I'm going to continue doing the performance ratings for Rice, its opponents, and Conference USA in football this season. The performance rating is calculated on a per-game basis. For any given game, the performance rating is the score margin added to the Massey power rating of the opponent, adjusted for home-field advantage (if any). For example, in its first game of the season, Rice lost by a score of 48-17 at Notre Dame. Rice's performance rating for the game would be the score margin (-31) added to Notre Dame's Massey power rating (currently 66.44) adjusted for home-field advantage (currently +3.90 for a game played at Notre Dame). In this case, it would be 66.44+3.90-31 = 39.34 . Note that this value is not constant; it changes every week as the Owls' opponents' ratings change when new game results are used to re-calculate the ratings. For example, Notre Dame's impressive 31-0 win over Michigan last week caused its power rating to jump about three points, and so Rice's performance rating for the Notre Dame game also jumped about three points (basically, Notre Dame is better than Massey's algorithim indicated they were at the beginning of the season). Now, a 39.34 isn't a terribly high performance rating (only two of the Owls' games last season were worse), but it's still the third-best opener of the David Bailiff era, trailing only 2008 (56.43) and 2013 (47.98).

I'm not going to type much about the other C-USA schools right now, as there are relatively so few results that nothing more than general statements can be made. In a couple of weeks, we should start seeing significant trends. For now, I'll say that in general UTSA, Louisiana Tech, UAB, and Western Kentucky are doing well, and Marshall and Florida Atlantic are doing worse than expected. As for Rice's game this week, I must note that among all the teams I tracked last season there was only one game where a team had a 90+ performance rating; Texas A&M has already done this twice in two weeks (94.95 @South Carolina and 90.74 hosting Lamar). The Austin American-Statesman, in its picks for the four teams that would advance to the Division I FBS playoff had the Aggies as #1; given these numbers, that pick is justified. If the Owls don't elevate their performance from the Notre Dame game and/or the Aggies don't slump, we're looking at a 50+-point blowout. Heaven forbid!

Thanks for doing this Jonathan. I enjoyed reading them last year. Here's to a major shakeup in the numbers after we upset the Aggies this weekend.

I also really enjoy these posts, many thanks!

I've just come across my favorite ranking system of the year (so far) - the Simple Ranking System, or SRS. It purports to do something similar to what Jonathan does, calculating rankings only based on SOS and MOV.

Apparently, losing by 31 points to (#1) Notre Dame is good for the #5 & #6 slots in this ranking:
http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/year...tings.html

Our high SRS rating helps boost CUSA not only to the top G5 slot, but also above the B12: http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2014.html

I figured I'd get these links in now before they change tomorrow.

Rice looked to be more competitive in its 38-10 loss at Texas A&M, and the numbers reflected that. The game rated at 47.84, about 11.5 points higher than the season opener against Notre Dame. That's close to the level at which the Owls performed in 2012 and 2013, and given the fact that Rice won the Conference USA championship in 2013, that's encouraging for this season. The good news for the Owls moving forward is that none of the remaining opponents in the regular season are anywhere nearly as good as Notre Dame or Texas A&M, so Rice should have an easier time in winning games.

Next week I'll start providing some numbers for the other C-USA schools, as by then there will be enough data so that they will have actual meaning. We're also seeing the start of C-USA play, and the most revealing result was Louisiana Tech's 42-21 win over North Texas. After looking rather ordinary in an opening-game loss to Oklahoma, the Bulldogs have absolutely dominated their last two opponents, Louisiana-Lafayette and UNT, both bowl teams from last year, producing ratings of 70.02 and 70.76, respectively. Meanwhile, a week after producing a rating of 75.38 in its rout of Southern Methodist (the highest-rated game of the season so far by a C-USA team), North Texas slumped to a 20.25 against Tech. UNT was favored to win the West Division in the preseason C-USA poll (albeit by a single vote over Rice), but this team lost a lot of experience from last season, maybe too much. Based on the early results, it looks like the Bulldogs might be fighting for the top of the division along with Rice and Texas-San Antonio (with Texas-El Paso being a dark-horse candidate).

