College Football, 1999-2008

As I did the last two years, it's easy to look at the most dominant teams of the last ten years as well. It's the same scoring as yesterday's post, but no seasons before 1999 count:


Surprising no one, USC is the top program of the last ten years. Because recent results matter more, Florida State is hit a lot harder by this measure than by yesterday's rankings over the last 25 years. Michigan is hanging on at #10, but we'll drop further before we start improving again.

College Football

Actual college football is starting. Before the season starts, I should update my own rankings of teams over the last 25 years, as I did after the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

To review, last year's #1 team, Florida, gets 25 points and so on down to last year's #25 team, BYU, which gets one point. Every year you lose one point, so the #1 team in 2007 gets 24 points, the #1 team in 2006 gets 23, etc. This chart takes the 2008 season into account:


East Carolina and Fresno State are eliminated from last year; it looks like Minnesota and Pitt (who may be decent) will be next. Oklahoma State is new this year.

In terms of patterns, Michigan continues its fall. Sigh. We were in the top 5 just two years ago, this year we should be passed by Georgia and LSU. USC continues to move up. The big fall is Florida State, which was #1 the first two years and surely would also have been #1 had I done this earlier, but that program has been fading for years as Bobby Bowden refuses to give up. USC and Oklahoma will probably pass them this year. Miami is matching Florida State in terms of the rate of its decay. I don't know that either one of them will turn it around anytime soon.

Nebraska and Colorado have also dropped, which is reflected both in their reduced score and the inclusion of Kansas and Missouri chasing after them.

College Football Playoffs, Again

As with previous years, I still say that if you support a playoff in college football, you need to decide how many teams to invite. 4? 6? 8? 12? 16?

The problem is that every year the "right" number of teams is different. So in keeping with previous years, lets look at how many teams you would put in a playoff this year (for instance, last year, Ohio State deserved to play the final game against one of 8 other teams that had a case).

This year, how many teams? Eight teams indisputably deserve to be in a playoff, which is to say there's no way to choose between them. Boise State, which went undefeated, would at least have an argument. Here's the updated chart:


This year doesn't help those who advocate for a playoff. If you're going to have a playoff to be "fair", you must invite at least eight teams. The whole idea just doesn't work.

College Football Last Ten Years

Just as I did last year, I can also list the top college football teams of the last ten years, which is probably more relevant to high school kids anyway. Same rules as my last post, but no points for any season before 1998. Last year was Ohio State (ugh), Oklahoma, Texas, and USC. This year:

USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Texas are again the top four, although USC is in first. Look for that to continue next year. LSU is rocketing up the charts. Michigan, Miami, and FSU continue to fade. Hopefully we won't keep slipping.

College Football

As I noted a year ago at this time, there's nothing happening in college football right now. So I figured I'd update the chart of the most dominant programs of the last 25 years. As before, the #1 team last year (LSU) gets 25 points, the #25 team gets one point. Teams lose one point per year, to the #1 team of 2006 (Florida) gets 24 points down to the #24 team, which gets one point, and so on. There are a few changes from last year:


Florida State is still in first, but their lead is shrinking fast, and will shrink again next year. They will lose 18 points, so they must finish #7 just to stay even. Similarly, Miami will lose 17 points. Those programs will eventually start to move up again, but probably not next year. Ohio State is tied for #3; and they only lose 11 points next year, so figure they will continue to rise. Ugh.

The biggest improvement was Missouri, which rode its #4 finish last year all the way to #36. They may well improve again next year, but not as much.

Just one school dropped out entirely. That would be Virginia. Next year, East Carolina and Fresno State better finish ranked, or they're gone. Meanwhile Missouri, Cincinnati, and Hawaii are new to the list.

As for Michigan, we dropped from 5 to 7, and we'll need to finish in the top ten next year or else we'll lose more points. It doesn't look good. Oklahoma and USC passed us last year, and this year could be Texas and LSU.

...getting closer...

I went for a run along the Embarcadero yesterday and ran past the Phonebooth. One of its cool features is that one can see the diamond from outside the right field wall.

When I last ran past a couple of weeks ago it was all torn up (they had one of those motorcycle-jumping-dirt-heaps events there a month ago). Now the grass is green and it looks great.


Which is not to say that the Giants will be any good. They had posters up with their marketing slogan this year. The theme seems to be "______ is a gamer." As in "19 years, 11 Gold Gloves, Omar Vizquel is a gamer."

