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Week Six Wishes - FarmDad.01 - 10-07-2015


I want Stanford's future foes to have the best possible strength-of-schedule when the Cardinal play them (and I want past opponents to keep winning). Thus, I hope for:

THU:
Condoms (3-1) over Washington (2-2).

SAT:
TD Jesus (4-1) over Navy (4-0).
Duckz (3-2) over Wazu (2-2).
Buffs (3-2) over Solar Satans (3-2).
Utes (4-0) over Sproulsters (4-0) -- to beef up Utah's rankings if, I suspect, that's the team Stanford meets for the PAC-12 title.

The tough one for me in terms of past foes is Northwestern (5-0). I footed tuition there for one daughter (plus at Stanford for another); yet, my four years in Ann Arbor were life-changing, for the better. A Michigan (4-1) win boosts Utah, a Northwestern win makes our opening game loss even less onerous. Sigh... Go Wildcats.

Re: Week Six Wishes - StanfordMatt - 10-07-2015

If, and it's a big if, we run the table the rest of the way, I highly doubt we'll need to worry about strength of schedule when it comes to a playoff bid. I'm on board with rooting for NW because I have nothing against the Wildcats, but I can't bring myself to root for SC, ND or the Ducks. Plus, before we can start worrying about the playoffs, we need to to wrap up the North. Having a two-game cushion over the Ducks sure would be nice just in case we stumble.

Re: Week Six Wishes - stupac2 - 10-07-2015

I am still utterly baffled that any Stanford fan could possible root for ND or USC. There is no circumstance in which you should root for either.

Re: Week Six Wishes - FarmBoy - 10-07-2015

Quote:I am still utterly baffled that any Stanford fan could possible root for ND or Under Stanford Control. There is no circumstance in which you should root for either.

I root for ND in all games except against Pac12 teams. If Stanford is "on the bubble" about going to the playoffs, would it be better for us to beat a ND that is 9-2 and highly ranked or one that is 7-4 and not on the national radar on that final week of the regular season? One of the main reasons for playing ND is the national attention and respect that comes with playing and beating them. It's exposure you can't buy.

Re: Week Six Wishes - stupac2 - 10-07-2015

I don't care. ND deserves about 1/10 of the attention that they get, and the only way that'll ever change is if they suck for a long time. So I want them to suck. Plus when they're good they're more likely to steal recruits from us.

I think this idea of "beating good teams" is too cute by half. Alabama gets every benefit of the doubt and outside of a couple good SEC teams regularly plays no one. FSU played absolutely no one last year and got into the playoff. OSU played a good MSU squad and no one else and still got in with one loss. Playing lots of good teams does not matter. In fact, the recipe seems to be "play 1-3 good conference teams and no one else and lose at most one of those games." Since that's what it takes, why root for ND to be good? The credit we get from the win won't matter*, and the loss will hurt either way. Root for them to suck.

*There's a tiny, tiny chance that if we lose again but beat a good ND team that it'll let us edge someone else out of the playoff, but that depends on so many other breaks going our way I don't think it actually matters.

Re: Week Six Wishes - CornFed - 10-07-2015

That's right, Stupac2.  I will avoid at any cost rooting for ND, S.C, C.al, UO.  Let's focus on where we are now, and what needs to be done next.  If we keep winning, there will be no need to have compromised our souls by rooting for any of those evil teams.  If, and I'm hoping this remains hypothetical, we do lose another game, I will adjust my rooting priorities accordingly.  Even then, if there is any way to justify rooting against ND, S.C, C.al, or UO I will find it.  Only in the most unimaginably dire circumstances will I be able to do otherwise.

Re: Week Six Wishes - StanfordMatt - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 08:52 AM)stupac2 link Wrote:Playing lots of good teams does not matter. In fact, the recipe seems to be "play 1-3 good conference teams and no one else and lose at most one of those games." Since that's what it takes, why root for ND to be good?

+1

Re: Week Six Wishes - washingtonismoney - 10-07-2015

Rooting for ND is particularly foolish since:

1) they are a primary competitor for recruits. Insofar as N.D. appears to be waking up the echoes, recruits will more frequently prefer N.D. to Stanford. Indeed, even though 2011-2015 has been boom times for Stanford and enh-ish times for N.D., more recruits on N.D.'s roster have a Stanford offer than vice versa.

