Bleacher Report - Articles by Matt H

Pre-Season Hype: Teams That Will Not Meet Expectations

Matt H — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:41:40 -0400

The preseason poll has become an institution in college football. We've all seem them, read them, and many of us have created them.

But preseason polls rarely live up to their hype. Only 10 teams have been ranked the preseason No. 1 and won a National Championship.

With that in mind, there are several teams that appear in the top 25 that are just not going to live up to the hype this year and are going to under-perform.

The preseason rankings used in this article are an average of 23 professionally produced preseason polls. These polls range from Rivals.com to ESPN to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

So what will make a team under-perform this year? Two words: offensive line. That's right, the most important positions, after the QB of course, are on the offensive line. Games are won in the trenches with experienced offensive lines.

With that being said, here are the teams that are currently ranked in the pre-season top 25 that are NOT going to be ranked that high by the seasons end or will disappoint.

Ranking	Team	O-line Career Starts
3	Oklahoma	32
11	Penn State	39
12	Boise State	40
13	Oregon	20
23	Kansas	26
25	BYU	23

To put those numbers in perspective, the average team going into the 2009 College Football Season has 65 career starts on their Offensive line. Oregon has the third least experienced line in the country and Oklahoma loses 100 career starts from last year.

Teams that are going to perform better or at their level include Virginia Tech with 90 starts, USC with 91, Oklahoma State with 91, Texas with 91, Georgia with 99, Notre Dame with 100, Iowa with 99, Florida State with 89, and East Carolina with 114.

ACC Has Proof It's the Finest Conference, Nail-Biting Season Will Only Help Case

Matt H — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:03:16 -0400

Last year, the ACC was the best conference in college football by just about every single metric.

Utilizing the Fremeau Efficiency Index (or FEI), we can gauge how effective teams were last year in their Offense and Defense and adjust their efficiency based on strength of schedule. The FEI is the most comprehensive college football statistic that is available.

In terms of offensive efficiency, the ACC finished last year with the second most efficient offense after adjusting for opponents. That is incredible considering how defensive-minded the ACC is.

Conference	Average Offensive Rank
Big XII	35
ACC	42
Big East	51
SEC	56
Big Ten	57
Pac-10	60
MWC	66

The Adjusted Defensive Efficiency is even better. The ACC was home to the most dominant defenses last year.

Conference	Average Defensive Rank
ACC	26
SEC	34
Big East	37
Big Ten	45
Pac-10	54
MWC	65
Big XII	71

Combining the two metrics to find just how efficient the Offenses and Defenses were, we find that the ACC was the best conference in 2008.

Conference	Average FEI Rank
ACC	15
SEC	18
Big XII	40
Big East	42
Pac-10	47
Big Ten	66
MWC	8

So what does the ACC have to look forward to this upcoming season? First, it looks like the ACC is going to be another coin toss, with no real front-runner emerging in the preseason.

Many analysts have picked Virginia Tech to take home the conference title, but the real situation is much murkier.

First, Virginia Tech is going to be in quite a race with Georgia Tech to win the Coastal Division. Georgia Tech's offense was incredible last year, and that was without a functional passing game. The 2009 season looks even more promising, as coach Paul Johnson has really refined their offense this offseason.

The winner of the Coastal Division should be decided when the two meet head to head in October.

The Atlantic Division is also going to be quite a race. Florida State looks to field a team that is overflowing with talent on the offensive side of the ball and is ranked in the preseason polls for first time in several years. But the dark horse of the conference lurks in the Atlantic Division, and that is Clemson.

Look for the Tigers to really catch people by surprise. As much as Clemson was overrated in the preseason last year, that's how much Clemson is underrated in the preseason this year. Watch for Clemson to be similar to Ole Miss this year and catch a lot of people with their pants down.

Overall, the conference looks much like it has in years past: a very defensive-minded conference with some serious big guns emerging on offenses for the first time in several years.

Look out for another nail-biter in the final race to the ACC championship.

The UFC: Positioning Itself for an Anti-Trust Lawsuit

Matt H — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:15:11 -0400

The UFC has really made waves recently with its business tactics and could be opening itself up to litigation under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act has been a staple of the free markets for over 120 years now. Two sections really define behavior that kills competition and a free marketplace.

Section One deals with two entities engaging in anti-competitive behavior. This generally involves price-fixing, market-division agreements, etc.

Section Two deals with one entity acting alone that has acted to either increase or maintain its monopoly. Being a monopoly is not necessarily illegal, but being a monopoly and engaging in anti-competitive behavior is.

Microsoft recently came under fire of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act because it was hindering competition in the Internet Browser software market, AT&T was split up due to violations of Section Two, etc.

Google is a perfect example of a monopoly that does not engage in anti-competitive behavior, in fact, Google actually encourages it.

The UFC recently though, has really begun to act in ways that are very anti-competitive.

These practices include counter-programing other promotions, banning specific clothing companies from advertising, threatening to ban any fighter who signs an agreement to appear in the EA MMA video game, having fighters sign exclusive image rights agreements, and supposed recruiting of other organizations' fighters.

Given the market share that the UFC has and the track-record of anti-competitive behavior, I wouldn't be suprised if an anti-trust lawsuit is waiting for Zuffa down the road.

UFC and Fighter Pay: By the Numbers

Matt H — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:00:25 -0400

Since the additional bans on T-shirt sponsors, the issue of fighters' pay has increasingly been brought up. Fighter pay has been a hot button issue since the UFC acquired PRIDE FC in 2007 with many people claiming that fighter pay is not up to par.

Unfortunately no one has access to fighters' individual contracts. Luckily though there was a very public court battle with the one of the UFC's biggest stars over this very issue. Using the publicly available data and utilizing several assumptions, we can estimate fighter pay for main event fighters. It should be noted that these assumptions are very broad—they are difficult to do because of the ever changing pay scale and very individual. However, there are several key factors that are similar across many fighters.

Assumption No. 1: The longer you are in the promotion, the more you get paid

This assumption is easiest to demonstrate with Lyoto Machida since he has had so many fights in the UFC and is also not a winner of The Ultimate Fighter. All numbers are in thousands and are represented as pay to show/win bonus.

UFC 67 vs. Sam Hoger (w) - $18/$18

UFC 70 vs. David Heath (w) - $20/$20

UFC 76 vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura (w) - $25/$25

UFC 79 vs. Sokoudjou (w) - $30/$30

UFC 84 vs. Tito Ortiz (w) - $50/$50

UFC 94 vs. Thiago Silva (w) - $60/$60

UFC 98 vs. Rashad Evans (w) - $70/$70

Lyota Machida is undefeated in the UFC, what happens when we pick a fighter who has lost in the UFC?

Nate Marquardt

Ultimate Fight Night vs. Ivan Salaverry (August 2005, W) - $10/$10

UFC 58 vs. Joe Doerksen (w) - $15/$15

UFC Fight Night vs. Dean Lister (Jan 2007, W) - $22/$22

UFC 73 vs. Anderson Silva (L) - $24/$24

UFC 81 vs. Jeremy Horn (w) - $26/$26

UFC 85 vs. Thales Leites (L) - --/--

UFC 88 vs. Martin Kampmann (w) - $28/$28

UFC 95 vs. Wilson Gouveia (w) - --/--

Again, even though Marquart has two losses, his salary still increased after both losses. These advances in pay can also be reflective of a changing UFC environment. Fighter pay is getting better, albiet slowly. Even if fighters lose.

Assumption No. 2: Contracts have a champion clause

It seems to be public knowledge that the UFC has a champions clause for fighters who win the belt. Generally, this would mean that a fighter's contract gets extended indefinitely as long as they hold the belt. I would argue that each fighter also has another clause that guarantees better pay.

Rashad Evans

UFC 88 vs. Chuck Liddell (w) - $60/$60

UFC 92 vs. Forest Griffin (w) - $65/$65

UFC 98 vs. Lyoto Machida (first fight as champion, L) - $200/$200

Quinton Jackson

UFC 67 vs. Marvin Eastman (w) - $85/$85

UFC 71 vs. Chuck Liddell (w) - $112/$112

UFC 75 vs. Dan Henderson (first fight as champion, W) - --/--

UFC 86 vs. Forrest Griffin (L) $225/$225

Big Nog

UFC 73 vs. Heath Herring (w) - $100/$100

UFC 81 vs. Tim Sylvia (w) - $100/$100

UFC 92 vs. Frank Mir (first fight as champion, L) - $250/$250

Assumption No. 3: Champions get a cut of the pay-per-view revenue

This assumption is quite broad, and I'm sure there are many fighters who are not champions, who get cuts of the pay-per-view revenue (see Chuck Liddell). For simplicity sake, we will assume that all champions get a cut of the pay-per-view revenue on their very next fight since they obviously were not champions when they won the belt. If we make this assumption, it is no longer a question of if they get a cut of the PPV, but rather how much. Since this factor is not in the disclosed fighters purses, we can only use the precedent set forth by Randy Couture.

