If Friday (or sometimes Thursday) is rant day at Football Perspective, then perhaps the first Tuesday in December can be fantasy day. Since everyone else does it, allow me to describe to you my preferred college playoff system.

• A modified 8-team playoff that’s actually a 10-team playoff with a four-team “play-in” round. A playoff system should not undermine the regular season, and my system places significant emphasis on success in the regular season: the most-accomplished teams get to clear the lowest hurdles due to byes, home-field, and weaker opponents.
• Notre Dame and the conference champions from the SEC, B12, P12, B10, and ACC earn automatic berths to the playoffs but only if they finish in the top 14.
• A selection committee (or a BCS-style ranking system) is used to select the remaining teams. There is a limit of 4 teams per conference. The “play-in” round and the first round of the playoffs are held at the higher seed’s location the week after the conference championship games (i.e., next weekend).

Therefore, Alabama (#2 in the BCS), Kansas State (#5), Stanford (#6), and Florida State (#12) would be guaranteed spots by virtue of being conference champions. Notre Dame (#1) is also guaranteed a slot.

That leaves five at-large selections:

— Florida (#3)
— Oregon (#4)
— two of Georgia (#7), LSU (#8), Texas A&M (#9), and South Carolina (#10)
— Oklahoma (#11)

Basically the only teams that could complain about this system are the leftover SEC teams, but I’m okay with that since they would be considered the 5th and 6th best teams from their conference. I suppose 12-1 MAC Champion Northern Illinois might be bothered, but they lost to Iowa and had a cupcake schedule. Had Nebraska defeated Wisconsin, or had Ohio State been eligible, Oklahoma or a 4th SEC team would have been left out.

For purposes of this post, I will say Georgia and A&M would be the committee’s picks.

Here’s how the playoff system would work. The three highest-ranked conference champions (Alabama, K-State, Stanford) get byes along with the next three highest-ranked teams — Notre Dame, Florida, and Oregon. The other four teams play at the site of the higher ranked team ^[1]I would have the committee involved in this step of the process as well and instruct them to avoid rematches if possible. This year it is not an issue. this Saturday (December 8th). So we would have:

Play-in round

#13 Florida State @ #7 Georgia
#11 Oklahoma @ #9 Texas A&M

— Had UGA beaten Alabama, the Bulldogs would have earned a bye followed by a home playoff game. By losing, they have to play a play-in game and then win a road playoff game. So the SEC Championship was a critical game — and there’s a good chance the committee would have simply selected LSU instead because of the loss.
— Had Florida State beaten Florida, they would have had likely received a bye and possibly a home playoff game. Now they have to win two road games. Of course, the ACC Championship Game, which no one cared about on Saturday night, would have been significantly more relevant.
— Ditto the Big 10 Championship Game, well, at least for the first half. Meanwhile, Oklahoma would have known they would have needed to run the table to get in after losing to Notre Dame. Instead of the season essentially being meaningless, think how much more exciting the Sooners last-second wins over West Virginia and Oklahoma State would have been?
— And of course, think how much more exciting the rest of the season for A&M and Johnny Manziel would have been if they had a chance to make the playoffs?

First round of the playoffs:

The three conference winners and the top-seeded at large receive home playoff games, which would be played on Saturday, December 15th:

#1 Notre Dame hosts the worst remaining seed (either FSU or the A&M/Oklahoma winner)
#2 Alabama hosts the 2nd worst seed remaining (Georgia or the A&M/Oklahoma winner).
#5 Kansas State hosts the 3rd worst seed remaining (Florida)
#6 Stanford hosts the 4th worst seed remaining (Oregon)

[Note: If you want to have the committee switch the bottom two games so that Stanford does not “have to beat Oregon again” I am fine with that. KSU-Oregon and Stanford-Florida are just as acceptable to me, and I am willing to do the same to avoid a UGA or A&M rematch with Alabama if events unfolded that way.]

Notre Dame and Alabama had the best two regular seasons, and look at their rewards: they get a bye, they get a home game, and they play a team coming off a play-in game.

