This would be a different graphic, but based on these Sagarin ratings, the SEC teams in this list are generally playing 7 or even 8 games that they could potentially lose (ie teams in the top 40) while Notre Dame and the Big 10 teams only have 4 or 5 games on the whole schedule that they might lose.

We are potentially looking at a weekend where this conference is totally different before and after it. If Texas and Oklahoma win, and that could happen, IMO. Then the 2025 state of the league will totally shift to where the obvious three best teams in the league are Texas A&M, Texas, and Oklahoma.

JJxvi said:

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This would be a different graphic, but based on these Sagarin ratings, the SEC teams in this list are generally playing 7 or even 8 games that they could potentially lose (ie teams in the top 40) while Notre Dame and the Big 10 teams only have 4 or 5 games on the whole schedule that they might lose.

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Ohio State has 5 conference games against sub-50 opponents. A&M, Alabama, UGA, t.u., Ole Miss, OU, and Vandy have ZERO. You go on the road against a bottom feeder in the SEC, you have a very real chance of losing. These lines are almost always single digit.

Kudos, jjxvi. I enjoyed your schematic. Very thought provoking. As others have mentioned, one of the takeaways is the relative weakness of the Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon schedules. It was also interesting to more closely assess each of the three. Oho State has only one non-Power 5/4 game (the last one, Grambling State); Oregon has two (Montana State and their in limbo rival Oregon State); whiie Indiana has three (Old Dominion, Kennesaw State, and Indiana State). Of course, part of this relates to the Big 10 requirement of 9 conference games. We'll see a similar effect soon with the SEC going to a 9-team conference game schedule. But, with that said and without looking back at previous year schedules, Indiana seems to have been particularly reticent to schedule Power 5/4 teams. I suppose this will change with their newfound prominence. Again, thanks for the time you committed to this project. Like most Ags, I'm enjoying "studying" TAMU football!

94chem said:

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agracer said:

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The conf champs that are not currently in the top 12 would take tu's 3-loss team's place in the playoffs.

t.u. is not getting in with 3 losses.

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...and you went ahead and said exactly what I asked you not to say. Just couldn't help yourself, I reckon.

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because the claim that 3 loss t.u. Is getting in is a dumb thing to say.

Not saying I agree but Josh Pate's latest CFP projection (link below) has Texas as the 10 seed with a 9-3 record. His Top 4 seeds are Ohio State, Alabama, Indiana, and TAMU, followed by Texas Tech, UGA, Oregon, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Texas, and then Georgia Tech as ACC Champ and South Florida for the Group of 5 pick. Suffice it to say, this is curious logic that presumably anticipates Texas losing to UGA and beating us. That puts UGA and Alabama in the SEC Championship game, which he has Alabama winning. The final leap of faith wouid be the CFP Committee valuing an 11-1 TAMU over an 11-2 UGA for sake of seeding.

Link posted by Kenneth_2003 in his " Pate -- Still has us losing one" post:

https://www.youtube.com/live/nh5O2QNqr_E?si=yebBjkL3_t2J6qlx&t=3253

agracer said:

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Learn to communicate.

Still not adding up to me. How is MU blue for us and red for Bama? It's the same opponent for both teams.

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To make it easier just ignore all but the top and bottom lines of the chart. Imagine every team only played 2 games this year and it happened to be those 2 rows (basically, imagine every team played the hardest team from their schedule and the easiest and that was it)

These show each teams "hardest" game and each teams "easiest" game.

Whoever is darkest red had the "hardest" game (for that row).
Whoever is darkest blue had the "easiest" game (for that row).

Now imagine if 2 teams played Auburn, but one had them as their "easiest" game and one had them as their "hardest".

We can all agree Auburn is a really EASY "hardest" game this year.
We can also all agree Auburn is a really HARD "easiest" game this year.

Given that, one team would show Auburn as blue (for being about the easiest "hard" game out there), but another would show that same Auburn team as red (for being the "hardest" easy game out there).

All I've heard today is how A&M only has 1 ranked win because ND is the only one still ranked. LSU and Missouri magically dont count anymore even though it was us that knocked their ass out of ranking.

Any ranking metric, including Sagarin, that still has Penn State ranked 16 is severely flawed.

Therefore, your efforts, while appreciated, can't be trusted.

94chem said:

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JJxvi said:

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This would be a different graphic, but based on these Sagarin ratings, the SEC teams in this list are generally playing 7 or even 8 games that they could potentially lose (ie teams in the top 40) while Notre Dame and the Big 10 teams only have 4 or 5 games on the whole schedule that they might lose.

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Ohio State has 5 conference games against sub-50 opponents. A&M, Alabama, UGA, t.u., Ole Miss, OU, and Vandy have ZERO. You go on the road against a bottom feeder in the SEC, you have a very real chance of losing. These lines are almost always single digit.

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This is the real issue here. All the SEC haters don't seem to get it, or don't want to. LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, etc., have bad W-L records but they are not easy outs.