Part of setting point spreads, fair on not, relies on composite recruiting rankings of key players, even if their recruitment was years ago, generally ignoring player development. I saw somewhere that a statistical analysis of the two rosters had Oregon top 10 in the nation and IU 70-ish.
Coaching matters, scheme matters, player development matters, but computers have a hard time taking in what your own eyeballs tell you to be true.
If we continue to outperform our composite recruiting rankings, Cig should get more 4 and 5-star guys and the program will continue to live with the big boys, long term.
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
@gros-louis FPI does not rank FCS teams, so they dont factor in at all
@yothn so that's a yes on basing it on the UCLA game? I understand what you are saying, but Oregon and Penn State's rosters didn't suddenly become devoid of great players because they haven't played a good schedule. PSU obviously has questions to answer, but it's safe to assume Oregon is a good team loaded with good athletes, playing at home. The good news is it doesn't matter what anyone's ranked. Looking forward to watching the game!
@kkott For me its not that they are devoid of great players based on the fact that they haven't played tough opponents. Its that the games they have played against any opponent have all been way less than impressive. Penn State was dropping in rankings even though they were undefeated because they did not look good at all in their early season games. We crowned Oregon as elite after beating PSU because we assumed Penn State would still run the table to OSU.....but now we are needing to reconsider the idea that those early games where PSU looked bad might've just told us that this PSU team isn't very good. In that case, we need to look back and say the verdict is still out on Oregon.
National pundits are crowning Oregon as an elite title contender, and they truly may be. What I am saying is that since Penn State is proving to be a paper tiger (not an elite team), we have to go back to that game and grade Oregon with a "?" accordingly. Just like most are for IU even though we beat Illinois by 50.
If IU wins, people will need to either recalibrate how good Oregon is or how great IU is, but with each game, we get a better picture of how good these teams truly are. Based on what I have seen so far, Oregon certainly looks to be good. Are they great, or are they a double OT win by 3 vs a mediocre PSU team level good? That is what we will soon find out. What I am saying is IU vs better competition.....has arguably performed better. That could be meaningless or it could justify why IU goes into Autzen and walks away as the winner.
@kkott For me its not that they are devoid of great players based on the fact that they haven't played tough opponents. Its that the games they have played against any opponent have all been way less than impressive. Penn State was dropping in rankings even though they were undefeated because they did not look good at all in their early season games. We crowned Oregon as elite after beating PSU because we assumed Penn State would still run the table to OSU.....but now we are needing to reconsider the idea that those early games where PSU looked bad might've just told us that this PSU team isn't very good. In that case, we need to look back and say the verdict is still out on Oregon.
National pundits are crowning Oregon as an elite title contender, and they truly may be. What I am saying is that since Penn State is proving to be a paper tiger (not an elite team), we have to go back to that game and grade Oregon with a "?" accordingly. Just like most are for IU even though we beat Illinois by 50.
If IU wins, people will need to either recalibrate how good Oregon is or how great IU is, but with each game, we get a better picture of how good these teams truly are. Based on what I have seen so far, Oregon certainly looks to be good. Are they great, or are they a double OT win by 3 vs a mediocre PSU team level good? That is what we will soon find out.
We really need to get rid of this line of thinking and convert to the SEC line of thinking.
Penn State losing doesn't make them bad...it makes UCLA just as awesome and shows how truly deep our conference is from top to bottom.
So Oregon is awesome, Penn State is awesome and now UCLA is awesome. 
They should all be top 10 now.
@kkott For me its not that they are devoid of great players based on the fact that they haven't played tough opponents. Its that the games they have played against any opponent have all been way less than impressive. Penn State was dropping in rankings even though they were undefeated because they did not look good at all in their early season games. We crowned Oregon as elite after beating PSU because we assumed Penn State would still run the table to OSU.....but now we are needing to reconsider the idea that those early games where PSU looked bad might've just told us that this PSU team isn't very good. In that case, we need to look back and say the verdict is still out on Oregon.
National pundits are crowning Oregon as an elite title contender, and they truly may be. What I am saying is that since Penn State is proving to be a paper tiger (not an elite team), we have to go back to that game and grade Oregon with a "?" accordingly. Just like most are for IU even though we beat Illinois by 50.
