Speaker 1: Three two one zero, all engine running looked off. We
Speaker 1: have a look job. Welcome back to the Celiverbal boys
Speaker 1: and girls. My name is ty hilden Brandt. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me. Bad news you are stuck with just
Speaker 1: me today. Dan's fine. He's fine, but he's off tending
Speaker 1: to a personal matter. He'll be back pretty soon. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, I dug through our deep, deep database of
Speaker 1: friends of colleagues, of reporters, beat writers, you name it
Speaker 1: to find someone who wouldn't mind blasting off into an
Speaker 1: unexpected Friday orbit with me. And the good news is
Speaker 1: that we got Bill Connolly from ESPN. It's going to
Speaker 1: stop by here momentarily. We had him on as part
Speaker 1: of one of those social media live streams that we
Speaker 1: were doing with folks having trivia contests and whatnot. But
Speaker 1: we actually haven't had a chance to catch up with
Speaker 1: Bill since the season started to get his take on
Speaker 1: what's been going down. And I have so many questions
Speaker 1: for him, as somebody who we all know has a
Speaker 1: deep appreciation for the stats, has been a pioneer in
Speaker 1: advanced analytics on the college football side. How do you
Speaker 1: grade out twenty twenty? How do you even keep track
Speaker 1: of stats in twenty twenty, so a bunch to get
Speaker 1: through with him. Don't forget. If you haven't already subscribed
Speaker 1: to the Solid Verbal, you can do so find all
Speaker 1: the information you need by going out to solidverbal dot com.
Speaker 1: We also have a banner, big yellow one at the
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Speaker 1: on a bowl pool, just going to be for Patreon subscribers,
Speaker 1: but it's going to be one of a kind and
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Speaker 1: Playwinter Wonders dot com is where you go for more
Speaker 1: info on that. So look, without further ado, let's just
Speaker 1: jump right into it. Appreciate you downloading the Unexpected Friday Orbit.
Speaker 1: Here's Bill Connolly from ESPN, all right joining us now,
Speaker 1: long time friend of the Solid Verbal. You know him well.
Speaker 1: His name is Bill Connolly. Sir, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm not too bad?
Speaker 1: How are you doing good? So you are in Columbia, Missouri? Correct? Correct?
Speaker 1: How's Missouri football treating you this year. I know you're
Speaker 1: a missoo guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I mean it's it's this
Speaker 3: is clearly a flawed team. It's clearly, you know, not
Speaker 3: the most talent and not the most experienced anything like that.
Speaker 3: But they're pretty resourceful, and I think Eli Drinkwitz is
Speaker 3: pretty resourceful, and it's been kind of fun to follow.
Speaker 3: I was not even like my editor pinged me and
Speaker 3: mentioned that Missouri was going to be the first person
Speaker 3: named on the show, or I guess had just been
Speaker 3: the first team named on the show, and that was
Speaker 3: not something I had on my radar. Like Lazaria's like
Speaker 3: number sixty something in my sp plus ranking, so it's
Speaker 3: not really top twenty five is not something I was
Speaker 3: really envisioning here. But they've been, whether that's deserving or not,
Speaker 3: they've been a really interesting team to follow. They can
Speaker 3: apparently they can win a rock fight with Kentucky, and
Speaker 3: then they can win a shootout with Arkansas and LSU two.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much I'm curious, because you do the
Speaker 1: sp plus, which we've referenced on this show for god
Speaker 1: knows how long, how do you factor in a new
Speaker 1: coach coming aboard, because I know a fair amount of
Speaker 1: your calculations are based on returning production guys that are
Speaker 1: coming back. You look at all sorts of different factors,
Speaker 1: But the whole coaching thing seems like it'd be really
Speaker 1: difficult to try and game out in advance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the way I factored in is I
Speaker 3: don't Yeah, they just has it's everything zero some so
Speaker 3: it really is kind of hard. Like I've tickered around.
Speaker 3: The best idea I've had is to sort of tick
Speaker 3: around with the concept of uh, kind of just historical averages,
Speaker 3: like you're you know, if you're overachieving as a program
Speaker 3: and you lose your coach, chances are you're going to
Speaker 3: regress towards your hysterical mean. If you're underachieving and you
Speaker 3: fire your coach and bring in somebody else, you'll probably
Speaker 3: progress towards your historical mean. I haven't figured out the
Speaker 3: best way to execute that yet, and I haven't found anything.
Speaker 2: Else to work.
Speaker 3: So basically, they just have asterisks by them and here's
Speaker 3: the projection butt and that's about all I can do.
Speaker 1: This has been a year of butts, though, hasn't it.
Speaker 1: I just butts all around just nothing, but butts man,
Speaker 1: I want to know more about how it's been on
Speaker 1: your end trying to keep track of all the advanced stuff,
Speaker 1: all the advanced stats that again we and love on
Speaker 1: this show. But I want to hear about some of
Speaker 1: those odd challenges that you've had, Like we've all the
Speaker 1: entire world has had a litany of challenges. But as
Speaker 1: it relates to college football and your very specific corner
Speaker 1: of the college football ether and internet and statistical universe,
Speaker 1: what has it been like to try and match Team
Speaker 1: A up with Team B when they've played different games,
Speaker 1: when they're canceling games, when there are these extended breaks
Speaker 1: between games, Like I would imagine that's been an utter
Speaker 1: nightmare for you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it has.
Speaker 3: I mean from one standpoint, I mean you just look
Speaker 3: at Prediction Tracker, and I referenced this in a piece
Speaker 3: I wad earlier this week. You look at Prediction Tracker,
Speaker 3: you look at the top team ratings, the top systems.
Speaker 3: I guess in Prediction Tracker, they're the best of the best.
Speaker 3: Their average is lower than it normally is. It's just
Speaker 3: like not dramatically so, but whereas the top ratings would
Speaker 3: normally average like you know, fifty three fifty four percent.
