Poll Watch - Miss State #1 in the Country?
I'm wide awake and bored so sorry for the threads. :) Arizona just fell as their FG kicker was positively Detroit Lions 2014 like so we had a much more quiet top 10 than last week when there was a massacre.
I am putting Miss State #1 as their win over Auburn was more impressive than a still quite impressive road win by Ole Miss. In fact I could make a case these are the top 2 teams as of today but I think FSU will retain enough votes to be #2.
Baylor won via some miracle v top 10 TCU, ND beat an underachieving North Carolina that a team like ECU destroyed earlier this year, and 2 dropped INTs by Purdue saved Staee. Bama just got by Big Bert.
It will be interesting to see how far they drop Auburn - out of top 10? Do they get favor for being in the SEC and losing to #3? Voters absolutely demolished Oregon last week for losing to Arizona dropping them a few spots below a team they beat by 19 in week 1. Doesn't make sense but as they say its when you lose.
Impressive wins by Oregon and Georgia while Oklahoma's offense continues to struggle but beat Texas. OSU was helped by doing nothing and probably Nebraska too.
Here is my top feel for how the top 15 will shake out - feel free to comment on your thoughts and yes as with last week this has nothing to do with us but its CFB talk.
- Miss St Mullens 6-0
- FSU Crab Legs 6-0
- Ole Miss Bowties 6-0
- Baylor Bears 6-0
- Fig Things 6-0
- Alabama 5-1
- Auburn 5-1
- Staee 5-1
- Oklahoma 5-1
- Oregon 5-1
- Georgia 5-1
- Ohio 4-1
- TCU 4-1
- OK State 5-1
- Arizona 4-1
Just outside: Kansas State, Arizona State, East Carolina?, Nebraska, Texas A&M?, Utah
October 12th, 2014 at 2:29 AM ^
Oklahoma and LSU both seem to be falling fast from what they did last decade.
October 12th, 2014 at 2:30 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 2:29 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 2:38 AM ^
As would I. FSu has been underwhelming all year. I think Miss State will however get the first place votes and Ole Miss might not get enough to overtake FSU. But it will be interesting.
Things must be f****** crazy in Mississippi right now. If they both somehow make it to the Egg Bowl undefeated the state might shut down for a month.
Ole Miss has TN, LSU in the next 2 weeks which will be a "break"; Miss State has Kentucky and Arkansas which on paper could both upset an emotionally spent team. This is the time of year you start seeing teams get careless and lose to a WTF team with lesser talent, especially on the road.
And FSU has Notre Dame in Florida next week so one of those 2 will suffer a loss.
October 12th, 2014 at 2:32 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 2:41 AM ^
Terrible out of conference schedule, and LSU/TAMU aren't very impressive wins as the season drags on. TAMU's AP ranking is still based almost entirely on them thrashing a South Carolina team that's turned out to be downright bad. The Auburn win was a very very good win, but Auburn sort of gave it away to them. I dunno. Ole Miss certainly has a better eye test going for them with all that highly ranked speed/viciousness on defense, and the Bama win is more than anything on Miss State's schedule.
I'd have Ole Miss number one for now, but I think next week's Florida State/Notre Dame winner jumps them. This is finally the year where the SEC has taken a really obvious step back. There's only 4 good teams in the whole league. The "SEC gon' get two schools in the playoff Paaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwl" thing is dead.
Big Ten champion is back in the playoff hunt now. I thought Michigan State's 4th quarter issues were due to struggling with their conditioning against no huddle teams, but Purdue made a 4th quarter run against them. I don't like Sparty against Ohio this year.
For right now, I'd go 1. Ole Miss 2. Florida State 3. Miss State 4. Baylor 5. Notre Dame 6. Oklahoma 7. Oregon
October 12th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^
Ole Miss would be number 1 on my ballot simply because their defense is awesome. Miss St has the most impressive win against Auburn, but the "eye test" tells me that Ole Miss is a more complete team.
