C-USA

West

59. North Texas (9-3)
68. Southern Miss. (8-4)
86. U.A.B. (8-4)
91. Louisiana Tech (6-6)
92. U.T.S.A. (6-5)
123. RICE (1-11)
130. U.T.E.P. (0-12)

East

33. Florida Atlantic (9-3)
71. Marshall (7-5)
81. Florida International (7-4)
90. Middle Tennessee (6-6)
99. Western Kentucky (6-6)
112. Old Dominion (5-7)
126. Charlotte (1-11)

OTHERS:

15. Stanford (9-3)
49. Houston (7-4)
53. Army (8-3)
67. Pittsburgh (5-7)

So if we had been 75th best and form had held, we'd have been 6-6. That would have been acceptable as a down year, given youth and extenuating factors. 1-11 isn't.

The best 6-6 G5 team in my rankings is Temple at #79; the worst is Western Kentucky at #99.

Massey has Rice at 129th.

Second. Last.

(11-26-2017 11:53 PM)Antarius Wrote:  Massey has Rice at 129th.

Second. Last.

Right. But I think his system weighs different factors. I don't place my finger on the scale to make Rice better. The fact is that I place more emphasis on strength of schedule. All things considered, Rice played a reasonably tough non-conference slate.

There is no way that Charlotte should be rated above Rice. Their non-conference schedule (Eastern Michigan, Kansas State, NC A&T, Georgia State) was not close to that of Rice's. That's just one example.

In a day or so, Massey's Composite Rankings will be updated, and Rice should be where they are now, at #125 (I'm sending mine in on Monday). As I've stated before, the composite is a better measure than cherry picking one system because it may serve someone's purpose to make Rice look worse than it really is.

(11-27-2017 02:05 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(11-26-2017 11:53 PM)Antarius Wrote:  Massey has Rice at 129th.

Second. Last.

Right. But I think his system weighs different factors. I don't place my finger on the scale to make Rice better. The fact is that I place more emphasis on strength of schedule. All things considered, Rice played a reasonably tough non-conference slate.

There is no way that Charlotte should be rated above Rice. Their non-conference schedule (Eastern Michigan, Kansas State, NC A&T, Georgia State) was not close to that of Rice's. That's just one example.

In a day or so, Massey's Composite Rankings will be updated, and Rice should be where they are now, at #125 (I'm sending mine in on Monday). As I've stated before, the composite is a better measure than cherry picking one system because it may serve someone's purpose to make Rice look worse than it really is.

My intention was to add another data point, not challenge your rating. Just wanted to clarify up front. As a data consumer, I rely on Sagarin and Massey - I moved from the former to the latter after some people here complained about the inclusion of FCS teams in Sagarin.

I do not agree about Charlotte though. Charlotte beat UAB 25-24 while Rice got b****-slapped by them. That win was one better than we managed and also wasn't against a JV team known as UTEP (last in Massey and Composite). Sure we played a harder OOC schedule, but every game - Stanford, UH, Pitt Army was over in the first quarter; does that really tell us anything?

on an unrelated note, by your ratings, is UTEP the worst team ever? Stat wise, I am not sure, but by the eye test, I cannot think of a worse team in history.

(11-27-2017 02:49 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(11-27-2017 02:05 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(11-26-2017 11:53 PM)Antarius Wrote:  Massey has Rice at 129th.

Second. Last.

Right. But I think his system weighs different factors. I don't place my finger on the scale to make Rice better. The fact is that I place more emphasis on strength of schedule. All things considered, Rice played a reasonably tough non-conference slate.

There is no way that Charlotte should be rated above Rice. Their non-conference schedule (Eastern Michigan, Kansas State, NC A&T, Georgia State) was not close to that of Rice's. That's just one example.

In a day or so, Massey's Composite Rankings will be updated, and Rice should be where they are now, at #125 (I'm sending mine in on Monday). As I've stated before, the composite is a better measure than cherry picking one system because it may serve someone's purpose to make Rice look worse than it really is.

My intention was to add another data point, not challenge your rating. Just wanted to clarify up front. As a data consumer, I rely on Sagarin and Massey - I moved from the former to the latter after some people here complained about the inclusion of FCS teams in Sagarin.

