Is Fresno State Back?

If you didn't know already, I'm a huge Fresno State football fan. Fresno State football and basketball are probably the only teams that I'm really a true fan of. In professional sports I tend to have preferred teams based on style and personnel, but as those things change in a team I change my opinion of them.

If you didn't see the Fresno State game against Texas A&M in College Station, you can read a recap here. If you want to read about how Fresno St. should've won the game based on the current replay rules, you can read about it here. If you don't feel like reading that one, it basically says that Fresno had nearly a sure victory, until the Big 12 replay officials reviewed and reversed a play that is by definition "not reviewable".

One of the hardest things to do in college football is go into a top 25 opponents stadium and steal a victory. By my count, it's happened 3 times this year—South Carolina over Georgia, South Florida over Auburn, Appalachian St. over Michigan. There have been 3 matchups so far where two top 25 teams have played each other. In all 3 of those games the home team came away with the victory, although the home team was also ranked better than the away team in each of those games as well. So far in the first two weeks, top 25 teams when playing at home are 33-3, and when they play away from home they are 7-5. According to these numbers, if you're playing a top 25 team at home you have a 41.7% chance of winning, but if you play a top 25 team on the road you have a 8.3% chance of winning. Obviously these numbers are somewhat skewed because a lot of top 25 teams schedule easy opponents at home at this stage (although it didn't seem to work for Michigan), but the point is it's a lot harder to beat a top 25 in their stadium than it is in your own.

When mid-major schools win a lot of games, they seem to always be ridiculed for their weak schedules. For years now, Fresno State has played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country to try and make up for this criticism. Is it possible to completely make up for this though? Should a one loss Fresno State team be treated the same as a one loss Virginia Tech, Tennessee or Georgia team (all 3 with one loss and all 3 still ranked)? My argument is yes, they should be treated the same. But they aren't. And here's my reasoning (besides the fact that Fresno really won their game on Saturday despite what the Big 12 says). Fresno State, by the end of the season, will have played 3 top 25 teams on the road (Texas A&M, Oregon and Hawaii). Those are games that I imagine most people agree are the most difficult to win. But how does that compare to the tough SEC schedules, or Big 12 or any of the major conferences? Well, here's a list of the number of road games against top 25 teams, for the current AP top 25 teams.

USC - 3

LSU - 0

Oklahoma - 1

West Virginia - 1

Florida - 3

Texas - 1

Wisconsin - 2

Cal - 2

Louisville - 1

The Ohio St - 1

UCLA - 1

Penn St. - 0

Rutgers - 1

Nebraska - 1

Georgia Tech - 0

Arkansas - 2

South Carolina - 4

Virginia Tech - 3

Oregon - 2

Clemson - 2

Boston College - 3

Tennessee - 2

Georgia - 2

Hawaii - 0

Texas A&M - 2

That's an average of 1.6 road games against top 25 teams, so Fresno has almost double the average. South Carolina is the only top 25 school with more road games against top 25 teams than Fresno State (which makes me wonder how LSU got away with zero games, since all 4 of South Carolina's games are in the SEC). So, if Fresno ends the season with 1 or 2 losses, will they get the same treatment as these other schools? If they beat Oregon then win out in the WAC is a BCS bid possible? I doubt it, and that's not fair.