SB Nation User Blog: Ultra Horn

Checking in with D.J.

Ultra Horn — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:19:32 -0000

Checking in with D.J.

Mr. Augustin's up to date stats. At least top 5 rookie ranking by the end of the year if he keeps this up!

Texas, Florida & OU Season Comparison, SOS Results and Lousy Human Voters

Ultra Horn — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:48:17 -0000

As we all know, the BCS rankings are decided by 1/3 computers verdicts, 1/3 journalists opinions and 1/3 coaches opinions.

Here are the college football classes of human voters(The RPG of the BCS), or in other words the reason Texas was left out of the NC game.

First of all, lets look at our two classes of human voters, and their possible faults.

The Journalist - Probably does not do well with numbers, as he became a journalist. Probably not a mathematician or a statistician. Impressed by shiny things and big numbers. Has very short-term memory - votes on power ranking terms, not strength of schedule. Probably does not watch all Top 25 college football teams and yet still votes on how good they are relative to others. The journalist syndicate's(or whatever its called) final survey corresponds to 1/3 of the final BCS vote.

The Coach - Gets paid millions of dollars to prepare, build, recruit, organize, motivate and lead his football team very well. His job also consists of scouting and dissecting his regular and post-season opponents teams' tactics and getting to know them just like the palm of his hand. The coach, however, does not get paid millions of dollars to waste time watching and evaluating games and statistics of teams that do not pertain to the sea of action that his team will see throughout the course of a season. Yet he votes on the Top 25 rankings, influenced by journalists, media and sometimes his own sentiments of a particular team, coach or player. The coaches tally of votes corresponds to another 1/3 of the final BCS vote.

Now that I've shown it is possible that some of the human voters do not really know what the *&!@$ are doing, I will attempt to compare UT's, OU's and UF's regular season schedule.

Look at some simple numbers after the jump.

UT, OU, UF Rudimentary Strength of Schedule Comparison

The first set of comparisons take into account only the regular season (as Texas would have 1 less game if OU's and UF's conference championship game was included). Alabama and Red Raiders ignored here. Head to head games also ignored here (45-35. Remember!)

Losses

Texas - #7 (#7 - Current) Tech, @ Tech, 39-33

OU -#5 (#3) Texas, @Neutral, 45-35

Florida - NR (#25) Miss, @ Home, 31-30

Avoiding the Big 12 triangle of confusion, pirates and death, Florida clearly has the worst loss here.

UF<UT, UF<OU

WIns vs. Top 25 Ranked Teams. Ranks at time of play:

Texas - #1 OU, #11 Missouri , #6 Ok. State.

OU - #24 TCU, #16 Kansas, #2 Tech.

Florida - #4 LSU, #6 Georgia, #25 SC, #20 FSU

Verdict - This verdict depends on many numbers and angles of view so I will not attempt to decide this.

Wins vs. Top 40 ranked teams. Ranks using Dec. 7 final standings

Texas - #1 OU, #13 Ok. St., #21 Missouri, #34 Kansas, #37 Rice (5)

OU - #7 Tech, #11 TCU, #12 Cinci, #13 Ok. St., #30 Nebraska,#34 Kansas(6)

UF - #15 Georgia, #26 FSU, #40 LSU (3)

Verdict - Let us assume advantage OU and point out that UT's schedule is clearly more difficult than UF's.

OU>UT>>>UF

I-AA Opponents played

Texas -0

OU - 1

UF - 1

Verdict - Advantage Texas.

UT>UF, UT>OU

Regular Season Summary

On a regular season basis, IGNORING HEAD-TO-HEAD (Fix your @#$* Big XII..), let's say we give OU the #1 spot due to the fact that they played the toughest ranked opponent schedule out of the three teams.

OU =(assume)= #1

UT <?> UF

Now we have UT and UF left to compare for the #2 spot. Let's include UF's conference championship game vs. at the time #1 Alabama in this comparison.

Texas vs Florida Rudimentary SOS comparison

Win vs #1 Team at time of play.

Texas - OU @ Neutral 45-35

UF - Alabama @ Neutral 31-20

Verdict: Tie.

All Top 40 team wins

Texas - #1 OU, #13 Ok. St., #21 Missouri, #34 Kansas, #37 Rice (5 games total, with 1 conference game less)

Florida - #4 Alabama, #15 Georgia, #26 FSU, #40 LSU (4 games total)

Verdict: Advantage Texas - Texas played and beat more quality opponents, even with Florida having an extra conference championship game.

UT>UF

Games lost

Texas - #7 (#7 - Current) Tech, @ Tech, 39-33

Florida - NR (#25 - CUrrent) Miss, @ Home, 31-30

Verdict: Advantage Texas. Texas lost at an away game to a Top 10 opponent, while Florida was upset by a team not ranked at the time, and now ranked #25 Ole Miss at the Swamp.

UT>UF

I-AA Opponents played

Texas - 0

Florida - 1

Advantage: Texas. Why does this matter? Because Florida lost to an unranked D-IA school and the chances of UF losing to a D-IA team are definitely higher vs. the chances of losing to an inferior D-IIA team (Citadel, no disrespect here Citadelians, just trying to make a point).

