVEN THROWN FOR THIS

 

The Big Red Breakdown:

But I digress. It’s a new day tomorrow and it’ll be against Wyoming. Last time Wyoming was underestimated, they almost won. But I have a tough time buying that one of the worst teams last year (by my rankings) can turn it around enough to be remotely competitive. They needed triple OT to put away Northern Illinois, who also hasn’t been relevant since Jordan Lynch graduated. Sure their coach was an Osborne-ling, but you’ll need some talent to back up your pedigree. Wyoming will just be Nebraska’s final tune-up before #350 against Oregon.

(I also have some questions as to why Pierson-El wasn’t returning punts at all during the Fresno game, do they know something we don’t? Whatever the case is, he better be back there tomorrow so he can get warmed up for Oregon. Again, whatevs, digress)

Nebraska O vs Wyoming D: Advantage Nebraska. Run the damn ball! Except for the few times you toss it up to Westy.

Nebraska D vs Wyoming O: Advantage Nebraska. Prevent them from running the damn ball! And let’s work on that secondary k? I’m sure Oregon will love to slice that secondary in half if it remains in its current state.

Special Teams: Advantage Nebraska. Besides not having Pierson-El field punts, I will make a few more comments about our special teams play last week. They were actually kinda bad. Like one of the worst I’ve seen in a while from them bad. A couple close times they almost turned the ball over by not getting away from it on punts. Maybe that’s the power of Pierson-El they’re missing. One punt blocked, they just kinda let them through, but I’ll allow one. How about that new punter though? Through one game he’s filled in some pretty big shoes fairly nicely, hoping the trend continues. RIP Foltz

Nebraska 48, Wyoming 17 (Since I apparently generously overshot last week)

The Rest of the World in College Football:

Wow what a week. Two of my initial top 4 teams went down already...and as a response to all of the upsets some teams got a very very very generous bump in the rankings (cough Wisconsin, Texas cough). My personal rankings are always a work in progress and won't be released until Week 3 due to lack of sample size, but this new formula is already looking interesting...so we'll see how it turns out.

We split the other games last week but thanks to Nebraska I'll take the 3-2 winning week. No ranked v ranked match-ups this week (sadface) so instead....

THE NFL IS BACK:

The Panthers and Broncos kicked off the season last night in a very excitable game for a Super Bowl rematch, with unfortunately the wrong team winning yet again. But it was fun to watch as I was procrastinating on my homework. Siemian was actually impressive in his debut, maybe they're on to something. One of his turnovers wasn't totally his fault, so we'll give him credit for only causing one. But I'll still hold off before jumping on him for my fantasy lineup, already gambling on the Dak Attack

Sunday Night: Patriots @ Cardinals - Cardinals 31, Patriots 20

The only tough game the Patriots have while Brady goes on a 4-week vacation, even with Brady around it's still a tough task to go to Arizona and come out with a win

Monday Night: Steelers @ Redskins - Steelers 38, Redskins 29

Neither team can play defense so that'll be fun to watch, however I trust the skills of Big Ben to get the job done better than Cousins. And I'm not just saying that because I have Roethlisberger in one of my fantasy teams this year again (Yes I said one of oooooo spooky)

Also Monday Night: Rams @ 49ers - Rams 24, 49ers 21

Well...these teams have to start somewhere? It will be a very blah match up, but it could tell how these teams will shape up for the rest of the season

Gameday is Back...Therefore I am Happy

The absolute best time of the year has begun. That is right college football is back! I apologize for not exactly doing what I did last year in terms of giving a preview of each conference and what not, but due to time constraints, life, etc., and pondering over some modifications to my formula for my rankings this year, decided against it but instead will be a very very very brief summary later in this post. So stay tuned. 

I will give a brief summary of what I did over this summer to those who care (and if you don't feel free to jump down to either The Big Red Breakdown or the paragraph before it. I know my summer was pretty lame compared to other peoples). It basically consisted of taking a summer calculus class (0/10 would not recommend summer calculus) in order to prepare for graduate school, and working as a teller and somewhat of an intern for a bank. The experiences were cool, but also very time consuming and away from my computer more often than not. Which brings us to now and this statement/story/lesson I took away from my “internship” that applies very nicely to this blog:

In the Accounting department we (we = me and my supervisor/head accountant) were doing some end-of-month reports, which was cool to get that experience, but we were also dealing with forecasting and projections on their balance sheets and what not, which for someone who's looking at stats/analytics grad school, is pretty badass. If you don’t know anything about accounting, all that matters is that the debits and credits have to equal on the balance sheet and you are pretty much good to go. So we run the next year-to-date forecast and we’re about $10,000 ish off. So my supervisor goes “Ok I think I know the problem, try changing this number” and every ethical business lesson I have learned comes into play with me being “wait what we can’t just change the numbers” but also I did what I was told and we end up now being only $2,000 ish off on the forecast. “Ok works for me” goes my supervisor. Again I’m like “lolwut we’re still out of balance”, but then she tells me this statement that I should probably have plastered somewhere on this blog: “It’s just a projection. Not the actual thing. We can change projections all we want when we want because it won't affect the real thing.”

The Even Year Hype is Real

Since 2010, the San Francisco Giants have been somewhat quietly one of the most consistent teams in baseball. While they have only made the playoffs in 2010, 2012, and 2014 in this span (let alone winning the World Series in each of those three years), they've been a solid above .500 team in the other seasons (except 2013, that was a down year). But the one thing that I give respect to the Giants is that they win and lose respectably unlike some other teams in the league as well as not exactly having that "All-Star" lineup (this year they sent Bumgarner, Cueto and Posey, which is pretty much all the noise the Giants have this year). The Giants don't make any big trades (Cueto was definitely their biggest acquisition, but whether or not you want to call it a "big splash" in the grand scheme of the league is up for interpretation). The Giants are just there. Winning. One of the keys to their success is the fact that their core personnel hasn't changed drastically since 2010. They'll always have solid pitching, and always have a decent offense, which is why they've posted 92, 86, 94, 76, 88, and 84 wins since 2010 respectively. They don't have holes for other teams to poke through.

Which is somewhat looping around to my point, last I checked, and if I can do math correctly (taking Calc 3 this summer has questioned my judgement at times), 2016 is an even year and the Giants entered the All-Star break with the best record, a couple games above my beloved Cubbies (whose hype has sadly died to make room for the even year hype). Hardly anyone was talking about the Giants at the beginning of the season, no thanks to the Cubs, but now is the time of year where people need to start realizing who are the contenders and who aren't. The All-Star break historically has shown sooooommmmeeee trends in how a team will perform in the second half, and some of you readers might recognize this as something I did last year, well because it is. Except this year I've added a bit more analysis woohoo. So let's take a brief few minutes and take a look at this year's possible playoff contenders now that we have half of baseball out of the way:

Beauty Behind the Madness

Today is going to be a good day. It's the first day of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, aka my mom's worst nightmare as there is nothing but basketball on four different channels that of course I'll be watching for the next three weekends. It's always thrilling to watch your favorite teams move on, devastating when they end up losing. You cheer for the fan favorites and the Cinderellas, and you get absolutely mind boggled when you watch the one game that ends up tearing apart your bracket.

Oh yes. The brackets. That is a thing isn't it...

In a year where we have seen the 1) Most top-10 upsets 2) Almost the most different #1 teams in the AP poll 3) Only a handful of conference #1 seeds actually winning their conference tournament AND YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT BRACKETS?!

Fine, I'll appease the fans.