Update Rankings

oldguystudent · November 13, 2017

Sagarin:

FAU -- 59

UNT -- 100

UTSA -- 108

Southern Miss -- -114

UAB -- 118

RPI:

FAU -- 36

UNT -- 49

UAB -- 59

Southern Miss -- 68

UTSA -- 93

CBS 1-130:

FAU -- 38

UAB -- 51

UNT -- 66

UTSA -- 83

Southern Miss -- 87

Ben Gooding · November 13, 2017

CUSA getting no respect, as usual. And CUSA will go +3 in bowl season, as usual. Damn shame.

MeanGreenTexan · November 13, 2017

Sagarin rankings... WTH?

Aldo · November 13, 2017

5 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Sagarin rankings... WTH?

Out of 254. Haven't made heads or tails of that rating system as the FCS squads ahead of NT have awful records.

Mostly just use it for SOS

pastorgrant · November 13, 2017

10 minutes ago, Prettylittleeagle said:

The rankings from that Jeff Sargarin guy have always been so screwed up, he just uses math to determine where he places teams.

Bad math.

Cerebus · November 13, 2017

2 minutes ago, pastorgrant said:

Bad math.

Math is math, he just has a bad algorithm that greatly overrates season start positioning and makes it impossible to climb out of a hole.

TreeFiddy · November 13, 2017

#oldmath

wardly · November 13, 2017

2 minutes ago, pastorgrant said:

Bad math.

Year in and year out he has proven to be the most accurate of all rankings and point spreads.

golfingomez · November 13, 2017

14 minutes ago, Prettylittleeagle said:

The rankings from that Jeff Sargarin guy have always been so screwed up, he just uses math to determine where he places teams.

He's got a system and sticks to it. you may not like it, but it takes subjectivity out of the equation

DeepGreen · November 13, 2017

Fake math.

BeatNavy · November 13, 2017

40 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Math is math, he just has a bad algorithm that greatly overrates season start positioning and makes it impossible to climb out of a hole.

His preseason ratings have no impact on his ratings at this point in the season.

Edited November 13, 2017 by BeatNavy
spelling, twice

Venson · November 13, 2017

I take all those rankings with a grain of salt. We can rank talent and past performance, but you can't rank heart. This UNT team has heart and in my book, that accounts for something. This team finds a way to win. It may not be pretty, but all those rankings didn't pick us to be 7-3 and we are.

oldguystudent · November 13, 2017

1 hour ago, Venson said:

I take all those rankings with a grain of salt. We can rank talent and past performance, but you can't rank heart. This UNT team has heart and in my book, that accounts for something. This team finds a way to win. It may not be pretty, but all those rankings didn't pick us to be 7-3 and we are.

Agree. Five years from now, nobody is going to complain that our wins have been nailbiters won on last second plays. They'll just see wins. Those wins come from heart, and a little luck, but you know what they say, "The harder you work, the luckier you get."

BTG_Fan1 · November 14, 2017

On 11/13/2017 at 5:25 PM, oldguystudent said:

Agree. Five years from now, nobody is going to complain that our wins have been nailbiters won on last second plays. They'll just see wins. Those wins come from heart, and a little luck, but you know what they say, "The harder you work, the luckier you get."

The difference is that nailbitters are good when the teams are ranked far ahead of you.. FAU has beaten solid teams by double digits often this year.. That is how you make a statement to the reporters because most of them do not look in depth at CUSA.. They look at last years records and the spreads...

On 11/13/2017 at 3:25 PM, Venson said:

I take all those rankings with a grain of salt. We can rank talent and past performance, but you can't rank heart. This UNT team has heart and in my book, that accounts for something. This team finds a way to win. It may not be pretty, but all those rankings didn't pick us to be 7-3 and we are.

I agree that they have heart compared to 2 years ago.. But if we want to go from the 100s to the 50s like FAU, we need to win big like FAU has been winning big.

Edited November 15, 2017 by BTG_Fan1

Venson · November 14, 2017

54 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

The difference is that nailbitters are good when the teams are ranked far ahead of you.. FAU has beaten solid teams by double digits often this year.. That is how you make a statement to the reporters because most of them do not look in depth at CUSA.. They look at last years records and the spreads...

I agree that they heart compared to 2 years ago.. But if we want to go from the 100s to the 50s like FAU, we need to win big like FAU has been winning big.

The big wins will come. This is a very young team that will be returning most of the starters next year. That being said, I really think the FAU game was just what Coach Littrell said. They got cocky and then got humbled. I am willing to bet that they will not underestimate anyone again. They didn't underestimate UTEP. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. Granted the offense started slowly, but once they got going, there was little doubt who the best team was.

