[stupac2]

Understood on the metrics.  I should have indicated that I'm in the "lies, damn lies and statistics" camp.  Sample sizes, variables and lack of congruent data prevents any/all statistical analysis from meaning much of anything (ducks).

Well, yes and no. The sample size in football is definitely a problem, but there's a difference between "statistics don't tell us everything" and "statistics tell us nothing". I'm assuming (and this is probably unfair to some extent) that if Stanford were the one ranked #19 and Iowa #4 in these advanced metrics, you wouldn't have as big of a problem. The thing is, that typically when a team is ranked a lot higher in polls than they are in advanced stats, there's a reason. Look at Utah, they were a top-ten team early in the year, but fell apart down the stretch because their flaws were exposed.

I don't know if Iowa has the same issues, but I do know that teams that go 5-1 in close games are usually outperforming their talent level. (And Stanford fans speak with some amount of authority here, the 2012 Stanford team punched way above its weight class.) So it's not particularly surprising to me that advanced stats don't love the Hawkeyes just from a first-order look.

That said, my goal in this thread wasn't really to analyze the matchup directly, since you can just compare each team's advanced stats for that (and that's where the ~6.5 spread comes from). Rather, it's to get an idea of which games in each 13-game sample are most informative for how the Rose Bowl could look, so if someone is interested in (say) how Stanford's offense will look against Iowa's defense, you could watch either MSU-Iowa or Stanford-Washington, and continue the analysis from there. That was my main goal.

Let's just agree that there's probably going to be a thin margin of error in this one and hope for a wonderful game.

I'm with you there.

[stupac2]

Understood on the metrics.  I should have indicated that I'm in the "lies, damn lies and statistics" camp.  Sample sizes, variables and lack of congruent data prevents any/all statistical analysis from meaning much of anything (ducks).

Well, yes and no. The sample size in football is definitely a problem, but there's a difference between "statistics don't tell us everything" and "statistics tell us nothing". I'm assuming (and this is probably unfair to some extent) that if Stanford were the one ranked #19 and Iowa #4 in these advanced metrics, you wouldn't have as big of a problem. The thing is, that typically when a team is ranked a lot higher in polls than they are in advanced stats, there's a reason. Look at Utah, they were a top-ten team early in the year, but fell apart down the stretch because their flaws were exposed.

I don't know if Iowa has the same issues, but I do know that teams that go 5-1 in close games are usually outperforming their talent level. (And Stanford fans speak with some amount of authority here, the 2012 Stanford team punched way above its weight class.) So it's not particularly surprising to me that advanced stats don't love the Hawkeyes just from a first-order look.

That said, my goal in this thread wasn't really to analyze the matchup directly, since you can just compare each team's advanced stats for that (and that's where the ~6.5 spread comes from). Rather, it's to get an idea of which games in each 13-game sample are most informative for how the Rose Bowl could look, so if someone is interested in (say) how Stanford's offense will look against Iowa's defense, you could watch either MSU-Iowa or Stanford-Washington, and continue the analysis from there. That was my main goal.

Let's just agree that there's probably going to be a thin margin of error in this one and hope for a wonderful game.

I'm with you there.