PLayoff Rankings

Submitted by Bluenin on
Michigan 24 Sparty 17 F’ing joke!!

G. Gulo of the Dale

November 14th, 2017 at 10:10 PM ^

... Given the state of Stanford's program when Harbough inherited it, pretty much every one of his wins there was an upset.  I have a feeling the Niners also won games they weren't supposed to under Harbough.

To put it differently, Pete Carroll would like a word.  

To put it still differently, have you considered rooting for Iowa or Northwestern?

[By the way, I don't wholly disagree with the sentiment, but "disturbing" seems to be the wrong word, and applied to the wrong coach.]

SpikeFan2016

November 14th, 2017 at 11:23 PM ^

Obviously, the original poster is being completely crazy with his "if we lose the next two games, I'm going to be disturbed" sentiment. We're about to play two Top Ten teams. All is not lost if we lose. 

 

That said, we're about at the point where it doesn't matter what Harbaugh did in the Bay Area at SF/Stanford. Maybe still a little bit, but by this time next year it should mean absolutely nothing to us. 

AA Forever

November 15th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^

It's about getting the team you have to play over its head. Injuries and inexperience don't prevent that. It's all about coaching. Harbaugh has yet to win a game at Michigan that he wasn't supposed to, and that actually is a concern going forward, even if a lot of people here don't realize that.

Wolfman

November 15th, 2017 at 2:08 PM ^

It certainly doesn't outweigh your negative Michigan, positive MSU posts so I'm wondering why you don't use something more team oriented.  We have posters from other teams that are man, or woman enough, to show their true colors instead of giving some half-assed attempt at a post meant to come from a M backer. I really don't know how you have positive numbers unless your "troll group" assigns mo many per month to all those participating in trolling. 

Then again, I've never been one that has understood why certain fans visit the sites of others and what it is they are trying to accomplish. Everyone here understand you're not a Michigan fan so you fail at that one. Everyone here understands you try to make MSU's gift from whatever entity hands out undeserved victories as a coaching victory for Dicktiny over Harbaugh. Basically, you don't dare to embrace a good MSU run, knowing it will come to an end and that end gets closer and closer with each passing birtday for Mickey D. But as long as you're having fun. That is the main thing.

Hard-Baughlls

November 15th, 2017 at 3:01 PM ^

And all true.  Dantonio's greatest victories are always in the underdog role and in shit Midwest weather that closes the talent gap and turns it into a low variance game of chance.

OSU 2015, UM 2017 and PSU 2017 are all examples of "gritty" MSU winning close games in shit weather.  Indeed, his teams are tough and playe to full potential, but these coin flip games will eventually go the other way.

UM 2015 took one of the flukiest finishes in college football history for him to get his victory.  His 2-1 against Harbaugh should not doubt be 1-2, and probably 0-3 if the weather gods cooperated, but whatever, enjoy your fleeting success, as the reversion to the mean is upon us.

In clear weather we saw the real MSU get hammered by OSU last week -the talent gap is enormous.  UM-MSU will have a similar talent gap over the next 3-4 years based on recruiting, and so long as Dantonios rain/sleet dances aren't answered by the football gods, expect to be run over in your annual super bowl game.

Harbaugh's had some bad luck in big games....particularly MSU 2015 and the OSU 2016 ref robbery.  But if he sticks around long enough, the law of averages should see him winning his fair share of big games.

JHumich

November 14th, 2017 at 10:15 PM ^

Penn State's best win so far is against us, and they are still ranked 10th. Maybe we should take that as a compliment.

Or maybe these rankings are total B.S.

It we win @Wisconsin this week, we will have a better win than any of theirs. Do you think that will make us crack the top 10?

Don't hold your breath.

ak47

November 14th, 2017 at 10:27 PM ^

Well they blew us out and that matters, they also lost by 1 to osu and that matters too. Beat Indiana by more than us, beat Iowa which is better than any win we have, beat us which would be better than any win we have, beat pitt which is better than any win we have, beat northwestern which is better than any win we have.  Noticing a trend here? Its that we don't have a win that means shit, psu has at least 5 teams they have beaten better than any team we have. 

Squash34

November 15th, 2017 at 9:21 AM ^

Explain OSU at 9 if getting blown out matters?
And NW in much improved now compared to what they were earlier in the year, and I don't think they are all that good now.
Psu has not beaten 5 teams better than we have. Why do some people completely over- exaggerate on this board to make M look worse?

TrueBlue2003

November 15th, 2017 at 12:57 AM ^

is a 24-point win at Northwestern which is fairly impressive in context.

So they have two blowout wins against currently ranked teams and two very, very narrow losses against ranked teams on the road. They are the only team with at least two losses that doesn't have a blowout loss.  Add in a road win at Iowa, and they're ranked fairly.

G. Gulo of the Dale

November 14th, 2017 at 10:22 PM ^

... but the broader point regarding N.C. State is that they have a worse record than we do and their "best" win is over a 6-4 team who--aside from having a quarterback with name recognition--is not appreciably better than Minnesota and Purdue.  It's not like Louisville is 9-1 or 8-2.

[EDIT:  To be clear, I don't really care where we are ranked this week, since (1) we aren't making the playoff, and (2.) next week we won't deserve being ranked or will deserve to be ranked much higher, depending on the outcome of the Wisconsin game.  This is just a dispute about the logic of the committee's ranking system.]

TrueBlue2003

November 15th, 2017 at 1:13 AM ^

more than any year (from my recollection) has seemed to put a lot of weight into ESPN's Strength of Record metric which takes into account wins and losses, regardless of margin.  So it's more a ranking of "deserving" teams vs. ranking the teams in order of quality.

NC State is surprisingly 18th in that metric with the 9th ranked SOS.  No other explanation for a 19 CFP rank because.....yeah, no wins over ranked teams.  Lost at home to South Carolina who has never been ranked. Beaten soundly by ND. Kind of baffling.  They seem to be getting bumps from beating 7-3 Marshall and I bet the fact they played Furman (FCS) doesn't get accounted for in the SOS rankings they're using which would help their SOS.  Grasping at straws here.

Also, Michigan State is obviously not a very good team.  They have a negative scoring margin!  All their advanced metrics are really bad, like 35th or worse.  But they did beat us in Ann Arbor and they did beat PSU and Iowa and they've played a tough schedule, which puts their SOR at 13 (!!).  So the committee has them at 17 despite those wins being clearly pretty lucky if the committee had actually watched the games.