With new conference comes uncharted territory for Utes
by JazzyUte on Jun 20, 2011 12:08 AM MDT
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Utah successfully built itself into a Mountain West Conference power over the last decade and because of that, they were able to win a lot of games. Many of those wins came against lower-level conference foes who struggled sniffing .500 on a yearly basis.
Each year, regardless of how good the overall conference seemed, there were a few gimmie-games littered throughout the schedule. That helped pad the Utes' winning percentage, especially in down years when the program didn't quite have the firepower to contend with the best team(s) in the conference.
That's not a knock on Utah, of course - but reality. It's easier to win ten games in a season when you're facing six opponents with losing records (as Utah did last season).
So obviously we shouldn't expect that in the Pac-12, right?
Well...
In 2010, Utah's opponents finished with an overall record of 81-84 - which isn't entirely all that bad. In fact, in 2008, that record was 78-73 - not including FCS Weber State.
Overall, Utah's 2008 opponents averaged 6.5 wins compared to 6.2 for last season.
The difference, of course, is that Utah won all their games in 2008 and lost three in 2010. Ignoring those losses and the overall record of teams the Utes beat last season drops to 48-78. Dreadful, if you think about it. Those ten teams only averaged 4.8 wins. A big drop from the 6.2 overall.
Much of that was dragged down by San Jose State, New Mexico and UNLV, who had four wins...overall.
But how does that compare with this year's schedule? Well, not counting Montana State, Utah's opponents' overall 2010 record was 64-67 - an average of 5.3 wins for each team.
Actually worse than last year's record by almost a game.
Of course, head-to-head isn't exactly accurate, since it only blindly looks at overall record and not the difficulty of each opponent. Losing six games against Wisconsin, SC, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington looks a lot better than losing six games against Air Force, Florida State, Nevada, Utah State and, sigh, Utah.
The first team was Arizona State and the second, I'm sure you've guessed by now, was BYU.
So let's look at it a bit deeper and go beyond just record by using Jeff Sagarin's 2010 ratings.
Utah played two teams that finished in his top-ten (TCU and Boise State) last year. Notre Dame was 19th, Pittsburgh 32nd, San Diego State 34th, Air Force was 37th, BYU 45th, Iowa State 65th, Wyoming 108, CSU 130, UNLV 131, San Jose State 161 and New Mexico 170.
Obviously the strength there is weighed down by how awful those 1 and 2-win teams were. Overall, the average ranking for Utah's opponents last season was 72nd. That would be like if Utah faced Georgia Southern thirteen times (or something like that).
Now what about this year? Clearly I can't compare 2011 numbers to 2010 because there has yet to be a 2011 season - but using last year's numbers and Utah's schedule breaks down like this: SC at 22nd, Arizona State at 23rd, Washington at 28th, Oregon State at 29th, Arizona at 30th, Pitt at 32nd, Cal at 33rd, BYU at 45th, UCLA at 62, Colorado at 68 and Washington State at 79.
The first thing that should jump out at you is just how good the bottom-half of the schedule will be compared to last year. Utah will not face a team this season that finished ranked 100 or worse in Sagarin's ratings. The closest is Washington State and they're still ranked ahead of five teams Utah played last year - nearly half the entire schedule.
On the flipside, though, the Utes avoid legitimate national championship contenders. Last year, Utah played two extremely good (great, even) teams in TCU and Boise State. There is not an opponent that, at least right now, looks nearly as potent as either of those two teams.
But even that can't balance out the awful stretch seen between Pitt and TCU. 2011's numbers are much improved over 2010 - as their average opponents' ranking is 41 overall.
Even so, there were some good wins last season. The ratings for Pittsburgh, Air Force and San Diego State aren't dramatically different than Arizona State, Washington, Oregon State, Arizona and Cal.
Granted, last year's results don't mean much when you consider teams evolve from year to year, but it does give us a starting point when it comes to figuring out what to expect this season.
Utah's schedule will be difficult, to be sure, but not because there is a great team on it. There isn't. It'll be difficult because there are more Pittsburghs and Air Forces than New Mexicos and UNLVs.
Yet I can't help but think that's a bit balanced out by not having any TCUs or Boise States on this year's schedule.
So it comes down to whether or not Utah can keep an even keel during the entire season. Injuries aside, there is not a team on this year's schedule that the Utes can't beat. They're lucky in that regard. It doesn't mean I'm expecting 13-0 - but I definitely expect more wins than losses.
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Taking away top 10 TCU and Boise St., Utah played 6 decent teams and won five of them (loss to ND). One of the five (Iowa St.) was a blowout win. That leaves us with four wins over above average teams.
