Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree...

Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - Printable Version

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Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - OutsiderFan - 12-14-2014

Stanford is the biggest lock to win of all the bowl games.Â Out of 38 games, each of them are laying 38 confidence points on Stanford.Â This isn't who they predict to win by the largest margin.Â Just straight up win or loss confidence.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - stupac2 - 12-14-2014

Doesn't Vegas also have us as the biggest favorite by far? It's not particularly surprising, provided that we show up at all it shouldn't be close.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - StanFan88 - 12-14-2014

LOL just remember U$C was favored by 41.5 once...

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - Spiny_Norman - 12-14-2014

This makes me nervous.Â I have flashbacks of lousy bowl performances as a favorite vs. East Carolina (Liberty Bowl), Georgia Tech (Aloha Bowl) and Georgia Tech (Seattle Bowl).

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - stupac2 - 12-15-2014

Losing this game would be the rough equivalent of losing to Cal. Could it happen? Yeah, anything can happen. But of all the things you can say about this team, "Doesn't show up against truly bad opponents" really isn't one.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - donkey687 - 12-15-2014

Losing to Utah at home is pretty bad. That was only a month ago.Â Utah is better than Maryland but not by much.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - washingtonismoney - 12-15-2014

(12-15-2014, 09:56 AM)donkey687 link Wrote:Losing to Utah at home is pretty bad. That was only a month ago.Â Utah is better than Maryland but not by much.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - stupac2 - 12-15-2014

I think the main thing is that Utah has a good defense and Maryland has a mediocre one. If you have two teams that are both around the same rank in a system, team A does it with bad offense and good defense, and team B is the opposite, we're way more likely to lose to team A, just because games where you score less are higher variance.

I mean, of course Maryland could play out of their minds and we could come out flat and lose. But what are the odds of that, really? I don't think they're high. I know that Stanford fans are preternaturally pessimistic, but this is just not a game we should worry about.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - washingtonismoney - 12-15-2014

Oh, I would worry about this game. If this were a regular season game I'd feel pretty comfortable with the result. But bowl season is invariably weird and odd stuff happens. Since I think Stanford is better than Maryland in a normal situation, weirdness is only a problem for us.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - donkey687 - 12-15-2014

(12-15-2014, 10:03 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:[quote author=donkey687 link=topic=11337.msg108315#msg108315 date=1418662568]
Losing to Utah at home is pretty bad. That was only a month ago.Â Utah is better than Maryland but not by much.

Wellll:

F/+:
Utah: #38
Maryland: #45

Sagarin (Predictor)
Utah: #34
Maryland: #53

ESPN FPI:
Utah: #30
Maryland: #51

The Power Rank:
Utah: #30
Maryland: #63

Most ranking systems think there's a pretty substantial difference between Utah and Maryland.
[/quote]

18 points on Sagarin isn't that brobdingnagian in the 30 to 50 range especially when you factor Utah was a home game and bowl game is neutral and probably half the gap between Utah and Maryland is explained by the fact that Utah beat Stanford.Â If it weren't for that data point, it would be a narrow spread.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - BostonCard - 12-15-2014

Per Sagarin, Maryland, ranked 46th, is sandwiched between UW (39th) and Cal (57th) among teams we have played.Â Utah (32nd) and Notre Dame (35th) are the two lowest ranked teams to whom we have lost.

BC

What the odds makers don't know and couldn't know - Redrum - 12-15-2014

I just changed our Christmas plans and extended the stay by two days so we can go to the game.Â In bowl games, traditionally, this is the kiss of death for the boys in red.

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - CTcard - 12-15-2014

(12-15-2014, 10:47 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Oh, I would worry about this game. If this were a regular season game I'd feel pretty comfortable with the result. But bowl season is invariably weird and odd stuff happens. Since I think Stanford is better than Maryland in a normal situation, weirdness is only a problem for us.

Two points in this thread I would comment upon.

One is to echo that Bowl games tend to be weird. Lots of upsets and blowouts.
Teams with a month off tend to react very differently than when playing once a week.

The second is on Utah.
Utah is the kind of weird team that wins a lot compared to what one might expect from standard statistical measures. For example, Utah got outgained in each and every game they played versus a Big 5 conference school save one (and that was a near thing, they outgained Colorado by 6 yards - out of 440). Most of those by a lot.Â Yet Utah also won 8 games this year and were competitive in 3 of 4 losses. They won on special teams and not making mistakes. Sort of like Stanford 2012 - though somewhat more extreme.

I think that most power-metrics/advanced stats tend to downgrade teams that win in that manner. Maybe that is appropriate and the team was lucky. Maybe that is inappropriate and there actually is skill involved in playing mistake-free and winning close games. Probably some of both.

So who is closer to being correct, the pollsters/cfp committee who have Utah 22/23, or the computer based rankings that tend to have Utah in the 30+ range?

Re: Phil Steele and Todd McShay agree... - washingtonismoney - 12-17-2014

FWIW Bill Connelly projects Stanford to win either by 12 or 9: http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/12/17/7407627/college-football-bowl-predictions-projections-fplus