How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Best win is probably @Florida State actually. But Air Force also knocked off a Colorado team on the road that had beaten two top-25 teams.

But there's plenty of reasons.

1. Finished in the final top-25 rankings last year and brought nearly everybody back.
2. Multiple quality wins in their first four games.
3. A consistent history of being good every single year

Let's turn the question around. BSU is basically ranked where UCF was last week before their loss when they were only 3-0.

How was UCF ranked so high? Well...mostly for the same reasons BSU is now. Want the benefit of the doubt in the rankings? Show multi-year consistency.

From the Bleacher Report:
AAC - 3 teams, ACC - 2 teams
Here is our Week 4 poll:
1. Clemson (Last week: 1)
2. Alabama (2)
3. LSU (5)
4. Georgia (3)
5. Oklahoma (4)
6. Ohio State (6)
7. Wisconsin (10)
8. Auburn (8)
9. Texas (13)
10. Notre Dame (7)
11. Penn State (14)
12. Florida (15)
13. Oregon (19)
14. Washington (21)
15. California (22)
16. Iowa (20)
17. Boise State (18)
18. Utah (10)
19. Kansas State (NR)
20. Memphis (NR)
21. SMU (NR)
22. UCF (11)
23. Virginia (NR)
T-24. Appalachian State (NR)
T-24. Texas A&M (16)

Too bad Temple lost or we could have had three teams within 5-6 spots of the Top 25.

(09-22-2019 10:16 PM)Square Knight Wrote:  Too bad Temple lost or we could have had three teams within 5-6 spots of the Top 25.

Totally agree, it was a rotten loss, an execrable excuse of a game. The Owls are relying on a walk-on punter, which may lose them a whole slew of games.

It will be interesting to see if SMU or Navy can crack the top 25 in the next 2-3 weeks.

Army is also a likely shoe-in to the top 25 by October, and BYU could get there too.

We might see at least 7 or 8 G5s and Independents in the top 25 by the end of this season.

Part of me wants to say Boise is too high at #16 but then I see Cal @15 and I have a way bigger issue with that. A&M @22 is also laughable. They have two losses and their wins are against Lamar and Texas St.

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Are you new to college football? You keep winning and teams around you lose, you move up. It’s really that simple.

(09-22-2019 08:08 PM)AusTxPony Wrote:  From the Bleacher Report:
AAC - 3 teams, ACC - 2 teams
Here is our Week 4 poll:
1. Clemson (Last week: 1)
2. Alabama (2)
3. LSU (5)
4. Georgia (3)
5. Oklahoma (4)
6. Ohio State (6)
7. Wisconsin (10)
8. Auburn (8)
9. Texas (13)
10. Notre Dame (7)
11. Penn State (14)
12. Florida (15)
13. Oregon (19)
14. Washington (21)
15. California (22)
16. Iowa (20)
17. Boise State (18)
18. Utah (10)
19. Kansas State (NR)
20. Memphis (NR)
21. SMU (NR)
22. UCF (11)
23. Virginia (NR)
T-24. Appalachian State (NR)
T-24. Texas A&M (16)

That poll loses all credibility when it has Washington ranked ahead of Cal when Cal beat them and Cal is undefeated.

Very thankful UCF remained in the Top 25 (likely helped that 4 teams behind us in the rankings also lost). Surprised Pitt isn't receiving ANY votes in the Coaches poll, despite the win and nearly beating PSU. I guess 2-2 doesn't get you any love unless you're in the SEC (TAMU), lol.

I know we (UCF) should've won on Sat, but it is what it is, and with a young QB in a hostile environment, we have a long way to go. But wow... Temple... what the heck? A week after beating Maryland and now this? Sad to see Temple not receiving any votes either with only one loss and a win over a Top 25 team. Smh... hopefully you bounce back fast Temple!

Tulane is now RV in both major polls.

When your 10th strongest program is getting T25 votes, that is a sign of conference depth.

(09-23-2019 12:19 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  Tulane is now RV in both major polls.

