MSU vs UM Schedule comparison

[Catsrgrood]

I was going to wait a couple more weeks, but I’m impatient and I like looking at this analytical stuff.

So through 6 weeks, here is a comparison using Sagarin Rankings.

Again, I’m leaving out Texas Tech and Oregon to keep it to an FCS comparison.

Cats and griz are both 5-0 against the FCS so far.

Average ranking of Cats opponents so far- 186 (WIU and Norfolk are really bringing that number up, they’re not good...)

Average ranking of griz opponents so far- 163


Average ranking of Cats remaining opponents- 149

Average ranking of griz remaining opponents- 138


Average ranking of all 8 Cats conference opponents- 152

Average ranking of all 8 griz conference opponents- 138


This will all change throughout the season obviously, but it looks like the griz have the edge in just about every way as far as who has the harder schedule at this point, but the 8 conference games are a little closer than originally thought.

I don’t think there was really ever an argument that they had the tougher schedule, but that’s also going off of last years results, it will be interesting to see how this season pans out and if it ends up really being that much harder in the end.

[rivercat]

I predict UCD and EWU will finish mid conference behind Sac St and UND. I think the BSC preseason rankings will prove to be very wrong. Therefore, my opinion is the Sagarin rankings are skewed due to the erroneous preseason rankings. The farther the season goes, the more accurate Sagarin becomes.

[Joe Bobcat]

I was going to wait a couple more weeks, but I’m impatient and I like looking at this analytical stuff.

So through 6 weeks, here is a comparison using Sagarin Rankings.

Again, I’m leaving out Texas Tech and Oregon to keep it to an FCS comparison.

Cats and griz are both 5-0 against the FCS so far.

Average ranking of Cats opponents so far- 186 (WIU and Norfolk are really bringing that number up, they’re not good...)

Average ranking of griz opponents so far- 163


Average ranking of Cats remaining opponents- 149

Average ranking of griz remaining opponents- 138


Average ranking of all 8 Cats conference opponents- 152

Average ranking of all 8 griz conference opponents- 138


This will all change throughout the season obviously, but it looks like the griz have the edge in just about every way as far as who has the harder schedule at this point, but the 8 conference games are a little closer than originally thought.

I don’t think there was really ever an argument that they had the tougher schedule, but that’s also going off of last years results, it will be interesting to see how this season pans out and if it ends up really being that much harder in the end.

Nice work, since you like to do this how about if you were to break it down to sag. ranking of away games and home games for each school ( I use the term school very loosely in reference to UM) . It would seem to me that if you are fortunate enough to play your toughest opponents at home
that would tend to help balance things out. I have no idea which team that would help or hurt this year. TIA

[Common Cat]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

[thefrank1]

Plus if they win out, the griz won't.

[RationalGriz]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

If they win out, they would finish 7-1 in the BSC, which could win the autobid.

[The Big Meowski]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

If they win out, they would finish 7-1 in the BSC, which could win the autobid.

EWU winning out still doesn’t guarantee them the autobid.

[RationalGriz]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

If they win out, they would finish 7-1 in the BSC, which could win the autobid.

EWU winning out still doesn’t guarantee them the autobid.

I didn't say it did.

[Cledus]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

It's my understanding the major criterion when the committee is trying to fill the final spots is "Who do you NOT want to play right now?" If EWU wins out, I think they fit that bill without question.

[The Big Meowski]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

If they win out, they would finish 7-1 in the BSC, which could win the autobid.

EWU winning out still doesn’t guarantee them the autobid.

I didn't say it did.

My fault. Reading is hard.

[cats2506]

Keep in mind EWU has one div. 1 win as of today. Even if they win out, and that's a huge if, it would only give them 7 div. one wins. I think its going to take 8 wins to make the playoffs this year with a 12 game season. Although, if they win out, that's hard to ignore.

If they win out, they would finish 7-1 in the BSC, which could win the autobid.

EWU winning out still doesn’t guarantee them the autobid.

I didn't say it did.

My fault. Reading is hard.

Never forget that anything is possible in the BSC with the unbalanced schedule

[Catsrgrood]

I was going to wait a couple more weeks, but I’m impatient and I like looking at this analytical stuff.

So through 6 weeks, here is a comparison using Sagarin Rankings.

Again, I’m leaving out Texas Tech and Oregon to keep it to an FCS comparison.

Cats and griz are both 5-0 against the FCS so far.

Average ranking of Cats opponents so far- 186 (WIU and Norfolk are really bringing that number up, they’re not good...)

