Unbalanced: Worse Even Than We Thought

[IdaGriz01]

You play the schedule you’re given. We all agree on that. Now that all but one Big Sky is down to just one game left, I got to wondering just how the ridiculous unbalanced schedule worked out this year. This is not meant to point a finger at any specific team (or teams), but just to show the facts. I did this only in terms of conference games since the mix of OCC games was all over the place.

                     Conf    Cumul   
                    Record  BSC Opp  Winning
North Dakota          8-0    25-31    45%
Eastern Washington    7-0    20-36    36%
Weber State           5-2    25-32    44%
Cal Poly              4-3    32-25    56%
Northern Colorado     4-3    31-26    54%
Northern Arizona      4-3    33-24    58%
Southern Utah         4-3    25-32    44%
Montana               3-4    27-29    48%
Portland State        2-5    28-28    50%
Sacramento State      2-5    24-33    42%
Montana State         1-6    34-23    60%
Idaho State           1-6    35-22    61%
UC Davis              1-6    29-27    52%

I was -- frankly -- shocked at how extreme the differences turned out to be. EWU had what ended up as a cupcake BSC schedule … opponents who collectively managed just 36% wins. And how about poor Idaho State. By the “luck” of the schedule draw, they faced opponents with a cumulative 61% winning record. That added insult to insult, since they played two $$$ games and got buried. Ouch!

 

[HookedonGriz]

Good stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

[EverettGriz]

Love, love, LOVE this clueless POS conference....


:roll:

 

[Brother Bear]

It will be interesting to see what the committee does with this conference on Saturday night/Sunday morning. 14 teams is a huge conference. Very worthy of 4 playoff teams. Unbalanced schedule really is tough.

 

[FCSwatcher]

It will be interesting to see what the committee does with this conference on Saturday night/Sunday morning. 14 teams is a huge conference. Very worthy of 4 playoff teams. Unbalanced schedule really is tough.

Size of conference has no bearing. Quality of the teams in the conference does




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[wbtfg]

Wow. Super interesting.


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[Brother Bear]

I should have clarified, will be interesting to see what they do with the 3rd best conference according to rankings. Will the four bid conferences be rated behind the big sky or does the Big Sky get the respect it deserves with the quality teams in the conference?

 

[grzz]

It will be interesting to see what the committee does with this conference on Saturday night/Sunday morning. 14 teams is a huge conference. Very worthy of 4 playoff teams. Unbalanced schedule really is tough.

Size of conference has no bearing. Quality of the teams in the conference does




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Are you that Ralph guy who used to hang around AnyGivenSatruday?

If size doesn't matter at all, then we need to blow this stupid conference alignment up. We basically have enough teams to be two separate conference with two autobids...it doesn't seem unreasonable that two normal conference would each get two teams in...

 

[Brother Bear]

If we had two 7 team conferences, each of those would "likely" get two teams in, thus 4 Big Sky teams.
I think you would see four 8-3 teams or better for sure.

 

[AZGrizFan]

If we had two 7 team conferences, each of those would "likely" get two teams in, thus 4 Big Sky teams.
I think you would see four 8-3 teams or better for sure.

Except we only have two teams with less than 4 losses left.

 

[marceagfan5]

The top 3 conferences all have this problem, not everyone plays each other in the MVFC, CAA, and Big Sky, it is what it is. I do think the Big Sky is getting too big when Idaho comes on board and we need to look at a split...

As far as the stats in the OP, I don't know if its that telling. Of course the top teams are going to have lower opponent winning percentage figures because they beat everyone, and the bottom teams vice versa because they lost to everyone.

 

[Brother Bear]

If we had two 7 team conferences, each of those would "likely" get two teams in, thus 4 Big Sky teams.
I think you would see four 8-3 teams or better for sure.

Except we only have two teams with less than 4 losses left.

I'm thinking this is more to the unbalanced schedule and the same teams not playing each other. Top end will all beat up on bottom feeders. Then schools fill out schedules with non-conference games they believe they can win or have good chance of winning. Perhaps I'm wrong.

 

[FCSwatcher]

If we had two 7 team conferences, each of those would "likely" get two teams in, thus 4 Big Sky teams.
I think you would see four 8-3 teams or better for sure.

Except we only have two teams with less than 4 losses left.

I'm thinking this is more to the unbalanced schedule and the same teams not playing each other. Top end will all beat up on bottom feeders. Then schools fill out schedules with non-conference games they believe they can win or have good chance of winning. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Your thinking makes sense as far as records go the issue becomes SOS. Look at Lehigh in 2012. 10-1 didn't make the playoffs. They were ranked 8 th when they lost to Colgate, who went on to win the conference and auto bid 8-4 overall 6-0 in conference.


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[Mavman]

You play the schedule you’re given. We all agree on that. Now that all but one Big Sky is down to just one game left, I got to wondering just how the ridiculous unbalanced schedule worked out this year. This is not meant to point a finger at any specific team (or teams), but just to show the facts. I did this only in terms of conference games since the mix of OCC games was all over the place.

                     Conf    Cumul   
                    Record  BSC Opp  Winning
North Dakota          8-0    25-31    45%
Eastern Washington    7-0    20-36    36%
Weber State           5-2    25-32    44%
Cal Poly              4-3    32-25    56%
Northern Colorado     4-3    31-26    54%
Northern Arizona      4-3    33-24    58%
Southern Utah         4-3    25-32    44%
Montana               3-4    27-29    48%
Portland State        2-5    28-28    50%
Sacramento State      2-5    24-33    42%
Montana State         1-6    34-23    60%
Idaho State           1-6    35-22    61%
UC Davis              1-6    29-27    52%

I was -- frankly -- shocked at how extreme the differences turned out to be. EWU had what ended up as a cupcake BSC schedule … opponents who collectively managed just 36% wins. And how about poor Idaho State. By the “luck” of the schedule draw, they faced opponents with a cumulative 61% winning record. That added insult to insult, since they played two $$$ games and got buried. Ouch!

However if Idaho state wins three more games, then their opponents only have a 56% winning percentage! The more you lose the better you opponents winning percentage gets! If no dak goes 4-4 their opponents have a winning % of 51 not 45%.