Losing to KU tomorrow would be the most devastating loss in football in my fanhood. That would be awful all things considered. I think I would be inconsolable if that's the way these hopes come to an end.
Big 12 Championship Game Computer Projection
- Thread starter Dale
- Start date
Losing to KU tomorrow would be the most devastating loss in football in my fanhood. That would be awful all things considered. I think I would be inconsolable if that's the way these hopes come to an end.
Dude, You are assuming a BIG IF THEN loop depending on the outcome of tomorrows games. I have not coded this out to consider every possible permutation. Like I said in an earlier post, I have not looked at how TT wining out or splitting their next two games with OU and UT affects our shot at making the CCG.
So help me and every other ISU fan out here. What is the binary tree tomorrow giving ISU the best outcome so we know who to cheer for as the day progresses? Assuming ISU wins out.
Possible outcomes:
1. ISU wins Big 12 and goes to CFP.
2. ISU wins Big 12 and goes to Sugar Bowl.
3. ISU goes to CCG and loses but Big 12 champ goes to CFP and ISU still goes to Sugar Bowl.
4. ISU goes to CCG and loses and goes to Alamo Bowl.
5. ISU does not go to CCG resulting in one very epic "Beat Incarnate Wood" tailgate and ISU going to Alamo bowl, Camping World bowl or worse.
Percent of ISU fans that think outcome #5 should be ranked higher.
11 am: OSU vs. BU: If BU wins does your three way tie if UT beats WVU thing leading to ISU being left out go away? IF BU over OSU Then UT over WVU Else WVU over UT OR TCU over KSU.
2:30 p.m. KSU vs. TCU: Same question. If TCU over KSU Then UT over WVU Else WVU over UT.
2:30 p.m. WVU vs. UT: ? If BU and/or TCU wins Then UT over WVU. else WVU over UT.
7 p.m. OU vs. TT : WVU win then TT. UT win then OU. Or given it does not matter because BU and/or TCU won, then OU.
Beating a higher ranked UT at Austin sure looks a lot better for ISU if it still leads ISU to making the CCG or going to a high ranked bowl game.
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Some of us older fans need to tell you about what happen in '05.
Okay... I'll bite one more time... the thing to keep in mind (as the OP mentioned) is that ISU already has an over 94% chance to make the title game if it wins out, so it probably makes more sense for us to be digging into the 6-win scenarios. I don't really see any conditions applied to results of the games tomorrow... just conditions based on what you're sure will/won't happen later on. (e.g. "OU won't lose two more games")
There is no scenario this week involving OSU/BU or KSU/TCU that can make the bad, but improbable 3-way UT tie scenario go away this week if UT wins its game. Killing that tiebreaker requires certain results next week (and possibly beyond). TCU doing poorly is good in general for ISU, and OSU doing well is bad for Texas in particular, so I can't see any real reason to cheer for TCU or BU. No conditions attached.
Regarding other outcomes... depends on what you're looking for, right? If you're on the "to ISU give all the glory" train, then I assume you'd cheer for OU to win out, UT to win until it plays ISU, and ISU to win out. That would work if it holds up and OU doesn't lose. (FPI gives OU a 35% chance of winning its 4 remaining games.) I also think you cheer for that if the playoff health of the Big 12 is your goal, right?
If you're of the opinion that TTU can't beat OU and therefore we have to peg WVU with a loss now, then cheer for that...
If you really want ISU to be able to control its destiny after this weekend, cheer for WVU and TTU and KSU (KSU not being completely necessary, depending on the score of OU-TTU).
If you want to maximize the overall probability ISU gets in to the CCG (which is the camp I'm in), you cheer for TTU and OSU unconditionally. If you believe in FPI's odds, you cheer for WVU. If you believe Massey, you cheer for Texas. Neither makes a huge difference on the probability of either model. Both probability models say KSU-TCU is essentially irrelevant, but I'll pull for KSU based on the trailing decimal places in my simulation.
Everyone seems to have their own idea of what to cheer for this weekend based on their assumptions or impressions of how the tiebreakers work... since I'm in the probability camp and most games don't have a huge shift in probability, cheer for you you want.
I thought about that and while that season might be more disappointing, there wasn't a singular game and that team started with 3 straight losses in conference that really never made late season success all that likely. Right now, we are seemingly looking at one game to go to the CCG. Losing to the doormat of the conference would be shockingly awful. There wasn't a single game in 05 that did it. It was just high expectations and the results didn't come.
Now, we could have a discussion about the 2002 FSU and OU games.
