NCAA Football, 2014-2015

[CountDeMoney]

Did he explain trying to run over the traffic enforcement officer?

[derspiess]

Did he explain trying to run over the traffic enforcement officer?

I think they spent all of five seconds on it.  IIRC they even showed a newspaper headline.

Basically, Randy is a lovable ruffian who deserves the benefit of the doubt and we should all be happy for him that he's not stuck in Rand, WV.

[CountDeMoney]

You don't see Jason Williams trying to run over people.

[sbr]

The point shaving thing is BS.

This isn't the first time that a FSU QB has faced accusations of point shaving. Remember Adrian McPherson? That went to trial, including having Bobby Bowden as a witness (Bowden said it was one of the lowest points of his career).

Stevin Smith was involved in the biggest (in terms of money bet) point shaving scandal in NCAA basketball history.  Should we start investigating Arizona State's current point guard?

But back to Winston.  Here is a guy who 11 months ago was going to be the #1 overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft.  Since then he has been reelling from all of the incidents you have mentioned.  Now 2 months before the end of his season, and ~6 months before the draft he takes the risk of costing his team a shot in the playoff and repeating as NC (coming back from that big halftime deficit was no sure thing) and get invovled in a gambling scandal to help his old high school buddy to win $5k?  If this is true, Jameis Winston is the dumbest person on the face of this entire planet, and likely the dumbest person to ever walk the face of this earth.

Now maybe this is bigger and the first half of the Louisville game was just a small part of a larger point shaving scandal.  That is more likely to me than the current rumor, but I don't see how that could be if the current rumors are true.  According to the source that "broke" the "story":

"Bookie of Chris Rabb (Former HS Teammate) of Jameis Winston is "alleging" that they shared gambling account together since beginning of October."

That only allows for 3 other games to be involved.

That IBN site I linked that originally made the point shaving claim is run by a dude named Incarcerated Bob.  Do some research on him; I'm not gonna provide any more links because there is a TON of stuff out there, and all very one sided.

My take on Incarcerated Bob is that he is a fraud, a liar and a bully who controls a large number of Twitter accounts that all purchase fake and inactive followers in order to promote his pay-for-information gambling and "insider" web site that is about as accurate as the collective picks of languish.  He likes to throw a lot of shit on the wall, in the hopes that something sticks then erases evidence when hiis guesses come up wrong.

http://thebiglead.com/2014/11/07/jameis-winston-incarcerated-bob-and-the-hazards-of-trusting-tmzs-accuracy/

There are some inbedded links in the orginal article

Media Gossip/Musings
Jameis Winston, Incarcerated Bob, and the Hazards of Trusting TMZ's Accuracy

We weren't going to talk about the Jameis Winston "gambling" rumors that originated four days ago from someone known as Incarcerated Bob, who we have encountered on things like the unfounded Tahj Boyd gambling rumors. You can read more about David Purdum's interactions with Incarcerated Bob from last year, which gives a good sense of what type of source we're dealing with. There's also this site which tracked his predictions on free agent and player stuff and found that he does not do as well as claimed as an insider.

Even after Clay Travis wrote about them yesterday at his FOX Sports-hosted domain, we weren't going to cover it. Travis wrote about allegations of point shaving coming from a gambling website, ultimately saying that he didn't believe that Jameis Winston was dumb enough to do it.

Ultimately, I just don't believe it's possible that Jameis Winston could be this dumb. That's despite the fact that Winston has clearly made very dumb decisions before. There's no way Winston was shaving points, right?

But the story is out there, you guys can read it for yourselves and make your own determination.

Judging by the rapidity with which this story has spread throughout the Internet, is there anything that the average college football fan believes Jameis Winston wouldn't do? It says a lot about Winston's reputation that hundreds of thousands of you see this point-shaving story and immediately think, "Yeah, that sounds plausible."

Then TMZ ran the story today, saying that "[n]ew reports have surfaced alleging Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was involved in a point shaving scheme to help an old high school teammate win a $5,000 bet." There is no link to whose reports those are. There is no specific reference or any indication that TMZ actually has a source. The assumption has been that TMZ merely passed along the "report" from Incarcerated Bob.

I contacted TMZ to see if they had any response, because the "report" was not linked or identified, and the story was attributed to "TMZ Staff." I wanted to know whether it relied on any additional information other than what was in the original posting by Incarcerated Bob. TMZ provided no official comment on the source of their report.

