At one time earlier in the season it looked like Farmageddon was going to be the game between the two best performing teams in the Big-12. If both teams has kept playing the way they were earlier, it would have been.
The winner would have moved on to play BYU in the CCG, a team that wasn’t one of the two highest power ranked teams in the conference but benefited from an easier schedule than others in contention. All season long I have considered BYU to be the “Iowa” of the Big-12.
Then the Wildcats lost to Houston and the Cyclones lost to Texas Tech and that resulted in a tighter conference race. That followed with the rise of Kansas and Arizona State as two teams playing better late, and then came the fall of BYU and Colorado.
Now suddenly here we are in conference tie-breaker purgatory. But at least the Cyclones have a chance to find their way through it depending on tomorrow night’s outcome.
So how do the Cyclones match up against the Wildcats tomorrow night?
IOWA STATE
As noted often in the recent past, the overall power rankings don’t mean much in such a tightly balanced conference as the Big-12. Rather what matters is how any two teams are playing at the time they meet each other at a certain point in the season. This has led to the Big-12’s conference standings not synching up very well with respective teams’ abilities.
As we go into the last week of regular season there are three things that appear to be the case…
- Iowa State was not playing as bad as everyone thought when they lost their two games.
- A lot of Iowa State’s opponents were not as bad as everyone thought they were when Iowa State played them. Namely Kansas.
- The Cyclones appear to be climbing out of their mid-season funk. Presumably as we get our more experienced injured players back on the field.
Currently the Cyclones are power ranked 23rd, and find themselves ranked 3rd in the conference behind 14th and 15th Kansas State and Kansas. But, there is less than a rating point difference between all three of them, so ranking doesn’t really matter.
In Sagarin’s Strong Recent (most recent) ratings Iowa State is a bit better at 20th, and Kansas State has dropped to 24th. But again, the difference between 20th and 24th is less than a single point.
The Cygarin Ratings analysis reflects that too, showing the Cyclones trending up from their UCF Texas Tech low points (even though UCF was a win). Though we didn’t know it at the time, the road loss to Kansas was a marked improvement from the two previous games, and that trend has continued through Cincy and Utah.
The Cyclones are still not back to where they were the early part of the conference season, but they are working on it. I suspect that if you look at other teams’ trends, perhaps few teams in the conference are, including Kansas State. Kansas and Arizona State may be the exceptions.
Give or take a little, Iowa State is playing almost exactly at their 23rd power rating of late. Which for those concerned, is very little different than those teams in the top-15.
KANSAS STATE
As already noted the Wildcats overall rating is in the same realm as Iowa State, and Sagarin’s Strong Recent has them playing slightly below the Cyclones.
Kansas State was cruising along nicely until they suddenly fell into a pothole, losing to then conference bottom dweller Houston. They followed that with a ten-point loss to Arizona State, but rebounded from those two loses with a convincing smashing of Cincinnati last week.
Overall, that leaves the Wildcats sitting with loses against two teams that may find themselves in the CCG…and then with one ugly, screwed the pooch loss against Houston.
For what it is worth, every conference contender has had their screwed the pooch loss this year, with perhaps the exception of Colorado, who escaped a loss to Baylor in overtime.
The difference between Iowa State and Kansas State is that earlier in the conference season Iowa State was playing at a higher performance level, solid top-10, and then started trending down as injuries racked up. Whereby Kansas State has been steadier, cruising along at a level right in the range of about 15th or 20th.
That held true right up until they fell into a pothole for two games. Somebody with more knowledge than I have will have to advise you on why that may have happened. But they came back with a vengeance last week, obliterating Cincinnati by a hefty 26 points.
That was a performance jump of 36 points from Arizona State to Cincinnati, and leaves the question of what Kansas State is capable of right now.
I didn’t take time this week to plot out a more recent performance trend for Cincinnati. A quick review shows that Cincy has dropped four games in a row and most by double-digits. Plus, Cincy has only one top-60 win for the season. So maybe the issue is Cincinnati playing poorly rather than the Wildcats finding their footing.
Also, the 26-point win over Cincinnati was KSU’s second best performance of the year, so that suggests too that the big winning margin was a bit of an anomaly. Their best win was a 45-18 win over West Virginia and that margin too seemed out of the ordinary.
If KSU had not laid the wood to Cincy, it would have been easy to say that the Wildcats had tanked and resultantly the Cyclones would be promisingly favored. But the nature of that win just last week adds an element of uncertainty that cannot be rectified before the Iowa State game.