UT>UF

UT vs UF Summary and Questions

Based on the UF vs UT head to head schedule comparison I can say that I am very disappointed with UF being placed in front of UT by human voters. UF had a worse loss than UT and UT had a much stronger schedule. Looking at these two teams and their final ranking I wonder what the $(*@ human voters were thinking.

This implicates that the BCS computer algorithms did their job by giving Texas a .05 advantage over Florida, and ranking OU the highest. This also implicates that coaches and journalists should not account for 1/3 of the BCS vote, respectively as they rank on a most-recent game basis (Power-rankings) vs. a resume and strength of schedule basis. It is also possible that human voters influence each other, which sometimes results in a reinforcement of a bad/uninformed judgements.

Once again, ignoring head-to-head games(yet Remember the Cotton Bowl, 45-35 etc.), OU should be ranked #1 because they have the superior ranked team resume and schedule, Texas #2 and Florida - #3 because they have a better resume than Florida does.

And yes, if you want to go to the NC win all your games and play strong opponents. However, based on what's happened this year I am not sure how UF was ranked in front of UT.

A tribute to Aggies everywhere by Heavy Metal Farmer. Tractoooooor. Not actually about...

Ultra Horn — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:54:10 -0000

A tribute to Aggies everywhere by Heavy Metal Farmer.
Tractoooooor.

Not actually about Aggies, (at least I think not) but still hilarious. Thanks, Ultra Horn. -HB

T-Mac Dallas FGs

Ultra Horn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:29:13 -0000

The only conclusions that can be made from the following data is don't design plays that make T-Mac wide open and give him the ball when he has at least one defender on him, the more the better.

ESPN Stats & Analysis

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-081120

Next Level: Houston's Tracy McGrady Video Analysis vs. Dallas
Defender	Field Goals	Points
Unguarded	0-for-5	0
Gerald Green	0-for-2	0
Jason Kidd	4-for-6	9
Shawne Williams	1-for-1	3
Double Coverage	0-for-0	4 free throws

Worried Fan Here

Ultra Horn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:24:32 -0000

Hi there Dreamshakers,

I'm a Rocket fan in Austin in search of a tv station that regularly airs Rockets games. My roommates and I have the at&t uverse u200 + sports package deal. We have the FSN Houston channel. However, all Rockets games(preseason and regular season) have been blacked out so far on FSN. I've only been able to catch a game on TNT.

Anyone know how I can watch Rockets games? I've only thought of calling at&t, which I haven't done yet. Somehow I'm pessimistic about anything being resolved that way :|

Thanks for your help in advance.

Jamaal Charles Opportunity

Ultra Horn — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:05:53 -0000

Jamaal Charles Opportunity

"It’s my time to shine," he (JC) said. "If somebody goes down, somebody’s got to step up. I’ve got to be the one who steps up."

legendary earlcampbell.com

Ultra Horn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:00:35 -0000

legendary earlcampbell.com

#20's site

Replacing the coach in midseason. A scientific study by Mid Sweden University.

Ultra Horn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:41:28 -0000

Replacing the coach in midseason. A scientific study by Mid Sweden University.

A scholarly study of replacing the coach in midseason and the effect of that on the team (data taken from the Swedish hockey league).

Texas Gameday Photography (SFW)

Ultra Horn — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:48:47 -0000

I should probably be gnawing at my structural analysis assignment, but somehow thinking about football managed to keep me astray.

I was thinking it might be kind of interesting to have a public album on a site such as photobucket.com, where Longhorn, or even opposing team fans can upload pictures they have taken during games, or during the events before or after.

This came to mind as I was browsing through my pictures, when I realized that I was missing plenty of photos that could be taken from a different angle and location in the stadium. For example, VY was on the opposite side on the field and the best picture I got of him was a picture of him displayed on the godzillatron. 18x optical zoom was no match for the opposite sideline.

I created a Texas - FAU album on photobucket that is open to the public, both for viewing and uploading. For now I will keep the right to approve photos before they can be posted, in case of saboteurs.

On the logistics side, once again, anyone can upload to and view this album. I believe all you need is a photobucket account.

Comments and feedback are welcome!

Click here for the album link. Opens in new window.

08/09 Season Game Hype Poll

Ultra Horn — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:43:18 -0000

I'm interested to see opinions as there are definitely quite a few possibly exciting games to choose from.

Starting from the trash-talking Florida Atalantites to crowd favorite highly mannered Arkansas crowd, through 2007 top 10 ranking Kansas, Missouri and OU finishing with lynch mob and orgy ready Texas Tech and A&M the choice is certainly not easy.

Please excuse the 2010 KSU game addition but I think my craving for vendetta and vote are obvious.

Poll

Which game are you most looking forward to watching?

Florida Atlantic

17 votes

UT at El Paso

1 votes

Arkansas

5 votes

Rice

1 votes

Colorado

1 votes

Oklahoma

75 votes

Missouri

38 votes

Oklahoma State

0 votes

Texas Tech

11 votes

Baylor

3 votes

Kansas

0 votes

A&M

15 votes

2010 Kansas State

5 votes

172 votes | Poll has closed