This is the part that I respectfully disagree with. If WVU wins this weekend, we have no control over if they win out or not; leaving us out of the CCG. If WVU loses this weekend, The #2 spot in the CCG is in the control of us and Texas; which we will have control of in three weeks.
That's the thing, though: the #2 spot in that case technically isn't in our control until TCU is guaranteed to finish behind OSU. Is it probably going to happen? Yeah. But there's no way that you can guarantee based on this weekend's results that it will, even if OSU wins and TCU loses. (See my earlier post.) I get that a WVU win keeps things in their control, but if (and only if) TTU beats OU then things jump into ISU's control earlier then they otherwise could. It's not the most probable path to controlling ISU's own destiny, but it's the only way it happens this weekend.
Edit: it comes down to this. I posted a scenario that shows a UT win over WVU does not guarantee ISU makes it to the CCG with 7 wins (even if it does make it perhaps more probable). I've seen nothing to invalidate that... I've also proposed that UT loss + OU loss + (TCU loss or TTU satisfies margin of victory conditions w/ OU) guarantees ISU gets in to the CCG, and I've seen no scenario proposed to refute that. I guess I'm disappointed in the lack of folks backing up their claims with counterexamples.
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To gain a better understanding of your logic, why does TCU need to finish behind OSU? We would own the head-to-head tie-breaker against any possible 2-loss team being WVU, Texas (with our win), and TTU. Is there a tie-breaker that is higher than head-to-head that would include anything about TCU? I think I am looking at the long haul of the season's probabilities, not the fastest way to gain the control, but I still do not see how the #2 spot would be in anyone but Texas' and ours to control if Texas wins tomorrow. I am also not being argumentative, just trying to understand the reasoning.
Ah - the open-mindedness is much appreciated. I acknowledge that no one really wants to put much stock in the ramblings of a new poster (and deservedly so)...
ISU would hold H2H tiebreakers against all contenders, as you suggest, except for OU. Therefore, the only way ISU can have any trouble if it gets to 7 wins is if it's tied with OU. If it's in a 2-way tie with OU for second, that's really bad (based on H2H). For that reason, the consensus is WVU should take a second loss - that way we can't finish in a 2-way tie for 2nd with OU.
The problem is that if Texas beats WVU it can still finish 7-2. That's not a problem by itself, since ISU will hold a tiebreaker vs. Texas... and in any 4-way tie at 7-2, ISU will always prevail. But... in a 3-way tie with UT/OU/ISU, that's where potential problems still lie. The round robin between those 3 is 1-1, meaning it goes to record against teams in descending order of the standings. So: if TCU finishes ahead of OSU, then the teams' records are compared to all teams above TCU in the standings (which is necessarily the same) until they are compared against TCU: ISU is eliminated because it lost to TCU, while UT and OU did not. However, since UT lost to OSU, then ISU survives if the ISU/OU/UT record vs. OSU is compared first by finishing ahead of TCU.
That's the short of the scenario: if UT wins this weekend, the possibility of a 3-way ISU/OU/UT tie at 7-2 exists in some form (if OU loses any single game and UT doesn't lose except to ISU). In that case, it always comes down to the relative positioning of TCU and OSU (and whoever OU loses to, to be fair, which could be any of several teams). But it's still going to take some time (past this weekend) to *guarantee* OSU finishes ahead of TCU, which is a necessary guarantee at this point in time.
I appreciate the explanation, and better understand where you are coming from. I am still banking on OU running the table with how they have played recently, and taking that #1 spot outright. So a win by either WVU or UT doesn't guarantee or shut us out of the CCG, but a Texas win puts us in position to take the #2 spot in that 3-way tie between us, WVU, and either UT/TTU.
I think it is still early enough this weekend to cheer for/ against your favorites/enemies without losing much probability. So I'm cheering for WVU (hate Texas/Herman) and against KSU (screwed us last year). Also cheering for OU since we are 2 games behind (with H2H), and they are the only team with chance at national playoff - this opens up an extra bowl game for B12 and improves B12 relevancy/prestige. Next weekend will be where I am totally cheering based on the model.
You're comparing this year's KU team to that 7-5 bowl game winning KU team? Or is this a different point?
Guarantee we won't lose today.
If you are banking on OU running the table then it doesn't matter who wins the UT/WVU game. In that scenario West Virginia would pick up their second conference loss against Oklahoma in the last game of the regular season.
looks like we could be getting into some less desirable scenarios here with Texas about to lose...
Baylor will not be a pushover next week, either.
Baylor will not be a pushover next week, either.