Unlike Travis's piece, TMZ did not provide any thoughts or opinions on the "reports," merely passing on that they existed (and then updating to say that they contacted the FBI). This is the same outlet that has done some great work in nailing two of the biggest sports off-field stories this year: the Donald Sterling recording and Ray Rice tape, two stories that mainstream outlets might not have advanced in the same way.

It's also one that has gotten plenty wrong, such as reporting about a bar incident involving Mike Evans that was originally reported as current, but got time/place wrong, and having many of the initial details involving an incident with Colin Kaepernick wrong. Though they deserve a lot of credit for bringing the Ray Rice elevator surveillance tape to light, their two most prominent producers later issued contradictory reports hours apart from each other as to whether or not the NFL had seen it before it went public.

Nevertheless, TMZ putting today's piece out there pushed the Jameis story to a whole new level. We can certainly question the ethics of this–possibly citing a report from someone with the reputation of Incarcerated Bob without citation–but for an outlet like TMZ, who has been in the middle of so many big stories, they now own it by not allowing consumers to judge the credibility of the underlying source.

I also spoke with Clay Travis about the decision to post on the internet rumors involving Jameis Winston, and what went into deciding whether to post on a rumor that was gaining traction in the recesses of the internet.

"We've done stories on Internet rumors before if they attain enough attention that it's impossible to ignore them," Travis told the Big Lead. "For instance I wrote on the Internet rumor that 2011 LSU tanked the BCS title game against Bama over a fissure in the team over quarterback play. Basically, I trust my readers to decide for themselves whether to believe a rumor. I'll give them my opinion, but if hundreds of thousands of people are reading and sharing the story, it's reached a critical mass online to be referenced."

Travis also mentioned Auburn paying players through slot machines that was out there, along with a Cooper Manning story that derived from a Sports Pickle (a satire site) article, but was circulated by plenty of people believing it to be true.

"The SEC is rife with all sorts of conspiracy theories. We get them all the time. I just think it's kind of a fascinating question, do you give them a legitimacy when you know that hundreds of thousands of people are reading and discussing them, by discussing them further? Or do you kind of shine sunlight on them, to make people aware that stories like that exist. My opinion is you make people aware that stories like that exist. If they achieve that level of sharing, it's probably a sign that a lot of people believe it to be true."

"I understand the argument otherwise, but this isn't 1968, when one person in charge of a newspaper decides what the news is and if that person kills the story it never emerges," Travis said. "Internet stories bubble up, legit or not. If you don't address them in some way because you don't think they're "real stories" then you end up with a John Kerry Swift Boat mess, where a schism develops between what people believe to be true outside of the mainstream and what's actually true."

It's an interesting question in this case, because I fall on the side, because of the underlying source here, of concern about legitimizing a story that is not ready to be given further authority. It's a constant question to consider in this age where information can move so quickly, and can come from any number of sources in real time–a balancing of legitimizing a story rather than shining a light on something that is swelling.

Tomahawk Nation actually went through the game film, by the way, and found that, while the numbers and teammate performance changed, Winston's play was similar each half. Not that you should be surprised or have to look further into this given the source, but the claims of shaving are dubious anyway.

At the very least, if Travis is going to heighten visibility on something written by Incarcerated Bob then he should disclose near the top that the source has a very questionable reputation. A vast majority of his readers — and TMZ's — are not ones who reflexively know not to trust anything that originates there. When asked about that, though, Travis said that he had never previously crossed Internet paths with Incarcerated Bob, was unaware of him, and only became aware of this story through all the people sending this particular story over the last several days.

For what it's worth, TMZ has now come out with two more stories. One where TMZ says Jameis' teammates say there is no way he shaved points. Another where TMZ reports that UAB is looking into allegations that Chris Rabb, a defensive end at the school and the person identified in the original rumor as having placed the Louisville first half bet, was involved in gambling that would affect his eligibility.

Of course they are. The tail is wagging the dog now. TMZ passes on a rumor, based on something reported by Incarcerated Bob, and appearing on Fox Sports. It gains even more traction than it otherwise had. Any school doing due diligence would therefore have to do a basic inquiry once the rumors got so large, allowing TMZ to follow up with a report that the school is doing just that–looking into rumors that are appearing everywhere. This in turn gives the appearance of legitimacy to a report based on Incarcerated Bob.

In reality, we've learned nothing so far. The sun remains to be shined on just how we got here, whether there is any fire here at all with all the manufactured smoke, and then we get to do it again next week. There's never a shortage of things on the internet, or things that people will believe about Jameis Winston at this point.