In the publicly available court documents, Randy Couture was payed $787,500 in PPV revenue for UFC 68. Since UFC 68 did approximately 485,000 buys, Couture's cut of the PPV is 4.0%. This will be the baseline for all UFC champions who defend their belt.

Forrest Griffin loses to Rashad Evans - $1.8 million

Quinton Jackson loses to Forrest Griffin - $0.972 million

Rashad Evans loses to Lyoto Machida - $1.143 million

Big Nog loses to Frank Mir - $1.8 million

Georges St. Pierre defeats Jon Fitch - $1.125 million

Georges St. Pierre defeats BJ Penn - $1.44 million

A quick word about fighter pay. The official purses that are disclosed by the UFC show serious discrepancies, and fans have every right to question the UFC's pay scale. Disclosed fighter purses and the court documents from Randy Couture's court case are the only available public data where we can guess how much a fighter in the UFC is paid. Winners are paid more, and champions are paid even more.

While Nate Marquardt's purses seem small, they do not reflect bonuses, sponsorships, endorsements, payments for being a sparring partner, other pay from the UFC, royalties for use of his image, etc.

Ultimately all you can do is make your own assumptions about fighter pay, but if the UFC's other payouts are similar in size to purses, it's safe to assume the UFC does not pay their fighters very well, unless you are a champion.

So The O-Line Actually Matters?

Matt H — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:53:40 -0400

Last season Clemson started out strong. It was their year to return to national prominence.

Armed with an excellent preseason ranking, they were going to start the season guns ablazing and lay waste to Alabama.

And then something went wrong. Horribly wrong.

No one expected Clemson to have the season they did. After all, so many highly touted, knowledgeable, and experienced football gurus had them having a dream year. How could so many people have been wrong?

For starters, Clemson did not have the experience in their offensive line. With less than 40 combined career starts between the five on the line, Clemson was just not set up to be as successful as they should have been.

You can call it the coaching, but you can't coach experience.

The offensive line is really what carries the offense. Having a great running back, a phenomenal quarterback, receivers who are stellar, etc. doesn't mean anything when there are no holes for a running back to run through or no time for a quarterback to let routes develop and make good choices.

Offensive linemen really are the unsung heroes football. Without them, the offense really has to get through hell to be able to perform.

Sam Bradford is another product of a stellar offensive line. Sure, Bradford had the receivers, but he also benefited from having the most experienced offensive line in college football last year. With 131 combined career starts, Bradford had plenty of time to find his open guys.

Or look at Utah. With an offensive line with over 80 combined career starts last year, they seemed to blindside everyone who didn't understand the importance of the offensive line.

So who should go the route of Clemson and who should go the route of Utah this year?

For starters, Notre Dame is starting the season with 100 combined career starts. Out of the 120 teams in Division I football, the Fighting Irish have the 9th most experienced line.

Georgia struggled last year because they had less than 40 combined starts, but not this year. A team with 99 combined career starts (ranked 12th) in the trenches will be in major control of the line of scrimmage.

Texas will be another team that should put up gawdy numbers again this year. With 91 combined career starts, Texas is ranked 17th.

Teams who are going the route of Clemson last year? Try, Oklahoma (32 starts), Penn State (39 starts), Boise State (40 starts), Oregon (20 starts), and BYU (23 starts).

The teams who are going to go the route of Utah are Notre Dame (100 starts), Iowa (99 starts), Tennessee (80) if they can get their coaching together, Rutgers (90), and Michigan (76).

Here's a look at the top 25 teams in the preseason polls with the number of combined career starts for their offensive line as well as the ranking.

Preseason Rank	Team	Total Starts	Starts Ranking
1.	Florida	56	77th
2.	Texas	91	17th
3.	Oklahoma	32	107th
4.	So. California	91	18th
5.	Alabama	52	88th
6.	Oklahoma St	91	16th
7.	Ohio State	62	62nd
8.	Ole Miss	66	51st
9.	Va Tech	90	20th
10.	LSU	79	32nd
11.	Ga Tech	60	67th
12.	Penn State	39	103rd
13.	Georgia	99	12th
14.	Utah	74	38th
15.	Boise St	40	102nd
16.	California	74	38th
17.	Iowa	99	10th
18.	Florida St	89	22nd
19.	Oregon	20	118th
20.	Kansas	58	75th
21.	Texas Tech	59	72nd
22.	Pitt	63	60th
23.	UNC	66	53rd
24.	BYU	23	117th
25.	E. Carolina	114	3rd

Average starts: 65

Median starts: 63

College Football Bowl Games: The Statistical Aberration

Matt H — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:25:46 -0400

Football is such a beautifully simple game. Get the ball from one end of the field to the other. Then the other team gets the opportunity to. Rinse and repeat.

The regular season is even simpler. Generally, just twelve games, maybe a conference championship game, and a bowl game a few weeks later. Compared to any other major sport in the world, no sport has as few regular seasons games than football, especially college football. But there is an aberration in college football's regular season.

Fourteen consecutive weeks followed by a hiccup of a game three to five weeks after the season ends. Instead of seguing straight into the bowl games, the NCAA allows a month wait before one last game.

When comparing conferences, records, winning percentages, player statistics, just about everything, the bowl turns out to be a statistical aberration. One of these things is not like the other.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Fremeau Efficency Index (FEI) is one of the best indicators of offensive and defensive efficency. "The game of football is basically divided into individual series of play, offense versus defense," writes Brian Fremeau, the creator of the index. "A team on offense advances the ball until the series results in either a defensive stop (turnover, turnover on downs, punt, failed field goal, blocked kick, safety) or offensive score (field goal, touchdown), after which its opponent begins its own offensive series. This basic, alternating series structure is familiar to even the most novice fan..."

The efficiency rating is easy to understand as well. How would you quantify the effectiveness of an offensive drive? Well, divide the number of drives by the number of points. A perfect efficiency of 1.0 would mean that the offense scored a touchdown on every single offensive drive. An efficiency of 0.5 would mean that the offense scored a field goal on every single offensive drive.

How effective is the FEI at predicting the winners of a game based on their FEI? Try a 75 percent success rate in predicting the winner of EVERY SINGLE regular season game in last year's college football season. For over 600 games in Division I college football, the FEI correctly predicted the winner in three out of four games.

Of the 34 post-season bowl games, we could expect the FEI to correctly predict the winner in 25 of the 34 games. But a curious thing happened. The FEI only correctly predicted 16 out of the 34 bowls, only 47 percent.

How could that be? How could a system that was so accurate during the regular season completely breakdown during the bowl season? The FEI is not broken, it's not wrong, it's not a predictor because we KNOW it's one of the best (if not the best). So how could this happen?

The bowl season is the aberation, not the regular season. This is why any kind of meaningful analysis between teams, conferences, players, etc. HAS to exclude the bowl games.

Pound For Pound: Statistically Speaking

Matt H — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:59:12 -0500

Sherdog recently released their newest pound-for-pound rankings after Fedor's stunning KO over Andrei Arlovski and Georges St. Pierre's utter domination of BJ Penn. Their rankings have caused quite the stir amongst many in the MMA community.

For most people, the pound-for-pound rankings represent a sort of who's who of the MMA world. The athletes that frequent the top of the list represent the upper echelon of mixed martial artists in the world.

It's not about who has the best professional record. For many, it's who is able to utterly dominate their competition, as long as their competition is actually good.

Unfortunately, these rankings tend to be highly influenced by the subjective views of the one who does the rankings. A perfect example is BJ Penn, who moves up in a weight class to face another top pound for pound fighter in GSP.

Everyone thought this fight was going to be close, even the betting lines reflected this. Yet BJ Penn got beat, and not just beat, but utterly defeated. The fight was not even close by anyone's standard.

Penn's loss signifies that he is not as good as everyone thinks, if he were he could have at least put up a decent fight. He should have plummeted in the rankings because of his poor performance, but he did not.

Instead, he maintained the exact same place on the pound-for-pound list despite decisively losing a match that literally is the measure of a top pound-for-pound fighter, fighting outside your weight class.

This BJ Penn loss would then suggest that BJ's high ranking in the pound-for-pound list was and is inflated because of the subjective nature of the list.

Lucky for us, there is already a system in place to objectively rank fighters within, and across, weight classes and currently and all-time. This system is called Elo-Chess.

Elo-Chess

Fully understanding Elo-Chess is unnecessary. Instead, what's important is understanding that if a fighter wins, he gains points and if a fighter loses, he loses points. A simple philosophy with crystal clear results.

All fighters start at a ranking of 1500, so the farther above 1500 a fighter is, the better the fighter. Fighters with rankings of 1500-1700 are considered entry-level or journey fighters, fighters with rankings between 1700-1900 are considered mid-range fighters, and fighters with rankings above 1900 are generally considered the top fighters in the world.

Let's look at a fighter and see how they are. Chuck Liddell is a perfect example a fighter who at one time was considered one of the best fighters in the world, and by many, still is. Let's see if the numbers still show this. His current ranking is 1998 and the maximum ranking he had at one time was 2170. He definitely was and still is an elite fighter.