This week, the Owls introduce Old Dominion to C-USA play. The Monarchs are in their first season in C-USA and NCAA Division I FBS. The transition to FBS play may be easier for ODU than for other former FCS schools, inasmuch as the Monarchs have been a regular participant in the FCS playoffs in recent years. However, it hasn't been smooth sailing for ODU so far. While the Monarchs are 2-1 this season, the two wins have come at home against Hampton, an FCS team that's not that good, and Eastern Michigan, which is one of the worst teams in FBS, and the Monarchs weren't exactly dominating in either win. The only road game was a loss at North Carolina State in which ODU struggled against a team that likely will finish near the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference. That game was the highest-rated of the season so far for ODU at 35.37. That's about a point less than Rice's lower-rated game of the season, the one against Nortre Dame. The Monarchs other two games rated in the 20s. Considering these numbers, if the Owls can put forth an effort like they did against A&M, they should have no problem winning their home and C-USA opener.

(09-12-2014 02:22 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  As for Rice's game this week, I must note that among all the teams I tracked last season there was only one game where a team had a 90+ performance rating; Texas A&M has already done this twice in two weeks (94.95 @South Carolina and 90.74 hosting Lamar).

So how did A$M do against us?

C-USA is currently 11-0 against teams from the American Athletic Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and the Mid-American Conference.However, 0-15 vs P5. Conclusion: our league best of the rest, but far from the best

(09-17-2014 09:37 AM)Viejobuho Wrote:  C-USA is currently 11-0 against teams from the American Athletic Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and the Mid-American Conference.However, 0-15 vs P5. Conclusion: our league best of the rest, but far from the best

Wow. Not good as the gap seems to keep widening between the haves and have-nots.

Still, better to be the best of the rest than anywhere else in the bottom pack.

(09-16-2014 01:12 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(09-12-2014 02:22 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  As for Rice's game this week, I must note that among all the teams I tracked last season there was only one game where a team had a 90+ performance rating; Texas A&M has already done this twice in two weeks (94.95 @South Carolina and 90.74 hosting Lamar).

So how did A$M do against us?

As of the present, A&M registered a 71.48 against us - by far the lowest performance rating of their season so far (the other three results all being 90+). If the Aggies can keep this pace up, it's not an impossibility that they could go undefeated in the regular season, even with games at Mississippi State, Alabama, and Auburn to come.

Rice's 45-42 loss to Old Dominion registered a performance rating of 31.36, the lowest of the three games so far. Of course, injuries played a big part in this; with seven defensive starters out, you're just not going to be able to get as good a performance as you otherwise might. However, the overlooked lesson in this game might be not so much Rice's defensive woes as rather how important quarterback play is in the game of American football. After ODU opened the game with a touchdown, Rice responded with a touchdown of its own. However, Owl quarterback Driphus Jackson was hurt on the scoring play and sat out the rest of the half. Over that timespan, the Monarchs outscored the Owls 21-7. Jackson came back to play in the second half and led Rice to five touchdowns in six possesions, outscoring ODU 28-17 in the half. Overall, ODU won the "game" 21-7 without Jackson in the lineup, and Rice won the "game" 35-24 with Jackson in the lineup. Put another way, Rice performed at a 20.36 level during the first half (mostly without Jackson) and a 45.36 level in the second half (with Jackson). There are certainly other factors that could account for the disparity between halves, but it's obvious that quarterback play had something to do with it. We've seen this disparity before; in the 2012 season, two of the lowest-performing games of the season were the Houston game (which starting quarterback Taylor McHargue missed due to injury) and the Memphis game (in which McHargue played still recovering from his injury). Given these numbers, it's likely Rice would've beaten ODU even with the defensive injuries had Jackson been healthy the entire game. Conversely, the biggest key to the Monarchs' win was keeping Tyler Heinecke available for the whole game. Half the stories I read about ODU before the game seemed to about Heinecke's injury situation after the Eastern Michigan game, and from what I saw in the game, without him the Monarchs would lose to almost everyone left on their schedule. While quarterback play isn't the only determinant in deciding the winner of a football game, I think this game is a good example of how important it can be.

