So we have our playoff matchups and, for the most part, they jibe with the GRR rankings.
Not all, but most.
And, for the most part, the final week of regular-season games matched the rankings. Cal is the #1 team. It's weird for them because there is that old adage that "defense wins championships." Cal's defense has not been as stingy as it has been in the past.
In the nine full-length collegiate matches they have played since January 1, Cal has given up 205 points (23 points per game). However, that's a little misleading. Take out the first three matches, against Cal Poly, UCLA, and UBC, and you're got six games in which they have given up 184, which is over 30 per game.
And yet they are outscoring everyone—almost 65 per game.
Penn State has been on an improvement arc this season and we bump them to #12. Our biggest problem is what to do with Cal Poly, U. San Diego, UCLA, and Colorado State.
We ended up moving CSU down a bit but all that did was have us revisit, once again, Cal Poly, USD, and UCLA. Now, the playoff seedings have CP and USD ahead of UCLA—the Bruins are on the outside looking in and, likely, aren't too happy about it.
And it is close It is very close. We looked at the games among those three and this is what we end up with:
Cal Poly 1-1, Points Diff. of +22
UCLA 1-1, PD -11
USD 1-1, PD -11
Tiebreaker here? Despite the fact that UCLA beat Cal Poly, the tiebreaker is UCLA vs USD, and head-to-head USD won that game 40-19.
Look at their records vs playoff teams:
USD 0-1, -3
Cal Poly 0-2, -68
UCLA 0-3, -93
Now, if you combine the two, you get:
Cal Poly 1-3, -46
USD 1-2, -14
UCLA 1-4, -104
The knock on San Diego, and it's fair, is that they only played Grand Canyon that is a playoff team. UCLA played Cal, Saint Mary's, Arizona, and BYU. That's the tough part. They played a much tougher schedule than San Diego.
We ended up with the issue that their schedule wasn't tougher than Cal Poly's, and Cal Poly, aside from their loss to UCLA, was a little bit better. And then you come down to U. San Diego vs UCLA, and U. San Diego won that game 40-19.
