January 10, 2005
Auburn had toughest schedule of BCS teams
After pundits spent the last week or so beating up on Auburn for it's weak schedule, John Pruett from The Huntsville Times checked the official NCAA stats and found Auburn got a bum rap. In fact, Auburn had the fifth toughest schedule in the country (pdf).
Despite playing Louisiana-Monroe (5-6), LA Tech (6-6), and DI-AA The Citadel, Auburn finished as the highest rated BCS team in strength of schedule by the NCAA official statistics.
Texas A&M was #1, followed by North Carolina, Arizona, Arizona State, and Auburn. Where did the BCS title game teams rank? Oklahoma's schedule was ranked 11th and USC's was 18th.
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Comments:
Luke said:
posted on January 11, 2005 12:36 AM — 24.22.8.177 — link — abuse?
Umm, I think what " " at 12:18 AM was thinking of is that Auburn had Bowling Green on their schedule, but Bowling Green withdrew in order to play Oklahoma.
This whole thing will always be meaningless since there are so few meaningful non-conference games in the world.
Every strength of schedule measure has a lot of navel-gazing and you get punished for success. Take Tennessee for example. They are a 3 loss team but 2 of those losses are to Auburn. Before the Texas A&M game, you would have thought that TN was just an average-tough opponent, but now we saw that they are actually very strong. Without that A&M game, they would have always been seen as a somewhat inconsequential 3 loss team that Auburn beat.
Richard said:
posted on January 11, 2005 9:39 AM — 138.26.116.55 — link — abuse?
Yeah, Luke is right. Auburn had Bowling Green who asked to be removed from their schedule to play Oklahoma.
Funny, how people always come back to the almighty Sagarin SOS rankings. You know who is number 1 is those rankings? North Caroline!! Gimme a break.
posted on January 11, 2005 10:38 AM — 209.16.242.81 — link — abuse?Pete Holiday said:
Let's not forget that on top of BGSU pulling out of the Auburn game (which definitely hurt AU's SOS), Auburn also dropped from the Clemson game, which would've been a big help to them.
As for Tennessee -- when they played well, they were excellent. The spent the whole year going back and forth between excellent and mediocre, much (but not all) of that had to do with their various injuries.
Gaffney said:
posted on January 11, 2005 12:21 PM — 138.88.156.71 — link — abuse?
The Auburn Lesson:
If you don't schedule challenging out-of-conference games, you may forfeit any chance at winning a National Championship.
I am hopeful that, rather than continuing to drop difficult out-of-conference games to increase their chances at going undefeated, teams instead heed this lesson and realize that if there's even a snowball's chance of your team having a break-out year, you better put some quality opponents on your schedule of else your hard work may be for naught.
If quality teams throughout D-1 do take this lesson away from the 2004 season, then we may not only see much more intersting regular-season matchups between quality teams, but we will end up with more accurate rankings going into the postseason as we will have a better sense of how the major conferences stack up against one another.
Don VanDemark said:
posted on January 11, 2005 2:27 PM — 65.33.106.10 — link — abuse?
Gaffney,
Did you not read the posts above yours? Auburn had little control over their schedule situaiton this year. You think they could've scheduled better teams at the last minute once BGSU pulled out? I don't think so.
I agree, in general, that teams should schedule decent opponents because then we'd have less need of a playoff. However, it won't happen for many reasons.
Let's take Florida for example. They don't take home-and-homes with anyone except on those years where they can shcedule 12 games. Why? The SEC schedule gives them 4 home games and 4 away games; every other year, one of those home games is Georgia which is actually in Jacksonville where they split the proceeds with Georgia. They have the home-and-home with FSU, where they get the home game whenever they would've had the home game with Georgia. So we're now looking at 4 home, 4 away and 1 neutral. The Florida football program makes money when they schedule 6 home games, therefore they don't do home-and-homes with those other two. This is why Florida dropped Miami from every year play (go on, Canes fan, say we ran scared. It's not even worth a response).
Is the solvency of the football program a good reason to not schedule better opponents? Seems like a pretty decent one to me when you look at how many football programs actually don't make money and rely on additional money from the school to survive.