We've accumulated enough data for the 2014 season so that I'm going to post the numbers for all of the Conference USA teams. After the name, the median, mean, and standard deviation for the season's performance ratings will be listed in that order:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. Louisiana Tech 56.28 52.41 20.80
2. Alabama-Birmingham 54.44 50.57 20.18
3. North Texas 54.21 53.50 32.75
4. Texas-San Antonio 53.89 57.17 14.45
5. Marshall 52.83 52.77 13.85
6. Middle Tennessee State 44.90 41.34 7.76
7. Texas-El Paso 42.22 42.99 2.27
8. Florida Atlantic 40.65 40.38 20.42
9. Western Kentucky 42.84 52.44 17.91
10. Rice 37.57 39.58 9.39
11. Old Dominion 34.50 36.27 12.08
12. Florida International 31.90 32.20 7.96
13. Southern Mississippi 23.65 26.82 10.56

The most interesting thing to note is the high standard deviations compiled by some of the teams. It's hard to say at this point whether this is due to a paucity of data or whether these teams are wildly inconsistent. You can draw a few general conclusions from the numbers (i.e., Marshall may not be as much a shoe-in for the C-USA title as many people seemed to think before the season started), but really more data are needed before we can start drawing more specific conclusions. It does look like on the whole that C-USA is stronger than it was last season, especially the West Division, where only Southern Miss doesn't look like it could contend for the division crown.

Speaking about the Golden Eagles, they're next on Rice's schedule. The Owls are on a four-game losing streak, and in desparate need for a win. Fortunately, USM looks like it can provide it. The Golden Eagles are still recovering from the program cratering when Larry Fedora left, and while progress is being made, they've still got a way to go. USM has already doubled its win total from last season, but only by barely beating two Division I FCS teams, a declining Appalachian State team and a poor Alcorn State team. The Golden Eagles weren't competitve against their two Division I FBS opponents, Mississippi State and Alabama. With Rice's injury situation improving and not having to face a high-performing quarterback for once this season, given the numbers it's unlikely the Owls will lose this one, unless there's some more injuries....

One correction, Jonathan - USM has technically played only 1 FCS school, as Appalachian State is now FBS (since 2013) and part of the Sunbelt. They aren't bowl eligible until next year.

thank you so much for this analysis, Jonathon.

i note that 4 of the top 5 are on our schedule. time to get our act together and start rising through this ranking.

Rice's 41-23 win over Southern Mississippi produced a performance rating of 50.27, just edging out the 50.16 rating for the Texas A&M game for the highest-rated game of the young season. To make an extremely trivial point, it's the best performance for the fourth game of a season in the David Bailiff era. A rating of about 50 is the average performance for a Division I FBS team. Over the Bailiff era, the Owls now have exceeded this mark 20 times (in 92 tries). A season-by-season breakdown of how many times a 50+ game has occurred is interesting:

2007: 0
2008: 9
2009: 0
2010: 1
2011: 0
2012: 4
2013: 4
2014: 2 (pending)

It's hard to figure out what's going on here. On the one hand, half of the 50+ games have come in the last 2+ seasons (10 out of the last 24 games), so the rate of better-than-average performances definitely has increased in the last 2+ seasons. On the other hand, while the first 5+ seasons of Bailiff's reign produced only 10 50+ games in 68 tries, barely one-third the rate of the last 24 games, nine of those ten results were in the 2008 season (out of 13 games), leaving only the 62-34 win over East Carolina in 2010 as a 50+ game out of the other 55 games. So while it seems that the level of play has risen in the last 2+ seasons, the 2008 season sticks out as an extreme outlier.

Here's how Conference USA looks after the games of the weekend of September 27, listed in order of median performance rating. Last week's ranking is listed in parentheses after this week's ranking:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. (5) Marshall 56.37 55.69 17.13
2. (3) North Texas 55.53 54.68 31.52
3. (9) Western Kentucky 53.61 55.56 14.42
4. (1) Louisiana Tech 52.81 53.51 17.40
5. (4) Texas-San Antonio 51.40 55.22 13.11
6. (6) Middle Tennessee State 48.99 45.32 8.24
7. (10) Rice 44.74 42.87 9.03
8. (2) Alabama-Birmingham 43.96 44.16 23.14
9. (7) Texas-El Paso 43.43 43.88 3.55
10. (8) Florida Atlantic 43.26 44.17 16.91
11. (12) Florida International 34.84 37.43 10.98
12. (11) Old Dominion 32.20 36.23 10.79
13. (13) Southern Mississippi 26.91 28.49 8.92

There was a huge amount of movement in the rankings. Marshall won big over Akron and vaulted four places all the way into first. Louisiana Tech didn't fare that badly against Auburn; its 28-point loss was rated about the same as Rice's loss to Texas A&M, and yet the Bulldogs fell three places from out of the lead down to fourth. The biggest changes were by UAB, which fell six places after its two-touchdown loss to #11 Florida International, and Western Kentucky, which jumped six places after a win on the road over a decent Navy team. The one thing that's been consistent about C-USA teams this season has been their inconsistency, and that's especially true for the teams at the top. Looking at the numbers, it's tempting to say that Marshall and North Texas are going to win their respective divisions, but their high standard deviations indicate that they are upset-prone. What this means for Rice is that there's still time! In fact, at the very worst, I can guarantee with absolute certainty that in three weeks Rice will have as good if not a better C-USA record than about half the teams in the conference, no matter what happens.

