The Cygarin Football Ratings has been updated for the bowl games. Now that the regular season is over I will say that I have never seen a season where so many team's season ratings did not jive with their performance over the season, and most especially their conference standings.
The Big-10 is particularly this way, and nothing exemplifies that more than the ratings of Iowa, Penn State, and Northwestern in particular. Using Iowa as an example, they are ranked 11th in the country and tops in the West Division, yet came nowhere beating a (current) top-40 team, much less winning their division. (Unfortunately, that now includes Iowa State, but that deserves some later explanation.) Penn State is somewhat similar and Northwestern is somewhat the inverse.
I believe that other conferences who do not play a round robin schedule, could be experiencing something similar, and for that reason all ratings should be taken with a larger grain of salt than usual.
For that reason I have adjusted the ratings of some teams for some teams to reflect their performance based on conference standings. Those have been highlighted in orange (slightly modified) and red (notably modified.)
IOWA STATE
The Cyclones are currently power ranked 40th in Sagarin, but I wouldn't put too much credibility in that, their Recent ranking is a more respectable 24th, and my adjusted rating of the Cyclones has them at 27th. Other ratings vary from the low 30's to about 40th.
Iowa State is facing a glaring and concerning trend, and one that is strikingly similar to last year. The Clones started the season out sluggish, spontaneously soared to an unbelievable performance level.....then has shown to be in a downward trend settling back to where they were when the season started.
Previous to the downward performance, Iowa State was playing at solid top-15 level. But that hasn't happened in the last four games.
Our performance against Baylor wasn't a bad performance, but it was below the top-15 performance we had been playing at previously, and turned out to be an early indicator of a trend to follow. Post Baylor, Iowa State has dropped an average of ten points per game in it's last three games.... to a performance level sinking all the way down to a performance level near 60th!
Not good!
To be fair, those last three games had circumstances that may have influenced the game: Texas was a road game being played for a CCG slot, KSU was presumed to be Snyder's last game, and of course Drake was a bastard game that nobody wanted to play....on a field that had no business having a game played on it.
The problem with analyzing the Cyclones right now is figuring out the reason for the downward trend, and whether Iowa State can pull itself up by the bootstraps and perform at the level it did during the middle section of it's season.
From an analyisis standpoint, I deeply bothered by it, and have a very difficult time seeing any reason that we can suddenly and spontaneously improve that much in just one game.
On the other hand, it is a bowl game that provides a lot of healing and preparation time. And the fact that there is no real good reason for this much of a downward trend leaves the door open for that this team is fully capable of playing at a top level once again.
WASHINGTON STATE
Evaluating Washington State is much easier....which I really wouldn't suggest is a good thing.
This has to be made perfectly clear.....Washington State is clearly the best team will play this year with the exception of play-off bound Oklahoma. It should also be made clear that Iowa State has found zero success in this upper range of it's strength of schedule. The Cougs present a most difficult challenge even when Iowa State is at peak performance...which we have not been for quite a while.
WSU is ranked by nearly everybody in the range between 15th and 20th in the country. And that comes from them playing very consistently at that level throughout the entire season.
WSU has played a rather moderate strength of schedule, being ranked 53 by Sagarin and 45th by Massey. But they have played three top-30 power ranked teams that included one top-10 team, so it isn't like they haven't been tested.
Their best wins have come against Utah at home, and Stanford on the road, which adjusted for home field advantage both represent more or less wins against 20th-ish rated opponents. Definitely good wins.
Their best loss came against 10th power ranked rival Washington, so there isn't really anything surprising there. However, they do have an out of character loss against 40's to 50's ranked USC on the road. That loss is pretty much the only anomaly in an otherwise highly consistent season. And being played on the road, is really not THAT much of an anomaly.
There is though, a suggestion of a chink in Washington State's armor. The Cougs power rating has possibly benefited from a moderate to weak lower half of their schedule, and the performance against the SOS suggests that their ranking is somewhat buoyed by better performances against those teams.
