What Utah Could Have Done to Have a Better Shot at the Title
by Year2 on Jul 9, 2009 10:30 AM EDT
in Football
22 comments
The senator turned his indignation on one of his witnesses, University of Nebraska at Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman, a fan of the BCS system. "Let's take last year's Utah team," Hatch said. "What more could they have done to play their way into a national championship game?"
-Dana Milbank, Washington Post
Senator Orrin Hatch and University of Utah President Michael Young want to know what the Utes could have done to have a better chance at playing for the national title. Seeing as how it was a year that saw Texas and USC be viable candidates that got also shut out, the odds were admittedly low regardless. However, here's what Utah could have done to be in better position to complain.
Have people on your side vote as though Utah was a legit title contender.
This is something that Tony Barnhart pointed out. Not one single MWC coach voted Utah into the top two. That includes the Utes own coach, Kyle Wittingham, who had his team fifth. If you believe yourself to be worthy, then vote like it.
Beat 3-9 Michigan by more than two points.
Utah won in Michigan Stadium. That's nice and all, but it was only by two points and it was over the worst Wolverine team in recent memory. You know who did beat Michigan by more than two? Illinois (5-7), Purdue (4-8), and Toledo (3-9), along with every other team that delivered Michigan a loss. If 7-6 Notre Dame could win by three touchdowns, you should have too.
Beat 4-8 New Mexico by more than three points.
You know who beat New Mexico by more than a field goal? Texas A&M (4-8), UNLV (5-7), Colorado State (7-6), and Air Force (8-5). The Lobos also lost to BYU by 18, TCU by 23, and Tulsa by 42.
Beat 8-5 Air Force by more than a touchdown.
No, the Falcons were not putrid. They were pretty good in fact. However, your fellow MWC heavyweights BYU and TCU beat AFA by 14 and 34 points respectively. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you must stand out from the crowd.
Play someone, anyone in I-A instead of Weber State.
When you're not from a Big Six conference, every game is an audition. By scheduling a I-AA school, you're throwing one of your audition dates out the window because no one cares what you do against them (unless you lose). It's like taking one of your 12 offensive drives in a game and punting on first down.
Play more than two Big Six conference teams in the non-conference.
I know your non-conference slate of two Big Six teams, a I-A cupcake, and a I-AA school is identical to what BYU and TCU did. You were right in line with your conference mates. The problem with that: the pollsters don't care how you measure up to MWC teams that you've beaten. They look to see how you measure up to Big Six schools. If you were to play three Big Six schools in the non-conference (or better yet, four), the strength of the top of the MWC is enough that it would be a comparable schedule to what a Big East team might face. At that point, you'd at least have a shot.
Yes, all that matters.
If you want to play for a national title, you're going to have to beat everyone who's not an upper tier team badly. Regardless of whether you believe it to be correct or not, the pollsters believe Florida, USC, Texas, or Oklahoma would take your schedule and win most every game convincingly. That is especially true for games against opponents that end the year with sub-.500 records.
This mandate is not even an unprecedented thing for Utah, as the 2004 team won every game by 14 points or more. And remember: this is college football, not the NFL. Style points count, and large blowouts get you style points. It's how Oklahoma passed up Texas for the chance to play for the title last year.
That '04 Utah team also managed to schedule three Big Six schools: Texas A&M, Arizona, and North Carolina. It can be done. I know getting teams to come to your place as part of a home-and-home deal is what you want, but as Ben Prather of Fanblogs.com points out, your stadium is too small to get the biggest of programs to go for that. They won't sacrifice the money they get from a home game against the Southern Alabama School of Bakery and Confections in their 80,000+ seat palaces for the road team's cut of a game in a 45,000 seat stadium. The 2011 non-conference schedule, if Phil Steele is to be believed, is right on.
The tide of hitstory has been turning with these past couple years as Utah and Boise State have won big games on big stages. It's kind of like the scene in Anchorman where the bartender tells Ron Burgundy that "ladies can do stuff now, and you're going to have to learn how to deal with that." The old attitudes and prejudices are slowly but surely falling, albeit not in the nicest or most elegant fashion. It's too late for the '08 Utah team to get a shot at a title, but that team's season will pave the way for some other team in the future.
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2004 Utah ended the year (prior to the bowl games) 6th.
