NCAA Football, 2016

[grumbler]

Because nothing excites fan interest like an abstract bureaucratic structure for scheduling and revenue sharing.

Hooray Commissioner Smith and his mighty board of directors!

Actually, the Big Ten is also an academic conference.

So even more excitement!

But less abstract bureaucratic structure.

[alfred russel]

I'd say that the ACC had the best year overall of any conference.  That doesn't necessarily make them the best conference.

Just the best at football in 2016.

[alfred russel]

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18444810/clemson-tigers-coach-dabo-swinney-declares-acc-best-conference-college-football

TAMPA, Fla. -- Clemson coach Dabo Swinney proclaimed the ACC "the best conference in college football" on Tuesday after his team beat Alabama 35-31 to win the national championship.

For this season, anyway, it is hard to argue with that assessment. The ACC finished 9-3 in bowl season, by far the best of any in the country, while also staking claim to two national champions in the past four years.

It has been a steady climb for a conference once dismissed as the worst among the Power 5. But with Florida State and Clemson rising, and programs like Louisville, Miami and Virginia Tech making strides this season, any old ideas about the ACC need to be reconsidered.

"I think all you media folks need to change your stories," Swinney said during a news conference. "It sounds good. I've been in this league a long time, and this league has never gotten the respect that it deserves. I said about five years ago, just keep your mouth shut and go play. If we want to change the story, then we've got to change it from the inside out. Let's line them up, let's go play them. You've got to win those games. I told my AD that. I told [former Clemson AD] Terry Don Phillips that. We've got to go play people, and we've got to win. We've got to find a way. That's the only way it's going to change.

"I knew. I mean, I watch on tape, I watched all the Big Ten film and all that stuff. This is the best conference in college football. It's the deepest, it's the most competitive. You look at the head-to-head records against the SEC. ... You don't want to play a team from this conference. You just don't. I don't care; name one. That's why we're ready. That's why we're ready to go play Oklahoma two years in a row. That's why we're ready to go play Ohio State two out of the last four years. We're ready, because of what we see week in and week out in this conference."

The numbers back up the claim. The ACC finished 10-4 against the SEC, 6-2 against the Big Ten -- both league records for wins against those conferences. Eleven teams finished with a winning overall record, also a league best. Overall, the ACC finished as the only league with a winning record against Power 5 opponents this season (17-9) and was 51-17 against all nonconference opponents, the best record of any conference and a league record for most wins in a season.

That is a far cry from where the ACC was a mere five years ago, when it had a difficult time winning nonconference games and was shut out of the national championship game on a yearly basis. It had been 14 long seasons between national championship game appearances before Florida State broke through in the 2014 BCS title game against Auburn.

Since then, the ACC has had a team either in the College Football Playoff or as a national champion.

"I said five or six years ago, when we were going through a rough stage in the postseason and not winning our share of nonconference games during the regular season, that the solution to that was pretty simple but hard to do," ACC commissioner John Swofford said earlier in the week. "We needed to win more games, need to be better in the postseason, needed to win more of the right kinds of games. What we've seen over the last four or five years in the ACC is that our teams have done that. Certainly led by Clemson and Florida State, but we've developed a great deal more depth as well and I think that's become pretty obvious. It all is pretty well culminated this year."

[alfred russel]

Because nothing excites fan interest like an abstract bureaucratic structure for scheduling and revenue sharing.

Hooray Commissioner Smith and his mighty board of directors!

Actually, the Big Ten is also an academic conference.

Hopefully their academic teams fared better than their football teams.

[grumbler]

Hopefully their academic teams fared better than their football teams.

Indeed.  The Big Ten only had four teams finish in the top 10, while the ACC had an overwhelming two.

[MadImmortalMan]

Hopefully their academic teams fared better than their football teams.

Indeed.  The Big Ten only had four teams finish in the top 10, while the ACC had an overwhelming two.

Obviously we need Chicago back in, with all their Nobel prizes and stuff.

[alfred russel]

Hopefully their academic teams fared better than their football teams.

Indeed.  The Big Ten only had four teams finish in the top 10, while the ACC had an overwhelming two.

Ignore the on the field results, and point to your success in getting votes. 

This seems a bit like the all time great Michigan defense you were talking about this year, which by some advanced statistical analysis would give up less than one point per game to the average P5 team while the game was competitive. Lets focus on that, rather than Dalvin Cook breaking free for a TD.

[MadBurgerMaker]

 

[alfred russel]

Bill Connolly's latest S&P+ numbers for defenses (points an average team could be expected to score against this defense) Top FIve:

5. Wisconsin (12.4 Adj. PPG)
4. Alabama (11.9)
3. Florida (11.3)
2. Clemson (11.0)
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
1. Michigan (0.8)

That's not a typo, and those numbers are opponent-adjusted and exclude garbage time. 

Edit: The difference between #1 Michigan and #2 Clemson are greater than the difference between #2 Clemson and #19 Temple.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/10/25/13401526/michigan-defense-2016-stats-jabrill-peppers-don-brown-jim-harbaugh?utm_campaign=sbn_billc&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Just don't pay attention to FSU beating the 33 - 32, and Dalvin Cook putting up 207 yards and a TD on 22 touches.

[grumbler]

Just don't pay attention to FSU beating the 33 - 32, and Dalvin Cook putting up 207 yards and a TD on 22 touches.

  That's a post from October you're talking about, not post-FSU.  If October is what you want to judge teams by, Michigan was  8-0 and had beaten two teams that finished in the top 10, while FSU was 6-3 and had beaten no teams that finished in the top ten (and, indeed, wouldn't beat any such teams until their 1-point squeaker over Michigan).

[alfred russel]

Just don't pay attention to FSU beating the 33 - 32, and Dalvin Cook putting up 207 yards and a TD on 22 touches.

  That's a post from October you're talking about, not post-FSU.  If October is what you want to judge teams by, Michigan was  8-0 and had beaten two teams that finished in the top 10, while FSU was 6-3 and had beaten no teams that finished in the top ten (and, indeed, wouldn't beat any such teams until their 1-point squeaker over Michigan).

The statistics you brought to the forum grossly overrated the Michigan defense, as I pointed out at the time--back in October. Subsequent events showed that.

FSU is a better team than Michigan. The teams have the same record, FSU beat Michigan head to head, and FSU played in the best conference in football (where it picked up all of its losses). Michigan was exposed post October, but the signs were there before that, which I pointed out and you objected. The rest of the season has settled that discussion.

[PDH]

Wyoming won more games this year than the last two years combined.  Best stat ever.

[Admiral Yi]

Hold on Dorsey.  FSU needed some last minute heroics to beat a Michigan team who's quarterback couldn't throw a deep ball within 10 yards of a receiver because of a partially healed collarbone.

[alfred russel]

Hold on Dorsey.  FSU needed some last minute heroics to beat a Michigan team who's quarterback couldn't throw a deep ball within 10 yards of a receiver because of a partially healed collarbone.

FSU won the game. You want to say that Michigan is the better team now?

But that is really not the point. grumbler posted earlier in the season the "advanced statistical analysis" showing the average P5 team would score less than 1 point a game against the Michigan defense while the game was in doubt. We argued about this when I pointed out that was really dumb and obviously false. FSU put up 33 points and Michigan had no answer for Dalvin Cook. 

[katmai]

And best defensive player didn't even play.

But I'm sure if you aged the Seminoles they are awesome.