James said:
posted on January 11, 2005 2:35 PM — 4.243.121.203 — link — abuse?
It's sad: With Cal's sudden recent success (excepting Texas Tech) their first game is against Sacramento State! My god! What's also sad is that Cal's schedules are set 8-9 years in advance, so it'll take a long time to get a good strength of schedule, and by then it's "Who knows?"
Jason said:
posted on January 12, 2005 11:36 AM — 67.33.59.203 — link — abuse?
Gaffney,
I understand maybe the difference between scheduling the Citadel and USC, but if you can beat Tennessee (twice), LSU, Georgia, and Virginia Tech, what does it matter how bad the weaker part of the schedule is? That's what I don't get about all of this SOS talk. People want to factor in how bad the weaker teams you played were. Would more mediocre teams like BGSU have beaten Auburn, instead of the Citadel? I think not. In order to judge a team's potential, it makes no sense to consider three things that I've seen people talk about:
1. Weaker teams on the schedule
2. Margin of Victory
3. Comparing completely different gamesAs far as margin of victory goes, I know a lot of people were saying that Auburn should've done more against VT. They played to win the game. Had they ended up behind (which they did not, unlike both Oklahoma and USC this year), they would've have passed more than three times in the second half. I don't think a team should be penalized for conservative game play, unless they lost the game. USC, on the other hand, had the ball in Oklahoma territory with less than a minute left in the first half, and a 35-10 lead, and was passing for the end zone. That's just stupid and arrogant.
I've also seen people try to say "USC beat Oklahoma by x points, and Auburn beat VT by y points, so VT should beat Oklahoma by z points." That's just dumb. Each game is played on a different night with different game conditions, requiring different play-calling.
All of this boils down to the fact that you never know who will beat who until the two teams play each other. Oklahoma getting stomped by USC, despite most of the media thinking the opposite would happen is proof of this. So, until Auburn and USC play each other this year (don't give last year crap, 'cause there are different teams now), no one can say what would happen.
That being said, if you REALLY wanted to know who the best team at the end of each season, you'd put all of the SOS talk aside and face the top few teams off in a playoff. Hell, who's to say Utah wouldn't take it all? They didn't play anyone this year, but they weren't challenged this year either.
posted on January 13, 2005 6:11 PM — 68.62.114.241 — link — abuse?
A few points here:
1. Auburn, if I recall correctly, dropped Clemson. They had control over that game.
2. The difficulty of the whole schedule matters a lot. Consider a game against The Citadel -- don't you think Auburn could have not prepared one iota for The Citadel and started prepping for a tougher game instead and then just showed up on Satuday and beaten them? The difficulty of the schedule as a whole has a lot to do with teams losing down the stretch. For great teams that will be reflected as close wins, for good teams it'll be a tough loss. EVERY GAME MATTERS. If they don't, then we shouldn't be playing them.
3. I'd like to point out a bit of conflicting info in Jason's post:"Would more mediocre teams like BGSU have beaten Auburn, instead of the Citadel? I think not."
"All of this boils down to the fact that you never know who will beat who until the two teams play each other."
Yes, odds are good that BGSU wouldn't have beaten them... but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have happened, and it doesn't mean they should get to count The Citadel as being as tough an opponent as BGSU. Take the games for what they are -- no more, no less.
Patrick said:
posted on January 14, 2005 6:45 PM — 163.192.21.41 — link — abuse?
Louisiana Tech, Louisiana Monroe and The Citadel. That was Auburn's non-conference schedule. I understand it is set years in advance...but those three teams have never been powerhouses. USC realized it's schedule may not seem so tough with BYU and Colorado State...so they agreed to play against Virgina Tech in the BCA Classic to start the season. Yes they were down at the half...but they dominated in the second half like good teams too. I think they held them to 50 yards in the second half. The Virgina Tech players also said they felt USC was better than Auburn. Auburn needed to make a statement...and to let Va Tech score 13 points in the 4th quarter is unacceptable. I understand we will never know who would've beaten who without a playoff. But I think USC is the best team in the country and they proved it in the Orange Bowl.
Nick said:
posted on January 16, 2005 4:53 PM — 69.248.78.142 — link — abuse?