So how is that helping your argument? We were behind two 1-loss programs that year as well, in Texas and California (plus the three undefeated teams in OU, USC and Auburn). We played a tougher schedule in 2008 and went 12-0, no title game. We play an easier schedule in 2004, win every game by 14 or more, no title game. Here’s what Utah can do to get into a national title game: Nothing. If Oregon had played the exact same OOC schedule (USU, Weber State, Michigan) they’d have gone to the title game for going undefeated, with exactly 1 good win (USC). That would be true even if every victory was by 1 point and despite the fact that outside of OSU and USC, the PAC 10 sucked.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jul 9, 2009 10:39 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
It takes time
It takes time for opinions to change, and the rate of change in college football can sometimes make glaciers look cheetah-like. You’re right that the requirements are different for non-AQ teams than for AQ teams. It won’t always be that way, but it is that way now. I would also argue that regardless of anything else, a team that plays six eventual bowl teams in the regular season (like Utah did, and I’m giving a mulligan for Michigan which usually does go bowling) should be judged from a different standpoint than a team that plays nine bowl teams in the regular season (as Florida and Oklahoma did).
The 2004 Utah team, 2006 Boise State team, and 2008 Utah team were all necessary steps to help turn public opinion in favor of giving non-Big Six teams a shot at the title. The ‘04 Utes proved a non-AQ team could win a BCS game, the ’06 Broncos proved one could win a BCS game over an established power, and the ’08 Utes showed that at the very least some AP voters are willing to give one a shot at a title by voting them No. 2 with 16 first place votes. Not that a reasonably objective person would need such “proof,” but this is college football we’re talking about. The tide of opinion is turning, and if that 2011 Utah team goes undefeated, I’ll eat my hat if it doesn’t play in the national title game.
They key thing is sustaining success over time. The BCS has a provision that if a non-AQ conference meets certain requirements over a four year period, then it can become an AQ conference. The MWC met that requirement for the first time in 2008, which happens to be the first in one of those four year cycles. One good year could be fluke. Prove it’s not over the next three years, and you’ll get your shot at a an automatic BCS bid.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
by Year2 on Jul 9, 2009 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The simple truth is that if you’re not an undefeated Big 6 team (in a year with no more than two of those), then you have to kick ass and take names all season. And if you’re not in the Big 6, this is even more true – you cannot expect to get enough votes when you’re beating no-names by a figgie while teams like Florida or Oklahoma are annihilating ranked opponents. The beauty contest aspect of the race comes in for a lot of criticism, but it’s inevitable in a system in which the strength of schedule varies so widely between potential contenders (and besides more aggressive scheduling by the ‘outsiders’, there’s no obvious way to fix that issue except through a radical overhaul of conference alignments.)
by peachy rex on Jul 9, 2009 11:46 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Case in point from the Big 6...
2007 Kansas.
12-1 record, but got shut out of national title game in favor of a 12-2 LSU team with a far stronger schedule and some more impressive wins.
See also 2008 USC, where a down year in Pac-10 depressed its schedule enough that it was held back behind UF and OU despite being arguably the most glamorous program and the biggest TV draw in the country right now.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
by Year2 on Jul 9, 2009 12:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Or, counter-factually (and a good thing too), Florida probably would have been shut out last year if Iowa’s last-ditch figgie hadn’t gone through… given the way the pre-bowl BCS components shook out, it seems pretty likely that Oklahoma’s record-setting, Heisman-netting offence would have trumped all opposition in the race for #2. (That figgie put Ferentz on my personal list of coaches who I’ll always have a soft spot for, right next to Mackovic and Dorrell.)
by peachy rex on Jul 9, 2009 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
That's not why Kansas got shut out
Like UGA 2007, they didn’t win their division much less their conference. Had they lost earlier in the year to some random conference foe and then closed the year beating Missouri and then Oklahoma I think they find themselves playing for a national championship.
by DoubleB on Jul 10, 2009 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The Penn State conundrum
Would anyone here have had a problem with Penn State being 12-0 and playing for the national title in 2008? Had they beaten Iowa they would have been in Miami and there would have been no clamor for anyone else.
According to Sagarin, Penn State and Utah had virtually identical schedules! Yet one team will always get the benefit of the doubt and one will never get the benefit of the doubt. And it has nothing to do with schedule or blowing out opponents/style points or anything else, but one—association with a Big 6 conference.