Another example is Travis Fulton, who has over 200 professional fights. Travis Fulton's current ranking is 1734 and his maximum ranking was 1853. He is just where we would expect him to be. This is because the number of points a fighter gets for winning or losing is dependent on the competition.

Beating a fighter with a higher ranking gives you more points and losing to a better fighters makes you lose less points.

Pound for Pound

The first table shows the top 10 fighters in the world, regardless of weight classes. These fighters have the highest rankings currently. Notice that BJ Penn is not on this list and remember, the ratings take into consideration a "strength of schedule."

So Fedor's submission of HongMan Choi was worth 0 points. Yes, he literally got nothing for fighting Hong Man Choi.

Fighter	Rating
Fedor Emelianenko	2285
Georgest St. Pierre	2203
Anderson Silva	2196
Thiago Alves	2115
Rashad Evans	2107
Shinya Aoki	2089
Quinton Jackson	2087
Jake Shields	2086
Lyoto Machida	2081
Josh Barnett	2080

As we can see, Fedor is clearly ahead of the next two top fighters and we have a great mixing of weight classes. We have two heavyweights, three light heavyweights, one middleweight, four welterweights, and one lightweight.

We can also see interesting matches that are going to take place in the near future. Fedor and Josh Barnett are scheduled to face off soon. GSP and Thiago Alves. and Rashad and Lyoto Machida. That's three fights in the next year between top pound for pound fighters.

All-Time Pound for Pound

All-time pound for pound fighters are another great way of looking at fighters in their prime. I often hear people say things such as, "If only he had fought so and so in his prime." Lucky for us, we can look at the top fighters of all time.

Fighter	Max Rating	Current Rating
Fedor Emelianenko	2285	2285
Georgest St. Pierre	2203	2203
Anderson Silva	2196	2196
Chuck Liddell	2170	1998
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira	2159	2072
Mirko Crocop	2126	1970
Quinton Jackson	2126	2087
Takanori Gomi	2121	1971
Matt Hughes	2120	1972
Wanderlei Silva	2118	1915

The top three all-time pound for pound fighters have remained the same, but the rest of the list looks very different. Notice that BJ Penn is not on this list (again!), which brings up a very interesting question: If BJ Penn is not on the current or all-time, where exactly is he?

BJ Penn and the Problem with Subjective Rankings

BJ Penn is the perfect argument against subjective ranking systems. BJ Penn's current rating is 1993 and his all-time rating is 2022 (he lost 29 points for losing to GSP).

Currently BJ Penn is not even in the top 25 Pound for Pound. Notable fighters who have higher ratings than him include Yushin Okami, Kenny Florian, Sean Sherk, Andre Arlovski, and John Fitch.

In terms of all-time pound for pound, BJ Penn doesn't rank in the top 25 either.

But Penn is a lightweight, so let's take a look at how he stands in the that division. Currently, he ranks seventh behind Shinya Aoki, Kenny Florian, Satoru Kitaoka, Sean Sherk, Gesias Calvancanti, and Jamie Varner in that order.

As far as an all-time lightweight, BJ Penn ranks 8th. BJ Penn is not even the best lightweight to ever fight.

This is the problem with subjective ranking systems and the problems with perception, and the storylines we are fed. We are constantly bombarded with tag lines like "The Most Important Fight EVER!" and "The Most Decisive Matchup of All Time!" and "The Fight of the Year!"

In the last three months, the UFC has billed three of it's cards as having the greatest fights of all time.

You see, promotions have to sell pay-per-views to stay afloat. And in order to do that, they have to convince us that what we are paying for is actually a product we should buy.

They do this by hyping the fight and the fighters up. The UFC does this, DREAM does this, Affliction does this, every promotion, large and small, hypes their fights and fighters.

Unfortunately, we were all victims of the hype machine in the BJ Penn/GSP fight that took place this past weekend. Penn/GSPII was to be the fight of our era, both of the fighters are to be heading to the UFC Hall of Fame, the most important fight of the year, ad nauseum.

And instead, we got a fight that went exactly as it should have because BJ Penn should not have even been in the ring with GSP again. The numbers don't lie. Thiago Alves and Jake Shields both represent fights that have larger implications than BJ Penn could ever offer.

Footnote

For those who say that Fedor does not fight top competition, the average rating of his opponents has been 1757. The average rating of Anderson Silva's opponents has been 1760.

Why Lightweight and Middleweight Are the Weakest Divisions in UFC

Matt H — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:34:25 -0500

I have always found it very interesting that two fighters who are in the pound-for-pound discussions happen to fight in the UFC's weakest divisions.

I'm going to show not only how shallow those divisions are, but also WHY they have been shallow in the UFC.

Weight Division	Total # of Champs	Total # of Title Fights	Total # of Top 25 Fighters
Lightweight	3	7	11
Welterweight	6	20	18
Middleweight	5	12	13
Light Heavyweight	8	24	17
Heavyweight	13	27	9

This table sums up the total number of unique champions (champions who have not held the belt on more than one title reign) and the total number of title fights each weight division has had in the history of the UFC.

The Lightweight Division

Only 11 of the top 25 Lightweight fighters are currently the UFC. The top five UFC Lightweights are, in this order, BJ Penn (ranked 1), Sean Sherk (6), Kenny Florian (7), Gray Maynard (13), and Joe Stevenson (14).

With not even half of the top 25 fighters fighting in the UFC's LW divisions, you can say with 100 percent certainty that the best LW fighters in the world fight OUTSIDE of the UFC.

I know it's shocking, but there is a very good reason for this, and to understand how this affair has happened, we have to look at the history of this weight division and the UFC.

Looking at the table above, you can clearly see the lack of title fights and title holders in the Lightweight division.

Between 2003-2006, the UFC did not have a lightweight division. I repeat, between 2003-2006, the UFC did not have a lightweight division.

There were a few fights (and I mean VERY few) that occurred at the lightweight division, but there were not enough fighters to have an actual title holder.

The first UFC lightweight title holder was Jens Pulver, who claimed the title in 2001. He successfully defended his title twice, before leaving the UFC for the rich lightweight divisions in Japan.

BJ Penn then fought Caol Uno in 2003, but the bout was ruled a draw and BJ Penn left the UFC for Japan soon after.

Sean Sherk became the second UFC lightweight Champion in 2006, in the first lightweight title bout in three years.

The UFC is currently trying to rebuild its lightweight division. After having a non-existent weight division for three years, most of the top competition flees to other venues to fight.

This is why the Japanese promotions have such a talent pool in the lightweight divisions and why BJ Penn is the current champion of the thinnest lightweight division in MMA.

The Middleweight Division

The only other division that the UFC seems to lack quality fighters in is the Middleweight division. The Middleweights are much deeper than the lightweights, though they still lack in quality numbers.

Currently, the UFC has 13 of the top 25 Middleweight fighters in the world with eight in the top 15. These are Anderson Silva (1), Yushin Okami (2), Dan Henderson (4), Nate Marquardt (5), Rich Franklin (8), Thales Leites (10), Michael Bisping (12), and Chael Sonnen (14).

Though it is much deeper, there is a curious lack of title holders and title fights for a weight division that goes back to 2001.

Dave Menne became the first Middleweight Title Holder in 2001 when he defeated Gil Castillo. Menne then lost to Murilo Bustamante.

Bustamante successfully defended his title once and then promptly jumped ship to fight in the talent rich waters of Japan. The UFC did not have a Middleweight titleholder between 2002 and 2005.

Evan Tanner became the third UFC Middleweight Champion before being defeated by Rich Franklin and we all know what happened to Rich Franklin.

Whenever a weight division has a gap in title holders, it puts a serious damper on the talent that fights in those weight divisions.

The UFC is still trying to rebuild its current middleweight division, and it has come a LONG way from when Rich Franklin claimed the title in 2005.

If Anderson Silva successfully defends his title one more time, he will have tied the all-time UFC title defense records set by Tito Ortiz and Matt Hughes at five title defenses.

I'm sure no one believes that he will not tie the record, but it still leaves the middleweight division stale, as the only other real superstar the UFC is trying to build is Michael Bisping.

Ultimately the Middleweight and Lightweight divisions have been historically slim with the UFC due to a lack of talent and an easy outlet for fighters in Japan.

With the outlet in Japan closed off (for the most part) and the UFC's dominance in the world of MMA continues to grow, these divisions are rapidly being built back up.

Hopefully we'll see some great title fights in the next year in these two divisions as important matchups are developing at the LW and MW levels.

***The Heavyweights have historically been the go-to division for the UFC, next to the Light heavies of course. The lack of competent Heavyweights in recent time is probably due to the UFC neglecting to sign top fighters after other organizations have fallen apart.***

***The top 25 rankings are based off of meta-rankings that are averages of twenty different rankings compiled by Bloody Elbow.***

The Fight for MMA Supremacy: Pride FC or UFC?

