2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 4

Some great games and a few upsets over the weekend mean it's time to update the playoff picture for December. Week 4 provided some thrills, along with a bit of bad football that I happened to catch at various times.

With another week in the books, we have more information for the Playoff Points metric. The half dozen winless teams will continue to throw things off a bit, as their wins aren't helping the cause of any teams yet. Of course, other wins will loom pretty big now, and possibly more so as the season goes along.

Included towards the end of this week's post, I'll have a list of teams that I've deemed ineligible for the Death to the BCS Playoffs. A few teams might get a turnaround depending on their schedule later, but a couple I've already deemed out. You probably know one of them if you're a regular reader of COAS.

But enough about the negative. Let's delve into the current Playoff Points situation. If you need a refresher on how this metric works, I've got a summary in the Week 1 post. You can refer back to last week's rankings here.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 3

We're onto Week 3 of the NFL season, and it's been a very weird season so far. There's a four-way tie for first in the NFC North, and the Buffalo Bills are the only 2-0 team in the AFC East. Obviously, this is a small sample size and proves why we need those 16 games to determine the best teams in a given season.

I think Adam and I forgot this last week. We had a first in this contest's history: we differed on three games, and I got all three of them. But we combined to go 4-9 on our groupthink games. Some of it was overreaction to Week 1, others of it was the parity of the NFL being on full display.

Overall, I'm tied for first, as three-year contestant Mark Murphy had a monster week despite forgetting his Thursday night pick. He has that going for him, as well as the fact that he's an Internet celebrity now. Fun times in the COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Contest!

On another fun note, I'm pleased to announce that I am the new NFC North reporter for UKEndzone, a UK-based football site discussing both the professional and college games. I'm thrilled to join their team. You can read my first piece for them here, and I'll be sure to share more of my work as it becomes available!

Even with this new gig, I'm not abandoning COAS. I'm having too much fun. So we're going onto the third week of picks against the spread. This week, Adam and I concur on 12 of the 16 games, so he's got a chance to retake the lead again. Let's get to it.

2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 4

With results and hopefully most scandal out of the way, let's focus on football itself. We're starting to get into more of the nitty-gritty of the college football season. The first three weeks have seen some conference play start up, but it will only start to get busier from here. Even so, there are still non-conference games dotted throughout the slate, and they need to be covered.

I think Week 3 on the whole was probably the best week from a scheduling standpoint I've ever seen. I kind of doubt we'll have anything like it this week, but there's only one way to find out. Let's take a look at how everyone did for this week's schedule.

2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 3

Wow, what a week this past week has been. Most of the chaos has been at the NFL level of course, but you all know how I feel about the whole Penn State under-the-radar reinstatement. At the moment, I still refuse to reinstate them for the Death to the BCS Playoffs. There's a culture problem there, and I address it in the above post. But enough about stupid fans.

We've played three weeks of football, so the Playoff Points metric is starting to gain a little bit more credibility in terms of separating the haves from the have-nots. It's a metric that builds upon itself as the season goes on, which is why I like it so much. What seems like a great win early in the season based on biased polls can mean more of what it's supposed to mean in this system.

If you want to refer back to last week's rankings, you can view them here (or click the link to the post on the sidebar). An explanation of how the Playoff Points system works can be found back at the Week 1 post. But let's see how this weekend's action impacts each conference. All scores are rounded to the nearest hundredth for the sake of space, but any rounded ties will be unrounded to determine which is higher, then rerounded for the blog post.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 2

It's been a crazy football week, especially in the NFL. At least on the field, things were for the most part normal.

It was a pretty strong debut for the coalition for the COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em. I stayed on my 2013 pace, but it has me in 2nd place out of four competitors this season. You can view the standings so far here.

So this week, Adam and I are at the picks again. Can I regain some ground in a follow up effort? This week, groupthink prevails, as we only disagree on 3 out of 16 picks. Doesn't bode too well for an early comeback and a flip in the standings. Let's take a look at the picks.

Did the Punishment Fit the Crime?

Photo by Matthew O'Haren (USA TODAY Sports)

Yesterday, amidst the chaos of the most recent Ray Rice fallout, the NCAA tried to sneak through news that Penn State was being reinstated. They now have all their scholarships again, and are eligible for the College Football Playoff this year. This ends what turned out to be about a two year suspension for the program, out of what was a four year sentence. So did the punishment fit the crime then? Did it fit now that we have the benefit of hindsight?

Yesterday, I still wasn't sure how to feel about the reinstatement. I was open to it, but I felt that the timing was absolutely terrible. Then, I saw a Dan Wetzel tweet last night.

