The Cygarin Ratings have been updated. Well sort of. What I have updated is the Ratings after all of the bowl games. I thought it would a good idea to take a look at all of the ratings last year after the bowl season had been played.
I have said this before...that from a performance perspective Iowa State's season can be broken down into three periods, not just two like some people tend to perceive. Also, what most people will find surprising is that the first period and last period are very similar in performance.
Here are the three periods.....
1. The Park Phase.
Iowa went 2-1-1 during this period in regulation, with the Iowa game of course being an overtime loss, and Texas being the regulation loss. Most people would agree that we let the Iowa game get away from us, and that the Texas game was a bit of a debacle that involved the last we saw of Park in an Iowa State uniform.
What we did not recognize at the time was that Iowa and Texas were much better than we thought, with Iowa finishing being power ranked 16th and Texas 26th. Though both were still losses, we considered them embarrassing losses to teams we hoped we could beat. They may indeed still be considered embarrassing, but the losses weren't to nearly as bad of teams as we thought.
I think there is something to recognize in retrospect....even pre-Kempt, we were quite a bit better than we were recognizing, and had a pretty good foundation for when Kempt took over.
2. The Healthy Kempt Phase.
Wow! Bam! Shabang! Literally overnight Iowa State vaulted to playing minimally like a top-10 team for four games in a row, and two of those were top-5 plus performances!
Who saw that coming???????
Iowa State improved their average performance 15 points per game instantly.
3. The Injured Kempt Phase.
Just as fast as it came, Iowa State reverted back to essentially the same level of power ranking performance as when Park was quarterback. West Virginia was our second worst performance of the season after Texas, the last game that Park played.
We rebounded back a bit, and played our next three games at a level between about 23th and 40th (which is a pretty tight range rating-wise).
It's interesting that Iowa State played six games at a performance level between 23rd and 40th, and that was split 3-3 at the very beginning of the year and the very end of the year.
It's bizarre that Iowa State played four consecutive games above the top-10 performance level in the middle of the season.
It worth noting that our two remaining bad games were played when Park played his last game and the game that Kempt got hurt.
It was a roller coaster year performance-wise graphically.....and I will leave it to you to analyze what it means for going into this year.
Iowa..
It may be stating the obvious that Ohio State was a major anomaly, especially with the lopsidedness of the game.
I don't want to make it sound too much like I am trying to take away from Iowa's performance last year, but it is worth pointing out that if you take away the Ohio State win.....
22nd Iowa State was Iowa's best win by a pretty good distance over their next best win (BC).
37th ranked Boston College in the bowl game was their highest ranked season win in regulation plays.
And 71st Nebraska was their highest ranked regulation win in the regular season.
Giving credit where credit is due....they did indeed beat Ohio State, and they did indeed beat Iowa State in overtime.
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Pre-season Rankings coming soon.
Link to Cygarin Ratings...
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
I have said this before...that from a performance perspective Iowa State's season can be broken down into three periods, not just two like some people tend to perceive. Also, what most people will find surprising is that the first period and last period are very similar in performance.
Here are the three periods.....
1. The Park Phase.
Iowa went 2-1-1 during this period in regulation, with the Iowa game of course being an overtime loss, and Texas being the regulation loss. Most people would agree that we let the Iowa game get away from us, and that the Texas game was a bit of a debacle that involved the last we saw of Park in an Iowa State uniform.
What we did not recognize at the time was that Iowa and Texas were much better than we thought, with Iowa finishing being power ranked 16th and Texas 26th. Though both were still losses, we considered them embarrassing losses to teams we hoped we could beat. They may indeed still be considered embarrassing, but the losses weren't to nearly as bad of teams as we thought.
I think there is something to recognize in retrospect....even pre-Kempt, we were quite a bit better than we were recognizing, and had a pretty good foundation for when Kempt took over.
2. The Healthy Kempt Phase.
Wow! Bam! Shabang! Literally overnight Iowa State vaulted to playing minimally like a top-10 team for four games in a row, and two of those were top-5 plus performances!
Who saw that coming???????
Iowa State improved their average performance 15 points per game instantly.
3. The Injured Kempt Phase.
Just as fast as it came, Iowa State reverted back to essentially the same level of power ranking performance as when Park was quarterback. West Virginia was our second worst performance of the season after Texas, the last game that Park played.
We rebounded back a bit, and played our next three games at a level between about 23th and 40th (which is a pretty tight range rating-wise).
It's interesting that Iowa State played six games at a performance level between 23rd and 40th, and that was split 3-3 at the very beginning of the year and the very end of the year.
It's bizarre that Iowa State played four consecutive games above the top-10 performance level in the middle of the season.
It worth noting that our two remaining bad games were played when Park played his last game and the game that Kempt got hurt.
It was a roller coaster year performance-wise graphically.....and I will leave it to you to analyze what it means for going into this year.
Iowa..
It may be stating the obvious that Ohio State was a major anomaly, especially with the lopsidedness of the game.
I don't want to make it sound too much like I am trying to take away from Iowa's performance last year, but it is worth pointing out that if you take away the Ohio State win.....
22nd Iowa State was Iowa's best win by a pretty good distance over their next best win (BC).
37th ranked Boston College in the bowl game was their highest ranked season win in regulation plays.
And 71st Nebraska was their highest ranked regulation win in the regular season.
Giving credit where credit is due....they did indeed beat Ohio State, and they did indeed beat Iowa State in overtime.
(In my opinion.)
Cygarin Pre-season Rankings coming soon.
Link to Cygarin Ratings...
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
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