PrepForce Q&A Round 2

[PrepGridiron]

We will kick it off here with PrepForce.com at 7PM EDT. 

For those curious about the inner workings of his poll, you can revisit PrepForce's Q&A from which provides some insights:

 

[PrepGridiron]

Hopefully @PrepForce is on and we can get this started. 

Let's get the real question out of the way first:

Did you expect PrepGridiron to win the Expert Pick Em' in their first year?

[PrepForce]

5 minutes ago, PrepGridiron said:

Hopefully @PrepForce is on and we can get this started. 

Let's get the real question out of the way first:

Did you expect PrepGridiron to win the Expert Pick Em' in their first year?

I knew you guys had a good chance. There is a good national base of fans here so I knew if you guys took a group approach you would do well. I am still mad to give up the title. I am just happy to still have the overall pick % record of the long illustrious contest!

[PrepGridiron]

A lot of controversy this year with the national polls, since you are the one to come on here and answer, we are going to ask you directly:

Why did you choose to give NS the title?

[PrepForce]

There are a few reasons. One the play on the field showed they deserved it. The complaints about thier schedule are ridiculous. I like out of state games as much as anyone and wish they would've play a big one but to say they played patsies until the final game shows you have a bias against Texas. They beat Katy twice. Katy was a good team that never got national recognition after they lost to North Shore to open the season and then lost to them again in the third round of the playoffs. If this year showed anything it was that it was hard to beat a good team twice and North Shore did it twice by double digits. They also beat the brakes off West Brook, who gave Longview all they wanted in the title game and Lake Travis. Then they beat Duncanville who was clear the 2nd best team in the state.

They are also loaded with talent especially on offense. Their skill guys can match up with any team in the country. Zachary Evans is maybe the top RB in the country regardless of class and Shadrach Banks is a superstar as well. Dematrius Davis will sign with one of the big Texas schools when all is said and done. They are big up front and have speed all over the place. The defense is not as impressive but it has plenty of FBS players to get the job done. I am not saying they have the most pure talent of any team in the country but they aren't outmatched by anyone.  

[PrepGridiron]

The corollary then, is why did you choose not to give MD the title?

[PrepForce]

6 minutes ago, PrepGridiron said:

The corollary then, is why did you choose not to give MD the title?

There was something I just couldn't get past. I talked to other respected people and asked a simple question. If Mater Dei played St. John Bosco and IMG again on a neutral field where it wasn't 1:30 AM EST during crunch time would Mater Dei win both games. Nobody I talked to thought they would and I agree.  The Monarchs earned the right to be ranked in the final poll above those two but I am not sure they were better. How could I give a national title to a team that given that. Based on all that North Shore was an easy lose no sleep choice. If Duncanville would've won then it becomes much harder because of the schedule but I am not sure I could've got past the reason above for MD. 

[PrepGridiron]

Just now, PrepForce said:

There was something I just couldn't get past. I talked to other respected people and asked a simple question. If Mater Dei played St. John Bosco and IMG again on a neutral field where it wasn't 1:30 AM EST during crunch time would Mater Dei win both games. Nobody I talked to thought they would and I agree.  The Monarchs earned the right to be ranked in the final poll above those two but I am not sure they were better. How could I give a national title to a team that given that. Based on all that North Shore was an easy lose no sleep choice. If Duncanville would've won then it becomes much harder because of the schedule but I am not sure I could've got past the reason above for MD. 

That's fair and I often ask myself the same question. If IMG doesn't lose those two players, do they win? We will never know the answer to these, but I think they are fair to pose when analyzing.

All that begs the question, why was Duncanville 5 and not 2:

[PrepForce]

5 minutes ago, PrepGridiron said:

That's fair and I often ask myself the same question. If IMG doesn't lose those two players, do they win? We will never know the answer to these, but I think they are fair to pose when analyzing.

