(12-15-2014, 10:47 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Oh, I would worry about this game. If this were a regular season game I'd feel pretty comfortable with the result. But bowl season is invariably weird and odd stuff happens. Since I think Stanford is better than Maryland in a normal situation, weirdness is only a problem for us.
Two points in this thread I would comment upon.
One is to echo that Bowl games tend to be weird. Lots of upsets and blowouts.
Teams with a month off tend to react very differently than when playing once a week.
The second is on Utah.
Utah is the kind of weird team that wins a lot compared to what one might expect from standard statistical measures. For example, Utah got outgained in each and every game they played versus a Big 5 conference school save one (and that was a near thing, they outgained Colorado by 6 yards - out of 440). Most of those by a lot. Yet Utah also won 8 games this year and were competitive in 3 of 4 losses. They won on special teams and not making mistakes. Sort of like Stanford 2012 - though somewhat more extreme.
I think that most power-metrics/advanced stats tend to downgrade teams that win in that manner. Maybe that is appropriate and the team was lucky. Maybe that is inappropriate and there actually is skill involved in playing mistake-free and winning close games. Probably some of both.
So who is closer to being correct, the pollsters/cfp committee who have Utah 22/23, or the computer based rankings that tend to have Utah in the 30+ range?