When your 10th strongest program is getting T25 votes, that is a sign of conference depth.

Exactly, love that we have other teams that can step up when some are having down years.

(09-22-2019 10:35 PM)WhoseHouse? Wrote:  Part of me wants to say Boise is too high at #16 but then I see Cal @15 and I have a way bigger issue with that. A&M @22 is also laughable. They have two losses and their wins are against Lamar and Texas St.

I have an issue with Boise being 16th, and Memphis being 30th. Stupid F'kn beauty contest.

(09-22-2019 11:29 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Are you new to college football? You keep winning and teams around you lose, you move up. It’s really that simple.

Except Memphis.

(09-23-2019 12:33 PM)Memphis Yankee Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 11:29 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Are you new to college football? You keep winning and teams around you lose, you move up. It’s really that simple.

Except Memphis.

Have they not moved up from week one? Keep winning and everything will take care of itself.

(09-23-2019 12:33 PM)Memphis Yankee Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 11:29 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Are you new to college football? You keep winning and teams around you lose, you move up. It’s really that simple.

Except Memphis.

The higher up you get in the rankings, the slower the movement in them TBH.

Because you're so dependent on losses from teams in front of you that don't lose very often. (Because otherwise they wouldn't be there.)

But it does happen. Randomly you get a week last this last one where six ranked teams lose. Hang in there. Memphis will keep moving up if they keep winning.

(09-23-2019 12:34 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-23-2019 12:33 PM)Memphis Yankee Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 11:29 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:45 PM)DowdyPirate Wrote:  How is Boise so high? Their best win is Air Force

Are you new to college football? You keep winning and teams around you lose, you move up. It’s really that simple.

Except Memphis.

Have they not moved up from week one? Keep winning and everything will take care of itself.

Here's another thing to take into account. People are arguing that Boise was a pre-season top 25 and they're moving up because they keep winning. I don't have a problem with that and the perception of them being top 25 preseason.

Memphis was one of just five schools that was said to be favored in every game this year. They play in a conference that has been better. They've played in the conference championship game the last two years against the number 1 G5 team. So why were we preseason in the high 30's? What exactly happened between the stiffs making us favorites for every game this season to not being ranked? What gave them cold feet?

The polls are a joke.

(09-22-2019 05:39 PM)nocoolnamejim Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 04:42 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 02:00 PM)MechaKnight Wrote:  Memphis & SMU are both undefeated and have better wins than Boise, they should be ranked already. Hopefully they jump into the polls next week.

UCF, Temple, and Cincy aren't undefeated, but we all finished 3-1 in non-conference play with a win over a P5 program. The top half of the AAC is still in good shape.

Are TCU and Ole Miss better than Air Force and Florida State? I’m not prepared to say that definitively yet. We will know for sure by the end of the season.

We can take an early look and make some educated guesses.

Ole Miss at 2-2: Wins against an FCS school and Arkansas, which itself just lost to San Jose State, a perennial MWC bottom feeder.

TCU at 1-2: Wins against an FCS school and Purdue

Florida State at 2-2: Wins against ULM (Sun Belt) and Louisville

Air Force at 2-1: Wins against Colorado on the road (also receiving votes for top-25 rankings with two wins over ranked teams) and an FCS school

I would say that it's definitely two soon to tell, but even if BSU had wins over ONE of Florida State or Air Force, it would still be debatable over who had the best win out of BSU, SMU or Memphis.

But they have two such wins...and a win over a Marshall team that went 9-4 last year and won it's bowl game.

Once again, to soon to say (because we really don't know how good any of the teams in question will look a few weeks from now), but to argue that SMU or Memphis unequivocally have a better resume than BSU at this point is highly questionable to me.

Or....
Instead of the opinion of a guy who doesn't even have a cool name, we look at Massey Composite Rankings? As I type this 54 rankings compiled:

TCU #36
Air Force #49
Florida State #58
Marshall #65
Mississippi #70

That too is imperfect (this early you're either dealing with small sample size of stats or in many Rankings still the "preseason" (last years returning production, maybe factor in recruiting rankings) stats). And there is a lot of football left to be played - they may or may not end up in that relative order.

