forums

On "The Eye Test" and "Bad Losses"

Carrying Red Star GIF by FK Crvena zvezda
 
Advertisement
There is no eye test.

There are metrics (of which, whether you feel they’re just or not, favor ND) and there is real, pure, tangible human bias.

I have both feet firmly in the paint that, if both teams finish 10-2, Miami will not be ranked higher in the final poll. The only way that happens is if a ton of chaos happens and BOTH Miami and ND are in, and are right next to each other, for example they may put Miami 9 and ND 10. But ND will not, under any circumstances, miss the playoff if they win both their next 2 games.

A&M, taint, UGA, and Indiana do not currently have odds to make the playoff, as they’re essentially locks.

But of the teams who do have odds posted, ND is tied for 2nd.

Ole Miss is -4000
ND and Texas Tech are -2500
Miami is +300

Vegas wasn’t built by being clueless morons. Follow the odds. ND is in with 2 more wins. Our only chance is to join them, by winning out and getting help.
 
Notre Dame placed 5th in the CFP last year.

Their bad loss was NIU.

NIU.

Their best wins?

8-4 A&M
8-4 Louisville
2 ranked wins vs…….. Army & Navy

Our “bad losses” this year are arguably equal or better teams than their BEST wins last year. All while they had by far the worst loss of any playoff team.
 
None of that **** matters. Their “resume” isn’t far far and away better than ours. That’s what it would take to even be remotely fair for them to get in over us with the same record.

As it stands right now, with comparable schedule metrics, it’s malpractice for them to be ahead of us. What you’re saying is results don’t matter early in the year bc the season doesn’t actually start until week 3-4. Might as well just turn off the scoreboard and “eye test” it every week.
 
canesstevealum08 said:
Ironically, Notre Dame hasn’t beaten somebody as good as Louisville or SMU
Click to expand...
I'd put USC in a tier above Louisville and SMU. I think SMU and Pitt are top 50 teams. Louisvillle is in the 20-35 range while USC is firmly around 10-20. People get caught up in calling way too many teams trash and pretend a middle ground doesnt exist. I hate this arbitrary "top 25" for ranked wins as if there's a difference between the 29th and 23rd team lol.
 
NC_Canes_11 said:
None of that **** matters. Their “resume” isn’t far far and away better than ours. That’s what it would take to even be remotely fair for them to get in over us with the same record.

As it stands right now, with comparable schedule metrics, it’s malpractice for them to be ahead of us. What you’re saying is results don’t matter early in the year bc the season doesn’t actually start until week 3-4. Might as well just turn off the scoreboard and “eye test” it every week.
Click to expand...
Basically the committee could arbitrarily rank us ahead of Utah. BYU, of Alabama , and then our head to head against ND would count and bump us up another 3 spots?

We have a similar "win" to Bama beating ND while they beat UGA and they have a significantly worse loss than us against an ACC bottom dweller. We also dominated the same team that dominated them h2h..we could easily be ranked ahead of Bama.

We could easily justifiably be ranked ahead of Utah or BYU right now, without any other "resume building".

It's all BS and smokescreens.
 
Advertisement
MikeyCanez said:
It seems very clear that, at least for this week, the Committee will justify ranking Notre Dame above Miami for two main reasons:

1. Notre Dame looks better.

2. Miami has worse losses.

Leave H2H out of this for the moment. Both of these takes are at least arguable. We look better now than we did a few weeks ago, but Notre Dame has looked dominant, albeit against lesser competition. We'd probably be an underdog on a neutral field today. Miami's losses aren't bad (and might get better if the winner of SMU/Louisville gets ranked next week), but they are objectively worse than Notre Dame's. We all know the Miami argument here, so no need to rehash, but allow me to go down a rabbit hole for the moment.

The eye test is bull**** for a ton of different reasons, not the least of which is that somehow university athletic directors are still on the committee, but also because I refuse to believe that all these old white rich football coaches are sitting around watching ball all day and night.

There is a ZERO percent chance that 79-year-old Chris ******* Ault is spending his weekends watching Jordan Lyle slam into the A gap 15 times.

The reason I say this is, and this will sound like excuses, but after Week 1, Mack Rhoades legitimately talked about how Notre Dame's CENTER got hurt in the USC game as part of the team's resiliency or whatever. Fine. Context matters. So can we talk about how Akheem Mesidor missed part of the Louisville game and played hurt in the SMU game? Are we allowed to point out that CJ Daniels and OJ Frederique both missed the SMU game or that Mark Fletcher missed the 4th quarter of the SMU game? Daniels will definitely be back (I think) and hopefully the other guys soon too. Everyone keeps saying "Miami got worse" without even PRETENDING to add any context to those losses. Meanwhile ND's loss to Miami gets qualified up and down and around again.

I get it, those guys are just All-Conference caliber players at key positions. They aren't Notre Dame's Center. But if you want to talk about Miami "getting worse", you sure as **** better be prepared to talk about them "getting better" as they return to full strength.

Maybe Notre Dame would win in a rematch, they are good. But don't ******* tell me that Notre Dame "looks better" when the team that swallowed that vaunted running game whole wasn't even playing at full strength in those losses. I simply will not hear that. If the choice is between some subjective nonsense prediction and an actual game that was played and happened on the field, we've already lost the plot. And I swear I would feel the same way if the roles were reversed.

But nothing irks me more than knowing deep in my soul that my guy Chris Ault accidentally fell asleep during the Marquise Lightfoot unnecessary roughness penalty and because of that, he and this other octogenarians think that the SMU game was a "bad loss".

