alphahydro

I think Oregon was favored by 10 over UW because the computers liked Oregon's record more (esp against common opponents). Oregon beat Cal by 17 more points than UW did, they beat ASU by 28 more more points; they beat oregon state by 22 more points, they beat wazzu by 12 more points. Utah by 19 more points, and stanford by 27 more points (quick maths there, so I may be off). It's possible that key UW players were sick for the ASU/Cal/Wazzu/Oregon st./Utah/Stanford games. Or the weather played a factor when UW played those teams but not when Oregon did. Maybe UW tends to play down to its competition. Idk. In any event, I think the margin-of-victory disparity against those teams is why the computers (and Vegas and human voters) liked Oregon so much. It's also why the CFP committee had Oregon ahead of Texas for so long (that and Nix's dazzling completion %age) It's also possible that Oregon beats up on less athletic teams, but loses their big competitive advantage when they play equally athletic teams. That's my pet theory and explains why Oregon was in a dogfight against UW in both games. Also explains why the one common opponent UW and Oregon beat by the ~ same margin (USC) was full of athletes. (It's also why I only looked at top competition when trying to match up UW's record this season vs Texas'.) FWIW, my terrible take is that UW is the most well-rounded team in the playoffs this year. What I mean by that is even though they may not have super athletes everywhere, they don't have any glaring weaknesses. It's harder to find a weakness or obvious potential issue with UW the way you can with UM, UT, or Bama. On top of that, I think this is a great year for UW, because even though they are probably the least athletic team of the 3, IMO there's no obvious juggernaut team that completely outclasses UW's athletes in 1-2 phases of the game. My gut is - if a team beats UW convincingly (aside from turnovers, luck, etc), it's because they have some talent differential here or there and they are able to exploit it in a way that disrupts what UW tries to do on offense or allows them to break a few homerun plays against UW's defense. (in a way that oregon couldn't). but i don't really know shit, so....