Speaker 3: Now it's like fifty two fifty two and a half
Speaker 3: percent against the spread that absolute error that that average
Speaker 3: of like your projection versus reality. How many points did
Speaker 3: you miss it by? You know, that would normally be twelve,
Speaker 3: the twelve and a half of the best measures. Now
Speaker 3: it's closer to thirteen or a little over thirteen. So
Speaker 3: there's just like a little bit of difference there. And
Speaker 3: I've definitely found in doing like best bets and stuff
Speaker 3: every week for ESPN chalk like, it's harder to come
Speaker 3: up with a system like these are the picks that
Speaker 3: it's that it's doing well on. You know, last year
Speaker 3: I had kind of a thing where you know, if
Speaker 3: it's if s P plus disagrees by more than three
Speaker 3: points and it's you know, a line in this range
Speaker 3: and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: There's none of that. This year.
Speaker 3: I've been just flailing on those best best picks because
Speaker 3: I keep looking for trends that aren't there. So that's
Speaker 3: been weird, and that's had a lot to do. It's
Speaker 3: just the fact that I mean, number one, Vegas has
Speaker 3: better information than you do recording who's going to be
Speaker 3: out and the market you know, is going to adjust
Speaker 3: in a way that a computer system isn't going to you,
Speaker 3: but it is.
Speaker 2: It's been a challenge.
Speaker 3: The other part, though, is coming up that the biggest
Speaker 3: challenge is bowl season. If you know there's going to
Speaker 3: be a bowl season, I will see. But the like
Speaker 3: the hierarchy within a given conference. You know, I think
Speaker 3: i've you know, my system, and plenty of others have
Speaker 3: have have sussed that out pretty well. You know that
Speaker 3: Alabama's about this much better than everybody else in the SEC.
Speaker 3: You kind of know the Florida and Georgia are next A,
Speaker 3: and M's in there somewhere. You so the hierarchy within
Speaker 3: each of the ten conferences kind of probably fits pretty well.
Speaker 3: And so you know, since you're only playing against your conference,
Speaker 3: that means the picks haven't been demonstrably worse because you
Speaker 3: know the hierarchy. But what's the How good is the
Speaker 3: SEC compared to the ACC, compared to the PAC twelve,
Speaker 3: compared to the Big ten?
Speaker 1: No freaking idea, because you have you have none of
Speaker 1: that connective tissue this year, right.
Speaker 2: Right, we have priors, and priors are very good.
Speaker 3: Everybody hates priors, because you know, just judge just on
Speaker 3: this year, not on previous whatever. But they're in there
Speaker 3: for a reason. They make the predictions better. But I
Speaker 3: can't say with confidence that the SEC is exactly as good,
Speaker 3: no better, or worse than it was last year, or
Speaker 3: that exactly is good, no better, or worse than the
Speaker 3: preseason projection said. And so figuring out that balance is
Speaker 3: going to be really weird, and we're going to suddenly
Speaker 3: have a little a mini explosion of non conference games
Speaker 3: here in another month or so. And I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know the best way to avoid my system overreacting
Speaker 3: and all the ways that I tell everybody to never
Speaker 3: overreact to balls. It's just kind of like, if the
Speaker 3: SEC has three or four games that three or four
Speaker 3: teams that underachieved, suddenly it's gonna be the fifth best conference,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to have to figure out the best
Speaker 3: plan of attack for just kind of balancing that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of overreactions, what kind of overreactions? What kind of
Speaker 1: weird reactions have you gotten to some of your work
Speaker 1: here in the twenty twenty season, Because you know, being
Speaker 1: with ESPN, your your fine work is front stage center,
Speaker 1: which obviously opens you up to a lot more fan criticism.
Speaker 1: I know you're but mindful of the kinds of feedback
Speaker 1: you get every year. But what what has twenty twenty
Speaker 1: brought to you this season?
Speaker 3: Well, it has perpetuated ain't played nobody. First of all,
Speaker 3: that's that's not something that we can just use in
Speaker 3: September anymore. Or if a team has managed to have
Speaker 3: just the right conference schedule to where they don't really
Speaker 3: play anybody until November. No, it's been you know, as
Speaker 3: soon as a couple of leagues have had actual games
Speaker 3: between good teams, another one starts off and they ain't
Speaker 3: played nobody. So that's been I've been yelled at all
Speaker 3: year because Ohio State was number one in SPPLUS still
Speaker 3: about mid November, you know, one to o Ohio State
Speaker 3: ahead of seven and oh Alabama or whatever, And you
Speaker 3: know that's been I think there's just been a visual
Speaker 3: disconnect in that regard that hasn't existed in previous season.
Speaker 3: How could you possibly say they're better. They've only played
Speaker 3: one game and all that stuff, So that's certainly been different.
Speaker 3: I will say moving behind the paywall has gotten me
Speaker 3: yelled at well, has has resulted in me getting yelled
Speaker 3: at a little less for you know, whether that's good
Speaker 3: or bad is up to interpretation, I guess, but that
Speaker 3: has certainly changed. Now I just get yelled at for
Speaker 3: being behind the paywall, So that's all different.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that bill, are the best four teams truly Alabama,
Speaker 1: Notre Dame, Clemson in Ohio State? Maybe not in that order,
Speaker 1: I know, not exactly in that order for the SP plus,
Speaker 1: But how often do you sort of compare your own
Speaker 1: eye tests with what your numbers are telling you? Or
Speaker 1: have you now merged into being one giant college football computer?
