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| Friday, November 3 Va. Tech didn't win 19 in a row by accident By Chris Fowler Special to ESPN.com | |||||
If you don't already hate us for our good fortune, check out what the Gameday gang gets to do this weekend: snag a redeye after calling the BYU-Colorado State game, blast to Miami to be ringside for the showdown with Virginia Tech at high noon, jump a private jet up to Tallahassee in time to watch Clemson and Florida State, then hit the night spots along Tennessee Street, barring a total physical shutdown.
OK, the redeye part I could live without, but let's not whine about any aspect of a job that takes us to great settings to see the most exciting or compelling matchup(s) each week and actually pays us to do it. As Mr. Corso says, "Life is Good."
Life would be REALLY good if one of the two games in Florida Saturday is a thriller. Most folks I work with fear that both will be woodshed beatings by the home teams. I'm not buying it.
The Hokies are not a one man team. If Michael Vick can't go at all (and as of late Wednesday, he was pretty discouraged by the persistent pain in his sprained ankle) the Hokies can still be very dangerous. They haven't won 19 straight regular season games and 14 straight Big East games by leaning solely on Vick. That's just what folks who first discovered the Hokies watching the Sugar Bowl think. The roster is full of tough and tough-minded dudes who know how to dig deep and find ways to win.
The BCS Standings sent minor shockwaves through South Florida. Miami is down to No. 5, behind Florida State and Nebraska. Only two weeks ago, it seemed like the Canes could feel real confident about their chances of staying home for the Orange Bowl if they win out. That was before Oklahoma beat Nebraska, FSU hung 58 on N.C. State, and Miami only beat Louisiana Tech by 11. Now, it looks like they'll need help. Blame the computers. First, some background. I had a long chat with Richard Billingsley, creator of one of the eight power ratings used to comprise one quarter of the BCS formula. He sounds like a very decent, bright guy with a strong passion for college football and a keen sense of its history. Heck, he's even researched it back to the 1800's. Like most of the guys I've met who spend huge portions of time rating teams -- and they are always guys. Women do not get into this kind of hobby -- he's clearly far more than a math geek. At my request, Billingsley ran some numbers. As you look into the near future, THE key question in the BCS race is this: How much will the winner of the Miami-Virginia Tech benefit from the win in the various computer ratings. The winner will almost certainly be second in both polls and should stay right there if they keep winning. But that hardly means the Miami-Tech winner is no worse than a solid No. 2 in the BCS. Billingsley's answer surprised me. Miami would jump from No.6 in his ratings to No. 4 with a seven point win. They would stay behind FSU and Nebraska (unless the Huskers stumble around and don't put away Kansas as the computers expect they should). Even a three-TD win would not be enough to move Miami higher than fourth. Virginia Tech would likely at No. 4 with a win, too. True, Billingley's is just one rating system. But his computer's current opinion of Miami is right on target with the average of the eight formulas. His rating factors in margin of victory more than some, less than others. By the way, that's definitely the key variable in how any of these systems rank teams. Washington is the case study. Coach Rick's cardiac-crew have five wins by less than a touchdown. The Seattle Times ranks them third while Billingsley has them 22nd and the Dunkel Index puts them at 26th. Seattle's system is not home-town biased, but for some reason always has Pac-10 teams higher than the other seven. It also does not use margin of victory as a component. Thus, Seattle is unimpressed with Florida State (No. 7). The Dunkel (Donuts) Index is heavily weighted to margin of victory. FSU is No. 1. Notre Dame is 28th in the Dunkel, while the Irish are 11th in Seattle. But back to my point. The teams in best shape right now are: Oklahoma, as long as they win out. No stopping a 12-0 Big 12 champ from rolling to the Orange Bowl. The Sooners need no help. Billingsley also believes that FSU is in good shape if they finish 10-1. In fact, he thinks that Florida also just about controls its destiny. In other words, the winner of the FSU-Florida game in two weeks is Orange Bowl-bound if they don't slip up elsewhere. The computer points they'd pile up from late season wins over highly rated teams would be too much for Miami or Virginia Tech to match and their margins of victory wouldn't even matter. That's his professional opinion, take it for what you will. Nebraska seems to have a decent shot, too, if they get to Kansas City and avenge the beating from OU. The key was that the computers didn't drop Nebraska too far after their loss (average rating: No. 3). A Miami win over Tech would help Nebraska, because the Canes have more ground to make up in the computers. Of course, here's the BCS' nightmare. As I said, a 10-1 Miami or 11-0 Virginia Tech will almost certainly be No. 2 in the AP poll on bowl selection day. If the BCS standings dictate neither team plays in the BCS title tilt, you can't call it a National Championship Game. It would be for the coaches' poll and the Sears Trophy. But AP could still vote the Big East champ as No. 1, if they beat say, Florida, in the Sugar Bowl. That's the scenario that was narrowly avoided last year. Nebraska came very, very close to catching Tech in the final BCS standings and spoiling the No. 1 vs No. 2 matchup. The huge win over Texas wasn't quite enough. The same good fortune may not smile on the BCS brass again. Still a lot of football left, though. Just wanted to set the backdrop for Saturday's games. Believe me, I know there is a whole lot more to college football than this math stuff. I won't bombard you weekly. It's not what I love about college football, but it is how we settle who gets title shots. Plus, there's so much misinformation spread about the standings, I though I'd just spend some