CFN generally does a really good job all year with their pre-season, in-season and post season rankings. The only beef I have is that CFN seems to be buying the "Miami is back" hype along with everyone else as they are ranked one spot above the good guys:
11. Miami (9-4)
Season Score: 16.99
2016 Preseason Prediction: 9-3
2016 CFN Preseason Opinion Ranking: 25It was a terrific first step for Mark Richt, closing out with a five-game winning streak with a dominant win over West Virginia in the Russell Athletic Bowl. So how is the Season Score this high? The win at Appalachian State turned out to matter in a big way in the formula – sometimes it's worthwhile to play an interesting non-conference road game.
12. Virginia Tech (10-4)
Season Score: 16.92
2016 Preseason Prediction: 6-6
2016 CFN Preseason Opinion Ranking: 36The Hokies got to the ACC championship and pushed Clemson hard in the first year under Justin Fuente, with the Season Ranking finishing in the top 12 helped by a blowout win over North Carolina and Quality Wins over teams like Miami and Pitt.
In total, the ACC had 5 teams finish in their top 25 and all 12 finished in the top 128, including UVA who just barely made the cut as a Football Bowl Subdivision team coming in at #125:
125. Virginia (2-10)
Season Score: -1.68
2016 Preseason Prediction: 3-9
2016 CFN Preseason Opinion Ranking: 60
Key Season Score Element: Bad Loss Score of 2.5
Best Win: Central Michigan 49-35
Worst Loss: Richmond 37-20
http://collegefootballnews.com/2017/2016-final-cfn-rankings-best-seasons
Comments
What am I missing here about Miami's win over App State? I was expecting a "/s" at the end of that sentence. I quit reading after that. There's something wrong with your formula.
App State has two straight 10-3 seasons. Plus they won in Boone where App has a pretty good record. I know they play in the Sun Belt, but App State is a solid team on the rise that would give a ton of P5 teams (including Tennessee) trouble.
So which was their best win, Toledo or Troy?
Dude, let them be ranked. We need some quality W's next year.
-FudBoster
Seriously, though, that Troy team that you're trying to use as an example of a bad "best win" also lost to Clemson by less than we did.
Also, they're probably referring to the way they won, as the final score was 45-10. Blowing out an eventual 10-win team whose only other two losses are to a mid-to-upper SEC team (in overtime) and another 10-win team (by 4) sounds pretty good to me.
I'm not saying App State is a bad team... but is that win really enough to put Miami over us when we beat them head to head and won the coastal?
I believe there is an anchor with Syracuse written on it somewhere in those season score calculations. Although you would think a win over the #11 team in their poll would help balance it out. Our win over ND turned out to not be very helpful also.
Actually, when you look at our resumes overall based on their rankings of teams we each beat or lost to, they look remarkably similar. I've taken out the three teams that we both beat, since they don't do anything but further clutter the data, but here it goes:
Miami beat:
#26 App
#28 WVU
#39 GT
#61 NCSU
#120 FAU
Miami lost to:
#6 FSU
#12 VT
#31 UNC
#86 ND
Virginia Tech beat:
#11 Mia
#31 UNC
#59 Ark
#65 BC
#86 ND
#101 ECU
Virginia Tech lost to:
#1 Clemson
#10 UT
#39 GT
#89 Cuse
Really, the only big differences are:
- They had 3 wins between #26 and #39, whereas of our 3 best, one is in that range, one is significantly higher, and one is significantly lower
- We have an extra win over a team ranked in the 80s
- Our top 2 losses are slightly better than theirs
When you consider that their rankings are purely based on wins, losses, and strength of schedule to give a numerical value of the quality of their season, it seems pretty close to a toss-up to me.
App, good team or not, likely overrated and inflating Miami's ranking here.
I mean, what do you think App's record would have been against the other teams you listed there? Most likely below .500. The thing is, Miami winning @ App clearly helps them according to this formula a lot more than VT winning @ ND. But in reality, our win @ ND is just as impressive if not more so than Miami's win @ App.
I'm not saying Miami should be ranked above us, we won the division, the head-to-head, and have more wins. I'm just saying that App State is a solid team who beat multiple 10-win teams, won their conference, and has 2 straight bowl wins.
