Top 25 Teams of 2004 - 2009
#47 – 2008 Utah
Why They’re Noteworthy:
They went undefeated, and had a nice 31-17 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Billingsley had them 10th-best of the last six years, Colley had them 14th-best, and Sagarin had them 26th best.
Why They’re Not Top Twenty-Five:
Only having the 53rd ranked schedule was the first negative, but wasn’t the only one. What also kept them well off of the top 25 was the lack of dominance. Even their best win, by 14 against Alabama, wasn’t exactly an ass-kicking, and wasn’t against a true national elite (Bama ended 2008 rated 10th by the model). In two other chances for impressive wins, they beat Oregon St and TCU by only 3 points each (both at home). Throw in major struggles at a sub-par Michigan team (only won by 2) and a mediocre New Mexico team (only won by 3), and it’s easy to see why they didn’t really register as a great team in this model. Throw out margin entirely, and they could move a bit up on this list, but the schedule was poor enough to even then make them questionable for the top 25 of the last six years.
#15 – 2004 Utah
Why They’re Top Fifteen:
The highest-rated non-AQ on this list, 2004 Utah was a really good team, a fact that sometimes gets lost in the historical shuffle. Their schedule (ranked 53rd) was nothing special, but they dominated it like few others, never winning by single digits, winning nine times by 20+ points, and five times by 30+ points.
Why They’re Not Top Ten:
The schedule. They did about as well as humanly possible against their schedule, but there’s a ceiling to how impressive any achievements can be against a schedule that didn’t even sniff the top 25, much less the top 10 of difficulty.
about 1 month ago
MrPacTen
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Funny, because according to them both teams had a 53rd-ranked schedule.
That can’t be right. Must be a typo in the 2008 ranking because there is no way a team with 4 top-25 opponents is ranked 53rd in schedule difficulty, no matter how many UNM/UW/CSU/UNLV type teams are included.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jul 26, 2010 2:36 PM MDT up reply actions
no typo
it was rated above average, but not by much.
0 is the midpoint, so @ Air Force about cancelled @ USU. vs CSU about cancelled @ UNM. @ SD St about cancelled vs BYU (not rated a top 25 team, though they weren’t that far off). @ Michigan, vs UNLV and @ Wyoming didn’t cancel vs Oregon St and vs TCU, but it was fairly close.
So basically, it was rated a average schedule plus the Bama game. The mean in 1-A is actually above 0, mainly because the crappy teams don’t play bowls, so the 60th schedule is generally a over 0.
FWIW, the 2004 Utah schedule was actually rated a touch tougher than the 2008 one. This was entirely b/c the MWC was rated better in 2004 (3-0 bowl record, 4 OOC ass-kickings by Utah against AQ teams, a few other things) than 2008 (3-2 bowl record, a few other things).
Side note: the 2004 A&M / Arizona pair was rated tougher than the 2008 Michigan / Oregon St pair, which goes against some peoples’ expectations (Michigan blew in 2008, and A&M was a bit better than people thought in 2004, especially early).
That's why I don't take SOS rankings as serious as others...
Anyone who followed the MWC in 2004 would know the Mountain West was terrible that year.
It was probably, outside of 2006, the weakest year in recent history for the conference.
2008 beats it by a mile.
I mean, BYU had yet to leap back onto the national stage (coming off their third consecutive losing season), TCU was still in the C-USA, Colorado State and AFA were quickly fading and UNLV, along with SDSU, were their typical selves.
Only New Mexico and Wyoming were okay teams that year and even then, the Pokes and Lobos were 7-5.
So no. the MWC didn’t go 3-0 in bowls that year (New Mexico lost to Navy in the Poinsettia).
Gotta agree with pinkie here.
There is absolutely no way in hell the 2004 MWC is tougher than the 2008 MWC. First, 2008 MWC had two top-25 teams outside of Utah (2004 MWC had zero). Second, 2008 MWC had a good AF team (8 regular season wins, even with the bowl loss), plus an average 7-6 CSU team. The 2004 MWC had only 2 bowl teams (outside of Utah) and they were both horrible (6-win Wyoming who got shut out by A&M and lost to CSU and BYU, both teams with losing records, and 7-win New Mexico who lost to bad OSU and WSU teams plus 4-win Air Force). 2008 MWC is way tougher than 2004 MWC. Plus:
Alabama is much better/tougher than Pitt
OSU is much better/tougher than A&M (OSU lost only to ranked teams like Oregon, Stanford, Utah and Penn State; A&M lost to Baylor and got blown out by an average Tenn team in the Sun Bowl)
USU is the same in 2004 and in 2008 (actually, the 2004 team was 3-8 and pretty much non-competitive in the Sun Belt and the 2008 team was 3-9 in the WAC, a tougher league,but regardless, we’ll count them as equal.
So the only issue is 3-9 Michigan v. 3-8 Arizona. Let’s call that a toss-up, although I suppose you could give this edge to the 2004 team by a slim margin.
So, to sum up, Utah’s 2008 opponents, both in conference, out of conference, and in the bowl game, are significantly tougher than the 2004 opponents. In fact, if you want to rank opponents I would rank them as follows for both years:
2004:
1- Pitt
2- A&M
3- New Mexico
4- Wyoming
5- BYU
6- AF
7- Arizona
8- CSU
9- SDSU
10- UNLV
11- USU
2008:
1- Alabama
2- TCU
3- OSU
4- BYU
5- AF
6- CSU
7- UNM
8- Michigan
9- Wyoming
10- UNLV
11-SDSU
12-USU
So if we take out the 2008 middle team (CSU) then we have the following comparisons straight across (2004 opponents listed first):
1- Pitt v. Alabama. Pitt was a borderline top-25 team, even before the Fiesta Bowl. Alabama was a national-title level team. 2008 wins.