BTG_Fan1 · November 14, 2017

1 minute ago, Venson said:

The big wins will come. This is a very young team that will be returning most of the starters next year. That being said, I really think the FAU game was just what Coach Littrell said. They got cocky and then got humbled. I am willing to bet that they will not underestimate anyone again. They didn't underestimate UTEP. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. Granted the offense started slowly, but once they got going, there was little doubt who the best team was.

I get this team is young because of the younger guys on the 2-deep, but this defense is older , the ST is older, and the OL is older.. The only real noticeable young group is the skilled position.I have no idea the ages of the FAU guys, but it has been said that most of LK guys aren't playing... They are winning games big and that is why they are climbing and now looking to be the class of CUSA after the success of LT and WKU for years.

Venson · November 14, 2017

20 minutes ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

I get this team is young because of the younger guys on the 2-deep, but this defense is older , the ST is older, and the OL is older.. The only real noticeable young group is the skilled position.I have no idea the ages of the FAU guys, but it has been said that most of LK guys aren't playing... They are winning games big and that is why they are climbing and now looking to be the class of CUSA after the success of LT and WKU for years.

I don't know if the defense is older. As far as I know, McClain and Flusche will be the only starters not returning. On offense, Henson, Mayfield and Wilson should be the only starters not returning. You could count Smiley, but he will be easily replaced with other talent that is redshirting this year. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

BTG_Fan1 · November 14, 2017

1 hour ago, Venson said:

I don't know if the defense is older. As far as I know, McClain and Flusche will be the only starters not returning. On offense, Henson, Mayfield and Wilson should be the only starters not returning. You could count Smiley, but he will be easily replaced with other talent that is redshirting this year. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

Jenkins and Wheeler are leaving.. Brooks and Hall will be seniors, Garner/EJ will be seniors (McDonald maybe gone if he is a Sr. Or around if he is a Jr now).. Dee Baukman will be gone and Preston will be a Sr. The Dline will be losing Tillman as well..

my point about the defense being older is they have a lot of key guys who will be graduating this year or next, and the young guys we have little to no experience that will be replacing them..

A few young guys are playing (Hambone, TonyK, Noviel (I believe played vs UTEP), English if we can call him young.. LB no young guys outside of Jojo, and DB it’s just Khari but he will be a jr, with no other young guys playing almost at all..

Ben Gooding · November 14, 2017

9 hours ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Jenkins and Wheeler are leaving.. Brooks and Hall will be seniors, Garner/EJ will be seniors (McDonald maybe gone if he is a Sr. Or around if he is a Jr now).. Dee Baukman will be gone and Preston will be a Sr. The Dline will be losing Tillman as well..

my point about the defense being older is they have a lot of key guys who will be graduating this year or next, and the young guys we have little to no experience that will be replacing them..

A few young guys are playing (Hambone, TonyK, Noviel (I believe played vs UTEP), English if we can call him young.. LB no young guys outside of Jojo, and DB it’s just Khari but he will be a jr, with no other young guys playing almost at all..

The defense needs some serious recruiting help. Maybe some JUCO patch work as well. We are setting ourselves up to seriously be Texas Tech 2.0.

golfingomez · November 14, 2017

9 hours ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Jenkins and Wheeler are leaving.. Brooks and Hall will be seniors, Garner/EJ will be seniors (McDonald maybe gone if he is a Sr. Or around if he is a Jr now).. Dee Baukman will be gone and Preston will be a Sr. The Dline will be losing Tillman as well..

my point about the defense being older is they have a lot of key guys who will be graduating this year or next, and the young guys we have little to no experience that will be replacing them..

A few young guys are playing (Hambone, TonyK, Noviel (I believe played vs UTEP), English if we can call him young.. LB no young guys outside of Jojo, and DB it’s just Khari but he will be a jr, with no other young guys playing almost at all..

5 starting seniors on D and 1 more on the 2 deep is a far cry from being an experience heavy team especially when you consider that we graduated more on D last year...

Fred Scott, James Gray, Cortney Finney, Jareid Combs, Jarrian Roberts, Chad Davis, Malik Dilonga... These guys all were taking up space last year... it's not like those Juniors currently playing were starting last year.

Of course we could use help on D, but the majority of our defensive players are still listed as sophomores or younger

MeanGreenTexan · November 14, 2017

29 minutes ago, golfingomez said:

5 starting seniors on D and 1 more on the 2 deep is a far cry from being an experience heavy team especially when you consider that we graduated more on D last year...

Fred Scott, James Gray, Cortney Finney, Jareid Combs, Jarrian Roberts, Chad Davis, Malik Dilonga... These guys all were taking up space last year... it's not like those Juniors currently playing were starting last year.