All that begs the question, why was Duncanville 5 and not 2:

It is a question I pondered over a lot. If you read my poll you will know that when teams play to a "draw/really close game" during the year I like to keep them together. For example to me IMG and MD were equal based on how the game played out. I am a big believer in home field advantage so when a team goes on the road and barely loses I don't think the home team is necessarily better. MD and SJB obviously split so I am not necessarily daisy chaining it but I am comfortable saying MD, SJB and IMG and close enough to put them together. I believe that MD earned the right to be ranked above the others at the end of the year but that doesn't necessarily mean they are better. The group of 3 teams earned the right to be ranked higher based on their schedule since they all had 1 loss. North Shore would've been harder to justify in a schedule matchup against those 3 because it was better. Doesn't mean I think Duncanville goes 0-3 vs them if they play. (*will go into this more below). If you read my picks going into the final week I hinted that the Texas winner either jumps to 1 or stays at 4 for that reason. I felt the same way about Miami Central, Carol City and St. John's which is why they stay together. I don't see how you can really break them up. We can argue that they all may be worse than I ranked them but there isn't 10 spots or whatever between them.

* Just want to give this insight to what I thought about the college playoff teams to give more insight to my line of thinking. If you would've asked me to say who I thought the best 4 teams are at the end of the year UGA would've been one of them. I did not think Notre Dame was one of the four best teams but I do think they earned the ranking that got them in. UGA had their playoff game versus Bama and they lost so with that being their second loss they didn't earn it.

[PrepGridiron]

Last questions before we open it up to the feeding sharks

How do you view algo polls that had MD ranked higher?

[PrepForce]

7 minutes ago, PrepGridiron said:

Last questions before we open it up to the feeding sharks

How do you view algo polls that had MD ranked higher?

I think there has to be a human element to the HSFB poll. I think Jeff does a wonderful job with his poll but inherently all algos start from somewhere and that somewhere in HSFB matters. The CalPreps poll is obviously to bias to California teams. I am friends with one of the guys that had one of the old BCS computer polls. Its obviously an algo and we have talked before. His poll like most started from previous years results. He said he wouldn't even begin to trust his poll until week 9. It was at that point he thought there was enough data points with enough teams playing each other that he could start to get to a conclusion. That is a poll with essentially 130 teams (although he did calculate FCS a bit) that actually play each other. In HSFB there simply aren't enough data points to over come biases.

You could say human polls have bias and preseason rankings matter. I can only speak for myself but I have no bias to any state or region.I do realize some areas are hotbeds and consistently produce talent but I do not favor one of those over another from year to year.  If anything you could say I have a bias to teams that get transfers but that is most great teams now with some doing it much more than others. 

[PrepGridiron]

Now that the floor is open, I'll still kick it off 

I am not sure how much you visit or peruse this site, but there are a lot of running themes (some real and some manufactured by members but even the manufactured ones probably have a little bit of half truth to them). Anyways, I wanted to get your take on some of these themes. 

First, Georgia has had some poor showings in high visibility games beginning with the game that coined the phrase Norcrossed and the two Geico championship games; do you think Georgia gets unfairly treated because of these games?

De La Salle now has not won a state championship in three years and has not performed well out of state, do you think they will have a chance to return to the lofty heights in the late 90's early aughts? 

[Columbiafan]

i do have a question

i remember at the very beginning of the season when Columbia was playing (and destroying IMG) during the preseason FL game and during the process of the game you came out directly and said IMG just lost their number 1 spot

 

Did you get any moaning or groaning from people based on that decision when people were split on how much stock should be placed into that game and what convinced you that was the right choice to make?  (btw i was in full support of the choice I'm just curious what convinced you to do so from your standpoint) 

 

 

[LiberalDonaldTrump]

If colquit county won would you have given them the MNC

[HawgGoneIt]

Just wanting to get a reiteration from @PrepForce as he sort of touched on it over a couple of posts in a line. I'm just trying to read between the lines... 

You appeared to basically say the Algo's are/have been sort of biased against Texas. 

Of course having so many Cali schools in the top 25 to start the year definitely created a "bubble" that wasn't to be overcome due to your "not enough data points" mention. That should have been obvious to Ray Charles. 

