Is losing early better than losing late?

by MadisonDomer, Monday, March 08, 2010, 13:14 (5937 days ago)

Moco and I were discussing timing of non-conference opponents (particularly, good ones)

Moco believes in the often held position that late losses are far more costly than early losses. However, I pointed out that due to conference title games, most contenders have the ability to recover from a late non-conference loss and since mostly undefeated teams make the game, it's not that big of a deal.

For evidence I collected the losses of every BCS title team over its decade long headache.

Of the teams that made the game there were 12 losses prior to the game itself

3 in September
5 in October
3 in November
1 in December

Moco's response questioned whether or not any of the teams that lost late got in over teams that lost early. In at least one case, they did. OU was in the game after losing in December over USC that lost in September, both teams finishing with 1-loss.

I think what's happened is there's a bias to remember teams that fumble the season late compared to teams that fumbled the season early. In mid-October we choose the contenders, the teams still in it, and then we watch them fall 1 by 1. However, when we make that list we disregard all the teams that lost in September until everyone else loses and all of a sudden they become relevant again. In the end though, it appears that there isn't a selection bias towards losing in September teams there's just a bias towards thinking that. In the end, the polls/computers don't seem to care nearly as much as everyone assumes.

I know of at least one reason my stat might be misleading and that's if there's a LOT more losses by contenders in November because they're playing conference and rivalry games instead of playing "buy" games. However, looking through the schedules that doesn't appear to be the case but I dont have the data necessary to prove that.

My conclusion, according to the data collected, is that everyone is exaggerating the value of a "timely" loss. I did however see lots of OT losses and close losses by these teams.

Just my thoughts on an often held belief/misconception