The argument over final vs. game day ranking has to do with meaningfulness. Under your scenario, if you beat a top five team in a BCS bowl – a team ranked in the top five based on an entire regular season body of work – there is little doubt that you beat a high quality opponent.

If you beat a team ranked in the top five in week two of the season, that ranking is based on little or no actual performance evidence. There is much less confidence that the defeated team is truly a high quality opponent.

We don’t need to deal in abstractions to make the point. Here are just a few specific examples.

Frank Beamer is credited with wins over “top ten” opponents for his victories against West Virginia (game day rank #6 in 2004) and Clemson (game day rank #10 in 2006) yet both of those so-called “top ten” opponents finished the season unranked. In fact, Clemson finished 8-5 and did not receive a single vote in the final AP poll. Yet those are characterized as “top ten” wins for Beamer.

Conversely, and ironically, Beamer doesn’t get credit for a “ranked” win for his greatest victory ever. The very impressive October 1, 2005 road victory (34-17) at West Virginia which was unranked on game-day but finished 11-1 and finished ranked #5 as Sugar Bowl champion with their only loss that season to the Hokies! This was a road victory against a top-quality nonconference opponent; something almost unheard of in Beamer’s tenure.

That said: I think we all agree Donald is a tremendous asset to the blog. Whatever he decides to break down is cool with me and always informative.

Having said that, I think Frank is a good coach, as good as VT is going to get, and he has done a good job in Blacksburg. Fans wanting Beamer gone because they think a big name coach/recruiter is going to replace him are mistaken. You may get a good coach but you’re not going to get anyone better than Frank and the other elite coaches will not even step foot in Blacksburg unless it’s to play the Hokies.

Thank you for documenting that with similar percentages of games against top 5 and #1 and #2 ranked opponents that Nick Saban and Frank Beamer have vastly different records against top ten, top five, and #1 and #2 ranked teams.

Again, these are based on the final rankings for the season. Regardless, here are men considered five of college football’s better coaches. Only one has any wins against the top team. All but Bob Stoops have a losing record against teams who finished in the top-10. All have a losing record against teams that finished in the top 5.

We’ll have a good idea by the time the ACC schedule begins in early January. I’ll stick with 12-20.

The defense was vintage Bud Foster defense for much of the night, forcing sacks and turnovers, and generally making life uncomfortable for the QB.

The offense was better than we’ve come to expect, and honestly, is probably as good as we’re going to be. Our running backs actually made cut-backs, broke tackles, and made people miss. They even ran effectively between the tackles when asked to do so. Other than a few blatant drops (DAVIS), the receivers played well against a strong secondary.

Realistically, Logan Thomas played as well as he is going to play. Sure, he mixed in several off-target passes and made a couple of questionable decisions, but that’s pretty typical for most college QB’s. He also made several pro-level passes, including exceptional touch & accuracy on the Fuller touchdown.

Special teams avoided the big mistake, other than the missed FG. They’re far from a strength on this team, but at least last night they were not a glaring weakness.

Rather than being critical, I’m viewing the FSU game from a “glass half full” perspective. We lost to a better team, but sometimes there is no shame in that.

I wish I hard heard more on the matter – I had just gotten in my car when I heard Kyle Bailey mention someone predicting the basketball team 17-13 and 9-9 in-conference.

As for my earlier comment, here is the record of four active coaches (including Beamer) against teams that -finished- in the top 10 of the Coaches Poll, after bowl games are played. I used the Coaches Poll since the AP Poll doesn’t exclude teams on probation, except for 2000 and 2001 – because I couldn’t find the final Coaches Polls for those years but I did find the final AP standings.

One side note: If the listed coach’s team finished in the top-10 that year, I included the #11 team – such as VT vs. Miami in 2004 and LSU vs. Alabama in 2010.

Frank Beamer: 4-30.
* Wins over WVU 1993 and 200), Miami 2004 (11th), and BC 2007 (11th)

Nick Saban: 12-19.
* Wins over Ohio State 1998, Michigan 1999, Penn State 1999 (11th), Tennessee 2001, Georgia (twice in 2003 and in 2008), Oklahoma 2003, VT 2009, Florida 2009, Texas 2009, LSU 2011

Les Miles: 9-19
* Wins over Oklahoma (2001 and 2002), Alabama (2005, 2010 – 11th, and 2011), VT 2007, Ohio State 2007, Arkansas 2001, and Oregon 2011

Bob Stoops: 13-10
* Wins over Kansas State (twice in 2000), Nebraska 2000, FSU 2000, Texas (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007), Washington State (2002), Missouri (twice in 2007), Oklahoma State (2010)

Further, here are their records versus the top 5.

Beamer: 0-19. 7 games vs the team that finished #1. 3 vs the team that finished #2

Saban: 8-11. 0-4 vs. the team that finished #1. 2-3 vs. the team that finished #2.

Miles: 5-10. 1-5 vs. the team that finished #1. Has never played a team that finished #2.

Stoops: 5-7. 0-4 vs. the team that finished #1. 0-1 vs. the team that finished #2

As you can see:
* it’s pretty darn hard to win against the top 10
* it’s even harder to win against the top 5
* between these four coaches, there are a total of three wins against the #1 or #2 team in 39 attempts. But, then, those teams are #1 or #2 for a reason.

Now consider that, of Beamer’s 34 games against top-10 teams (I will not count this season until after the bowls are done), more than half are against the top 5 and almost 1/3 are against #1 or #2, a poor top-10 record is going to look even worse.