Happy Wednesday and welcome to a late edition of G’s Explanation. Tomorrow, week 3 kicks off and so will the next installment of G’s Expectation. But today is about a few things I noticed about so far this season. First, the SEC may not have the depth it has in the past. Last season the only teams that did not make a bowl were 5-7 (Auburn, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt) which is pretty amazing. This year, South Carolina (North Carolina), Florida (Utah), LSU (Florida St), Vanderbilt (Wake Forest), Texas A&M (Miami FL), and Alabama (Texas) have all lost to out of conference P5 competition. In fact, only Tennessee (Virginia), Mississippi St (Arizona), and Auburn (California) have won those types of games. That’s 3-6 for those who are counting. It’s still early, but if you add some of the close calls or sluggish starts against weaker foes in the first couple of weeks, could we be looking at a down year for the powerhouse? Time will tell, and with the conference schedule starting to kick in, we’ll see.
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The Pac-12 who is completely dismantling at the end of the season seem to be partying like it’s 1999 (sorry Prince). 5 teams are in the GCR top 25 and the conference is 21-4 with one of those losses in a rivalry that I wonder about survival. Southern Cal beat Stanford 56-10 in what could be one of the last games between these squads. I haven’t read anything about this, but hear me out. Stanford is joining the ACC. Southern Cal is joining the Big Ten. Both teams currently have annual games with Notre Dame which still works. The ACC has 5-6 games a year vs the Irish and maybe they keep that game as a permanent thing or the two teams just play each year anyway. If the ACC moves from 8 to 9 conference games (no word on that yet, either), the Notre Dame game will be the 10th P5 game. From a Big Ten perspective, they already play 9 conference games and Southern Cal will likely prefer the Notre Dame rivalry than the Stanford rivalry. I don’t think it’s sustainable for them (or Stanford) to play 11 Power 5 teams and expect to make the top 12 regularly, so this game could be dropped. Maybe not in 2024, but it will, especially if Stanford also keeps Notre Dame on their schedule. Now, if Southern Cal surprises me (and probably everyone else) and decides the Irish rivalry has to go, that could push Notre Dame a step closer to a full ACC schedule.
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So far this season, the 69 Power 5 teams have 39 perfect teams (all 2-0 except for Southern Cal and Notre Dame), 4 winless squads (Baylor, Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Virginia), and 26 that have at least one of each. The 64 Group of 5 teams have 13 2-0 teams, 11 winless teams (including 0-1 Colorado St), and 40 that have at least one of each. The 120 FCS teams (excluding the Ivy League which hasn’t played any games yet) have 16 perfect 2-0 teams, 46 winless teams (including 0-3 South Carolina St, and two 0-1 teams), and 58 teams with at least one of each.
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This week’s schedule is starting to improve in terms of game quality/equity. The index which gives 3 points each for Power 5 vs Power 5, Group of 5 vs Group of 5, and FCS vs FCS games, 1 point each for Power 5 vs Group of 5 games, -1 point each for FCS vs non-Division I games, -2 points for Group of 5 vs FCS games, and -3 points for Power 5 vs FCS games, has surpassed 1.000. Weeks 0/1 averaged 0.549 per game, Week 2 edged up to 0.619 per game, and Week 3 jumped up to a much more entertaining 1.406 largely led by an increase in conference games.
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That’s it for this Explanation. Let me know the types of analysis you’d like to see here. As always, thank you for reading and, especially, for sharing the link big.ly/GCR2019 or the social media link to others, G