I haven't watched enough Washington games to say anything useful about matchups, schemes, etc. So I pulled some stats while I was bored. TL;DR - I looked at Wash's results against teams roughly as good as Texas and vice versa (based on stats I pulled over the past week while i was bored. You may or may not think these stats are relevant). Based on the stats I pulled for Texas, UW, and each team's 2023 opponents: Assuming the Pac-12 and Big XII are pretty similar, the stats I pulled suggest a close Sugar Bowl with both teams scoring in the low 30s. This is before accounting for UW/Texas matchups, schemes, injuries, turnovers, etc. Over the course of the season, Wash was about as good on offense and defense as Oklahoma. On offense, based on the stats i pulled, Texas sits somewhere between Arizona and Oregon. Washington didn't face a defense quite as good as Texas', but Oregon's was pretty close (statistically), followed by Arizona. If you insert a team about as good as Texas (based on statistical performance) into UW's schedule, you'd expect something like 32-30 UW. If you insert a team about as good as UW into Texas' schedule, you expect something like 30-29 Texas. I expect some of the difference is due to game pace/plays per game, but I didn't look into this. Again, this is all assuming the stats are useful (you may not think so) and it doesn't account for matchups, etc. Some of Texas' stats include games where Ewers didn't play or Brooks did play. Similar caveat for UW. This is not serious or predictive. More like a sanity check for some of the more outlandish claims and something to chew on for the next couple weeks. I just pulled these random stats while i was bored this week, and these are my thoughts. The Goal - to see how Washington fared this season against teams about as good as Texas and vice versa. I'm not trying to argue anything here. I was pulling stats to see - how did Washington fare against offenses about as good as Texas; How did Texas fare against defenses about as good as Washington's, etc. i was just doing this out of boredom and curiosity, and i'm sharing my findings. Stats I pulled for each team on Tex and Wash schedules: Yards per rush OFEI (opponent adjusted offensive efficiency) points per play passer rating yards per pass DFEI (opponent adjusted defensive efficiency) Opponent Yards per rush points per play allowed. Opp pass rating Opp yards per attempt allowed I could have kept going, but tbh I ran out of steam. (no conspiracy, I just happened to start with these stats and got too bored to keep going) Preface You can draw your own conclusion about how useful the stats are. Was the Pac 12 roughly as strong as the Big XII this season? In pass defense, rush offense, rush defense, etc? idk. You can interpret the stats how you like. For purposes of the below, I largely assume that the conferences are roughly equal. (Only because I don't know of any good adjusted stats, and even if I did, I'm not a math guy but I wonder how good they would be with so few cross conference games between quality opponents this season.) Takeaway #1 - Based on the stats I pulled, Washington and OU had about the same season offensively and defensively. Matchups/schemes/injuries aside, this would provide reason to expect a close game. Offensively (national ranking): Yards per rush/ OFEI / points per play / pass rating / yards per pass 40th/ 6th/ 6th / 11th / 9th (UW) vs 45th / 7th / 8th / 4th / 5th (OU) Defensively (national ranking): DFEI / opponent yard per rush / opp points per play / opp pass rating / opp yards per pass att 27th/ 70th/ 27th / 23rd / 23rd (UW) vs 21st / 55th / 22nd / 12th / 27th (OU) Obviously, the big difference is, unlike OU, UW found a way to win the games where it shit the bed. lol. Takeaway # 2 - Looking at Texas' schedule, Texas scored about 30 points against defenses about as good as UW's. Defensively, if UW is a 27/70/27/23/23, the next best Washington comps are Iowa State (28/37/26/13/19) and Wyoming/KState (average = 41/84/39/28/28) Against OU/Iowa State/Wyoming/KState, Texas scored 30, 26, 31, 33. Based on these stats alone, ignoring matchups, injuries, schemes, etc., you would expect Texas to score about 30 against a defense of this caliber. (Most of Texas' big score games came against really bad defenses). Based on the numbers, Alabama has a significantly better defense than Wash (9/31/19/20/18). Yes Texas scored 34 against Alabama, but Texas' offense had a very good game against Bama and won the turnover battle 2-0. Takeaway # 3 - Looking at Texas' schedule, it's not easy to say how many points Texas would have allowed to an offense about as good as UW's. OU is a good comp (again, matchups aside) for UW. Surprisingly, so is Kansas. If UW is a 40/6/6/11/9, Kansas is a 9/10/13/15/6. (again these are national rankings based on unadjusted stats, with the exception of OFEI.) I think it's hard to take too much from the Kansas' game, due to their bad defense and overall caliber of athlete. Then you have K State (31 / 12 /19 / 52 / 67) which doesn't pass the ball as well, and Alabama (85 / 21 / 23 / 10 / 4 ), which didn't run the ball as well, based on raw, unadjusted stats. Here, it's one thing to say that OU and K-State faced pass defenses about as good as UW did over the course of the season. But it's hard to imagine saying that about run defenses faced when it comes to Alabama and UW. So this is just a really clear limit of the stats I had handy. Assuming you use OU/Bama/K-State as Washington offense comps (ignoring the Kansas result and figuring that Bama's rush is at least as good as UW's), Texas allowed just over 29 points against OU/Bama/K-State. Again, these are just rough sanity check type thought experiments, there is a lot more to say and this isn't meant to be predictive. I think one of the interesting takeaways here is - again, assuming the pac-12 and big xii pass defenses are pretty similar, UW didn't average a higher passer rating or yards per pass than OU or Kansas throughout the season, UW just threw the ball a lot more per game. Run with that fact as you will. Takeway # 4 - UW didn't face a defense that did as well in the Pac-12 this season as Texas did against its schedule. Oregon was closest. Texas 7/5/9/26/31 vs Oregon 15/18/10/17/15. (7th adjusted defense vs Oregon's 15th) No one else on UW's schedule is really close. Notably, Oregon has a better pass defense, at least per the unadjusted stats, though Texas' defense is better overall. UW scored an average of 35 points vs Oregon. UW offense also laid some eggs against Oregon State, ASU, and Wazzu. I didn't check, but I assume they had more offensive plays/drives against Oregon. Hard one to call. Unclear to me why UW's points production was so uneven this season. If UW had played more top defenses, we would have more data to look at. Takeway # 5 - UW didn't face a good comp to the Texas offense, even assuming Pac-12 roughly equal to Big XII. On paper, Texas definitely doesn't have an offense as good as USC's or Oregon's. USC put up 42. Oregon put up 31 and 33. No one else hit 30 in a competitive game. Texas is a 25/15/17/17/18. Arizona is a 36/11/21/9/23 and scored 24. Oregon State is a 29/8/26/32/20 and scored 20. I'd put a little less stock in these results for the same reason I don't put too much stock in Kansas offense's output against Texas. (athletic differences + weaknesses on the other side of the ball affecting output). So, yeah, idk. I will say I did come away from this thinking that Texas is prolly gonna have to work for points. Final Caveat. Again, these are just random musings. I wanted to see how Texas and UW fared against other good opponents. Turns out you basically just look at Texas/OU and UW/Oregon (lol) but I think it also helps to eliminate the games that aren't really all that informative. And then we are left with (to some extent) Arizona, Oregon State, K-State, Bama, and Iowa State, all of which tend to suggest we should expect a close game in the low 30s, absent considerations of some huge mismatch, be it talent, athleticism, luck, turnovers, scheme, etc. hook em.