If IU wins, people will need to either recalibrate how good Oregon is or how great IU is, but with each game, we get a better picture of how good these teams truly are. Based on what I have seen so far, Oregon certainly looks to be good. Are they great, or are they a double OT win by 3 vs a mediocre PSU team level good? That is what we will soon find out. What I am saying is IU vs better competition.....has arguably performed better. That could be meaningless or it could justify why IU goes into Autzen and walks away as the winner.
I think the idea that Penn State isn't good now is a dangerous one. As good as expected? Probably not.
In my opinion, they had a severe hangover from losing their biggest game of the season in dramatic fashion, didn't respect their opponent, had to travel to a sleepy environment and it took them awhile to wake up and play well...which they eventually did, but after it was too late.
They'll handle Northwestern this weekend and then @Iowa will tell us if they've recovered or not.
And they were pretty much always going to lose at The Shoe...now the manner in which they do it will maybe tell us something too.
@yothn I think you're making a ton of sense. But to reiterate a point I keep making... if IU doesn't improve how they handle crowd noise... its pretty difficult to quantify how much better they'd need to be to beat Oregon. I think IU is more than a little bit better overall football team than Iowa is. Probably beat them by close to 30 in Bloomington amounts better. But when you give a B10 level roster the ability to time snaps... it changes everything.
I think Indiana is a better overall football team than Oregon. But that doesn't mean I think Indiana is going to win on Saturday. Until they handle that type of environment well, I'll just have to see it, to believe it.
@gros-louis - Penn State misses Tyler Warren. They simply aren't showing to be the same offensive team without him on the field.
@hoosierdaddy I understand your overall point but the difficulty of playing at Williams-Brice versus Autzen Stadium is quite a large gulf...counting 2020, the yard chickens have lost 13 games at home. In that same time span, Oregon has lost 1. Autzen Stadium is not just a tough venue, it is one of the most difficult places to win in the entire country.
How does Kinnick compare to Autzen? It is significantly larger and known to be a very tough environment.
@hoosierdaddy I understand your overall point but the difficulty of playing at Williams-Brice versus Autzen Stadium is quite a large gulf...counting 2020, the yard chickens have lost 13 games at home. In that same time span, Oregon has lost 1. Autzen Stadium is not just a tough venue, it is one of the most difficult places to win in the entire country.
True, but a lot of that is down to the team on the field. If Phil Knight went to USC it would be other way around. I don't think Oregon fans are wilder than South Carolina fans or some other fanbases.
But, Autzen is definitely loud and somewhere in the top-10 or 15 noisiest places to play. IU won't be able to hear on offense.
@tjinman1987 I was referring more to the noise level, Williams-Brice reaches higher decibel levels than Autzen (believe its the 3rd loudest stadium after Tennessee & Washington).
As to the comment earlier on the team ratings, our composite ranking is #72 - but you have to keep in mind they do not re-rate players. That ranking counts Mendoza as a 2*, Sarratt as a 0* etc. Obviously, those guys are way better than that. When people refer to the "bluechip ratio" (only teams whose roster was at least 50% 4*/5* have won a title) its a bygone era with the transfer portal. You can bring in guys who were 0*s in high school and would be re-rated a bluechip
@iugradman Kinnick topped out at 119 decibels, Autzen topped out at 127 decibels. Both are very loud. The record at Alabama's stadium for comparison is 113. Kinnick is also much bigger than Autzen, Autzen is a small stadium (about the same size as ours), its just built for max sound
The consistency of measurement with the decibel readings is a bit suspect.
It seems Oregon does a lot of self promotion with their stadium. Autzen is loud and the fans are very close to the field, but it is a fairly open stadium and I just can't imagine it being much louder than somewhere like Kinnick. And I definitely don't think it's louder than the big places with wild ass fans like LSU and Tennessee, or the big places with kinda wild fans like PSU and Ohio State.
Frankly, once you can't hear you can't hear, and that will be the case. The bigger issue is the very good team that calls Autzen home.
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