November 15, 2019 · 11:11 AM

About the schedule skewing stats

For what it’s worth,

Auburn’s played four such opponents.

17 Comments

Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Georgia Football, Stats Geek!

17 responses to “About the schedule skewing stats”

  1. eethomaswfnc
    November 15, 2019 at 11:16 AM

    Clempson’s schedule is a freaking joke. I wish the committee would punish them for it, but they won’t. The Almost Competitive Conference is truly a case of IPTAY and the 13 Dwarfs.

    Like

    • Jared S.
      November 15, 2019 at 11:39 AM

      How can you “punish” them less than a year after they utterly demolished the SEC’s best program?

      Liked by 1 person

      • Greg
        November 15, 2019 at 11:43 AM

        Year to year…..shouldn’t matter what you did a year or more ago. But unfortunately for some, it does.

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      • ATL Dawg
        November 15, 2019 at 11:48 AM

        The rankings are supposed to be based on what has happened so far this season. Not what happened in previous seasons.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Greg
          November 15, 2019 at 12:02 PM

          Should be, but their schedule sucked last year too. The system is still too subjective, but better than before imo.

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          • Mayor
            November 15, 2019 at 6:04 PM

            Clemson is playing the system and they learned how to do it from FSU. Be in a weak conference where you pretty much are guaranteed to go undefeated in conference play. Schedule patsies as OOC games. In the conference championship game you get to play a weak winner of the other division. Voila! You’re undefeated and in the playoff. How much different athletically is the ACC from the American? What CFB needs to do is downgrade the ACC to Group of 5 status which would end this problem. Would certainly solve the 4 team playoff problem where one P5 champion gets left out every year. Remember the Big East? Same thing needs to happen to the ACC. It’s really a basketball league anyway.

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      • eethomaswfnc
        November 15, 2019 at 1:22 PM

        Their resume is horrible this year. I’m not saying they aren’t playoff worthy, but they should need to win out to qualify.

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        • Dawg93
          November 15, 2019 at 2:14 PM

          I think most folks agree with you and I think that’s the way the CFP would handle it if Clemson were to lose a game. But if they win out, they’re in, period.

          Keep in mind, they scheduled A&M this year, who’s good but not great, plus their annual matchup w/S. Carolina. I don’t think it’s right to “punish” them for their schedule – they can’t help it that the ACC is total ass this year and they schedule 2 SEC teams plus an FCS team (like we did) and a G5 team that’s at .500 (Charlotte, currently 5-5, which compares favorably to our G5 opponent, Ark. St., currently 5-4).

          At the end of the day, you have to judge them on how well they played against that weak schedule. Outside of the close call with UNC (who beat S. Carolina, mind you), they’ve beaten ACC opponents by an average score of 49-10. Total domination. Just because they haven’t played a tough schedule doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of a playoff spot.

          It’ll be interesting to see how they do versus Wake & S. Carolina. Wake took a tough loss to VT last week but otherwise had been very good this year. If S. Carolina somehow beats A&M, they’ll come into the Clemson game fighting to not only ruin Clemson’s season but also to get bowl eligible. Game is IN Columbia.

          Liked by 1 person

          • eethomaswfnc
            November 15, 2019 at 3:50 PM

            Maybe punish isn’t the right word. Their current resume is somewhere between Minnesota and Baylor. They should be low enough in the rankings to make it clear they must go undefeated to make the playoff due to the weakness of their conference and of their schedule (I believe at the beginning of the year, their SoS was somewhere south of 60).

            Let’s say they slip up in Columbia similarly to the way we did by winning everywhere but the scoreboard. They come back on Championship Saturday and wear out whoever represents the other division in Charlotte. They would likely be in. If they were somewhere around Minnesota based on resume and lost, they would be out.

            That’s the part of this committee I just don’t agree with. They do whatever they want to do and use whatever rationalization to fit the narrative.

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          • ATL Dawg
            November 15, 2019 at 3:58 PM

            I disagree with the notion that they scheduled well enough. They know that year in and year out the ACC is near the bottom (if not at the bottom) of the Power 5. So who did they schedule out of conference for this year? Texas A&M, Charlotte (non-Power 5), Wofford (FCS), and South Carolina. Sorry, that’s not cutting it. They should have scheduled at least three Power 5 and no FCS schools to attempt to make up for playing in a weak conference.

            I’m more than a little tired of the “they can’t help their weak schedule” narrative that gets rolled out every year for teams that play weak schedules.

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            • Dawg93
              November 15, 2019 at 4:30 PM

              sorry, but no Power 5 team is going to schedule 11 Power 5 teams and zero FCS teams. Keep in mind that many of these Power 5 OOC matchups are scheduled several years in advance and you have no idea how good your conference will be 6 to 8 years down the road.

              If they didn’t have S. Carolina on their schedule and didn’t annually schedule games like A&M (2018 & 2019), Auburn (2010-2012, 2016 & 2017), Notre Dame (2015), UGA (2013 & 2014), TCU (2009), Bama (2008), I’d agree with you. But they haven’t been afraid to schedule these games. Keep in mind, it’s not always about finding the hardest schedule – every school wants a certain number of home games and scheduling FCS & G5 teams helps do that. They can’t just be a slave to the CFP.

              Like

              • ATL Dawg
                November 15, 2019 at 4:49 PM

                Nice shotgun of excuses there.

                We’ve already lined up several future years where we play 11 Power 5 teams, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. And many Power 5 teams (especially in the SEC and Big Ten) don’t need to do that because their conference schedules are strong enough without it. Clemson isn’t one of those.

                And giving them a pass just because the schedules are made in advance is nonsense. What do you want to do? Evaluate schedule strength based on the year each game was contractually lined up?

                As far as them wanting 7 home games, I couldn’t care less and neither should the committee. “Well, we would rank them #5 instead of #3 based at least partially on their weak schedule but by goly they just couldn’t help it because to improve that weak schedule would have meant playing 6 home games instead of 7. Therefore, we will reward them and rank them #3!” And just to throw out one example, we played 6 home games in 2017.

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          • ATL Dawg
            November 15, 2019 at 4:06 PM

            They also haven’t played South Carolina yet. So that hasn’t been factored into the rankings up to this point.

            What has been factored in is their other OOC games…Texas A&M, Charlotte, and Wofford. That trio doesn’t exactly improve their weak schedule strength.

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  2. Boz
    November 15, 2019 at 11:28 AM

    Are these totals for complete season? Because as of now, I only see 3 for the dawgs..

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  3. Classic City Canine
    November 15, 2019 at 1:00 PM

    So Alabama’s schedule isn’t quite as horrible as people are saying. However, I bet their opponents have been closer to 40 than 1 unlike say, LSU.

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    • Will (the other one)
      November 15, 2019 at 1:47 PM

      Bama’s issue is less top 40 by advanced teams and more “will likely finish the season with no wins over a ranked team” — the same could be said about Clemson, only Auburn with a Lake will have no losses, won their division, and won their conference.

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