Final Thoughts on Rose Bowl

The Rose Bowl is tomorrow. Below are a few updates:

1) Terrelle Pryor is playing with a slight tear in the MCL in one of his knees. Its always possible that he exacerbates the injury or plays less than perfect because of it. This is a plus.

2) The Pac-10 has not been doing well in bowl games.

#21 Stanford lost to Oklahoma (31-27).

#18 Oregon State lost to #14 BYU (44-20).

#20 Arizona lost to #22 Nebraska (33-0).

Cal lost to #23 Utah (37-27).

All in all this is not good. Infact, its a terrible record for the Pac-10. 0-4 in bowl games so far.

However, Oregon also beat Oregon State, Arizona, and Cal. They lost to Stanford (then unranked) the week after demolishing USC at home.

Obviously I would prefer the Pac-10 to be winning its bowl games, meaning the relative strength of the Pac-10 is better.

However, what matters is what happens tomorrow between Oregon and Ohio State. Go Ducks!

OHST vs Oregon Preview

This article is meant to compare these two teams and make an educated guess about the bowl game.

Coaching: Ohio State's coach is Jim Tressel. His game plan typically emphasizes defense, conservative offensive playcalling, lots of punting, etc. He has been coaching since 1986, has been the Head Coach at Ohio State since 2001, won a national championship, and his job is secure. The Rose Bowl is a BCS bowl but is nothing for the program to be excited about, having been to three national championship games since 2001.

This is Chip Kelly's first season as a head coach. He has been the offensive coordinator at Oregon since 2007. His attack led the Pac-10 in his first season in points scored. This bowl game is seen as a step up for Oregon, and is their first BCS bowl since 2002.

The motivation factor will be on Chip Kelly's side. It is his first bowl game and he will be more interested and motivated.

As far as technical knowledge, I believe there to be a diminishing return to experience and knowledge. While Tressel has the advantage in preparing his team for bowl games, its unclear to me how much of an advantage it is.

Ranked Opponents: I am a firm believer that the ending ranking, not the midseason ranking, indicates the true skill of a team. For example, USC was ranked #4 when they lost to Oregon, but have clearly proven to college football followers everywhere that they are not the fourth best team in the land.

So lets look at their ranked opponents and how they played against them:

Oregon lost to #6 Boise State, beat #23 Utah, beat #24 USC, lost to #21 Stanford, beat #20 Arizona, and beat #18 Oregon State. Also of note, they beat Purdue.

Ohio State lost to #24 USC, beat #25 Wisconsin, beat #13 Penn State, and beat #10 Iowa. And they lost to Purdue.

Here Ohio State has the advantage of beating two highly ranked teams (Penn State and Iowa) but Oregon has played half their season against ranked opponents (tougher average schedule).

Common Opponents: Oregon and Ohio State played two common opponents: USC (home games for both teams) and Purdue (home for Oregon, away for Ohio State). Oregon won both games and Ohio State lost both games. This seems like an important detail. Especially the USC game. With hindsight we realize USC was lucky to upset Ohio State by scoring on a last minute touchdown.

Schematics: Ohio State and Jim Tressel have struggled against the option and spread in the past. Look at their performance this year against Navy, and Florida in the national championship game. Also, Texas when they had Vince Young. Oregon has a fast, small, and athletic group of scorers who thrive on open field running. Ohio has struggled in the past against these teams.

Oregon has this season handled physical teams with mixed results. They lost to a fired up Boise State team in Idaho and to a physical Stanford team. They did however beat USC easily and handled their difficult schedule with aplomb.

Stadium: I anticipate the Rose Bowl being a home game for Oregon, as it is their first trip in many years there and Oregon's proximity to the Rose Bowl (relative to Ohio State).

X-factor: Ohio State has lost three straight bowl games. Jim Tressel won't want to graduate a class that hasn't won a bowl game.

Secondly, Ohio State has lost three players due to academic ineligibility.

Conclusion: Oregon has the bulk of the advantages.

Ohio State versus Oregon

Ohio State plays Oregon in the Rose Bowl this year; the game is still two weeks away. Oregon is favored by 3.5 points over Ohio State. My initial reaction was that Oregon should win by more than that, and a few things lead me to that consideration.

One is that they both played USC at home. Ohio State lost on a last minute touchdown, while Oregon blew out USC and trampled all over their defense.

The second is that Jim Tressel has suffered notable losses to option quarterbacks, and at least struggled more against them than they do against conventional attacks. Losses to Vince Young, Illinois two years ago, and the near to defeat to Navy (Navy?!) at home highlight his teams struggles. I think it is a combination of the rarity with which they face option attacks and simply a facet of Jim Tressel's coaching philosophy. He doesn't like to take risks, he doesn't like uncontrolled chaos, etc., that the option attack is more lethal than normal against him. He recruits players and coaches them to do specific functions really, really well and he tries to keep the game within those parameters. He's had a lot of success doing that (one national championship, three national championship appearances) but has also seen his teams struggle against the spontaneous playmaking and athleticism of spread and option attacks (like the loss to Florida).

This will require more thought and analysis, plus a return to Bleacher Report is called for!

Why was Ohio State ranked #1?

The college football season is halfway over. Predictions have proven worthless. Upsets have occurred. We are gaining clarity about the relative strength of teams.

And the question is: why are we so bad at pre-season rankings? Why are we so bad at determining the strength of a team without seeing them at least a half dozen teams.

The first reason is the method of rankings. Lose one game and the team drops about eight spots. Lose badly and you drop about double the spots. Its an elaborate dance done by the coaches and voters determined to provide stability and a small measure of job stability.

But why was Ohio State the pre-season #1? They had just been blown out the second consecutive time by a physical SEC team. That has proven definitely that a top-tier Big-Ten team will not have the physicality to compete with a top-tier SEC team.

Nearly all their starters were returning. Which is not necessarily a good thing. A fourth-year junior will not suddenly leap as a fifth-year Senior into a dominant player. They are essentially a known quality by the time they are twenty-two.

So this Ohio State team we saw was a known quantity: well coached, disciplined, veteran, knowledgeable. Not overly physical. So it shouldn't have been a suprise when they lost to USC. USC was fast and slippery on offense, physical and well coached on offense. They only time Ohio State looked good was with Terrelle Pryor in the game because he was fast enough to stretch USC's defense.

And as we saw in the Rose Bowl (Texas) and against the Ducks last season, USC struggles against running quarterbacks. Meaning Pete Carroll struggles against running quarterbacks.

To conclude, Ohio State will get pounded the next time they play a really physical team. And it will happen all season. Might Penn State put a hurtin' on OSU?

Three cognitive biases are seen here:

1) Tendency to assume that players who return will be better than they were last season. They will be more knowledgeable about the schemes but likely won't make a jump in physicality. This helps returning starters for complex offenses (Urban Meyer 2005) or coaches with undisciplined teams with tons of physicality (Mark Richt this season).

2) Ranking system that works incrementally. To use a systems engineering term, college football needs to pump up the gain. Their system simply works to slow. It is accurate but must work faster. This can be exploited in sports betting, when a weak or strong team will take weeks to get the valuation it deserves.

3) Can't remember the third.