Does anyone know how these stats count wins/losses? According to my count, Auburn opponents have 73 wins and 66 losses, or .53 (no where close to 76 wins and 47 losses, .62 according to the "official stats"). Even if you do not include Div 1-AA Citadel, it is still only 70 wins and 59 losses. or .54??
5 6 Lousiana Monroe
3 8 Mississippi St
9 3 LSU
3 7 Citadel
10 3 Tennesee
6 6 Lousiana Tech
5 6 Arkansas
2 9 Kentucky
4 7 Mississippi
10 2 Georgia
6 6 Alabama
10 3 Virginia Tech73 66 Total w/ Citadel
70 59 Total w/o Citadel
posted on January 16, 2005 9:20 PM — link — abuse?
My first guess would be it includes some bowl results.
Nick said:
posted on January 18, 2005 5:07 PM — 69.248.78.142 — link — abuse?
Actually I did count the bowl wins/losses above and they don't come close to the "official stats". Georgia and Tennesee added 2 bowl wins to the wins total and LSU, Alabama, and Virginia Tech added 3 bowl losses to the losses total. The "official stats" are obviously not including some opponents' wins and losses into its calculations.
As a comparison, USC opponents' wins/losses stats are 82 wins / 70 losses (or .54) and Oklahoma's opponents' wins/losses stats are 87 wins / 65 losses (or .57). Ofcourse for Oklahoma, the opponent with the most wins that made Oklahoma's stats look good was USC... Anyway, if you count all wins/losses for the WHOLE SEASON, which the "official stats" apparantly do NOT, USC and Oklahoma actually have tougher schedules than Auburn...
I agree totally with Pete Holiday that a straight win/loss of opponents is not an accurate measure of SOS. However, my point is this: the Sports Columnist John Pruett (who writes for an Alabama newspaper) was trying to make a point that Auburn had the toughest schedule out of the 3 teams, quoting stats that even he does not understand ("By whatever computer-human methods the NCAA uses, it was determined that..."). If you actually do your own research, the "official stats" are rather mysterious at best and damning to Auburn at worst.
Nick said:
posted on January 18, 2005 5:10 PM — 69.248.78.142 — link — abuse?
Oh, just so you don't think I'm pulling these numbers out of my butt, below are the numbers for USC and Oklahoma also. I get my numbers from
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/standings
10 3 Virginia Tech
4 7 Colorado St
5 6 BYU
4 7 Standord
10 2 Cal
9 3 Arizona St
5 6 Wash St
1 10 Wash
7 5 Oregon St
3 8 Arizona
6 6 UCLA
6 6 Notre Dame
12 1 Oklahoma82 70 USC Total (.54)
9 3 Bowling Green
3 8 Houston
5 6 Oregon
8 4 Texas Tech
11 1 Texas
4 7 Kansas State
4 7 Kansas
7 5 Oklahoma State
7 5 Texas A&M
5 6 Nebraska
3 8 Baylor
8 5 Colorado
13 0 USC87 65 Oklahoma Total (.57)
Jimmy Smithers said:
posted on May 31, 2005 3:58 PM — 192.31.106.42 — link — abuse?
Clemson was never on Auburn's 2004 schedule. Georgia Tech and AU were supposed to play a three-game series from 2003-2005, with the middle (2004) game a 50/50 split in the Georgia Dome. Pretty cool, huh?
Only catch--when Chan Gailey took over at Tech, he decided he didn't want to lose another home game, so GT opted out of the '04 Dome matchup. That wasn't in Auburn's control.
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Pete Holiday said:
posted on January 10, 2005 10:58 PM — 68.62.114.241 — link — abuse?Going by straight win/loss of opponents is such a short-sighted and meaningless way to judge SOS. Funny that the Sagarin SOS (which uses rank of teams played) puts Auburn at 60th... which implies that, despite the teams having some wins in their corner, they were over-all not very difficult.
The biggest problem with opponent win/loss is that it judges teams with the same record to be of equal difficulty, regardless of where the game was played... which means tha tplaying BOWLING GREEN at home was as difficult as playing FSU in Doak-Campbell. I'm not quite buying that one.
So, in conclusion, this measure is a pile of garbage.