Taking a closer look, Utah went into OT at home against an underachieving 8-5 Pitt team. They needed a blocked punt inside the 10 yard line, while trailing in the fourth quarter against SDSU. They needed a blocked FG at the buzzer to beat .500 BYU. And The Utes let Air Force back into the game after leading by 18 in the 4th quarter. The point is, they were all tough games that Utah could have lost had the ball bounced a different way.
All in all, the schedule isn’t top or bottom heavy. The Utes should be competitive in every game this year. You would have to imagine they will be outplayed a couple of times or have an off day and I think a couple of those close games are going to go the other way at some point too.
But I really think the Utes will be okay and the year will come down to the secondary’s ability to defend the pass and the offensive line’s ability to protect Wynn and create some running lanes. From there, maybe we’ll get another couple of key special teams and defensive plays to steal a game or two.
Can’t wait for September.
Well put
Y’all are indeed missing the (projected) top end of the Pac-12 this coming season — though history suggests that at least one of the teams on your schedule will be a lot stronger than expected (I hope it’s UW, but that wouldn’t be my first bet); but what makes this conference tough is the grind. I don’t know how you’d prove it, but I suspect if you compared the worst team in each BCS conference year by year, the Pac’s representative would be at or near the top of that group most of the time.
by The Ancient Mariner on Jun 20, 2011 7:55 AM MDT reply actions
MWC vs Pac-12
This year if we lose Jordan Wynn, we could really be in big trouble. I don’t see any gimme games.
Last year not having Wynn for some of our MWC conference games and for the game against San Jose State, it was not that big of a deal.
from an ASU fan and long time PAC observer
Here’s my appraisal fo the Utes this year.
Utah is like a racehorse moving way up in class. I like the analysis of Phil Steele, he ranks the utes 2010 schedule as #84 and projects the 2011 schedule to be #31—-53 rungs up the ladder. The biggest upward move of any team by far. Presumably this is the probably the reason he dosen’t have the Utes making a bowl—and finishing 4th in the PAC-S.
While I’m not sure UU will be shut out of a bowl, Steele makes an excellent point. IMO—the talent level is middle of the PAC at best. The schedule is very tough—a reasonable expectation in the first 5 is 2-3 or 3-2 at best—with 1-4 a distinct possibility.
Utah can surprise me though—I recognize that. Utah has a nice set of intangibles going for it. An excellent coaching staff (though frankly I think Chow is way overrated), a great homefield advantage in Rice-Eccles, and a superb winning tradition.
The key game is at USC in the PAC opener, a win there establishes the utes bonafides, a bad loss will confirm my first impression.
something else to think about
I enjoyed this article, I felt like it was very fair and even keeled in terms of approach. Also, I want to establish that I’ve been a long time fan of the MWC and specifically enjoyed watching the Utes over the past few years. However, one thing I would like to mention is that the author seems to be discrediting the loss to Boise as having any meaning because they were an “elite” team last year. While I agree that it’s true, they are/were an elite team, Utah got blown away by Boise while one of the Pac’s worst teams in 2010, OSU (they got beat by WSU for God’s sake), lost but was still able to hang around until the 4th Q.
I think more than anything that’s going to be the difference between playing against non AQ opponents vs. AQ opponents…. Elite NonAQ teams have to be exponentially better than their middling AQ opponents to compete every game, day in and day out. I don’t take anything away from the big one-time upsets, those are fun to watch (unless you’re an Alabama fan), but I don’t think they’re indicative of what will happen during a 13 game season.
Oregon State was good until James Rodgers injured his knee.
When Oregon State played Boise, James Rodgers was healthy. They lost to Wazzu after Rogers got injured. It’s a stretch to call OSU one of the worst teams in the Pac-10 last year; they were tied for fifth place in the standings.
Jazzy’s point about Boise State was not to discredit it “as having any meaning.” His point was that some critics have pointed at Utah’s three losses last year and stated that every team in the Pac-12 will be as difficult as those 3 teams. That’s patently false. Some of the teams on Utah’s schedule this season are arguably equal to Notre Dame last year. But no one is expected to be as good as TCU/BSU — both legitimate top 10 teams.
A team on Utah’s schedule could exceed expectations and end up being a top 10 team, but someone else is just as likely to flop. Ultimately, most of the teams Utah plays will end up being above average, as far as the entire Football Bowl Subdivision goes, but not elite. And Utah can play with those teams. Because of a favorable schedule and that fact that USC is ineligible, Utah should be in in the hunt for the Pac-12 South. It’s a question of getting a little bit lucky and avoiding injuries.
