Author Archives: ASimPerson

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Big 12

And now, the Big 12, ranked 1 through 10.

  1. Oklahoma (1 legit, 0 FCS): Louisiana-Monroe, Tulsa, @Notre Dame. Much to the likely regret of the ADs who scheduled the games years ago, UL-M and UL-L are not quite the bodybag games they used to be. I mean, the Sooners are still going to win, but still. Also, I’m not seeing a lot of pre-season love for Oklahoma-Notre Dame, which definitely ranks up there in terms of the “interesting intersectional and historical matchup” scale.
  2. Texas Christian (1, 1): N-Louisiana State, Southeast Louisiana, Southern Methodist. TCU-LSU is one of the opening weekend games that everyone is looking forward to, and for good reason. It’s nice to see that TCU has quickly established themselves after getting back into a major conference. (Much to the jealously of their cross-town rivals, SMU, I’m sure.)
  3. Iowa State (0.5, 1): Northern Iowa, Iowa, @Tulsa. And now things go rapidly downhill. If you don’t believe me, read on. Don’t forget that when Iowa State is involved, though, there’s always the chance they’ll lose to Northern Iowa and then beat Iowa.
  4. Texas (0.25, 0): New Mexico State, @Brigham Young, Mississippi. Honestly, that BYU game is probably more interesting than that Ole Miss game, but nonetheless it was the Rebels that were responsible for that quarter of a point.
  5. Oklahoma State (0.25, 1.5): N-Mississippi State, @Texas-San Antonio, Lamar. Miss State will try to prove they belong to the upper-tier of the SEC hierarchy once again this season, but I’m not so optimistic about their chance to prove their out-of-conference chops against Oklahoma state. (Note to self: don’t repeat that for Miss State’s write-up.)
  6. Kansas (0, 1): South Dakota, @Rice, Louisiana Tech. I’m not sure if there’s a question that LaTech will beat KU, but more of by how much.
  7. Kansas State (0, 1): North Dakota, Louisiana-Lafayette, Massachusetts. I suspect the Ragin’ Cajuns are a little more spicy than Bill Synder anticipated, but them’s the breaks.
  8. Texas Tech (0, 1): @Southern Methodist, Stephen F. Austin, Texas State. Yes, that’s right: the other thing to get used to this year are the new full-fledged FBS members, like Texas State.
  9. Baylor (0, 1): Wofford, Buffalo, Louisiana-Monroe. If Baylor and UL-M want to replay last year’s game, that’s fine by me. One of the few chances for legitimate entertainment here.
  10. West Virginia (0, 1.5): William & Mary, Georgia State, N-Maryland. Yes, West Virginia is still in the Big 12 for some reason. And they’re still not playing Pittsburgh, so as a penalty I’ve rated their schedule last. Well, also that and they should obliterate Maryland.

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

First up, the Atlantic Coast Conference. See last year’s post for all the gory details.

