One of the hallmarks of sports fandom these days is the need to overreact to everything. The Florida Gators started the season 4-0. The Gators beat Auburn, then knocked off an Ole Miss team after a win over LSU. The Gators were suddenly the hottest team in the country. A serious playoff contender.
Then they went on the road and lost to Missouri 45-17, and they sucked the whole time. They were so overrated. Whoever put them in the top 10 in their opinion polls or power ratings is a clown and should feel stupid.
When performing these power assessments, it is important to avoid overreacting to any single outcome. Crazy things happen all the time in sports, and generally, if the game spread is 5.5 points but the final score shows a 28-point deficit, that’s an outlier result. That doesn’t mean it’s not real or that it’s a coincidence. It just means that, among the range of possible outcomes, the one we saw wasn’t as likely as many others.
This is not to say that Florida sucks. Even though the Gators are down a few spots in the rankings this week, their defense was already a concern last week, even though I had them at 9th. I haven’t degraded it much this week. What was downgraded was the offense, because Missouri took away the running game and Florida didn’t have much of a block. This is useful information.
Frankly, what I really take away from the game is that I didn’t give Missouri enough credit. I already liked offense, but I was way too weak on defense. What the Tigers did in this game may have produced an outlier result, but it was no fluke. As a result, they don’t make the top 12 this week, but they are hovering. And honestly, given the way things have gone for the 11th and 12th ranked teams in these rankings this season, the Tigers should probably thank me for not putting them there yet. I had Penn State at No. 12 two weeks ago, and look what happened there.
Now, if you want to talk about a team that may have sucked the whole time, Penn State is the team we should be talking about! This was a big failure on my part, but I hope it will be fixed in the future.
Stock odds via DraftKings.
Discontinued: Texas Tech
Gn sports