Speaker 3: I definitely, I mean, I know what the ratings say,
Speaker 3: and I take that as a pretty hard suggestion to
Speaker 3: look at. Like, I don't have to believe that Virginia
Speaker 3: Tech's a top twenty five team. However, I can stray
Speaker 3: if I just can't justify something in my head. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're judging by resume, well, the resume
Speaker 3: conversation's weird with Ohio State right now. But the College
Speaker 3: Football Playoff rankin's top four is the s P plus
Speaker 3: top four Ohio State. All the talk about sample sizes
Speaker 3: that we've made this week, bottom line is Ohio State
Speaker 3: has had enough of a sample to prove it's the
Speaker 3: best team in the East. Defense you know, hasn't quite
Speaker 3: lived up to projections, but it's I feel very comfortable
Speaker 3: thinking of them as one of the four best teams
Speaker 3: in the country, and so I don't I haven't minded.
Speaker 3: I felt like a sellout, like I was selling out Indiana,
Speaker 3: a fellow underdog school, because I just could not get
Speaker 3: myself worked up at all this week about a highest
Speaker 3: taketing in the title game because there's the best, best
Speaker 3: team in the East and they beat Indiana.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a weird circumstance we find ourselves in. And
Speaker 1: it's it's affected schools disproportionately. One of the talking points
Speaker 1: that Dan and I tried to examine a little more
Speaker 1: closely on one of our recent episodes was which teams
Speaker 1: do we feel have been disproportionately affected by the virus COVID?
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if you've given any thought to that point,
Speaker 1: because again, numbers only tell you so much. Right, some
Speaker 1: of what you've got in your S and P system
Speaker 1: is very accurate. I'm guessing there are other schools like
Speaker 1: LSU that maybe were affected in ways that we could
Speaker 1: not have predicted. Do you have any schools that come
Speaker 1: to mind for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you could kind of put Ohio State,
Speaker 3: for instance, in both of those categories really because they
Speaker 3: had a very experienced team with a lot of proven pieces,
Speaker 3: even if they had some guys to replace, especially on
Speaker 3: defense and I guess at running back. It took them
Speaker 3: a couple of games to really kind of get into
Speaker 3: a rhythm there. Like you could say that they were
Speaker 3: more ready than other schools to hit the ground running
Speaker 3: whenever they got the chance to hit the ground running.
Speaker 3: At the same time, when you say who's been disproportionately
Speaker 3: affected by COVID, my first thought goes to these schools
Speaker 3: that had a small sample size to begin with and
Speaker 3: suddenly have half that sample size, you know, usc not
Speaker 3: getting every chance to prove what they're capable of. Right now,
Speaker 3: Ohio State got just enough to get the benefit of
Speaker 3: the doubt. But obviously that's been a big point of
Speaker 3: discussion because they had to cancel one of their other games,
Speaker 3: and if I remember right, two other schools had to
Speaker 3: cancel a hot games with Ohio State.
Speaker 2: If I got that all.
Speaker 3: Straight, but you know you could that's you know, just
Speaker 3: having a limited opportunity to make an impression anyway, and
Speaker 3: then having even one game canceled, like USC I think
Speaker 3: has had one.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: That I just I mean, I hate, just personally, I
Speaker 3: hate that we've got pretty much to the end of
Speaker 3: the season. Now we don't really know USC, we don't
Speaker 3: really know UCLA, who might be an interesting story. We
Speaker 3: don't know Utah at all. Like Washington and Oregon are
Speaker 3: both I think are both very good, but they both
Speaker 3: suffered those dumb losses where s pop plus treated it
Speaker 3: as a win and all that stuff, and then they're
Speaker 3: off the field. So I mean, I do feel like
Speaker 3: obviously they had little margin for er anyway, but I
Speaker 3: can't That's where my brain goes first.
Speaker 2: It's just like they've.
Speaker 3: Been Any chance they had of putting together a playoff
Speaker 3: resume probably didn't exist anyway, and it definitely didn't exist
Speaker 3: the moment they had a game canceled.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to LSU for a second,
Speaker 1: because we've spent I know, you spent a fair amount
Speaker 1: of energy trying to figure out exactly what's going on
Speaker 1: at LSU, and you know, at the risk of making
Speaker 1: a mountain out of a mole hill in a weird
Speaker 1: year where there was a ton of turnover. You lose
Speaker 1: a generational quarterback or quarterback after a generational season, it
Speaker 1: kind of does feel like there is a little bit
Speaker 1: more meat on the bone there. They switched defensive coordinators.
Speaker 1: The defense was a mess early on. Seemed at one
Speaker 1: point like maybe it was starting to come together. Then
Speaker 1: suddenly it wasn't what's your read on LYC? What are
Speaker 1: the numbers tell you there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, you're right, it is. You know, stuff
Speaker 2: happens sometimes.
Speaker 3: There was obviously going to be a regression sometimes and
Speaker 3: you don't really know how much there's going to be.
Speaker 3: But especially as soon as Miles Brennan got hurt, Like,
Speaker 3: not only do you lose Burrow, you lose Burrow's successor
Speaker 3: after whatever that was three games or something like that
Speaker 3: was obviously going to hurt. They obviously weren't going to
Speaker 3: be a top ten caliber team. But like when I
Speaker 3: wrote the preview for the SEC West, whatever that was, I.
Speaker 2: Guess I don't even remember what time to construct.
Speaker 1: I guess just a contract.
Speaker 3: Yeah, early September, we'll say early September. I didn't mention
Speaker 3: like I didn't love that he had these two up
Speaker 3: and comers. He inherited one in Dave Randa. On the
Speaker 3: defensive side, he brings in Joe Brady. He like young energy, creativity,
Speaker 3: He sees the impact that can have on his program,
Speaker 3: and when they leave, he hires two old friends.
Speaker 2: That it didn't rub me the right way, especially.
Speaker 3: When one of those was Bopolinia, who hasn't technically been
Speaker 3: a part of a good FBS defense in a while now.
Speaker 3: Like his reputation was, you know, generated from what like
Speaker 3: three to thirteen or something like that. The world's changed
Speaker 3: a little bit, so I didn't I didn't love that.