  1. Clemson (2 legit, 2 FCS): Georgia, South Carolina State, Citadel, @South Carolina. Clemson and UGA meeting up again is always a good thing. “Wait”, you say, “aren’t those two schools your two biggest rivals?” Well, yes. Nonetheless, the Clemson-GT rivalry is not in-state and is not nearly as acrimonious as the one with the so-call “university” in Athens. So unlike when Georgia and Alabama meet, and I can still root for Georgia’s opponent without a twinge of guilt. Anyway, though I usually discount yearly rivalry games for these purposes, I simply couldn’t rate any other schedules above this one, despite the two FCS schools.
  2. Virginia Tech (1, 1): N-Alabama, Western Carolina, @East Carolina, Marshall. I have to say, I like Clemson’s chances against Georgia much, much better than VPI’s against Alabama. Ugh. But it’s good enough for second on this list.
  3. Virginia (1, 1): Brigham Young, Oregon, Virginia Military Institute, Ball State. It’s always good to see East Coast-West Coast matchups, especially in the ACC. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really say anything about the quality of the game that is likely to be played.
  4. North Carolina (1, 1): @South Carolina, Middle Tennessee State, East Carolina, Old Dominion. UNC-USC is getting a fair bit of publicity, as it will be the first major game of the season. It’ll also be an early test for the Tarheels. The rest of their schedule is what it is, as the kids say.
  5. Boston College (1,1): Villanova, @Southern California, Army, @New Mexico State. It’s possible that BC may lose to Villanova, but they deserve some credit for the road game to LA.
  6. Miami (1, 1): Florida Atlantic, Florida, Savannah State, @South Florida. Ranked this low under the “rival game” rule, even though they don’t quite play Florida every year. Might’ve been the top schedule if they rounded up the all-Florida look with the only school they’re missing now: FIU.
  7. Florida State (1, 1): Nevada, Bethune-Cookman, Idaho, @Florida. Again, yearly rivalry games don’t count as much in these rankings. Too bad that’s not the frisky Nevada squad from a few years ago, as well.
  8. Pittsburgh (1,1): New Mexico, Old Dominion, @Navy, Notre Dame. See above on “rivalry games”.
  9. Syracuse (1, 1): N-Pennsylvania State, @Northwestern, Wagner, Tulane. That said, strength of your rivalry opponent does count for something. Perhaps I’m punishing the ‘Cuse unfairly for what happened to Penn State, but them’s the breaks.
  10. Georgia Tech (1, 2): Elon, @Brigham Young, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical, Georgia. All the way down here due to two FCS schools. Also, it’s been recently reported that the GT-Alabama series scheduled for later this decade has been indefinitely postponed. It’s starting to look pretty bleak for the alma mater, I have to say. But hey, there’s room in the schedule now for that GT-Stanford or GT-Cal home-and-home, right?
  11. Maryland (0.75, 1): Florida International, Old Dominion, @Connecticut, N-West Virginia. WVU is playing the wrong ACC team here. Can we get the Backyard Brawl back?
  12. Wake Forest (0.25, 1): Presbyterian, Louisiana-Monroe, @Army, @Vanderbilt. Not much to even joke about here. I imagine Wake is not thrilled about the up-and-coming Commodores, though, as that used to be a competitive matchup for the Demon Deacons.
  13. North Carolina State (0, 1): Louisiana Tech, Richmond, Central Michigan, East Carolina. There’s just nothing to say about this schedule in any way, shape, or form. Well, other than the chance they’ll lose to Louisiana Tech.
  14. Duke (0, 1): North Carolina Central, @Memphis, Troy, Navy. With an OOC schedule like this, Duke will almost certainly make a bowl again, as they’ll need just two conference wins.

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

It’s time for the yearly ritual of rating college football’s non-conference schedules.

The biggest change for this year is that we are no longer rating or examining the schedules of the American Athletic Conference (formerly known as the Big East), as only two teams (Cincinnati and Louisville) were even deemed interesting enough to rate. Though the AAC retains the Big East’s BCS spot this year, they do not have a seat at the table in the play-off that will start next year.

Other than that, we were also even stingier with ratings this year. Only the following schools earned a “1” rating for being interesting to play: Florida State, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Oregon, Stanford, Southern California, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Notre Dame. So that’s 1 for the ACC, 2 for the Big 12, 3 for the Big Ten, 3 for the Pac-12, and 6 for the SEC.

Only one non-automatic qualifying team earned any rating at all: Boise State (with a 0.75).

Here are the average ratings for each conference:

  1. SEC (0.607)
  2. Big 12 (0.528)
  3. Big Ten (0.5)
  4. Pac-12 (0.5)
  5. ACC (0.429)

Compared to last year, the average is down slightly for almost all the conferences.

That’s all for now. Next up: the conference breakdown. 

2014 World Cup Update: Dispatches from Abroad

After Sunday’s action, we have one more matchday to go this month, and it’ll be a doozy. But first, some stats. 88 teams are still in play for the World Cup Finals and 114 have been eliminated outright. Entering this month, there were 118 teams still in play.

CAF
First off, special congratulations to Egypt and Bob Bradley. This entire World Cup cycle has been marred by the violence in the country, and yet they cruised through their group, winning all five of their matches outright and clinching advancement to the next round of CAF’s qualification. The Pharaohs clinched Group G. Elsewhere in Africa, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Algeria clinched their groups. I’ll take a look at the remaining groups as we get closer to September.

One other thing, you see some wacky scorelines sometimes in international football, but this one made me scratch my head.  4-1 based off three penalties, the last coming 8 minutes into added time? Also conveniently Gabon’s goal differential is now zero? And it was at home? Huh.

AFC
The last day of the AFC’s 4th Round is Tuesday, and both groups are still in play. In Group A, South Korea, Iran, and Uzbekistan are all fighting for the top two spots. South Korea currently tops the group with 14 points, Iran has 13, and Uzbekistan has 11. South Korea will play Iran and Uzbekistan will play eliminated Qatar. So that’s where it gets interesting. South Korea advances to the World Cup with any win or draw with Iran. There is also a scenario where they can lose and still advance as long as Uzbekistan does not win by at least 6 goals. However, the match is at home for the Koreans, so a win or draw should be achievable. They did lose in Iran 1-0 though.