[Rasputin]

Jameis Winston securely in the TMZ zone now.

TMZ reporting that the NCAA is investigating him for potential points shaving. 

http://www.tmz.com/2014/11/09/jameis-winston-ncaa-investigating-point-shaving-allegations/

Meanwhile, the line on the Miami / FSU game is down to 1.5 in at least one place earlier today.

how convenient....lets just hope that he doesnt shave any points against the hurritards on saturday

[CountDeMoney]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/oregon-college-football-player-accused-killing-man-article-1.2011456

[alfred russel]

Jameis Winston securely in the TMZ zone now.

TMZ reporting that the NCAA is investigating him for potential points shaving. 

http://www.tmz.com/2014/11/09/jameis-winston-ncaa-investigating-point-shaving-allegations/

Meanwhile, the line on the Miami / FSU game is down to 1.5 in at least one place earlier today.

how convenient....lets just hope that he doesnt shave any points against the hurritards on saturday

You better hope not, there are not many to shave. 

Tomorrow is D Day. Only the Canes are underdogs and the battle will take place in our own house. We are the Japanese at Okinawa. But our path to victory is clear. First, we must disable the enemy air attack early on by sending wave after wave of kamikaze attacks led by Anthony Chikillo at the formidable USS Jameis Winston. The rules of warfare may have to be breached when we approach the target. Much will hinge on disabling the enemy. Without support from the air, Denzel Perrymen and company will have decent odds to frustrate the enemy ground attack.

Due to previous losses, our own air attack is limited with a young and inexperienced trigger man. We will not be able to successfully sustain extended air operations. However, with well timed and audacious actions, we can score aerial victories leaving the enemy confused and disoriented. This will leave the enemy vulnerable to wave after wave of frontal assault led by the heroic Duke Johnson. Ultimately, our success tomorrow will be determined by the Duke's success. In his last meeting with this enemy, he was grievously wounded, I am sure he will be ready to exact revenge this time.

This is a desperate battle. We will need maximum citizen support. They must be ready to help however they can with whatever is available (beer bottles, batteries, etc.).

This post is in honor of Jerome Brown. RIP Big Man. 

Five days before the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, at a promotional Fiesta Bowl dinner with the Penn State team, Brown led a walkout by the Miami players. Leading the walkout, he asked: "Did the Japanese go sit down and have dinner with Pearl Harbor before they bombed them?"

[Berkut]

If:

1. Arizona beats Washington, Utah, and ASU, and
2. UCLA beats USC, and
3. UCLA loses to Stanford
then
Arizona would play Oregon for the conference championship. If
4. Arizona beats Oregon, then....

Should they get that 4th spot in the playoff?

We would be looking at a 2 loss Pac-12 champion taking a spot from any number of potential 1 loss teams.

On the plus side, this would be a Arizona team with two wins over Oregon (which would both be considered the "best" wins of anyone contending for that spot) and wins over ranked Utah and ASU.

On the negative side, and it is a big negative, their OOC schedule was absolutely terrible. And the committee has made it clear it is (and should) punish that.

Now, this is all moot, because the odds of all that happening or infinitesimal anyway, but it is an interesting question.

My Wildcats have an embarrassingly bad OOC schedule for the foreseeable future. I have no idea why, that isn't typical for them. Not as bad as the SEC of course, but still bad.

[dps]

If:

1. Arizona beats Washington, Utah, and ASU, and
2. UCLA beats USC, and
3. UCLA loses to Stanford
then
Arizona would play Oregon for the conference championship. If
4. Arizona beats Oregon, then....

Should they get that 4th spot in the playoff?

We would be looking at a 2 loss Pac-12 champion taking a spot from any number of potential 1 loss teams.

At that point, though, a lot of those "potential 1 loss teams" may actually be 2 or even 3 loss teams.

Going into last weekend's games, it was theoretically possible for every team in both the ACC Coastal and the SEC West to finish with a conference record of 4-4.  Of course, for the most part teams from the ACC Coastal aren't really relevant to a discussion of the new playoff (even in Duke wins out, including a win over a previously unbeaten FSU team in the ACC championship game, they probably won't get into the top 4), but the SEC West is another matter.  And the fact is that those teams can potentially cannibalize each other over the next few weeks, which would be good news for a lot of teams in other conferences.

[Eddie Teach]

My Wildcats have an embarrassingly bad OOC schedule for the foreseeable future. I have no idea why, that isn't typical for them. Not as bad as the SEC of course, but still bad.

