Initial Thoughts on the Bears-Saints Game

1. The Bears are 1.5-3 point favorites as of now for the Saints game. The MGM Mirage handicapper sounds like he would bet on the Saints. He said if the game was played at a neutral site, the Saints would be the favorites.
2. The weather didn't turn out to be correct this week. (It was about a day late with the "wintry mix"--we're getting it as we speak. I hope my flight is not delayed.) For next week, they are predicting windy and cold, no precipitation. The Bears really need a swirling, windy day to hold down the Saints passing attack.
3. To refresh your memory on those playoff success predictors, here they are:

• Overall Defense: .225
• Passing Defense: .174
• Rushing Defense: .242
• Overall Special Teams: .177
• First Down Passing Defense: .293
• First Down Overall Defense: .291
• Road Defense: .258
• Red Zone Defense: .226

And here are how the Bears and Saints match up in the regular season (of the stats I could find):

• Overall Defense: Bears 2nd, Saints 19th
• Passing Defense: Bears 2nd, Saints 22nd
• Rushing Defense: Bears 5th, Saints 20th
• Overall Special Teams: Bears 1st, Saints 14th
• First Down Overall Defense: Bears 13th, Saints 14th
• Red Zone Defense: Bears 12th, Saints 6th

It looks like the Bears still match up well here, but the Saints can kill the Bears with big plays. I also just don't think the Bears can stop the run up the middle anymore without Tommie Harris. Any kind of delay or draw seems to kill the Bears--it uses Urlacher's and Briggs's speed against them.

Initial Thoughts on the Bears-Seahawks Game

1. The weather for Sunday (although predicting 5 days out is iffy) shows possible rain/snow/sleet/the dreaded "wintry mix" and wind gusts up to 35 mph. I'm not sure if that's good or bad for the Bears, but it should make for an interesting game (and great TV ratings). It probably depends whether the wind or the precipitation is more of a factor. It'd probably be best for the Bears if the wind shut down Seattle's passing attack.

2. You always hear about how defense wins championships. Well Football Outsiders ("Moneyball for football") did a study to see what are the best predictors of playoff success (1 being a perfect predictor):

• Overall Defense: .225
• Passing Defense: .174
• Rushing Defense: .242
• Overall Special Teams: .177

It's interesting how offense doesn't really matter, isn't it? Probably a big factor in the Colts' recent dismal performance in the playoffs.

Here are some other, more specific, predictors:

• First Down Passing Defense: .293
• First Down Overall Defense: .291
• Road Defense: .258
• Red Zone Defense: .226

Here are how the Bears and Seahawks match up (of the stats I could find):

• Overall Defense: Bears 2nd, Seahawks 20th
  
• Passing Defense: Bears 2nd, Seahawks 23rd
  
• Rushing Defense: Bears 5th, Seahawks 23rd
  
• Overall Special Teams: Bears 1st, Seahawks 7th
  
• First Down Overall Defense: Bears 13th, Seahawks 24th
  
• Red Zone Defense: Bears 12th, Seahawks 31st

According to these, things look good for the Bears. These stats are for the whole season, however, so I just hope the loss of Tommie Harris and Mike Brown don't hurt too much...

Who Should Play Ohio State in the BCS Championship?

Introduction
Ohio State is the clear #1 in the nation. No sane person can argue against that point. However, many sane people are arguing about who should play Ohio State in the BCS Championship Game. The three candidates, at least among the sane people, are Florida, Michigan, and USC. (Those who have less of a grip on reality might claim Notre Dame, which I'll get to in a minute.)

Here's the issue at hand: Who is the second-best team? No other factors matter. I am sick of hearing the argument à la Urban Meyer, "Michigan had their chance. It's our turn." How is that a rational arugment for who is the better team? It violates the most fundamental test of logic. (What kind of name is "Urban", anyway? Sorry, I guess that's as irrelevant as his argument.) So, bottom line: We're going to find out who the second-best team is, based on several categories.

Strength of Schedule
I think it’s a little misleading to only include win-loss records of opponents. If you’re going that route, you need to include win-loss records of opponents’ opponents. I believe that’s how CBS Sportsline does it (and how the BCS used to do it.) Here’s what they come up with:

Team SOS
Florida 1
USC 2
Michigan 4
Notre Dame 23

From this ranking, we can really see that Notre Dame should not be included in the BCS Championship argument, and I won’t talk about them further. (They played Army, Navy, and Air Force! The bottom 3 teams of the Big 10, SEC, and Pac-10 are all better than those teams.)

