Is it a bit hard for Minn fans to stomach ESPN's initial College Football Power Index (FPI) Ranking of 63?

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RememberMurray said:
Wow.

I guess we should probably give The Axe back to the Badgers. Oh, well... if Sagarin says it, then it must be so. Sigh.

Be careful driving east on 94, though; there are lots of State Troopers who love to hand out speeding tickets.
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Looks like you missed the point of my post. The football team wasn't very good last season, particularly on offense, despite winning 8 games. If a rating service uses the prior year as a baseline expectation, it's understandable if it doesn't rate the Gophers highly. It's not my rating system but it's not throwing darts at a board either.

I expect them to be better in the upcoming season. They'll have to be better to equal or exceed last year's win total because they have a much tougher schedule. It's not illogical to think the Gophers could do worse (as many sports writers are saying) because the schedule is tougher.

I use data to make my points. I'll take that over your foolish bluster and indignant attitude every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

As far as this gem:

"Be careful driving east on 94, though; there are lots of State Troopers who love to hand out speeding tickets."

That's nothing but low-grade, spiteful horseshit.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
Looks like you missed the point of my post. The football team wasn't very good last season, particularly on offense, despite winning 8 games. If a rating service uses the prior year as a baseline expectation, it's understandable if it doesn't rate the Gophers highly. It's not my rating system but it's not throwing darts at a board either.

I expect them to be better in the upcoming season. They'll have to be better to equal or exceed last year's win total because they have a much tougher schedule. It's not illogical to think the Gophers could do worse (as many sports writers are saying) because the schedule is tougher.

I use data to make my points. I'll take that over your foolish bluster and indignant attitude every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

As far as this gem:

"Be careful driving east on 94, though; there are lots of State Troopers who love to hand out speeding tickets."

That's nothing but low-grade, spiteful horseshit.
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I think you're the one who 'missed the point'.

No one has complained that the Gophers weren't rated "highly."

The complaints actually stem from the Gophers being rated below Wisconsin. You and I can argue whether or not the 2025 Gophers were good, bad, or middling, but here's a particularly pertinent 'data point' that you seem to be ignoring: The Axe rests in Minnesota's trophy case — yet again.

Sagarin can do their analysis, but head-to-head matchups speak loudly.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I will neither praise nor condemn ESPN's rankings (I don't see any reason to praise them and I don't care enough to condemn them) but, as explained above, the most important factor in their preseason rankings is the team's performance in the previous season. Thinking about last season I think the unavoidable conclusion is ------

THE GOPHERS WEREN"T VERY GOOD!

I'll turn to metrics from the old school (but still useful in my opinion) Sagarin ratings. Here are the basic end-of-season rankings of the more relevant teams to the Gophers' 2025 experience:

Sag. Rank
Wisconsin
49​
Gophers
53​
Nebraska
54​
Northwestern
56​
Rutgers
62​
Michigan State
63​
California
76​
New Mexico
81​
Purdue
96​


How can Wisconsin be the highest ranked while having a 4-8 record? Simple, their Strength of Schedule was ranked #1 by Sagarin AND they beat two teams that had pretty high rankings (Washington #16 and Illinois #27).

Minnesota, on the other hand, had a #59 Strength of Schedule and didn't beat any team that was actually "good" when measured against overall FBS competition. They did manage to clobber Nebraska but they beat Rutgers at home by 3, Michigan State at home by 3 in overtime, Purdue at home by 7, and New Mexico at a neutral site by 3 in overtime. They lost by 3 to Northwestern and by two scores to California on the road. Of course, they did play three highly ranked teams on the road but were demolished in each of those three games. They did have a solid, albeit low scoring, win against Wisconsin at home in the snow.

Having said that, Minnesota deserves some credit for winning 8 games with a pretty mediocre team.

Our defense was fair last season but our offense was pretty weak overall. If we can improve both, but especially the offense, this season we could look much better even if our overall win total isn't much higher.
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I see people pissing their pants about this post in replies. It should not be surprising that the badgers were sag ranked higher given the strength of schedule and a good win over Washington.

