(01-19-2020 12:11 PM)colohank Wrote:  

(01-19-2020 11:21 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-19-2020 12:49 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-19-2020 12:33 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(01-14-2020 12:50 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  Using Massey's matchup widget, I put in Florida's SEC schedule home and away for Navy. 5-3.
Navy's Army, Air Force, ND schedule isn't changing regardless of conference home, so Massey has 8-4 for Navy in the SEC East.

That’s the best evidence posted in the thread. From my eye, Navy was better than a trio of 8-5 teams in Indiana, Kentucky & Tennessee (Massey has Navy 15+ spots above all 3) so that’s an easy conclusion for me to agree with.

I've listened to enough of this hooey now. The service academies quit playing a lot of P5's for a reason. Size differential. Their lines were getting too banged up and too many injuries were amassing. None of these computers take size differential or depth into consideration for their predictions.

Yes, that's the obvious point that some are trying to argue with here. Pretty amazing. They point to Navy vs P5 games here and there - a single game on the schedule or a bowl game - and ignore the likely cumulative effects of getting beaten up by bigger and stronger and more talented players week in and week out.

Essentially, they are arguing that there isn't a significant talent and physicality gap between the SEC and the AAC, which is pretty astonishing.

A talent gap, no doubt, if you're talking about the SEC's top two or three programs. But not so much of a gap if you're comparing the best of the AAC with Arkansas, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, et al. As for size and physicality (athleticism, perhaps?), the SEC doesn't have a monopoly on that, either. The SEC and the rest of the P5 may try very hard to skim the cream, but they never get all of it. Consider also how many talented kids who sign with P5 schools tire of warming the bench and enter the transfer portal each year.

I posted chapter and verse on previous pages about how on any metric - recruiting rankings on the input side and NFL draft on the output side - even the middling to lower SEC teams generally have a clear talent advantage over even the top AAC teams, and that would apply even moreso to Navy, a team that has physical limits for linemen.