I love Phil Steele for the massive amount of data accumulation he bombards us with every year, but there are times when he pushes the analytical envelope a little too far. This is one of those times.
The Final 14 Teams Who Fit the
National Championship Mold in 2013
Alabama
Notre Dame
Florida
Ohio St
Florida St
Oregon
LSU
South Carolina
Michigan
Stanford
North Carolina
Texas A&M
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
I will eat whatever hat Mr. Steele cares to furnish if Vandy winds up closer to a national title game than Georgia does this season.
Get The Picture 
To say nothing of Northwestern?! North Carolina?!
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And before we lend too much credence to his theory, here’s his list from last year: Alabama, Florida St, LSU, Michigan, Michigan St, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Stanford and Texas.
I don’t see Notre Dame on that list and they played in the BCS Title Game. I also don’t see Georgia, a team that finished five yards or one tipped pass away from taking Alabama’s spot in the national championship game. I also don’t see Texas A&M, the team that beat Alabama or Florida, another SEC team in the national title conversation last year.
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Only picking nits, but he was right on ND last year.
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I don’t believe so. I copied and pasted above his list of teams from last year that he said fit the mold and Notre Dame wasn’t one of them.
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The man is saying even though they made the game, ND wasn’t winning it.
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And didn’t deserve to be one of the considered teams.
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It’s always funnier when you have to explain it.
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Yeah. Vandy, Northwestern, North Carolina and for that matter Michigan (which ain’t winning sh!t) plus Oregon (new coach) and Stanford (which is about to fall back to earth). I also do not see ND pulling off the magic act again this year. What’s Steele smoking?
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Its just a formula he plugs the same stats into every year. Chill out.
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I hope it throws cold water to the faces of all the UGA summer workout players early and pushes them to excell beyond.
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Yeah, cause we got to prove those a holes wrong. GATA all of them!
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I just read his post on this and cracked up. As you said, sometimes numbers can go too far.
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its not about numbers going too far….it is confusing causation and correlation. there is a difference between the two.
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Vandy & Northwestern … College Quiz Bowl?
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Vandy may be tougher, but don’t rate the lofty thoughts. Northwestern is different. They are a good hope for clipping Criar’s Weedeaters this year.
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If you look at specifically why UGA didnt make the cut I think that we would all agree that we need to see huge improvement in that area if the Dawgs are going to make a run.
UGA was cut due to their run defense. I dont think that anyone would disagree that we sucked at stopping the run.
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Agreed. If we give up 180 yards per game on the ground again like last year then most likely we won’t be playing for it all.
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yea but last year alabama was the one everyone was worried about replenishing their defense …maybe..just maybe..this year GA has a rabbit in it’s hat…last year everyone was trying to make the highlight reel instead of working together..maybe this no name defense can pull off what bama did last year..would be nice !!!!
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“Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics”
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Honey you look fabulous! 🙂
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