Here are the preseason Cygarin Football Ratings for the 2016 year. As always for the preseason I am using the Sagarin final rankings from the 2015 season. Sagarin and others start the year with a preseason ranking that is more or less an average of the last few years, and is not intended to be any type of prediction for the year. Rather, it’s just a nebulous starting point for them until 2106 data can replace it
So, right or wrong, I consider last year’s rankings to be a better anticipator of any and all team’s current capability going forward, until shown otherwise.
Understandably, circumstances can make individual team’s ability to perform change, such as Baylor (or Iowa State) with new coaches, etc. But over the whole scope of all opponent’s being evaluated, there are rarely tectonic shifts of any team’s entire SOS from one year to another when teams played are essentially the exact same as the previous year. In the case of Iowa State, that is always ten of twelve teams. Always. (And eleven of twelve teams more often than not.)
That having been said, there are indeed some other predictive power rankings that are suggesting a pretty major weakening of the Big-12. Personally I don’t agree with that at all. But one can hope.
THE SCHEDULE…
The early rankings appear to indicate that Iowa State has a very unusual, highly bi-modal schedule. The schedule projects to have six absurdly difficult games and six amazingly softer games compared with recent schedules.
The bad news first……it appears that the top six teams project to be top-16 power ranked equivalents, when home field is factored in. This would make Iowa State’s top half of the schedule one of the most difficult I have ever seen. The notion of playing six top-16 equivalent teams is almost unfathomable.
If that holds up, the chances of Iowa State beating any one of these top six teams is only 1 in 4 for the easiest of them……and that’s only if Iowa State becomes as good as a 35th power ranked team. Thus, all six of these games are predicted to fall into the “virtual loss” category unless an incredible miracle happens under Coach Campbell’s inaugural year, and we are much better than most anticipate.
With the bad news out of the way, now the good news……
If it holds up during the season…..Iowa State will play its easiest lower half schedule it has seen since 2010. Not only will Iowa State play six sub-30 equivalents for the first time since 2010, they will all be sub-40!
However…..there is a huge difference between the “ability” to win each of the lower six teams on our schedule and the “probability” to beat all of them combined. The odds of beating all six teams are against us….unless we are a top-30 caliber team. But unlike other years, there is at least a plausible chance to win against six of our opponents.
For the record, the strength of schedule does indeed appear to be top-25, which will make this the seventh consecutive top-25 SOS for Iowa State.
The last schedule that was not a top-25 SOS was 2009. That year, the schedule was ranked a remarkable 71st. Iowa State played ten sub-40 teams that year, and five of Iowa State’s regular season wins were against teams ranked 92nd equivalents or lower. Iowa’s bowl opponent Minnesota was ranked 67th, making six of Iowa State's seven wins against sub-67 ranked opponents.
To compare with Campbell’s inaugural season, Iowa State will play two teams 92nd or lower, and three teams 67th or lower.
If there is good news in the SOS , it I that there is good chance it will be closer to 25th than again being top-15, which has happened the majority of the last six years.
IOWA STATE……
With discussion about schedule out of the way, it’s time to look inward.
Leaving coaching out of this (please), I have run the numbers and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that Iowa State was three plays away from having six wins. And had they beaten Iowa, Toledo, and Kansas State, Iowa State would have been a solid top-30 power ranked team, and perhaps even top-25.
Please do not take that as some sort of excusing for what happened last year, nor an endorsement of the previous staff. Iowa State’s win record and power ranking was an accurate reflection of what they accomplished, which is what a ranking is supposed to do.
But…if three selective, singular plays (regardless of reason) was the impediment for Iowa State not being a top-30 team, then it means that Iowa State’s “potential” ranking was clearly better then where they ended, and fundamentally I think it still is this year too.
In short, I don’t see Campbell stepping into a rebuilding situation at all (offensive line notwithstanding), and if he does not take a step back in his initial season, then I think this is a team that can potentially compete in the top-30 regime.
In the end though, Iowa State being a top-30 team is going to be a requirement for (or a result of, if you wish look at it that way) a successful season against a 7th consecutive top-25 strength of schedule.
UNI….
As it stands, UNI is a top-5 FCS team. As such they stand as a team better than about 20% of all P5 teams, and better than the vast majority of mid-majors.
If Iowa State beats UNI by more than ten points, it means that either Iowa State has taken its first step towards top-30 capability right out of the gate, or that UNI is not a top-5 FCS team.