Speaker 3: It felt like a lesson that he didn't learn, and
Speaker 3: he could have tried to keep moving moving forward as
Speaker 3: a program, keeping new ideas coming in, and that he
Speaker 3: just kind of brought two old guys in to reinforce
Speaker 3: what they already had. So that the fact that didn't
Speaker 3: really work out plenty. They really did improve defensively recently.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to judge anybody for what they do
Speaker 3: against Alabama. I mean, that's doesn't feel fair because Alabama
Speaker 3: is a nearly perfect offense. But the two games before
Speaker 3: that they both looked good or better, So maybe that
Speaker 3: works out okay. But when you have an inkling that
Speaker 3: you don't like a certain higher and then that hire
Speaker 3: immediately just falls apart completely, it gives you the impression
Speaker 3: it's not just pure. They lost a bunch of players
Speaker 3: and they'll be back as soon as they get more experienced.
Speaker 3: There were some iffy decisions there in the same way
Speaker 3: that there were really good decisions one, two, three years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, your Alabama points are really valid one.
Speaker 1: And it's something Dan and I have grappled with a
Speaker 1: lot with respect to Texas A and M. Right because
Speaker 1: A and M's only loss on the year was that
Speaker 1: drubbing they took at the hands of Alabama. They're currently
Speaker 1: fifth in the rankings. They're knocking to get another crack
Speaker 1: at Alabama. This whole notion of who is the next
Speaker 1: team up outside of that top four to me, again,
Speaker 1: we hesitate to frame everything within the soul context of
Speaker 1: the playoff, but who the next team up would be?
Speaker 1: Who that number four team is to me is the
Speaker 1: most interesting topic around that point right now. Because A
Speaker 1: and M's there, but so is Florida. They're going to
Speaker 1: get their crack at Bama pretty soon. Iowa State is
Speaker 1: beating down the door. They're going to have a matchup
Speaker 1: with Oklahoma, which is interesting. Oklahoma is further down in
Speaker 1: the rankings, but they still kind of are trying to
Speaker 1: make their case. And then there's a team like Cincinnati, which,
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, in a normal year, I think
Speaker 1: it would be a fairy tale to even consider them
Speaker 1: as part of this discussion. Rightly or wrongly, that's just
Speaker 1: the way this thing goes. But my point all along
Speaker 1: has been, hey, twenty twenty, a lot of weird stuff happened.
Speaker 1: In any way, they have played really really well this season,
Speaker 1: and they've had their bouts with cancelations and postponements as well.
Speaker 1: But have you given much thought to who that next
Speaker 1: team up is in the event that presumably a Notre
Speaker 1: Dame or a Clemson drops out and there's another spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Unfortunately, like the big Cinderela, scenarios probably required either
Speaker 3: Notre Dame Clemson or Florida I guess to lose again
Speaker 3: or in Notre Dames Cleanse to lose the first time,
Speaker 3: just to kind of open the door, because you can
Speaker 3: really easily see a scenario even if we assume that
Speaker 3: Ohios stake gets in, Like Alabama beats Florida, Clemson beats
Speaker 3: Notre Dame. There you go those of your four, and
Speaker 3: or Florida beats Alabama, they get in and maybe the
Speaker 3: Clemson Notre Dame losers now out or whatever. Like you,
Speaker 3: it's hard to get past Florida in that instance. And
Speaker 3: you're right, I mean A and M's fifth. But Florida
Speaker 3: is the only team with the chance at a good
Speaker 3: win now, and so if they beat Alabama, they'll obviously
Speaker 3: jump A and M. A and m's only hope really
Speaker 3: is for what both Florida and Clemson to lose and
Speaker 3: then nobody else jumps up. I get so mad at
Speaker 3: the Committee most of the time because it's kind of
Speaker 3: with my numbers, Like you know, since I get yelled
Speaker 3: at about my numbers, I'll usually root for whatever they pick,
Speaker 3: unless I have some other interests just because I like
Speaker 3: not getting yelled at. But I hate it when something
Speaker 3: like the Committee makes me yell about Iowa State being overrated,
Speaker 3: like I love every bit of this Iowa State story,
Speaker 3: kind of the same way with Indiana, and the Committee
Speaker 3: now makes me have to stand up and shout that
Speaker 3: Iowa State has no business being as high as they
Speaker 3: are in the rankings that it's an absolute joke that
Speaker 3: Cincinnati's behind them at Iowa State did, after all, lose
Speaker 3: to Louisiana and they lost to Oklahoma State, which I
Speaker 3: think the only purpose Oklahoma State has in the rankings
Speaker 3: right now is to give Iowa State another quality loss.
Speaker 2: I have no idea how U still ranked either.
Speaker 3: Another team that I usually say nice things about that
Speaker 3: they're making me say mean things about now. But I
Speaker 3: really that's been my biggest issue. I have no idea
Speaker 3: how Iowa States that high. They they're very good, and
Speaker 3: predictively they'd be a fifty to fifty draw with Cincinnati
Speaker 3: right now. But Cincinnati's blown out all but one team
Speaker 3: on their schedule. The other team is very good in UCF,
Speaker 3: and they beat them to Iowa Stay lost to Louisiana
Speaker 3: and Oklahoma State. What are we doing in that regard?
Speaker 3: So I don't see any possible way Cincinnati possibly gets
Speaker 3: up to even fifth now.
Speaker 2: And that's I hate that.
Speaker 3: This is like they've done absolutely everything right and they're
Speaker 3: still not going to get rewarded for it, and the
Speaker 3: and the you know, the bottom five, the group of
Speaker 3: five never does.