Ehhhhh, he may be a gamer, but he can't hit. Vizquel was the worst hitting shortstop in the National League by FAR last year. He had the lowest OPS of anyone with 500 at bats and Jimmy Rollins had more than TWICE AS MANY total bases. I suppose he is a gamer, though.

College football playoff

Every year sportswriters uncritically dust off last year's column blasting the BCS, how it's so incredibly confusing (it uses computers!), and insisting that a playoff is the only "fair" way to decide the national champion, and that we "need" a playoff.

As I noted last year, the first, and maybe most obvious, problem with a playoff is figuring out how many teams to invite.

This year's chart is interesting. I said last year that undefeated teams from major conferences indisputably deserve to play for the national title. No such teams exist this year, so major conference champions with only one loss indisputably deserve a shot. As it happens, Ohio State is the only such team. The next group is big, because one must include so many two loss teams. I suppose Hawaii ought to be in the list, barely, because they're undefeated, even if they didn't play anybody. Kansas narrowly made the cut because they're a one loss team from a power conference, even if they missed most of the good teams in the Big 12. I left West Virginia out, but barely:


So if one is going to have a "fair" playoff this year, one needs to invite nine teams.

Of all the reasons against a playoff, I think this is the best one. How many teams? It's easy to criticize, but criticism implies there's a better solution out there. If there is, I haven't seen it.

More college football rankings

Well, the original ESPN rankings were for the last ten years, and my post listed the top teams for the last 25. In the spirit of matching apples to apples, here's a chart of the last ten years.

The data is the same as in my earlier post, but I've only included points gained in the last ten years. It matches even better with the ESPN one: ESPN's top four are USC, Ohio State, Texas, and Florida, and this chart has Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, and USC. The top eight in each chart are identical, the order is shifted only slightly.

One big change, of course, if Florida State's drop. They go from #1 to #8, and they're not even close to the top. Next year they'll probably drop some more. Michigan could pass Ohio State (uhhh, "The Ohio State University", Sybil), but I'm not about to bet on it.

College Football

There's nothing going on this time of year in the world of college football.

That's why ESPN just ran a series ranking every program over the last 10 years. They had people vote on it. They voted USC the top program, and I can't really argue with them.

But I've been thinking about this for a while. I think 25 years is a better time frame. I looked at the final AP polls from each of the last 25 years and assigned points based on where teams finished, so Florida gets 25 points for finishing #1 last year, and Tennessee gets one point for finishing #25. But I subtract one point per year, so Texas gets 24 points for finishing #1 in 2005 and Nebraska gets one point for finishing #24. Et cetera. Penn State got one point for finishing #1 in 1982; nobody else got anything.

It's not perfect, but it is interesting. As a way of measuring programs over the last 25 years, it does a pretty good job. Here are the results:


(click to make it legible)

For those who prefer their data raw (and alphabetical):



From looking at the raw data, it becomes clear why Florida State does so well: 1992-2000.

One thing I like about this system is that old victories are worth less. Florida State will lose 19 points next year because it was ranked high enough in 19 of the previous 25 polls, so if it finishes out of the rankings again, it will have 158 points. Similarly, Miami loses 17 points, so if it isn't ranked it will drop to 146.

To point out one interesting thing, almost all of USC's points come since 2002.

As for Michigan, we take a hit, losing 16 points. For us to gain points, we must finish in the top ten. (I doubt we'll pass Ohio State, which loses just 10 points, thanks to mediocre finishes under Earle Bruce.) If we finish #1, we'll gain 9 (=25-16) points to finish next season with 138. But I'm not counting on it.

300

Not the movie.

I'm mildly obsessed with career wins, specifically 300 game winners. Presently Clemens has 348 and Maddux 337, a rare instance where two pitchers in the top ten are active.

Barring injury, Glavine will almost certainly get to 300 this year--he's at 295 right now and is pitching well. The Very Large Unit is at 282. He won't get there this year. Maybe next year, if his back will let him.

Who's next? No one, not for a while. If we look at active 200 game winners, none of them will get to 300. Mussina's 38, and I doubt he has 59 wins left in him, considering the last four seasons he won 57. He appears to be running out of gas.