Personally, I’m hoping for a ten to fourteen point win, but I will be more than happy just coming out of the game with any sort of a win. In my book, there is just no way to avoid a first-game step-back for any new coaching regime.
IOWA……
I expressed last year than neither Iowa nor Michigan State were anywhere near being teams capable of playing at a national play-off level. I advised that both teams are somewhere in the range of perhaps 20th to 30th, arguably not even capable (competitive-wise) of a major bowl against top competition.
Michigan State proceeded to get pummeled by Alabama 38-0, and Iowa proceeded to get pummeled 45-16. That’s a combined 83-16 in games that were not even as close as their scores suggested. One can consider a single lopsided loss like that as a fluke. But two lopsided losses like that when the rankings and analysis indicated it.....is a credible confirmation.
From my perspective, Iowa had almost the exact opposite fortune of Iowa State last year, and won three games by a single play that could have gone the other way. (Iowa State, Pitt, and Wisconsin) Had they lost those three games, Iowa would very much have been a 30 to 45 power ranked team.
To validate that, if Iowa had lost to Iowa State, Pitt, and Wisconsin, they would not have had a single win against a top-40 team, and would have had two losses in the sub-40 range.
Even with not reversing those fortunes, Iowa had only one single top-40 win the entire season last year, Wisconsin. And many of those sub-40 games were close. A strong argument can be made that the Wisconsin win is an outlier.
In short, there is a lot of supporting and compelling evidence that Iowa was nowhere near the team that they elude to be based on their record.
Here is all I have to say to explain Iowa this year….going into the season, Iowa plays just one single top-16 equivalent team all season long…that is 16th Michigan (at home). On the other end, they play eight sub-50 equivalent opponents.
To put schedules into perspective….. Iowa plays just one top-16 equivalent team the entire season....…..whereby Iowa State averages playing a top-16 team every other game, all season long. If that doesn’t point out the fortunes of schedules, nothing does.
LASTLY…..
A lot of people have been privately reaching out to me to continue posting the Cygarin Ratings. I am humbled.
But please don’t consider this as me returning to posting on the board on a regular basis, and please don’t anticipate me giving regular updates of the Cygarin Ratings. There are way too many unmentionable priorities and forces that are more than likely going to prevent that from happening.
However, I will most likely be updating the spreadsheet regularly, so if anybody wishes to keep up with it, feel free to bookmark the link below.
Thank you,
Cygarin
Cygarin Football Ratings link.....
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
So, right or wrong, I consider last year’s rankings to be a better anticipator of any and all team’s current capability going forward, until shown otherwise.
Understandably, circumstances can make individual team’s ability to perform change, such as Baylor (or Iowa State) with new coaches, etc. But over the whole scope of all opponent’s being evaluated, there are rarely tectonic shifts of any team’s entire SOS from one year to another when teams played are essentially the exact same as the previous year. In the case of Iowa State, that is always ten of twelve teams. Always. (And eleven of twelve teams more often than not.)
That having been said, there are indeed some other predictive power rankings that are suggesting a pretty major weakening of the Big-12. Personally I don’t agree with that at all. But one can hope.
THE SCHEDULE…
The early rankings appear to indicate that Iowa State has a very unusual, highly bi-modal schedule. The schedule projects to have six absurdly difficult games and six amazingly softer games compared with recent schedules.
The bad news first……it appears that the top six teams project to be top-16 power ranked equivalents, when home field is factored in. This would make Iowa State’s top half of the schedule one of the most difficult I have ever seen. The notion of playing six top-16 equivalent teams is almost unfathomable.
If that holds up, the chances of Iowa State beating any one of these top six teams is only 1 in 4 for the easiest of them……and that’s only if Iowa State becomes as good as a 35th power ranked team. Thus, all six of these games are predicted to fall into the “virtual loss” category unless an incredible miracle happens under Coach Campbell’s inaugural year, and we are much better than most anticipate.
With the bad news out of the way, now the good news……
If it holds up during the season…..Iowa State will play its easiest lower half schedule it has seen since 2010. Not only will Iowa State play six sub-30 equivalents for the first time since 2010, they will all be sub-40!
However…..there is a huge difference between the “ability” to win each of the lower six teams on our schedule and the “probability” to beat all of them combined. The odds of beating all six teams are against us….unless we are a top-30 caliber team. But unlike other years, there is at least a plausible chance to win against six of our opponents.
For the record, the strength of schedule does indeed appear to be top-25, which will make this the seventh consecutive top-25 SOS for Iowa State.