KSU and Stanford both won their conferences, so they are rewarded with byes and home playoff games. Florida State won their conference but their lackluster regular season did not merit the same reward. Wisconsin won the Big 10 and got nothing. So the regular season remains vitally important. Oregon and Florida had great regular seasons, and thanks to a second bite at the apple (which is instead only reserved for Alabama this year), their seasons weren’t meaningless after one loss. And the lowest two seeds played their win into the playoff.

This playoff format makes the regular season much more meaningful for many more teams, while only slightly taking away from the value of certain games (admittedly, the Kansas State and Oregon upsets on November 17th would have been less meaningful in this format; I’m okay with that — the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.)

The Final Four

We now break until the first weekend of January. At this point, we have four very deserving teams. They would play in a four-team playoff, rotated among the bowl sites, as currently envisioned. We might see Notre Dame and Oregon in the Rose Bowl and Alabama and Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl. Or perhaps A&M and Oregon in the Cotton Bowl and Florida and Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Who knows. The good news is that unless there are 11 deserving teams, everyone gets a shot (and even if all 5 autobids finish in the top 14, 4 non-conference champs are still eligible; no worthy undefeated team should get left out in this system).

There are six conference championship games this weekend. Here’s a short preview breaking down this weekend’s action. All times Eastern.

MAC Championship (Detroit, MI)

Friday, 7PM: Kent State vs. Northern Illinois (-6.0)

Weeknight MACtion doesn’t get better than this, and this is one of just two conference championship games featuring two 11-1 teams. The SRS hit the nail on the head, telling us that NIU is 6.2 points better than Kent State on a neutral field. The stars here are Northern Illinois’ quarterback Jordan Lynch and KSU’s running back Dri Archer. Lynch leads the MAC in Y/A, AY/A, TD/INT Ratio, and Passer Rating, and oh by the way leads the conference with 1,611 rushing yards and ranks third with 16 rushing touchdowns.

Archer, meanwhile, leads the MAC with 1,795 yards from scrimmage has scored 18 touchdowns. But here’s the killer stat: he averaging 9.7 yards per carry, the highest average of any player with at least 100 carries since at least 2000. In his spare time, Archer averages 38.2 yards per kick return, the highest average of any player with at least 12 returns since at least 2000.

Kent State lost to Kentucky, which didn’t seem odd at the time — because we’re talking about Kent State — but looks absurd in retrospect. The Golden Flashes received an SRS grade of 4.4 for that game. Northern Illinois’ one loss was on opening weekend against Iowa, an 18-17 loss in Chicago where NIU led most of the game.

My pick: NIU -6

Pac 12 Championship (Stanford, CA)

Friday, 8PM: UCLA @ Stanford (-8.5)

If we looked at the SRS standings from a week ago, we would set this line at Stanford -5.6. But the current projected SRS spread would be 8.6, mirroring the actual line. So how much do we take away from last week’s game, where Stanford had everything to play for and UCLA seemed content to walk away unscathed?

It’s tough to say. Jim Mora’s Bruins have been an exciting team to watch this year, but Stanford’s defense is well-equipped to stop any rushing attack. Runing backs Johnathan Franklin (UCLA) and Stepfan Taylor (Stanford) have been workhorse backs, each rushing for 11 touchdowns, ranking third and fourth in the conference in rushing, and chipping in in the passing game. And while freshman quarterback Brett Hundley has been outstanding for UCLA, I have a feeling he’s going to wind up very frustrated on Friday night.

My pick: Stanford -8.5

CUSA Championship (Tulsa, OK)

Saturday, 12PM: Central Florida @ Tulsa (-1.5)

These are the two best teams in Conference USA, but that isn’t saying too much. The SRS puts UCF as 3.1 points better than Tulsa, so this game should be a push in Oklahoma. The Golden Hurricane handed UCF their only conference loss two weeks ago in Tulsa, but UCF has the more impressive resume this year losing to just Ohio State and Missouri out of conference. Tulsa lost to Iowa State and Arkansas, and just lost on the road to SMU. So why am I going with the Golden Hurricane? Because Tulsa has gone 16-2 at home the last three years, with the only losses coming to teams ranked, at the time, 8th in the country (Oklahoma State and Houston, in 2011). The final score two weeks ago was misleading, as Tulsa outgained UCF by well over 100 yards rushing, average 1.9 more yards per pass, and won the first downs battle, 26-14.