Speaking of the next three weeks, the first game of that time period is against Hawai'i, playing a rare second non-conference game on the mainland in the same season. This could be critical; the Rainbows have lost 14 straight road games. Hawai'i played its first three games at home, recording ratings of 56.57 and 46.35 in close losses to two decent Pac-12 teams in Washington and Oregon State, and a 46.27 in a close win over Division I FCS powerhouse Northern Iowa. Then the Rainbows hit the road and recorded only a 40.19 in a loss to a lesser Pac-12 team in Colorado before getting last week off. So while Hawai'i definitely appears to be better than last year's 1-11 team, they may still be more Rainbow Brite than Rainbow Warriors when playing away from home. Hawai'i has a higher-rated game than any of Rice's, and the Owls have two games rated lower than any of the Rainbows' games, but Rice has two 50+ rated games to Hawai'i's one. A U-test shows that Hawai'i is slightly more likely to perform better than Rice, but the results are not statistically significant at the 5% level. One thing that the Owls have going for them is that, judging by the injury reports, it'll be the first time this season that Rice lines up against a team with more critical players out or below par than themselves, which could be influential if not decisive.

Rice's 28-14 win over Hawai'i just missed being the highest-rated game of the season, earning a 51.12, just behind the 51.90 recorded the previous week against Southern Mississippi. It may seem somewhat counter-intuitive that Rice played relatively well in a game in which it didn't lead for the first 55+ minutes against a 1-4 team, but Hawai'i isn't that bad of a team, amassing the three previous losses against P5 schools. The Owls' 14-point win is the largest margin of loss the Rainbow Warriors have suffered this season, and the 28 points the Owls put up is the second-highest total scored against Hawai'i this year.

Here's how Conference USA looks after the games of the weekend of October 3, listed in order of median performance rating. Last week's ranking is listed in parentheses after this week's ranking:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. (1) Marshall 64.67 59.96 18.22
2. (4) Louisiana Tech 61.40 58.08 20.14
3. (8) Alabama-Birmingham 51.40 46.74 19.58
4. (7) Rice 46.85 43.77 9.41
5. (6) Middle Tennessee State 45.94 43.51 6.80
6. (9) Texas-El Paso 45.05 35.01 22.02
7. (3) Western Kentucky 43.44 49.41 15.18
8. (5) Texas-San Antonio 42.74 47.52 17.62
9. (10) Florida Atlantic 41.23 36.78 18.18
10. (11) Florida International 39.40 43.48 16.32
11. (2) North Texas 32.46 49.03 28.58
12. (12) Old Dominion 30.11 31.88 12.97
13. (13) Southern Mississippi 27.17 30.78 7.77

As noted in last week's post, the incredible variability of performances by several C-USA teams is absolutely striking. In my (limited) experience, the majority of teams have a standard deviation of performance ratings over a season of below 15. Right now, only four of the 13 C-USA teams fall below that number. This makes predicting how the season will go very difficult. North Texas is the worst offender in that regard. The Mean Green have either blown out or been blown out in every game this season, with no margin of less than 21 points in any game. With an astonishing standard deviation of 28.58, North Texas could beat anyone or lose to anyone on its schedule. This also accounts for the huge difference in mean and median result for the season, almost 17 points. Most of the other teams in the conference suffer from this to varying degrees. Right now, Marshall and Louisiana Tech look to be the best teams in their respective divisions, but their high standard deviations means that they're prone to upset losses. That's how Rice won C-USA last season; the Owls had one of the lowest standard deviations in the conference, and they were able to avoid upsets while the rest of the division couldn't. This makes Rice a dark-horse candidate to win the division this season, although the Owls have already stumbled once and can't afford to have any more if they want to repeat as C-USA champs.

