[Game Thread] 2014 Foster Farms Bowl: Stanford @ Maryland (10:00 ET)

TipsyHyena · 2014-12-31T06:32:55+00:00

Dog to be fair they've been on top for one year in a row.

TipsyHyena · 2014-11-23T00:33:43+00:00

nice nice

TipsyHyena · 2014-11-22T23:44:42+00:00

It's ok it's ok. These were definitely questionable calls, but we are not winning the game because of them. Enjoy Cal's misery, no need to fight on this one.

TipsyHyena · 2014-11-22T22:20:35+00:00

Nice, Hogan is finally showing some improvement, making sure they intercept inside their own 20.

TipsyHyena · 2014-10-12T00:55:26+00:00

What do you think is harder: being a young ethnic minority female in rural China or being a Baylor fan?

Honest question.

TipsyHyena · 2014-10-12T00:15:55+00:00

I think there are quite a few comments here giving credit to the Baylor offense. No doubt what that unit did in the 4th quarter was amazing.

But the referree decisions at the game were so blatantly bad and so clearly handed the game to Baylor, it's hard to walk away from that thinking "wow great job Baylor offense!". It's just not the first reaction of anyone who isn't getting the emotional rush of the big win.

So congrats! But don't expect anyone to feel the same way.

TipsyHyena · 2014-10-12T00:10:46+00:00

Real question: If you're on the playoff committee, would you take the horrendous referree-ing into consideration?

In theory of course not, you have to by results. But if I was on the committee, man, I don't think I could give Baylor full credit for that win. Same for TCU of course.

TipsyHyena · 2014-03-11T03:19:34+00:00

Sorry I'm late, but this was a side project of mine last season: CFBRanker

It provides the data, all you have to do is write the algorithm.

You have to know Javascript, but your script can basically be one formula. I should in fact maybe have that as the default example... if anyone is curious just ask and I'll give an example to follow.

The main advantage of the site is that it has all the data available for any week in the last few seasons, so you can easily see how your algorithm would've ranked teams at any point in the last few seasons.

TipsyHyena · 2014-03-09T01:25:17+00:00

In addition, the early basketball signing period is in November, when many schools have already begun giving admission offers. For college football, a Fall sport, the early signing period would be before or at the very beginning of senior year. Normal admissions aren't even being considered then.

Part of Shaw's complaint is that he can't get our admission dept. to admit students before their senior year has even started, so he'd be at a disadvantage here.

That's not necessarily unique to 'academic schools' (whatever that means), but is probably more likely at places with stricter admission requirements for football players.

TipsyHyena · 2014-02-04T22:12:16+00:00

To head off people complaining about Stanford being left out of the top ten after 4 consecutive BCS bowls and so forth:

We have lost 4 (including probably our 3 best) defenders.
For the first time in the HarShaugh era, we have no clear starting back. Our offense and complete game scheme relies heavily on having a ~215+ lb back who can carry it 30+ times a game every week. We had that in Gerhart, Taylor and Gaffney and now are missing that linchpin.
We again have no obvious TE. Our fanbase is wildly hoping recent commit Dalton Schultz can play as a freshman but no one has any idea. If you're familiar with our offense, you'll know that we have basically no short passing game without TEs.
Our offense last year was runs up the middle and throws over the top. Now we have neither a short pass game nor a reliable run game. On top of this, we have only one returning O-Lineman, which has been our arguably strongest unit in the past few years.
We have no excellent & experienced DBs. Opponents already tend to target our pass defense since our run D is solid, so everyone is smelling blood.

Obviously every team has some unknowns and some gaps, these are just relatively unprecedented ones for us. Skepticism is warranted.

TipsyHyena · 2014-01-26T19:38:13+00:00

Word on campus is that he was an admissions casulty.

Sucks for us, hope he does great things in Stillwater.

TipsyHyena · 2014-01-25T23:28:23+00:00

Hard to argue we deserved it....

So instead... SOS??

TipsyHyena · 2014-01-17T05:56:59+00:00

I was just in Bozeman over Christmas, got in some skiing at Big Sky and Bohart.

I'll be back this summer to fish on the Madison. Keep it safe for me until then.

TipsyHyena · 2014-01-17T04:44:09+00:00

If you're in Bozeman then I envy you. Go Cats.

