College Football Week 10: Sandy knew not to mess with Nick and Les

That would happen the same week Oregon wins at higher-ranked Oregon State.

 

Notre Dame's schedule;

v. Navy 50-10 (6-3)
v. Purdue 20-17 (3-6)
@ Mich. St. 20-3 (5-5)
v. Michigan 13-6 (6-3)
v. Miami 41-3 (5-4)
v. Stanford 20-13 OT (7-2)
v BYU 17-14 (5-4)
@ Oklahoma 30-13 (6-2)
v. Pitt 29-26 OT (4-5)
@ Boston College (2-7)
v. Wake Forest (5-4)
@ USC (6-3)

If Notre Dame passes any one, it's not because of their schedule. The domers are on the outside looking in right now.

 

And here we have yet another example of someone cluelessly deciding that they won't allow the actual facts to interfere with a preferred meme.

There is nothing to be sneezed at about ND's schedule, indeed the computers have been ranking it the hardest overall of the four. In fact, it's the objective computers that have been loving ND thus far--and precisely because of that stronger SOS rating--and the subjective humans who've been voting them lower.

Notre Dame is the only one of the four who didn't pad their schedule with several de facto exhibition games against little mid-majors like Fla Atlantic, Western Carolina, Tenn. Tech, North Texas, WKU, Arky State and Mo. St. Instead they scheduled all BCS conference calibur opponents.

And, not only are they the only one to decline to pad with mid-major patsies, I believe they also play the fewest number of teams below .500 of the four, with only three losing teams on its schedule (by comparison, Alabama has SIX opponents with losing records on its schedule).

That said, it is true that ND won't be passing anyone because of its remaining schedule, since its next two are arguably its weakest part. I think Oregon's backloaded schedule should assure that it ends up with one of the title games spots if it wins out. And ND most likely will be one of the two left out if all four go unbeaten.

 

Notre Dame is Bert Blyleven. A compiler. Lots of games against pretty good BCS opponents.

Alabama is Sandy Koufax. A high peak. LSU. SEC title game. But lots of forgettable seasons (games) in between.

 

I'm with you, LongTime. Those idiot Duck fans have a worthy opponent in all the Dixie-heads from SEC country who think theirs is consisently the greatest conference, top-to-bottom, every year, no questions asked.

I know when it comes to passion, pedigree, tradition, linebackers created in labs and fleet-footed receivers, there's no topping the SEC. I respect that they now even produce No. 1 picks who play quarterback. But I don't buy their invincibility. I ask questions, like:

- When did Ole Miss last matter, without a Manning playing QB?
- When has Mississippi State ever finished in the Top 10?
- How long ago were Vanderbilt's glory days?
- How long until Tennessee is any good? Same with Auburn.
- Does anyone do consistently less with so much in-state talent than Arkansas?

So out of the 14 SEC sqauds, two are guaranteed to be irrelevant/slightly better than mediocre. Another is a token member who's had one winning season out of 30. Another two are bluebloods stuck in neutral for the forseeable future, who need OT to beat teams from the Sun Belt. And then you have Arkansas, which must have have some Ozark curse on it, where horny coaches and angry parents doom the program.

SEC-worship, I'm so over you.

 

As I said earlier in this thread, the objective computers aren't allowed to factor in margin of victory, and the programmers responsible for them all have their real formulas, not used in the BCS, to calculate actual team quality because margin of victory clearly is an important factor.

Either way, the BCS' computer polls now rate Alabama first, followed by Notre Dame, then Kansas State, then Florida, then Oregon. That's because Oregon has not faced a top-20 team based on current rankings. If Oregon wins out, particularly if UCLA beats Southern Cal and makes the Pac-12 title game, Oregon will leap at least Florida and probably Notre Dame and Kansas State as well.

 

I can't even give Bama's schedule much credit on those grounds. Let's look at Bama's schedule compared to the Notre Dame one posted above:

Michigan (6-3)
Western Kentucky (6-3)
Arkansas (4-5)
Florida Atlantic (2-7)
Mississippi (5-4)
Missouri (4-5)
Tennessee (4-5)
Mississippi State (7-2)
LSU (7-2)
Texas A&M (7-2)
Western Carolina (1-9)
Auburn (2-7)

Sorry, but there's an awful lot of crap there. Three mid major throwaway opponents in Fla Atlantic, Western Carolina, and WKU (by comparison, ND plays ZERO mid-major patsies). SIX opponents with losing records (by comparison, ND only has three). Their only decent non-conference opponent, Michigan, is one that Notre Dame also played and beat.

Yeah, they went and played at LSU, but is that really much different than ND travelling to play at Oklahoma and USC? Yeah, they host Texas A & M, but is that really much different than ND hosting Stanford?

The only real difference I see is that Notre Dame filled out the bottom of its schedule with lower tier major conference teams like Purdue, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest, whereas Bama went WAY low for those games with bottom rung mid-majors.

I see no valid argument for contending that Bama's schedule trumps ND's. No, it does not.

 

You're missing the SEC championship game. I put more stock in a team capable of being an elite team or two (if Alabama goes unbeaten, it likely will have knocked off 10-2 LSU and 11-2 Georgia) than a bunch of good teams. I don't consider Southern Cal an elite team. Stanford ... we'll see what they do against Oregon.

 

See my above post. The mythically inflated SEC would have you believe the Tide's schedule is tougher than Notre Dame's.

 

But Notre Dame would have beaten USC and Stanford, two of Oregon's three best wins, and also beaten Oklahoma, which you could easily argue is a better team than Oregon State.

The worst teams on ND's schedule are no worse than Colorado and Tennessee Tech. If schedule strength doesn't matter, how else do you decide between two unbeaten teams? The eye test?

 

Margin of victory helps. The eye test is part of it. But the strength of schedules never are actually equal, when you crank out the numbers.

 

In fairness, one reason that Stanford and Oklahoma are not elite teams at this point is because they have losses against Notre Dame blemishing their records.