I understand that opening this door means that Notre Dame can (rightfully) talk about their ***** job against A&M where there was a blatant hold on the winning touchdown. But bad calls affect games every week. I am not even arguing the call against Lightfoot was a bad call. I am arguing that it was a complete and total fluke. How many times have you seen that penalty happen? Once? Never? One could easily argue that Miami didn't lose that game because of bad officiating, they lost because of a once-in-a-generation fluke dead ball penalty on 4th and 9.

I am so sick of hearing about the SMU game as a "bad loss". Did Miami play poorly? Yes. Is the Lightfoot penalty or the refereeing the reason that Miami lost? No, it isn't. But it is contextual. And despite Miami playing one of its worst games all season without THREE key starters in the fourth quarter, SMU still needed a fluky dead ball penalty to win. I think that at least deserves some kind of mention, no?

The problem is that when you start pointing out specific plays in games, the slope gets very slippery very quickly. I didn't watch the entirety of the ND/A&M game, but I am sure ND fans could point to a few plays that should have gone their way.

But that is my whole ******* point. This sport has uneven conferences and uneven schedules, so there is no tried and true way to compare with 100% certainty two teams that didn't play each other. Pointing to penalties and injuries and weather and circumstances and early season v. late season is all relevant, but it is also all completely subjective and not directly influential on anything if the two teams played again.

With all of that in mind, head to head is the truest possible way to settle a debate filled with injuries and strength of record and bad losses and good wins. It is the most distilled and purest way to determine which team is "better". And I am extremely concerned that we are headed towards a path where old *** athletic directors and Condolezza Rice are using their own amateur film breakdowns to judge teams subjectively and as everyone has pointed out, that would mean the death of Top 10 non-conference games, which is a loss for everybody.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I still think we should play Zaquan Patterson more at safety and don't understand why he can't get more reps.
Click to expand...
Would read again
 
Astcloud11 said:
I'd put USC in a tier above Louisville and SMU. I think SMU and Pitt are top 50 teams. Louisvillle is in the 20-35 range while USC is firmly around 10-20. People get caught up in calling way too many teams trash and pretend a middle ground doesnt exist. I hate this arbitrary "top 25" for ranked wins as if there's a difference between the 29th and 23rd team lol.
Click to expand...
Fair points
 
Our record would have been an undeniable eye test had we not **** the bed in the easy half of our schedule.

We should know better than to count on subjective judgment from the committee.

Sorry to **** post but - but those two stupid losses irk me more and more as it looks like this team might actually finish strong and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
 
Yoyo423 said:
Basically the committee could arbitrarily rank us ahead of Utah. BYU, of Alabama , and then our head to head against ND would count and bump us up another 3 spots?

We have a similar "win" to Bama beating ND while they beat UGA and they have a significantly worse loss than us against an ACC bottom dweller. We also dominated the same team that dominated them h2h..we could easily be ranked ahead of Bama.

We could easily justifiably be ranked ahead of Utah or BYU right now, without any other "resume building".

It's all BS and smokescreens.
Click to expand...
BYU deserves to lead that pack bc they’re a 1 loss P4 team. If they win out and lose in the conf title game I’m ok with other 2 loss teams jumping them while still keeping them in. I’m ok with Bama being ahead of us bc of their wins and one loss was OU. Their resume is better than ours. But ND and Utah have no case to be ahead of us.
 
Advertisement
SinisterCane said:
Don’t lose the SMU or Louisville and none of this would matter
Click to expand...
So, Miami would have to be 11-1 or 12-0 as a major conference team to be in, even with a top end OOC schedule? That's your argument. Only Miami fans are this incredibly myopic, I'm convinced some of you actively hate the program, that's the only way to explain why some will never give your own program the benefit of the doubt.

I'd understand your gripe if Miami was out here losing to 6-6 teams, or teams that don't have a chance of reaching a bowl game, but this isn't that. It's also amazing how much people want to pretend that SMU and Louisville are trash, when in reality they are no worse than Mizzou, they just don't have the SEC patch on their jerseys. Miami lost to two teams that should in theory win 8+ games this season, in close losses that could have gone either way. Let that marinate. Last year, Alabama got BOATRACED by a 6-6 OU team, BOATRACED. No one gave a ****. Texas lost to Florida, a team that Miami bludgeoned, they are still a legit contender(Even with three losses), provided they win out. You can't make this stuff up.
 
Canedude08 said:
So, Miami would have to be 11-1 or 12-0 as a major conference team to be in, even with a top end OOC schedule? That's your argument. Only Miami fans are this incredibly myopic, I'm convinced some of you actively hate the program, that's the only way to explain why some will never give your own program the benefit of the doubt.

I'd understand your gripe if Miami was out here losing to 6-6 teams, or teams that don't have a chance of reaching a bowl game, but this isn't that. It's also amazing how much people want to pretend that SMU and Louisville are trash, when in reality they are no worse than Mizzou, they just don't have the SEC patch on their jerseys. Miami lost to two teams that should in theory win 8+ games this season, in close losses that could have gone either way. Let that marinate. Last year, Alabama got BOATRACED by a 6-6 OU team, BOATRACED. No one gave a ****. Texas lost to Florida, a team that Miami bludgeoned, they are still a legit contender(Even with three losses), provided they win out. You can't make this stuff up.
Click to expand...
Sigh if you don’t lose to either Louisville or SMU we’re ranked higher. It is simple as that.

Miami has never and will never get the benefit of a doubt from the referees or committees
 
Back
Top