If it's any consolation, they managed to struggle a little bit and make Nevada and UTSA look like competitive games. 

[sbr]

Assuming Oregon and ASU win out before their losses to Arizona I don't see any way that Arizona is not the highest ranked 2 loss team by the committee.  After that it depends on how many teams have fewer losses. 

The biggest problem will be that the Committee really seems to like the Big-12 and we have a pretty good chance of there being 2 1 loss Big-12 teams.  2 1 loss SEC teams is likely as well.

It's not out of the question though.

[Valmy]

Any objective observer will see the greatness that is the 2014 Big 12.

[alfred russel]

My Wildcats have an embarrassingly bad OOC schedule for the foreseeable future. I have no idea why, that isn't typical for them. Not as bad as the SEC of course, but still bad.

Can't speak for this year (the schedules get made in advance of course), but it is what Rich Rodriguez wants. Its what he got at West Virginia, and wanted to do at Michigan.

[sbr]

I agree with Dave Bartoo of the college football matrix, who has been preaching since this committee idea was first formed, that SoS was going to be a mostly useless metric to rank these teams.  There are too many teams and they play each other too little for it to have a lot of meaning.  Also the number in your loss column will continue to always be the most important number in these rankings.  I hate to say it as a fan of the game, but it isn't worth it for a P5 team to take the chance of losing a game in September, just to chase a better strength of schedule.  You could nearly be eliminated from the playoff hunt before the leaves turn, for very little benefit.

Some SoS number crunching by college football matrix.

http://cfbmatrix.com/selection-committee-sos-ranks/

WEEK 11 SELECTION COMMITTEE SOS RANKS
FINALLY, A BREAKDOWN OF WHAT THE PLAYOFF COMMITTEE USES FOR SOS

I have heard the incessant banter of Strength of Schedule rankings in comparing teams before and after the Selection Committee drops their top 25. I don't like the SOS as a tool to find the four best, because it is not a tool that identifies the best teams.  However, the committee notes that they use their SOS to rank teams.  It is not any of the public SOS ranks folks reference, in fact, as it would turn out, they do not use an SOS ranking.  They just call their averaging an SOS ranking.

Noted Selection Committee expert, Stewart Mandel tweeted out the following below today about the committee's 'SOS rankings'.  This is basically an in-season version of the commonly referred to NCAA pre-season strength of schedule rankings.  The committee takes it a step further and considers the winning percentage of the opponents of a team's opponents on their schedule.   An example of this, for Auburn. is in the little chart to the right.



Stewart further advised me that for FCS teams, only the loses count against the composite opponent record.  So if Presbyterian has four loses and four wins, only the losses are added to the composite record of opponents for Ole Miss. So if you end up beating an FCS team that goes 11-1, you are only dinged for the one loss by that FCS opponent.  That is weak and a minor penalty at best. These FCS games are locks, cupcakes, gimmes, body bag games.  There is no strength in any of these games so I took it upon myself to count each game played by an FCS opponent against the FBS team that put it on the schedule. If you want to make a change and truly account for the ease of these games, hit it hard.

I have not been able to determine, and thus assume it counts as nothing, the strength of home versus the road. In the Big 12, the PAC 12 and soon to be in the Big Ten and ACC, some teams have five home conference games, while the other half have five road conference games.  That is a significant difference in schedule strength.  Additionally, I cannot tell you how the 13th game in a conference championship plays in the committee's future SOS rankings.   I will cross that bridge when we get there.  Maybe Stewart can give me some more information or I can find it in his book about the CFB Playoffs.

To create the final 'SOS' ranking, I averaged the records of the opponents into the records of the opponents opponents to get the composite.  All three are broken down and ranked below into opponents record, opponents opponents record and the average of the two records.  These will be moving each week as more wins and losses are tallied onto each schedule.

Big chart of all FBS schools.  For some reason (I assume typo) Arizona wasn't colored in yellow in the far right column, they are at 42.

http://48az78esb162xomyl2iipyey3f.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/week-11-SelComm-SOS.png

It seems to me that Strength of Conference and Quality Wins^TM are more important than this "SoS" ranking.  Oregon is #20 of the Top 25 teams in "SoS" and 63/128 overall; much lower than Arizona (of course Oregon is hurt by not having Oregon on their schedule) and lower than Florida State, who is undefeated and was jumped by Oregon.

[MadImmortalMan]

I wonder if snow is included in SOS. Should be.