Our secondary was both frustratingly soft and breathtakingly elite in the same game. Klein goes out with an injury (he's fine says his mom), Joseph Randle get's the Ricky Williams treatment, (held to 43 yards on 15 carries -- without Tre Walker in the game), Sams drives the efficiency bus, Pease works the Wildcat to perfection, and Lockett returns a KO 100-yards (that should help his national ranking quite nicely, thank you.)
In the end, a win is a win in a weekend of "almost" chaos and there's not much more to say than that. I don't have enough space to write about my frustration with LSU and PITT and their seemingly singular goal to screw KSU this weekend, so we'll just leave it at that.
We need to move on to TCU. But, let's take a brief (not brief) look at the BCS.
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This took about two hours to breakdown, but here's how the BCS standings changed for Kansas State and Oregon. I hope you enjoy it. My eyes are blurry.COMPUTERS
While I'm not going to go into incredible detail about each specific poll as I did last week, we lost some ground in the computers ... and surprisngly not to Oregon, but to Alabama. They are now ranked #1 in 4/6 computer polls, 2 and 3 in the other two.
Kansas State last week ranked #1 in 3/6 computer polls, 2, 3, and 3 in the other three, until this weekend. While Oregon failed to make up any ground on KSU, KSU lost ground on Alabama, therefore dropping our overall score even though the Ducks didn't move at all. THAT was totally unexpected, but actually very expected when you consider Bama beat a ranked team on the road. A team (LSU) that previously only had one loss, to another ranked team (Florida).
KSU is actually no longer ranked #1 in ANY computer poll. We are #2 in three, and #3 in three. Our score then dropped from a .97 to a .94 in the computer rankings, or a .03 drop. Divide that by 3 (remember the computers are only 1/3 of the equation, and you have a .01 drop in the score.)
Oregon was supposed to make this huge jump in the computer rankings after having played the ALL-MIGHTY Trojans? Amazingly, they had a .85 computer score last week, they land the same exact score this week. One poll (Anderson and Hester) actually dropped them a spot (from 4 to 5). So, the computers aren't actually as impressed with the Ducks as the voters are.
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| Oregon is only within 1 spot of KSU in only one poll. KSU holds a 2 spot lead in 5 of 6 computers. |
Remember that it's not necessarily your ranking that matters here, as much as each individual vote. So, while ND and AL came down to the last play while Oregon and KSU won more comfortably, it's interesting to note the following:
Alabama lost a vote in the Harris (from 2868 to 2867). That's good enough for a .0004 deduction. Let's hold on to that for second: 1 vote = .0004 points.
KSU gained 8 votes (2664), OREGON gained 10 (2735). For whatever reason, those 8 points only netted a .0028 jump (.00035 for each vote), and OR saw a .0035 jump, (also .00035 for each vote). Those two votes allowed Oregon to gain .0007 on KSU, but remember to divide by 3, which equates to a .00023 gain.
Having fun yet?
COACHES POLL
Rinse and repeat.
Alabama laid claim to all of the 1st place votes this week and last, so they stayed at 1475 points.
KSU gained 4 votes (1370), OREGON gained 8 (1399). Those 4 points only netted a .0027 jump (.000675 for each vote), and OR saw a .0054 jump, (also .000675 for each vote). Those two votes allowed Oregon to gain .00027 on KSU, but remember to divide by 3, which equates to a .0009 gain.
SUMMARY
So, by taking the differential from the Computers (.01), the Harris (.00023), and the Coaches (.0009), you get OR gaining by a grand total of .01113333, and it appears the BCS just rounded up to .0112 as this weeks differential.
KSU still leads Oregon by .0152. As you can see, Alabama pulling out the win @ LSU was bad for KSU in a number of ways. It actually allowed them to assert their dominance in the computers, which dropped KSU in the standings significantly, even when Oregon made no move at all. AL gained an incredible .06 in the computer polls, while KSU lost .03 and ND lost .01.
It's unlikely AL will be able to damage KSU again because they are already so high, and with Oregon NOT moving at ALL in the computer rankings even after beating UCS, KSU still holds a sizeable cushion in the computers.
Bottom line: This week was about AL with a correction in the market to reassert itself across the board, not because Oregon made some big move. Even with playing #19 and KSU playing the #30 rated BCS teams, Oregon didn't move an inch.
That's encouraging.
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| Here are the raw numbers. If you squint you can see how obsessed I am. |
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So let's review Week 12:KSU has TCU (NR), Baylor (NR), and Texas (#17) remaining. If we assume ISU and TCU at home for the Horns are wins (big assumption), there's a good chance they will be ranked around #12 when they come to Manhattan. That is VERY good. We are going to need that.
OREGON has California (NR), Stanford (#14), Oregon State (#11), and UCLA(#18 and/or USC in a possible championship game.
So, for this week, TCU and California essentially cancel each other out for KSU and OR, since both are NR in the BCS. However, TCU is 6-3, while California is 3-7. KSU may stand to actually gain a bit here next week as TCU is a more respected "name" opponent than Cal and will be a stronger win in the computers.
The biggest thing to watch is how much ground OR and KSU can steal from ND next week, if any. Notre Dame is actually helping KSU in the computers because they actually hold the other two #1 rankings (2,2 3 and 3 in the others). As a collective team, KSU, ND, and AL all own the 1, 2 and 3 spots in every poll, which means Oregon can't really make up any ground this week, but AL can with #15 Texas A&M.
With that win, AL could effectively grab the last two #1 ranking from ND, while KSU could effectively grab the #2 spots across the board. If we get our AVE to #2 while Oregon stays at #5, I think we build our lead back to what it was in Week 9, which was .closer 026 heading into the last three weeks. Not sure the computers are completely in love with the Pac12, which gives me hope with a highly ranked Texas win we can hold off Oregon for that title spot.
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Here's a great little breakdown of the remaining schedules.
Pretty crazy to see how the computers (probably not the voters) might fluxuate over the next few weeks based on average BCS ranking of remaining opponents. Alabama actually has the worst remaining schedule, but they (and Oregon) have championship games which will obviously boost them):
1. OREGON: 32.3
2. K-STATE: 36.3
3. NOTRE DAME: 63
4. ALABAMA: 82.7 (I gave W.Carolina a score of 120)
Should Texas continue to win, and they will, they will be close to the Top 10 and REALLY help KSU in the end. We should be VERY thankful at this point Kansas did not beat them a few weeks ago.
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More to come this week about our upcoming game (and road trip) to Amon Carter this weekend in Fort Worth. Should be a great week of speculations on injuries, computers rankings, polls, stats, and what I'm grilling for pre-game next Saturday night.
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