How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

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waverider
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How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by waverider »

I have watched most of the teams a few times and would rank the top 4 as:
1 SMU
2 UTSA
3 Tulane
4 Memphis

Updated my top 4 as of 11/26/23:

1 Tulane
2 SMU
3 UTSA
4 Memphis
Last edited by waverider on Sun Nov 26, 2023 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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PeteRasche
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by PeteRasche »

Last year we watched SMU light up a bunch of people, none any more than the offensive show they put on against Houston. They came into Yulman with so much buzz and ESPN announcers who were falling all over themselves to tell the world about their explosive offense. Remind me how that went again?

I'm hoping the same situation holds true for UTSA. I really didn't expect them to be as great this year as preseason projections, and their OOC seemed to point to that. People look at their record since and think they've gotten it together since Harris came back from injury, but in reality they've had a cupcake AAC slate. It's just that they've beaten some common opponents worse than we have, which always worries us.

Gotta beat FAU first.
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tulaneoutlaw
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by tulaneoutlaw »

waverider wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 9:59 pm I have watched most of the teams a few times and would rank the top 4 as:
1 SMU
2 UTSA
3 Tulane
4 Memphis
I agree with this exactly. Honestly I'm not sure we beat Memphis if we played them right now, but they also haven't looked amazing or anything. SMU and UTSA have taken care of business consistently during conference play. SMU's transfer portal adds have really beefed up that defense. I don't see us beating them with the offense performing as it has because I don't see us scoring very much.
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waverider
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by waverider »

tulaneoutlaw wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:05 am
waverider wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 9:59 pm I have watched most of the teams a few times and would rank the top 4 as:
1 SMU
2 UTSA
3 Tulane
4 Memphis
I agree with this exactly. Honestly I'm not sure we beat Memphis if we played them right now, but they also haven't looked amazing or anything. SMU and UTSA have taken care of business consistently during conference play. SMU's transfer portal adds have really beefed up that defense. I don't see us beating them with the offense performing as it has because I don't see us scoring very much.
Not as predictable as we’ve become.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

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I expect the Green Wave to prove y’all wrong and win the CC and a NY6 bowl!
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waverider
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by waverider »

MNAlum wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:57 pm I expect the Green Wave to prove y’all wrong and win the CC and a NY6 bowl!
That’s what I’m hoping for!! As I said in the other thread, this is just based on the facts at hand and doesn’t mean we won’t still beat them and prove to be the best.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

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I hopeful that we've just been vanilla because we could be against the weaker opponents and still win. :|
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by GretnaGrn »

I think you can make a case for the top four in any order. Each has warts, and each has potential and any could beat any other on any given day.

There is an absolute cliff from 4 to 5, however.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by Baywave1 »

GretnaGrn wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:35 am I think you can make a case for the top four in any order. Each has warts, and each has potential and any could beat any other on any given day.

There is an absolute cliff from 4 to 5, however.
The AP, Coaches and. CFP Committee unanimously have ranked us first in AAC all season and we will almost certainly be the top ranked G5 in each of them over the next several days.

I know the above rankings of Tulane as third in AAC are opinions but I haven’t understood them for weeks. I guess Don Williams of Lubbock who refuses to rank Tulane isn’t alone.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by tulaneoutlaw »

Baywave1 wrote: Sat Nov 18, 2023 10:24 pm
GretnaGrn wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 9:35 am I think you can make a case for the top four in any order. Each has warts, and each has potential and any could beat any other on any given day.

There is an absolute cliff from 4 to 5, however.
The AP, Coaches and. CFP Committee unanimously have ranked us first in AAC all season and we will almost certainly be the top ranked G5 in each of them over the next several days.

I know the above rankings of Tulane as third in AAC are opinions but I haven’t understood them for weeks. I guess Don Williams of Lubbock who refuses to rank Tulane isn’t alone.
Two types of rankings, Bay. Resume rankings are what polls are mostly using at this point. I'd say they are a large part of the CFP, though not exclusively that. We are tops in Resume rankings as we only have one loss and it was to a team that's likely to finish the year with 10 wins and inside the top 15, maybe top 10.

Power rankings are a different story. We beat Memphis convincingly, but then we went through a month of not separating from some pretty lowly rated squads. Compare that to how SMU and UTSA handled similar slates. They regularly won convincingly, which is what you'd expect from good teams playing bad teams. Yesterday's domination helped change that narrative, though I still think the offense is going to have to answer the bell and come up with more than 35 points which we haven't done against an FBS opponent since week 1.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, but the ranking at the top is a power ranking, not a resume ranking. It's why UTSA is nowhere close to being ranked in the polls with 3 losses, but would only be about a 1 point dog to us at a neutral site based on current Vegas lines.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by Baywave1 »

Understood. We simply disagree. Power rankings have been out for awhile. They seem to have had little influence on three diverse sets of “educated” national voters. The FPI, et al proponents perhaps should start asking why?

Even Andre Ware Friday night initially ranked Tulane third in AAC and then immediately qualified it to place Tulane first by saying it’s about winning and somebody has to beat you before it changes.

If ranking by “resume” is shorthand for “your record says who you are,” then I’m squarely in that camp.

Sorry to bring it up but I thought one hat eating episode was enough. :green wink:
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tulaneoutlaw
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by tulaneoutlaw »

Baywave1 wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2023 8:39 am Understood. We simply disagree. Power rankings have been out for awhile. They seem to have had little influence on three diverse sets of “educated” national voters. The FPI, et al proponents perhaps should start asking why?

Even Andre Ware Friday night initially ranked Tulane third in AAC and then immediately qualified it to place Tulane first by saying it’s about winning and somebody has to beat you before it changes.

If ranking by “resume” is shorthand for “your record says who you are,” then I’m squarely in that camp.

Sorry to bring it up but I thought one hat eating episode was enough. :green wink:
Notice I have not offered to eat a hat this year :king: fool me once, etc.

Put another way, resume is what you have been to this point or as you put it, what you are. Power is what you are predicted to be in the future, which admittedly is more uncertain and comes with a range of outcomes. Until yesterday it was pretty reasonable to me to think we would struggle against utsa or smu, who had been playing better than us. And theoretically we could blow utsa out or be blown out or a bunch in between. That's why they play the games so now we get to see.
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Re: How do you rank the top of the AAC (football)

Unread post by PeteRasche »

Y'all are also overlooking the simple aspect of schedule. Had Tulane played Ole Miss last, and was 11-0 right now, we'd be ranked in the low teens. Had Ole Miss played UGA or Alabama in their first few games, they might not even be ranked right now (or might be in the 20s). Same with all the 2- and 3-loss teams ahead of us in the polls right now; them dropping below us and us passing (or not passing) various teams in the 15-25 range at this point is purely based on who they are playing that current week, which is just based on schedule. Pollsters don't pay much attention to the teams 15-25, they just move teams up or down based on if they won or lost that week.
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