2- A&M v. TCU. TCU was a top-10 team, A&M was barely a bowl team. 2008 wins.
3- OSU v. UNM. OSU was a borderline top-25 team, beat USC. UNM was barely a bowl team and had some bad losses. 2008 wins.
4- Wyoming v. BYU. Again, BYU is a top-25 or borderline team, Wyoming is barely a bowl team including a IAA win. 2008 wins.
5- BYU v. AF. BYU is a 4-win team, AF is a 8-win team with a pretty good resume. 2008 wins.
6- AF v. UNM. Here’s where it starts to get tricky. 2004 AF was pretty bad, 5-6 with a IAA win, but 2008 UNM was pretty bad too, at 4-8 with some bad losses, including UNLV. In the interest of giving 2004 the benefit of the doubt, let’s call this close one for 2004. Current tally? 5-1.
7- Arizona v. Michigan. Funny how this works out. Michigan is a better team going through a regime change. Arizona is also regime changing, but they’re not as good as Michigan. One more for 2008.
8- CSU v. Wyoming. Tough. Both 4-win teams (4-7 and 4-8 respectively). 2004 CSU has a IAA team but also beats bowl-bound wyoming. 2008 Wyoming has a IAA team but beats bowl-bound Ohio and non-bowl-bound but still a good name Tennessee. I guess give this one to 2008, but it’s very very close.
9- SDSU v. UNLV. Both garbage, but 2008 UNLV wins 5-7 with some good wins v. 2004 SDSU at 4-7 with a IAA team plus a bunch of losers.
10- UNLV v. SDSU. UNLV wins this one, 5-7 v. 2-10. One more for 2004.
11- USU v. USU. Both teams are 3-win teams, I can’t call it. It’s a tie.
Total tally: 2008 opponents – 8; 2004 opponents – 2 (and two horrible wins of 10 and 6); Tie – 1 (USU sucked horribly both years).
So, no reasonable person would put these schedules in the same category. 2008 crushes 2004 by any measure.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Jul 27, 2010 6:26 PM MDT up reply actions
a good argument
here’s the flip side, with a different list, though keep in mind this is the model’s numbers, with no nods to helmet status, reputation, recruiting rankings, etc.:
(2004 first, 2008 second)
1) A&M vs Alabama: good-sized edge Bama
2) UNM vs TCU: huge edge TCU
3) BYU vs Oregon St : major edge Oregon St
4) UNC vs BYU: good sized edge BYU
5) Pitt vs Air Force: small edge to Air Force
(seems like a fair edge to 2008, but…)
6) Air Force vs Michigan (3-9, lost to TOLEDO): good-sized edge Air Force
7) Wyoming vs CSU: good-sized edge Wyoming
8) CSU vs UNM: good-sized edge CSU
9) Arizona vs UNLV: good-sized edge Arizona
10) SD St vs Wyoming: huge edge SD St
11) UNLV vs USU: good-sized edge UNLV
12 USU vs SD St: minor edge USU
So, at the top level, 2008 had it tougher, but 2004 only had two lousy opponents (UNLV, USU) while 2008 had three (Wyoming, USU, SD St) and two more not that weren’t so hot (UNM, UNLV). So on average, that’s actually an edge to 2004, though 2008 had an extra road game so that largely cancelled it.
Some more individual notes:
2008 USU rated better than 2004, though not by much
2004 BYU had five, not four wins, including one over ND (and their OOC overall was unusually tough, with ND, Stanford, USC, and Boise). They’re better than you think. They rate below 2008 (duh), but not by all that much.
2004 A&M rated much better than you thought, 21st overall that year (8-4 and a VERY tough schedule). Also worth noting that they started the year pretty strong, and didn’t fall apart until late (and Utah played them early)
2004 CSU vs 2008 Wyoming is NOT close. Wyoming did beat Tennessee (in a down year), but got slapped around at home 45-16 by Bowling Green (AWFUL loss) and barely held off a really bad Ohio team, also at home. They beat up SD St but were otherwise consistently uncompetitive in MWC play. 2004 CSU only had three 1-A wins, but were generally competitive in MWC play (incl. three league wins)
2004 Arizona vs 2008 Michigan was reasonably close, but AZ > MI. Unless you want this to be a repuation ranking, anyway. Remember, Toledo. That was just pathetic.
2004 SD St > 2008 UNLV. 2004 SD St only went 3-7 in 1-A games, but two of their losses were at Michigan and UCLA (back when both of them were good), and they damn near beat Michigan (21-24). Utah and BYU slapped them around but they were otherwise VERY competitive in MWC play. 2008 UNLV did beat a pair of “AQ” teams, but both were 3-point OT wins, and ASU was very mediocre, and ISU was so bad that it was actually kind of a crappy showing to let them take UNLV to overtime. UNLV got slapped around by a mediocre Nevada team, and didn’t exactly dominate a REALLY bad Utah St team. Again, it’s not just record, scores and schedule strength matter.
I could throw in more examples if you like, but I think the given list is reasonably descriptive of the point the model is making.
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