Nothing is learned from the fact that you played both TCU and BOISE ST except the fact that you lost...
That doesn’t make you anymore able to stand against a UW (who beat Neb) or an Ariz (who beat Iowa) or an ASU (who came within a point @wisc and almost upset UO) or a UCLA (who beat Texas). Most PAC 10 teams had one maybe two gimmies on any schedule as opposed to five or six. It’s not that UTAH is going to embarrass themselves by any means … But the grind of being physically challenged every week simply hasn’t been part of your past. That is the adjustment that will be painful in years one and two.
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
@chrislandon
Question being, which is closer in a competitive sense?
- to #25? Or #25 to #125?
Does a #25 team have a better chance of beating a #1 team?
Or does a #125 team have a better chance of beating a #25 team?
I would say that the cream rises to the top, but as it does so, it gets pretty darn thick up there. The competitive parity gets more intense. The differences get smaller and smaller, with rosters full of similar great athletes doing similar things. When you’re in the ballpark, you’re in the ballpark. And the Pac-X has a big pile of teams (now including Utah) that are in the ballpark. More of them, in fact, than any other conference.
So what IS it that separates the #25 from the #1? Well, football, primarily. The pointy ball with the crazy bounces. Having a schedule that breaks your way. Staying healthy. Most important, IMO, is steady improvement as the season progresses. Having roster guys who turn into productive starters and eventually, NFL guys.
Every season is different, particularly in the Pac-X. It’s a long-running joke in this conference how reliably wrong the media experts are in picking the eventual champions. USC’s dynastic decade was an aberration, not the rule. Oregon winning it all as the favorite was another aberration last season. The favorites typically go down.
If someone offers you Oregon and Stanford against the field this year, take the field.
I've often pondered this very question
I kinda break it down it down this way.
Under the tales of the curve is the top and bottom 15, there’s relative parity within these two groups.
There’s a steep drop afterward in the metric (IE an average of power rankings) after the top 15 and from 105-121. I also have a very strong hunch that the top 7 teams are a bunch better than the next 13 or—representing the “elite”.
IMO—where the smallest marginal differences lie are in the “squishy middle” say #30-#90.
So the way I look at it a #30 team should not fair well against a true elite (top 7 or 8 team). Most of the so called surprises occur in the middle where teams are not dominant or consistent—so anything can happen.
Baal, I totally agree.
Any given year, I think there are 2-5 teams that could be the best team in the country. After that, you have 5-10 teams that are pretty darn good, but a notch below that elite. After that, IMO, you’re getting to that squishy middle. You could probably make a case for that third tier that’s about #15 to about #35-ish being a level above the rest.
At the other end, there are probably 20 FBS teams that are just awful, which leaves from about #20 to #100 where it’s hard to tell the difference. Obviously, there’s a difference in the extremes, but if #38 were playing at #62, I’d be just as inclined to go with the home team, and most times I’ll be right.
by fountainofute on Jun 21, 2011 10:30 AM MDT up reply actions
i think
the squishy middle is substantially smaller than you think. It’s pretty easy to tell between #30 and #90, for instance (Arizona and Rutgers in Sagarin’s 2010 #‘s), though I’d give #90 something of an upset shot. But on a neutral field, I’d lay 3:1 on the #30 team.
It gets somewhat squishier comparing #40 to #80 (per Sagarin, Miami and Troy), though again you’ve got a clear difference, even if it’s not huge. The really squishy “there’s very little difference here” tends to be more in the #50 to #70 range (Penn St and Georgia Tech per Sagarin, two teams where PSU was better, but GT would clearly have a reasonable shot were they to play each other).
I'd agree with that. I'll confess I'm REALLY generalizing.
Part of what I’d argue is that:
A) When do teams like that (in the squishy middle) ever meet on a neutral field? A meaningless bowl game?
B) Rankings outside of the top 25, or even the top 15 are pretty meaningless. Really, what is the difference between a team ranked in the 40s and a team ranked in the 90s? It could be that one had a tougher schedule than the other. Maybe they’re conference mates, and one got more favorable home matches, etc.
But generally, I agree, you look at two teams and you can usually say “This one is better than that one.” You can see it with your eyes, but putting a ranking on either of them is completely arbitrary, especially if neither is an elite team.
by fountainofute on Jun 22, 2011 10:08 AM MDT up reply actions
well
there’s a reasonable chance they’d meet in the regular season, though rarely on a neutral field; you usually have a few in the same league, such as 50 and 60 (PSU and Michigan); 51, 56, and 67 (Lville, UConn, Cincy); 54 and 63 (Georgia, Tennessee), etc.