Speaker 1: Let's stay in the Big twelve for a second, because
Speaker 1: the storyline I suspect we're going to hear a lot
Speaker 1: more about over the coming days and weeks is Tom
Speaker 1: Herman and Texas. So Tom Herman pre covid took some
Speaker 1: drastic measures to try and retool the team. Texas is
Speaker 1: still in a position where it is not up to
Speaker 1: the levels that I think the Texas fan base, certainly
Speaker 1: the Texas brass would want it to be. As you
Speaker 1: look at your numbers, as you try to evaluate what's
Speaker 1: gone on at Texas, do you have any conclusions what
Speaker 1: has gone on at Texas that needs to go better
Speaker 1: outside of just the standard win loss record. What where's
Speaker 1: the deficiency?
Speaker 2: Well, defense is the most obvious answer.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a thing we
Speaker 3: just called like the Mulligan Watch. Basically, like, of all
Speaker 3: the teams that are having disappointed seasons, you know what's
Speaker 3: the most like who are the easiest ones to explain
Speaker 3: and the most likely ones to bounce back and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, And I just the grouping kind of made
Speaker 3: Texas stand out because we're talking about LSU getting blown
Speaker 3: out every week.
Speaker 2: You know, whatever their record is.
Speaker 3: Now we're talking about Penn State starting zhe to five,
Speaker 3: Michigan just dreadful seasons, or at least starts to season.
Speaker 3: In Penn State's case, I think they're going to be
Speaker 3: I think they were mostly fine already and now they're
Speaker 3: going to be fine from here on out. But you
Speaker 3: know that we're talking about just drek on the part
Speaker 3: of how they started, the results they were getting and
Speaker 3: all that. And Texas was five and three, you know,
Speaker 3: with a tight loss to apparently the best Iowa State
Speaker 3: team in one hundred years, with a tight loss to Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Really the only semi unforgivable loss was TCU. So just
Speaker 3: including them in the list of underachievers, they were easily
Speaker 3: the best underachiever on the list. They're top twenty now
Speaker 3: in SP plus, they're six and three. After taking some
Speaker 3: anger out on Kansas State. They they have improved wording.
Speaker 3: This is tricky, but they've improved a little bit from
Speaker 3: where they were. They've absolutely improved from where they were
Speaker 3: last couple of years under Mac where they were Charlie Strong.
Speaker 3: They just haven't proved enough. And so to me, I
Speaker 3: think what I said in that piece and the only
Speaker 3: thing I can think to say now is that if
Speaker 3: you can get herban Meyer, then sure, get rid of
Speaker 3: Tom Herman. But if you're just going to start over again,
Speaker 3: because they only made you a little bit better, and
Speaker 3: it has been kind of a gradual weird results aside
Speaker 3: from twenty eighteen to nineteen, like it has just been kind.
Speaker 2: Of a gradual improvement.
Speaker 3: If you're going to fire somebody for not improving fast enough,
Speaker 3: you better go out and get urban Meyer and Nick Saban, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know that he's going to succeed there. And
Speaker 3: the defense, the defense has improved a ton this year,
Speaker 3: hasn't improved a ton this year. The offense he pushes
Speaker 3: out Tim Beck after their top ten and offensivesp plus
Speaker 3: and now they're not top ten anymore. So that was
Speaker 3: a little weird. But they just they're they're not fine,
Speaker 3: but they're close to fine. They're not dreadful underachievers like
Speaker 3: some of the other teams we've talked about. So I
Speaker 3: would not make a move unless you know you can
Speaker 3: get an awesome coach to replace him.
Speaker 2: And you can't.
Speaker 1: Back to your point about priors and how they factor
Speaker 1: into calculations, how are you going to factor in priors
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty because you know, Michigan's not had a
Speaker 1: good year, Penn States not had a good year. If
Speaker 1: we just use those two schools as a means in comparison,
Speaker 1: but that data isn't pure, is it? Like? You have
Speaker 1: to wait that a little differently.
Speaker 3: That data is going to have priors in it, and
Speaker 3: those priors are going to carry forward into other Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's going to be weird. I one thing I'm going
Speaker 3: to experiment with, hopefully between well I don't know, there's
Speaker 3: no separation between regular season and bowl seasons. Just hopefully
Speaker 3: whatever bowls exist while I'm watching that, I'll experiment just
Speaker 3: basically play with previous seasons, look at conference play only
Speaker 3: throwing like one like the easiest non conference game for
Speaker 3: the Big twelve teams. Just try to craft a twenty
Speaker 3: twenty light schedule for previous seasons where I've got full data,
Speaker 3: and just kind of see what the differences are, what
Speaker 3: it looks like comparing those two How much of this
Speaker 3: weird sample that we get, how much of that is
Speaker 3: indicative of what that full number was going to be.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to share what that's going to tell me,
Speaker 3: but that's something I want to look into. Because I
Speaker 3: really don't know there's a chance. Basically, yea, I come
Speaker 3: up with the final s P plus rankings for this year,
Speaker 3: and then whatever I end up actually using for next
Speaker 3: year's projections is like internally just completely different based on
Speaker 3: whatever I could figure out.
Speaker 2: So it is absolutely weird.
Speaker 3: Everybody is we should everybody should go to ten game
Speaker 3: conference schedules.
Speaker 2: Now, it's so great.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, please don't. We've got to have those
Speaker 3: connections otherwise this all falls apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need a baseline. It's it's almost like restarting
Speaker 1: completely for you with the kind of thing that you're doing.
Speaker 1: And I fear that, especially for the sp plus ball season,
Speaker 1: is not going to be kind. No because in the
Speaker 1: past on our show and people laugh at us, and
Speaker 1: of course it's an unscientific way to pick games, but
Speaker 1: there certainly is a factor with some teams going into
Speaker 1: bull season who care and others who are just trying
Speaker 1: to get it over with. And I think the big
Speaker 1: difference we've seen this year is we've got teams who
Speaker 1: have formally said we don't care at this point, like
Speaker 1: we're cool. I think it was Boston College earlier today
Speaker 1: said yeah, we're cool. We're good. We're just not going
Speaker 1: to play in the Bulls this year. We've seen that
Speaker 1: happen in the past on a very limited basis, but
Speaker 1: usually bullseason is supposed to be the crown jewel at
Speaker 1: the end of the college football experience for seniors and
Speaker 1: for underclassmen. It's something that teams really look forward to.