Matt H — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:30:49 -0500

One of the things that really bugs me about Mixed Martial Arts is the debate about Pride FC vs. the UFC.

Even after two years, people are still clamoring to say that one organization was better than other, and, quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of it.

So, in the spirit of stupid arguments, lets look at how Pride fighters have done in the UFC and how UFC fighters have done in Pride, to try and end this debate once and for all.

By now, there are enough former Pride fighters and champions fighting in the UFC to at least provide some useful insight.

Pride Fighters in the UFC

Fighters Name	Record in UFC
Wanderlei Silva	1-2
Mirko Crocop	1-2, Cut from UFC
Antonio Noguiera	2-1, Became Interim HW Champ
Anderson Silva	8-0, Became MW Champ
Mauricio Shogun Rua	0-1
Fabricio Werdum	2-2, Cut from UFC
Rameau Thierry Sokodjou	1-2, Cut from UFC
Dan Henderson	1-2
Marcus Aurelio	2-3
Ryo Chonan	1-2
Akihiro Gono	1-1
Heath Herring	2-2
Rampage Jackson	4-1, Became LHW Champ
Kazuhiro Nakamura	0-2, Cut from UFC
Dean Lister	4-2, Cut from UFC
Totals	30-25, 22-25 w/o Anderson Silva

It's pretty clear from the table that only two Pride fighters have done well post-Pride: Anderson Silva and Rampage Jackson. All other Pride fighters have underperformed in the UFC.

This could be because of rule changes (no soccer kicks or stomps, elbows allowed to the head), environment (a ring versus a cage, a larger fighting area versus a smaller one), no drug testing, or maybe, just maybe, the Pride fighters weren't that good to begin with.

UFC Fighters in Pride

Luckily for us, Pride has been around for several years and many UFC fighters actually jumped ship to fight in Pride. There might actually be more UFC fighters who fought in Pride, than Pride fighters who fought in the UFC.

Fighters Name	Record in Pride
Mark Coleman	9-5
Kevin Randleman	4-7
Josh Barnett	5-4
Vitor Belfort	1-2
Chuck Liddell	2-1
Murilo Bustamente	4-5
Carlos Newton	5-4
Jens Pulver	2-2
Gan McGee	0-2
Sean Sherk	1-0
Ron Waterman	1-1
Pedro Rizzo	0-2
Ricco Rodriguez	0-1
Totals	34-36

So the only fighter who jumped ship to Pride that actually performed well was Mark Coleman.

This could be because of rule changes (soccer kicks or stomps allowed, elbows no longer allowed to the head), environment (a ring versus a cage, a smaller fighting area versus a larger one), no drug testing, or maybe, just maybe, the UFC fighters weren't that good to begin with.

Comparing the Two

With the Pride fighters going to the UFC with records of 30-25, and UFC fighters going to Pride with records of 34-36, it would appear that Pride fighters fighting in the UFC are better than UFC fighters fighting in Pride. Confusing? That's because it's supposed to be.

If you look at the list of UFC fighters who went to Pride, 10 of the 13 listed were champions in the UFC.

If you look at the list of Pride fighters who went to the UFC, three of the 15 were champions. You would expect the UFC fighters to perform better since they were champions in the UFC, but they didn't!

Fighters only fight. Most of them could care less about the organization. Also all organizations have differing rules. The differing rules between organizations make for transitioning from one to the other very difficult.

Not only that, but many of the fighters on both lists fought in the UFC, then Pride, then the UFC again, or vice versa. How do you distinguish a UFC fighter from a Pride fighter? Are there KOTC fighters as well?

The only way a fighter could be considered a "Pride fighter" or a "UFC fighter" is if most of their fights had been in one respective organization.

For almost all of the fighters on the list, you could just as easily call them Pancrase Fighters or RINGS Fighters or KOTC Fighters.

This is why the Pride vs. UFC debate is absolutely pointless. It makes no sense to me.

Please, spare us all and stop with the pointless and stupid comments that this debate seems to spur.

Pride is gone. Let it rest. UFC fighters did just as poorly in Pride as the Pride fighters are doing in the UFC.

I guess comparing fighters irrespective of organization is simply too much to ask of most people.

10 Non-UFC Fighters to Watch Out for in 2009!

Matt H — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:28:38 -0500

Inspired by Tom Grant's take on his 10 off-the-beaten-path fighters to look out for in 2009 (can be found at http://bleacherreport.com/articles/99845-ten-off-the-beaten-path-fighters-i-cant-wait-to-watch-in-2009 ), I've decided to write my own piece chronicling 10 fighters who are not fighting in the UFC you should look out for in 2009. Some you've heard of, some you haven't, and some are flat out treasure troves of highlight reels! Enjoy!

Begin Slideshow

Past Their Prime: MMA's Old Dudes

Matt H — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:11:27 -0500

With Big Nog's loss, a common question seems to be running through the MMA community: Is Big Nog past his prime?

To answer this question, we can turn to statistics, specifically the Elo-chess ranking system. Before you stop reading, understand, there will be no math or hard-to-grasp concepts in this article.

A long time ago a mathematician came up with a ranking system of chess players. He said that you cannot determine which moves are better than other moves. Because of this, he said the only thing that matters is a win.

His ranking system, now called Elo-chess, which is named after him, is used in many, many, many different sports to rank teams and individuals. Jeff Sagarin, one of the six computer ranking systems for the BCS, uses the Elo-chess ranking system.

This article is not about the Elo-chess, but is more about using Elo to see if fighters are past their prime.

In Elo-chess, when fighters win, they gain points, and when fighters lose, they lose points. If you lose to a lower ranked fighter, you lose more points than if you had lost to a higher ranked fighter and vice-versa.

We can look at the three-year adjustments to a fighters Elo ranking to see if some of the commonly understood fighters are past their prime.

Heavyweights

Of the top 15 fighters in the heavyweight division, five currently have negative adjustments or mods to their scores over the last three years. This means they have lost more fights than they have won in the last three years.

And depending on the size of the mod, it will tell us exactly how washed up they are. The more negative the score, the more washed up they are.

Mirko "Crocop" Filopovic, age 34: -95
Sergei Kharitnov, age 28: -41
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, age 32: -18
Allistair Overeem, age 28: -17
Randy Couture, age 45: -12

As we can see, three heavyweights over the age of 30 have negative scores, and have recently been labeled as over the hill. Remember, these mods are over the last three years. Based on the ages of Nog and Crocop, Kharitnov and Overeem could be close to their decline, but it could also be because they are not that good.

Light Heavyweight

Of the top 14 fighters in the light heavyweight division, four currently have negative mods to their scores of the last three years.

Chuck Liddell, age 39: -70
Wanderlei Silva, age 32: -67
Travis Wiuff, age 30: -37
Tito Ortiz, age 33: -3

Travis Wiuff probably pops up because he is not that good, but Chuck and Tito are commonly cited as being over the hill, and Wanderlei has recently been added to that list. The size of his mod should indicate that he has been declining now for three years.

Middleweight

There are no middleweights who have a negative mod. Matt Lindland, age 38, who is the closest to being called past their prime, has a three-year mod of 31. At least it's not negative.

By these measures, Matt Lindland is not yet past his prime.

Welterweight

One fighter in the Welterweight division has a negative three-year mod and it should be of no surprise to the astute viewer.

Matt Hughes, age 35: -114.

Not only does Matt Hughes have a negative three-year mod, but he also has the largest negative mod out of all of the weight classes. There is no question that Matt Hughes is past his prime.

Lightweight and Below

There are not very many fighters who are fighting past their primes in the lightweight or lighter divisions. Here are the three who are.

Takanori Gomi, age 30: -31
Jens Pulver, age 34: -26
Jeff Curran, age 31: -11

Pound-for-Pound WORST Fighters

Matt H — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:19:23 -0500

Everyone loves to talk about their favorite fighters and discuss the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. The worst fighters in the world seen to get no love, though, and that is just down right wrong.

Worst Chin of All Time

No fighter has been knocked out more times than Paul "Hands of Stone" Jenkins (39-40-8, 16 losses via knockout) and Brandon Quigley (10-29-1, 16 losses via knockout).

Yes, Paul Jenkins' nickname is "Hands of Stone" and yes, both of these fighters have been knocked out 16 times each. They've been knocked out more times than Rashad Evans has even fought!

Kazuhiro Takahashi (28-24-3) has the distinct honor of having more of his losses coming via knockout than any other fighter. With 14 tko/ko losses under his belt, this glass jaw joe has lost via knockout 58 percent of the time!

These three fighters really represent the WORST chins in MMA history.

Honorable mention: Shannon "The Cannon" Ritch, 14 KO losses, and Shawn Nolan, 13 KO losses.

Most Submission Losses of All Time

Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu hit the MMA scene back in 1992 and some fighters just never got the memo. Brian "Hardcore" Robinson (41-53-0) is one of those fighters. Hardcore ties the record of most submission losses with 47 submission losses. Only Shannon "The Cannon" Ritch (42-62-0) has as many submission losses with 47.

