It's official - Ducks #1 in the BCS

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Users who are viewing this thread

espn_hall_of_famer

Active Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
684
Likes
47
Points
28
With LSU and Oklahoma State losing (and the loser of Oklahoma/Missouri still guaranteed to come in a few hours) they will be at least 0.830 in the computers on Monday. That means about the only way Oregon won't be #1 in the BCS is if Oklahoma somehow leapfrogs Boise State in the human polls (which won't happen because they can't leapfrog BSU on a bye week).

There is a small chance they pass TCU in the Harris poll since that poll was close enough I could see a leapfrog if TCU doesn't run up the score on Air Force. But Oregon could still make up some ground on other computers and make that a moot point as well.

Congrats to Oregon fans.
 
I'm waiting until it's official. I'm still holding out hope that Missouri can beat these guys.
 
I'm waiting until it's official. I'm still holding out hope that Missouri can beat these guys.

Missouri can and will. I've thought Oklahoma wasn't worthy of the number 1 ranking all along. They just haven't impressed me.
 
Missouri can and will. I've thought Oklahoma wasn't worthy of the number 1 ranking all along. They just haven't impressed me.

Unimpressive as they've been, I'm certainly surprised to see Missouri handling them like this. I didn't think that they had anything like this in them

Wait, I just blinked--did Missouri just score again?
 
:ghoti:

Coach Kelley will have Oregon ready for USC. I can barely wait until Saturday.

Incredible. GO DUCKS!
 
I think Auburn is going to lose to Bama in a few weeks. The team I'm worried about is MSU. Their have a cakewalk schedule for the remainder of the season. I'm hoping the computers don't give them a better SOS than ours. They have a legit shot of going undefeated, whereas Auburn really does not.
 
I think Auburn is going to lose to Bama in a few weeks. The team I'm worried about is MSU. Their have a cakewalk schedule for the remainder of the season. I'm hoping the computers don't give them a better SOS than ours. They have a legit shot of going undefeated, whereas Auburn really does not.

I'm not worried about MSU at all, unless of course we lose a game.
 
MSU still has to beat Iowa at Iowa. And even then, if we stay undefeated they have no shot to jump us.

Looks like Auburn/Oregon is THE matchup. Both teams win out, both teams are in the mNC.
 
Looks like Oregon should be around 0.925 to 0.928.

I have Auburn as a close 2nd actually now that I've calculated. They get so much love with two of the top computer schools losing that they also move up 2 spots in most computer polls and they get to move up around Oklahoma's spot in the human polls. So Missouri beating Oklahoma really hurt Oregon since Oregon would have passed Oklahoma in pts. But now Auburn got all of those computer pts and will move up in the human polls with Oklahoma falling. So they'll be around a 0.917 to 0.920 and right behind the Ducks.
 
WOW. I just did some calculations based on the Coaches poll and Auburn blew past TCU and almost caught up to Boise State for #2.

This is going to be VERY close now. That Missouri win could kill Oregon's shot at #1 in the BCS.

Harris hasn't come out yet, but if they get as many votes as they got in the Coaches poll and pass TCU, they'll be around 0.936, which would barely beat our Oregon who will be around 0.933 to 0.934. This is going to be a nail biter, but Auburn probably does deserve it given their schedule and Oregon hasn't played anyone yet and has their real schedule coming starting this upcoming week.
 
Last edited:
I covered the Missouri vs. Oklahoma game for my tv station yesterday. It was a pretty crazy game. This team is a lot better than the team two years ago. While that team had the best receiver in the nation in Maclin, this team is just better all around, with a better offensive line and a good defense. I don't think Blaine Gabbert is all that great of a quarterback, he's solid, but he doesn't absolutely choke in big games like Chase Daniel always did.