My pick: Tulsa -1.5

SEC Championship (Atlanta, GA)
[continue reading…]

I’ve got a real post ready for tomorrow, so Thursday is Rant Day this week. There’s been a lot of talk this week about how this would be a great year to implement the four-team playoff that’s coming to college football for the 2014 season. I suspect part of that reason is because people are recognizing that Florida boasts a more impressive resume than either Alabama or Georgia, and that Oregon is an elite team that lost an overtime game to a division rival. Therefore, a four-team playoff featuring Notre Dame, the eventual SEC Champion, Florida, and Oregon would be great.

On one hand, of course it would be great. I’d love to watch Notre Dame face Oregon and perhaps see Alabama and Florida face off (no, you couldn’t make me watch Florida-Georgia II). But that’s only because college football is great. In fact, this year — like almost every year — stands as a good example of why the four-team playoff system is doomed to create controversy and do little to increase fairness. Let’s start with…

Winning your division = Bad

We saw this last year, when Alabama ended the year as BCS #2 and therefore had locked up its spot in the national championship game, while LSU still had to go play in the SEC Championship Game. In this particular case, I don’t feel too bad about the fact that Florida would be given a free pass to the four-team playoff while Georgia has to go play Alabama, but only because Florida has faced a much tougher schedule.

But what if instead of what actually happened — Florida beating South Carolina, South Carolina beating Georgia, and Georgia beating Florida — the order was reversed, and Georgia beat South Carolina, South Carolina beat Florida, and Florida beat Georgia? In that case, Florida would likely be #2 or #3 in the BCS, while Georgia would sit pretty at 4. And Florida would go play Alabama for the right to win the SEC… with the loser being left out of the playoffs. That’s patently unfair. Being the third best team in your conference could be preferable to being the second best team. This is a lock to happen at some point during a four-team playoff. This is also going to be a bigger problem generally as conferences get bigger, because conference schedules will become unbalanced. The Big 12 has a round robin where everyone plays everyone, but in a 14-team conference, you can easily see a better team end up with a worse record than an inferior team due purely to scheduling.

Oregon-Stanford

It is being conveniently forgotten that Stanford actually won the Pac-12 North. In fact, we have an exact reversal of what happened last year, which many screamed was unfair to Oregon. Lest you forget….

In 2011, both Oregon and Stanford went 8-1 in the Pac-12. Oregon beat Stanford head-to-head in Palo Alto (but lost to USC), so they won the division and then the conference. Stanford had a soft nonconference schedule while Oregon traveled to Dallas to play and lose to LSU in the season opener. So Oregon was 11-2 (but Pac-12 champs) while Stanford was 11-1. After the regular season, Stanford was 4th and Oregon was 5th in the AP, Harris, and Coaches Polls, and also in the BCS. This struck many as unfair, because the Ducks were essentially the better team but had a brutally hard non-conference game, a de facto road game against the #1 team in the country.

Fast forward to 2012. Oregon and Stanford both went 8-1 in the Pac-12. This time, Stanford beat Oregon head-to-head — in Eugene — so they won the division and perhaps the conference (we’ll find out on Saturday.) Oregon had a soft nonconference schedule while Stanford went to South Bend to play the #1 team in the country. Stanford will finish 11-2 if they beat UCLA, while Oregon finished 11-1.

Should Oregon go to the hypothetical four-team playoff instead of Stanford? If not, why not?
[continue reading…]

Lane Kiffin is not a very good coach, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s one of the most hated men in college football and he’s the face of a USC team that has had the worst season of any preseason favorite since at least 1964. With a 7-5 record, no one is defending Lane Kiffin. And given the various ways he mismanaged the clock against Notre Dame, nobody can defend his performance in that game.

But let’s puts everything aside — Kiffin for being Kiffin, the fact that USC had 1st and goal from the Notre Dame 2 with over 5 minutes remaining and then proceeded to waste over 150 seconds of clock — and look at one particular decision. Facing 4th and goal from the Notre Dame 1-yard line, trailing by 9 points with 2:33 left, Kiffin decided to go for it.

This clearly defies conventional wisdom, and when the move failed, it opened him up to even more criticism. But was it the right call? According to Brian Burke, if this had been an NFL game, the correct call would have been to kick the field goal.

