Greetings Fellow Hokies!
Before I make a fool of myself by engaging my anger, I just want to ask the community, why the heck is our beloved school (VT) always shown below UNC in the ACC Coastal standings?????
1) We won the head to head game against the cheats.
2) Both teams have the same conference record.
3) Both teams have the same overall record.
4) VT is actually ranked higher than UNC in the CFP rankings.
So WTF am I missing??? Thanks to all who reply and Fuck Ron Cherry and Pat Narduzzi!
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Comments
I think right now they go in alphabetical order for ties during the season.
I think you're right, but why wouldn't they go by the league rules, which would put VT in front by tiebreaker rules?
Two reasons.
1. Tiebreakers don't matter or actually exist until the end of the season.
2. That would require someone at ESPN to manually update what the tiebreakers are and how they might change week to week. Right now, their program just does an alphabetical sort in the case of the same record. They've done that for years, across all sports.
I see your point. This is certainly easier for ESPN. But maybe the bigger reason is that in the case of conflicting tiebreakers, it may be impossible to resolve.
For instance, if there were a three-way tie for first, with conflicting head-to-head tiebreakers, it may not be possible to resolve. These may also exist further down the standings.
As of this moment in the ACC Coastal, however, first place is resolvable and belongs to VT.
This all comes down to an issue of efficiency for ESPN, or any sports website for that matter.
There is no tiebreaker right now. This is casually referenced by every commentator, but a tiebreaker only exists if there is a tie. A tie is only present at the end of a season. So while we are tied at the moment, there is no tie that needs to be broken. This is codified in the league rules; tiebreakers only matter when a determination needs to be made for a division champion.
The second issue is just software. Every coding language, software platform, etc. has a sort( ) function built in. Alphabetical sorting is pretty much a canned thing. Sort based on number of wins, number of losses, then have default sorting take over. Really simple code. Factoring in each conference's tiebreakers, which may change from year to year, would require a lot more effort and a lot more complexity, which makes it hard to maintain. So instead, sites like this are going to do the braindead easy thing and then clean it up manually at the end of the season, when it actually matters.
What you say makes perfect sense.
All I'm saying is that if you call yourself "The leader in sports", you could evolve past the alphabetical sorting of college division rankings. What would it take? An hour per division per week for a slightly more accurate portrayal of the standings? That said, you can't really argue with the conference rules, as they are the final word. I'm not sure how much sense it makes to display the standings different than the conferences themselves.
As for the tiebreakers only coming into play at the end of the season, while it makes perfect since that this is the way the rules are written, it makes just as much sense that one can sometimes derive their logical conclusion as of today. It actually provides a more accurate set of standings. There are situations where this could not be done, as per the example I mentioned in my prior post.
I understand why they don't bother with it, but it's not ridiculous to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of how it's displayed.
ESPN is hemorrhaging subscribers right now... They have more important things to deal with than worrying about correctly reflecting all the various end of season tiebreaker scenarios in all the conferences out there in all of college football.
They have more important things to worry about...
Do they?
How many conferences are there in college football? And how do you get more traffic to your site?
I guess it's a judgment call, but offering something just a little better than what other sites offer is what gets more traffic. Sometimes, it's the little things. Quality analysis, allowing diverse perspectives, and having a sense of humor might help.
You guys are correct about the difficulties of more refined rankings, but it doesn't hurt to discuss the pros and cons.
yea, espn usually hard-codes the standings later in the season based on tie-breakers. right now they don't care.
Still hoping for their dream team from the coastal to pull it out. The bias towards UNC is obvious. Jared Shankar's ACC Power rankings include "What might have been if the Tar Heels didn't have to play their most important game of the season in a hurricane? " Jared insists that that doesn't imply that UNC wins if it wasn't for the weather. He says it simply means that it would have been a "different game", even though an L to VT should still have them in 4th place in the rankings.
Before I'm barraged with "who gives a crap what he thinks" comments. This isn't about caring about what 1 guy who seems to like UNC thinks. It's about giving credit where its due and getting over the fact that the preseason favorite stands a good chance of not making it to the ACCCG. The weren't singing that tune when VT didn't win the Coastal, after being the preseason favorite.
Edited to clean up a horribly long sentence in the 1st paragraph.
Like other people have said, ESPN is losing subscribers at all-time high rate. I'm guessing that they are thinking having people write positive things about teams is going to lead to more clicks. I doubt any Hokie, or any other fan, is going to choose to unsubscribe ESPN based on their opinions on UNC. That being said, you start talking about the theoretical situations around UNC losing in a hurricane, you might get more UNC fans to click. You may even get more Hokies to click because people will share the link saying, "Can you believe this trash?"
