Arda K wrote:did all the qbs in the conference brake their nails during out of conference games?
Is this kind of trash necessary, man? I commented that a player, the Colorado QB, got injured. Injuries happen, and they affect games...even in the uber-manly Big Ten, where they eat nails (steak?) for breakfast. Why the pre-teen-maturity-level comment?
Arda K wrote:still havent explained why entire conference doesnt have a single good out of conference win
Define "good". What were the *good* out of conference wins for the Big Ten in 2014? The Pac-12 out-of-conference resume this year is quite clearly better than the Big Ten's in 2014 by this point in the season. But it's such a small sample size, which is why I advocate for an 8-team playoff: I don't want to
exclude a conference, even a conference that has such a terrible out-of-conference showing as the Big Ten did in 2014, where their champion lost to a team that went 3-5 in the ACC, and no one had any *good-according-to-Arda* wins.
The Pac-12 is 6-5 this year against the Power 5 conferences + Notre Dame. Some of those 6 wins were against pretty *good* teams. No one's arguing that any of those wins were as *good* as Oklahoma or Colorado. If we're talking that type of level of *good*, then we're talking about really really small sample sizes; maybe four Pac-12 teams that could beat that level of opponent, most of which are gonna play just one Power 5 opponent. So looking at the top 4 Pac-12 teams according to
Massey:
- Washington beat Rutgers. That home-and-home was set up in 2014 –– that year both teams won 8 games. Not sure who was supposed to know that Washington would rise to the top of the Pac-12, while Rutgers would rise to the top of the Bottom 10.
- Colorado lost to Michigan on the road. But they played them tough (and in fact led most of the 1st half and into the 2nd half) until their quarterback got injured. Flip that scenario: @Colorado, & Michigan has the injured QB, and I don't think it's crazy to think Colorado wins that game. Neutral field with both quarterbacks healthy? I don't know. Based on name-brand? People would say Michigan. Based on how that game was going before Liufau got injured? People might have to say Colorado.
- USC lost to Alabama. The whole country knows USC is a lot better team now than they were at the beginning of the year. A huge reason we know was the QB switch. Perhaps there are others as well.
- Stanford beat Kansas State and Notre Dame. Both of which are mediocre teams that have been top tier in recent years.
That's it: that's your sample size. I agree that it's not amazingly wonderful, but I think the sample size is too small. It's just not enough info to conclude as much as you think we can conclude, which is that "that conference is a joke".
Once again, when you include a lot more information, like
Sagarin does, it shows the Pac-12
as a whole as a better conference than the Big Ten, and it's not close.