The Final AP rankings had Ole Miss at #16 and Missouri at #23 behind these other 5 SEC schools (Texas, UGA, Tenn, Bama, and USCe). 6th and 7th in a 16 team conference is Middle. This just illustrates the depth of the SEC where the 6th and 7th ranked team in a 16 team conference are perceived as Top teams.
UT got waxed by OSU, and USCe got beat by Illinois. Were they perhaps over ranked? The approach to ranking is itself full of bias.
Yeah, thought it odd that he considered rankings as objective data. After you get past the number 6 team in the rankings it becomes so subjective as to represent little more than a beauty pageant.
I was simply pointing out why they had Ole Miss and Missouri as a “Middle” category in the SEC this past year. If you want to move Tennessee and USCe into the “middle third” and move Ole Miss and Mizzou into the Top third, I’m fine with that. It just makes the ACC look worse by having a "middle" SEC team (USCe) beating a Top ACC team (Clemson).
Again… the SEC has 1-2 more top teams than any other conference in a typical year. Your buckets are going to be equal size.
South Carolina and Alabama already are in the "middle" per this website. They don't have to be moved there. I see what the website does, they don't want to distinguish between teams with an equal conference record, and the SEC had a bunch of teams at 5-3, so they had to put all of those 5-3 teams in the middle. What is odd to me is that they put the 4-4 Florida team in the "bottom" for no apparent reason. As I've already pointed out, they have 10 of the 18 Big 10 teams in the "bottom" tier, when obviously you can't have over 50% of your sample be the bottom. It isn't a bias on their part, in 2022 they had 9 of the 14 ACC schools listed as "bottom", but it is an issue that needs to be corrected if they want their data to be taken seriously.
I’m not using this type of data to fly to the moon, but I think it suggests a lot more than some want to admit.
I agree, and have I've been a huge proponent of occom's razor when problem solving myself.
I'm not sure what you are saying. It looks like you are equating the top 8 teams from the SEC with the top 8 teams from the ACC. I don't think the won-loss data over the past 27 years would be so lopsided if this were true. Keep in mind Texas/Oklahoma only account for 1 game of the 241 played.
Understand. I just like to understand data before accepting it, and if I see obvious issues with the data it grates on me similar to someone running their fingers across a chalkboard. I guess I was also disappointed by this website more than normal because I have been wanting to do something similar to what they purport to do (break down conferences by tiers and compare results between those tiers), but I haven't had the time to do so. I found this website even before it was posted here and was very excited until I realized their tiers are flawed. Like I said, I don't think it is a bias on their part, and the overall takeaway may not change, but their tiers need some work, IMO.
No one has ever said the SEC wasn't a strong conference. It's just that they're not so head-and-shoulders above everyone else like they tout. Note the two SEC teams crying the hardest about being left out of the CFP (with Kiffin) lost. Alabama and South Carolina...did they show they were fallible or that they just didn't want to be there. They lost to a middling Michigan team and Illinois, a perennial B1G bottomfeeder. Let's see how Ole Miss performs.
I think what the data is showing (how teams were tiered) is that within conferences, there is a good bit of parity. There are obvious top top teams and bottom bottom teams, but the 90% in the middle are pretty close. Same thing has been true for the ACC and the SEC.
Texas is not going to lose today.
Wish someone would explain to me how Texas, for the most part, plays way over their heads against weaker opponents and then play like rank amateurs against quality opponents like uga.
I didn't think they would. I was just making a point. I haven't turned on the game yet. I know we're 90 minutes in.
Day ain’t over yet…