It’s a bit harder to think through the issues when you can’t use neutral site, but you do get a much larger data set when accepting that you can’t get neutral site for most of these games. And since home field is usually only worth something like 3.5 points, you still end up with reasonable upset chances for the most part even if they’re on the road.
For point B I’d say there’s a huge difference if you’re accurately measuring team quality, though admittedly there are probably plenty of measurements that fail at this and then essentially just reward weak schedules. Though considering that in 2007 Hawaii was in the AP top 10 before their bowl despite their horrid schedule and abundance of pathetically close wins, I’d say that this bias can show up at the top and not just the middle / bottom (ditto for the annual ranking of a weak MAC/CUSA team or two who get rolled by non-top 25 AQ teams but run the table in their own league and everyone pretends that this is somehow impressive).
I’d also suggest that in almost any remotely reasonable measurement, it should be extremely obvious which is the better team between #40 and #90, and it wouldn’t be just due to getting a favorable league draw or the like. For instance, Sagarin’s #41 was UNC, and his #87 was Virginia. 3 wins apart in league standings is seldom just due to favorable draw.
Ditto for #48 vs #90 (Syracuse and Rutgers, also 3 wins apart in league standings, plus Rutgers’ horrid home loss to Tulane).
Again, I agree
I’m sure we’re closer to arguing the same point than not.
For instance, I’d take your example of UNC and Virginia. A three win difference is pretty significant. Clearly UNC is the better team. How much better? A ranking difference of about 45 spots? What does it even mean?
If both played their schedules again, maybe with a couple different bounces of the ball, or a less windy game, etc. UNC loses one more game and Virginia picks one up. Now there’s only one game difference, much more closely ranked (I assume) and they’re the same teams.
I realize this is a bunch of “if your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle” type of conversations. It’s fun stuff to think about anyway. Football can’t get here soon enough.
by fountainofute on Jun 22, 2011 11:25 AM MDT up reply actions
Oregon was picked as low as 4th by some P10 media folks last year.
And about the same the year before. You will quickly become very familiar with the name “Jon Wilner.” He’s wrong more often than not, but at least his analysis is bad.
Ducks GOOOOD. Fuskies BAAAAAD.
by BigGreenWreckingMachine on Jun 21, 2011 5:13 PM MDT up reply actions
We're familiar with Jon Wilner.
Utah has been on the wrong end of his idiotic AP ballots multiple times. For example, in his final AP ballot of last season, he did not rank Utah, but did rank San Diego State — a team that had one less win than Utah, an easier schedule, and who Utah beat in San Diego.
there are only
120 teams in 1-A. trick question?
Actually, I would say that team #25 has a MUCH better chance of beating #1 than #120 (out of 120) has of beating #25. It’s not exact, of course, but team quality in 1-A resembles a bell curve to a substantial degree. So the odds of #25 beating #1 are generally about equal to #120 beating #96, assuming both games are on a neutral field.
And the data backs up this conclusion. In 2008 Ole Miss was unranked when they beat #1 Florida, and finished the year #14 in AP. In 2007 national champ LSU lost to Kentucky and Arkansas, BOTH of whom finished unranked. In 2003 LSU lost to a Florida team that finished AP #24.
And that’s just looking at the teams who ended up winning the BCS title game. You probably get even more relevant data points if you just look at whoever was #1 at the time of the game.
From original article (via Sagarin)
Utah played two teams that finished in his top-ten (TCU and Boise State) last year. Notre Dame was 19th, Pittsburgh 32nd, San Diego State 34th, Air Force was 37th, BYU 45th, Iowa State 65th, Wyoming 108, CSU 130, UNLV 131, San Jose State 161 and New Mexico 170.
I guess the question was a trick hypothetical…=).
Sagarin ranks strong FCS schools and conferences higher than weak FBS schools/conferences. For example, last year’s FCS champion EWU Eagles ended up ranked 58th.
The distribution of quality certainly varies year to year, but in most years I believe the bell-curve is a bit lop-sided, spiking up a bit on the left (strong) side, and tailing off rather feebly on the right, The truly awful come in a pretty wide range of out-classed ineptitude, while the truly good are all pretty darn competitive with each other. It’s a rare college team that can utterly smoke all comers in a strong schedule.