But the real pound-for-pound worst submission artist goes to Jamie Webb, who has 26 of his 28 losses coming via submission; that's 93 percent!

You'd think after all of those losses they would've gotten the memo, but I guess some people just never learn.

Honorable mention: Dennis Reed, 36 submission losses.

Worst Fighter of All Time

Only one name has been a constant on both of the previous pound-for-pound categories, and that is Shannon "The Cannon" Ritch.

Shannon "The Cannon" is an honorable mention in the pound-for-pound glass jaw with 14 KO losses and has tied the record for most losses via submission. With 62 losses, he is also one of the losingest fighters in MMA history.

But there is one, more specifically two, who deserve the distinction of being the pound-for-pound worst fighter of all time. These two are Kenneth Allen and Mike Suttles.

Both of these fighters post identical records of 1-27. Yes, in only 4 percent of their matches have they come away with the W.

Even the worst fighters win, and both of the pound-for-pound worst fighters have wins. They have wins over Carey Cepeda, who after losing his debut to the worst fighter of all time, decided to hang out his gloves, and Corey Simpson, who's loss to Kenneth Allen sent him on a five-fight losing streak.

There you have it folks, the WORST fighters in MMA history.

Heisman Candidates In Perspective

Matt H — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:32:11 -0500

In four days, the most prestigious award in college football will be awarded. There are four possible candidates that the media has been focusing on, and unless you've been living under a rock, those four are Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy, and Graham Harrell.

The stats for these quarterbacks are very impressive. Sam Bradford leads the NCAA in touchdown passes, Graham Harrell leads the NCAA in passing yards, Colt McCoy leads the NCAA in completion percentage, and Tim Tebow leads the NCAA in best TD/Int ratio.

But the numbers are quite confusing. All three of the Big 12 quarterbacks have completed more passes than Tim Tebow has even attempted this season. With such a low number of attempts, it is quite hard to try and objectively compare all four quarterbacks.

After all, Tebow might have only had 28 TDs, but he also threw the ball 268 times. The number of attempts among the four are between 268 for Tebow to 568 for Harrell. This is hardly an even comparison.

To get a better grasp of how these quarterbacks compare to one another, we can simply standardize their attempts. Let us assume that each quarterback threw for 1000 attempts this season. In this way, we can hold the number of attempts constant and really compare the quarterbacks.

The stats that the quarterbacks produced are a representation of all of the games they played in. However, FCS opponents have a tendency to inflate numbers. For this reason, all FCS opponents have been removed to provide a better gauge of performance against real opponents.

This is how the quarterbacks shape up if each had 1000 pass attempts:

Passing Yards

Tim Tebow 9,004

Sam Bradford 10,193

Colt McCoy 9,187

Graham Harrell 8,170

Graham Harrell might have thrown for the most yards on the season, but he actually threw the least amount of yards if we hold the number of attempts constant. And conversely, Tim Tebow might have thrown for the fewest number of yards but actually threw for more yards than Harrell, holding attempts constant.

TD/Int Ratio

Tim Tebow 97/7.78

Sam Bradford 110/14.29

Colt McCoy 85/18.67

Graham Harrell 74/12.61

Again, holding attempts constant we see that Tebow is very comparable to the Big 12 quarterbacks, posting the best TD/Int ratio. Tebow also threw only 28 TDs, but had everyone had the same number of attempts, he would have thrown for the second highest.

Curiously, Colt McCoy posts the worst TD/Int ratio.

Rushing

Only two quarterbacks actually had meaningful stats in the rushing department: Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy. Utilizing the same idea by standardizing the number of attempts, we can do the same with rushing. Instead of using 1000 attempts, we will use 500 rushing attempts.

These are the number of rushing yards and TDs if these two quarterbacks had 500 rushing attempts each.

Tim Tebow 1743 39.47

Colt McCoy 2250 39.06

Tim Tebow would have had less than half a rushing TD more than Colt McCoy, but McCoy would have rushed for almost 500 additional yards.

Passer Efficiency

The ultimate final say in quarterback efficiency is the passer rating. This simple metric takes into account the completion percentage, yards per attempt, number of touch downs, and number of interceptions.

Tim Tebow 170.34

Sam Bradford 186.76

Colt McCoy 179.19

Graham Harrell 160.96

Putting It All Together

The passer rating is the ultimate measure of a quarterback. The quarterback with the best rating, if all attempts are held constant and all FCS opponents are removed, is Colt McCoy.

Colt McCoy would have thrown for the 2nd most amount of yards, had the highest completion percentage, and rushed for more yards than any other quarterback.

If I were to rank candidates based on this information, I would rank them (1) Colt McCoy, (2) Tim Tebow, (3) Sam Bradford, (4) Graham Harrell.

Florida State's Improvement Probably Worth Noting

Matt H — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:08:08 -0500

The regular season is over and now comes the critique of Florida State. How much did the Seminoles improve over last year?

To answer this question, I utilized a probability function based on margin of victory. The Probability of Victory, or POV, function assumes that if two teams play and the game is very close, there is a 50/50 chance either team will win if they were to play again. And if two teams play and the game is a blowout, chances are that if the they were to play again, the winning team would win again.

This system basically looks at how well Florida State has done this year based on margin of victory. It does not matter if Florida State wins by 100-93 or 7-0 because the margin of victory is the same.

These numbers do not take into account strength of schedule, either. The equation does not care whom you play, but cares about the margin of victory only.

All numbers are between 0-1 with 0.5 representing 50 percent. A number above 0.5 represents a win and a number below 0.5 represents a loss. Obviously some people are statistically handicapped, so all you really need to look at is whether or not the number is going up or down.

For all teams that FSU played up to the Florida game, the POV was:

2006—0.584

2007—0.605

2008—0.699

We can see that Florida State's team on the whole has been improving in its games since the 2006 season. There was a minor increase between 2006 and 2007 but then a very large increase for the 2008 season. This is good. This means that Florida State is winning games in more dramatic fashion than in the previous two seasons.

The first two games of the season could skew the numbers since they were not division I football teams. In order to correct for this, I removed all teams that are not Division I teams. This leads to POV's of:

2006—0.525

2007—0.588

2008—0.634

Again, we see that Florida State's football team has been improving for the last three seasons, just not as much between the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

ACC Play

Another very important component is not just how FSU plays in its schedule, but also how FSU plays against ACC teams. I, as a fan, do not want FSU to just play better against out-of-conference opponents, who tend to be weaker teams, but want to see better play against ACC teams, as well.

2006—0.500

2007—0.551

2008—0.600

Yes, the 2006 season was very bad for Florida State in the ACC. A .500 essentially means that FSU's chances of winning an ACC game was 50 percent. Last year saw improvement in ACC play and 2008 continued that trend.

In the parity that exists in the ACC for the season, Florida State's POV is the highest for any of the ACC teams for POV within the ACC. That means Florida State played better than any other team in the ACC based on probability of victory.

Ironically, Virginia Tech and Boston College both finished fourth and fifth, respectively, for their POVs in ACC play.

Florida State's football team is getting better. The 2008 season has shown a lot of improvement.

Statistically Ranking the Weightclasses

Matt H — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:19:29 -0500

For quite a while now, I've been dabbling with ranking college football teams, and I've been thinking about how to apply the same methodology I use with college football to MMA. If you would like to read about my college football rankings, please click here.

****Please note that these rankings do not represent my own personal rankings. These are simply attained through statistical measures. These rankings are also in the preliminary stages. I'm planning on adjusting the methodology in the future, but as for right now they are very crude****

The methodologies are very simple for the rankings. If an athlete fights the best fighter in a weight class and win, they are given 100 points. If an athlete fights and beats the worst fighter or a fighter ranked outside of the top 100, they are given just one point.

Conversely, if an athlete fights the best fighter in a weight class and loses, they are penalized one point. And if an athlete fights the worst fighter or an unranked fighter in a weight class and loses, they are penalized 100 points.

This method will reward fighters who fight top competition and penalize fighters who fight "cans." By utilizing a method similar to this, we can hope to emphasize the importance of quality fights instead of gimme fights.

To keep the playing field equal, only the most recent 10 bouts are accepted for scoring purposes. This will keep the rankings up to date and reduce the numbers of fighters who sneak into the top 10 without having a proven track record.

Utilizing only the 10 most recent bouts will also ensure that a fighter who goes a long time without fighting will be penalized since the fighters from the oldest fights will most likely no longer be ranked. IE Kazuhiro Nakamura is unranked despite his known name. Therefore fighters who have fought Nakamura and won receive just one point.

By ranking the fighters in this manner, we can also compare across weightclasses to find which weight class has the most top fighters based on points and we can also compare the top fighters from each weight class to determine the elusive "pound-for-pound king."

The initial rankings for the fighters come from various areas around the net. I tried to find the average ranking in order to reduce bias.

****Remember, these are calculations and in no way, shape, or form reflect my own personal rankings.****

Without further ado, here is a statistical ranking of the top 10 fighters for each weightclass.