That may not surprise traditionalists, but readers of this blog and Advanced NFL Stats may be surprised to find that, according to the 4th Down Calculator, when trailing by 9 with 2:33 remaining, you need an 87% chance of converting to make going for it the correct call. (I will note that if you are trailing by 10, things change dramatically and going for it is the correct play.)

But this was not an NFL game. Burke’s model is based on two assumptions that are relevant here: one, the team has an average number of timeouts remaining, and two, that the clock will stop with 2:00 to go. USC had one timeout left (which is probably below average for this situation) and there is no two-minute warning in college football. So it’s likely that using 2:33 is not the correct number to use the 4th down calculator for college.

If you use 2:33 remaining, you need an 87% chance of converting to make going for it the correct call.

But, according to the same model, if you use 2:03, it drops to 64%.

If you use 1:33, it drops to 13%.

Obviously figuring out which input to use is very important. However, let’s think about it in a different context.

If USC scores a touchdown and does not onside kick (which I don’t think they do), ND gets the ball at roughly the 25-yard line with 2:25 left. On 1st and 10, they run, USC calls timeout, and there is 2:20 left. On second down, Notre Dame runs, 40 seconds tick off, and there is 1:35 left. Rinse, repeat, and Notre Dame punts with 50 seconds left. This means USC gets the ball with roughly 40 seconds left at say, their own 45.

Here college football’s rules benefit the Trojans because the clock stops momentarily on first downs. At this point, it comes down to this:
[continue reading…]

In connection with calculating my college football SRS ratings at the FBS level, I also calculate them at the FCS level but rarely publish them. But with the FCS playoffs underway, I figured, why not? Here are the FCS ratings as of November 25th, 2012:

[continue reading…]

Florida-Florida State.

Georgia-Georgia Tech.

South Carolina-Clemson.

And, as a technical matter, Vanderbilt-Wake Forest.

I’m not exactly breaking any news when I tell you this, but the ACC is not having a very good year. In the abstract, it might seem like any other elite conference. It has two 10-1 teams and each team has at least four wins other than Boston College. The problem is that the ACC, like all conferences not named the SEC, is measured by how it does in non-conference play. And it has had a miserable year in that regard.

Each team in the conference plays four non-conference games; with four games remaining, that means 44 have been played, although 13 of those games — including three by the two powerhouses of the conference, Florida State and Clemson — were against FCS schools. How has the ACC fared in its first 31 games against other FBS foes? The table below lists each non-conference game, sorted first by quality of the ACC team (that’s the SRS grade on the left) and second by the SRS grade of the opponent:

