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sagarin rating has us #11 /We are ahead of alot of FBS teams. Wafting for the top 25 to show. A little late today The whole rating poll has us at #121

I have studied numerous rating systems over the years and it is quite difficult to really tear part and duplicate what they say they do to develop ratings without the entire data base of games and history....I still think in all these ratings there may be "fudge factors" not disclosed...nevertheless I have used Sagarin for several years to look at matchups and Sagarin seems to be 75% or about in predicting the winners of regular season games....not so good at predicting margins of wins....but then again who of us thought the Bears would pile up a 35 point win over ACU?

I have not looked at tonight's ratings yet but 121 is about where Bears are in better years although I have seen them in the mid 90s on rare occasions...that says we are middle of D1 which tells me there is some very good football being played in lots of stadiums each weekend and probably a great deal of parity...

Last week I thought the Arkansas and Missouri ratings would be reversed based on Sagarin description of their method....MU beats #15 K-State and UAF loses to unranked BYU AT HOME yet Hogs still above Tigers....sometimes the data gets ahead of the game on the field....will see what Sagarin did this week but UAF should have gotten lots of sugar in the calculations with a near win over #12 at Baton Rouge while MU beat an always pretty solid but unranked Memphis team ..Tigers did get to #23 in the AP Poll and UAF had no votes...who believes that?

Still rating 200+ D1 teams is pretty tough but the general groupings seems to be pretty good over all...

More on Sagarin and controversial ratings....

I was traveling around a good part of Arkansas on Monday and got to hear a lot of sports (I mean Hogs) radio talk shows.....many callers seemed to be obsessed with the loss to BYU (Big 12) and the Cougars loss to Kansas (of all teams!!...also Big 12 team) which signals just how far the Hogs have fallen (I must have missed when they were "up")...

So I thought next time I had a few minutes of free time (I am "retired" so I should have lots of that but never seems to work that way) I would dig in a little more on BYU, Kansas and UAF....

BYU (3-1, 73.64, SOS 63.82, 93th):

9/2: Win over Sam Houston State (CUSA) at home by 14-0
9/9: Win over Southern Utah (FCS/UAC) at home by 41-14
9/16: Win over UAF (SEC-W) on the road by 38-31
9/23: Loss to Kansas (Big 12) @ Lawrence by 27-38

Kansas (4-0, 75.97, SOS 63.00, 98th):

9/1: Win at home over Missouri State (FCS/MVFC) by 48-17
9/8: Win over Illinois (Big 10) by 34-23
9/16: Win over Nevada (Mountain West) on road by 31-24
9/23: Win over BYU (Big 12) at home by 38-27

UAF (2-2, 77.30, SOS 63.69, 94th):

9/2: Win over Western Carolina (FCS/Southern) at home by 56-13
9/9: Win over Kent State (MAC) by at home by 28-6
9/16: Loss to BYU (Big 12) at home by 31-38
9/23: Loss to #12 LSU (SEC) at Baton Rouge by 31-34

Sagarin Ratings and predictions on Game Day (starting Week 3):

BYU (75.64) @ UAF (76.98) by 4..."upset"
KU (74.32) by 14 @ Nevada (57.14)...."close"

BYU (73.64) @ KU (75.97) by 4... "clear win"
UAF (77.30) @ LSU (84.38) by 10...."near upset"

Other Team Ratings after 9/23 games (Note - UCA is 57.91- higher than all but LSU and Illinois below):

LSU - 84.38......credit UAF in SOS and played closer than predicted
Illinois - 72.32...credit to KU in solid OOC opponent
Nevada - 55.91...credible OOC opponent KU
Missouri State - 54.38....credible opener for KU
Sam Houston State - 52.54.....weak opener for BYU
Western Carolina - 51.67...weak opener for UAF
Kent State - 50.30...weak FBS OOC game for UAF
Southern Utah - 49.29...weak opponent for BYU

Summary:

The three teams have nearly identical SOS and SOS rankings which says overall their schedules have been about the same in degrees of difficulty.

Kansas had four wins...2 over P5 teams, one over G5 team and one over a FCS team from the "SEC of FCS".....pretty impressive even given teams beaten are not at the top of D1 heap...

BYU has three wins....on over P5, one over new G5 team, one over middle of pack FCS team...loss to a ranked P5 team....

UAF has two wins ...one over a lower G5 team and one over middle of pack FCS.....two losses to P5 teams....one highly ranked

It seems plausible that had UAF played Illinois and KU had played LSU, each team would be 3-1...

Sagarin ratings shows that UAF would be very slightly favored to beat KU and BYU at home...KU would be very slightly favored to beat UAF in Lawarence and win by about a TD over BYU at home...and UAF would be favored to beat BYU on the road by 1-2 but lose to KU to Lawrence by 1-2..

Using Sagarin data, these three teams look very close...BYU proved that at Fayetteville....and KU favored to beat BYU at home by more than one score in a close game....

It seems some callers have not paid attention to the three teams ....did UAF play up to their abilities in Baton Rouge or did LSU play flat? Did UAF play down to BYU or did BYU play up to UAF...or something else?

Note that AP poll has KU at #24 this week.....which seems high vs UAF and BYU not being ranked....and neither UAF nor BYU even receiving votes.....

KU fans are probably really agitated because they are at #24 and Mizzou is at #23 yet MU is rated only 73.72...however, KU would be picked to win over MU at Lawrence and Tigers over Jayhawks at COMO...

All in all this is what everyone likes about D1 football...complain about the polls and officials (when you lose)....be nice to see KU and UAF play at a neutral site....maybe in Lamar, MO .....about equidistant from the two campuses...or maybe a bowl game.......for me, Go Bears and beat the Thunderbirds!!!

Hey JRK....say you are retired without saying you are retired...

Wait...your last post did....

Not exactly the same teams but we did see that matchup in a bowl about 8 months ago lol

If you can navigate the site, Massey has a composite ranking that takes a lot of other ranking systems along with their own and creates an average. It usually does fairly well in predicting outcomes.