FB: Empire 8

[BoSox0322]

It doesn't apply my friend.

We're talking Mt. Union vs. Fisher & Ithaca --- two completely different animals.
And we're talking an '06 Fisher squad that completely dismantled Hartwick last year.

Also, margin of victory does apply to this topic b/c if you want to move up you've got to put away the good teams in a convincing fashion. 5 points at home isn't enough to really rally voters behind your team enough IMHO.

I do agree with the Rochester argument, but Hartwick needs to put a hurtin' on a good team before anyone really accepts them - At least that's my view.

Lets not get crazy here ... I'll take the wins over Ithaca and SJF by 1/2 each right now it put them in a spot to get in the NCAAs...... Say this outloud to yourself in your den... Well to get votes Hartwick would have to beat Ithaca and SJF more convincingly than they did...  come on

ok im done

[BoSox0322]

It doesn't apply my friend.

We're talking Mt. Union vs. Fisher & Ithaca --- two completely different animals.
And we're talking an '06 Fisher squad that completely dismantled Hartwick last year.

Also, margin of victory does apply to this topic b/c if you want to move up you've got to put away the good teams in a convincing fashion. 5 points at home isn't enough to really rally voters behind your team enough IMHO.

I do agree with the Rochester argument, but Hartwick needs to put a hurtin' on a good team before anyone really accepts them - At least that's my view.

Lets not get crazy here ... I'll take the wins over Ithaca and SJF by 1/2 a point each right now it put them in a spot to get in the NCAAs...... Say this outloud to yourself in your den... Well to get votes Hartwick would have to beat Ithaca and SJF more convincingly than they did...  come on

ok im done

[Tags]

It doesn't apply my friend.

We're talking Mt. Union vs. Fisher & Ithaca --- two completely different animals.
And we're talking an '06 Fisher squad that completely dismantled Hartwick last year.

Also, margin of victory does apply to this topic b/c if you want to move up you've got to put away the good teams in a convincing fashion. 5 points at home isn't enough to really rally voters behind your team enough IMHO.

I do agree with the Rochester argument, but Hartwick needs to put a hurtin' on a good team before anyone really accepts them - At least that's my view.

Lets not get crazy here ... I'll take the wins over Ithaca and SJF by 1/2 each right now it put them in a spot to get in the NCAAs...... Say this outloud to yourself in your den... Well to get votes Hartwick would have to beat Ithaca and SJF more convincingly than they did...  come on

ok im done

Said it out loud... still makes sense. Bottom line is you need to beat teams convincingly to rally voters to bump you up.

I'm not saying they weren't good wins for the program, what I am saying is that polls are based on more than two very close home wins.

[redswarm81]

I'd say that where the game was played,¹ when the game was played,²  who played in the game (i.e. injuries),³  and weather conditions during the game⁴  all could make the final results a little subjective.  If you are also looking at the variances in scores, the logical conclusions derived from them would be subjective.

¹ Can be pinpointed on a map.  Objective.

² Can be marked precisely on a calendar.  Objective.

³ Can be listed on a roster.  Objective.

⁴ Can be measured.  Objective.

Thus, Objective facts ¹ + Objective facts ² + Objective facts ³ + Objective facts ⁴ "could make the final result subjective.

Are you sure you know what subjective means?

Logical conclusions derived from (objective) "variances in scores" would be subjective?

Logical conclusions are subjective?   

[redswarm81]

redswarm, answer this question.....

Who has a better football team, Michigan or Appalachian St?

Surf the other boards, I think the East Region Fan poll had a good discussion of this very question.  But some of those posters might be smart, so take your time.

After the first game of the season, there was no legitimate, logical reason to rank Michigan ahead of Appalachian State.  Nonetheless, I'm sure that there were thousands of people who felt very strongly that Michigan was a better team than Appalachian State.

But, no matter how anyone felt, Appalachian State proved that day that they were a better football team than Michigan.  Anyone who would have voted Michigan higher than Appalachian State would have been voting entirely on feelings--reputation (which can't be measured), expectations (which can't be measured), tradition (which can't be measured), instead of the results, which proved that on that day, Appalachian State was a better team than Michigan.

In the eight or so weeks since then, Appalachian State has lost other games to other opponents, won other games v. different opponents, and Michigan has done the same.  So now, eight weeks later, sure--you can use common opponent analysis and SoS and overall winning percentage, and you can--based on objective evidence--conclude that today, eight weeks later, Michigan is a better team than Appalachian State.

But if you reached that conclusion after week one, you were doing so in direct contravention of the fact that Appalachian State beat Michigan.

I hope you feel better.

[Ralph Turner]

When the results are based on nothing more than "that's the way I feel," I can't place much confidence in those results.

This is a legitimate point RS but that is what you are left with in college football because of the large number of teams and small number of games.  It is not really a problem shared by other college sports or pro sports.  If you try to get too deep into a fact based analysis you end up digging all the way down to x beat y who beat z, therefore x is better than z.