Overall, KSU’s power ranking does reflect their overall trendline…it’s just that KSU has shown the propensity to vary from the trendline quite a bit of late.
I would suspect that we can assume that Kansas State will not bring one of their under-performances to Ames, so it comes down to whether the Wildcats play at their average or above it.
As it is, consider KSU to be almost a mirror image of the Cyclones…a very formidable opponent but with a couple of recent sketchy performances.
IOWA STATE VS. KANSAS STATE
After all that analysis…this game is Farmageddon after all. And it is a game where these two teams match up to each other equitably in many different ways and trends.
If anything, things lean slightly Iowa State’s way in those multiple different ways. Whether they are accumulative or not is hard to say.
The Cyclones have had the better upside over the course of the entire season and seem to be on the rise from their mid-season low point. Whether KSU is fully back in the saddle after their skid, has yet to be seen. Iowa State has also had overall better luck against stronger opponents than Kansas State has had.
And of course, the biggest advantage is having the home field, and I think that is huge in a game like this, and the with the type of weather we are facing.
My biggest concern (aside from shoot ourselves in the foot)?
Well…it was me who brought the story of the Texas Mafia to this board several years ago, after my son and I had a hell of a conversation in Oklahoma City with one of the Big-12 refs who had come from the old Big-8.
Texas and Oklahoma are gone, and the refereeing has seemed to be a lot more equitable than it used to be. But nobody will deny that Colorado with Prime as their coach, and BYU with their reputation...have more of the media’s eye.
Will the referees tilt the field to help favor Colorado or BYU getting in? My apologies for being a cynic, but it looms in the back of my mind.
Assuming a level playing field with no referee bias….
I have the Cyclones by perhaps four, being just a skosh better than Kansas State at this moment of time, and then tack on home field advantage. That ends up being about a 58% chance of winning.
Had Kansas State not thumped Cincy just last week, I would have had the confidence of a few points more.
But at the end of the day this is Iowa State vs. Kansas State. It’s Farmageddon. It’s really a wide-open game between two very competent and equal teams. It probably comes down to who makes the most scoreboard impacting mistakes.
At least we’re not playing them in Arrowhead.
(In my opinion.)
The winner would have moved on to play BYU in the CCG, a team that wasn’t one of the two highest power ranked teams in the conference but benefited from an easier schedule than others in contention. All season long I have considered BYU to be the “Iowa” of the Big-12.
Then the Wildcats lost to Houston and the Cyclones lost to Texas Tech and that resulted in a tighter conference race. That followed with the rise of Kansas and Arizona State as two teams playing better late, and then came the fall of BYU and Colorado.
Now suddenly here we are in conference tie-breaker purgatory. But at least the Cyclones have a chance to find their way through it depending on tomorrow night’s outcome.
So how do the Cyclones match up against the Wildcats tomorrow night?
IOWA STATE
As noted often in the recent past, the overall power rankings don’t mean much in such a tightly balanced conference as the Big-12. Rather what matters is how any two teams are playing at the time they meet each other at a certain point in the season. This has led to the Big-12’s conference standings not synching up very well with respective teams’ abilities.
As we go into the last week of regular season there are three things that appear to be the case…
- Iowa State was not playing as bad as everyone thought when they lost their two games.
- A lot of Iowa State’s opponents were not as bad as everyone thought they were when Iowa State played them. Namely Kansas.
- The Cyclones appear to be climbing out of their mid-season funk. Presumably as we get our more experienced injured players back on the field.
Currently the Cyclones are power ranked 23rd, and find themselves ranked 3rd in the conference behind 14th and 15th Kansas State and Kansas. But, there is less than a rating point difference between all three of them, so ranking doesn’t really matter.
In Sagarin’s Strong Recent (most recent) ratings Iowa State is a bit better at 20th, and Kansas State has dropped to 24th. But again, the difference between 20th and 24th is less than a single point.
The Cygarin Ratings analysis reflects that too, showing the Cyclones trending up from their UCF Texas Tech low points (even though UCF was a win). Though we didn’t know it at the time, the road loss to Kansas was a marked improvement from the two previous games, and that trend has continued through Cincy and Utah.
The Cyclones are still not back to where they were the early part of the conference season, but they are working on it. I suspect that if you look at other teams’ trends, perhaps few teams in the conference are, including Kansas State. Kansas and Arizona State may be the exceptions.
