(11-06-2023 01:16 PM)Lord2FLI Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:14 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:09 PM)Lord2FLI Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 12:50 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 12:48 PM)Lord2FLI Wrote:  This entire thread is a troll, why bemoan one instead of all?

You think posting stats is trolling? I'm fine with people talking smack if they have data to back it up.

I absolutely think you're trolling.

Why? Because you don't agree with the Massey stats?

I don't think you know what trolling means.

Why? Because I've been reading your posts for the last month now, all you do is troll. You aren't looking for discussion, just a nice pat on the ass.

I don't remotely consider Yosef181 a troll. Instead, I feel he simply tries excessively hard to say "Look how good the Sun Belt is." That's not trolling (though some might argue it's a sign of insecurity).

I get along fine with Y-181 and he has been cordial toward me. He has even given credit to the AAC in a few posts.

Yosef181 simply strongly likes the Sun Belt and strongly dislikes some of the AAC posters on this board. I find it a bit odd. But I don't consider him to be a troll.

(11-06-2023 02:25 PM)Lord2FLI Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 02:14 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 02:01 PM)Lord2FLI Wrote:  My guy, I didn't stutter, I typed it, this thread. You've already been given one very important point to consider and dismissed it out of hand as dumb. I'm curious, after your above "I'm holy" rant will you ignore the other points being made or if you'll also dismiss them as irrelevant since they are not the pat on the ass you are looking for.

Disagreeing with someone is not what trolling means my dude. Not sure if you've read the thread or not, but I've already said I agree with the notion that most people only care about the best G5 schools, not about which conference is the best from top-to-bottom. Basing the "best G5 conference" off of 1 team per conference (the NY6 race) is dumb, and I stand by that, because a conference is more than 1 team.

And yeah, the Sun Belt might finish as the #1 G5 conference in Massey for the first time ever? You bet I'm going to post about that. I remember when Conference USA didn't want Appalachian State, and the only FBS conference who wanted us was the worst FBS conference. The SBC was constantly in last place in Massey, every year. That was 10 years ago, when App was added. Yeah, I'm excited about where we are now in comparison to then, and I'm going to post about it. I'm not going to apologize simply because you don't like it.

I figured it'd take some more back and forth before you admitted to what I was saying, I find myself rather surprised.

I watched people on these boards/threads make fun of the "Slum Belt" and the "Sun Belch" for years. There's some pride knowing how far the conference has come, mostly because I know my school had a big role in it. It was our only option, and it has worked out about as well as it possibly could.

The idea that, as soon as next year, App could (theoretically) be in the CFP by winning the Sun Belt? That's exciting for a league that used to consistently be the worst FBS conference by a number of metrics, and I feel the progress deserves recognition.

If some people see that as "trolling", I'm not sure what to say about that, other than "I disagree". Others on here are allowed to be just as prideful without putting any resources behind their thoughts, and they don't get questioned.

(11-06-2023 02:32 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I don't remotely consider Yosef181 a troll. Instead, I feel he simply tries excessively hard to say "Look how good the Sun Belt is." That's not trolling (though some might argue it's a sign of insecurity).

I get along fine with Y-181 and he has been cordial toward me. He has even given credit to the AAC in a few posts.

Yosef181 simply strongly likes the Sun Belt and strongly dislikes some of the AAC posters on this board. I find it a bit odd. But I don't consider him to be a troll.

Well, we all have our own issues. Part of insecurity is the state of being open about threats and uncertainty. Just because the Sun Belt is at the top of some of these metrics now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. We just got there this season. "The night is young."

I'm not someone who is going to scream "Sun Belt is the best" when we clearly aren't. You'll probably see less posts from me when/if we fall off, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it.

(11-06-2023 02:55 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 02:32 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I don't remotely consider Yosef181 a troll. Instead, I feel he simply tries excessively hard to say "Look how good the Sun Belt is." That's not trolling (though some might argue it's a sign of insecurity).

I get along fine with Y-181 and he has been cordial toward me. He has even given credit to the AAC in a few posts.

Yosef181 simply strongly likes the Sun Belt and strongly dislikes some of the AAC posters on this board. I find it a bit odd. But I don't consider him to be a troll.

Well, we all have our own issues. Part of insecurity is the state of being open about threats and uncertainty. Just because the Sun Belt is at the top of some of these metrics now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. We just got there this season. "The night is young".

I'm not someone who is going to scream "Sun Belt is the best" when we clearly aren't. You'll probably see less posts from me when/if we fall off, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it.

I respect you overall, Y-181. You are passionate about AppState and the Belt. And I do find you to be consistent with your arguments overall, which is commendable (even if I don't always agree with you).