And we all know that is crap given this analysis from last season:

Bombers 2007 BCS Champs

ITHACA beat
Huntingdon who beat
Millsaps who beat
**Trinity (Texas) who beat
DePauw who beat
Hope who beat
Albion who beat
Butler who beat
Dayton who beat
Robert Morris who beat
Central Conn St who beat
Georgia Southern who beat
Western Carolina who beat
Eastern Kentucky who beat
Western Kentucky who beat
Southern Illinois who beat
Indiana who beat
Iowa who beat
Iowa St who beat
Missouri who beat
Mississippi who beat
Vanderbilt who beat
Georgia who beat
Auburn who beat
Florida

(In an effort to cite my sources, someone posted this on another board and one of my friends built backwards from Trinity to IC.  Obviously, since IC had losses last season, there are other East teams that can also claim a piece of the Gators.)

Victory Chain

http://www.cfbanalyzer.com/cgi-bin/year.cgi?year=2006

Ithaca to Florida is 19 teams.

[Tags]

redswarm, answer this question.....

Who has a better football team, Michigan or Appalachian St?

Surf the other boards, I think the East Region Fan poll had a good discussion of this very question.  But some of those posters might be smart, so take your time.

After the first game of the season, there was no legitimate, logical reason to rank Michigan ahead of Appalachian State.  Nonetheless, I'm sure that there were thousands of people who felt very strongly that Michigan was a better team than Appalachian State.

But, no matter how anyone felt, Appalachian State proved that day that they were a better football team than Michigan.  Anyone who would have voted Michigan higher than Appalachian State would have been voting entirely on feelings--reputation (which can't be measured), expectations (which can't be measured), tradition (which can't be measured), instead of the results, which proved that on that day, Appalachian State was a better team than Michigan.

In the eight or so weeks since then, Appalachian State has lost other games to other opponents, won other games v. different opponents, and Michigan has done the same.  So now, eight weeks later, sure--you can use common opponent analysis and SoS and overall winning percentage, and you can--based on objective evidence--conclude that today, eight weeks later, Michigan is a better team than Appalachian State.

But if you reached that conclusion after week one, you were doing so in direct contravention of the fact that Appalachian State beat Michigan.

I hope you feel better.

And you believe in Darwinism - we get it.

[redswarm81]

I think the reason for a vote is an interesting debate.

Using an example for explanation makes it clearer.  Hartwick beat St. John Fisher at home and lost to WNEC on the road.  Those are objective facts.  But, discerning meaning from those facts becomes a solely subjective process.  Is Hartwick just good at home?  Did Fisher just have a bad day?  Is WNEC finally good?  etc.  Therefore, it is impossible to rank teams on wholly objective grounds unless each team has played every other team.

How do you measure the "badness" of a bad day though?  We all thought that Springfield was going to have a better season than they've had so far.  But according to your list of appropriate subjective considerations, a voter could conclude that Springfield just had five bad days, and it's actually a better team than Ithaca, who just "got lucky" more times than Springfield had bad days, so Springfield is, really, the better team, despite the head to head loss.

Where I think you're trying to go is that how an individual voter chooses to emphasize certain objective data and de-emphasize other data is a subjective process.  And you, or 82 or Kaz or somebody let on earlier that he places enough emphasis on "toughness of schedule"/SoS that it can compensate for at least one loss, when comparing teams where one team has more losses than the other.   Personally, I place such a high value on Wins that it would take a combination of factors for me to vote for a D-III team with more losses ahead of a D-III team with less losses.

But the completely immeasurable criteria such as "bad day" or "good luck" or "will they be good later in the season?" make me wonder if the poll isn't any more accurate than it would be if it were assembled by throwing darts.

[superman57]

St John Fisher beat
Springfield who beat
Montclair St who beat
Iona who beat
Duquesne who beat
Fordham who beat
Albany NY who beat
Lehigh who beat
Villanova who beat
James Madison who beat
New Hampshire who beat
Northwestern who beat
Iowa who beat
Iowa St who beat
Missouri who beat
Mississippi who beat
Vanderbilt who beat
Georgia who beat
Auburn who beat
Florida

[Tags]

PC-

Can you please address redswarm directly so he understands how the D3 Polls are derived. Otherwise, we're going to have to sit here and read these long winded lectures until who knows when.

I think I actually have blood starting to come out of my ears...

[Tags]

A recent picture of Redswarm as he types to all these Ithaca "Meatheads" and "Fishfaces" in the E8 Nation.

[superman57]

Ive just stopped reading his posts

[FisherAlum05]

A recent picture of Redswarm as he types to all these Ithaca "Meatheads" and "Fishfaces" in the E8 Nation.

haha thats hysterical.  +k

[union89]

Ive just stopped reading his posts

U89 did this last year......RedStorm plays ignorant when it suits him....

[Tags]

out boys.

+k to the limited night crew this evening (-k for Soopah) .

Hopefully by the time tomorrow rolls around PC will have addressed Copernicus Redswarm's concerns over the "feelings" used to determine the D3 Poll, & the E8 Nation can return to it's regularly scheduled program.