Futhermore, their performance against the SOS indicates in against top-30 opponents...the Cougers have been averaging about five points lower than their current rating.....or about 30th in the country.
SUMMARY
From an analytical standpoint there are a lot of dynamics and variables going into this game. This is a game where performance trends suggest more than normal, and make this game harder to evaluate.
From Iowa State's standpoint by far the most glaring concern is the major year end downward trend that has been showing the last four games, but most critically the performance in the last three games. The "what" is easy to see, but the "why" is harder to find.
Clearly Iowa State played an extremely tough schedule (top-5 prior to playing Drake), and it can be argued this team simply got worn down. If so, then we stand a chance of being fresh in San Antonio next week. Injuries certainly played a factor, and I don't think we know yet if those injuries are expected to be a factor for the bowl game.
Washington State appears to be coming into this game performing steady as a rock. Pretty much just the opposite of Iowa State. By all indications, the performance we will see out of the Cougers is what we have seen all season.
But as noted, they played a fairly easy schedule relative to Iowa State, and have actually have played slightly more poorly against top ranked opponents than Iowa State did. So...therein lies Iowa State's window of opportunity.
Soooo, from my cheap seats.....predicting how this game plays out comes down to what team Iowa State brings to San Antonio.
If the good guys bring it's mid-season, top-15 ability......then we are attaching what may be the Couger's Achille's heal.
On the other hand, if Iowa State cannot elevate its performance back to a higher level, then not only will this heavily favor the Cougars…...but this could very quickly and easily turn into a game very similar to how we played against Texas.
That fact is, from an analytical standpoint, Washington State holds nearly all the good cards in their hand. I'm not saying that Iowa State has a bad hand.... but there is no arguing it is going to have to find a good hand to beat what Washington State holding.
I'm making no predictions or probabilities on this game. Iowa State's variables are just too varied to predict.
We clearly have the ability to play at Washington States level. It not quite so clear at this time whether we have the ability to achieve that ability.
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Ratings link….
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
The Big-10 is particularly this way, and nothing exemplifies that more than the ratings of Iowa, Penn State, and Northwestern in particular. Using Iowa as an example, they are ranked 11th in the country and tops in the West Division, yet came nowhere beating a (current) top-40 team, much less winning their division. (Unfortunately, that now includes Iowa State, but that deserves some later explanation.) Penn State is somewhat similar and Northwestern is somewhat the inverse.
I believe that other conferences who do not play a round robin schedule, could be experiencing something similar, and for that reason all ratings should be taken with a larger grain of salt than usual.
For that reason I have adjusted the ratings of some teams for some teams to reflect their performance based on conference standings. Those have been highlighted in orange (slightly modified) and red (notably modified.)
IOWA STATE
The Cyclones are currently power ranked 40th in Sagarin, but I wouldn't put too much credibility in that, their Recent ranking is a more respectable 24th, and my adjusted rating of the Cyclones has them at 27th. Other ratings vary from the low 30's to about 40th.
Iowa State is facing a glaring and concerning trend, and one that is strikingly similar to last year. The Clones started the season out sluggish, spontaneously soared to an unbelievable performance level.....then has shown to be in a downward trend settling back to where they were when the season started.
Previous to the downward performance, Iowa State was playing at solid top-15 level. But that hasn't happened in the last four games.
Our performance against Baylor wasn't a bad performance, but it was below the top-15 performance we had been playing at previously, and turned out to be an early indicator of a trend to follow. Post Baylor, Iowa State has dropped an average of ten points per game in it's last three games.... to a performance level sinking all the way down to a performance level near 60th!
Not good!
To be fair, those last three games had circumstances that may have influenced the game: Texas was a road game being played for a CCG slot, KSU was presumed to be Snyder's last game, and of course Drake was a bastard game that nobody wanted to play....on a field that had no business having a game played on it.
