Gothmog

Umm, no. His argument is a logical fallacy. It simply does not that follow that team A is better than team B (or "has a better resume") simply because team A has played better teams at the midpoint of the season, especially if both teams at undefeated. That's the point and he lost that point. In the end all he could do was restate Sagarin ratings to support his losing argument.

OK, let's restate that: NDSU's 2 best wins trump USD's three best wins. Wins can not be summed in that way. Two, or even one, quality win can easily trump 3.

I don't agree. Back to my original point. Wins over two current top ten FCS teams on the road trumps anything USD has done. Stop with the Sagarin nonsense.

Just stop it. You're trying to say that beating one bad team is better than beating another bad team. In the real world that's just not true. IMO, that's a principal weakness of computer rankings.

Switch the four poor teams on the two team's schedules around and both teams would still be 6-0. That's the point.

Again, you're comparing bad teams: Here are the comparisons that matter: YSU (road) > YSU (home win) EWU (road) ~ WIU (road)

That just rehashes the same thing I objected to in the first place. USD gets more credit for beating bad teams than does NDSU.

Interesting that you would say that I'm ignoring other factors when you haven't mentioned any factors other than Sagarin (until this post of course).

And BTW - have you done the same "this year" comparison for every one of USD and NDSU's opponents and recalculated USD and NDSU's SOS based on that?. If not, at you're back at square one.

I've already explained that. USD gets more credit for beating the poor teams on its schedule than does NDSU. That was my point in the first place.

No, if Sagarin is an objective measure of SOS, then it is an objective measure of a team's "resume." Again, you're misusing Sagarin. It can't mean something when comparing two team's opponents but mean nothing when comparing those teams directly.

You're fixated on Sagarin, not me. All other polls and ratings also have NDSU above USD. And those I've seen have EWU above WIU.

Road win over YSU makes that win better than USD's win over YSU. Again, you can't use Sagarin ratings that way. BTW - you're now claiming that WIU is significantly better than the best team in the Big Sky.

As I said before, NDSU and USD both beat up on 4 bad teams. It makes no difference if the four bad teams USD happened to have on the schedule were marginally better than the four that NDSU played. What does matter is that the two good wins on NDSU's resume are better than USD's.

You're really grasping at straws here. The term "resume," as you're using it, is meaningless unless it can be used as an overall rating of that team, and then be compared directly to other teams. To say that a team can be rated higher but have a poorer "resume" in the same rating system is just silly.

Sagarin ratings either mean something or they don't. If you can use them to compare the quality of two team's opponents, you can also use them to compare those teams directly. Sagarin says that NDSU has a better resume than USD, that's the whole point of the ratings.

It wasn't a good idea to mention Sagarin Ratings in this discussion: NDSU 76.13 (#43) USD 68.15 (#71) You lose that point.

That's not the point. As I said, both teams have two good wins and the rest of their schedule is junk. It makes no difference if NDSU's junk is a little worse than USD's. The point is that NDSU wins are more impressive than USD's. That's what matters.

Again, take an honest look at USD's schedule. Other than WIU and YSU it's not very good. NDSU's wins over EWU and YSU on the road are more impressive than anything USD has done. Indiana State is 0-6, UND is 2-5, Bowling Green is 1-6, and Drake is 3-3 in the Pioneer League.

BTW - take an honest look at USD's schedule so far. They've played 2 good teams: Western Illinois and Youngstown. With road wins over two top 10 FCS teams, NDSU actually has the better resume. Bowling Green is a bad FBS team.

Really? I haven't seen a single poll that ranks it that way. Not one.

Its own, of course.

What's being suggested is that NDSU should have scheduled UND to a home and home deal years ago instead of acting in what it considered to be its own best interest.

You're kidding yourself.

If the average fan doesn't have enough leverage to send a message by threatening to withdraw support, as you say, then the average fans also does not have leverage to send the same message by actually withdrawing support. No matter how you look at it, if your goal is to improve the team, you'd do better by staying engaged with team.