Date	SRS	Tm	PF	Opp	PA	H/R	W/L	Diff	MOV	Conf_Opp	SOS	SRS
09-29-2012	55.3	Florida St	30	South Florida	17	Road	Win	13	16	BgE	34.6	50.6
09-08-2012	53.4	Clemson	52	Ball St	27	Home	Win	25	22	MAC	38.8	60.8
09-01-2012	53.4	Clemson	26	Auburn	19	Neut	Win	7	7	SEC	35.2	42.2
09-15-2012	44.5	North Carolina	34	Louisville	39	Road	Loss	-5	-7	BgE	42.2	35.2
09-22-2012	44.5	North Carolina	27	East Carolina	6	Home	Win	21	18	CUS	32.9	50.9
09-29-2012	44.5	North Carolina	66	Idaho	0	Home	Win	66	43.5	WAC	15.9	59.4
09-08-2012	42.6	Miami FL	13	Kansas St	52	Road	Loss	-39	-30	B12	59.9	29.9
10-06-2012	42.6	Miami FL	3	Notre Dame	41	Neut	Loss	-38	-31	IND	57.9	26.9
11-17-2012	42.6	Miami FL	40	South Florida	9	Home	Win	31	26	BgE	34.6	60.6
10-27-2012	42	Georgia Tech	17	Brigham Young	41	Home	Loss	-24	-25.5	IND	48.8	23.3
09-29-2012	42	Georgia Tech	28	Middle Tennessee St	49	Home	Loss	-21	-24	Sun	36.2	12.2
09-29-2012	39.3	Virginia Tech	24	Cincinnati	27	Neut	Loss	-3	-7	BgE	44	37
09-15-2012	39.3	Virginia Tech	17	Pittsburgh	35	Road	Loss	-18	-15	BgE	37.7	22.7
09-22-2012	39.3	Virginia Tech	37	Bowling Green	0	Home	Win	37	29	MAC	33.8	62.8
08-31-2012	38.9	North Carolina St	21	Tennessee	35	Neut	Loss	-14	-14	SEC	40.3	26.3
09-08-2012	38.9	North Carolina St	10	Connecticut	7	Road	Win	3	7	BgE	30.8	37.8
09-15-2012	38.9	North Carolina St	31	South Alabama	7	Home	Win	24	21	Sun	21.9	42.9
09-08-2012	35.2	Duke	13	Stanford	50	Road	Loss	-37	-29	P12	55.5	26.5
09-01-2012	35.2	Duke	46	Florida Int'l	26	Home	Win	20	17	Sun	27.7	44.7
09-22-2012	35.2	Duke	38	Memphis	14	Home	Win	24	21	CUS	24.4	45.4
09-08-2012	32.1	Virginia	17	Penn State	16	Home	Win	1	0	B10	47.4	47.4
09-22-2012	32.1	Virginia	7	TCU	27	Road	Loss	-20	-17	B12	45.5	28.5
09-29-2012	32.1	Virginia	38	Louisiana Tech	44	Home	Loss	-6	-9	WAC	44.7	35.7
11-10-2012	31	Boston College	6	Notre Dame	21	Home	Loss	-15	-18	IND	57.9	39.9
09-15-2012	31	Boston College	13	Northwestern	22	Road	Loss	-9	-7	B10	45.7	38.7
10-06-2012	31	Boston College	31	Army	34	Road	Loss	-3	0	IND	22.7	22.7
09-22-2012	30.4	Maryland	21	West Virginia	31	Road	Loss	-10	-7	B12	43.7	36.7
09-08-2012	30.4	Maryland	36	Temple	27	Road	Win	9	12	BgE	31	43
09-15-2012	30.4	Maryland	21	Connecticut	24	Home	Loss	-3	-7	BgE	30.8	23.8
11-17-2012	28.1	Wake Forest	0	Notre Dame	38	Road	Loss	-38	-29.5	IND	57.9	28.4
09-22-2012	28.1	Wake Forest	49	Army	37	Home	Win	12	9	IND	22.7	31.7

Both FSU and Clemson at least gave it the old college try: the Seminoles scheduled West Virginia and one FCS opponent, but when the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 they backed out of the game, leaving FSU to place a second FCS school on its schedule. Clemson scheduled Auburn – two years removed from a national championship – in Atlanta on opening weekend. But at the end of the day, neither FSU nor Clemson played any team out of conference – or in conference, excluding each other – that remotely impressed anybody. Of course, these two teams face huge tests this weekend against their in-state, SEC rivals.

UNC scheduled Louisville, a terrible team just two years ago that now may win the Big East. But that game did not go according to ACC script.

Miami certainly couldn’t have expected that they’d face two teams who would be ranked 1st in the country at some point this year when they scheduled Kansas State and Notre Dame. The results were, in hindsight, predictably bloody, with Miami losing by the combined score of 93-16.

Georgia Tech saved its worst games of the year for nonconference play. While Georgia Tech embarrassed UNC (68 points scored), Virginia (36 point win) and Maryland (33-13 on the road), the Yellow Jackets’ worst two games of the season were inexplicable 21- and 24-point losses to BYU and Middle Tennessee State. BYU scored 6 points against Boise State, 6 points against Utah State, and 14 points against San Jose State, but exploded for 41 points in Atlanta. MTSU lost by 42 to Mississippi State and lost to McNeese State – an FCS school – but somehow won on the road against the Yellow Jackets 49-28. And Georgia Tech is going to be your Coastal Division champs.

The sixth and seventh best schools – Virginia Tech and NC State – didn’t fare any better. Virginia Tech shockingly lost to both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, while North Carolina State lost by 14 points to a Tennessee team that may set a school record for losses.

