Commissioner’s Notes

We’ve made it to week 9; 2/3 of the season is done and the playoff picture is nearly set. I didn’t watch a lot on account of the great fall weather and the UT bye week, so I won’t have a lot to say here except to recount where the standings leave us and preview the playoffs.

Week 10 Matchups

This is our last week of regularly scheduled PVP matchups. After this we will go into the playoffs.

• Bob (5-4) v Bruce (3-6)
• Dan (3-6) v Zach (7-2)
• Dylan (6-3) v Jacob (3-6)

Playoff Picture

As of this week, the top 3 are set: I have a 1-game lead over Dylan with the tiebreaker advantage for the Orange pod bye, Bob has a 2-game lead over Dan and Bruce for the White pod bye, I have a 2-game lead over Bob for the overall #1, and Dylan has a 3-game lead on the rest of the pack, so he gets the #3 spot as the highest-ranked wild card.

For the remaining 3 players, Bruce, Dan, and Jacob are tied and none of them play each other, so it could very well come down to tiebreakers. The tiebreakers that can decide this are already set based on previous weeks, so we can list out all the scenarios:

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head record among all players who are tied. In a 3-way tie, Bruce is 3-1, Dan 2-2, and Jacob 1-3, so Bruce wins. In paired ties, Bruce beats Jacob because he swept him, and Dan beats both of them because he split with both but has the higher margin against either.

Games of the Week

• Tuesday: Buffalo @ Miami (OH). These teams are tied, only a game behind 1st and half a game behind 2nd, so they need this one for the conference standings. Unfortunately for them, the other game tonight is first-place Ohio playing last-place Akron, so the loser of Buffalo/Miami is going to be 2 games back with 3 games remaining.

• Wednesday: Central Michigan @ Eastern Michigan, which isn’t a great game, but the others are terrible. Both of these teams have 5 losses, so if bowl games still matter, this is important for both of them to have a chance at bowl eligibility.

• Thursday: James Madison @ Southern Miss, which should be a blowout, but so should JMU’s last 2 weeks.

• Friday: Virginia Tech @ SMU. Virginia Tech has been inconsistent, but so has SMU, and both are a little outside the ACC title hunt but could still conceivably make it.

• Saturday Noon: BYU @ Utah, by far the biggest game of the week. A major rivalry, the top two teams in the conference, and major playoff implications.

• Saturday Afternoon: Alabama @ LSU. Given their remaining schedule, it’s unlikely Alabama will drop another game (@ Vandy, vs UTC, vs Auburn), while it’s very likely that LSU will drop another game (vs Texas, @ UT, @ Arkansas). A win plus not choking will basically guarantee Alabama a playoff spot at 10-2, while a loss would nearly eliminate LSU as-is, and another loss would absolutely do it.

• Saturday Primetime: Miami @ ND. Both of these teams are a bit shakier than their combined 15-1 record might indicate, but this is still a huge matchup.

• Saturday Late Night: either Texas State @ Oregon State or Wyoming @ UNLV. Both games feature teams fighting for a distant second behind Boise State and New Mexico in their conferences, but all 4 teams in these matchups are playing for conference championship berths.

Yet Another Discussion of Luck

I have on numerous occasions written about the luck some of us are getting, so here I’ll take a brief look at how the football gods have decided to reward Bob at the expense of the rest of us.

The top 3 are gaining ground on the pack, as indicated by our clinching of playoff spots, but within that top 3, Bob has had a tremendous run over the past 3 weeks. Based on our lineups, this should have been an extremely close matchup: the projected points based on pre-game spreads would have Dylan at the lowest, +419, followed by me at +559 and Bob at +568. The outcome has been very different from that, as you can see here:

Bob has gained 176 points on me (vs an expected 9) and 270 on Dylan (vs an expected 149); he’s +143 ATS, which is the equivalent of 1 field goal per game for every spot for all 3 weeks. And because he’s finished 1st among the 3 of us all 3 weeks, he’s gaining ground in match play while we’re splitting the match play points and pod-winner bonuses.

And he may try to pull the sympathy card and lament that his one loss in that span came when he finished 2nd in the week and only lost to the overall winner, Jacob. Don’t be fooled: he’s already clinched his pod’s bye, so it doesn’t matter for playoff standings, and that loss meant that Jacob took the Orange pod winner’s bonus point, which helps him against me and Dylan.

In short, I hate this game and I hate his luck.