I do not agree about Charlotte though. Charlotte beat UAB 25-24 while Rice got b****-slapped by them. That win was one better than we managed and also wasn't against a JV team known as UTEP (last in Massey and Composite). Sure we played a harder OOC schedule, but every game - Stanford, UH, Pitt Army was over in the first quarter; does that really tell us anything?

on an unrelated note, by your ratings, is UTEP the worst team ever? Stat wise, I am not sure, but by the eye test, I cannot think of a worse team in history.

Stick to planes. You know something about that subject.

(11-27-2017 12:08 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(11-27-2017 02:49 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(11-27-2017 02:05 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(11-26-2017 11:53 PM)Antarius Wrote:  Massey has Rice at 129th.

Second. Last.

Right. But I think his system weighs different factors. I don't place my finger on the scale to make Rice better. The fact is that I place more emphasis on strength of schedule. All things considered, Rice played a reasonably tough non-conference slate.

There is no way that Charlotte should be rated above Rice. Their non-conference schedule (Eastern Michigan, Kansas State, NC A&T, Georgia State) was not close to that of Rice's. That's just one example.

In a day or so, Massey's Composite Rankings will be updated, and Rice should be where they are now, at #125 (I'm sending mine in on Monday). As I've stated before, the composite is a better measure than cherry picking one system because it may serve someone's purpose to make Rice look worse than it really is.

My intention was to add another data point, not challenge your rating. Just wanted to clarify up front. As a data consumer, I rely on Sagarin and Massey - I moved from the former to the latter after some people here complained about the inclusion of FCS teams in Sagarin.

I do not agree about Charlotte though. Charlotte beat UAB 25-24 while Rice got b****-slapped by them. That win was one better than we managed and also wasn't against a JV team known as UTEP (last in Massey and Composite). Sure we played a harder OOC schedule, but every game - Stanford, UH, Pitt Army was over in the first quarter; does that really tell us anything?

on an unrelated note, by your ratings, is UTEP the worst team ever? Stat wise, I am not sure, but by the eye test, I cannot think of a worse team in history.

Stick to planes. You know something about that subject.

I guess Kenneth Massey should stick to something else too? Guess he's an idiot for ranking Charlotte higher than Rice?

Don't need to be an ass.

It is a valid point that our OOC strength of the schedule is practically meaningless since zero of those games were competitive from the first kick. Would we be any better if the Houston Texans were on the list and we were down 42-0 at the half time break while accruing some magical SoS ranking points for being a patsy?

Other than that, we are really splitting hairs on inconclusive statistical rankings of the worst teams in FCS. It is clear that CUSA is the worst or second worst conference in football (competing with Sun Belt for that title) and we were a clear doormat in league play along with UTEP. The only "bright" spots on the schedule were the 3 or so conference games that we kept competitive for the majority of 60 minutes.

You don't need in depth statistical analysis to determine that we were a doormat in a conference full of doormats. We were true "bottom 10" material this year and if we replayed the UTEP game at this point, we would only be a slight favorite.

I prefer Sagarin ratings as it normalizes the extensive left tail of terrible FBS teams with the middle of the pack FCS teams. We were essentially at the lower bound of Sagarin performance as we lost out on our schedule but stayed in the 160-170 range for the last 3 weeks (ie we could not have done any worse, but could only fall so far due to SoS points between CUSA and FCS conferences). There were a couple of losses where we even moved up a couple of slots on Sagarin since the teams around us were losing to much worse FCS opponents. It would be nice to not worry about Sagarin v. Massey in a futile attempt to properly categorize the horrific relative performance of FBS doormats and instead just worry about CUSA titles and which bowl we are going to this year.

#2 in the final ESPN Bottom 10.

Strikes me as pretty much on the money.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/sto...fifth-spot

(11-28-2017 10:57 PM)OwlSquared Wrote:  #2 in the final ESPN Bottom 10.

Strikes me as pretty much on the money.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/sto...fifth-spot

Or should we stick to something else because we don't know anything about ratings? Obviously Charlotte is worse..

But yes, sounds about right. Thank God for UTEP... all that talk about bad luck... were really lucky UTEP was worse than our horrible this year.

Any other year and we'd probably hold the coveted #1 spot. The ultimate participation trophy.