The problem with analyzing the Cyclones right now is figuring out the reason for the downward trend, and whether Iowa State can pull itself up by the bootstraps and perform at the level it did during the middle section of it's season.
From an analyisis standpoint, I deeply bothered by it, and have a very difficult time seeing any reason that we can suddenly and spontaneously improve that much in just one game.
On the other hand, it is a bowl game that provides a lot of healing and preparation time. And the fact that there is no real good reason for this much of a downward trend leaves the door open for that this team is fully capable of playing at a top level once again.
WASHINGTON STATE
Evaluating Washington State is much easier....which I really wouldn't suggest is a good thing.
This has to be made perfectly clear.....Washington State is clearly the best team will play this year with the exception of play-off bound Oklahoma. It should also be made clear that Iowa State has found zero success in this upper range of it's strength of schedule. The Cougs present a most difficult challenge even when Iowa State is at peak performance...which we have not been for quite a while.
WSU is ranked by nearly everybody in the range between 15th and 20th in the country. And that comes from them playing very consistently at that level throughout the entire season.
WSU has played a rather moderate strength of schedule, being ranked 53 by Sagarin and 45th by Massey. But they have played three top-30 power ranked teams that included one top-10 team, so it isn't like they haven't been tested.
Their best wins have come against Utah at home, and Stanford on the road, which adjusted for home field advantage both represent more or less wins against 20th-ish rated opponents. Definitely good wins.
Their best loss came against 10th power ranked rival Washington, so there isn't really anything surprising there. However, they do have an out of character loss against 40's to 50's ranked USC on the road. That loss is pretty much the only anomaly in an otherwise highly consistent season. And being played on the road, is really not THAT much of an anomaly.
There is though, a suggestion of a chink in Washington State's armor. The Cougs power rating has possibly benefited from a moderate to weak lower half of their schedule, and the performance against the SOS suggests that their ranking is somewhat buoyed by better performances against those teams.
Futhermore, their performance against the SOS indicates in against top-30 opponents...the Cougers have been averaging about five points lower than their current rating.....or about 30th in the country.
SUMMARY
From an analytical standpoint there are a lot of dynamics and variables going into this game. This is a game where performance trends suggest more than normal, and make this game harder to evaluate.
From Iowa State's standpoint by far the most glaring concern is the major year end downward trend that has been showing the last four games, but most critically the performance in the last three games. The "what" is easy to see, but the "why" is harder to find.
Clearly Iowa State played an extremely tough schedule (top-5 prior to playing Drake), and it can be argued this team simply got worn down. If so, then we stand a chance of being fresh in San Antonio next week. Injuries certainly played a factor, and I don't think we know yet if those injuries are expected to be a factor for the bowl game.
Washington State appears to be coming into this game performing steady as a rock. Pretty much just the opposite of Iowa State. By all indications, the performance we will see out of the Cougers is what we have seen all season.
But as noted, they played a fairly easy schedule relative to Iowa State, and have actually have played slightly more poorly against top ranked opponents than Iowa State did. So...therein lies Iowa State's window of opportunity.
Soooo, from my cheap seats.....predicting how this game plays out comes down to what team Iowa State brings to San Antonio.
If the good guys bring it's mid-season, top-15 ability......then we are attaching what may be the Couger's Achille's heal.
On the other hand, if Iowa State cannot elevate its performance back to a higher level, then not only will this heavily favor the Cougars…...but this could very quickly and easily turn into a game very similar to how we played against Texas.
That fact is, from an analytical standpoint, Washington State holds nearly all the good cards in their hand. I'm not saying that Iowa State has a bad hand.... but there is no arguing it is going to have to find a good hand to beat what Washington State holding.
I'm making no predictions or probabilities on this game. Iowa State's variables are just too varied to predict.
We clearly have the ability to play at Washington States level. It not quite so clear at this time whether we have the ability to achieve that ability.
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Ratings link….
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