Boomer, Jamie Moyer (quick, who knew he had more wins than Pedro or Schilling?), Kevin Brown (why is he on the "active" list?), Kenny Rogers, Pedro (love him!), and now Smoltz, who may have had a chance if he didn't spend four years relieving, but now is making a very strong case for the Hall of Fame...none of them are going to get there.

Looking further down the list, the next likely candidate is Tim Hudson, who's a long 176 wins away. It's possible that he could average 15 wins for the next twelve years. I think a better bet is Roy Oswalt. He's won a lot of games already, but he has to get on a team that score some runs for him. The rest of the list--Buerle, Halladay, Sabathia, etc.--is so far away that speculation is pointless, no matter how good Johan Santana is. It's at least ten years away, probably more. So after Glavine and Randy Johnson, there won't be any 300 game winners until, oh, 2018, maybe 2020.

More on baseball costs

Cho makes a good point, that baseball is still cheaper than other pro sports. It's also far cheaper than college football. When I was at Michigan, students tickets (i.e. the cheapest ones) were $50 apiece, and you had to buy the whole season. Taking a family of four to a Michigan football game is surely well over $300 these days. (Taking a family of four to a Michigan basketball game, ehhhh, perhaps a little less....)

Or consider the movies. If tickets are $9 apiece, and one buys four sodas and four containers of purported popcorn, it could easily cost $60 to see a movie.

Baseball Costs

Every year they come out with a new Team Marketing Report, which chronicles the cost of attending a baseball game for a family of four. It adds up the cost of two adults tickets, two child tickets, four hot dogs, two sodas, two beers, two caps, one program, and parking.

Every year sportswriters uncritically accept this number and wail that baseball is "out of reach for the average American". It is a lot of money. "$287 to attend a game at Fenway, that's absurd!"

It's also completely ridiculous, and I have yet to read a story that points out some of the absurdity. For instance, why the two hats? They're not really part of the cost of the game. You can buy hats anywhere. For that matter, why the two beers? I stopped drinking beer at baseball games years ago when I tired of paying $7 for it. Why always include parking? Along with *thousands* of other fans, I normally take public transit to A's games (and I walk to Giants games). Fenway, for instance, is extremely well served by public transit. For that matter, when I do drive to Oakland, I can just park across the street for free and walk to the game--no $14 parking for me!

But do sportswriters ever bring up these factors? Nooooooo. That would require critical thinking.

However, thanks to Microsoft, it's easy to adjust their chart for a more realistic cost. The following is a modified chart, taking into account 2 adult tickets, 2 child tickets, 4 hot dogs, and 4 sodas.



Whoa! The numbers look a little different! Granted, they're still high, but it looks a lot more reasonable. And kudos to the Yankees! Cheaper than both Houston and St. Louis.

The numbers aren't perfect. The ticket prices are listed as "average"; if one was trying to save money, one might think that the better option would be to buy tickets for special promotional events. But one point of this analysis is that I'm spending about 30 minutes on it. Any sportswriter could also spend 30 minutes and come up with a more interesting story, or they could mindlessly parrot the same story about how it costs $287 to take the family to Fenway.

I think a college football playoff is a bad idea. It's a bad idea for many reasons, but I'd like to look at perhaps the most obvious.

How many teams do you invite?

Much of the chatter in favor of a playoff is that it would be more "fair". I disagree. If we look at the historical numbers we can see why this is.

Every year, there are some teams that indisputably be included in a playoff: the major conference undefeateds. This year, Ohio State is the only such team.

Every year there is also a second tier, teams that if we invite one of them, we must invite all of them. This year, there are two such teams: Florida and Michigan.

The problem is that the number of teams in these categories fluctuates every year. Looking at the last ten years, here's a chart showing how the number of deserving teams varies:



There was some subjectivity in deciding the second tier teams, but not much. (Handy data is available at http://www.soonerstats.com/fb/polls/index.cfm and http://www.jhowell.net/cf/scores/byName.htm.)

So how many teams do you invite? If you have one game, you've got a great matchup in 2005, 2002, 1999, and 1997. The other six years, a one game championship game would be unfair. And so on, for different numbers of games.

If you want more than one game, we always end up with between three and six deserving teams. It's just not possible to create a fair system.

Fortunately, the world keeps turning just fine without a fair college football system. In fact, one could argue that the sport does quite well. There are no shortage of fans. There's certainly no shortage of money! What's the problem with the system we have now?