I hope both of these teams are undefeated by time the Egg Bowl comes around. That'd be an unreal atmosphere.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:02 AM ^
Didn't watch MSU game but they have issues on pass defense. Our best chance of winning is passing every play to Funchess/Darboh. We might throw some interceptions but running into their front is going to get you nowhere as we saw last year with Borges.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:08 AM ^
Hazell had a smart game plan. He did almost nothing up the middle unless it was deep passes (which were few and far in between). It was all outside short and intermediate passing as he had a young QB. He did a ton of the plays that Oregon did to MSU, flooding 1 side of the field with stacked WR set and then throwing to one of the three and letting them make YAC. We tried something similar with bubble screens (not the same play but a loose variant) and we got blown up by PSU twice. So we dont seem to have the capability.
After drawing MSU outside on the short to intermediate passes over and over that opened up the middle of the field to run some. They had some gash plays in the run but it wasnt huge success - just enough to keep MSU guessing.
Purdue's OL did a mostly respectful job (except for 3rd Q) in keeping the QB protected.
Hazell said before the game there are ways to exploit MSU and he fulfilled it. Their whole defense is about destroying the run by loading the box and then having you try to beat their secondary guys 1 v 1 which Purdue was able to do insofar as their talent allowed. But frankly their QB is a lot more accurate than DG right now. You have to spread MSU's defense out wide and hit them over and over on the outside to get them away from their focus on the middle of the field.
Their safety play is quite bad this year - they benched 1 starter for Montae Nicholson already and the other Drummond was getting exploited by Purdue all day today. There are plays to be had but with Sudfeld hurt today the only team I see able to do damage to them where it is needed is OSU and maybe Maryland. And Maryland has no run game just like us. Teams with viable QBs and some sophistication in their passing game like Baylor or Oregon (duh) would feast on their defense. Not many of those in the Big 10.
October 12th, 2014 at 8:19 AM ^
Problem for us is that Penn State, and pretty much every opponent since UConn last year, has played us just like you described State playing. And we've shown that we can't/aren't willing to adjust.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:09 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 8:25 AM ^
You would think that the SEC has fully saturated the market - at least by looking at the Massey Ratings - with 5 of the top 10 schools there being SEC schools and 7 of the top 20 on their system. By contrast, the Big Ten has zero share in the top 10 on Massey and one school in their top 20 as of this morning - MSU.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:11 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 8:12 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^
I don't know whose Karma it is but it's a bitch...
October 12th, 2014 at 3:12 AM ^
Mississippi State #1, Baylor #4, Michigan unranked...I can't live in a world like this.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:13 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
There are always teams looking for a good coach. Let's say Miss St wins the championship. If he cashes in at that point, he looks like a coaching whore. There are plenty of those in college sports and if he is the stand up guy he seems to be, I doubt he will want to have that kind of reputation.
October 12th, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
I agree, if Miss St manages to win it all, it will be tough for Mullen to leave. In that case, it will be Miss St writing the checks. If they lose a couple games, they still have 'Bama and Ole Miss on the road, then I think Florida and Michigan are in play. Stay tuned for further developments.
October 12th, 2014 at 3:15 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 4:35 AM ^
Auburn should be the top ranked 1 loss team followed by Oregon. The Alabama offense has been very inconsistent all year. Oregon has to go back in front of MSU. They beat them plus their win @ UCLA is better than any win MSU has or could get this year.
Miss St. I would have number 1. I expect FSU to smash ND next week. UNC is pretty terrible and the ND defense won't get away with that against a team with a good offense and defense.
October 12th, 2014 at 8:25 AM ^
Sparty has still beaten no one and has had scares from Nebraska and Purdue. They may waste us this week but they are the most overrated ream right now.
Oregon destroyed a highly ranked UCLA team
This proves the system
October 12th, 2014 at 8:44 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 8:53 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 8:57 AM ^
If Taylor Kelly is healthy for ASU they will also shred that ND defense.