 

[PrepForce]

6 minutes ago, PrepGridiron said:

Now that the floor is open, I'll still kick it off 

I am not sure how much you visit or peruse this site, but there are a lot of running themes (some real and some manufactured by members but even the manufactured ones probably have a little bit of half truth to them). Anyways, I wanted to get your take on some of these themes. 

First, Georgia has had some poor showings in high visibility games beginning with the game that coined the phrase Norcrossed and the two Geico championship games; do you think Georgia gets unfairly treated because of these games?

De La Salle now has not one a state championship in three years and has not performed well out of state, do you think they will have a chance to return the lofty heights in the late 90's early aughts? 

I wouldn't say Georgia gets unfairly treated. Their early season OOS losses did hurt this year no doubt. I probably had Colquitt County ranked lower than most national polls because I just didn't see it. It was not a bias as I think my history shows. On the flip side I had Milton ranked before any poll I believe because they did have a great OOS win. Milton and CC also fall into my close game group thinking as you can see by the final poll.

I will never right off any program. I do think the consolidation of talent in Southern California is going to make it very hard for DLS though.

[PrepForce]

9 minutes ago, Columbiafan said:

i do have a question

i remember at the very beginning of the season when Columbia was playing (and destroying IMG) during the preseason FL game and during the process of the game you came out directly and said IMG just lost their number 1 spot

 

Did you get any moaning or groaning from people based on that decision when people were split on how much stock should be placed into that game and what convinced you that was the right choice to make?  (btw i was in full support of the choice I'm just curious what convinced you to do so from your standpoint) 

 

 

I do not put a lot of importance into preseason/very early polls. I understood it was a preseason game but it was worthy of concern to drop them a little.

[Columbiafan]

1 minute ago, PrepForce said:

I wouldn't say Georgia gets unfairly treated. Their early season OOS losses did hurt this year no doubt. I probably had Colquitt County ranked lower than most national polls because I just didn't see it. It was not a bias as I think my history shows. On the flip side I had Milton ranked before any poll I believe because they did have a great OOS win. Milton and CC also fall into my close game group thinking as you can see by the final poll.

I will never right off any program. I do think the consolidation of talent in Southern California is going to make it very hard for DLS though.

DLS will eventually win another state title but i honestly think in todays game it will be impossible for any team in a power state to win 151 games in a row

 

game has changed since that streak happened

[PrepForce]

8 minutes ago, LiberalDonaldTrump said:

If colquit county won would you have given them the MNC

No. 

[PrepForce]

8 minutes ago, HawgGoneIt said:

Just wanting to get a reiteration from @PrepForce as he sort of touched on it over a couple of posts in a line. I'm just trying to read between the lines... 

You appeared to basically say the Algo's are/have been sort of biased against Texas. 

Of course having so many Cali schools in the top 25 to start the year definitely created a "bubble" that wasn't to be overcome due to your "not enough data points" mention. That should have been obvious to Ray Charles. 

 

Yes correct. Not playing OOS I believe makes it very hard for the algos to rank Texas teams. If there was a TexPreps with a Texas bias I am sure a Texas team would win that title every year. 

[PrepGridiron]

You were lower than most on Hoban. Any reason why?

[HawgGoneIt]

6 minutes ago, PrepForce said:

No. 

That was short, and painful. Hahaha

I want to expand on  the question line if you don't mind...

Had Colquitt won over Milton, and then went on to win over SFA in the GEICO game, would the consideration have been longer than that short "No."?

[Columbiafan]

when doing preseason rankings or even during the season what is the biggest thing you look at when deciding how high a team should be ranked?

[HawgGoneIt]

1 minute ago, HawgGoneIt said:

That wss short, and painful. Hahaha

I want to expand on  the question line if you don't mind...

Had Colquitt won over Milton, and then went on to win over SFA in the GEICO game, would the consideration have been longer than that short "No."?

I guess this is me asking...

How valuable ia this GEICO series in the polls? Or at least the Prepforce poll 

[PrepGridiron]

You had several teams in Florida ranked high including Carol City, Central and STA (all of whom didn't win their state championship) as well as Lakeland. What made you so high on FL this year?