Having said that, I do feel you sometimes are a bit "earnest" in your wanting to sing the praises of the Belt. I'm a Middle Tennessee State grad/fan and it doesn't bother me when folks playfully and/or accurately jab C-USA. But everybody handles school/league spirit differently. And I respect your right to defend the Belt and give the league props.

In some respects, I probably dislike the AAC homers more than you — but my reasons for the dislike are likely vastly different than your reasons (and there is nothing wrong with that, of course).

(11-06-2023 01:48 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:42 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:33 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:28 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 12:40 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  [/b]

I'm sorry, but this argument is so dumb. I see people repeating it all the time, and it's just dumb.

A conference is more than just one school. The AAC is more than just Tulane.

If you want to argue that no one cares which G5 conference is better from top-to-bottom, then fine. But to suggest one conference is the best from top-to-bottom because they have one specific team? That's short-sighted.

The average fan can't name 5 of the 14 Sun Belt teams. But you expect everyone to compare UL Monroe to East Carolina?

Sunbelt has 4 appearances on ESPN.
- Arkansas State getting blown out by Oklahoma week 1
- Coastal Carolina losing to UCLA week 1
- Georgia Southern beating Coastal Carolina on a week day
- JMU beating Marshall on a week day

That's all the average college football fan has seen from Sun belt. 2 lopsided losses to P5 teams and 2 week day conference matchup designed for gambling addicts to watch.

Read the prior response. Again, if you want to argue that no one cares about who the top G5 conference is, and most people only care about the top team, that's fine. I understand that perspective, and I don't disagree with it.

That doesn't change the top-to-bottom conference performance stats though.

The Massey isn't a Stat? The Massey is a ranking based on a probability curve.

Its compounding the "Style Points" bias. The average margin for victory is higher in the Sunbelt than the AAC. So JMU is feasting on cupcakes and that boosts their ranking which feeds into the conference ranking. Tulane is beating teams by a slimmer margin because the conference is more competitive. Without the style points, the conference ranking suffers. So Top to Bottom the AAC is better but the Massey probability curve can't account for it because it uses margin of victory to rank teams and conferences.

Well, Tulane seems to be struggling in conference games - three recent ones - but I doubt games between conference teams (I never know whether to say "intra" or "inter", LOL) impact conference rating much, because when Tulane beats ECU, the conference gets a win and also a loss. Same with MOV, if JMU beats Louisiana-Monroe by 40, that's a 40 point win for one SB team, but a 40 point loss by another, so it should basically cancel out, I think.

It is the OOC games that likely largely determine a conference's ranking. And the AAC has been very poor OOC this year, especially compared to years past. And if JMU is feasting on weak OOC teams while Tulane is struggling against tougher ones, then yeah, the MOV edge will go to the SB, but the SOS edge will go to the AAC. And while I do not know the makeup of these formulas, I imagine SOS is at least as important as MOV in these things. But maybe not.

That's what happens when you lose winners like UCF and Cincy and pick up six teams from the dreadful CUSA that seemed to have been picked more for "market" than for ability. IMO, it would be rather remarkable if this year's AAC wasn't considerably weaker than it has been in the past.

Just MO.

TEAM CONF OVR
Tulane 5-0 8-1
SMU 5-0 7-2
UTSA 5-0 6-3
Memphis 4-1 7-2
Florida Atlantic 3-2 4-5
South Florida 2-3 4-5
Navy 2-3 3-5
UAB 2-3 3-6
Rice 2-3 4-5
Charlotte 2-3 3-6
North Texas 1-4 3-6
Tulsa 1-4 3-6
Temple 1-4 3-6
East Carolina 0-5 1-8

Newbies are even with oldies this year. If you throw out SMU who is leaving, the newbies are +5. 5 of the 8 oldies have losing conference records. along with 4 of the 6 newbies.

(11-06-2023 08:33 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  Those aren't Massey composite rankings, they are the Massey rankings themselves.

Sagarin has them (centrally weighted, overall division is given as the average of the simple average):

1. SEC West
2. Big Ten East
------- SEC
3. Big12
4. SEC East
------- Big Ten
5. PAC-12
6. ACC
7. Big Ten West
8. Sunbelt East
9. Mountain West
------- Sunbelt
10. American Athletic
11. Sunbelt East
12. I-A Independents
13. MAC West
------- MAC
14. MAC East
15. CUSA

So the overall conference ranks are:

1. SEC
2. Big12
3. BigTen
4. PAC-12
5. ACC
6. Mountain West
7. Sunbelt
8. American Athletic
9. MAC
10. CUSA

Not that I disagree with the results, but as a general rule, Massey is absolutely one of the worst computer models out there. Its spits out a lot of nonsense.