That same Massey Composite has Boise #18, UCF #20, SMU #30, and Memphis #33.

We could then look at remaining strength of schedule (ESPN's FPI makes their calculation of that readily accessible) or strength of schedule full (Massey's rating (not the composite, his own) offers SoS to date and SoS full season), but it's awfully early to put too much effort into that...

(09-23-2019 02:12 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:39 PM)nocoolnamejim Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 04:42 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 02:00 PM)MechaKnight Wrote:  Memphis & SMU are both undefeated and have better wins than Boise, they should be ranked already. Hopefully they jump into the polls next week.

UCF, Temple, and Cincy aren't undefeated, but we all finished 3-1 in non-conference play with a win over a P5 program. The top half of the AAC is still in good shape.

Are TCU and Ole Miss better than Air Force and Florida State? I’m not prepared to say that definitively yet. We will know for sure by the end of the season.

We can take an early look and make some educated guesses.

Ole Miss at 2-2: Wins against an FCS school and Arkansas, which itself just lost to San Jose State, a perennial MWC bottom feeder.

TCU at 1-2: Wins against an FCS school and Purdue

Florida State at 2-2: Wins against ULM (Sun Belt) and Louisville

Air Force at 2-1: Wins against Colorado on the road (also receiving votes for top-25 rankings with two wins over ranked teams) and an FCS school

I would say that it's definitely two soon to tell, but even if BSU had wins over ONE of Florida State or Air Force, it would still be debatable over who had the best win out of BSU, SMU or Memphis.

But they have two such wins...and a win over a Marshall team that went 9-4 last year and won it's bowl game.

Once again, to soon to say (because we really don't know how good any of the teams in question will look a few weeks from now), but to argue that SMU or Memphis unequivocally have a better resume than BSU at this point is highly questionable to me.

Or....
Instead of the opinion of a guy who doesn't even have a cool name, we look at Massey Composite Rankings? As I type this 54 rankings compiled:

TCU #36
Air Force #49
Florida State #58
Marshall #65
Mississippi #70

That too is imperfect (this early you're either dealing with small sample size of stats or in many Rankings still the "preseason" (last years returning production, maybe factor in recruiting rankings) stats). And there is a lot of football left to be played - they may or may not end up in that relative order.

That same Massey Composite has Boise #18, UCF #20, SMU #30, and Memphis #33.

We could then look at remaining strength of schedule (ESPN's FPI makes their calculation of that readily accessible) or strength of schedule full (Massey's rating (not the composite, his own) offers SoS to date and SoS full season), but it's awfully early to put too much effort into that...

I agree with your overall sentiment about "to early".

We're still early enough in the year that the Massey Composite swings pretty wildly week to week. It's got the same issue as the rest of us right now: extrapolating out based on a small sample size.

At this time last year, the Massey Composite had the AAC ranked ahead of the MWC. By the end of the year, that was reversed. Did the MWC suddenly get stronger and the AAC suddenly get weaker? No, but the computers had more data to go off of.

ESPN's FPI is in the same boat. And you can kind of always find examples that are a bit head scratching. Example:

http://www.espn.com/college-football/sta...0902040000

This was after week one when BSU had just beaten Florida State on the road, but ESPN's power index still ranked FSU ahead of BSU.

Basically, we're all just guessing at this point - opinionated posters and the computers alike, and our guesses will get more accurate the further we get into the year when more data changes from "forecast" to "actual".

(09-23-2019 02:56 PM)nocoolnamejim Wrote:  

(09-23-2019 02:12 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 05:39 PM)nocoolnamejim Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 04:42 PM)thespywhozaggedme Wrote:  

(09-22-2019 02:00 PM)MechaKnight Wrote:  Memphis & SMU are both undefeated and have better wins than Boise, they should be ranked already. Hopefully they jump into the polls next week.