Before the season, everyone assumed Miami beating App State would be like us beating ECU: should be an easy win against a typical G5 team. Instead, App State had a great season and proved to be a solid team.
Which is precisely why their back to back 10 win seasons don't mean much. They are a decent team in a terrible conference. UVa might actually get 3 conference wins there, it's that bad.
Not saying it means as much as winning 10 games in the ACC or any other P5, but they aren't some FCS team anymore. I'd take a win over App State than a win over ECU the past two years.
there are three teams that are worse than them? I think CFN overrated them a bit here.
Wait so we beat Miami, overachieved by way more according to their preseason expectations, and still finished one spot behind them?
I will seriously never understand the justification for some of these rankings.
It seems that some computer models like Miami this year. Here's a sampling:
Massey is down right now, and I can't remember other services off the top of my head, so these are the only ones I can cite right now. It's not universal, but some of the models just like Miami's numbers better than ours, and I don't think any of these computer services take head-to-head into account.
It's frustrating, but it's not human bias.
I know this makes me sound like a Tar Hole, but if you take away the head-to-head game between us and Miami, their resume is somewhat better. Same record in the regular season (8-3), their bowl win is significantly better, and while we played similar non-conference schedules (FAMU vs Liberty might be ever so slightly in our favor, App State and Tennessee went to OT, even though Tennessee is probably slightly better, ECU and FAU both went 3-9, and we both played at Notre Dame), their two Atlantic opponents went 7-1 and 3-5, while both of ours went 2-6. If you replace FSU on their schedule with either BC or Syracuse, that turns a loss into a likely win, and when you add in our win over them, our resumes look almost identical aside from our head-to-head advantage.
Then you look at how we each finished our seasons off:
- Miami went 5-0 in their last 5, with a closest win of 14 against NC State, and beating WVU by 17 in a bowl game
- VT went 3-2 in their last 5, with a 10 point loss to GT, and beat Arkansas by 11 in a bowl game
Not completely unreasonable, IMO.
And that right there is where the argument falls flat.
This is the same mindset that gets a non-champion into the playoff only to see them blown out and shut out in their playoff game.
Please stop. I'm really tired of this argument, it's been going on for almost 7 weeks now and everybody loses. I don't know why it keeps popping up.
Agreed, not completely unreasonable for Miami to be ranked higher than us, but I have a bit of an issue with it when we are adjacent in the rankings.
Oddly, if Miami were two spots ahead of us I don't think I'd mind much, but when they're right next to each other, my immediate reaction is: 'Well, we beat them head-to-head, so just flip the two of us and the rest of the rankings could remain unaffected'.
You cannot take away the head-to-head matchup. You can make all the excuses you want, but that's literally why they play the games. To see who will win.
If we ignore head-to-head, why even play football games at all? We'll just look at the teams on paper and decide who the best is. Season over.
My point was, without the head-to-head matchup, Miami's resume is clearly better than ours. Toss that game back into the mix, and it merely makes it a toss-up, maybe gives us a bit of an edge depending on how you weigh the various factors.
head to head win and division champions of the division Miami is in
Yup... totally a tossup
Realistically, I would expect that most reasonable people would put us ahead, since like you said we won the division and the head-to-head fairly emphatically. But, at the same time, one game is not representative of an entire season. See also: VT @ Syracuse, October 15, 2016; Miami @ Notre Dame, October 29, 2016.
When you look at the resumes of the two teams, they look strikingly similar. Especially in a computer ranking, which just looks at the raw numbers, the two teams could be considered a toss-up.
and what if those two teams have the exact same conference record? Do you take the team with the head-to-head?
VT won the head to head and won Miami's division
VT was definitively the better team this year. If your metrics say otherwise, your metrics are wrong.
Kinda like PSU/OSU
Kind of... but at least VT got to go to Orlando
I'm not saying Miami is the "better team". Quite the opposite, I agree in that overall I believe we were the better team this year. Just that, objectively looking at the relative quality of wins and losses, Miami's resume and VT's resume from this past season look remarkably similar.
I knew the second Miami smacked around an overrated, underprepared WVU team, this whole offseason was going to be about the U being back.