Commentary on the Iowa State football schedule from Kirk Haaland.
http://cyclonefanatic.com/football/news/encyclonepedia-obvious-is-obvious/
http://cyclonefanatic.com/football/news/encyclonepedia-obvious-is-obvious/
enCYCLONEpedia: Obvious is obvious
- Thread starter ChrisMWilliams
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CF quote of the year? It could be used in so many contexts.
"this is really, really, really mind-numbingly obvious."
Indeed, this is who we are. A mediocre team that does better now at beating ranked conference teams than we used to be. It would be great to win the conference and I hope we eventually do, but I like being the team that is known for its upsets of ranked teams.
Watch out OU! You are due . . . way overdue . . . in Ames.
Watch out OU! You are due . . . way overdue . . . in Ames.
Hard to argue with the cold hard facts, but last year's schedule wasn't all that difficult. UNI, Iowa, Tulsa, Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Kansas, and WVU were all very beatable. That's 8 wins should we have had a decent team. Could probably find 8 wins on this year's schedule, too. If the schedule is unbeatable, we are playing in the wrong conference.
A person could make the argument(I wont though), that we have been playing in the wrong conferences for the last ...oh...100 years or so.
This needs to be inserted into the rectum of both lakesbison and those other bison fans who chest thump about how they'd instantly compete in a big-boy conference.
I don't think the schedule was unbeatable at all...it was meant to be less of a commentary on last year's schedule and more of how ISU has traditionally been affected by increasing/decreasing the % of conference opponents that were ranked.
They could've won 2-3 more games last season for sure, but they didn't and that sticks with the general theme of the last 65 yeara. Though it is extremely obvious.
Imo we are only in our second decade of making it a priority to compete in big-time college athletics (football). Given that late start, our future is brighter than our past imo.
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I like your take on things khaal53... I've read your stuff for a while now.
That said... our strength of schedule wouldn't seem so daunting all the time if we were better at the sport of football. To me that is the bottom line.
An easier schedule would facilitate getting better at football. Call it the KSU model.
Thanks. But to your point, I think i commented on that with this excerpt:
While a difficult schedule itself doesn’t lead a program to worse results on a guaranteed basis, it is my contention that for a program like Iowa State it makes success far more of an uphill climb. It takes razor thin margins for error and thins them out further. For programs with elite success in recent years, or in their program history, or with upper echelon talent the trend between success and schedule strength is probably less staggering.
So true. Amazing we made the cut to stay in a Big Boy conference. Pollard should get a bronze statue in the new SEZ atrium (no sarcasm intended).
It's a chicken or the egg thing.
I'm 42 and as long as i can remember... we've always had a difficult schedule. If we wouldn't have been so mediocre at best in the past our schedules wouldn't have looked as daunting.
It's a two way street.
With broad conclusions, the prediction on the difficulty of greater success is relative to the time you've run the report. Right now, yes, razor thin margins. Wouldn't be the same thought if you looked at this in the late 70's.
It's also obvious to state that this isn't unique to Iowa State in the Power 5. 7 years ago Baylor would have had an even smaller margin, while Kansas was on the up-and-up. Without comparable data sets on the margin for other teams throughout the years, you really can't say it is more difficult here.
It's also obvious to state that this isn't unique to Iowa State in the Power 5. 7 years ago Baylor would have had an even smaller margin, while Kansas was on the up-and-up. Without comparable data sets on the margin for other teams throughout the years, you really can't say it is more difficult here.
Somewhat true, but not entirely. There are a few stretches of 30-35% of conference games against ranked teams. Though, I always think that a conference schedule strength is often more determined by the overall depth and how good the bottom teams are.
My point really wasn't to say it is tougher here than anywhere else. But at Iowa State in the past 65 years if when they have had their relatively tougher schedules they have performed worse. It is a really obvious and expected idea but I was still surprised at the decisiveness of the graph when the two lines were plotted with each other.
