Board 8 > College Football Ladder Contest 2018: Week 5 -- Hype Week is Hype

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ranked-vs.-ranked alone is enough to make up a whole marquee, and better still, none of them are the bullshit ranked teams. This far into the season, there are enough results that ranking based on hype alone is inexcusable. Any team with at least one loss should only be ranked if all teams that beat them are ranked ahead of them. If the remaining undefeated teams are "Tier 1", and any team that has only lost to undefeated teams is "Tier 2", do you know where #18 Texas is? Tier 15, and you have to pass through the FCS to get there. (To save on clutter, I only put FCS teams in a tier if they're "relevant" to an FBS team's ranking, whether it's by having defeated one directly or having indirectly done so via win chains).

In addition to receiving votes in at least one of the polls, all 20 of the teams on this week's double-size marquee are Tier 3 or higher. If I didn't make both teams getting votes in at least one poll a criteria, I could add another four games, but this tiering methodology is based solely on strength of losses, not strength of wins. So this is probably the best marquee.

Rules
- State which level you're on when you make your pick. Usually it should be obvious, but say it anyway.
- Deadline for making a pick is the start of the earliest game that you're picking. This means that if you are on a level that involves picking multiple teams, ALL of your teams are locked as soon as one of your teams has kicked off. If you don't have a pick in by the start of the early games, you can just pick later games, but if you can't make an eligible pick out of the games that haven't started yet, you can't advance that week.
- Conferences featured in games may be imposed at certain levels, but unless otherwise stated, any game(s) featuring two FBS teams are eligible.
- I'll list some marquee games each week, but you're not restricted to these. If you pick other games, make sure that your lines can be verified.

Level 1: Pick one game against the spread.

Level 2: Pick three over/unders; 2 out of three passes.

Level 3: Three-team teaser. Tease the lines six points in your favor, two wins and a push or three wins needed to pass.

Level 4: First! Pick a winless team to get their first win or an undefeated team to suffer their first loss. If you are predicting a favorite to win, they must also cover the spread (a push is sufficient). You may also select "none" if you think that every game between two winless or two undefeated teams will result in the favorite winning but failing to cover the spread and that no other teams will get their first win or suffer their first loss. Also, for this level, only the team that you are predicting will lose must be from the FBS.

Level 4:
KCF0107
turbopuns2

Level 3:
jcgamer107
kevwaffles
Paratroopa1
ShatteredElysium
5tarscream
TsunamiXXVIII

Level 2:
Jakyl25

Level 1:
baubeta
Eddv
SmartMuffin

Marquee Games:

Syracuse (+25.5) @ Clemson (O/U 65.5)
West Virginia (-3.5) @ Texas Tech (O/U 72)
Army (+7.5) @ Buffalo (O/U 54.5)
Florida (+7) @ Mississippi State (O/U 50.5)
Ohio State (-3.5) @ Penn State (O/U 70.5)
Stanford (+5.5) @ Notre Dame (O/U 52.5)
South Carolina (PK) @ Kentucky (O/U 51.5)
BYU (+17) @ Washington (O/U 46)
Ole Miss (+11) @ LSU (O/U 59.5)
Oregon (-2) @ California (O/U 58)

An honest-to-God pick'em on the marquee? Pinch me, I'm dreaming!
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I usually avoid the marquee games; they often feel like trap games. Though I have to admit that Cal +8 seems tempting--probably because it is just beyond that TD, so even a loss straight-up could easily be a win vs. the spread.

Level 3:
Temple @ Boston College -6.5
Texas @ Kansas State +14.5
Hawaii -4 @ San Jose State

Considered Utah on the road against Wazzu, but remembered that the Cougars' loss isn't really "bad" at all--it's just "bad" by my tier list because of trickle-down of progressively worse losses. (Wazzu lost to USC, who lost to Texas, who lost to Maryland, who lost to Temple, who lost to Villanova...)

Fun facts about the list: While the only tier that is only a single team is the absolute lowest one (tier 21, Texas State), every team at Tier 10 or lower goes through the same Tier 9 team: Boston College. Here's the full chain for Texas State, by the way.

Texas State lost to South Alabama, who lost to Memphis, who lost to Navy, who lost to SMU, who lost to TCU, who lost to Texas, who lost to Maryland, who lost to Temple, who lost to Villanova, who lost to Towson, who lost to Wake Forest, who lost to Boston College, who lost to Purdue, who lost to Northwestern, who lost to Akron, who lost to Iowa State, who lost to Iowa, who lost to Wisconsin, who lost to BYU, who lost to California.

No doubt you'll notice that Temple and Boston College are both in that chain already, and so you might ask, "what happens if Temple beats BC? Would this silly exercise break down next week?" The answer is no, not yet. Late in the season, there tends to be so much of this type of thing that everyone ends up smushed in the middle, but this early, a small circular win chain is just dealt with by putting all the teams on the same tier, that tier being determined by the worst loss any of those teams has outside the chain (at the moment, BC's loss to Purdue). In fact, this already was the case this week, with a sextet on Tier 12--half FBS and half FCS, interestingly enough:

East Carolina > North Carolina > Pittsburgh > Albany > Morgan State > North Carolina A&T > East Carolina

Interestingly enough, the loss that placed them on Tier 12 was Morgan State losing to Towson.
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I really wish South Carolina didn't have a loss already.