Speaker 1: It means a lot. Right this year, they're like, hell
Speaker 1: with it, we don't want to be here. And even
Speaker 1: the teams that do end up going, I would expect
Speaker 1: there are going to be a lot that fall into
Speaker 1: that category as well, like we are only here because
Speaker 1: they made us come.
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that you know, now the Boston College has
Speaker 3: cleared the way, like some of those teams that would
Speaker 3: probably end up mailing it in just won't play well. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we'll still have some stragglers, but I would hope that
Speaker 3: maybe that helps out a little bit in that regard.
Speaker 3: But I mean, yeah, and just ball season in general.
Speaker 3: Like I was talking about hierarchies within conferences and everything,
Speaker 3: like if SP plus or whoever system you want to
Speaker 3: talk about, if it's got a decent rate of that conference,
Speaker 3: like here are all the SEC teams, but are they
Speaker 3: down here or are they all up here?
Speaker 2: Like where's that line?
Speaker 3: It's going to like get every SEC game right, It's
Speaker 3: gonna get every SEC game wrong, depending on whether it
Speaker 3: kind of has the right read on that hierarchy.
Speaker 2: But then like, yeah, like you said, I mean.
Speaker 3: The some teams won't care or they'll think they care.
Speaker 3: And what often happens is with bulls is they don't
Speaker 3: know they're going to mail it intill they're suddenly down
Speaker 3: fourteen nothing five minutes in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to be here anymore.
Speaker 1: We're done, We're done.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think everybody when they run out on the field,
Speaker 3: they're like, yeah, we're gonna win this game, and then
Speaker 3: they find out if they're ready about five minutes in.
Speaker 3: But there will be some of that. I just hope
Speaker 3: that whatever duds are out there, they're evenly distributed duds
Speaker 3: so it doesn't hurt one conference that then turns around
Speaker 3: and hurts that conference in next year's projections too.
Speaker 1: What surprises you so far from what you've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe take COVID out of it, but yeah, every year
Speaker 1: there are stories that jump up, maybe not as dramatic
Speaker 1: as the Coastal Carolina story. Or the Grayson McCall story.
Speaker 1: But every year they are these things that I'm sure
Speaker 1: as you're sifting through your data, as you're just watching
Speaker 1: college football as a fan, you got those stories that
Speaker 1: you really latch onto as feel good stories. I think
Speaker 1: we're all in need of feel good stories in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: What have those been for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That was my entire Monday column, was trying to cheer
Speaker 3: myself up, Like we're all tired and cranky, so let's
Speaker 3: talk about fun things like BYU Coastal and Iowa State
Speaker 3: in Indiana and all that stuff. You know, from a
Speaker 3: pure number standpoint, first, I will say, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the bigger surprises number one, I mean BYU and
Speaker 3: Cincinnati are still like legit top ten SP plus and
Speaker 3: again we don't know the hierarchy how that plays out,
Speaker 3: if I get a better read on the conference power
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. But that like, they've been legitimately
Speaker 3: awesome and my system didn't really respond all that much
Speaker 3: to BAU losing. I think that, you know, I have
Speaker 3: that post game win expectancy number where I basically toss
Speaker 3: up all the things that eventually go into SPPLUS, all
Speaker 3: the predictive stuff and throw them in the air and
Speaker 3: they land, And the number basically says, you know, with
Speaker 3: these stats, you could have expected to win this game
Speaker 3: x percent of the time. BYU was a sixty two percent.
Speaker 3: Basically from an SPPLUS standpoint, it thinks BYU won that
Speaker 3: game by three or four points. So it docked them
Speaker 3: a little bit for that because they were supposed to
Speaker 3: win by like nine, but it didn't react all that
Speaker 3: much to it. Cincinnati is legit eighth right now. They've
Speaker 3: dominated every team they played except UCF. Like, I think
Speaker 3: they are legitimately awesome, and I don't have as much
Speaker 3: proof for that because everything's so weird this year, but
Speaker 3: I think those are two of the better non P
Speaker 3: five teams of the last since TCU, you know, and
Speaker 3: all the in Utah went to P five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been fun to kind of watch that story develop.
Speaker 1: And how did you account for a game that got
Speaker 1: scheduled and was played seventy two hours later?
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't you just say, well, it looks
Speaker 3: like by' is supposed to win this one by whatever that
Speaker 3: number was, nine point two or something, and they and
Speaker 3: they don't, And so there you go.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I mean you started realizing in the first quarter, like
Speaker 3: man of all the teams to agree to play sixty
Speaker 3: hours in advance, not being able to study Coastal Carolina
Speaker 3: or to the extent that the coaches could, And then
Speaker 3: they're like, hey, they're going to do this and not
Speaker 3: really being able to walk through anything or have the
Speaker 3: scout team run through it, like that is not the
Speaker 3: team you want to play on two like they were
Speaker 3: just they got to the edge a lot more than
Speaker 3: I thought they would. They wrong foot at BYU a lot.
Speaker 3: BYU adjusted in the second half obviously, but still couldn't
Speaker 3: quite make enough stops. That was a tremendous game. And
Speaker 3: I do think like the lack of prep probably hurt BYU.
Speaker 3: But I mean, oh well, Coastal made a heck of
Speaker 3: a lot of plays too.
Speaker 1: In this being such an asymmetrical year, it's even harder,
Speaker 1: as we've discussed here, to try and figure out who's
Speaker 1: good and who's not good, who's underrated right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't care if I don't care if that's per
Speaker 1: your sp plus or per the committee's rankings. We've already
Speaker 1: talked about Cincinnati, We've talked about Iowa State. What other
Speaker 1: teams are in that same conversation as either being really
Speaker 1: over really really underrated.