I’m going to call it a draw here, since the Big 10, the SEC, and the Pac-10 are by far the three strongest conferences, and any difference is pretty trivial.

Sagarin Ratings
I know many don’t trust "computer rankings", but they're really much more accurate than human polls, and therefore team quality. (I'll have a future blog about that later.) Of the computer rankings, Sagarin is consistently considered among the top and is featured in a paper with the country's highest circulation, USA Today. Here are the Sagarin ratings:

Team Sagarin Predictor
USC 2
Michigan 8
Florida 10

The winner here is USC, by a decisive margin.

Note: Unfortunately, the BCS uses a less-accurate version of Sagarin's system that doesn’t include margin of victory. Why this is I’ll never know. I suppose it goes in the same category of typical stupid NCAA rules, such as the overtime rule, the instant replay rule, the “one foot in” rule, the lack of a down-by-contact rule, and the new clock rules.

Quality Wins
First off, it’s dumb to use the rankings of teams at the time they played, as they don’t take into account the full season. So here are the quality wins, with current AP rankings, for the various teams:
Michigan

• Beat #12 Notre Dame by 26.
• Beat #7 Wisconsin by 14.
• Beat Penn State by 7, who is a good team and received votes.

USC

• Beat #19 Nebraska by 18.
• Beat #8 Arkansas by 36.
• Beat #17 Cal by 14.
• Beat #12 Notre Dame by 20.

Florida

• Beat #5 LSU by 13.
• Beat #11 Auburn by 10.
• Beat Georgia by 7, who is a good team and received votes.

Note: I didn’t include Florida over Tennessee as a quality win, since they barely beat them.

I’m going to give this to USC, but it’s pretty close.

“Not-So-Quality” Wins
Michigan

• Beat Ball State (5-7) by 8

USC

• Beat Washington State (6-6) by 6
• Beat Washington (5-7) by 6
• Beat Arizona State (7-5) by 7

Florida

• Beat Vanderbilt (4-8) by 6
• Beat Florida State (6-6) by 7

This one goes to Michigan.

Losses
Michigan

• Lost to Ohio State (by far the #1 team in the nation) by 3 at Ohio State.

USC

• Lost to unranked Oregon State by 2.

Florida

• Lost to #11 Auburn by 10.

This one goes to Michigan, since the team they lost to was way better than USC’s and Florida’s losses, and they lost by such a slim margin.

Other Factors
Michigan

• Michigan had to play Ohio State so late in the season and thus the loss counts a lot against them, even though Ohio State is by far the best team in the nation. If Michigan were to play Ohio State at the beginning of the season, Michigan would be easily ranked #2.
• Michigan’s season ends 2 weeks before USC’s and Florida’s. They can only drop in the rankings.
• Michigan doesn’t have a chance to play a 13th game because the NCAA doesn’t allow the Big 10 to have a conference championship.

USC

• USC doesn’t have a chance to play a 13th game because the NCAA doesn’t allow the Pac-10 to have a conference championship.

Florida

• I can't think of any...

This one goes to Michigan.

Overall
Team SOS Sagarin Good Wins Bad Wins Losses Other Factors
Michigan Draw X X X
USC Draw X X
Florida Draw

Michigan should get the bid. Not only do they win more categories, but also losses should count the most anyway, and Michigan’s loss was a “better” loss than the other two teams.

Final Thoughts
The current BCS system is ridiculous because arguments like these can never be settled. (Auburn should have been included in last year's parallel argument.) There should be a 4- or 8-team playoff system so that these arguments can be settled on the field, rather than being endlessly debated in the papers and on sports-talk radio. Any of these teams can make a pretty solid argument for being #2, and in the end, only playing each other can decide it. Long term, it’d be best if both Florida and USC win today so that two-thirds of the country is pissed off no matter who gets selected. (Selfishly for the short term, I hope USC and Florida both lose so that Michigan can go. What can I say, I'm a Big Ten guy, but I hope my objectivity wasn't affected.)