ND also manages to only play 4 actual road games this year, which is a joke. One of them is against Navy. They should be penalized for doing that.
October 12th, 2014 at 9:21 AM ^
#1 MIssissippi State
#2 Ole Miss
#3 FSU
#4 Notre Dame
#5 Auburn
#6 Baylor
#7 TCU
#8 Bama
#9 MSU
#10 Georgia
October 12th, 2014 at 3:04 PM ^
The Mississippis one and two and Michigan at the bottom, who woulda thunk it?
October 12th, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
My season tickets are in the first row behind the visiting bench. By the time it was 14-0, Auburn looked defeated. The came out after halftime with some fire, but not enough!
October 12th, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
Mississippi State was only just climbing into the rankings. Apparently we're ahead of schedule.
In the next five years, Boston College and Mississippi State will probably be the nation's top teams; Bama experiences some sort of scandal and their run comes to an abrupt end; Minnesota climbs atop the Big Ten only to get thrashed by Arizona in the Rose Bowl, and Washington probably becomes inexplicably good too.
October 12th, 2014 at 10:59 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 11:27 AM ^
October 12th, 2014 at 11:29 AM ^
They need to lose at some point so that Mullen can become our coach. If they win the NC there's no way he can leave.
October 12th, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
2) Ole Miss
3) Auburn
4) FSU
5) Oregon
6) Bama
7) mich st
8) TCU
9) Baylor
10) ND
I'm not ranking Baylor ahead of TCU because of the refs
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October 12th, 2014 at 1:24 PM ^
Do you really think TCU was winning that game even without the PI call? They couldn't stop Baylor.
October 12th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^
based on Sagarin ratings and an assumed standard deviation of 15 of (VictoryMargin - Spread)
Sagarin would now have us as a favorite versus Indiana. The likelihood of bowl elgibility moves up from under 3% to 12%.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/
Likelihood of winning each remaining game
| Proj Spread | Opponent | Win Likelihood | Sagarin Rank | Last Week | Sagarin Rating |
| Mich | 69 | 80 | 68.49 | ||
| ----------- | -------- | -------------- | ------------ | --------- | -------------- |
| -20.6 | @MSU | 8.4% | 14 | 14 | 85.84 |
| 2.6 | IU | 56.8% | 66 | 58 | 69.21 |
| -8.0 | @NW | 29.6% | 53 | 41 | 73.23 |
| -4.0 | MD | 39.6% | 43 | 38 | 75.73 |
| -20.6 | @OSU | 8.5% | 15 | 17 | 85.78 |
Probability Distribution of Regular Season Record
| Reg Season Record | Likelihood |
| -------------------- | ---------- |
| 3-9 | 15.4% |
| 4-8 | 39.6% |
| 5-7 | 33.0% |
| 6-6 | 10.7% |
| 7-5 | 1.3% |
| 8-4 | 0.05% |
October 12th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
1) Miss State
2) Ole Miss
3) FSU
4) Auburn
5) Baylor
I flip flopped back and forth between Miss State and Ole Miss as #1, but Miss State has the more impressive resume right now. 3 straight wins over top-10 teams. Ole Miss did beat Alabama and I give them credit for that, but they also just beat what now looks like a severely overrated Texas A&M team, which got that way for beating a severely overrated, and likely very bad South Carolina team. Besides, as of now Miss State isn't just beating their opponents. They're dominating them. Ole Miss needed a late comeback to beat Alabama. Its nitpicking, but I have to go with what I see. Still, the Egg Bowl this year is setting up to be an epic showdown.
Notre Dame remains at 6 for me because, quite frankly, they haven't really beaten anyone outside of Stanford and needed a last minute TD to do that. Giving up 40 points to an abysmal NC team at home isn't that inspiring either. They might make the playoff, especially if they beat FSU this weekend, but they will get absolutely curb-stomped by any combo of Miss State, Ole Miss, or Auburn if they get there. Either way, I'm not pegging them to get past FSU, and their playoff dreams likely end there.