Against Ranked Team (football) Week 13

[SWC75]

This year I will be again charting how teams have done “against ranked teams”, which is something that always comes up at the end of the year when the arguments over who should be in the 4 team national championship playoff takes place. As usual, this is not meant to end those arguments, just to give those making them something to look at in forming their opinions.

I’m going to do it using the procedure I started last year. The original procedure was that I would first grant teams playing ranked teams a certain number of points based on who they are playing. If you played the #1 team, (I use the AP- writer’s poll for continuity), you get 25 points. If you are playing the #2 team, you get 24 points, etc. down to getting 1 point for playing the #25 team. I call these “schedule points”. Here’s a chart to make it simple:
1-25, 2-24, 3-23, 4-22, 5-21, 6-20, 7-19, 8-18, 9-17, 10-16, 11-15, 12-14, 13-13, 14-12, 15-11, 16-10, 17-9, 18-8, 19-7, 20-6, 21-5, 22-4, 23-3, 24-2, 25-1.
(Of course you can always just subtract the ranking from 26. That will work every time.)

Then I look at the point differential in the actual game. If you defeated the ranked team, you add the number of points you won by to the schedule points. If you lost to that team, you subtract the margin you lost by from the schedule points. (I call these ‘game’ points.) The difference between this procedure and the original one if that I didn’t count any deficit: if you got to zero, you got zero. This year I’m going to try to record negative points, too, so a team can get full ‘credit’ for a really bad performance.

WEEK THIRTEEN

Ohio State beat #4 Michigan 62-39 = +45 points
Washington beat #8 Washington State 28-15 = +31 points
Texas A&M beat #7 Louisiana State 74-72 = +21 points
U of Miami beat #24 Pittsburgh 24-3 = +19 points
West Virginia lost to #6 Oklahoma 56-59 = +17 points
Oklahoma beat #13 West Virginia 59-56 = +16 points
Southern California lost to #3 Notre Dame 17-24 = +16 points
Boise State beat #21 Utah State 33-24 = +14 points
Kansas lost to #14 Texas 17-24 = +5 points
South Carolina lost to #2 Clemson 35-56 = +3 points
Louisiana State lost to #22 Texas A&M 72-74 = +2 points
Brigham Young lost to #17 Utah 27-35 = +1 points
Illinois lost to #19 Northwestern 16-24 = -1 points
Georgia Tech lost to Georgia 21-45 = -3 points
Kansas Stare lost to #25 Iowa State 38-42 = -3 points
Washington State lost to #16 Washington 15-28 = -3 points
Auburn lost to #1 Alabama 21-52 = -6 points
Utah State lost to #23 Boise State 24-33 = -6 points
Michigan lost to #10 Ohio State 39-62 = -7 points
South Florida lost to #9 Central Florida 10-38 = -11 points
Florida State lost to #11 Florida 14-41 = -12 points
Boston College lost 21-42 to #20 Syracuse = -15 points
Mississippi lost to #18 Mississippi State 3-35 = -24 points
Maryland lost to #17 Penn State 3-38 = -26 points
Louisville lost to #15 Kentucky 10-56 = -35 points

Comment: it seemed inevitable but it finally happened, Louisville reached the bottom of this standing, passing Connecticut as the worst team against ranked teams this year, although it too them four games to get there while the Huskies accumulated -86 points in just 3 games, giving them the higher average, -29 to -26. We had the great pleasure of playing both of them.

TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Notre Dame +130 points
Ohio State +114 points
Alabama +112 points
Louisiana State +112 points
Texas +109 points

Georgia +108 points
Michigan +99 points
Oklahoma State +95 points
Purdue +85 points
Washington +83 points

Clemson +73 points
Northwestern +66 points
Texas A&M +65 points
Mississippi State +63 points
Missouri +55 points

Texas Tech +55 points
Iowa State +51 points
Arizona State +50 points
Kentucky +48 points
Auburn +45 points

Stanford +42 points
Oregon +41 points
Virginia Tech +41 points
Florida +39 points
Southern California +36 points
West Virginia +36 points

Syracuse has +23 points.

Louisville’s -102 points is the worst