This is why Florida State gets no love from the BCS computers. Out of conference this season, the ACC has been a joke. Consider:

• Overall, the ACC is currently 14-17 in non-conference games against other FBS schools. This is the most impressive stat you will read about the ACC today.
• Against Conference USA, the MAC, the Sun Belt, and the WAC, the ACC is 7-2. Against miserable Army — the 114th team in the SRS — the conference is 1-1. That means against the other BCS schools (the SEC, B10, B12, P12, Big East, Notre Dame, and BYU), the conference went a pitiful 6-14.
• This is not a joke: Ball State is the second best team an ACC school has beaten this year. Virginia’s upset over Penn State — a one-point home win when the Nittany Lions missed an extra point and four field goals — is the conference’s best win of the year. After PSU and Ball State, at least according to the SRS, the best teams defeated by ACC schools were Auburn, South Florida (twice), Bowling Green, East Carolina, Temple, and Connecticut.
• To put a bow on it, the ACC lost to the best six teams it faced out of conference, and according to the SRS, to 13 of the 14 schools they faced that have SRS ratings over 40.

I don’t know if much is going to change tomorrow, but for a conference that has zero signature wins this year, tomorrow is the only chance the conference gets. Clemson is a 4-point home favorite to a Marcus Lattimore-less South Carolina team; the SRS would make Clemson 2.2-point favorites, so that line seems appropriate. Florida State is a 6-point home favorite against Florida, while the SRS would make UF just a one-point dog. Florida State has beaten up on creampuffs while Florida struggles with everyone (but still defeated Texas A&M, LSU, and South Carolina). Because Florida State’s offense is very good and Florida’s offense is offensive, most expect the Seminoles to win. I think the safe bet is to expect a very ugly game.

Georgia is 15 points better in the SRS than Georgia Tech, and with the game in Athens, should be 18-point favorites. In fact, the Bulldogs are favored by only 13 points, perhaps a sign that Vegas doesn’t want to penalize the Yellow Jackets as harshly as the SRS for losing to MTSU. Vanderbilt is an 11.5-point favorite on the road against an awful Wake Forest team; the SRS would project the line to be 14.6 points.

The ACC is not in a particularly enviable situation. No one expects Wake Forest or Georgia Tech to win, because odds are they will get creamed. And while the Clemson and Florida State games favor the ACC squad, both should be very close. That’s a lot of downside for a conference that with a few bad bounces, could go 0-4 on the day. That would be a fitting finish to a dreadful season. For the conference to save any face, it will need victories by both of its heavy hitters and a respectable performance by Georgia Tech.

Your assumptions are no longer valid.

Kansas State entered the weekend as the most balanced team in college football. Through 11 weeks, Baylor ranked 120th in yards allowed and 118th in points allowed. But last night in Waco, the Wildcats were unable to do much of anything on offense. Collin Klein had never thrown more than one interception in a game in his career; he threw 3 against the Bears. Kansas State was averaging 213 rushing yards per game, but Baylor limited them to just 76 rushing yards. The Wildcats hadn’t allowed more than 30 points in a game this year; Baylor scored 52 points in the first three quarters and ended the game with 580 yards of offense. The most balanced and consistent team in the country was demolished by one of the most one-dimensional teams in college football.

At the same time, another surprise was happening in Eugene. If there was one thing we knew in 2012, it was that the Oregon offense was unstoppable. This has been the case for years — since Chip Kelly arrived in 2007, the Ducks had scored at least 24 points in every home game. Against Stanford, the Ducks were held to just 14 points in an overtime loss.

In their first years in the post-Andrew Luck and post-Robert Griffin III, the Stanford and Baylor programs dominated the college football headlines on the most important weekend of the season. For the first time in five years, the #1 and #2 teams in the BCS fell on the same day, rendering all of our national championship game assumptions moot.

This much is clear: if Notre Dame defeats USC at the Coliseum on Saturday, the Fighting Irish are going to the BCS National Championship Game. The winner of the SEC Championship Game is going there as well, barring an upset by Georgia Tech in Athens this weekend. ^[1]No, we’re not getting into hypotheticals that involve Auburn beating Alabama. I maintain that Georgia is far less deserving of its spot in Atlanta than Florida, who has the most impressive trio of wins this year by defeating LSU, Texas A&M, and South Carolina. Georgia lost to South Carolina but beat Florida, which gave them the tiebreaker and the division crown. But the real key for Bulldogs was that they faced Mississippi and Auburn in the West, not LSU and A&M; as a result, they are the SEC East Champions.

