Why the Sam Hill is the #20 team favored -2.5 over the #7 team, and I don't want to hear anything about home field advantage with that big of a difference in ranking.

There is no world where this makes sense, the AP is just flat out wrong. And I'm not just talking about pre-season, we'll get a good taste of this foolishness with the 12 teams they shoe into the playoffs over those others that are better according the vegas oddsmakers and anyone with a little common sense (not the zoo).

We really shouldn't be ranked at all after our past 2 seasons, much less favored. But ultimately, the ranking system needs to be based on vegas then maybe it'll be somewhat worth a damn.

Until then, unrank and unfavor us.

ESPN FPI, had ND at 79% probability of winning. Aggies have 21% probability.

We have a top 15-20 roster with what most people perceive to be a competent head coach and staff. It's fair to rank us in the top 20.

But in general, I agree pre-season rankings are stupid.

We're -2.5 with home field being worth 3 points. In my mind that doesn't even count as being favored. I think the matchup on the field favors ND slightly, and the line would reflect that if it was at a neutral site.

Bill Superman said:

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Why the Sam Hill is the #20 team favored -2.5 over the #7 team, and I don't want to hear anything about home field advantage with that big of a difference in ranking.

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Uh Bill, the "vegas oddsmakers" don't pay attention to the rankings. It's simply the money being even on both side. This game has a lot of folks betting on the Aggies.

mortal said:

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Bill Superman said:

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Why the Sam Hill is the #20 team favored -2.5 over the #7 team, and I don't want to hear anything about home field advantage with that big of a difference in ranking.

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Uh Bill, the "vegas oddsmakers" don't pay attention to the rankings. It's simply the money being even on both side. This game has a lot of folks betting on the Aggies.

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Then admittedly the rankings are wrong and therefore rendered useless.

Vegas is a better indicator of ranking and should be used as the consensus. The only other issue with that is Vegas uses their system based on how y'all dumbasses are going to throw away the little money you have which throws the spread off just a little.

Besides that, vegas oddsmakers should be the primary reference when it comes to the playoff committee ranking system, and not your typical political bs run by the AP.

Riley Leonard's first time in an SEC stadium facing an SEC defense

well_endowed_ag said:

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We have a top 15-20 roster with what most people perceive to be a competent head coach and staff. It's fair to rank us in the top 20.

But in general, I agree pre-season rankings are stupid.

We're -2.5 with home field being worth 3 points. In my mind that doesn't even count as being favored. I think the matchup on the field favors ND slightly, and the line would reflect that if it was at a neutral site.

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So on a neutral field it would be a push. The rankings make even less sense then.

The AP could at keast reference the vegas odds for pre-season, anything to get the little credibility they had back.

Notre Dame might be more talented than us, but we have home field advantage. This will be Riley Leonard's first time facing an SEC defense in front of a hostile crowd of 105,000+ people. I am predicting a close game from start to finish with us coming out on top 24-21.

EliteZags said:

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Riley Leonard's first time in an SEC stadium facing an SEC defense

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2 freshmen OL facing one of the best D lines in the country.

What in Sam Hill is the origin of Sam Hill?

Might want to check up on some history on Notre Dame in similar games the past 10 years.

Did someone state preseason rankings are wrong. Stop the presses.

Papa Joe said:

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ESPN FPI, had ND at 79% probability of winning. Aggies have 21% probability.

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That's been moving. It's now got this:

ND: 58.3%
A&M: 41.7%

To hell with all these need numbers! Let's just win the damn game!

The Agly Duckling said:

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Papa Joe said:

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ESPN FPI, had ND at 79% probability of winning. Aggies have 21% probability.

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That's been moving. It's now got this:

ND: 58.3%
A&M: 41.7%

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How does FPI move if neither has played?

We don't have home field advantage. In recent history we usually lose our home games to good teams and sometimes teams like App State

[Insert gratuitous "Preseason polls are crap" comment here]

WC94 said:

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What in Sam Hill is the origin of Sam Hill?

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Surveyor in Michigan: A possible origin for the phrase "Sam Hill" is the surveyor Samuel W. Hill, associated with the Keweenaw Peninsula area. Hill allegedly used such foul language that his name became a euphemism for swear words.

BMX Bandit said:

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The Agly Duckling said:

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Papa Joe said:

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ESPN FPI, had ND at 79% probability of winning. Aggies have 21% probability.

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That's been moving. It's now got this:

ND: 58.3%
A&M: 41.7%

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How does FPI move if neither has played?

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No, it was never 79%.

I heard yesterday our Ags are 39-2 in their last 41 non conf games at home

I have not gone back to check that out

A quick look shows we are 3-3 versus nonconference "power five" teams at Kyle Field the last 20 something years.

Athletic Department should be ashamed they gave the fans so few Quality out of conference matchups at home

Obviously the solution is all voters ranking teams must put up $10,000 per week betting on or against all teams they rank, and they only get one "mismatch" per week.

cs69ag said:

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I heard yesterday our Ags are 39-2 in their last 41 non conf games at home

I have not gone back to check that out

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You have to strip out the cupcakes from this record.

33 said:

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cs69ag said:

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I heard yesterday our Ags are 39-2 in their last 41 non conf games at home

I have not gone back to check that out

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You have to strip out the cupcakes from this record.

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So take out App State too?

ND alums love it (esp. a couple of them that I work with) as they feel it gives their team something to prove (proverbial 'bulletin board' topic to fire up the team for the lack of respect for a top 10 team) vs. a 'mid-level, at best, SEC team' (was told this by them and it is stated in many articles). They think they will easily and comfortably win after a tight 1st half to work out the kinks (that ND will take the game over in 3rd qtr as they do not believe our offense will do much vs. their Defense - we have no threats).