UCF, Temple, and Cincy aren't undefeated, but we all finished 3-1 in non-conference play with a win over a P5 program. The top half of the AAC is still in good shape.

Are TCU and Ole Miss better than Air Force and Florida State? I’m not prepared to say that definitively yet. We will know for sure by the end of the season.

We can take an early look and make some educated guesses.

Ole Miss at 2-2: Wins against an FCS school and Arkansas, which itself just lost to San Jose State, a perennial MWC bottom feeder.

TCU at 1-2: Wins against an FCS school and Purdue

Florida State at 2-2: Wins against ULM (Sun Belt) and Louisville

Air Force at 2-1: Wins against Colorado on the road (also receiving votes for top-25 rankings with two wins over ranked teams) and an FCS school

I would say that it's definitely two soon to tell, but even if BSU had wins over ONE of Florida State or Air Force, it would still be debatable over who had the best win out of BSU, SMU or Memphis.

But they have two such wins...and a win over a Marshall team that went 9-4 last year and won it's bowl game.

Once again, to soon to say (because we really don't know how good any of the teams in question will look a few weeks from now), but to argue that SMU or Memphis unequivocally have a better resume than BSU at this point is highly questionable to me.

Or....
Instead of the opinion of a guy who doesn't even have a cool name, we look at Massey Composite Rankings? As I type this 54 rankings compiled:

TCU #36
Air Force #49
Florida State #58
Marshall #65
Mississippi #70

That too is imperfect (this early you're either dealing with small sample size of stats or in many Rankings still the "preseason" (last years returning production, maybe factor in recruiting rankings) stats). And there is a lot of football left to be played - they may or may not end up in that relative order.

That same Massey Composite has Boise #18, UCF #20, SMU #30, and Memphis #33.

We could then look at remaining strength of schedule (ESPN's FPI makes their calculation of that readily accessible) or strength of schedule full (Massey's rating (not the composite, his own) offers SoS to date and SoS full season), but it's awfully early to put too much effort into that...

I agree with your overall sentiment about "to early".

We're still early enough in the year that the Massey Composite swings pretty wildly week to week. It's got the same issue as the rest of us right now: extrapolating out based on a small sample size.

At this time last year, the Massey Composite had the AAC ranked ahead of the MWC. By the end of the year, that was reversed. Did the MWC suddenly get stronger and the AAC suddenly get weaker? No, but the computers had more data to go off of.

ESPN's FPI is in the same boat. And you can kind of always find examples that are a bit head scratching. Example:

http://www.espn.com/college-football/sta...0902040000

This was after week one when BSU had just beaten Florida State on the road, but ESPN's power index still ranked FSU ahead of BSU.

Basically, we're all just guessing at this point - opinionated posters and the computers alike, and our guesses will get more accurate the further we get into the year when more data changes from "forecast" to "actual".

Ahhh no, going into the bowl games the AAC was ahead, we won two bowl games and Boise avoided a beating allowing the MWC to inch ahead.

(09-23-2019 03:03 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  Ahhh no, going into the bowl games the AAC was ahead, we won two bowl games and Boise avoided a beating allowing the MWC to inch ahead.

OR, given that BSU is 12-6 in their bowl games since joining FBS, including 10-5 against opponents currently in a P5 conference, BSU would have been the team delivering the beating to Boston College and BSU would have moved the MWC ahead by more in the final rankings. Given that BSU was the favorite in that game...

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2811...eview-pick

...it's probably more likely that BSU would have won that game vs. taking a beating, moving the MWC further ahead of the AAC in the final composite.

We'll never know for sure of course. But the facts are:

1. This time last year, the AAC had the edge in the Massey Composite.
2. By the end of the year, that was not the case. Last year the MWC finished ahead of the AAC in the final rankings.

Anything beyond that, such as whether or not BSU would have won a bowl game that they were favored in against a P5 opponent when they win 2/3rds of such games with a large sample size, is pure conjecture.