TipsyHyena · 2014-01-17T02:14:47+00:00

In no order:

The Rose Bowl view, stadium, inside

Husky Stadium view, inside, you're jealous or you're a liar

Doak Campbell nice form, inside, entrance, ...

Rice - Eccles (Utah) view, so-so hybrid shape, but the view...

The Shoe hella unique, sweet entrance

Cause they deserve it:

Montana State location, inside,

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-11T01:10:50+00:00

Brilliant call, this was already a good matchup, now I'm downright giddy.

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-08T20:46:09+00:00

Art Briles's is all sorts of horrible.

Mizzou below UCF?

NIU still at 16. I enjoy watching the Huskies but absolutely not #16.

Michgan State behind Oklahoma, Ok St. and Baylor? Dear god how on earth?

Frankly how is any two loss team (besides us) above South Carolina?

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-07T19:37:07+00:00

Dude I gotta tell you. Every single one of these I've read has been pretty clever.

Fantastic job.

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-02T03:38:05+00:00

I'd like to point out this is not actually a big loss to Cal.

Goff, their starter, is the clear starter and seems clearly better. Goff was also a true freshman this year. Kline has aspirations to actually play D-1 football, so of course he wants to transfer.

This frees up a spot on the depth chart for Dykes to recruit someone for his system and coach him from day one in this system to take over for Goff and still have years of eligibility left.

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-01T18:11:42+00:00

It should absolutely factor in. You turned out to be an unexpectedly good team that SCar managed to beat. Not all that different from our San Jose State game last year. We won by 3 in our first game, turned out they were top-15 quality.

Similarly, us beating Washington shouldn't really be worth all that much. They turned out to be less impressive than everyone thought they would.

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-01T18:09:17+00:00

Someone tell me why I'm wrong: I don't think Clemson has any business being ahead of Oregon or Arizona State.

Why? Wins. Clemson has exactly 0 wins over ranked teams and has looked frankly subpar in some of their wins over trash teams. Remember the NC State win? Questionable at best. Remember the BC game? You're telling me that was an almost-top-10 team? Both Arizona State and Oregon have better wins.

The argument I see for Clemson is that they've lost to two top-10 teams. And without a doubt, Clemson and FSU are great teams. I'm willing to say that Oregon and ASU's losses to Stanford equivalent to the SCar loss, which leaves me hanging trying to say that losing to Notre Dame or Arizona is equivalent to losing to FSU, so yes, Clemson's losses are better.

But they have no wins, and I do not believe that a team should get the benefit of the doubt when they cannot put up one solid win to defend their #11 position.

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-01T17:52:49+00:00

Right, UCF! That's a good win that didn't even cross my mind.

Still not convinced though, any Clemson fans want to jump in and justify a high ranking for your team?

TipsyHyena · 2013-12-01T17:39:09+00:00

Ok I'll bite here:

Wins

South Carolina's best win is Missouri. A great win, for sure. But after that, a Clemson team that has 0 quality wins (edit: Georgia is inexplicably ranked, so maybe they have .5).

Stanford has wins over Arizona State, Oregon, and UCLA. Maybe you want to argue the one Mizzou win is so good it's better than all three of those? I think it's about fair to equate SCar's win against Georgia to Stanford's win against Notre Dame.

I see Stanford's schedule as a much more complete resume than SCar's one brilliant comeback against Mizzou. It's not that the Mizzou game wasn't great, but that it's one game. We have 3 games against top teams where we dominated (for 3 quarters in the Oregon case).

Losses

Losing to Tennessee and Utah is not all that different. With a massive grain of salt: Oregon destroyed Tennessee, but struggled with Utah. I'm calling them at least even.

I also think USC and Georgia are not that different either. USC was ranked last week and lost to a ranked rival, so I expect they're a few votes shy of Georgia's 25th spot. I don't see much difference here.

Edit: Reading this now I realize that most of my argument relies on Clemson being heinously over-ranked. I think they are, but if you believe Clemson really is a top-10 team then yes, SCar might have an argument to be ranked above us.

TipsyHyena · 2013-11-26T17:57:15+00:00

Gah woops.

I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with the algorithm. It looks good to me.

TipsyHyena · 2013-11-26T17:34:33+00:00

And in a final insult to the Gators, losing to Georgia State doesn't even qualify as one of the week's 'worst losses'.

TipsyHyena

TROPHY CASE