Lightweight

BJ Penn 333
Sean Sherk 331
Takanori Gomi 300
Kenny Florian 285
Gesias Calvancante 198
Shinya Aoki 185
Roger Huerta 158
Eddie Alvarez 145
Gilbert Melendez 133
Tatsuya Kawajiri 128

Honorable mention: Mitsuhiro Ishida, Josh Thomson, Joe Stevenson, Joachim Hansen.

Welterweight

Georges St. Pierre 797
Jon Fitch 577
Thiago Alves 535
Diego Sanchez 479
Karo Parisyan 450
Matt Hughes 432
Jake Shields 413
Carlos Condit 245
Mike Swick 243
Josh Koscheck 228

Honorable mention: Matt Serra, Brock Larson, Nick Thompson, Yoshiyuki Yoshida.

Middleweight

Anderson Silva 644
Dan Henderson 549
Rich Franklin 382
Nate Marquadt 355
Gegard Mousasi 335
Robbie Lawler 331
Kazuo Misaki 317
Yushin Okami 256
Frank Trigg 224
Thales Leites 209
Yoshihiro Akiyama 155
Matt Lindland 149

Note: As of this ranking, it is uncertain if Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson will move up to 205 or not. This is why this list has 12.

Light Heavyweight

Chuck Liddell 544
Shogun Rua 483
Quinton Jackson 385
Lyoto Machida 376
Keith Jardine 354
Forrest Griffin 340
Vladimir Matyushenko 338
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 334
Rashad Evans 279
Tito Ortiz 249

Honorable mention: Thiago Silva, Wanderlei Silva

Heavyweight

Andrei Arlovski 573
Fedor Emelianenko 502
Josh Barnett 487
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 447
Randy Couture 421
Sergei Kharitnatov 383
Tim Sylvia 364
Fabricio Werdum 354
Mirko Crocop 332
Frank Mir 268

Honorable Mention: Aleksander Emelianenko, Ben Rothwell, Gabriel Gonzaga

Pound-for-pound

Georges St. Pierre 797
Anderson Silva 644
Jon Fitch 577
Andre Arlovski 573
Dan Henderson 549
Chuck Liddell 544
Thiago Alves 535
Fedor Emelienenko 502
Josh Barnett 487
Shogun Rua 483

Deepest Weight Divisions

Welterweight 440
Heavyweight 413
Light Heavyweight 368
Middleweight 360
Lightweight 220

A Look at the ACC's Out-of-Conference Victories

Matt H — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:11:00 -0500

The ACC really got hammered in the media this year due to the high level of competitiveness within the ACC. With the season over, it's high time to really look at how the ACC has fared with its out of conference scheduling.

The ACC had 48 OOC games and won 37 of them for a win percentage of 77 percent, the same win percentage of the SEC.

Against the SEC, the ACC went 6-4. If we exclude the games involving Alabama and Florida, since NO team in the SEC could hang with either of those teams, the ACC is 6-1. Pretty amazing for the ACC, since it's such a weak conference and the SEC is so strong.

Against the other conferences, the ACC went 2-2 against the Big East, 0-1 against the Big 10, 4-0 against the Big 12, 4-1 against Conference USA, 2-0 against Middle American, and 1-1 against the Pac-10.

The only team in the Big East that an ACC team played was Northwestern. Overall, the ACC played some great football against the other conferences. Some highlights include Maryland's win over Cal, Virginia Tech's win over Nebraska, Georgia Tech's win over Georgia, UNC's win over Connecticut, and Clemson's win over South Carolina.

Nine teams in the ACC have winning records and are bowl eligible—more than any other conference.

Despite all of the problems the ACC had this year, it turns out the ACC played a pretty good year.

Statistically Ranking College Football's Top 27 Teams

Matt H — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:13:15 -0500

The season is drawing to an end, and with many teams finishing up their season this past week, it seems like a good time to examine how the season has fallen.

These rankings are based on Jeff Sagarin's ratings and are very cut and dry. Teams are rewarded for playing and winning against better teams. The better the teams, the more points gained through a win. Teams are punished for losing to teams. Losing to better teams result in fewer deductions than losing to worse teams.

Beating the number one team in the country gets a team 120 points. Beating the worst team in the country gets a team just one point. Losing to the best team in the country results in a deduction of one point, and losing to the worst team in the country results in a deduction of 120 points.

The maximum score possibly attained through this system is 1,428. This would result in playing the number two team and winning for 12 straight weeks. Conversely, the minimum score possibly attained through this system is -1,428. This would result in playing the second-worst team every week and losing every time.

Here are the top 27 teams in the country. The number after the team is the number of points achieved thus far in the season.

Oklahoma 709
Texas 639
Florida 627
Alabama 593
Oregon 586
Penn State 584
USC 551
Texas Tech 549
Utah 530
Georgia 522
Ohio State 520
Mizzou 407
Michigan State 392
Florida State 387
Georgia Tech 384
Cincinnati 371
Boston College 352
Oklahoma State 348
Oregon State 326
Boise State 313
TCU 312
Pittsburgh 262
LSU 253
Northwestern 249
Ball State 226
Iowa 207
BYU 184

Jimbo Fisher and the Future of Florida State Football

Matt H — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:53:34 -0500

November 14, 2006 could go down in FSU history books as the end of an era. That is the day that Jeff Bowden resigned and the “Nepotism Era,” as the fans have dubbed it, came to an end.

Jimbo Fisher was then lured away from LSU, where he had been for seven years, to head up the Offense at Florida State and become the new Quarterbacks Coach.

Before we get into the meat of the article, I just want to put out a couple of facts about Jimbo’s track record as a QB coach and Offensive Coordinator.

1. Coached three players who were first round draft picks in 2006.

2. Coached the number one overall draft pick of 2006, JaMarcus Russell.

3. Coached five QBs that were first round draft picks while at LSU.

4. Coached the only 3,000-yard passing QB in Auburn History in Dameyune Craig.

5. Coached both of the 3,000-yard passing QBs in LSU History, JaMarcus Russell and Rohan Davey.

6. Was the Offensive Coordinator of LSU when they won the 2003 National Championship.

7. LSU had a 70-20 record and made seven bowl appearances with Jimbo heading the offense. This represented the most wins in school history over a seven-year period and the most consecutive bowl appearances in school history as well.

8. Ultimately, LSU’s offenses under Fisher set 13 school records.

Turns out Jimbo Fisher is a pretty good quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. He’s brought his ability to churn out champion-level QBs and his offensive acumen to FSU.

If we look at the QBs FSU has had over the last five years, a curious pattern emerges. We have Chris Rix, a five-star recruit, Wyatt Sexton, the top QB out of High School in the State of Florida, Drew Weatherford, the number four rated pro-style QB in the country, and Xavier Lee, another five-star recruit.

It is absolutely amazing to me that Florida State has recruited such great talent at the QB position but has yet to really see that talent be implemented.

Christian Ponder is a three-star recruit. I’m sure he was destined to be a bench warmer behind the other top recruits, yet somehow he has breathed life into the stale offense that has become FSU’s in recent memory. The key difference between 2000-06 and 06-infinity and beyond is coaching and play calling.

If Jimbo is able to get a three-star recruit to play on the same level as a five-star recruit, can you imagine what Jimbo could do with some real talent at the QB position? If Jimbo’s offense is able to average 10 more points per game with an offensive line barely out of high school, can you imagine how it will perform with seniors?

Florida State has lost some games under Fisher’s guidance, and the offense has struggled as well. But I really believe that Jimbo is going to carry the Noles back to the prestige the program once had. Do you?

The M-1 Challenge: Global MMA in Perspective

Matt H — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:57:01 -0500

I can tell you exactly why I like MMA. I can tell you the exact moment when I knew MMA was the sport I just had to watch. And I can tell you exactly why I continue to enjoy MMA.

What fascinates me most about mixed martial arts, and separates it from other sports in my mind, is that MMA is a loose cannon. It hearkens back to the frontier days of gunslingers and high noon shootouts. It's as unpredictable as it is beautiful.

And when two fighters go out, you can watch the highlight reels, listen to the pundits, check out the pre-fight interviews, but ultimately, what happens in the cage or ring can be totally unexpected. That's what keeps me coming back for more.

I've been watching MMA for several years now, and I feel I have a pretty good base knowledge of all the characters involved. I've watched the highlights of the UFC's biggest fighters, Chuck, Randy, and Tito. I've gone back to the old days and loved the look and ruthless KOs of Tank Abbott. And I've checked out Sakuraba's stunning finishes over the Gracie family.

And to me, guys like Sakuraba, Tank Abbott, Shinya Aoki, and Randy Couture embody what I love about MMA—when a fighter who doesn't fit the mold sets in to do battle, and shocks the world.

I'm a junkie for rooting against unknown fighters and then loving every minute of their upset win. A recent example of this is Junior Dos Santos, whom I had never heard of, and his brutal KO over Fabrico Werdum.