The last schedule that was not a top-25 SOS was 2009. That year, the schedule was ranked a remarkable 71st. Iowa State played ten sub-40 teams that year, and five of Iowa State’s regular season wins were against teams ranked 92nd equivalents or lower. Iowa’s bowl opponent Minnesota was ranked 67th, making six of Iowa State's seven wins against sub-67 ranked opponents.
To compare with Campbell’s inaugural season, Iowa State will play two teams 92nd or lower, and three teams 67th or lower.
If there is good news in the SOS , it I that there is good chance it will be closer to 25th than again being top-15, which has happened the majority of the last six years.
IOWA STATE……
With discussion about schedule out of the way, it’s time to look inward.
Leaving coaching out of this (please), I have run the numbers and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that Iowa State was three plays away from having six wins. And had they beaten Iowa, Toledo, and Kansas State, Iowa State would have been a solid top-30 power ranked team, and perhaps even top-25.
Please do not take that as some sort of excusing for what happened last year, nor an endorsement of the previous staff. Iowa State’s win record and power ranking was an accurate reflection of what they accomplished, which is what a ranking is supposed to do.
But…if three selective, singular plays (regardless of reason) was the impediment for Iowa State not being a top-30 team, then it means that Iowa State’s “potential” ranking was clearly better then where they ended, and fundamentally I think it still is this year too.
In short, I don’t see Campbell stepping into a rebuilding situation at all (offensive line notwithstanding), and if he does not take a step back in his initial season, then I think this is a team that can potentially compete in the top-30 regime.
In the end though, Iowa State being a top-30 team is going to be a requirement for (or a result of, if you wish look at it that way) a successful season against a 7th consecutive top-25 strength of schedule.
UNI….
As it stands, UNI is a top-5 FCS team. As such they stand as a team better than about 20% of all P5 teams, and better than the vast majority of mid-majors.
If Iowa State beats UNI by more than ten points, it means that either Iowa State has taken its first step towards top-30 capability right out of the gate, or that UNI is not a top-5 FCS team.
Personally, I’m hoping for a ten to fourteen point win, but I will be more than happy just coming out of the game with any sort of a win. In my book, there is just no way to avoid a first-game step-back for any new coaching regime.
IOWA……
I expressed last year than neither Iowa nor Michigan State were anywhere near being teams capable of playing at a national play-off level. I advised that both teams are somewhere in the range of perhaps 20th to 30th, arguably not even capable (competitive-wise) of a major bowl against top competition.
Michigan State proceeded to get pummeled by Alabama 38-0, and Iowa proceeded to get pummeled 45-16. That’s a combined 83-16 in games that were not even as close as their scores suggested. One can consider a single lopsided loss like that as a fluke. But two lopsided losses like that when the rankings and analysis indicated it.....is a credible confirmation.
From my perspective, Iowa had almost the exact opposite fortune of Iowa State last year, and won three games by a single play that could have gone the other way. (Iowa State, Pitt, and Wisconsin) Had they lost those three games, Iowa would very much have been a 30 to 45 power ranked team.
To validate that, if Iowa had lost to Iowa State, Pitt, and Wisconsin, they would not have had a single win against a top-40 team, and would have had two losses in the sub-40 range.
Even with not reversing those fortunes, Iowa had only one single top-40 win the entire season last year, Wisconsin. And many of those sub-40 games were close. A strong argument can be made that the Wisconsin win is an outlier.
In short, there is a lot of supporting and compelling evidence that Iowa was nowhere near the team that they elude to be based on their record.
Here is all I have to say to explain Iowa this year….going into the season, Iowa plays just one single top-16 equivalent team all season long…that is 16th Michigan (at home). On the other end, they play eight sub-50 equivalent opponents.
To put schedules into perspective….. Iowa plays just one top-16 equivalent team the entire season....…..whereby Iowa State averages playing a top-16 team every other game, all season long. If that doesn’t point out the fortunes of schedules, nothing does.
LASTLY…..
A lot of people have been privately reaching out to me to continue posting the Cygarin Ratings. I am humbled.
But please don’t consider this as me returning to posting on the board on a regular basis, and please don’t anticipate me giving regular updates of the Cygarin Ratings. There are way too many unmentionable priorities and forces that are more than likely going to prevent that from happening.
However, I will most likely be updating the spreadsheet regularly, so if anybody wishes to keep up with it, feel free to bookmark the link below.
Thank you,
Cygarin
Cygarin Football Ratings link.....
http://showcase.netins.net/web/cygarin/CYGARINFOOTBALL.xlsx