So if you don’t have a problem with Penn State going 12-0 and being in Miami, why would you have a problem with Utah considering the very similar schedules?
by DoubleB on Jul 10, 2009 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Penn State 55 – Syracuse (3-9) 13
Penn State 45 – Temple (5-7) 3
Penn State 38 – Illinois (5-7) 24
Penn State 20 – Purdue (4-8) 6
Penn State 46 – Michigan (3-9) 17
Penn State 34 – Indiana (3-9) 7
The Lions won every game against a sub-.500 team by at least two touchdowns, and they ran it up on 9-4 Oregon State and 9-4 Michigan State too. Had Iowa’s game-winning field goal been blocked or something, then PSU’s only two close wins would have been over teams that finished with 9 wins (Iowa) and 10 wins (Ohio State), respectively.
In short, Penn State consistently played like a top tier team and only had close games against quality teams. Several of PSU’s efficiency stats were right up there in with the Floridas and USCs of the world, while Utah lagged them behind some. I would have put an undefeated Penn State team ahead of Utah in the line for a national title spot 100%.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
by Year2 on Jul 10, 2009 4:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
When did efficiency stats become an important measure to rate teams?
I get the predictive powers or comparing offenses and defenses across conferences, but you’re seriously advocating that to pick one TEAM as better than another. When did wins become irrelevant?
And it’s not like Utah didn’t have a few blowouts as well. Colorado State, UNLV, SDSU, Utah State, and a ranked BYU were all 21 point + wins. They have 2 close games against inferior teams (UNM and Michigan) and that’s makes Penn State better? Like USC, they were a defensive team and won games down the stretch with their defense. Just because PSU could light it up on offense doesn’t make them better.
by DoubleB on Jul 10, 2009 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
1. When you’re comparing two undefeated teams with comparable schedules, you have to choose something to pick between them. Penn State had no issue whatsoever in beating sub-.500 teams. Utah did a couple of times.
And yes, I consider efficiency stats to be a legitimate way to differentiate between two teams. Record isn’t everything because sometimes the better team loses a game and sometimes teams win or lose games they shouldn’t. It would take an awful lot for me to put a one-loss team above an undefeated one if they had comparable schedules, but I’d be willing to consider it if there was a compelling case. “Most deserving” doesn’t always mean “better,” and a sample size of 13 games isn’t terribly large.
As far as defense goes, Penn State was better than Utah was in total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense, and passing defense. Penn State was better in all those categories, and it was better at offense too. That’s why I would still put an undefeated Penn State above an undefeated Utah.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
by Year2 on Jul 10, 2009 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Saw this on another site
It’s an interesting mental exercise that makes you consider how you feel about the “Big 6” name brand as a factor.
You have to pick 66 Div IA teams. If all of the next ten MNC winners come from your 66, you win. If any MNC winner comes from outside your 66, you lose.
There are 66 schools in the BCS conferences. Which of their schools (if any) would you leave out, and which schools (if any) from the other Div IA conferences would you include?
I don’t think 66 is that challenging of a number. You really don’t have to discuss Big 6 glamor to drop Vandy and add BYU. How about 33? Or even 40? Which is more obvious: excluding Illinois or adding TCU?
by NCT on Jul 11, 2009 1:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
It might not be obvious...
but I think there is a way to fix the issue.
- Remove all subjective measures from the ranking system, using a point-based formula ( as used in the “Predictor” column here: http://www.kiva.net/~jsagarin/sports/cfsend.htm ). There would no longer be any possible bias. It would be clear what teams need to do to reach their goals ( similar to the way that the rules of the game of football are clear and are in a book ). And importantly, it would remove the advantage currently gained by programs scheduling cup-cake OOC games.
- Include a play-off system for the top games in order to base the highest prizes off of purely football terms. Nobody contests the merit of winning on the field.
- Remove bowl selection of match-ups. The match-ups are assigned by the empirical results of the rankings, period.
by wheaton4prez on Jul 13, 2009 5:51 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
The better team does not always win the game
And there are several examples of that every season; I assume I don’t need to go over the list. (This, coincidentally, is my biggest problem with a playoff system in general — it increases the possibility that a “false positive,” if you will, changes the entire course of the playoffs.)
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Jul 13, 2009 11:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
If a team doesn't rise to the occasion at the biggest games they are in, they aren't the better team.
This just illustrates the problem with subjective based systems. There is no way to measure before-hand how much a team might improve or rise to the occasion for a big game. And rising to the occasion is something anyone who has ever played the game has been coached to do. When they make movies about football, it tends to be the story of teams rising to the occasion. When you do that, despite “odds”, “popular consensus”, “superior talent”, “larger budgets” due to your superior planning, bigger heart or whatever allowed it to happen, you deserve the spoils of victory. That’s what sports are supposed to be about. Not revenue and fan base size.