That desire for the unknown, for the frontier, is why I like the M-1 Challenge. The M-1 Challenge is rarely talked about. You'll rarely read an article about it, you'll never hear of the fighters who participate, and good luck finding information online about it. But it truly is an amazing idea.

The M-1 Challenge, in a nutshell, is the the World Cup of MMA—country versus country in a round-robin tournament format with two brackets looking to crown the country that comes out on top.

Ten teams from nine countries participate in the Challenge: USA, Finland, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Holland, Spain, France, Russia Red Devil, and Russia Legion.

Look at that list of countries! How many German, Spanish, or French fighters are there in either Japanese or American MMA? I can name one French fighter and that's it. And that is the beauty of it all. MMA is so much bigger than the four countries that dominate Japanese and American MMA—America, Japan, Brazil, and Canada.

Many of the fighters on the M-1 Challenge have blown me away with their skills. Everything you could ask for in a great promotion wrapped up with the mystery of foreign and unknown fighters fighting other foreign and unknown fighters all in the tournament style of original MMA!

Sure, there are drawbacks, but all of the shortcomings of the M-1 Challenge should be expected from a small-time production. The ring is too small, the production is sub-par, the fighters are all amateurs with usually less than 10 fights under their belts, and the announcing leaves much to be desired.

But some of these fighters are the future of Global MMA. After the M-1 Challenge concludes, some of the fighters should make it into bigger shows due to their pure talent. The UFC is looking for a major international push, and the M-1 Challenge is doing all the work necessary to identify great fighters in eight other countries in the world.

If you love MMA, you should try watching an episode of the M-1 Challenge. It'll be an hour worth spending.

The UFC Isn't Like Subway

Matt H — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:40:47 -0500

Let's say you wanted to start a Subway Restaurant.

You would have to do all of the financing, pay for a location, hire and pay for the employees to work in the Subway, purchase the food for the subs, and do a little local marketing.

In return, Subway provides you with a nationally recognizable brand name, a pre-set menu that you can choose to follow, and advertising and marketing at the national level.

In exchange for all of the benefits, you would have to pay the franchise a set percentage, but it's usually quite small since there are so many Subway restaurants. And after signing on the dotted line, you now own your very own restaurant and call the shots like you're your own boss!

Aren't franchises amazing?

In fact, Subway's business model is very similar to the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, and every other major sporting organization in America's business models.

They're all franchises.

If you wanted to, you could start you're own team, build a stadium, sign some athletes, and have your very own NFL team. Of course, it would cost a bit more than starting a Subway, but you get the idea.

But the UFC has very little in common with Subway.

You see, the UFC is NOT a franchise but rather a corporation. And that is the key difference between the UFC and every other sport organization in America.

Every major sporting organization in America is franchise. The UFC is not.

And that is the major difference between the NFL and the UFC.

In the NFL, they welcome competition. They have rules set into place to ensure that games are compelling and exciting. Most cities should have their very own professional football team because the more competition there is, the more games there are to watch, the better the teams have to be, the more tickets that get sold, and the more beers that get drank.

The UFC, on the other hand, is against any and all competition. As we've witnessed, the UFC does everything in their power to hurt the business of their rivals. They want to be the sole promotion in the United States and dare I say world.

The differences are because the NFL is a franchise and the UFC is a corporation. And this distinction is exactly why the UFC is not like Subway (or the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, etc.).

And exactly why a UFC monopoly will hurt, not help MMA.

Why People Are Obsessed With Brock Lesnar

Matt H — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:56:10 -0500

From what I read on message boards, websites, blogs, and even this humble website is that people are obsessed with Brock Lesnar. They love talking about him, saying how little class he has, admiring his physical attributes, complaining about his tattoos, accuse him of steroid use, etc. And this is why Brock Lesnar is headlining UFC fights with a 2-1 record.

I'll be the first to admit that I want to watch Brock Lesnar fight. I'm not going to watch hoping that his ego will be put into place by first Mir, then Herring, and now Couture.

And I'm not going to watch hoping that he's going to absolutely dominate his opponents. I'm going to watch Brock Lesnar fight for the same reason why people watch Bob Sapp and Kimbo fight. People love a freak show.

Freak shows sell tickets. That's why when Sapp faced Ernesto Hoost the fight fight had over 30 million viewers in Japan. To put that number in perspective, this season of American Idol had only 29 million viewers. Freak shows sell tickets, period.

It's the same reason why Kimbo Slice's fights have been some of the most watched fights in MMA history. Kimbo Slice is a freak show. He's a big, physically impressive black dude, with a huge beard, gold teeth, and a penchant for violence. It's the same reason people loved to watch Mike Tyson fight: Mike Tyson was scary.

The only difference between Brock, Sapp, and Kimbo, is that Brock actually has the speed, intelligence, background, and training to be so much more than the other two. As long as there is a huge dude in the ring, people are going to pay to watch it.

This is the same reason why people think that Shane Carwin is going to be so dominant. Because really, Carwin hasn't fought anyone, but he's this giant white dude who is VERY physically impressive.

I guarantee that once Carwin is shown on the main card, people are going to want to watch him fight more often, hell, I want to watch him fight WAY more often. I bet people will clamor for a fight between Carwin and Lesnar. It's the same reason why Lesnar's first fight was supposed to be against Hong Man Choi, why Hong Man Choi fought Bob Sapp, and why Semmy Schilt was popular.

As much as we, read North American MMA fans, claim to be uninterested in the Japanese love of mismatches and freak shows, we really aren't much better. Brock Lesnar's fight on Saturday is projected to have over One million buys. The only way it wont reach that milestone is because of a lack of advertising from the UFC.

See, the thing that people hate about Brock Lesnar is that he is not that he's big or fast or strong. It's simply because he was a professional wrestler, and people payed to watch him wrestler for the same reasons we love to hate on him.

And when Brock wins Saturday night, because he is going to be beat Randy "I have a 66% win percentage and cant beat Liddell who I outweigh" Couture and proceeds to mock him, it shouldn't be viewed as out of the ordinary in fight sports.

How would it be any different than Ortiz digging a grave after beating Ken Shamrock? Or BJ Penn licking the blood off his gloves? People just love to hate on Brock because he's from professional wrestling, just like a plethora of other amazing MMA fighters.

Lesnar will never get any respect in the UFC, no matter what anyone else says or even what he does, and it has less to do with his actions than it does to preconceived notions from before he stepped into the ring.

What's worse is that the more people complain about Lesnar's attitude (though if you REALLY listen to his interviews and even his trainers, he is amazingly humble), his physique (so what if he used steroids? If you think that athletes have never used steroids in the past you are only cheating yourself. The USA helped create more potent steroids to use with our Olympic Weight Lifters), and his antics, it will only add more fuel to Lesnar's character, because that is what he's being.

What will benefit this sport so much more is a more objective approach. People hate Brock Lesnar for acting like he was riding Heath like a horse, but forget that Mike Tyson said to Lennox Lewis that he wanted to eat his children. Brock Lesnar is nothing different and the sooner people realize that, the more enjoyable it will be to watch him fight because he's not going anywhere.

Grading College Football Conferences So Far

Matt H — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:48:26 -0500

College football season this year is concluding its final weeks, and it seems like a good time to grade the conferences. What better way to grade conferences than by how they've done with their out of conference schedules?

Included in the rankings are the number of teams who have been ranked at one point during the season, as well as teams that are currently ranked. Three teams have been removed from consideration of their rankings: Clemson, Arizona St, and UCLA. This is because each team started the season ranked but have since gone on to losing records.

SEC

Out of conference win percentage of 80 percent. Five teams currently ranked with 58 percent of teams in conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Big 12

OOC win percentage of 79 percent. Five teams currently ranked with 50 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

ACC

OOC win percentage of 77 percent. Two teams currently ranked with 58 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Big Ten

OOC win percentage of 72 percent. Three teams currently ranked with 60 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Mountain West

OOC win percentage of 69 percent. Three teams currently ranked with 33 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Big East

OOC win percentage of 68 percent. Two teams currently ranked with 63 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

WAC

OOC win percentage of 49 percent. One team currently ranked with 22 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Pac-10

OOC win percentage of 45 percent. Two teams currently ranked with 40 percent of the teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

MAC

OOC win percentage of 43 percent. One team currently ranked with eight percent of the teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

Conference USA

OOC win percentage of 38 percent. One team currently ranked with 17 percent of teams in the conference that have been ranked at one point during the season.

When looking at these numbers, some interesting things start to emerge. First, only three percentage points separate the top three divisions in terms of win percentage. In terms of wins over the season, it means that slightly more than one-third of a ball game separates the win percentages of these three conferences.

The ACC has had the most number of teams ranked during the course of the season. In my opinion, this would make the ACC the most competitive conference, with the MAC and WAC being the least competitive.

The SEC and Big 12 are both incredibly close in all three metrics: OOC win percentage, teams currently ranked, and percentage of teams that have been ranked. I don't foresee the latter two metrics changing a whole lot, but I do see the OOC win percentage changing. To me, that will decide which conference is clearly the better conference.