I do like the composite he does.

(11-06-2023 03:37 PM)bullet Wrote:  ... Not that I disagree with the results, but as a general rule, Massey is absolutely one of the worst computer models out there. Its spits out a lot of nonsense.

I do like the composite he does.

I do not know whether it was last year or the year before that, but Massey previously did a conference rating based on the Massey composite.

But, yes, this one is based on Massey itself, so it's filtered through just one algorithm.

_________________

(11-06-2023 01:34 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 11:57 AM)UofMstateU Wrote:  ... The same objective measures that said AFA had a 92% chance to beat Army, when AFA got smoked and was never in the game? ...

... Well, I imagine that 90% of the humans, whether CFP raters or whatever, thought AFA would beat Army as well. I think the subjective views probably got it wrong as well.

Quite. If a lot of people thought that Army had a decent shot of winning the game, the point spread would have been less than 17.5.

(11-06-2023 01:56 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:53 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:51 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:28 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 12:40 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  [/b]

I'm sorry, but this argument is so dumb. I see people repeating it all the time, and it's just dumb.

A conference is more than just one school. The AAC is more than just Tulane.

If you want to argue that no one cares which G5 conference is better from top-to-bottom, then fine. But to suggest one conference is the best from top-to-bottom because they have one specific team? That's short-sighted.

The average fan can't name 5 of the 14 Sun Belt teams. But you expect everyone to compare UL Monroe to East Carolina?

Sunbelt has 4 appearances on ESPN.
- Arkansas State getting blown out by Oklahoma week 1
- Coastal Carolina losing to UCLA week 1
- Georgia Southern beating Coastal Carolina on a week day
- JMU beating Marshall on a week day

That's all the average college football fan has seen from Sun belt. 2 lopsided losses to P5 teams and 2 week day conference matchups designed for gambling addicts to watch.

So losing to UCLA by 14 is a lopsided loss, but Tulane losing to Ole Miss by 17 is a narrow loss.

AAC Fanboy logic at it's best.

It tells me you didnt watch the Tulane/OleMiss game.

I see you are going off the fact that Tulane-Ole Miss was tied after 3 quarters, right?

And Ole Miss woke up and crushed Tulane in the 4th quarter, like many good teams will do.


And I also would say that you didn't see the CCU-UCLA game, where CCU was trailing UCLA by a single point after 3, and UCLA dominated the 4th quarter.

Want to try another excuse?

If you didnt watch the game at least look at the box score more closely. Tulane was down by 7 with about 3 minutes left in the game. Ole Miss kicked a FG to go up by 10 with less than 2 minutes left. Note that Tulane attempted an onside kick so Ole Miss only had to advance a few yards to attempt a FG. When Tulane got the ball back they fumbled a couple plays later and Ole Miss added a TD to their margin.

(11-06-2023 01:56 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:53 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:51 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:28 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 12:40 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  [/b]

I'm sorry, but this argument is so dumb. I see people repeating it all the time, and it's just dumb.

A conference is more than just one school. The AAC is more than just Tulane.

If you want to argue that no one cares which G5 conference is better from top-to-bottom, then fine. But to suggest one conference is the best from top-to-bottom because they have one specific team? That's short-sighted.

The average fan can't name 5 of the 14 Sun Belt teams. But you expect everyone to compare UL Monroe to East Carolina?

Sunbelt has 4 appearances on ESPN.
- Arkansas State getting blown out by Oklahoma week 1
- Coastal Carolina losing to UCLA week 1
- Georgia Southern beating Coastal Carolina on a week day
- JMU beating Marshall on a week day

That's all the average college football fan has seen from Sun belt. 2 lopsided losses to P5 teams and 2 week day conference matchups designed for gambling addicts to watch.

So losing to UCLA by 14 is a lopsided loss, but Tulane losing to Ole Miss by 17 is a narrow loss.

AAC Fanboy logic at it's best.

It tells me you didnt watch the Tulane/OleMiss game.

I see you are going off the fact that Tulane-Ole Miss was tied after 3 quarters, right?

And Ole Miss woke up and crushed Tulane in the 4th quarter, like many good teams will do.

And that clueless comment confirms you didnt watch the game.

(11-06-2023 05:11 PM)PicksUp Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:56 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:53 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:51 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:28 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The average fan can't name 5 of the 14 Sun Belt teams. But you expect everyone to compare UL Monroe to East Carolina?

Sunbelt has 4 appearances on ESPN.
- Arkansas State getting blown out by Oklahoma week 1
- Coastal Carolina losing to UCLA week 1
- Georgia Southern beating Coastal Carolina on a week day
- JMU beating Marshall on a week day

That's all the average college football fan has seen from Sun belt. 2 lopsided losses to P5 teams and 2 week day conference matchups designed for gambling addicts to watch.