To me, to not give the rewards to the team that wins on the field is anathema to the very core concepts of the game of football: “Any Given Sunday”, “Preparedness”, “Teamwork”, “110%”. None of those things matter if a bunch of outcome-invested individuals can simply vote an effort away based on their potentially biased or flawed opinions.
Let’s not water down the integrity of the game in order to feel like our conference treasure chests are guaranteed. That’s not sport. It’s gerrymandering politics.
by wheaton4prez on Jul 14, 2009 2:45 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Nonsense
Please answer true or false to the following.
1. Oregon State was a better team last year than Southern Cal
2. Iowa was a better team last year than Penn State.
3. Boston College was a better team than Virginia Tech on Oct. 18, 2008, but a worse team on Dec. 6, 2008.
4. Appalachian State in 2007 was a better team than Michigan
5. South Carolina in 2007 was a better team than Georgia. (I’m a South Carolina fan and I don’t even believe that.)
6. Boston College was a better team than Virginia Tech on Oct. 25, 2007, but a worse team on Dec. 1, 2007.
7. Tennessee was a better tearn than LSU on Sept. 29, 2001, but a worse team on Dec. 8, 2001
8. Texas was a better team than Colorado on Oct. 20, 2001, but a worse team on Dec. 1, 2001.
9. Texas was a better team than Nebraska on Oct. 23, 1999, but a worse team on Dec. 4, 1999.
10. Florida State was better than Florida on Nov. 30, 1996 but worse than Florida on Jan. 2, 1997.
Vanderbilt won not once but twice in 2008 because punts bounced off the legs of special teams players who were doing what they were supposed to be doing: making their blocks. That’s not being a superior tea; it’s getting lucky, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It still counts as a win, and it should. But it doesn’t prove that you’re a better team.
No, the better team doesn’t always win. To state a simple fact doesn’t “water down the integrity of the game.” To believe that a team that struggles all year and defeats another team that’s won every game its played is the better team is fantasy.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Jul 14, 2009 6:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
And if you're choosing between "biggest games" and "not biggest games"
Isn’t that — what’s the word for it? — oh, yeah … subjective.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Jul 14, 2009 6:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So the gist of this
argument is that Utah needs to put up more “style” points in every game they play. Incredibly enlightening.
by DoubleB on Jul 10, 2009 2:25 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
We're basing everything on 20/20 hindsight
It doesn’t matter what the college football landscape looked like during the second week of January 2009. If that were the case, I would argue that USC should’ve been the team playing Florida for the national championship. That’s all 20/20 hindsight. Instead, what matters in determining the national title matchup is what the college football landscape looked like during the second week of December 2008. At that time, no reasonable college football observer, including Utah’s own coach (as Year2 noted), believed that Utah was one of the top 2 teams in the country. If your own coach didn’t believe it, then how could anyone else in the country believe it? Those votes by Utah’s coach and their conference-mates had nothing to do with supposed national poll bias.
How do the non-BCS teams overcome this? They have to truly work for it. What do I mean by that? The fact that top BCS teams won’t give home-and-home series to non-BCS teams is irrelevant. In looking at the supposedly more egalitarian world of college basketball, teams such as Gonzaga and Memphis that didn’t play in one of the power conferences went out and scheduled top non-conference opponents to play them anytime and anywhere regardless of whether they received a home game in return. This was even after they had great performances in the NCAA Tournament. After several years of truly becoming teams that weren’t considered to be mid-majors (i.e. a power conference team losing to Gonzaga was no longer perceived by the general public to be a “bad loss”), they were then able to get the top teams to come to their home floors and got the benefit of the doubt by pollsters, national media, and the NCAA Tournament committee. They weren’t just handed the respect that they have today – they went out and made it impossible for the pundits and media to claim that “they didn’t play anyone”.
Utah football might be close to what Gonzaga and Memphis are in basketball, but they still aren’t there yet. We can talk hypothetically that they should have our respect, but the fact remains that if Texas, Florida, or Ohio State were to lose to Utah or Boise State head-to-head next year, that would still sound like a bad loss to the general public. Until Utah can come into one of those games as a legitimate favorite, like Gonzaga and Memphis do regularly today against power conference schools, then they haven’t truly earned the respect of the average sports fan. Right now, people say theoretically that they ought to respect Utah and Boise State, but their actual reactions say otherwise.