That is, if the very unlikely happens: The Big 12 and SEC DO NOT face off in the National Championship Game.

Florida State Team Report

Matt H — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:30:34 -0500

With Jimbo Fisher into his second season, it finally feels like he has breathed some life into Florida State's offense and the fans are starting to get a taste of the good old days.

Florida State is averaging just over 35 points a game and averaging almost 400 yards a game. Compared to last year, Florida State is averaging just 20 more yards of total offense a game but over 13 additional points a game.

Florida State's offense over the last two years have roughly the same output but vastly different outcomes: FSU is able to convert yards to points.

The differences between this year and last don't end there. While total offense yards has slightly changed, it's actually the defense that has really picked up the slack.

Florida State averaged only seven more offensive yards a game than their opponents. This year so far, FSU is averaging 130 more offensive yards a game. The 2007 season saw Florida State score 23.3 points a game and allow 22.9 points a game.

But for 2008 so far, the team is doing considerably better by scoring 35 points a game and allowing only 18. This is a turnaround thanks to Jimbo.

The rush attack for Florida State has been a major breakthrough this year. The offense is averaging nearly 200 yards a game in rushing compared to just under 130 yards a game for the 2007 season.

Offensive output for the season has been balanced because of the run, with total passing and rushing yards being just about even for the season.

Another huge improvement over last season is in third down conversions. The 2007 season saw less than one third of third downs being successfully converted. 2008 has been markedly better with third down conversions approaching 50 percent.

The area where I see Florida State struggling is in forcing turnovers. This time last year, FSU had 11 interceptions but so far the Seminoles are falling far short of forcing turnovers with just five for the season.

Overall, Florida State's offense has really shined so far this year and if they continue to keep the pace that they've set for the rest of the season, I can see the Seminoles easily going 8-4 or better before the bowl game.

If the Noles' defense are able to force as many turnovers as last season, I could see the Noles easily finishing the season 9-3 or better, but I just don't see the team being able to pick off more footballs this late in the season.

College Football Strength of Schedule So Far

Matt H — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:23:49 -0400

It seems that every week someone has come up with a new way of measuring strength of schedule. Differing metrics are used, formulas are calibrated, statistics are quoted, and on and on. Instead of trying to develop a new mathematical way of looking at strength of schedule, I'm simply going to rely on the AP Poll to determine SOS.

The only qualifier for my strength of schedule is if a team has been ranked in the AP Poll's top 25 anytime during the season. This means the general consensus at one time was that the team deserved to be ranked, and ranked teams are good teams.

The only stipulation is that several teams started in the top 25 but as the season progressed have either had a .500 season or a losing season so far. These teams are Clemson, Illinois, Wisconsin, Auburn, Arizona St., and UCLA. These teams will be omitted from being considered in the rankings due to their records.

1. Texas

Texas has played or will play five teams that have been ranked in the AP Poll top 25. That number is unlikely to change.

2. Alabama

Alabama has played or will play three teams that have been ranked. Clemson has been omitted. This number is unlikely to change.

3. Penn St.

Penn St. has played or will play two teams that have been ranked. Illinois and Wisconsin have been omitted due to their records. This number COULD change to three if Indiana gets ranked, but that is unlikely at this point in the season.

4. Oklahoma

Oklahoma has played or will play five teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

5. Florida

Florida has played or will play five teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has not been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change. Florida is one of only five teams that are currently in the top 25 with a loss to a never ranked opponent.

6. Texas Tech

Texas Tech has played or will play five teams that have been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

7. USC

USC has played or will play three teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has not been ranked. Arizona St. and UCLA have been omitted due to their records. That number is unlikely to change. USC is one of only five teams that are currently in the top 25 with a loss to a never ranked opponent.

8. Georgia

Georgia has played or will play six teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. Arizona St. and Auburn have been omitted due to their records. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change. Georgia is one of only three teams that have played or will play the most opponents who have been ranked this season.

9. Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State has played or will play four teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

10. Utah

Utah has played or will play two teams that have been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

11. Boise State

Boise State has played or will play two teams that have been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

12. TCU

TCU has played or will play three teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

13. Ohio State

Ohio State has played or will play four teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have been ranked. Wisconsin and Illinois have been omitted due to their records. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

14. Missouri

Missouri has played or will play three teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have been ranked. Illinois has been omitted due to their record. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

15. LSU

LSU has played or will play four teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have been ranked. Auburn has been omitted due to their record. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

16. FSU

FSU has played or will play six teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. Clemson has been omitted due to their record. The number of ranked teams will not change. FSU is one of only three teams that have played or will play the most opponents who have been ranked this season.

17. BYU

BYU has played or will play two teams that have been ranked and have lost to one team that has been ranked. UCLA has been omitted due to their record. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

18. Ball State

Ball State has played or will play zero teams that have been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change. Ball State is one of only two teams that have not and probably will not play an opponent that has been ranked.

19. Tulsa

Tulsa has played or will play zero teams that have been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change. Tulsa is one of only two teams that have not and probably will not play an opponent that has been ranked.

20. Minnesota

Minnesota has played or will play one team that has been ranked and has lost to one team that has been ranked. Illinois and Wisconsin have been omitted due to their records. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

21. UNC

UNC has played or will play five teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has not been ranked and one team that has been ranked. The number of teams can go up by one if Virginia gets ranked. UNC is one of only five teams that are currently in the top 25 with a loss to a never ranked opponent.

22. Michigan State

Michigan State has played or will play three teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have been ranked. Wisconsin has been omitted due to their record. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

23. Oregon

Oregon has played or will play three teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have been ranked. UCLA and Arizona State have been omitted due to their records. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change.

24. USF

USF has played or will play two teams that have been ranked and has lost to one team that has not been ranked and one team that has been ranked. The number of ranked teams is unlikely to change. USF is one of only five teams that are currently in the top 25 with a loss to a never ranked opponent.

25. Maryland

Maryland has played or will play six teams that have been ranked and has lost to two teams that have not been ranked. This number can change if Virginia gets ranked. Maryland is the only team to have two losses to never ranked opponents and be ranked in the top 25 at this time. Maryland is one of only three teams that have played or will play the most opponents who have been ranked this season.

Examining Florida State's Strength of Schedule

Matt H — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:03:20 -0400

It seems the college football community is wrapped up in the whole strength of schedule debate. Florida State got blasted early in the season by scheduling two "cupcakes" at the beginning of the season when several of their starters were out for NCAA violations.

Padding the record, as Florida State has done, is painted as a horrible sin against college football and should never, ever under any circumstances be done. But let's take a closer look at Florida State's football schedule for the year and see how teams have panned out so far.

The combined record of the opponents Florida State has played is 23-32. Exclude the first two games with cupcakes, and we get 20-18. Even though their opponents' combined records show a losing record, three of the six teams Florida State has played so far in the season have winning records.

The University of Florida, by comparison, has played only two teams with winning records so far in the season.

Looking at rankings for teams, seven teams that Florida State has played or will play have been ranked in the top 25 poll at one point during the season (Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Boston College, Maryland, and Florida). Most of these teams have fallen out of the rankings, but the programs were valued enough at one point in time to be ranked in the top 25.

Conversely, the University of Florida has played or will play five teams that have cracked the top 25 (it CAN move to six—I mean, Citadel does have a chance at being a top 25 team with their 3-5 record).

Sure, the rankings of teams have been bloated, as they always are. Clemson, for instance, did not deserve to start the season ranked at nine, but that is a different argument for another day.

In the end, Florida State's schedule has proven to be no cakewalk as usual, even with some cupcakes at the beginning.

Michael Bisping: Kalib Starnes Reborn

Matt H — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:38:29 -0400

Rampant backpedaling, weak counter-punching, zero aggression, and visible frustration from the opponent. No, this is not the recently dismissed Kalib Starnes, but the UFC hypemachine's favorite posterboy, Michael Bisping.

UFC 89's main event had awesome written all over it. Chris Leben, fresh from his stint in jail, was looking to demonstrate that he's a changed man. After coming off of two victories over D-level fighters, Bisping was looking to finally prove that he did not have the most-padded record of all time. This had action written all of it: haymakers, knees to the face, submission attempts, and takedowns. Yet Bisping failed to deliver the goods.

After watching the fight, it is quite aparent that the whimsical display was due to Bisping's lack of aggression. One of the things that draws all of us to MMA instead of boxing is the level of action. Bisping opted for the safest route possible by being "elusive." That word has recently become synonymous with Lyoto Machida but should be more attached to Kalib Starnes' name.

But Bisping did not look to finish the fight. He out-pointed Leben in a snoozefest. Leben's frustration was visible at the end of both the second and third rounds, especially when he stuck his face out taunting Bisping. The end of the fight reminded me of Kalib Starnes' last fight with Nate Quarry. The only difference is that Bisping won.

If Bisping continues to fight the way he did tonight against other competition, I don't think I will find myself buying those pay-per-views. Afterall, I buy the events for the action. If I wanted a snoozefest, I'd go watch boxing.