interesting. i noticed the one thing sark said about wash during some tv interview i saw was something like "they're a great team. they're doing a good job running the ball with dillon johnson. he's really come on lately" which now makes more sense. sounds like tosh got out-coached, which doesn't surprise me. and my overriding feeling during that game was that oregon's defense just looked poorly coached and poorly prepared. i guess some of that was great scheming by washington.

makes sense (though not great news for texas fans). i am just going on season long stats. i only watched the oregon games. tbh, oregon's defense did not look well coached to me at all during the second game. over the course of the season, oregon's defense rates well. is the discrepancy because something about washington's play calling confused the oregon players? oregon had some key injuries? the rest of oregon's opponents weren't that good at passing? something else? ***** fwiw, i've glanced at the stats some more, and it looks like penix' gaudy numbers (10+ yards per pass, 40+ points) all came against terrible pass defenses (ranked 90-127) but he held up well against oregon both times (~8 yards per pass / 85 QBR). Outside of Oregon and the 6 teams with awful pass defenses, most of the opposing pass defenses he faced were mid (ranked 57-79 nationally) and he mostly did well against those mid pass defenses, except against asu and wazzu (and to some extent Oregon State), where he had rough games. Any idea why he struggled against these defenses but not Oregon? curious to hear your thoughts, as I don't know much about any of those teams and only watched a tiny bit of the wazzu game. curious to read any other thoughts you have about the sugar bowl matchup.

2 other things washington fans said on reddit 1 - their pass defense wasn't that good either, and they don't tackle well. so, over the course of the season, their pass yards per play was not as bad as texas' but it was in the same ballpark. i'll look at how they did against good passing teams (vs how we did against good passing teams) and see what the box scores say.

I assume these are not adjusted numbers, but based on these numbers. Penix didn't get sacked much at all this year. They are 3rd in the country in preventing sacks. FWIW, all the Wash fans I saw on Reddit were saying their pass blocking was miles ahead of where it was last year when we faced them. They ran the ball 42% of the time (124th in the country). Our opponents ran the ball 42% of the time (3rd lowest % in the country). So, if you can bet on 42% run plays by Wash, that may be a good bet. Heads up (these are based on yards per play) Texas running the ball vs Wash D. Texas 25th / Wash 70th Texas passing vs Wash D Texas 18th/Wash 23rd Washington Running vs Texas D Wash 40th/Texas 5th Washington Passing vs Texas D Wash 9th/Texas 31 If you give Grades based on percentile yards per play: Texas passing is A vs A- (Texas pass offense vs Wash pass defense) Texas running is A- vs C Washington passing is A vs B Washington running is B vs A+ So based on those numbers, their passing attack is about as good as ours is. They are better at preventing sacks, but much worse at run stopping and run blocking. They are slightly better at stopping the pass. Someone can double check my work. I think what is more important is looking at comparable opponents, which i will do at some point if I get some time.

agree. that would be the absolute best for texas.