This week the Owls travel to take on Army at West Point, New York, the site of the last tie in Rice football history. The Black Knights have performed okay this season, although they don't have any performances at 50+ like Rice does. Their best win was a nine-point victory last week against Ball State, and the one really good team they played, Stanford, shut them out 35-0. Army also stumbled against Division I FCS Yale, losing in overtime. With a median performance rating of 44.37, this should be a close game. At least Rice won't be facing a sophisticated downfield passing attack, the likes of which has given the Owls trouble in the past, and that may give them the edge they need for victory.

(10-04-2014 02:05 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  Rice's 41-23 win over Southern Mississippi produced a performance rating of 50.27, just edging out the 50.16 rating for the Texas A&M game for the

(10-08-2014 01:54 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  Rice's 28-14 win over Hawai'i just missed being the highest-rated game of the season, earning a 51.12, just behind the 51.90 recorded the previous week against Southern Mississippi.

Rice's performance rating against Southern Miss didn't retroactively change, did it? edit: explained in the OP

Thanks again for doing this, Jonathan. One request would be if you could include Rice's game-by-game total performance for the year along with maybe that of the (conference) opponent.

Rice's 41-21 victory over Army produced the second-highest Massey performance rating of the season at 54.81, slightly behind the 55.86 registered against Southern Miss. It continues a welcoming trend in that the Owls' performance ratings have been in general increasing as the season progresses:

@Notre Dame: 39.84
@Texas A&M: 44.07
Old Dominion: 29.86
@Southern Mississippi: 55.86
Hawai'i: 51.61
@Army: 54.81

If you run a linear regression on this data, it shows an increase in about 3.5 points per game, although it's not significant at the 5% level. If that trend holds, by the end of the season we'll be performing at around a 70 level and routing Marshall in the C-USA championship game (again), but we shall see....

Here's how Conference USA looks after the games of the weekend of October 17, listed in order of median performance rating. The ranking from two weeks ago is listed in parentheses after this week's ranking:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. (1) Marshall 67.99 63.74 15.54
2. (2) Louisiana Tech 53.86 56.22 18.64
3. (3) Alabama-Birmingham 50.41 48.59 17.84
4. (4) Rice 47.84 46.01 10.08
5. (5) Middle Tennessee State 45.21 44.63 5.89
6. (8) Texas-San Antonio 42.34 45.60 16.05
7. (9) Florida Atlantic 42.09 38.73 15.65
8. (7) Western Kentucky 42.00 47.54 12.50
9. (6) Texas-El Paso 41.84 35.34 18.65
10. (10) Florida International 40.04 43.11 14.81
11. (12) Old Dominion 33.14 33.01 11.72
12. (13) Southern Mississippi 30.65 35.05 8.75
13. (11) North Texas 28.00 37.05 25.40

Right now, Marshall doesn't look like they'll lose to anyone. Part of that is because the Thundering Herd are a pretty good team, and part of that is because their schedule is incredibly weak. As of now, by the end of the regular season, factoring in home-field advantage it looks like Rice will be the toughest opponent Marshall will face during the regular season. Stated another way, the Thundering Herd won't face anyone higher than the equivalent rank of 85th in Division I (FBS and FCS) by Massey power rating in 12 games. As for the West, it's turning into a two-way race between Louisiana Tech and Rice.

As for the Owls, this week they get their chance to avenge their only C-USA loss of 2013 against North Texas. The Mean Green were the preseason favorite to win the West title, but they suffered heavy losses from the previous season and have had difficulty in finding replacements. Not only is North Texas not likely to win the divisional title, but at 2-5 and winless in C-USA play currently it's not likely to even make a bowl game. The Mean Green's season so far has been utterly schizophrenic, with the two wins being huge routs (43-6 over SMU and 77-3 over Nicholls State), which garnered performance ratings of 66.67 and 78.68, respectively (the latter is the third-highest rated game by a C-USA team this season), but the five losses have all been by double-digits with no game rated higher than the 29.48 in the 38-7 loss to Texas (and the 9.65 in the 56-21 loss to UAB is the second-lowest rated game by a C-USA team this season). So while North Texas has two games rated higher than anything Rice has produced this season, the other five games are all worse than the Owls' worst game of the season. Running that bizarre rating distribution through a U-test and comparing it to Rice's results, the Owls look to be favored to perform better by odds of about 3-1, but the result is not significant at the 5% level. All of the Mean Green's road games have resulted in poor results, and because the game is being played at Rice Stadium, things are looking favorable for the Owls.

