But it's not August. It's October, and BYU is still undefeated. (Yes, I know the calendar still says September, but you can't lose if you don't play, which BYU doesn't until October 3rd.) So, I'm officially declaring myself on the grandeur bandwagon. It's been really well documented in the last few weeks, but BYU has as good a shot as anyone at going undefeated this year. (per ESPNs FPI, where BYU has slid to 2nd most likely to win out, slightly behind Marshall.)
The biggest reason that BYU has such a high chance of going 12-0 (25% for now) is that their schedule is decidedly mediocre. Here's how the schedule looks broken into rough quintiles by opponent ranking, with the road games italicized. (I'm using the FPI for this, but I doubt it would be significantly different using other ranking systems.)
| Rank | # of Opponents | |
| 1-30 | 0 | |
| 31-60 | 5 | (Texas, BSU, Houston, Virginia, Cal) |
| 61-90 | 4 | (UCF, Nevada, Middle Tennessee, USU) |
| 90-120 | 2 | (UConn, UNLV) |
| 120+ | 1 | (Savannah State) |
The schedule isn't bloated at the bottom, it's bloated in the middle. Rankings obviously have a lot of evolving to do over the rest of the season, but there are a number of "good" teams on there. BYU has a chance at going undefeated and proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are consistently better than good. The more games BYU wins, the more you'll hear about the lack of a single ranked opponent on the schedule. The narrative would be totally different if Texas was at their typical level and ranked in the top 15. Even if BYU had gone and pulled off a 1 point win (rather than a 34 point win) if Texas was ranked, then the pundits would be mostly placated. Would changing one opponents ranking from 37 up to 15 really tell you that much more about the quality of BYU? A bit more, but not all that much more, in my opinion. But rather than another thousand words about schedule strength, let's move on to what we care about:
Bowl Projections.
The point of winning football games is to get a ranking, and the point of that ranking is to get yourself a good bowl. BYU has 4 bowl possibilities:
- No bowl. Win 5 games or less and this is your fate.
- The Miami Bowl, or whatever it's called, against some AAC team. If BYU wins 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 games, this is where they are going for sure. Even at 11-1 this very likely where they end up.
- a New Years Day Bowl (Orange, Cotton, Fiesta or Peach, with Fiesta probably the most likely).
- a Playoff Bowl (Rose or Sugar).
Of course, it isn't quite that simple. The Power 5 conferences (ACC, B1G, Pac12, Big XII and SEC) are all guaranteed one of those 12 spots. This doesn't bother me much, as it's pretty likely that one team from each of those conferences really is in the top 12. One more spot is also reserved for the top team from the "group of 5" conferences. (Those are the "other" conferences, namely the MWC, Sun Belt, AAC, MAC and Conference USA.) (I only had to cheat to remember 1 of those!) In general, I like this, because it provides some assurance that when one of the "little guys" has a great season, they can't be totally left out. This year specifically, however, there aren't any group of 5 teams that look particularly great and this hurts BYU, because the top group of 5 team is likely to be ranked (by the committee, the only rankers who matter) out of the top 12. But they get a spot anyway.
So what it comes down to is this. If BYU gets into the top 11, they get into a new years day bowl, and if they get into the top 4, they go to the playoff. I consider the former to be very likely at 12-0, while the latter is so unlikely that it's almost not even worth considering.
There's no news from the committee yet (they start giving updates on their thinking in a few weeks), but the other polls and rankings probably give a reasonable picture of where BYU stands as of right now. FPI has BYU at #18, AP at #20 and USA Today at #21. BYU only needs to move up about 1 spot each week to hit the magic #11.
In 2006 and 2008 BSU was 12-0 and ranked #9 to end the regular season, 2004 they were #10. In 2007 Hawaii was 12-0 and ranked #10, despite having a schedule that included 2 FCS teams, as well as UNLV, Idaho, USU (before they got decent), and NMSt. Also, their two toughest games (BSU and Fresno) were both at home. Even including their Sugar Bowl gave against Georgia, Sagarin rated their schedule the 132nd toughest in the nation. (For comparison, BYU probably ends this year witha strength of schedule in the 60s with 4 of their 6 toughest opponents on the road.) Other undefeated "non-BCS" teams (BSU, TCU, Utah) have been ranked even higher. There is no precedent* for an undefeated team to be ranked outside the top 11.
(* This is partly because we have never had more than 2 non-BCS teams go undefeated in the same season. Even in the new system with 12 total spots, there isn't enough room for more than 2 non-Power 5 teams. There are only 3 non-Power 5 teams that are still undefeated this year, BYU, Marshall and Cincinnati. If they all win out, only one would be guaranteed a spot (either Cincinnati or Marshall because they're in a conference) and one of them would almost certainly not get into the big bowl (likely Marshall, because Cincinnati has the tougher schedule). The odds of this happening are slim (0.01% according to ESPN) but I wanted to point out that a lot of teams still don't control their own destiny in reaching a new years day bowl, and BYU is in that group.)
As I mentioned earlier, the odds of reaching the top 4 and getting to the playoff, or getting in the top 11 with an 11-1 record are very remote, but not impossible. Here are the teams that could have done it in the last dozen years:
"Non-BCS" teams that reached top 4 in final regular season polls since 2002:
| Year | Team | BCS | AP | USA Today |
| 2010 | TCU (12-0) | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 2009 | TCU (12-0) | 4 | 3 | 3 |
"Non-BCS" teams that reached top 11 in final regular season polls since 2002 without being undefeated:
| Year | Team | BCS | AP | USA Today |
| 2011 | BSU (11-1) | 7 | 8 | 6 |
| 2010 | BSU (11-1) | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| 2008 | TCU (10-2) | 11 | 11 | 11 |
You might notice there's not a lot of variety on those lists. The BSU teams with losses didn't have very tough schedules in the WAC, but they did have signature wins over Virginia Tech and Georgia. The 2008 TCU team had one win over a ranked BYU squad, and 2 losses to undefeated Utah (by 3 points) and #1 Oklahoma. The undefeated TCU teams had multiple wins over ranked teams (BYU and Utah ). BYU is unlikely to have the quality signature wins to match those teams this year. (Though it's technically still possible for Cal to be 10-1 and PAC-12 north champs when they play BYU at the end of the year, which would be an opportunity for a huge win. It's far more likely, however that they are 5-6 at that point.)
If BYU got a lot of help, and I mean A LOT, they could equal those BSU and TCU teams. Provided they keep winning, this might be something I'll come back to later.
1 comment:
So much for that, huh?
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