Well, as someone who you love to debate on everything - I can attest that everyone has what they consider to be important to handicapping. You dont think confernce history is important, I do. You think your stat above about coming off of a loss is important, I dont.
Thats just the way it is but I get a feeling you are always looking to prove a point, or to win a debate. Certainly there are things that are black and white, but trend stats are not one of them. Just more ingredients in the recipe.
I am curious about your statement that N Illinois "performed better than Fresno did and most definitely better than past MAC Bowl teams." Lots of adjusted strength of schedule models (including mine) have N Ill very close to the bottom of the 120 ncaaf teams (mine 118, Steeles 119). I'm curious to hear what you see in N Ill "on field performance" that you find so convincing, other than running through the weakest conference there is.
And BTW - Im pretty sure N Ill would fit right in the middle of previous MAC bowl teams. This was a down year for the MAC (that is saying a lot), dont forget the Central Michigan teams with LeFevour as of late, and Ball St in 08 etc. This N Ill team has done nothing to distinguish itself even amongst a lousy MAC season IMO.
I like to debate those people with valid opinions on covers (very few). I basically go through each game play by play of each team. This takes about 15 minutes per game, so I pay another guy to do half of the games through the year. I take out plays in blowouts, take out sneaks, downs. Also subtract sacked yards and add them to total yards so they aren't lumped in with rushing yards. I also grade each play as successful/non-successful. 50% yards on 1st down is success, 70% 2nd down, 100% on 3rd down. You get the picture.
Then I put all my teams into spreadsheets. I can then figure out how many yards per play (based on opponent) each team is better/worse than average on both offense/defense, rushing/passing, etc. Also look at plays/game and success % to see if a team is not gonna look quite as good in yards per play. I can basically come up with a spread based on the database I used from these totals.
Anyways, I discounted all offensive stats from NIU's first game vs Iowa St as QB Harnish DNP. NIU was +0.95 yards per play on offense and -.04 yards per play on defense, overall +0.91. Again this is based on SOS. They averaged 7.29 yards per play (relevant plays) that an average offense would gain 6.34 yards per play. On defense they allowed 5.37 yards per play where the average defense would have allowed 5.33 yards per play vs this set of opponents.
Fresno I have at -0.05 on offense and +0.16 on defense for +0.11 overall, worse than NIU's +0.91. NIU was successful on 57.1% of plays against a schedule 9 pts worse than average while Fresno was SUCC on 50.6% of plays vs a schedule 1 pt better than average.
If you want to look simply at pts (non D-1 games not included) to find what the spread should be (which is very flawed). NIU outscored opponents 39.1-19.3 vs a -9 SOS = +10.8. Fresno was 29.3 - 30.3 vs a +1 SOS for EVEN. So with that model you'd get NIU -10.8. That is obviously very simple, and shouldn't go by that.
I have Fresno 0.2 pts better on special teams, and both teams should run the same amount of plays, so from a math standpoint of yards per play the spread should be -5.5 NIU, which makes me wanna play them. I'm just very concerned about all the coaches leaving.
Hill does have an awful ATS record vs non-BCS teams in his tenure however. I believe it is 36-63-2 and 0-4 in bowl games.
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