Rice's 41-21 victory over North Texas once again broached the 50-point mark in Massey performance rating, just barely getting over the mark at 50.13. As a complete listing for the season shows, this is the fourth-straight game in which the Owls have eclipsed the 50-point mark, a heretofore unprecedented feat in the David Bailiff era:

@Notre Dame: 39.79
@Texas A&M: 44.03
Old Dominion: 30.50
@Southern Mississippi: 55.43
Hawai'i: 51.72
@Army: 55.13
North Texas: 50.13

The statistically-adept will recognize that the UNT game is now the median for the season. At present, 2014 is the second-highest median season of the Bailiff era, trailing only the 53.02 for the 2008 season.

Here's how Conference USA looks after the games of the weekend of October 24, listed in order of median performance rating. Last week's ranking is listed in parentheses after this week's ranking:

Team, Median, Mean, Standard Deviation:
1. (1) Marshall 64.52 62.82 13.82
2. (2) Louisiana Tech 50.80 55.02 19.60
3. (4) Rice 50.13 46.68 9.14
4. (3) Alabama-Birmingham 45.88 47.32 16.43
5. (5) Middle Tennessee State 44.71 44.39 5.52
6. (8) Western Kentucky 44.62 47.88 11.32
7. (9) Texas-El Paso 44.03 42.01 23.05
8. (7) Florida Atlantic 42.16 39.38 14.66
9. (6) Texas-San Antonio 41.63 40.26 20.27
10. (10) Florida International 36.44 42.01 15.22
11. (11) Old Dominion 34.39 34.20 10.58
12. (12) Southern Mississippi 32.82 35.29 7.22
13. (13) North Texas 27.57 34.78 21.64

The biggest change in the rankings was UTSA's fall by three places after its 34-0 wipeout at the hands of UTEP, which also bumped the Miners up two places. Alone among all the C-USA members, the Roadrunners are showing a significant trend in their performance ratings over the season; unfortunately for them, it's a negative one. UTSA has a bye week to try to reverse the slide before meeting Rice. Meanwhile, at the top of the rankings Marshall and Louisiana Tech both won but not without some struggle. While the Thundering Herd are still performing substantially above all other C-USA teams, the Bulldogs are now barely ahead of Rice, which means that the game between the two to end the season might yet decide the West Division title.

Looking at the standings, we see that Rice in its first three C-USA games has played the three lowest-ranked teams. This week, the Owls move up in class, but just barely as they take on the fourth-lowest ranked team, Florida International. The Golden Panthers had two pretty good results in a row when they beat UAB on the road and then archrival Florida Atlantic with a dominating second half after a long rain delay, which resulted in performance ratings higher than any game Rice has played this season. However, their other results haven't been terribly impressive - they opened the season with a loss to Division I FCS Bethune-Cookman and also lost to the UTSA team that UTEP just routed. FIU is coming off a loss to Marshall that only produced a 29.26 rating, lower than any game Rice has produced this season, although it's had a bye since then (just how many teams have had bye weeks before playing the Owls this season?). A U-test on the data shows that Rice has about a 60% chance of being a better-performing team, but it's hardly statistically significant. I'll go with those numbers and say the Owls are more likely to win the game, but don't be surprised if the streak of four consecutive wins by 14 or more points comes to an end.

Honestly, if we had Marshall's schedule, would we also be undefeated right now? Assuming we don't lay an ODU like egg?

(10-30-2014 01:10 AM)owl95 Wrote:  Honestly, if we had Marshall's schedule, would we also be undefeated right now? Assuming we don't lay an ODU like egg?

Well, you sort of answered your own question there since we did, in fact, lose to ODU (Marshall beat them by 42). For what it's worth, according to Massey Marshall's schedule currently ranks 124th out of 128 teams in Division I FBS. Rice's schedule, by comparison, is 89th (and we were #1 after the first two games). As of now, the toughest game Marshall has played was against #88 Middle Tennessee State, so the average team on Rice's schedule is about as strong as the strongest team Marshall has played (although I should note in fairness that, outside of Notre Dame and Texas A&M, Marshall has played three schools with higher ratings than any of Rice's other opponents - the two Florida schools and MTSU). That's why, undefeated record and all, Marshall didn't even crack the initial College Football Playoff poll (right now, one-loss East Carolina would be the G5 representative to the New Year's bowls).

(10-30-2014 01:10 AM)owl95 Wrote:  Honestly, if we had Marshall's schedule, would we also be undefeated right now? Assuming we don't lay an ODU like egg?

??? Hard to say the former when we did the latter.