This is how I see it. There's nothing to talk about if FSU loses. Assume FSU wins later today. Pretty sure Dinich said there is protocol that allows the committee to take into account whether a key player's absence from the team would make the team uncompetitive in the post-season. 1) If Georgia wins, that protocol is our only hope, imo. Will the committee invoke that protocol to put Texas in over undefeated FSU? Maybe. 2) If Alabama wins, we could get the fourth spot over bama based on head-to-head but we also have a second way in - The committee could invoke that protocol to kick out FSU and put in the SEC champ + the team that beat the SEC champ. As Texas fans, we might be comfortable with 1), but TBH 2) seems like an easier sell for the committee and more in line with the talk from all the talking heads. (it's like a 2-for-1 you get to put in the SEC champ plus a second team (UT) that is clearly better than FSU) Here's another way to look at it. Assuming FSU and GA both win, does 1a) make the committee uncomfortable enough to keep undefeated FSU out to go to 1b) to make a space for TX? 1a) MICH WASH FSU GA 1b) MICH WASH TEXAS GA OTOH, if Bama wins, they have three options 2a) MICH WASH FSU TEX 2b) MICH WASH FSU BAMA 2c) MICH WASH BAMA TEXAS Assuming FSU wins. If GA wins, what's the %age they go from 1a) to 1b)? I think it's slim. If BAMA wins, I think our odds of 2a) + 2c) are better than 1b).

yeah. i could be wrong but i suspect it's just incompetence on the part of the guy at the big 12 who looked at the rules and told the reporters to hold their horses. hopefully it never becomes an issue. and frankly if the team thinks they need to win, it's prolly a good thing.

I agree that it says this - "'once "one team gains an advantage and is seeded' then they go to the [remaining] teams." But there is no applicable rule that would "seed" OU without putting TX in the championship game. After the ISU tiebreaker, OU didn't get seeded. OU and TX are still tied after the ISU tiebreaker. So another way to put it is - after you apply the ISU tiebreaker, what tiebreaker do you apply next to TX and OU? coin toss? strength of schedule? Next highest rated common opponent? After the ISU tiebreaker, it looks like this: Section 1 (2 way tiebreaker rules) tiebreaker rule A tiebreaker rule B tiebreaker rule C Section 2 (3+ way tie tiebreaker rules) tiebreaker rule i (only applies if all tied teams played each other) tiebreaker rule ii **** ISU Tiebreaker/ YOU ARE HERE**** tiebreaker rule iii After YOU ARE HERE - what tie breaker do you apply next? do you go to Section 2 tiebreaker rule iii? Do you repeat tiebreaker rule ii with the next highest ranked common opp of TX/OU? Do you go to Section 3 tiebreaker rule i? Where do you go next? There are two parts of the rules. (1) A list of tiebreakers, and then (2) a set of rules about the order in which you apply the tiebreakers. The orange and green sentences tell us about the order in which we apply the tiebreaker rules. The rules clearly say if you have a three way tie you start in Section 2 at rule i but if at any point you get to two teams, then you go immediately to Section 1. "If at any point the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure will be applied." In other words, if you start in Section 2 and at any point you get down to two teams, you immediately go to the top of Section 1. The very top of Section 1 says if you have two teams tied for first (as opposed to two teams tied for second), those two teams play in the championship. The sentence reads "If two teams are tied for first place both teams will participate in the championship game and the winner of the head-to-head will be the #1 seed." This language "After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the multiple-team tie-breaking procedure" doesn't apply after the ISU tiebreaker, because no team got seeded. I think that's the mistake people are making. They think the green language means once you eliminate OSU (via the ISU tiebreaker) you start at the top again with OU/TX and look at their head-to-head tiebreaker. But that's just wrong. It's a misreading of the green language and ignores the orange language. It's a violation of the part of the rules that tells you which tiebreaker rule you apply in which circumstance. In fact, the green language serves a useful purpose, but it can only apply if you start with four+ teams tied for first and you run through section two and eliminate one team. For example, say there were four teams tied for first at 11-1, and one of those four teams beat the other three head-to-head. At that point, that team is seeded. Then you have three teams left, and without the green language, it's not clear which tiebreaker you apply next, so you need a rule saying what you do with the remaining three teams. The green sentence says after you seed the one team, those remaining three teams start over in the Section 2 rules. That's how the green statement works. And it makes sense that the Green language sends you back to the top of Section 2 when you have 3+ teams remaining and to Section 1 when you have two remaining. We can think of it as green is the general rule and orange is the exception when you get down to two teams. There's no other way to read the rules. There's no ambiguity. Someone at the Big XII just read it too quickly (imo). There is no legitimate way to read the rules to say after **YOU ARE HERE** you apply head to head TX/OU, seed OU, then start again with TX/OSU. There's nothing ambiguous about it. The big xii just messed up. First, because that reading ignores the orange language. Second because there is nothing in the rules that would tell you to apply the head-to-head tiebreaker to resolve TX/OU (as opposed to next highest ranked opp or coin toss or whatever). You are correct that, even if the rules did say to seed OU and compare TX/OSU, there is a weird issue with the word next that makes it unclear which opp you would look at if you were comparing TX and OSU. anyway, fuck tech.