Give or take a little, Iowa State is playing almost exactly at their 23rd power rating of late. Which for those concerned, is very little different than those teams in the top-15.
KANSAS STATE
As already noted the Wildcats overall rating is in the same realm as Iowa State, and Sagarin’s Strong Recent has them playing slightly below the Cyclones.
Kansas State was cruising along nicely until they suddenly fell into a pothole, losing to then conference bottom dweller Houston. They followed that with a ten-point loss to Arizona State, but rebounded from those two loses with a convincing smashing of Cincinnati last week.
Overall, that leaves the Wildcats sitting with loses against two teams that may find themselves in the CCG…and then with one ugly, screwed the pooch loss against Houston.
For what it is worth, every conference contender has had their screwed the pooch loss this year, with perhaps the exception of Colorado, who escaped a loss to Baylor in overtime.
The difference between Iowa State and Kansas State is that earlier in the conference season Iowa State was playing at a higher performance level, solid top-10, and then started trending down as injuries racked up. Whereby Kansas State has been steadier, cruising along at a level right in the range of about 15th or 20th.
That held true right up until they fell into a pothole for two games. Somebody with more knowledge than I have will have to advise you on why that may have happened. But they came back with a vengeance last week, obliterating Cincinnati by a hefty 26 points.
That was a performance jump of 36 points from Arizona State to Cincinnati, and leaves the question of what Kansas State is capable of right now.
I didn’t take time this week to plot out a more recent performance trend for Cincinnati. A quick review shows that Cincy has dropped four games in a row and most by double-digits. Plus, Cincy has only one top-60 win for the season. So maybe the issue is Cincinnati playing poorly rather than the Wildcats finding their footing.
Also, the 26-point win over Cincinnati was KSU’s second best performance of the year, so that suggests too that the big winning margin was a bit of an anomaly. Their best win was a 45-18 win over West Virginia and that margin too seemed out of the ordinary.
If KSU had not laid the wood to Cincy, it would have been easy to say that the Wildcats had tanked and resultantly the Cyclones would be promisingly favored. But the nature of that win just last week adds an element of uncertainty that cannot be rectified before the Iowa State game.
Overall, KSU’s power ranking does reflect their overall trendline…it’s just that KSU has shown the propensity to vary from the trendline quite a bit of late.
I would suspect that we can assume that Kansas State will not bring one of their under-performances to Ames, so it comes down to whether the Wildcats play at their average or above it.
As it is, consider KSU to be almost a mirror image of the Cyclones…a very formidable opponent but with a couple of recent sketchy performances.
IOWA STATE VS. KANSAS STATE
After all that analysis…this game is Farmageddon after all. And it is a game where these two teams match up to each other equitably in many different ways and trends.
If anything, things lean slightly Iowa State’s way in those multiple different ways. Whether they are accumulative or not is hard to say.
The Cyclones have had the better upside over the course of the entire season and seem to be on the rise from their mid-season low point. Whether KSU is fully back in the saddle after their skid, has yet to be seen. Iowa State has also had overall better luck against stronger opponents than Kansas State has had.
And of course, the biggest advantage is having the home field, and I think that is huge in a game like this, and the with the type of weather we are facing.
My biggest concern (aside from shoot ourselves in the foot)?
Well…it was me who brought the story of the Texas Mafia to this board several years ago, after my son and I had a hell of a conversation in Oklahoma City with one of the Big-12 refs who had come from the old Big-8.
Texas and Oklahoma are gone, and the refereeing has seemed to be a lot more equitable than it used to be. But nobody will deny that Colorado with Prime as their coach, and BYU with their reputation...have more of the media’s eye.
Will the referees tilt the field to help favor Colorado or BYU getting in? My apologies for being a cynic, but it looms in the back of my mind.
Assuming a level playing field with no referee bias….
I have the Cyclones by perhaps four, being just a skosh better than Kansas State at this moment of time, and then tack on home field advantage. That ends up being about a 58% chance of winning.
Had Kansas State not thumped Cincy just last week, I would have had the confidence of a few points more.
But at the end of the day this is Iowa State vs. Kansas State. It’s Farmageddon. It’s really a wide-open game between two very competent and equal teams. It probably comes down to who makes the most scoreboard impacting mistakes.
At least we’re not playing them in Arrowhead.
(In my opinion.)
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