2) When they do win recruits, they don't really beat up on the rest of the conference. For instance, a mitigating factor to UCLA (say) beating Stanford for a recruit is at least that guy can beat the rest of the conference. No such luck with a recruit who spurns Stanford for sunny Indiana.

As Stanford fans, we want N.D. to be egregiously bad.

Re: Week Six Wishes - dabigv13 - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 11:00 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:As Americans, we want N.D. to be egregiously bad.

Fixed.

Re: Week Six Wishes - CTcard - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 08:52 AM)stupac2 link Wrote:I think this idea of "beating good teams" is too cute by half. Alabama gets every benefit of the doubt and outside of a couple good SEC teams regularly plays no one. FSU played absolutely no one last year and got into the playoff. OSU played a good MSU squad and no one else and still got in with one loss. Playing lots of good teams does not matter. In fact, the recipe seems to be "play 1-3 good conference teams and no one else and lose at most one of those games."

I think that is a little too simple description of what happened last year, but your bottom line mostly holds.

Last year the #1 criterion for making the playoffs was the number of losses (well after being in a Power 5 conference).

There was one undefeated team, FSU. They got in.

There were 5 one loss teams, they got all the real consideration for the other spots. At that point, strength of schedule comes into play.

Alabama (Sagarin SOS=2) and Oregon (SOS=20) got in fairly easily.

The question came down to Ohio State, TCU, Baylor for the last spot.
The Sagarin SOS ratings: OSU #29, TCU #51, Baylor #59. (and Sagarin rather liked the Big 12)
Bowl opponents:
OSU = Navy, Va Tech, Cincinnati, Maryland, Rutgers, Penn State, Illinois, Michigan State, Minnesota, Wisconsin
TCU = Minnesota, Oklahoma, Baylor, Ok State, W. Va, Kansas State, Texas
Baylor = Texas, TCU, W. Va, Oklahoma, Ok State, Kansas State

And of course tOSU absolutely destroyed an okay Wisconsin team the final week of the season.

------------
The lesson is that not losing matters the most, no matter what schedule you play. I guess that is another way of saying "playing lots of good teams doesn't matter".  After that, a combination of SOS and impressive late victories separates ties in the loss column.

Re: Week Six Wishes - Ratmandoo - 10-07-2015

Last year, strength of schedule mattered with Baylor's putrid out of conference schedule. Based on the committee's rankings before the final one came out, they clearly wanted to put TCU into the playoffs but they couldn't because Baylor beat them head to head. They didn't want to put Baylor in and reward them for scheduling NO ONE in their non-conference schedule. So that left Ohio State which made things a little easier by destroying Wisconsin in the Big 10 Championship Game.

If we finish 12-1 and Pac-12 champs, we are going to the playoffs. All bets are off with a second loss regardless of how good the rest our schedule is.

Re: Week Six Wishes - FarmBoy - 10-07-2015

We're going to be competing against all the other 1 loss teams for a shot at the playoffs. IMO, every advantage will matter.

The past few years have shown that Stanford can win and recruit even when ND is doing well. You can't rely on other teams being down for your team to be up, and luckily we've shown we don't need to.

If Stanford loses another , I'll be rooting for ND to lose every game. And to be honest, even if they lose every game between now and we play them, I'll find great joy in that scenario as well (although I'll be bummed if the selection comes down to Stanford vs. a Power 5 team with a single loss and we lose out because of SOS arguments).

But if ND became an average football program, why would we want them on our schedule every year? I've enjoyed the games so much because we're playing against top flight talent, often as the under dog, have the national spotlight on us, and because winning it matters.

Re: Week Six Wishes - needle - 10-07-2015

I think OSU last year demonstrates that the playoff pickers are heavily influenced by the outcomes of championship games and near-end-of-season results.

So, in the scenario where Stanford plays ND as the team's last regular season game, it takes on an importance that it otherwise would not. I'm not saying you should root for ND to be undefeated on that date, but, if Stanford is in playoff contention, ND's ranking on that date will matter somewhat, though probably/arguably not as much as margin-of-victory in the game itself.