My bottomline is that I think ESPN is going to do whatever it takes to get clicks/viewers/subscribers right now. Someone on reddit pointed out that last year ESPN was bragging about VT have the longest active bowl streak in the nation, due to FSU vacating 2008. This year, apparently they are touting FSU tying Nebraska's consecutive bowl streak.
Obviously, the AP and Coaches polls think we are lower than UNC. The only poll that really matters, has us higher. Additionally, winning out and getting to the ACCCG is the most important thing for this team. Do that, and then see which Clemson team shows up. #teamchaos.
Honestly, I could give a rats ass what we're ranked respective to UNC as long as we're the ones heading to Orlando instead of them in a few weeks.
Yahoo gets it. (I use Yahoo for all my sports information except ESPNFC)
That's really ironic because the yahoo sports app on my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 matches the ESPN website. Interesting...
the yahoo sports app on my Samsung Galaxy Note 7 doesn't look like that at all. It's really bright, and hot, and um, smoking.
You don't say.... Tell me, did you happen to dispose of it in a garbage bin on a deserted street, near a gray concrete wall...? ;-)
I believe I saw it on LSU's football field tonight. No, wait, that was LSU's offense.
You have that wrong... That was a classic defensive battle that proved how great the SEC is as a whole.... /ESPN
Granted, it wasn't pretty, but a win is a win...on to the techno-bowl. No need to invoke UVa's metaphorical season in all of this. Note: I didnt write this when I was sober...so here's a leg in advance....my apologies.
Oh wow my iPhone App shows it like ESPN. Interesting.
I like the points for and against columns. Although they're getting closer together the last few weeks.
*scratches head*
Hmmm.. since we've been winning in recent weeks, shouldn't they be getting further apart?
Edit: I'm really tired and can't math right now...disregard.
I think I meant relative to everyone else, or not getting much further apart, or something. But I'm not sure.
I got it... ratio!
I could be wrong about this, but I believe everyone other than VT and UNC is mathmatically eliminated after this week. VT and UNC have only 1 loss and only 2 conference games left, for a maximum of 3 possible losses. Miami and Pitt already have 3 losses and have lost head to head tie breakers against both VT and UNC, so I don't see how they could win it. Everyone else has at least 4 losses.
Yes, in a 4 way tie VT is 3-0, UNC is 2-1, Miami is 1-2 and Pitt is 0-3. In a 3 way tie reduce VT and UNC wins by 1; Pitt and Miami are 0-2. Pitt and Miami lose all tiebreaker scenarios, that could play out with them included. All that remains is VT vs UNC.
Asked and answered.
What a boring wheel of chaos we have this year.
I think everyone by Louisville and Clemson are eliminated on the other side too.
edit: Whoop. Technically Wake could take it if they beat both Louisville and Clemson, plus Clemson loses to Pitt
I sent that same question to the ACC website last week, so far no response. My best guess is that it's because the AP poll shows UNC above us (until the rules are applied at the end of the year regarding tie breakers with the same record).
Got response 11/07/16: Thank you for reaching out. During regular season play, our standings are listed first by conference record, second by overall record, and third alphabetically. We do not use tie-breakers in our standings until regular season play is complete. I hope this clears up any confusion.
It's likely the way they scripted the software that displays it. It just defaults to alphabetical order until numbers are input for wins and losses. If the number of losses is the same it sorts alphabetically. It's not a cognitive decision by a person.
The ACC is in North Carolina, right?
/s
(not to knock on my birth state, but low hanging fruit...)
Well as all UNC athletes like to say: You can't spell University of North Carolina without ACC.
Or, as I say to UNC athletes, "You can't spell University of North Carolina"
Disregarding fake classes, UNC athletes get a quality education
Actually, shouldn't that be disregarding real classes...?
I.......
That....could go either way. Disregarding our comments, no one in this subthread has question UNC's academic integrity
I can drink to that.
If UNC keeps blowing people out and we keep eking out Ws, the committee will have tough sledding. Eventually the SOS and results may outweigh the head-to-head, which they obviously considered important last week.
UNC plays 2 fcs teams this season, while uga and fsu aren't as great as everyone thought they would be. the only common opponents thus far (miami and pitt), we have a better margin of victory against. i suppose that could change next week, but it shouldn't change anything this week
Good point. And we weren't playing either of those teams in a hurricane.
I keep hearing how well UNC has played "lately" (heard some tool in my hotel on Sunday morning in Chapel Hill repeat the same mantra to anybody in earshot and say he'd love to play VT again on a dry field - I just quietly said "pfft, 34-3" as I walked by him).
Since the blowout by VT, they have beaten a mediocre Miami (by 7), UVA & GT.