Speaker 3: Notre Dame is technically fourth right now, but they are
Speaker 3: virtually tied with Oklahoma at fifth. Oklahoma is a very
Speaker 3: very good football team right now. Predictively, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to make a playoff case.
Speaker 2: They're out. They lost twice, they're out.
Speaker 3: But from a predictive standpoint, if they played Notre Dame
Speaker 3: tomorrow on a neutral field, that's a straight toss up,
Speaker 3: I think they are in great shape. They obviously getting
Speaker 3: Ronnie Perkins, getting those suspended guys back midway through the year.
Speaker 3: We kind of forgot that that was part of their
Speaker 3: problem early on, and then they show back up and
Speaker 3: suddenly they're allowing like fourteen points a game or whatever.
Speaker 3: This Rattler is not quite at the you know, the
Speaker 3: Baker Kyler et cetera, lovely yet, but he's a red
Speaker 3: shirt freshman. He's not throwing picks anymore, not many. He's
Speaker 3: doing well. The young receiving core, you can just watch
Speaker 3: them and realize what they're going to be next year,
Speaker 3: and that's pretty scary and really fun too. So I
Speaker 3: think they're a team that, you know, even more than
Speaker 3: I always say, whoever wins that game is absolutely a
Speaker 3: team playing at a top five to sixty seven level
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Even if you know, even if I.
Speaker 3: Think they got disqualified from the playoff race with each
Speaker 3: of their second losses, they're playing very very well right now.
Speaker 1: Let me go to the ACC for a second. You
Speaker 1: mentioned Notre Dame. I won't zero in too much on them,
Speaker 1: but you know, we had a storyline a couple weeks
Speaker 1: ago with Clemson and Florida State with COVID and Dabbo
Speaker 1: and the game being called off, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to dive into the complexities of that, but
Speaker 1: Clemson and Florida State are really interesting to be Clemson
Speaker 1: because they're still sort of on top of the world,
Speaker 1: and I want to get your take on whether or
Speaker 1: not there are any kind of vulnerabilities there that maybe
Speaker 1: didn't exist previously. And on the Florida State side of things,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just curious to know if we think
Speaker 1: they're getting better, if we think they're getting better, because
Speaker 1: they've had to deal with a lot. Mike Norvell in
Speaker 1: the short time that he's been at Tallahassee has had
Speaker 1: to deal with a lot, both on and off the field.
Speaker 1: Take it wherever you want to take it, Bill, But
Speaker 1: are they Are they getting better?
Speaker 2: So we'll start with Florida State. I mean this year
Speaker 2: they're not.
Speaker 3: That's okay, Like this, I can't really you know, I'm
Speaker 3: glancing at their little profile here. I mean, the North
Speaker 3: Carolina win was fluky. I mean, good for them for
Speaker 3: coming out firing and scoring up points early to win
Speaker 3: that game, but it was still talking about post game
Speaker 3: win expectancy, it was thirty five percent.
Speaker 2: North Carolina should have won that game.
Speaker 3: Since then, their last three games that postgame win expectancy
Speaker 3: number was zero percent, four percent and three percent. Like
Speaker 3: they didn't. It wasn't a fluke that they lost by
Speaker 3: thirty two to Louisville or twenty four to or to
Speaker 3: Pitt or sixteen to NC State. They just got beat
Speaker 3: really bad. So in the in the context of this year, no,
Speaker 3: they're absolutely not getting better. They lost some players, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the a few of their best players
Speaker 3: aren't playing right now. So really it's just about like
Speaker 3: the young guys, you know, can they can novel at
Speaker 3: least do well enough to not lose his job in
Speaker 3: the next couple of years so that he can bring
Speaker 3: in his guys and actually get some semblance of continuity there.
Speaker 2: Their culture is dead.
Speaker 3: You know, whatever winning culture they had, it was starting
Speaker 3: to crumble them under Jimbo, and you have two coaches
Speaker 3: in the three years after that. It's just not going
Speaker 3: to survive. And that's what they're dealing with right now. Nobody, nobody,
Speaker 3: there's one big at Florida State, and they have to
Speaker 3: start that over. So Noarvelle did an amazing job in Memphis.
Speaker 3: I you know, I don't make coaching predictions at this
Speaker 3: point because every coach that I think is going to
Speaker 3: be good fails and everything I don't like does great,
Speaker 3: so whatever, but he did really well at his last
Speaker 3: couple of jobs. He has decent odds at least of
Speaker 3: doing it there.
Speaker 2: They just have to.
Speaker 3: I mean, they just have to not fire him before,
Speaker 3: you know, he has to hit a certain baseline so
Speaker 3: he can keep his job long enough. But there that's
Speaker 3: a culture issue. They just don't have anybody there that's
Speaker 3: one at Florida State. As far as Clempson goes. The
Speaker 3: two issues that I'm concerned about with Clemson and that
Speaker 3: most of the for the most part, they're overshadowed by
Speaker 3: all the stuff Clemson does obviously well, but they are
Speaker 3: giving away big plays. My marginal explosiveness number that I
Speaker 3: use for a lot of explosiveness needs, they're ninety second
Speaker 3: in marginal explosiveness allowed when they allow good like they're
Speaker 3: you know, they don't allow many successful plays, but the
Speaker 3: ones they do are very big. We saw that against
Speaker 3: Notre Dame. We've seen that a few times. It's bitten them. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the fun more return touchdowns have also beitten them. That's
Speaker 3: not really a sustainable issue, but they have been a
Speaker 3: little glitch yer, which I mean after what they lost,
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense. Defensive lines a little better this
Speaker 3: year than it was last year, so maybe that offsets it.
