Virginia Tech moved up even further than MSU, however, thanks to a truly dominant performance against NC State. SP+ projected the Hokies to win by nearly two touchdowns, and not only did they win by 21, it could have been far worse. They averaged 9.6 yards per play to the Wolfpack's 4.2 in the first half and let their foot off the gas a bit in the second.
Another interesting couple of paragraphs:
Sometimes we end up with fluky upsets in college football -- the ball is pointy, the players are young and unlikely things happen. Neither KSU's nor MSU's upsets had much of a fluke factor, though.
Using my post-game win probability metric -- in which I take all the key, predictive stats from a given game, toss them into the air, and say "With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time -- Kansas State's 38-35 win over Oklahoma came with a 40% likelihood, while Mississippi State's 44-34 upset of defending national champion LSU was at a whopping 95%. The scores mostly reflected the stats, and in the case of LSU, the 10-point loss was kind to the Tigers. KSU and MSU therefore rose accordingly in the ratings.
Also a good note about Coastal rival Pitt, who dropped from 25th to 36th.
The most surprising name on this list might be Pitt. The Panthers moved to 3-0 with a 23-20 win over Louisville, but their post-game win expectancy was only 32%; their defense was excellent as always, but the offense was inefficient, particularly in the red zone. They needed a little turnovers luck to get over the finish line, and they fell a bit in the rankings. (Dropping 11 spots for that seems harsh, but note how closely bunched the teams in that range are -- they're only 1.9 adjusted points per game outside the top 30.)
Comments
Is Bill tweeting out the post game advanced stats box scores this year? I always liked digging into our games from that perspective to confirm how how I felt about a game (like that we should've beaten UVA and UK if it weren't for some poorly timed explosive plays and TOs).
This is the best resource I've found on the advanced box scores since he stopped releasing the google doc (to my knowledge).
This is excellent, thanks!
One thing that sticks out from the advanced box score linked in my above comment that I haven't quite been able to figure out is what to make of our 0% passing downs success rate in every quarter. My guess is that we weren't put in a lot of qualifying "passing downs" situations, but it would still be a somewhat notable red flag if we did not have a single qualifying success on a passing down.
For those curious:
I didn't get the sense that any of the QBs who played for VT on Saturday were really accurate with the ball. QPs fades were decent but he didn't really show that he could throw any other passes very well. Burmeister looks like he needs more work with accuracy too. I hope Hooker plays against Duke and shows that he is a dangerous passer. We're going to need to be able to throw the ball eventually or teams will stack the box and shut down our running game.
Two things though. 1) I feel like with the exception of Burmeister's big play to Mitchell (which should have been to Gallo for a TD) the QBs didn't make bad reads, which is a big improvement over Willis and JJ. 2) After watching the Eagles for 3 weeks, I'd take inaccurate passes that allow the receivers to make a play than uncatchable passes.
Room for improvement no doubt but honestly better than I excepted.
Completely agree, on fades just give our guys a chance to make the catch. Just need to make sure he reads the safety help correctly and doesn't let them come undercut the throw. But as a 1-1 fade I don't think there was anything wrong with his throws.
Those fades don't need quite that much air under them. Luckily our receivers were better at playing the ball. An experienced corner is going to get position and pick it.
To me, it looked like QP threw the ball where the defender could not make a play. The only play the defender had was to go through the receiver for a PI penalty.
He definitely threw the ball to the right spot.
It's also a single check-down and appears to be just about the only pass play they have confidence in running with him...still.
that is true. we want to see more variety. Jerod Evans torched defenses with his bruising runs and fade passes, but he threw a good slant and crossing route passes to compliment.
QP is like a starting pitcher coming up from the minors with 100 mph fastball and 90 mph change up but nothing else. A pitcher with elite stuff, but needs to develop that 3rd and 4th pitch to become an elite pitcher.
Similarly, QP can become elite once he learns to vary his arsenal.
Am I the only one who thinks it would be fun to see Quincy (or any QB really) throw a 100 mph pass with a football? LOL
The Kaleb Smith catch was on 3rd and 11 and the pass interference where he got held was 2nd and long. Otherwise it appears to be correct- we weren't behind the sticks much; only 12 such plays by my count. To me, some of it seems to be coincidence (we converted 2nd and 7's but not 2nd and 8; the Tré Turner jet sweep that worked was a 1st and 10, the one that didn't was a 2nd and 13, etc.), some of it was just well scouted by NC State, some of it was inefficiencies in the passing game as mentioned above.
Looking at the play-by-play, here's all the 'passing downs' situations
I'm too lazy to go through the rest of the drive chart, but of the few times we got to 2nd/3rd and long, we rarely converted (which I suppose is to be expected).
You guys need to quit zooming in on the trees and look at the forest - Dookie came in at 81. PAYBACK TIME!
My concerns with the passing game are much more tied to our upward potential. However, I couldn't agree with you more about Duke. I think we are coming for blood and I don't believe it will be close.
I want to see us come out and execute sharply again, start Burmeister and gradually work in some reps for Hooker/Quincy. Don't even show much, just execute and focus on the run game. Have everyone ready to roll versus UNC the next weekend. Big wins the next two weeks could really swing positive momentum back our way.
I think we are in a position right now where we can run some successful variant of our offense starting any of our three QB's, depending on if Hooker gets a full week of practice, and that's going to be a very valuable asset throughout the season.
ESPN has VT at #15 in NCAA Power Rankings.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29976944/college-football-power-rankings-week-4
Yea, that ranking is premature at best lol
That was a power ranking.
I expected to see VT on it as we won handily against a team that had already played and won, with minimal screwups in terms of penalties type things and turnovers, missing 23 players and some significant coaching.
Absolute joke that we win in dominant fashion as #20 in the nation and fall completely out of the AP poll just because the Big Ten is somehow back and has yet to play a game and won't for another month.
But...weren't we ranked for weeks without playing a game?
True, but it's not fair to win and fall out of the poll to move a team that hasn't played a down back in, for no other reason than they're are starting play in another month.
I wouldn't worry about it. It will all shake out pretty soon
You logic isn't exactly consistent here lol
I guess I'm not following. Yes we were ranked for weeks before playing once the B1G and Pac-12 teams went out of the poll because of cancelling their seasons. But once we do play and actually win a game in dominant fashion as a ranked team, we fall out of the poll to put those teams back in who will not play for nearly a month. You can argue we shouldn't have stayed ranked while we weren't playing, but I have an issue with moving a ranked team who wins out for a team who hasn't played. At the time we moved in and those two conferences moved out, no one had played.
They should be attempting to make it as accurate as they know how. I am ok with it. It will shake out in the end anyway but how real would it be for us to be ranked ahead of Ohio State based on what we know? Our one game sample doesn't provide much more of a clear picture than a zero game sample in the grand scheme.
This is off topic, but what if the College Football Belt holder were to, say, take a season off? Or play a spring schedule? Due we have a split belt situation pending a "unification" match?
The belt was simply invented as a parody of the "champion-by-vote" BCS system, and the rules pretty intuitively follow those of a boxing champion.
In the past, we see champions "hoard" the belt in conference play each season. We've also seen Pittsburg snatch it from Miami and then sit out of the post-season.
I wonder what happens if the belt title holder "retires" (ended their football program.)?
Currently with the MSU Bulldogs
Or if you prefer; Reddit