So, Year2’s comment about the non-conference scheduling is spot on. Utah and any other non-BCS school needs to do what Gonzaga and Memphis did in basketball in order to receive year-to-year respect: play a complete non-conference schedule of top BCS opponents even if it means playing all of those games on the road without a return home game. If non-BCS teams aren’t prepared to play 4 road games in SEC stadiums, then they can’t claim that they’ve done everything that they can to schedule the toughest non-conference schedule possible to compensate for the weaker conference schedule. That might not be “fair” in some people’s eyes, but that’s what it’s going to take because the conference opponents in the non-BCS leagues will always be downgraded when compared to the BCS leagues (and frankly, that’s not “unfair” – that’s reality).
To remove the doubt in pollsters’ minds (including the coaches in those non-BCS conferences), you have to smash those doubts beyond belief instead of tinkering around the edges with an occasional nice win here and there.
by Frank the Tank on Jul 10, 2009 4:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
“play a complete non-conference schedule of top BCS opponents even if it means playing all of those games on the road without a return home game.”
Even if that were possible (and you completely and utterly ignore how unfeasible that is for Utah from an economic standpoint) there would still be an excuse. There’s always an excuse—early in the year, missing players, not motivated (my personal favorite). Just as there is for Memphis with regards to C-USA. But at least Memphis gets to prove how good (or not good) they are with a tournament at the end of the year.
by DoubleB on Jul 10, 2009 5:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
hmmm
It is not as easy as say lets play 4 BCS teams because in Utah’s case they may get one of those at home per year.
Plust why should conference affiliation matter becasue Utah beat TCU who finished top 10, yes they needed help, they beat BYU a top 25 team, and 5 bowl teams.
Look at BYU they played UCLA and Washington, both are terrible, so how much cred would a non-BCS school get by playing Duke, Vandy, Indiana, and Northwestern??
Those are all BCS programs but very bad ones. As for the close wins all teams have them even the good ones, and even the national title winner LOST to Ole Miss.
by Jeremy Mauss on Jul 11, 2009 1:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Ole Miss went 9-4 last year, so it's not like they were a terrible team
Losing by 1 to a team that wins nine games in a BCS conference — including defeating the heavily favored Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Cotton Bowl — is a bit different than defeating 4-8 New Mexico by a field goal.
As for the list of weak teams from BCS leagues, you’re cherry-picking from three different conferences. (By the way, Vanderbilt was bowl eligible and beat one of the better teams from the ACC, so that might not be the best example.) You have to look at the conference schedules, which were as follows:
Florida:
at Tennessee
vs. Ole Miss*
at Arkansas
vs. LSU*
vs. Kentucky*
vs. Georgia (Jacksonville)*
at Vanderbilt*
vs. South Carolina*
Utah:
vs. UNLV
at Air Force*
at Wyoming
vs. Colorado State*
at New Mexico
vs. TCU*
at San Diego State
vs. BYU*
*Bowl eligible
Aligned by quality of opponent (not MOV), that’s vs. Georgia/vs. TCU; vs. Ole Miss/vs. BYU; vs. LSU/at Air Force; vs. South Carolina/vs. Colorado State; at Vanderbilt/vs. UNLV; vs. Kentucky/at Wyoming; at Arkansas/at New Mexico; at Tennessee/at San Diego State.
Breaking from its recent practice, Florida also actually played a reasonable nonconference schedule, with Miami and Florida State. Even Hawaii was a bowl team.
It’s not, per se, the nonconference or the conference schedules. It’s both of them combined. Utah plays in a weak conference, so they have to compensate with a far stronger nonconference schedule — and, yes, the way you perform against those teams does matter.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Jul 12, 2009 4:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
What?
The tide is changing?
90% of people polled believe the BCS is broken. The tide has risen up, formed a wave and sunk the boat dock.
The BCS is quite obviously designed to maintain the status quo simply because smaller, over-achieving programs aren’t as profitable to the powers involved. If it doesn’t get fixed this year, the same type of shiat is going to come up again each year. And each time, it’s going to feel more and more like an annoying burden rather than a circus side-show to occupy our thoughts during the off-season.
Nobody at the BCS can seriously believe that the unpopularity their system has achieved is going to go away if they get around the Hatch hearings without change. They’re just trying to milk that cow for as many years as they can before they have to send her off to slaughter.
by wheaton4prez on Jul 13, 2009 5:30 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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