So losing to UCLA by 14 is a lopsided loss, but Tulane losing to Ole Miss by 17 is a narrow loss.

AAC Fanboy logic at it's best.

It tells me you didnt watch the Tulane/OleMiss game.

I see you are going off the fact that Tulane-Ole Miss was tied after 3 quarters, right?

And Ole Miss woke up and crushed Tulane in the 4th quarter, like many good teams will do.


And I also would say that you didn't see the CCU-UCLA game, where CCU was trailing UCLA by a single point after 3, and UCLA dominated the 4th quarter.

Want to try another excuse?

If you didnt watch the game at least look at the box score more closely. Tulane was down by 7 with about 3 minutes left in the game. Ole Miss kicked a FG to go up by 10 with less than 2 minutes left. Note that Tulane attempted an onside kick so Ole Miss only had to advance a few yards to attempt a FG. When Tulane got the ball back they fumbled a couple plays later and Ole Miss added a TD to their margin.

And UCLA scored late twice against CCU.

Again, why is one a lopsided loss, and the other a narrow loss?


You guys are picking and choosing narratives to fit your bias, and ignoring similar circumstances and only looking at the final score of those

(11-06-2023 03:33 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:48 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:42 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:33 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(11-06-2023 01:28 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The average fan can't name 5 of the 14 Sun Belt teams. But you expect everyone to compare UL Monroe to East Carolina?

Sunbelt has 4 appearances on ESPN.
- Arkansas State getting blown out by Oklahoma week 1
- Coastal Carolina losing to UCLA week 1
- Georgia Southern beating Coastal Carolina on a week day
- JMU beating Marshall on a week day

That's all the average college football fan has seen from Sun belt. 2 lopsided losses to P5 teams and 2 week day conference matchup designed for gambling addicts to watch.

Read the prior response. Again, if you want to argue that no one cares about who the top G5 conference is, and most people only care about the top team, that's fine. I understand that perspective, and I don't disagree with it.

That doesn't change the top-to-bottom conference performance stats though.

The Massey isn't a Stat? The Massey is a ranking based on a probability curve.

Its compounding the "Style Points" bias. The average margin for victory is higher in the Sunbelt than the AAC. So JMU is feasting on cupcakes and that boosts their ranking which feeds into the conference ranking. Tulane is beating teams by a slimmer margin because the conference is more competitive. Without the style points, the conference ranking suffers. So Top to Bottom the AAC is better but the Massey probability curve can't account for it because it uses margin of victory to rank teams and conferences.

Well, Tulane seems to be struggling in conference games - three recent ones - but I doubt games between conference teams (I never know whether to say "intra" or "inter", LOL) impact conference rating much, because when Tulane beats ECU, the conference gets a win and also a loss. Same with MOV, if JMU beats Louisiana-Monroe by 40, that's a 40 point win for one SB team, but a 40 point loss by another, so it should basically cancel out, I think.

It is the OOC games that likely largely determine a conference's ranking. And the AAC has been very poor OOC this year, especially compared to years past. And if JMU is feasting on weak OOC teams while Tulane is struggling against tougher ones, then yeah, the MOV edge will go to the SB, but the SOS edge will go to the AAC. And while I do not know the makeup of these formulas, I imagine SOS is at least as important as MOV in these things. But maybe not.

That's what happens when you lose winners like UCF and Cincy and pick up six teams from the dreadful CUSA that seemed to have been picked more for "market" than for ability. IMO, it would be rather remarkable if this year's AAC wasn't considerably weaker than it has been in the past.

Just MO.

TEAM CONF OVR
Tulane 5-0 8-1
SMU 5-0 7-2
UTSA 5-0 6-3
Memphis 4-1 7-2
Florida Atlantic 3-2 4-5
South Florida 2-3 4-5
Navy 2-3 3-5
UAB 2-3 3-6
Rice 2-3 4-5
Charlotte 2-3 3-6
North Texas 1-4 3-6
Tulsa 1-4 3-6
Temple 1-4 3-6
East Carolina 0-5 1-8

Newbies are even with oldies this year. If you throw out SMU who is leaving, the newbies are +5. 5 of the 8 oldies have losing conference records. along with 4 of the 6 newbies.

The noobs are more than holding their own inside the conference. But they are doing much more poorly OOC, and it is OOC that basically determines a conference's standing.

The legacy schools are 8-4 vs other G5. The noobs are 2-7 vs other G5. That is likely what is killing the AAC when compared to the SB and the MW.