Of course we could use help on D, but the majority of our defensive players are still listed as sophomores or younger

If we hang onto Vada King, he's instantly a contributor/starter at LB... maybe even JACK, like EJ did earlier this year (although, it's looking like JoJo is gonna be the man there for the foreseeable future).
Courtney Finney-type JUCO guy. DL is going to be even better than it is now, despite losing Flusche. Losing McClain is going to hurt on the backend, but Sanders is getting some run behind him, and should be ready to step up.

My biggest worry about next year is kicking. We've been spoiled rotten by Moore. I would normally be very worried about replacing a guy like Wilson, but NT is "RBU", and that run does not appear to be coming to an end with Smith.

BTG_Fan1 · November 14, 2017

1 hour ago, golfingomez said:

5 starting seniors on D and 1 more on the 2 deep is a far cry from being an experience heavy team especially when you consider that we graduated more on D last year...

Fred Scott, James Gray, Cortney Finney, Jareid Combs, Jarrian Roberts, Chad Davis, Malik Dilonga... These guys all were taking up space last year... it's not like those Juniors currently playing were starting last year.

Of course we could use help on D, but the majority of our defensive players are still listed as sophomores or younger

Losing 6/7 guys who are experienced and replacing them with younger inexperienced guys will likely not lead to this defense improving, but it likely will since we are 109 or whatever in the Nation since you can fall much farther. 6/7 guys is over half the defense leaving and they are likely the best at their respective position groups.. Flushe is one of the top on the DL, Wheeler has been One of the top LBs (between him and EJ, in my opinion) and McClain/Jenkins were 2 of the top guys to before the year and have stepped up as of late.

Again on the 2-deep we are young, but not many of those “young” guys have a sufficient amount of reps for us to have a true idea of what to expect.. Hell, Hall someone who we did expect anything from beat out Jenkins who may have been the top CB last year and Brooks was benched because he was completely lost. The teams that are consistently good rotate in younger guys for them to play/gain experience because of the jump in the speed in the game. Having close games does not allow for young guys like Davis/Sanders/Johnson to get sufficient/meaningful reps because of the risk of them getting exposed.

Venson · November 14, 2017

12 hours ago, BTG_Fan1 said:

Jenkins and Wheeler are leaving.. Brooks and Hall will be seniors, Garner/EJ will be seniors (McDonald maybe gone if he is a Sr. Or around if he is a Jr now).. Dee Baukman will be gone and Preston will be a Sr. The Dline will be losing Tillman as well..

my point about the defense being older is they have a lot of key guys who will be graduating this year or next, and the young guys we have little to no experience that will be replacing them..

A few young guys are playing (Hambone, TonyK, Noviel (I believe played vs UTEP), English if we can call him young.. LB no young guys outside of Jojo, and DB it’s just Khari but he will be a jr, with no other young guys playing almost at all..

I understand that you say they are older because some are juniors. However, Jenkins is not really a starter, Brooks is. Jenkins adds depth, but we will be okay without him because I am sure there are guys developing behind him. Baulkman has played sparingly this year so not a big loss. Tillman Johnson won't hurt as much either if English comes back and is healthy. I think this program is on the rise. They are older in that they are not Freshmen and Sophomore, but they are not Seniors either so most starters will be back. There are a lot of Redshirt Freshmen that are waiting in the wings. All good college programs have that. There are many guys who are not playing for Alabama right now because there is a Junior in front of them, but they never really have any drop off in performance year after year. Do we need to recruit better defensively? Sure, but the winning will help. I am already starting to see more 3 star recruits committing because they like what is going on in #NewDenton. Right now we are taking 2 Star and below recruits and coaching them up to 3 Star and higher level. I see us starting to get 3 Star recruits and coaching them up to 4 Star and higher level.

MeanGreenTexan · November 14, 2017

32 minutes ago, Venson said:

I understand that you say they are older because some are juniors. However, Jenkins is not really a starter, Brooks is. Jenkins adds depth, but we will be okay without him because I am sure there are guys developing behind him. Baulkman has played sparingly this year so not a big loss. Tillman Johnson won't hurt as much either if English comes back and is healthy. I think this program is on the rise. They are older in that they are not Freshmen and Sophomore, but they are not Seniors either so most starters will be back. There are a lot of Redshirt Freshmen that are waiting in the wings. All good college programs have that. There are many guys who are not playing for Alabama right now because there is a Junior in front of them, but they never really have any drop off in performance year after year. Do we need to recruit better defensively? Sure, but the winning will help. I am already starting to see more 3 star recruits committing because they like what is going on in #NewDenton. Right now we are taking 2 Star and below recruits and coaching them up to 3 Star and higher level. I see us starting to get 3 Star recruits and coaching them up to 4 Star and higher level.

It appears you did not watch UAB & may not be paying much attention since.