Similar Teams To This Year's Rose, Orange and Sugar Bowl Participants
By Jason Lisk
So today, I’ll start with the 6 teams that are playing in the Rose, Orange, and Sugar Bowls. It wouldn’t take me long to run any other bowl team, so we’ll just see if you think this is interesting enough to spend more time on or not.
ROSE BOWL
WISCONSIN BADGERS (11-2, Big Ten Champion)
Bret Bielema came from the Kansas State coaching staff, from the Bill Snyder tree. Interesting, then, that this year’s Wisconsin team rates most similarly to two Snyder incarnations from a decade ago. In fact, while the Badgers are the Big Ten Champions, they bear a strong resemblance to several Big XII squads from the early part of the last decade, before the spread offense proliferation in the conference, when guys like Ell Roberson and Eric Crouch were playing for those teams. Of course, last year’s Badgers team also shows up in the top five.
OREGON DUCKS (11-2, Pac-10 Champion)
It may be the Rose Bowl between Pac-10 and Big Ten, but if Wisconsin was the Big XII from a decade ago, the Oregon Ducks represent the Big XII from the last five years. An amazing 8 of the Oregon Ducks’ top comps are Big XII teams from last 13 years, with the other two being West Virginia teams. If you want a hypothetical test of older Big XII versus newer spread offense Big XII, Oregon vs. Wisconsin is your game.
ORANGE BOWL
CLEMSON TIGERS (9-3, Atlantic Coast Conference Champion)
The Clemson Tigers are high scoring, but allow a lot of points. The strength of schedule wasn’t great in this year’s Atlantic Coast Conference, so their similar teams show up as a mix of BCS teams with 3-4 losses, and some high end non-BCS schools like Utah and Louisville who played decent schedules.
WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS (9-3, Big East Champion)
I’m not sure you could get a bowl game where the two teams are more similar. The top two most similar teams are the same, and the two Orange Bowl opponents share 7 similar teams. The ones they don’t share are just as interesting, as West Virginia from the Big East, with a slightly weaker strength of schedule. Louisiana Tech in 1999, a team that lost at top 10 teams Florida State and Texas A&M and won at Alabama, is an interesting team, and it shows the proliferation of bowl games that a decade ago a team like that didn’t even get a bowl game, while West Virginia is in the Orange Bowl with a similar profile in 2011.
VIRGINIA TECH HOKIES (10-2, Atlantic Coast Conference At-Large)
Now here is a really interesting one. Virginia Tech was a bizarre choice for a BCS at-large. Their profile was basically one without any top wins, and they lost both times to Clemson. It is interesting when we strip away their name, and see that 6 of their 10 most comparable teams were not in BCS conferences at the time, and were pretty good (but not great) non-BCS teams that played in bowl games like the Liberty and Las Vegas bowls. Virginia Tech played a mediocre schedule, and has a low points scored and low point differential for a BCS participant, but the list of comparables show it was a strange choice. If they wanted a team that looked like a non-BCS team when we strip away the jersey, they could have gone with the better one: Boise State.
MICHIGAN WOLVERINES (10-2, Big Ten Conference At-Large)
Despite arguments against Michigan getting a BCS at-large, they actually do fit the profile of teams that are selected. Their comps show a bunch of name programs from big conferences with 9-3 and 10-2 type seasons. They also bear a resemblance to older Big XII teams Texas and Nebraska. You might recall that was the Nebraska team that was gifted the title game despite getting blasted by Colorado, and Michigan to the Sugar is perfectly reasonable compared to that decision.
So, that’s it for now. Let me know if this is worth my time or if you thought it was a colossal waste of time, and maybe I’ll do some more over the next month.
[photo via Getty]