Before you go any further, I want to make sure you know what you are looking at. The criteria for the seeding and selection is simply a team’s current merit. I am making no attempt at all to select and seed teams on how good I think they actually are, nor am I trying to guess what the field will look like on Selection Sunday in March. This is me asking myself how hard it was for a team to win the games that they’ve won up to this point. Nothing more. Because of that, you’re going to see some things that are just flat out crazy. But, I want to get into the habit of evaluating what teams have done, and not in the habit of supposing how good (or bad) I think they are…
OTHERS CONSIDERED: Fresno State, Florida State, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Creighton, Wichita State, UCF, Colorado, Saint Louis, South Carolina, Drake, Murray State, Virginia Tech, Texas, Utah, Minnesota, Miami OH, Santa Clara, Georgia Tech
NOTES ON THE BRACKET:
-So, believe it or not, most teams have played about half a football season at this point. There is still a long ways to go, but the data is starting to take some sort of shape. It will still shift a ton between now and the end, but it’s starting to sort of start to fall in to place to where there is enough to do brackets that make a little bit of sense.
-No teams that have only won home buy games were even considered, even if I think they’re good enough to be there in the end. They aren’t there now, and now is all I care about.
-Iona has beaten Alabama on a neutral floor, and the loss they have wasn’t that bad. That’s why they are on the #3 line. I don’t think they are one of the 12 best teams in the country, but as of now I don’t think anyone that I have behind them has done more to earn the spot.
-Dayton was the last team in the field. They probably don’t belong there, but I took them anyway. They’ve already lost three home buy games (and two of those were to teams that aren’t that good even by Under the Radar standards) and I’m not sure that any team that has lost three home buy game has ever finished inside the bubble. But they also have a win against Kansas, and two other neutral floor wins against Miami FL and Belmont. That is the most bizarre resume I’ve ever seen, and you see a lot of crazy ones early.
-Iowa State has been one of the surprise teams of the year. It’s crazy to think that they’d be on the #3 line, but look at their profile! The voters seem to like them too. They checked in ranked #19 today.
-Under the Radar teams that have gone out and won away from home are still higher up in the bracket than where the will probably end up. But, I don’t care where they end up. I only care about now, and right now, they’ve done more to earn those spots.