Re: Week Six Wishes - stupac2 - 10-07-2015

I think comparing OSU to Baylor/TCU on OOC schedule is misleading. As others have noted, OSU got a championship game, presumably if you took that out their SOS would plummet. OSU's OOC wasn't any better than TCU's, Baylor's was pretty garbage though. What really hurt Baylor/TCU is that the Big 12 was beyond terrible last year, offering up no one with a pulse except those teams. That's emphatically not the case with the PAC this year, so we don't need to worry about our OOC as much.

Re: Week Six Wishes - FarmBoy - 10-07-2015

The thing is, we only have ONE year of data on how the teams were chosen and what it boils down to for the teams on the bubble. Trying to extrapolate from what happened last year is a fool's errand as well. The reality is, college football is unpredictable and who knows how those last weeks will shake out. IMO, better safe than sorry. But then again, our wanting the outcomes matters not an ounce regardless, so we can all wish away on our preferred outcome to our hearts content.

Like I said, if ND loses to Navy, I'll enjoy it. If ND is a top team in the country when we meet them in PA in late November and if we're still in the playoff hunt, I'll enjoy it. The one outcome I won't enjoy is is our season falls apart and ND is at the top. But then again, I can't impact any of it regardless.

Re: Week Six Wishes - fullmetal - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 11:53 AM)FarmBoy link Wrote:We're going to be competing against all the other 1 loss teams for a shot at the playoffs. IMO, every advantage will matter.

Preseason rankings as well, unfortunately. 

Re: Week Six Wishes - CTcard - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 12:05 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:I think comparing OSU to Baylor/TCU on OOC schedule is misleading. As others have noted, OSU got a championship game, presumably if you took that out their SOS would plummet. OSU's OOC wasn't any better than TCU's, Baylor's was pretty garbage though. What really hurt Baylor/TCU is that the Big 12 was beyond terrible last year, offering up no one with a pulse except those teams. That's emphatically not the case with the PAC this year, so we don't need to worry about our OOC as much.

I think the point is to compare OSU, TCU, and Baylor on their schedules overall, and in addition how well they performed against that schedule. There isn't any moral judgement here, (i.e. what they "tried" to schedule is irrelevant) just who demonstrated themselves to be a better team to the best judgement of the committee.

OSU was undoubtedly helped by doing well in a conference championship game. That was part of their record, and in particular it was the part of their record most indicative of how well they were playing at the end of the season. Of course if OSU had lost, then one of TCU/Baylor would have been in for sure - Wisconsin already had two losses.

And it's minor, but OSU's OOC schedule was better than TCU's, their IC schedule probably a touch weaker.
tOSU - Navy (8-5), Va Tech (7-6), Kent State (2-9), Cincinnati (9-4)
TCU - Samford (FCS 7-4), Minnesota (8-5), SMU (1-11)

Re: Week Six Wishes - FarmBoy - 10-07-2015

Quote:Preseason rankings as well, unfortunately.

People on Wilner's blog like to discount it all as pointless now that there is a committee deciding the playoffs. But that committee is made up of fallible humans who will be more likely to look at something shiny. The more times Stanford plays teams with #'s next to their names, the more often the committee members are likely to tune in and watch.

Re: Week Six Wishes - martyup - 10-07-2015

Personally, I'm just still thrilled about our game against the Toejams.  There is a lot of football left to play this season and I don't want to even start my mind thinking about our post season prospects.  I just want to insulate myself from the potential heartbreak I will suffer if those damn East Coast body snatchers strike again and we see the Northwestern Stanford team make an encore performance.

Re: Week Six Wishes - Rally - 10-07-2015

(10-07-2015, 02:28 PM)martyup link Wrote:Personally, I'm just still thrilled about our game against the Toejams.  There is a lot of football left to play this season and I don't want to even start my mind thinking about our post season prospects.  I just want to insulate myself from the potential heartbreak I will suffer if those damn East Coast body snatchers strike again and we see the Northwestern Stanford team make an encore performance.

Every long time Stanford fan knows that unshakeable dred deep insid, Marty.