While South Korea is sitting pretty, but Iran is less secure. With a draw, they can still be tied by Uzbekistan, which is where we start getting into goal differential numbers. They will likely be hoping for Uzbekistan to lose or draw against Qatar, but a) the game is Tashkent b) the Uzbeks already beat Qatar on the road and c) as mentioned above, Qatar is eliminated. If Iran loses to South Korea, that opens the door for Uzbekistan to clinch with a win. If Uzbekistan wins and Iran draws South Korea, then the Uzbeks need to beat Quatar by at least four goals to win the tiebreaker. Whoever winds up in 3rd place will play the 3rd place team from Group. So speaking of which…

Japan has already won Group B and Iraq has been eliminated, leaving Australia (10 points), Oman (9 points), and Jordan (7 points) in play for 2nd and third. The Socceroos cannot finish any worse than third, but they play their final game in Sydney against Iraq, so they will be looking for the clinching win. So let’s talk about Oman and Jordan for a second.

Oman and Jordan play each other, but the match is in Amman. Jordan, is the weaker side here: they are 2-1-4 with a -10 goal differential, while Oman is 2-3-2 with a -2 goal differential. Oman won their first match 2-1. That said, Oman will get at least third place with any win or draw. Jordan must have a win in any scenario to advance. If they do win, then they will place third if Australia wins or draws against Iraq, and will get second if they can make up the 14 points of goal difference between them and Australia if the Aussies lose to Iraq.

If Oman beats Jordan and Australia loses or draws against Iraq, then they will get 2nd place (and, again, advance directly to the World Cup). If they draw and Australia loses, then goal difference comes into play again. There’s 6 point of goal difference between the two sides.

If I had to make a prediction, I’d bet on South Korea, Uzbekistan, and Australia advancing, with Oman and Iran facing off in the 5th Round for the right to place a South American team for a spot in the World Cup.

CONCACAF
Both Mexico and Jamaica have Tuesday’s match day off, since that match was moved to June 4th to accommodate Mexico playing in the Confederations Cup. No one is on the hook to be eliminated yet, but Jamaica is already in trouble and Panama could really use at least a draw on the road against Costa Rica.

2014 Wold Cup Update: Selected Scenarios

One resource I’ve relied greatly upon in my World Cup pages is the listing of matchday scenarios on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, Wikipedia editors found this information and decided that no one can have nice things and shut it down. This leaves me in a bit of a lurch, but fortunately at least in some cases we’re far enough along to look at some specific scenarios for the next matchday only.

AFC
The top two teams in each group advance directly to the World Cup, while the 3rd place teams have a play-off for the Intercontinental Playoff.
Group A

  • If Iran loses to Lebanon, then South Korea or Uzbekistan can clinch a spot in the World Cup with a win over the other

 Group B

  • Japan has clinched.
  • Iraq will be eliminated if they lose to Japan and Australia or Jordan defeat the other.

CAF
Each group winner will advance to the 3rd round, where they will play a home-and-home series against another group winner.
Group A

  •  Ethiopia can clinch a spot in the 3rd Round with a win over South Africa.

Group B

  • Tunisia can clinch a spot in the 3rd Round if Sierra Leone draws with Cape Verde
  • Tunisia can also clinch with a draw and a Sierra Leon loss
  • Tunisia can also clinch with a win over Equatorial Guinea

Group C

  •  Ivory Coast can clinch with a win or draw against Tanzania

Group D

  •  Zambia can clinch with a win over Sudan and a Ghana loss to Lesotho

Group E

  •  Congo can clinch with a win or draw over Burkina Faso

Group F

  •  Nigeria can clinch with a win over Namibia and a Malawi draw or loss to Kenya

Group G

  • Egypt can clinch if Guinea loses or draws with Zimbabwe
  • Egypt can also clinch outright with a win over Mozambique

Group H

  •  Algeria can clinch with a win over Rwanda and if Mali loses or draws with Benin

Group I

  •  Togo will be eliminated if they lose to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or if Libya defeats Cameroon or if Cameroon defeats Libya
  • Congo DR will be eliminated if they lose to to Togo and Libya or Cameroon defeat the other

Group J

  • Liberia will be eliminated if they lose to Senegal

CONMEBOL

  • Argentina will qualify for the World Cup with a win over Ecuador