Speaking of trick hypotheticals, aren’t you due for a name chance pretty soon?
yeah I exaggerated--but
stating my thoughts more precisely, the squishy middle is more like #s35-70, and I’ll hold to that. I’ll make the distinction that I don’t put much stock in polls, rather I prefer a consensus of computer rankings.
Those LSU and UF losses also come with extenuating circumstances—they were SEC games which tend to be close—and frankly I don’t think either result was all that shocking taken in that context. It also would be interesting to see where each team was in the computers, and the pointspreads—LSU was only an 8 pt away fav—Ol Miss a 22pt dog)
This is just a hunch—once you reach the “dregs”—starting somewhere around 80 or 90—these teams are so quantitatively and uniformly bad that the results become rather unpredictable. Certainly much more unpredictable than you allege.
we may
have to agree to disagree about the dregs. From my own #’s, 116 – 120 last year (only counting 1-A) were:
116 Memphis
117 NM St
118 EMU
119 Buffalo
120 Akron
Their results against #’s 90 – 115:
Memphis (1-1)
beat MTSU (#108) by 7 at home
lost to Marshall (#98) by 15 away
NM St (2-2)
beat SJ St (#109), UNM (#115) by 2 each at home
lost to Utah St (#97) by 5 away
lost to UTEP (#93) by 32 away
EMU (1-3)
lost to Ohio (#90) by 13 home
lost to Vandy (#92) by 46 away
lost to CMU (#100) by 36 home
beat Ball St (#114) by 3 away
Buffalo (1-2)
beat Bowling Green (#112) by 2 away
lost to Ohio (#90) by 17 away
lost to Ball St (#114) by 17 home
Akron (0-3)
lost to Ohio (#90) by 28 away
lost to Kent (#105) by 11 away
lost to Ball St (#114) by 7 away
None of them better than .500 against 90-115, none of them with a single win by more than 7 points against that group (and only one by that amount), each of which with at least one loss by 10+ points (the bottom three with 2+)… yeah, that looks like a fairly material and apparent difference in weight class between 116-120 and the 25 who were better. This is especially true when you compare 116-20 with 90-99, as all but one of those games was a double-digit loss for the crappier team, and almost half (3 of 7) were by 28+.
So no, they’re not uniformly bad. Pretty much anyone 90 or worse would expect to get slapped around by anyone good, but there’s a clear difference that emerges when they play each other (and since a large percentage of 90 or worse are MAC, Sun Belt or WAC, you get a good sample of these games between each other).
my stock answer to conclusions made on data sets like this
Your sample size is way too small—one year?? Get real!!
Rigorous analysis demands a sample size at least 10 times bigger!
Mr PT is great at crunching numbers but extrapolating trends from such small samples is truly a ’fools errand".
that depends
on what it is you’re trying to get at. If you’re trying to say “in 2010 Akron was comparable to Ohio”, well, I disagree. If you’re trying to imply that in any given season, even the single worst 1-A team in the country is comparable to, say, #90 (the example I had), again I’d disagree. I’ll grant you that just looking at 2010 is too small a sample size to draw any 100% conclusions from (and especially to draw any exact conclusions over just how big the difference between #120 and #90 tends to be), but it’s fairly obvious (IMO) that in 2010, a material difference existed.
If you want to argue that 2010 was somehow unique, there’s plenty of data out there you can try to use to back up that argument. Sagarin has data going back years and years, and you’re welcome to dig to find a year where that doesn’t seem to be the case. For instance, you could compare his ratings for, say, #1 vs #31 to #90 vs #120 and see if those differences tend to be roughly the same scale or not (based on your argument, #1 vs #31 should be a much bigger difference than 90 vs 120, and if they’re not, then you’d need to come up with a reason why Sagarin is wrong).
btw, if your point instead was that over the long haul Akron’s program is comparable to Ohio’s (not what you said but maybe what you meant to say), then that might be worth investigating further.
His analysis at least trumps your squishy unsubstantiated hypothesis based on gut feel, no?
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
@chrislandon
One hard fact remains.
In the entire 32 year history of Pac-10 football, there was exactly ONE TEAM that posted a perfect season. That would be the 1991 UW Huskies. No losses, no ties, 12-0.
In 2004, USC did the perfect trick, too, but unfortunately, they had to vacate a couple of wins due to sanctions.
That 1991 Husky team was sanctioned, too, but no wins were taken away.
Evidently, the Pac-10 examines it’s runaway winners very carefully, and with a jaded and envious eye. Oregon is slowly reaping the benefits of such an examination today.
Whether perfection happens once in 16 years or once in 32 years, it takes an amazing team to pull it off.
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