Speaker 3: But they could, you know, against against Alabama, for instance,
Speaker 3: if they can't get to mac Jones, and if anybody
Speaker 3: can get to mac Jones, it'll be Clemson. If they can't,
Speaker 3: they're probably going to get burned deep a lot. That's
Speaker 3: going to be a very push and pull kind of
Speaker 3: thing that I'm curious about. The Other thing is, like
Speaker 3: Trevor Lawrence, his stats versus man defenses, the last couple
Speaker 3: of years are very, very mediocre. Even last year when
Speaker 3: he had T Higgins and Justin Ross. This year he
Speaker 3: hasn't neither obviously, like against you know, he's I don't.
Speaker 3: I struggle to frame this in a way that makes
Speaker 3: it sound like I'm not just trying to bag on
Speaker 3: him or say he's an overrated prospect or anything like that.
Speaker 3: But for whatever reason, if you can play man defense
Speaker 3: on Clemson, they aren't going to be able to throw
Speaker 3: down field very well this year. And it seems to
Speaker 3: me between Alabama and Ohio State at the very least,
Speaker 3: maybe Notre Dame two.
Speaker 2: That seems like a problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that that Alabama matchup really does I think
Speaker 3: come down to Clemson being able to rush mac Jones,
Speaker 3: because if they can't, I think Alabama rolls them.
Speaker 1: So I have two questions, and then I'm going to
Speaker 1: let you go because I know you're a busy guy.
Speaker 1: Is a committee using your numbers? Now, No, they're not.
Speaker 3: They proudly defiantly refused to use advancedatz they and I
Speaker 3: got to I got to go to the mock committee thing.
Speaker 3: And last year in twenty nineteen, you know, and travel
Speaker 3: was the thing and got to sit in there and
Speaker 3: look at the tools they use. I think it's what
Speaker 3: is it coaches by the numbers, I think is what
Speaker 3: they use to produce to provide for them, like comparison
Speaker 3: stats of your score versus other like resume type stats
Speaker 3: they have, like the total yardage stuff, they have, basic
Speaker 3: stuff like that. There's nothing that really truly adjusts for opponents,
Speaker 3: so that will forever allow them to basically say, well,
Speaker 3: those stats are good, but I ain't played nobody next,
Speaker 3: you know, like that. They never they never have to
Speaker 3: ever take a G five team seriously because they can
Speaker 3: always just say, yeah, but who was that against? Even
Speaker 3: though we have ways to adjust for that. But that's
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's college football.
Speaker 2: Always.
Speaker 3: We proudly, defiantly refuse to make too much progress. And
Speaker 3: that's where we're at there, and and to some extent,
Speaker 3: that's part of the charm.
Speaker 1: Unless you're on the outside looking in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's been less charming to me the
Speaker 3: last year, the ways we've proudly stuck to all of
Speaker 3: our all of our deficiencies.
Speaker 2: It's worn a little thin on me this year.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get you out of here. On this. It's
Speaker 1: a question that has come up a couple times now
Speaker 1: in our inbox on our Discord server. What have you
Speaker 1: you got one coach to hire for your upstart? Let's
Speaker 1: say you're a mid level FBS school who has impressed
Speaker 1: you to the point that you might give him a
Speaker 1: phone call.
Speaker 2: Mid level P five or mid level FBS.
Speaker 1: Your mid level P five P five? Okay, what coaches
Speaker 1: are on Bill Connolly ad new ad at school X?
Speaker 1: What coaches are on your radar?
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighties have so much fundraising to do, I would
Speaker 2: be so horrible.
Speaker 3: We're gonna say, I'm looking at my list of teams
Speaker 3: over here to the left, just to make sure I
Speaker 3: don't forget anybody. Uh, I want to give a better
Speaker 3: answer than Jamie Chadwell, I'm trying because that seems too obvious.
Speaker 3: He's now one in a few different schools, different levels.
Speaker 3: I think he would be very good. But oh okay,
Speaker 3: well this this allows me to champion a small school
Speaker 3: guy too, Like, do we realize how athletic and talented
Speaker 3: Buffalo is right now?
Speaker 1: Oh land slide pulled?
Speaker 3: Yes, how he's been able to just he basically got
Speaker 3: to burn a foundation like just tear the house down
Speaker 3: to the studs and then just say okay, like that's
Speaker 3: that room's fixed. Now, that room's fixed. Now they are
Speaker 3: awesome this year. He would need a few years to
Speaker 3: get there maybe, but I have no reason to doubt
Speaker 3: him at this point.
Speaker 1: All right, good answer. The bulls are always fun to
Speaker 1: watch and he's a good coach. So look, Bill Connolly,
Speaker 1: check him out. Hopefully by now you know of his
Speaker 1: fine workover at ESPN dot com. But if you don't
Speaker 1: already know, we'll make sure we post some links in
Speaker 1: the show notes here to go on and check out
Speaker 1: Bill's fine work. Of course, brought the sp plus over
Speaker 1: to ESPN and continues to make us on the show sparter.
Speaker 1: We need these numbers to help us along. Bill Connelly,
Speaker 1: thank you so much and hope you and your family
Speaker 1: will do well.
Speaker 2: Same to you.
Speaker 1: Cool. So there you go. That's Bill Connelly from ESPN.
Speaker 1: It's been a friend of this show for as long
Speaker 1: as we've had it. Always love catching up with Bill
Speaker 1: picking his brain on what's going on in the SMP universe,
Speaker 1: how he's watching college football. Twenty twenty obviously a challenging
Speaker 1: year for everybody, but appreciate his perspective. Don't forget. As
Speaker 1: you're out and about here in early December doing whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you can do right now, don't forget
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Speaker 1: We are going to continue a special edition of this
Speaker 1: week's Bruin A. We're going to do a live call
Speaker 1: with all of our Patreon subscribers here in just a
Speaker 1: little bit. But as always, appreciate you downloading, appreciate you listening,
Speaker 1: Give us a call if you're watching games four eight,
Speaker 1: Verbal one is reverblind. We'll cut that together on Sunday,
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Speaker 1: stay solid,