The main computers still have VT at -3 vs UNC on a neutral field after last weekend.
I don't give a shit what UNC is doing. We beat them by 31 in their own house. If that doesn't mean anything, then what the fuck is the point in playing the game?
Disregard my response but yes, this is Carolina football logic.
Don't know how to embed tweets so I had to upload as picture, sorry for the image being so large.
WOW.
Disregarding the Apollo missions, China is looking to be the first nation to step foot on the moon in the coming decade.
Disregarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Nuclear armament is a complete smokescreen that would never actually legitimately be used in war.
Disregarding 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, nuclear energy is completely safe and accident-free since its inception
Disregarding everything since the original release of Return of the Jedi, George Lucas is a brilliant director and every movie he ever is in charge of is going to be a massive hit with the critics and public alike
Disregarding the other 52,188 legs, Alum's TL count is 1
This is lolUVA levels of delusional
Disregarding results would mean that there is no need to play the games.
Isn't this how they ended up with a championship ring without actually winning said championship?
Please tell me there is a series of these trending on twitter
Disregarding every vote cast for other candidates, Donald Trump will garner 100% of the votes tomorrow #TarheelLogic
Disregarding games played in the months of August, September, October, November, December, and January, LOLUVA has really impressed me on the football field. #TarheelLogic
There was a pretty good thread about it on reddit this morning.
link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/5bmesw/fun_unc_fact_on_twitter_thi...
Tarheel Logic 101 AKA a class showing "students" (athletes) how they can disregard class and still graduate with a diploma.
Gobbler Country had a good response as well...
I have 40 lbs of anecdotal evidence to corroborate this fact.
Damn, what's up with the 40 lbs? I'm also weirdly in that same category.... hmmmm.
Disregarding the past 4363 days, Wahoos (suck) hold the Commonwealth cup.
Disregarding Pat Narduzzi... nm
Question: If Duke were to win against UNC and we win against GT, would we then secure the Coastal Division? I figure that this week is the earliest that we could seal the division. I know I'm looking ahead but 9 successive 1 game seasons gives a guy time to think.
Come to think of it, I guess so, yeah.
A UNC loss coupled with a VT win would give us a one-game lead - and with the tiebreaker already secured, even if something unnameable happened on the final weekend it wouldn't matter.
Right?
PS: I have a gut feeling that game in Durham is gonna be close. Just wouldn't surprise me if Duke made it a game.
Yes, a UNC loss would drop them to 5-2, and if we win, we go to 6-1. Even if the unthinkable happens in the final game, we would have matching records with the head-to-head tiebreaker.
If both teams have the same result this week, then it comes down to the final week. (Both schools play out of conference on November 19th.)
Basically, we need to do the same or better than UNC in the last two conference games.
UNC with that awesome SEC-type scheduling of a late November FCS team
FCS #2, at that.
A cupcake before they have to face their cross-state powerhouse rival....NC State.
Granted, we've got Notre Dame and apparently that isn't exactly a good team this year either...
But if you disregard the FCS teams, they only play FBS teams for the rest of the season
But if you disregard the FBS teams, they only play FCS teams for the rest of the season.
That is why I am big Duke and VT fan this weekend.
This is neither here nor there, but I love this pic of a UVA player celebrating a UNC TD.
WERE 14!!!!!
But now...?
Duke fixed it for you.
Apparently our 1-0 mantra extends to the AP and CP games.
Thanks, Dook.
A win over GT or LOLUVA and we'll lock up the Coastal. Could be done with the division by going 1-0 this week
That is beautiful
Way to go dookies!!!
Jesse Palmer was so UNC centric in his announcing it was hard to watch.
Dooooooooooook!
Bahahahahahahaha UNC!
Must. Not. Book Orlando flight. Until we clinch.
Just saw on Twitter that the Heels have petitioned a second time to have their game with us replayed with us because it wasn't fair to play in all that rain but now in this second letter to Swofford they have added the Duke game cause they didn't have enuff time to prepare for a Thursday night game after playing last Saturday. Swofford was gonna agree initially until he checked to see how heavy the class schedule was for the football players this week and saw that none of them attended any classes this week anyway. Said that in that case, they indeed did have enuff time to prepare. So unfair!!!!!
The wife and I were already scheduled to be in Orlando the weekend of the ACCCG and were thinking of maybe taking in the game while we were there. This was before we thought that the Hokies were going to be in the running. Well, I will also wait until Pennsylvania gets called, uh uh, I mean until we clinch before shouting to the heavens but it's difficult to hold on.... c'mon Hokies, do that 1-0 again tomorrow.
These UNC excuses are what rivalries are made of. I get the feeling this hate is going to last for a while
FUCK PAT NARDUZZI