Beat Oregon State by 8. While that in and of itself may be true, the committee will definitely care about statistical rankigs such as Kenpom and Sagarin. These rankings are both going to be our strongest argument for inclusion, so the higher we can finish in them the better. We dropped from 31 to 43 in Kenpom after the OSU game.
Style points matter in these statistical rankings, and we are going to rely on them heavily for inclusion in the tournament. Larry HAS to see this.
AnonymousInactive
I went straight by Sagarin’s rankings and ended up 3-3. Had I adjusted it would have been to pick SDSU over Houston.
Went to the standings and I’m not listed. Only listings are for those with 7 game picks, yet my Pick Em schedule only showed 6 games.
The PAC-12 is NOT having a down year. You have Utah, Washington and Colorado ranked (WSU should be ranked, but they lost their first game).
The reason why the PAC-12 is down is not because it sucks. Sagarin ranks it #2 in the country.
It is down because USC, Stanford and Oregon aren’t doing as well. That’s it. If name brands aren’t on top, then the conference sucks. It’s lazy journalism at its best.
Yet, Jeff Sagarin rates 11 out of 12 teams in our conference inside his top 60. You know what other conference can say that? Not a damn one. The Big 10 is great at the top but has a majority of their conference rated outside of the top 50, with multiple out of the top 60, the Big 12 comes close but only having 10 teams and 2 of them outside of the top 60 (one WAY outside top 60) kills their %.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/2016/conference/
Its pretty clear, when it comes to top to bottom depth, this conference is still one of the best, if not the best, and is criminally underrated due to parity.
Sagarin has Washington rated as playing the 88th ranked SOS
and Utah has played the 56th toughest schedule with 1 yard short of being 6-0..
Washington Utah edge
SOS 88 56 U
pts/game 50 28 W
passing/game 252 255 even
running/game 229 180 W
pts allowed 14 19 W
passing allowed 177 231 W
running allowed 140 119 U
If Utah can get some guys back and stay healthy I like Utah at home vs Washington.
Sagarin has Alabama and Stanford as the #2, and #3 teams in the country. Stanford also had an extra week to prepare for SC, be careful… SC may not be as bad as everybody is implying. The Freshman QB does have an arm, and can make the throws.
I’m starting to second guess this game. Fortunately its at home and a rowdy crowd shows up.
I have read several things about how bookies make and adjust their lines — but they have a better record than any of the computers (Sagarin, Massey, and several others) as well as the total yds and all. So, I take that into consideration.
They are about 5 better in sagarin rankings. If played today they’d be a 7-8 point fav.
So I had a few minutes to look at stats since that’s all you’re interested in
Yards per play on offense TW 6.23 KT 5.27 – that doesn’t seem like much but in a series that 3 yards closer to a 3rd down conversion under TW that’s a big deal in terms of play calling, but of course the 3rd down conversion rate makes me question the validity of that argument.
Really there are 3 statistics I think matter. Wins, points scored, and a corollary to that expected points added.
So we have to take into account level of competition. Current Sagarin rankings of UM (36) and FSU (103) are pretty different so I think any tie is actually a clear win for TW.
Wins. I think we give each 1.5 wins. I will say TWs solo win trumps KTs.
Points scored. How many points have been scored with the QB taking the snap? In both cases the answer is 24. Both have had 4 touchdowns. Again 2 TDs against UM trumps 3 against FSU and Travis lead 2 long drives against USU to KTs one. Add that to the fact that 1 of Kt’s 4 Td drives was a garbage time score against a beaten team.
Avg TD drive length slightly favors KT 81.5 vs TW 73.5
If you broaden that to include drives that end in FGs then things even out
KTs’s 2 FG drives were 60 and 20 yds – avg 40 with total scoring drive average
71yds/scoring drive and 14.2/yds driven/point scored
TW’s has had 2 missed FGs at the end of his drives, but neither was in the red zone, but his 1 drive that stalled in the red zone was 63 yards.
74yds/scoring drive and 13.7 yards drive/point scored
Again basically the same numbers but Travis did it against tougher competition
Expected Points Added – Fancy WAR type stat ESPN runs
TW 11.6, KT 3.6
Like I said before the stats may be “objective” and no different but we’ve only got 90 minutes of play for each guy this year, and so they’re kinda suspect, but the fact they are the same against substantially different competition says something to me.