This year looks like it might be one of the biggest BCS messes ever. Oregon has a decent chance of going unbeaten. Auburn has some tough games left, but it's still a possibility. If Michigan St. beats Iowa, they will go undefeated. Missouri has a good chance of going undefeated if they get past Nebraska next week, they'll still have to beat Oklahoma or Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Championship game...but if they get past Nebraska, they will at least go through the regular season undefeated...at which point it's a matter of not choking in the championship game.

The winner of TCU/Utah will go undefeated. Boise State will go undefeated because of their cupcake schedule.

Hopefully they can all win out, so there's finally a college football playoffs. It's going to be hard to justify not having one when a BCS team like Missouri, Oregon, or Michigan St. is left out of the championship game against Auburn, while going undefeated.
 
Auburn's both conference and non conference strength of schedule is weaker than ours. Unless there is some magical SEC biased built in, we will be #1.

They've played more ranked opponents than the Ducks through Saturday, so they'll get the computer love since they can't look at margin of victory. The upcoming weeks will even out as Auburn's schedule gets easier and the Ducks start finally playing good teams now.
 
If the Ducks go undefeated this season, and still don't end up the in the NC game, I will give up all hope on the BCS.
 
If the Ducks go undefeated this season, and still don't end up the in the NC game, I will give up all hope on the BCS.

thats pretty much where I stand. I could maybe see Auburn staying #1 as they go through the SEC and a Championship game. But no one else will have THAT much tougher of a schedule to go undefeated through. But I'm trying not to get too worked up about it until when/if it happens.
 
If the Ducks go undefeated this season, and still don't end up the in the NC game, I will give up all hope on the BCS.

I've already given up all hope in the BCS. I'm just hoping that the stars magically align for Oregon this time, and hope that in the future they'll have to institute a playoff.
 
thats pretty much where I stand. I could maybe see Auburn staying #1 as they go through the SEC and a Championship game. But no one else will have THAT much tougher of a schedule to go undefeated through. But I'm trying not to get too worked up about it until when/if it happens.

I just think there's an unfair bias. If you look at Auburn's schedule, it's not really that much tougher than Oregon's. Take their game against LSU for example. That team was waaaaaay overrated, but they were ranked really high, so Auburn gets the points from that. People constantly bring up that Auburn has beaten all these ranked teams, but my contention is that these teams didn't deserve to be ranked that high in the first place. LSU gets a high ranking based entirely on past experience. Virginia Tech is a PERFECT example of that. Boise State points to beating VT, but VT obviously never deserved that ranking at the beginning of the season.
 
I just think there's an unfair bias. If you look at Auburn's schedule, it's not really that much tougher than Oregon's. Take their game against LSU for example. That team was waaaaaay overrated, but they were ranked really high, so Auburn gets the points from that. People constantly bring up that Auburn has beaten all these ranked teams, but my contention is that these teams didn't deserve to be ranked that high in the first place. LSU gets a high ranking based entirely on past experience. Virginia Tech is a PERFECT example of that. Boise State points to beating VT, but VT obviously never deserved that ranking at the beginning of the season.

I agree... I think that biases that exist to start the year never really get a chance to go away.

Does the SEC have a bunch of big non-SEC victories this year? It seems they pretty much load up on cupcakes in non-conference play. Don't get me wrong... they're good, but the system is flawed.

Ed O.
 
I agree... I think that biases that exist to start the year never really get a chance to go away.

Does the SEC have a bunch of big non-SEC victories this year? It seems they pretty much load up on cupcakes in non-conference play. Don't get me wrong... they're good, but the system is flawed.

Ed O.

It's just an east coast thing. These teams are on television all the time back east, so they are seen more often. People on the east coast just aren't going to stay up late to watch the Ducks. The Blazers have the same problem.

I think the entire Pac 10 gets a bad wrap as being weak, but pound for pound I think this conference has some of the most talented players and coaches. How many Pac10 guys are in the NFL or NBA? They just beat up on each other, which makes it that much harder to impress the rest of the country. I'm just hoping that the Ducks can somehow run the table, get to the NC, and stomp whoever comes out of the east. It would be sweet justice and it should shut some people up.
 