But now is the time for more relevant debates. Assuming an upset — either by USC, or by Georgia Tech coupled with a Georgia upset against Alabama — who is next in line? At that point, four teams will have legitimate claims for the other golden ticket: Florida, Florida State, Oregon, and Kansas State. Fortunately, the Gators and Seminoles play each other on Saturday, which would leaves us with just three promising candidates.

If they defeat Florida State, Florida is the clear “next team up” following a slip-up by Notre Dame or in the event of a two-loss SEC Champ. The computers would love them due to their strength of schedule, and the voters should love them for the same reason and the bump they would get for defeating Florida State.

If FSU wins, their case is much weaker. The computers hate them, and for good reason: they haven’t beaten any good teams. Defeating the Gators would give them a big bump, and they’ll get a chance to beat mediocre team in the ACC Championship Game, but consider: Outside of 10-1 Clemson, each of FSU’s other 9 victories have come against ACC, Big East, or FCS schools that have at least 5 losses. And how good is Clemson? Yes, they have a nice record, but their 10 wins have come against Ball State (#64 in the SRS), and ACC, SEC, or FCS teams with at least five losses.

According to the SRS, North Carolina is the 3rd best team in the conference and they rank 45th. FSU lost to a bad N.C. State team, while while Oregon (in particular) and Kansas State have much more palatable losses. FSU’s argument would be two parts “we lost earliest” and one part “we beat Florida and Clemson, even if Clemson hasn’t beaten anybody.” Florida State’s overall strength of schedule is far inferior to that both Oregon’s and Kansas State’s. In my opinion, even with a win over Florida, the Seminoles likely do not jump both Oregon and Kansas State in the BCS, nor should they.

And consider: if Stanford defeats UCLA this weekend, the Cardinal — and not Oregon — would win the Pac-12 North, which would deal a significant blow to Nike University. Kansas State still needs to get by Texas, but tonight might not end up being a season killer. At this point, they need to root for USC and Florida State, which is historically not a bad position to be in. My guess is Kansas State is next in line after an undefeated Notre Dame, a one-loss SEC Champ, and a one-loss Florida team. It’s possible only one of those three exist by the end of the season.

Let’s take a look at the SRS ratings after 11 weeks. As always, thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe. [continue reading…]

Note: There are many things theoretical issues with this post. That said, if I had to write down and explain all the drawbacks of the data I’m about to present, I wouldn’t have the time to make quick posts like this. So….

I thought it would be cool to take a slightly (emphasis on slightly) more nuanced look at team rushing and passing stats so far in 2012.

The first table shows how many “rushing yards over average” each team has this year. First, I calculated each team’s “Adjusted Yards per Carry” which is simply Yards per Carry with a 20-yard bonus for each touchdown. On average, teams are averaging 5.31 AYPC in 2012; to calculate rushing yards over average, I multiplied the number of carries for each team by the difference between their AYPC average and 5.31. As expected, Oregon ranks first.
[continue reading…]

Before I get to the question of the day, below is a quick roundup of some good college football articles I read this week:

• Bill Connelly, of Football Outsiders and SB Nation, argues that Texas A&M’s victory proves head coach Kevin Sumlin was the right man for the job and that the spread works — even in the SEC.
• You may recall that Alabama’s last chance to win the game was ruined when they fell for a hard count on a 4th down play with Texas A&M lined up to punt. Chris Brown highlighted how Sumlin has a history of success with the hard count — the day before the game.
• Dan Wetzel, writing for Yahoo!, argues that the BCS is screwing over Notre Dame because of the Irish’s preseason ranking.
• Stewart Mandel over at Sports Illustrated discusses the far-reaching impact of the Aggies’ upset victory
• Matt Hinton at SB Nation provides us with the latest and greatest on the BCS race, including a terrifying-but-not-unrealistic theory on how we might get another All-SEC BCS title game.

