Week One SEC review

As long as Richt is the hc, it's a toss up

 

Stats back this up

 

not enough eyeball test yet, but UGA basically walked to the line for the entire 4th quarter and said "we're running kitchen sink right, see if you can stop us." Clemson's answer was clearly no. Clemson as a measuring stick, on either side of the ball, is a farce at this point.

 

meh, he'll eventually get someone like Al Wilson who'll provide the accountability he's incapable of or unwilling to provide. At that point, the talent is clearly capable of winning. His teams look a lot like the Manning led Vols, who had talent all over but nobody around to make them realize it or utilize it properly for entire games / seasons.

 

Clemson has an SEC DL

 

so does Vandy.

 

I mean, a DL equivalent to a good SEC team.

 

brother, if you look like that at the point of attack, the front 7 has serious problems, regardless of conference or anything else.

 

So UGA doesn't pass the eyeball test because Clemson sucks, and Clemson sucks because UGA ran over them?

 

they passed it so far, but I'm not sure there's much to base it on. If they did that and Clemson proves solid, then there's something to go on.

My point was that there isn't yet enough eyeball test.

The current assumption that FSU, AL and the like suck while UGA is the flavor of the year baffles me. We're one game in and don't really know the quality of either side of the ball for many of the teams being debated.

That said, if a team can come to the line and tell you where they're running and still get it done without breaking tackles and running over people, your team isn't very good.

 

I grappled with these questions (all written by me):

http://www.rockytoptalk.com/2014/9/2/6095879/sec-football-power-rankings-week-1

Fwiw, I was advancing your very argument. Not that I'm sure it's right. Oh, and the 5-30% thing is a Mizzou joke that keeps getting funnier.




A Note About Methodology

This ranking is meant to be prospective in nature. It will do it's best to ask which teams would win if they played tomorrow, and then rank accordingly. A prospective ranking looks at the same evidence as a retrospective ranking -- it necessarily has to; the past is all we got -- but instead of formlessly using that evidence as an end in and of itself, it attempts to use that evidence as an answer to the question we all wanna know: who is actually better at the game of football if they played a game of football on a neutral field tomorrow.

Having settled that, the next question is what evidence do we use to come up with this ranking? Later on in the season, this question isn't really a question at all, but early in the season this is important enough to denote. There are two directions you can go in early-season rankings and both are arguably a mistake.

1. The first arguable mistake you can make is look at the results of the games at the exclusion of all other evidence, with the all other evidence being all the evidence you used to form your preseason rankings. Not taking this evidence into account necessarily results in a knee-jerk overreaction ranking, and overrating teams while being fully aware that you're overrating teams.

2. On the other hand, you can give too much weight to your prior assumptions and ignore the evidence in front of your face and you've already formed an assumption about what the rankings should be and "by God, Tennessee always loses to Florida." Both schools of thought are at least 5-30% flawed. We're not quite sure which one is closer to 5% flawed and which one is closer to 30% flawed. But both are at least 5-30% flawed.

Before we start, let's take a look at the best preseason rankings (best in terms of having a statistical basis, even if we disagree with them) to give us some idea of what reasonable prior assumptions would look like. That way, when we look at the evidence in front of our face, we'll have some context instead of "O-M-G the Aggies are winning the Nattie!"

So now that we have an idea of what reasonable preseason predictions might have been, how do we handle the inherent contradiction between what-we-thought and what-we saw, especially if one of us favors one factor over another? Fisticuffs, wet willies, and chocolate swirlies, among other things... and among the other things, we think that competing schools of thought and constructive arguments based thereon (with the more-than-occasional 'ARE-YOU-[FULMERIZED]ING-KIDDING-ME?', result in good, if difficult, compromises, and therefore arguably better rankings.

You can tell us in the comments if you think our rankings are awesome or less than awesome. But, ultimately, let's be serious, they're probably awesome.

 

Found a gem from a vandy fan on 247sports calling for the upset of Ole Miss this weekend...


"Call me crazy but I saw potential in this team last week. I know the talent we have on this team. Last week was a major wake up call for not only these young guys, but every single one of the coaches. Keep in mind that many of these guys had never played a college snap before. Every member of this team will adjust and come ready to play on saturday. I have faith in my team no matter what, and I truly think we will win this game against Ole Miss. We as fans have to do our job and show up on saturday in our black and gold and let the players be resilient and come out with the W against the rebs! Don't give up, fellow dores! We will be back."

 

Sweet, we may get a fresh meltdown.

 

I've rarely seen a coach with as much of a deer in headlights look as mason had last Thursday

 

Yep. His QB rotation had a "fire everything!" sort of desperation vibe to it. No rational thought.

 

It's stupid shit like this that led to Dooley getting three ****ing years here to drive our program as deep into the dirt as possible.

That dude must be a closet vol fan. He has the volnation posting style down perfectly.

 

Fantastic.

 

A couple years of quasi-success and look what happens. I will shamefully enjoy watching the Commodores grind their 3 fans' hopes and dreams into the dust.

 

No joke. He fielded a lot better team than what the score indicated. Raising a lot of questions around here very early in his tenure.

 

he was a great dc at Stanford. of course he wouldn't be the first guy who couldn't handle the leap from coordinator to head coach. the look on his face basically said "I have no idea what the hell is going on."