Part of the problem relates to the beloved concept of sample size. The coach's poll has 59 voters; the Harris has 114. So a few voters putting Oregon low doesn't impact the whole all that much. The computer rating has only 6 components, so just 2 or 3 of these computers can have a much bigger impact. I would rather they used something like the Massey comparison, which uses 115 different computer rankings, thereby reducing the impact that a single system can have. Some of them provide some ridiculous results (the "smart" system has Oklahoma #52; "Daniel Curry 2" puts Virginia Tech #3), but in the end it averages out to something reasonable.

BTW, if these 115 rankings were to constitute the computer third of the BCS, the rankings would look like this:
1 Oregon
2 BSU
3 TCU
4 Auburn
5 Alabama
6 Missouri
7 Michigan St
8 Utah
9 Ohio St
10 Oklahoma
 
Part of the problem relates to the beloved concept of sample size. The coach's poll has 59 voters; the Harris has 114. So a few voters putting Oregon low doesn't impact the whole all that much. The computer rating has only 6 components, so just 2 or 3 of these computers can have a much bigger impact. I would rather they used something like the Massey comparison, which uses 115 different computer rankings, thereby reducing the impact that a single system can have. Some of them provide some ridiculous results (the "smart" system has Oklahoma #52; "Daniel Curry 2" puts Virginia Tech #3), but in the end it averages out to something reasonable.

BTW, if these 115 rankings were to constitute the computer third of the BCS, the rankings would look like this:
1 Oregon
2 BSU
3 TCU
4 Auburn
5 Alabama
6 Missouri
7 Michigan St
8 Utah
9 Ohio St
10 Oklahoma

Good post. I agree. SEC gets a lot of love due to their "Strength-of-Schedule" against other SEC opponents that are preconceived as "great teams". So when your conference has a half dozen top-25 schools because everyone is in love with them, simply going through your schedule skews the computers. So you need better variety like the Massey to blend out those anamolies that happen earlier in the BCS season like we see now.
 
Good post. I agree. SEC gets a lot of love due to their "Strength-of-Schedule" against other SEC opponents that are preconceived as "great teams". So when your conference has a half dozen top-25 schools because everyone is in love with them, simply going through your schedule skews the computers. So you need better variety like the Massey to blend out those anamolies that happen earlier in the BCS season like we see now.

That's what I've been saying all along. The Pac10 gets raped because there's such a bad opinion of the conference itself.
 
That's what I've been saying all along. The Pac10 gets raped because there's such a bad opinion of the conference itself.

That said, the SEC teams still DO play themselves throughout the year and DO have a conference playoff. So I think the thing a lot of fans (and mainly people that oppose the BCS) don't understand is that all of those preconceived biases begin to work themselves out in the rankings (and accordingly in the computers), which in turn gets the BCS to nearly be 100% accurate by the time this gets into January.

What I mean by that is that like you and I said, the voters and coaches and media folks all have an initial bias after the non-conference and first couple weeks that lead them to think teams like Arkansas, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi State are all top caliber teams. So as teams like LSU or Auburn go down and start beating their own highly ranked SEC brothers, it pumps up their records (not to mention beating a Kentucky team looks good because Kentucky has a high SOS from losing to a bunch of ranked SEC teams). So these handful of SEC teams have high and skewed computer rankings.

But the GOOD NEWS is that as half of these teams start losing games by losing to each other, teams like Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, etc. will start falling out of the top-25 because you simply CAN'T be a top-25 team if you have 4-5 losses, it's impossible for a team to make someone a top team that keep losing games while other conferences have teams with only 1-2 losses. So the BCS starts to adjust Auburn's computer rankings as their strength of schedule continually goes down as those previous opponents all fall out of the top-25. So that is the good news for fans of Oregon.
 
Back
Top