As we move towards the final few weeks of the regular season, the picture is almost in place. We know that Oregon and Kansas State are atop the BCS standings, and if both remain undefeated, will end up facing off in the BCS National Championship Game. That would leave Notre Dame, as a potential 12-0, left out in the cold. Is this fair?

Of course not. Any system that is designed around a two-team playoff format is not going to be equitable when you have three teams finish a season undefeated. That’s basic math. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the BCS for another 14 months. So the real question isn’t whether an undefeated Notre Dame would be getting screwed — they would be, just like countless other teams before them. No, the more interesting question is, assuming we are absurdly limited to the ridiculousness of choosing two out of three undefeated teams, should Notre Dame be one of those two teams?

The cast of characters in this case can easily be plotted a continuum, with “margin of victory” champs on one side and “strength of schedule” warriors on the other. On the left, a dominant offense; on the right, a dominant defense. It’s a case of “beauty contest winners” vs. “resume champs.” Or, if you prefer, the best predictive teams vs. the best retrodictive teams. In any event, you’ve got Oregon on one side, Notre Dame on the other, and Kansas State square in the middle. We’re left trying to magnify miniscule differences to figure out which two teams belong.

The case for Oregon

The Ducks lead the country in points per game and rushing yards per carry, giving them the most explosive offensive attack in college football. The Ducks are so prolific that they’ve managed to achieve these milestones despite largely shutting things down for large stretches of the game nearly every week: Oregon has had a lead of at least 32 points in nine of ten games, and in 8 of those games, they scored at least 4 straight touchdowns at one point (of the exceptions, in one they had two runs of three straight touchdowns and in the other, they broke USC’s school records for yards and points allowed).
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I’m a big fan of Mike Tanier, an excellent writer formerly of Football Outsiders and now with Sports on Earth. Yesterday, Tanier threw cold water on the idea that Chip Kelly is going to be the next great NFL coach. Tanier labeled him him this generation’s Steve Spurrier, and argued that it is lazy and unsophisticated to simply assume that “great NCAA coach = great NFL coach.” Unfortunately, his analysis only required the expenditure of one extra ounce of effort and intelligence:

Kelly is an offensive mastermind. He is guru of the modern college spread option. Marcus Mariota, his current quarterback, fakes a shotgun handoff, stands in the pocket while a file downloads, then floats passes to receivers who are open by five yards. Or, Mariota hands off to Kenjon Barner, who busts off 300-yard games against overtaxed defenses. Or, Mariota keeps the football himself. There are trick plays, wildcat packages, fake field goals, bells, whistles, onion rings and shakes. It’s fun, and the quarterback is always in the gun. Is your SpurriDar beeping yet?

Kelly runs an explosive college offense, but like Spurrier’s fun ‘n’ gun, it is distinctly and uniquely a college offense. It is built on the principle of littering the field with speedy young men who can outrun the opponent’s speedy young men in the wide-open spaces that only exist at a level of play where everyone is a step slower, an inch shorter and 15 pounds lighter.

Kelly’s offense is often mischaracterized as gimmicky, but Chris Brown did an excellent job explaining how traditional football principles are the key to Kelly’s offense at Grantland yesterday. Brown has also written a bit about Kelly’s zone-read running game, the way the Ducks teach reading the defensive tackle, and how Oregon’s attack compares to Nebraska’s old rushing offense over at his website, Smart Football; alternatively, you can read about Kelly’s offense straight from the horse’s mouth.

Can Kelly simply pack his playbook, spend a training camp with an NFL team, and turn them into the pro version of the Ducks? Of course not; even if his running game works perfectly, his runs will mostly go for 8-yard gains, not 40-yard sprints (unless he’s playing the Raiders). But reducing Kelly to an X’s and O’s guru incapable of adaption is unfairly harsh. Tanier credits the great Nike machine with providing Oregon with superior talent, but that’s not a fair criticism. Oregon has never had a top-ten recruiting class under Kelly, and Rivals generally ranks Oregon’s classes in the teens or early twenties. Spurrier, coaching in talent-rich Florida, not remote Oregon, was playing with a decked more favorably stacked than Kelly ever has. But more importantly, Kelly’s offenses were unstoppable when he coached at New Hampshire without any recruiting edge, and his success at Oregon happened immediately, even before Oregon truly became the nouveau riche of college football.
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