btw, i agree it would suck to lose to tech, etc. my point is - reading what other people have said, it sounded like there was a problem with the rules or the rules were super ambiguous. then i went and looked at the rules and i think they are clear enough. i think the problem is the big xii is just pulling something out of their ass that is totally unsupported by the language of the rules. unless i am missing something or there is a chain of results next weekend we haven't considered.

this is how i read it, assuming the only scenario at issue is TX, OU, and OSU being tied for first, with ISU being highest ranked common opp for all 3. here are the actual rules There are two sections to the rules - Section 1 addresses a two way tie (could be a tie for first (two teams at 11-0; issue is seeding) or a tie for second (one team at 11-0; two teams at 10-1; issue is which of the two 10-1 teams get in). Section 2 addresses a 3+ team tie (three+ teams at 10-1; issue is which two teams get in) With 3+ teams (TX, OU, & OSU) tied for first, we start in Section 2. When you run through the Section 2 tiebreaker rules, the first tiebreaking rule doesn't apply because TX, OU, and OSU didn't all play each other. The second tiebreaking rule is record vs next highest common opponent (ISU). Against ISU, Texas and OU are 1-0; OSU is 0-1. Section 2 says After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the multiple-team tie-breaking procedure. If at any point the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure will be applied. What Alex Loeb seems to be arguing is that after applying the ISU tiebreaker, you then apply the ORANGE SENTENCE to resolve the remaining two-team tie between TX and OU (per Alex - OU wins that one on head to head) - then you go back and re-run tiebreaking rules between OSU and TX, because all that happened in round 1 of tiebreaking was that OU was seeded #1. He's wrong. In the Big XII tiebreaking scheme, the only way to apply the TX vs OU head-to-head tiebreaking rule at this point would be to apply the ORANGE SENTENCE and go to Section 1 tiebreaking rules to resolve TX vs OU. But if you go to to Section 1, it says "if two teams are tied for first place both teams will participate in the championship game and the winner of the head-to-head will be the #1 seed." Boom. Done. End of story. You just can't go that route. Under these particular rules, you can't get from (a) using the ISU tiebreaker in part 2 of Section 2 to eliminate OSU, to (b) applying a head-to-head tiebreaker to resolve TX vs OU without (c) putting TX and OU in the championship game. (He might also be thinking that once you get rid of OSU through the ISU tiebreaker, you go back to part 1 of Section 2 to resolve TX/OU, but there is nothing in the rules that supports this reading.) At best, Loeb could argue that the ORANGE SENTENCE does not apply after the ISU tiebreaker, because even though OSU lost the Section 2 step 2/ISU tiebreaker, the three-way tie hasn't been reduced to two teams for some reason. (This is a terrible misreading based on the phrase IF AT ANY POINT). I can't imagine what the words IF AT ANY POINT could mean here if they wouldn't apply after the ISU tiebreaker. I think the problem is someone at the Big XII read the rules too quickly and didn't "run water through the pipes" (or maybe I am an idiot). They are reading the rules to say, after a tiebreaking rule eliminates one team, you start from the top with the remaining two teams to find the first place team, then start from the top again with the remaining teams. But the words don't say that at all. What they say is: If you start with four+ teams and get to a tiebreaking rule in section 2 where Team A wins over all the others, you re-run the section 2 rules with the remaining 3+. (makes sense - you can't use section 1 rules as they make no sense with 3+ teams) If you start with three teams and get to a tiebreaking rule in section 2 where Team A wins over all the others, you run the section 1 rules with the remaining 2. (makes sense - down to two teams, you can just run the Section 1 rules) Our case is a little bit different, it is: If you start with three teams and get to a tiebreaking rule in section 2 where one team gets eliminated, you run the section 1 rules with the remaining 2. but I still think it makes sense the way the rule is written, given the phrase if at any point.