At Penn St, celebration for end of Sandusky sanctions turns to restoring Paterno Statue https://t.co/ckI0PGlZii (via @OnwardState)
— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) September 9, 2014

Let me be clear. I have no problem with the fact that students, alums, and other fans assembled to celebrate. That's their right. I might have done the same in their situation. It's a good thing to get your team back to full strength. But the lengths they went to are disturbing. These people are demanding the reinstatement of a statue of someone who admitted they didn't do enough.

There are a few common arguments that Penn State fans and others have been using against the sanctions. "The NCAA doesn't have jurisdiction over what happened." "The people responsible for what happened are no longer at Penn State." "You're punishing innocent kids." "This has nothing to do with the football program." On and on it goes. In 2012, I addressed a few of these concerns. I think they still hold true today.

Obviously, I don't know the exact details of what happened in State College between 1998 and 2011, when the subhuman Jerry Sandusky was finally arrested for his crimes. But based on the Freeh Report (which yes, I know, has some question marks to it based on the reputation of Louis Freeh), unless the emails they found are fake, the following facts can be established.

1. In May of 1998, there was a police report filed regarding Sandusky showering with one of the victims. An investigation takes place, but police decide there's not enough evidence to charge him. By early June, the investigation is closed.
2. During this time, PSU officials (including Joe Paterno, according to emails), are kept up to date with the proceedings. They know there's an investigation here.
3. In 1999, Sandusky retires as an assistant coach of the football team. Despite the lack of precedent for such a move, on August 31 of that year, Sandusky was granted emeritus rank, which allowed him continued access to "recreational facilities" on campus.
4. In 2000, then again in 2001, janitors and Mike McQueary, respectively, saw alleged sexual misconduct in the football building. While the janitors never reported what they witnessed, McQueary told his father about it, and then went to tell Joe Paterno.
5. Joe Paterno told a grand jury in 2011 that McQueary told him something sexual in nature happened in the building. Paterno reported it to his superiors, and they met more than once to follow up on the allegations. Despite this, no police report is filed.

I mentioned this in 2012, and I'll say it again. The 1998 investigation was handled the way it should have been. The police got involved, and authorities at Penn State, including Paterno, knew about it. If police didn't have enough evidence to do anything in 1998, I can give the Penn State leaders a pass at that moment. As soon as the 2001 incident came to their attention, their thoughts should have gone back to 1998. Even though there wasn't enough in '98, the fact that a second report, completely unrelated to the first, came out should have raised suspicion. The police should have been contacted. And don't start with the "Gary Schultz was in charge of the campus police!" His title was "Senior Vice President- Finance and Business". If he was in charge of police, his knowledge of these allegations meant he had an obligation to open an investigation too. If police aren't contacted, didn't these men at least have the obligation to revoke Sandusky's access to the football facility?

I don't know what the rationale was in 2001 for not doing more. But based on the facts above, I remain convinced that Paterno, Spanier, Schultz and Curley are all at the very least morally guilty for not doing more to dig into this. Had a police investigation been opened and nothing been found, these men would not be facing the scrutiny they are. Instead it would fall on the police, based on wondering how they could have found nothing not once, but twice.

So back to 2014. For people to think Paterno was innocent (I'm looking at the attorney general as well, despite the claim that Paterno probably wouldn't have faced charges had he not passed away in early 2012) is naive at best. Unquestionably, he did a lot of good for a lot of people. But we can't forget about the people he failed.

These fans need to realize that it''s okay to celebrate the release of sanctions. They just need to remember why the sanctions were imposed in the first place. Problem is, they aren't. This is why the sanctions were necessary in the first place. People claim there isn't a culture problem at Penn State, but there clearly is. People want not only the statue, but Paterno's official win total to be brought back to its on the field total of 409. Paterno's legacy is more important to some people than what happened in the football facility 15 years ago. That's why I tweeted this last night after seeing Wetzel's tweet.

The more I see, the more I think Penn State should have gotten the death penalty. They don't get it.
— Lucas Mitzel (@northsider89) September 9, 2014

Priorities, people. You can be happy that sanctions got reduced. Just remember what put you in a position to celebrate their removal in the first place.

2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 3

We've got one week of NFL football in the books, and now the college season is starting Week 3 on Thursday. I love this time of year.

I've been able to start measuring Playoff Points to a greater degree with a couple weeks worth of data in the books, and you can see the analysis here. Even though the Playoff Point metric is better, I still think the NCSS metric is an important one, as it faces the reality that a lot of teams suck at scheduling out of conference tests.

We're starting to get into more of a conference play time of year, but there are still plenty of non-conference tilts left, including a bunch this week. If you want to refer back to last week's rankings, you can view them here. Let's take a look at this week.