We can play this game all night long. Clemson barely got by Syracuse (27-23) but ND destroyed Syracuse (35-3). Everybody's (except largely Alabama) has their close games that make you wonder.

I'll break out my 3x4 quadrants ranking shortly on those top 8, so we can see who dominated. I'm not even sure how it's going to play out, except that Alabama will have dominant results across the board. But it will be interesting to see the distribution across top 25%, 26%-50%, and bottom 50% in terms of teams played. That last part is probably going to hurt UCF's case, but until we look at it, it will be hard to say.

I'm going to use Massey's rating, just because it's easier to look these things up. Back with the details later.

EDIT: for reference, this is how Massey rates them - definite SEC love:

Alabama
Clemson
Georgia
Notre Dame
Ohio State
LSU
Michigan
Oklahoma
UCF
Florida

Alright, this exercise contained a couple of surprises for me. As a reminder, I separate the FBS ranks into top 25% (through #32 on the Massey scale), the next 25% (through #65), and the bottom 50%. Within each grouping, I'm grouping by blowout (21+ points), solid win (8-20 points), close win (7 or fewer points), and losses in that grouping. There's a lot that can be quibbled, but I'm looking for some larger trends.


Alabama may have dominated their schedule, but they also played a bunch of patsies.
UCF had an even more lopsided schedule lacking in quality. The only top quadrant win was over Pittsburgh. They were supposed to play UNC, but that wouldn't have helped this year.
Michigan and Georgia appear to have been hurt by their lack of conference championships and 2 losses.
Clemson was solid.
Notre Dame had some squeakers you might not want to see, but they also played 10 games against the top 50% of teams - better than Alabama and Oklahoma. (Big 12 did not measure up at all in Massey - down almost across the board.)

I think many thought Oklahoma delivered some weak wins, but they generally handled everything as expected - a couple closer than maybe average. But Ohio State also showed similar struggles, particularly in that 2nd quadrant. If they had generally delivered solid wins and better in there and didn't have the blowout loss to a middling Purdue, that 4th slot is probably theirs.

(12-02-2018 07:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-02-2018 07:03 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  

(12-02-2018 06:00 PM)Hank16 Wrote:  https://twitter.com/wvua23/status/106906...53344?s=12
Good luck to the transfers...I’m counting three so far...

Jalen Hurts was in a very unique position last year.

1. He lost the starting job at halftime of the national championship game. A big chunk of transfer recruiting is done before that game kicks off.
2. He graduates this semester. Thinking back as of the finish of the 2017-18 season, should he go somewhere new where he won't play at all for a year but can begin to learn their system, or should he stay under the purview of Nick Saban's legendary coaching staff with the promise of at least garbage time minutes during '18-'19?
   

By staying in Tuscaloosa, he finished a decent degree, continued to get phenomenal coaching, got some play time this season, and can reasonably choose to go pro. If he had made a normal transfer last year to another FBS program, his degree might be worse or take longer to get, the coaching might not have been so good, and he wouldn't have had any playing time this year. That lack of play time would have dropped his draft position and could push him to stay in college for the '19-'20 season. He may be a very strong team player at heart, but the most cynical, self-interested decision making process would also land on sticking it out for one more season with the Tide.

He also got to work with new QB coach Dan Enos for a year. I heard several commentators on ESPN, ESPNU, and other places today stating that working with Enos really developed him into a much improved quarterback, and if he is interested (as I think he is) in playing at the next level, that might very well move him up faster in the prospect ranks than anything else he could have done.

Another factor is that he and Tua clearly appear to be both very close friends and deeply committed to their Christian faith. Their close friendship is very apparent to anyone who has watched much Alabama football this year. As for the religion, Hurts's quote was, "I put it in God's hands and He handled it for me."

I agree that circumstances are different for Rice guys to Hurt. You gave great reasons why Hurt should have stayed but seems like he took the adversity head on and instead of taking the “just transfer” approach. he dedicated his efforts for the benefit of the team and he in turn benefited. Seems like Coach B wants guys who buy into the program, if you can’t or won’t then it’s best for both the team and the player to transfer. If you are not graduating this Spring and transfer it will be for playing time and not a better degree.

(12-02-2018 07:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Another factor is that he and Tua clearly appear to be both very close friends and deeply committed to their Christian faith. Their close friendship is very apparent to anyone who has watched much Alabama football this year. As for the religion, Hurts's quote was, "I put it in God's hands and He handled it for me."

Seems like there's another quote out there from a former Florida QB ... something like "I put it in my father's hands, and he netted $150,000"...