They also know they 'have' to win for validation of their whole season (i.e., pressure on them with expectations as it's truly a must win game 1 as they think they are playoff bound -- a loss and they whole season is almost shot as not tough enough schedule to make it up). For me, a perfect reason that I'm hoping to see ND play tight if it does get pressure packed late in the game as they are in a must win game.

The alums are very confident that they out-talent us on paper and that it's year 3 of the program built by Freeman (i.e., proverbial, it's their year to make some noise) vs. A&M under new regime.

The funny convo is they'll tout everyone on their roster as amazing (esp. their skill positions coupled w/ Denbrock's offense) and that we do not have many names of note to be concerned about (proverbial gold-colored glasses and sounds exactly the maroon colored glassed we wear on Texags).

Bill Superman said:

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Why the Sam Hill is the #20 team favored -2.5 over the #7 team, and I don't want to hear anything about home field advantage with that big of a difference in ranking.

There is no world where this makes sense, the AP is just flat out wrong. And I'm not just talking about pre-season, we'll get a good taste of this foolishness with the 12 teams they shoe into the playoffs over those others that are better according the vegas oddsmakers and anyone with a little common sense (not the zoo).

We really shouldn't be ranked at all after our past 2 seasons, much less favored. But ultimately, the ranking system needs to be based on vegas then maybe it'll be somewhat worth a damn.

Until then, unrank and unfavor us.

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It's all to get better TV ratings. Better to say a "marquee Top 20 matchup" than simply ND vs. A&M.

In all fairness, Vegas originally had Notre Dame by about a point when the lines came out in the middle of the summer, but bettors pushed that down to around -1 for Texas A&M pretty quickly. Then (after the AP poll came out) ND's left tackle went down for the season and everybody jumped on the line again and pushed it down to -2.5 for Texas A&M.

So to recap, Vegas thought that before injuries ND was about 4 points better than Texas A&M on a neutral field, which is a fairly reasonable gap to have between the #7 and #20 teams. I'm guessing Vegas has a relatively large home field advantage on this game too. Adding that and injuries has bumped the spread down to where it is.

90ags said:

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The alums are very confident that they out-talent us on paper and that it's year 3 of the program built by Freeman (i.e., proverbial, it's their year to make some noise) vs. A&M under new regime.

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I've vaguely heard this point being made and have mostly ignored it, but how do they come up with this? If they want to say that there isn't enough of a talent gap to really make a difference and they have more experience (I have no idea if this second part is true) then I could buy in, but by any objective measure, we are the more talented team on paper.

Ugly said:

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In all fairness, Vegas originally had Notre Dame by about a point when the lines came out in the middle of the summer, but bettors pushed that down to around -1 for Texas A&M pretty quickly. Then (after the AP poll came out) ND's left tackle went down for the season and everybody jumped on the line again and pushed it down to -2.5 for Texas A&M.

So to recap, Vegas thought that before injuries ND was about 4 points better than Texas A&M on a neutral field, which is a fairly reasonable gap to have between the #7 and #20 teams. I'm guessing Vegas has a relatively large home field advantage on this game too. Adding that and injuries has bumped the spread down to where it is.

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Get this competent football talk off this board.

Papa Joe said:

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ESPN FPI, had ND at 79% probability of winning. Aggies have 21% probability.

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Huh? ESPN has ND as a 59% probability of winning

barnag said:

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33 said:

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cs69ag said:

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I heard yesterday our Ags are 39-2 in their last 41 non conf games at home

I have not gone back to check that out

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You have to strip out the cupcakes from this record.

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So take out App State too?

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Yes - take them out, burn the stats and nuke that game off the record books.

I think when talking about quality of team; 20 is probably closer to 7 than 7 is to 4.

the real is issue is that ND is overrated at 7, when they are about 13-14 if you look at vegas numbers and we are slightly underrated

LB12Diamond said:

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Might want to check up on some history on Notre Dame in similar games the past 10 years.

Did someone state preseason rankings are wrong. Stop the presses.

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At least you were able to put together that part. Now we're talking about the next part, try to keep up.

leftlane4passing said:

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I think when talking about quality of team; 20 is probably closer to 7 than 7 is to 4.

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I don't know about that, but they're going to find out the hard way with this 12 team playoff…

90ags said:

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ND alums love it (esp. a couple of them that I work with) as they feel it gives their team something to prove (proverbial 'bulletin board' topic to fire up the team for the lack of respect for a top 10 team) vs. a 'mid-level, at best, SEC team' (was told this by them and it is stated in many articles). They think they will easily and comfortably win after a tight 1st half to work out the kinks (that ND will take the game over in 3rd qtr as they do not believe our offense will do much vs. their Defense - we have no threats).

They also know they 'have' to win for validation of their whole season (i.e., pressure on them with expectations as it's truly a must win game 1 as they think they are playoff bound -- a loss and they whole season is almost shot as not tough enough schedule to make it up). For me, a perfect reason that I'm hoping to see ND play tight if it does get pressure packed late in the game as they are in a must win game.

The alums are very confident that they out-talent us on paper and that it's year 3 of the program built by Freeman (i.e., proverbial, it's their year to make some noise) vs. A&M under new regime.

The funny convo is they'll tout everyone on their roster as amazing (esp. their skill positions coupled w/ Denbrock's offense) and that we do not have many names of note to be concerned about (proverbial gold-colored glasses and sounds exactly the maroon colored glassed we wear on Texags).

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If we beat Notre Dame and then they run the table, there is a 0.00097% chance that they miss the 12 team playoff field.