time trying to sort it out. If you are interested in learning still more about these computer ratings, check out the weekly BCS analysis piece that ESPN researcher Brad Edwards provides here. Top five No. 1 Oklahoma: Suddenly, I have lots of company ranking the Sooners first. I'm not claiming to be any sort of visionary, though. As I wrote here last week, OU could have made me look mighty silly. For the first eight minutes Saturday, I thought things might be headed that direction. Starting next week, we'll see if this bunch can handle the No. 1 ranking. (I'm confident OU can win at Baylor with even a C-minus effort). But the visit to College Station will be another test, one that a championship-level team has to pass. I know it was OU 51, A&M 6 last year, but the Ags are improving and won't go down without a fight at home. If A&M can get by Oklahoma State, Gameday is headed to their campus for the first time ever. It would be great. No. 2 Miami: The Canes' 11-point win over Louisiana Tech was deceptive. This was no contest, and Tech tightened it up late when Miami lost Dan Morgan and Al Blades to injuries. Even if the Canes beat the Hokies, here's what their fans should fear: upset traps against Pittsburgh and at Syracuse. Either team is capable of beating them. No. 3 Florida State: See above. No. 4 Virginia Tech: Where I rank the Hokies before Saturday's game is unimportant. If they beat Miami (especially without Vick), I'll almost certainly move them to second. No. 5 Florida: If you could match teams of different years, like the EA Sports video games do, this Gator team might lose to the '96 Championship bunch by 17 points. Maybe more. But that doesn't matter. In 2000, this team just may be good enough to give the Seminoles a scare and, who knows, if they get a few breaks, maybe pull the surprise that would propel them to the Orange Bowl. "Bottom five" The bottom of the my top 25, that is. I thought I'd include how I voted these spots, since it's always tougher to find the right teams down there than it is to rank them at the top. That's where you find so much deviation from ballot to ballot. In other words, some voters put Ole Miss in the poll, coming off an overtime homecoming win over UNLV, preceded by a 45-7 loss at Alabama. In the coaches' poll, Western Michigan got more than four times the poll points of Pittsburgh, which just took Virginia Tech to the wall. Next time, when you check out the polls, look down there for the "Others Receiving Votes." It's interesting. No. 21. Pittsburgh: Only losses are in OT at Syracuse, created by a fluky broken play TD pass by Troy Nunes, and Saturday at Blacksburg. The Panthers have two future NFL receivers and can be dangerous for anyone. They could make me look bad by getting beat by North Carolina Saturday, though, if they haven't gotten over Saturday's heartbreak. The public seems to be going the Heels' direction, so you know what that means. No. 22. Auburn: This is about where most voters see the Tigers, who don't seem to be able to win any way but the hard way. They will only justify their ranking by beating Georgia at home next week. No. 23. Georgia Tech: The Jackets' only losses are at Florida State by five early and at N.C. State by seven. George Godsey has exceeded almost everybody's expectations. No. 24. South Carolina: From 0-11 to now actually lamenting that both the Gamecocks' losses could have gone their way with a play or two. Holtz will give Bob Stoops a run for Coach of the Year if he wins one of his last two. Don't laugh: beating Florida at the Swamp is not impossible for this team and winning at Clemson is hardly farfetched, especially if things start to unravel a bit there. No. 25. Colorado State: No team is viewed more differently by the media voters and the coaches than the Rams: a five-spot difference in the two polls. A student newspaper columnist at CSU penned a mock letter to AP headquarters informing the powers that be that the Rams had, in fact, rounded up players and formed a football team. Relax kid, the AP voters are aware of CSU. It's just that coaches are more inclined to reward narrow escapes than we media types. "A win is a win," well, you know the saying. The Rams have rallied, just scraped by, and piled up very few style points. But I decided, what the hell, throw 'em in at 25. Believing the Heup(el) I can't recall a Heisman candidate coming from almost off the radar screen to the driver's seat in a month. Oklahoma's Josh Heupel has. The extraordinary power of one national TV performance against Nebraska has vaulted the Sooners' southpaw into very serious contention. The sentiment I hear is that folks "knew he had good stats, but we didn't know he was that good." A straw poll of ten Heisman voters scattered evenly through the five voting districts gave Heupel nine first place votes this week! The poll has been run by my buddy Randy Holtz from Denver's Rocky Mountain News since 1987. It's the only poll that tracks candidates from week one of each season. True, ten voters represents only about one percent of the Heisman electorate and Holtz does not pretend that the thing is scientific. His panel of voters is probably a bit more informed than the typical voter among the 922, so that would skew things toward the lower name-recognition guys like Josh. But get this: each year since 1988 the final ten-vote straw poll has correctly forecast the Heisman winner. Vick was a near-unanimous No. 1 until recent weeks. Now, he's third behind Heupel and Drew Brees. Chris Weinke is fourth and LaDainian Tomlinson rounds out the top five. We'll keep an eye on Holtz's poll from time to time. That's it. Gotta rest up for the madcap weekend of flying and football. Hope you'll check out Gameday from just outside the Ole Horseshoe in Little Havana Saturday morning. Chris Fowler is the host of College Gameday and his column appears every Thursday. | ALSO SEE College Football ... On Campus with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit Corso: Not So Fast, My Friends Sooners claim top spot in second BCS rankings Sooners top BCS now, but it's still wide open Blitz Package: Heisman on the line Saturday | ||||
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