Level 3:
LSU (-5) vs Ole Miss
West Virginia (+2.5) @ Texas Tech
Kentucky (+6) vs South Carolina
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Hmm, who to pick. Kentucky loses to South Carolina? NC St. loses to Virginia? Nebraska gets on the win column against Purdue? Ultimately, I think that I will go with...

Level 4:
West Virginia loses to Texas Tech

Mountaineers are the favorites, so I don't have to worry about the spread like I do Syracuse/Clemson.
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Level 3:
BYU @ Washington (-11)
Ole Miss @ LSU (-5)
Oregon @ California (+8)
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Oh, TT has a loss, so I guess that the spread doesn't matter
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Level 3

Syracuse +31.5
Ohio State +2.5
LSU -5

L3

UK +6
Clemson -19.5
Penn State +9.5
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KCF0107 posted...

Oh, TT has a loss, so I guess that the spread doesn't matter

yeah to Ole Miss by 20, which makes me think West Virginia has gotta win, but we'll see
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Level 3:

Mississippi State (-1)
Washington State (+7.5)
Penn State (+9.5)

I also considered taking Louisiana (+54.5) just because Alabama is reasonably likely to stop at some point but eh, they've covered that spread once this season already. I also like Stanford (+12)

KCF0107 posted...

Oh, TT has a loss, so I guess that the spread doesn't matter

No, it still does. Remember, winless Iowa State was a 19-point favorite over undefeated Akron last week. (They won but didn't cover)

Paratroopa1 posted...

I also considered taking Louisiana (+54.5) just because Alabama is reasonably likely to stop at some point but eh, they've covered that spread once this season already. I also like Stanford (+12)

Funny, I was considering taking Alabama if that line dropped a half point to a point.
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Cal loses to Oregon

My heart wants to say OSU loses at Penn State because fuck OSU, but I can't risk letting them be the reason I don't advance. Staying away from that

ESPN had the Bama spread at -49 last night. They matched it at halftime looll.
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This Syracuse score does not surprise me, I have money on them straight up

Well that's lookin' good right now. As is my West Virginia pick.
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Had I been aware of the Clemson situation, I sure as hell wouldn't have picked them. Oops.
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I am genuinely amazed that Syracuse aren't ranked. They have looked good and are unbeaten yet nothing. Meanwhile some teams with very very bad losses are still ranked

If you're in the ACC and you're not Clemson, FSU, Louisville, or VT you don't get respect until you're undefeated for at least half the season.
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To be real, though, FSU is the best team Syracuse had played before this week and they're not looking like great themselves. If they had played FSU in week 1, they probably would be ranked.
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Wow. I called that Alabama game perfectly. I said that it would look much more attractive if I could get -41.5 instead of -42.5, and sure enough they won by exactly 42.
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whoops, Clemson remembered how to play football. and that BS unnecessary roughness call will end the game. some home cookin' goin' on.
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"we beat Syracuse, storm the FIELD!" lol
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Looks like we got a lotta stock in the LSU pick this week. Go rebels~!

As for the Clemson game, I wasn't expecting them to lose by any means, but that spread of 25.5 looks so silly now, in hindsight.

How in the fuck is that targeting. I feel for the guy getting knocked out but that is not fucking targeting

damnit mississippi state

I was right about louisiana covering though

Franklin is a terrible terrible coach.
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He is. Not just for the 4th ane 5 call but also not taking the field goal earlier.

That being said, the refs were horrendously one sided with their flags. I was fuming all game about it. So many marginal calls went Penn States way whilst holding and personal fouls calls went uncalled in the other direction.

Flags skewed things but if I ignore that Penn State absolutely should have beat us. Terrible playcalling when it mattered and not putting up enough yards for their first half dominance . They probably should have won by 2 possessions

Quack

I advanced yay
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Ugh. So close.

I'm glad I did that silly "tier" thing last week, because it looks to have broken down screaming this week. I dutifully updated through the earlier games, but gave up after seeing TCU over Iowa State (who beat Akron, who beat Northwestern, who beat Purdue, who beat Boston College...oh, right, that means it's a crunch, because TCU was chain down from there. Oof, this would be challenging...), and that was before accounting for VaTech over Duke.

Still more than enough teams "above the fray" to fill out a full Top 25, though...although I'll admit I had a little trouble scraping out the bottom of it, ultimately deciding that because of how critical BYU over Wisconsin is (since most sources still have Wisconsin ranked, not without reason), I'd leave Cal at #25 after their loss.
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Bumpo

Live

Wouldn't want to lose my lack of progress!
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Yo
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Yeah, I'm on it
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