Should be a look in the mirror moment to ask: “why do I care about sag rankings discrepancies for a team that didn’t win a game on the road?”
 

GooningGopher said:
I see people pissing their pants about this post in replies. It should not be surprising that the badgers were sag ranked higher given the strength of schedule and a good win over Washington.

Should be a look in the mirror moment to ask: “why do I care about sag rankings discrepancies for a team that didn’t win a game on the road?”
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If anyone making any judgements of anyone including themselves based on how they view FPI or Sagarin ratings as a metric…it is that person who has some serious issues.
 

RememberMurray said:
I think you're the one who 'missed the point'.

No one has complained that the Gophers weren't rated "highly."

The complaints actually stem from the Gophers being rated below Wisconsin. You and I can argue whether or not the 2025 Gophers were good, bad, or middling, but here's a particularly pertinent 'data point' that you seem to be ignoring: The Axe rests in Minnesota's trophy case — yet again.

Sagarin can do their analysis, but head-to-head matchups speak loudly.
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That's nonsensical. Teams are rated based on the entire season, not the outcome of one game. Note that in the Sagarin Ratings that I posted, California was ranked 23 places below us despite beating us by two scores.

Here's another misrepresentation:

"but here's a particularly pertinent 'data point' that you seem to be ignoring: The Axe rests in Minnesota's trophy case — yet again."

Wrong! I most certainly did not ignore that. From my post:

" They did have a solid, albeit low scoring, win against Wisconsin at home in the snow."
 


GooningGopher said:
I see people pissing their pants about this post in replies. It should not be surprising that the badgers were sag ranked higher given the strength of schedule and a good win over Washington.

Should be a look in the mirror moment to ask: “why do I care about sag rankings discrepancies for a team that didn’t win a game on the road?”
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Many of these rating services are roughly interchangeable and I don't care about any one of them in particular. The important point is that there is a general consensus among rating systems that the Gophers in 2025 were just kind of a mediocre football team despite winning 8 games.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
Many of these rating services are roughly interchangeable and I don't care about any one of them in particular. The important point is that there is a general consensus among rating systems that the Gophers in 2025 were just kind of a mediocre football team despite winning 8 games.
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I have less a problem with that than the same metrics saying a terrible team was good such as 7-6 penn state being 16th
Or 5-7 Auburn being 24th
Or 4-8 South Carolina and Florida being ranked 34 and 37
Or 2-10 Arkansas being ranked 42


2-10 Arkansas lost to 57th 8-5 Memphis
So when you say it’s based on the whole season. You’re right. But it’s based on the whole season including factors other than the results of games. It’s simply a bad formula.


Garbage in garbage out.
When a ranking system uses itself to adjust wins and losses quality its baking confirmation bias into the metric.
I have problems with efficiency metrics too but at least things like sagarin have hard data behind them.
FPI is straight up trash
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
Many of these rating services are roughly interchangeable and I don't care about any one of them in particular. The important point is that there is a general consensus among rating systems that the Gophers in 2025 were just kind of a mediocre football team despite winning 8 games.
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No one is disputing this. No one here is claiming the 2025 Gophers were a great team.

However, the 2025 Gopher team was better than the 2025 Badgers. That's all we're saying.
 




howeda7 said:
Those 2 wins just mean more...
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Big issue I have with sagarin and Kenpom (in hoops) is it’s so efficiency based…which can tell you something but not everything.


Two teams play same schedule and play same number of possessions against each opponent.

Team A goes 10-2 with 10 1 point wins and 2 40 point losses.
Team B goes 4-8 with 4 20 point wins and 8 1 point losses.

Team B would be rated higher than team A.
That’s unlikely to happen, but it’s true. Meaning that metric has some holes.
 

All I care about is the results of the games, who cares about these rating systems. I'll take 8 wins with a lower rating over 5 wins and a better rating anyday.
 


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