Average ranking of griz opponents so far- 163


Average ranking of Cats remaining opponents- 149

Average ranking of griz remaining opponents- 138


Average ranking of all 8 Cats conference opponents- 152

Average ranking of all 8 griz conference opponents- 138


This will all change throughout the season obviously, but it looks like the griz have the edge in just about every way as far as who has the harder schedule at this point, but the 8 conference games are a little closer than originally thought.

I don’t think there was really ever an argument that they had the tougher schedule, but that’s also going off of last years results, it will be interesting to see how this season pans out and if it ends up really being that much harder in the end.

Nice work, since you like to do this how about if you were to break it down to sag. ranking of away games and home games for each school ( I use the term school very loosely in reference to UM) . It would seem to me that if you are fortunate enough to play your toughest opponents at home
that would tend to help balance things out. I have no idea which team that would help or hurt this year. TIA

Ask and you shall receive

Cats average opponent ranking;
Home-162
Away-170

griz average opponent ranking;
Home-158
Away-139


Each teams home schedule looks very similar at this point, but the griz definitely have a tougher road schedule.

In all reality, it is still pretty early to take too much from these rankings. They’re stabilizing a bit, but the longer the season goes on, the more accurate they are. Really the best way to look at these will be after Cat/griz, so there is a full 12 game season worth of data being accounted for, then we can see for sure how the schedules stacked up against each other.

[The MICKSTER]

So if you look at our 8 conference games…..

We each play UC Davis & Sac 1 game at home and 1 away for both of us so those cancel each other.

We obviously play each other, so that leaves 5 opponents that are unique to each team.

We play NAU, @CP, @UND, SUU, @UNC.

um plays ISU, EWU, @PSU, UI, WSU.

The easiest of all our remaining opponents should be SUU. The remaining 9 are comparable.

We beat NAU, who beat UNC, UNC beat UI. UND beat UCD, but UND lost @EWU.

um beat ISU, who beat PSU. ‘um beat UCD who lost @UND. EWU has lost to both UI & Sac but beat UND.

Certainly, at this point the BSC race is as clear as mud. I’d have to say since we have SUU on our schedule and um doesn’t our schedule appears to be the easiest going forward, especially when you consider we host the brawl. However, I don’t think anybody knows what to think of UI….a team who plays Wyoming tough, loses to UNC but beats EWU and has a competitive game against WSU is a head scratcher.

Every very week I seem to think that ‘this’ week will tell us a lot, but in the end every week seems to make the BSC more perplexing………maybe this is the week it begins to clear up. GO CATS!

[Catsrgrood]

With some recent talk about where everyone will end up in a couple weeks and some more talk about strength of schedules, thought this would be interesting to look at again.

I’ll be the first one to say I’m impressed with the griz this year, I hate to say it, but they’re a lot better than I was anticipating. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they won’t end the season on a 2 game losing streak though...

This is using the Sagarin rankings again, to keep bias out of it.

Again, I’m leaving out Texas Tech and Oregon to keep it to an FCS comparison.

Cats are 7-2 against FCS, griz are 8-1.

Average ranking of Cats opponents so far- 173

Average ranking of griz opponents so far- 153

Average ranking of all 8 Cats conference opponents- 150

Average ranking of all 8 griz conference opponents- 133


And just for the hell of it, here’s the rest of the Big Sky and the average ranking of their conference opponents. Not a lot of variation here, which is to be expected, but it is interesting that 2 of top 3 teams currently do also have the toughest conference schedules and EWU really has had the easiest schedule:

Sac St- 130
UM- 133
UCD- 136
NAU- 143
ID St- 144
Weber- 144
Cal Poly- 145
SUU- 148
Idaho- 148
MSU- 150
PSU- 153
UNC- 155
EWU- 155

[CelticCat]

That was a big part of the reason many thought EWU would win the conference this year - they didn't have UC Davis, Weber, or MSU on the schedule.

[Catsrgrood]

That was a big part of the reason many thought EWU would win the conference this year - they didn't have UC Davis, Weber, or MSU on the schedule.

Myself included. I predicted they’d win the conference. I knew they graduated a lot of seniors and figured the talent level would be lower than last year, but I figured the easier schedule would counteract that and they’d still win the conference.

[ibleedblue]

According to ncaa stats, the Cats SOS is 106 and the Griz are 15 in all of FCS. When you sort it to take in the 2 remaining future opponents, the Cats bump up to 92 and the Griz are at 3. UC Davis is at #1.


http://stats.ncaa.org/rankings?sport_co ... ivision=12

You have to go to “misc reports” tab and click “toughest schedule”