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Athlon preseason top 25, NU 19

Captkenny said:
If an easier schedule is a “huge” impetus, as you suggest, for our Athlon #19 pre-season ranking, it is even more meaningless than I originally thought. It suggests we will be ranked higher, not because of our team improving, but because our competition will be substantially weaker in comparison to 2018.
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It absolutely does reflect the weaker competition. We lose Michigan and Michigan State and pick up Maryland Indiana. Whether you agree with it or not......wins and losses......not competition drives the rankings. Just ask UCF. There were much better teams out there ranked lower because of their record. I think we will end up ranked higher next year than 2020 because of our schedule and yet 2020 will probably be a better team.
 

Well I haven't been a kool-aid fan for almost a decade. I look at schedules and I take into account personnel losses that other teams are having too. Purdue is likely to take a pretty decent step back next year as they are losing a lot. Every team we play with the exception of Ohio State is going to have some question marks. We won't fill all of ours nor will they theirs. But we will work around those question marks as good or better than the rest of the West as we have more overall talent and younger depth.

If you look at how bad we were this year at 4-8 and realize we had 3-4 games we just handed to the opponent with mistakes and attitude. Troy, Colorado, Northwestern, and possibly Iowa. Now add in replacing Michigan with Indiana and Michigan State with Maryland. Our tough games move home with Ohio State, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Iowa all being home. 3 of those games we lost by less than a TD and home field advantage could have swung that.

Now I'm not saying we played well enough to be a 8 or 9 win team last year but I'm saying with the schedule and unforced errors that took place last year and a little bit of bad luck we were much better than 4-8. I think we looked more like a 7-5 team last year. Now had we gone 7-5......which we didn't......and you looked at this years schedule I'm pretty sure people would feel good about 9 wins.

But we will have to see. Its going to be an interesting off season as people are all over the boards on this topic and I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle being a kool-aid pumper after so many years or arguing with those guys. :)
 
Hville said:
It absolutely does reflect the weaker competition. We lose Michigan and Michigan State and pick up Maryland Indiana. Whether you agree with it or not......wins and losses......not competition drives the rankings. Just ask UCF. There were much better teams out there ranked lower because of their record. I think we will end up ranked higher next year than 2020 because of our schedule and yet 2020 will probably be a better team.
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Of course, the thing you seem to be missing is an easier schedule only results in better win/loss numbers if your team is capable of beating those “easier” teams.

Had we not changed coaching staffs, we would not be capable of beating teams like Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Maryland, and Iowa.
 



Captkenny said:
Of course, the thing you seem to be missing is an easier schedule only results in better win/loss numbers if your team is capable of beating those “easier” teams.

Had we not changed coaching staffs, we would not be capable of beating teams like Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Maryland, and Iowa.
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I'm not missing that part at all. Totally recognizing it and thus the Kool-aid. :)
 
Captkenny said:
Riley has NOTHING to do with the #19 ranking. I’m not sure how you read my post and reached the conclusion that I was suggesting Riley was a factor. I was suggesting that had we not made a coaching change a year ago, and Riley had gone 4-8, our “easier” schedule would not have resulted into entering 2019 with a #19 preseason ranking. This suggests that Frost and company are a factor, and I would suggest THE key factor.

If an easier schedule is a “huge” impetus, as you suggest, for our Athlon #19 pre-season ranking, it is even more meaningless than I originally thought. It suggests we will be ranked higher, not because of our team improving, but because our competition will be substantially weaker in comparison to 2018.
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The schedule improvement suggests nothing at all about our improvement. If you’d like to argue it’s not an important factor, be my guest. You seem to want to make this a zero sum game regarding a mythical ranking while arguing about Riley hypotheticals. If Frost didn’t come, we’d still have a Riley replacement. None of that makes SOS any less or more important.
 
Big Red Shrine said:
The schedule improvement suggests nothing at all about our improvement. If you’d like to argue it’s not an important factor, be my guest. You seem to want to make this a zero sum game regarding a mythical ranking while arguing about Riley hypotheticals. If Frost didn’t come, we’d still have a Riley replacement. None of that makes SOS any less or more important.
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You seem to be arguing that we would be ranked #19 regardless of whether Riley was here or some other Riley replacement simply because we have an “easier” schedule in 2019. You suggest that this is true regardless of any factors actually relating to team expectations.

Essentially, you are arguing that this pre-season ranking is a SOS ranking. It simply is not. The schedule certainly is a factor in a top 25 ranking, but we could have the easiest SOS in the country and not get ranked in the top 25 if the perception was we couldn’t compete with this easy schedule.
 




Captkenny said:
You seem to be arguing that we would be ranked #19 regardless of whether Riley was here or some other Riley replacement simply because we have an “easier” schedule in 2019. You suggest that this is true regardless of any factors actually relating to team expectations.

Essentially, you are arguing that this pre-season ranking is a SOS ranking. It simply is not. The schedule certainly is a factor in a top 25 ranking, but we could have the easiest SOS in the country and not get ranked in the top 25 if the perception was we couldn’t compete with this easy schedule.
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Dude, I was just adding a better schedule to the discussion and made none of the arguments you assert. I don’t get your issue so I’ll bow out.
 
Big Red Shrine said:
Dude, I was just adding a better schedule to the discussion and made none of the arguments you assert. I don’t get your issue so I’ll bow out.
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Finally. I was starting to wonder how long you would try to convince me that a pre-season ranking is equivalent to a SOS ranking.
 
Entertaining to watch two dudes attack each other over Athon's pre season rating as to whether it's "finished great" or "schedule favorable," when the Athlon article says both.

 



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