SWC75
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We often hear teams being evaluated at the end of the season by how they did “against ranked teams”. A couple of years ago I came up with a simple system for evaluating this, one with an acknowledged flaw but which nonetheless produced interesting results so I’ll do it again this year.
The system is very simple. First I hand out points to teams based on the ranking of their opponent. If you play the #1 ranked team, you get 25 points for playing such a powerful team. You get 24 points for playing the #2 team, 23 for playing the #3 team, etc. I’ll call them schedule points. Here’s a chart to make it easy:
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.
That’s step one. Now we play the games and see how these teams actually do on the field. What cued me into this is that most games will be won or lost by 25 points or less, so the points involved are comparable. You just compare the point differential to the points teams have gotten for playing a ranked opponent. If they beat the ranked opponent, their points will grow by the margin of victory. If they lose, you subtract the margin of victory from the schedule points. If that reduces them to zero or less, they get zero points. I’m not going to deal with minus points, just add up the positive points earned, or else my rankings would be cluttered up with a lot of inferior teams who were below the Mendoza line because they’d gotten blown out by their ranked opponents. If you play the #1 team and lose by 21 points, you’ll get 4 points: 25 schedule points minus the 21 points you lost by. If you play the #10 team and lose by 13 points, you’ll get three points. If you play the #15 team and lose by 14 points, you’ll get nothing, (11-14 = 0 in this system).
I’ll record the points earned each week and how the teams got them and add them up over the course of the season. That will show us how each team did “against ranked teams”. Like all cumulative standings, they will sort themselves out as the season goes on and come more and more into focus. Later listings will be more meaningful than early ones as more and more teams get through the meat of their schedules. The cumulative listing should I think be less a ranking of teams than a statistic you look at in determining where to rank the teams.
WEEK #3 (9/15-17/2016)
Louisville beat #2 Florida State 63-20 67 points
Ohio State beat #14 Oklahoma 45-24 33 points
California beat #11 Texas 50-43 22 points
Mississippi lost to #1 Alabama 43-48 20 points
Michigan State beat #18 Notre Dame 36-28 15 points
North Dakota State beat #13 Iowa 23-21 15 points
Alabama beat #19 Mississippi 48-43 11 points
Georgia State lost to #9 Wisconsin 17-23 11 points
Missouri lost to #16 Georgia 27-28 9 points
Nebraska beat #22 Oregon 35-32 7 points
Notre Dame lost to #12 Michigan State 28-36 6 points
Colorado lost to #4 Michigan 28-45 4 points
Mississippi State lost to #20 Louisiana State 3 points
Ohio University lost to #15 Tennessee 19-28 2 points
Oklahoma lost to #3 Ohio State 24-45 2 points
Southern California lost to #7 Stanford 10-27 2 points
Comments: Louisville's destruction of Florida State netted them 67 points, the second most in the four seasons I have been keeping track of this. #1 is still Ohio State's 59-0 demolition of #13 Wisconsin in the 2014 Big ten title game, (72 points). But it was enough to vault them to #1 in the standings. North Dakota State won heir 6th straight game against BCS competition and their first over a ranked team. Now they go for their 6th straight FCS national title. Will they do what other FCS powers have done in the past and move up to FBS - and thus put their days of competing for national titles behind them? I hope not.
SEASON STANDINGS
Louisville 67 points
Alabama 63 points
Houston 33 points
Ohio State 33 points
Mississippi 31 points
Florida State 26 points
Wisconsin 23 points
California 22 points
Texas 19 points
Auburn 18 points
Troy 18 points
Texas A&M 17 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Georgia 13 points
Georgia State 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Oklahoma 3 points
Ohio University 2 points
Southern California 2 points
The system is very simple. First I hand out points to teams based on the ranking of their opponent. If you play the #1 ranked team, you get 25 points for playing such a powerful team. You get 24 points for playing the #2 team, 23 for playing the #3 team, etc. I’ll call them schedule points. Here’s a chart to make it easy:
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.
That’s step one. Now we play the games and see how these teams actually do on the field. What cued me into this is that most games will be won or lost by 25 points or less, so the points involved are comparable. You just compare the point differential to the points teams have gotten for playing a ranked opponent. If they beat the ranked opponent, their points will grow by the margin of victory. If they lose, you subtract the margin of victory from the schedule points. If that reduces them to zero or less, they get zero points. I’m not going to deal with minus points, just add up the positive points earned, or else my rankings would be cluttered up with a lot of inferior teams who were below the Mendoza line because they’d gotten blown out by their ranked opponents. If you play the #1 team and lose by 21 points, you’ll get 4 points: 25 schedule points minus the 21 points you lost by. If you play the #10 team and lose by 13 points, you’ll get three points. If you play the #15 team and lose by 14 points, you’ll get nothing, (11-14 = 0 in this system).
I’ll record the points earned each week and how the teams got them and add them up over the course of the season. That will show us how each team did “against ranked teams”. Like all cumulative standings, they will sort themselves out as the season goes on and come more and more into focus. Later listings will be more meaningful than early ones as more and more teams get through the meat of their schedules. The cumulative listing should I think be less a ranking of teams than a statistic you look at in determining where to rank the teams.
WEEK #3 (9/15-17/2016)
Louisville beat #2 Florida State 63-20 67 points
Ohio State beat #14 Oklahoma 45-24 33 points
California beat #11 Texas 50-43 22 points
Mississippi lost to #1 Alabama 43-48 20 points
Michigan State beat #18 Notre Dame 36-28 15 points
North Dakota State beat #13 Iowa 23-21 15 points
Alabama beat #19 Mississippi 48-43 11 points
Georgia State lost to #9 Wisconsin 17-23 11 points
Missouri lost to #16 Georgia 27-28 9 points
Nebraska beat #22 Oregon 35-32 7 points
Notre Dame lost to #12 Michigan State 28-36 6 points
Colorado lost to #4 Michigan 28-45 4 points
Mississippi State lost to #20 Louisiana State 3 points
Ohio University lost to #15 Tennessee 19-28 2 points
Oklahoma lost to #3 Ohio State 24-45 2 points
Southern California lost to #7 Stanford 10-27 2 points
Comments: Louisville's destruction of Florida State netted them 67 points, the second most in the four seasons I have been keeping track of this. #1 is still Ohio State's 59-0 demolition of #13 Wisconsin in the 2014 Big ten title game, (72 points). But it was enough to vault them to #1 in the standings. North Dakota State won heir 6th straight game against BCS competition and their first over a ranked team. Now they go for their 6th straight FCS national title. Will they do what other FCS powers have done in the past and move up to FBS - and thus put their days of competing for national titles behind them? I hope not.
SEASON STANDINGS
Louisville 67 points
Alabama 63 points
Houston 33 points
Ohio State 33 points
Mississippi 31 points
Florida State 26 points
Wisconsin 23 points
California 22 points
Texas 19 points
Auburn 18 points
Troy 18 points
Texas A&M 17 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Georgia 13 points
Georgia State 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Oklahoma 3 points
Ohio University 2 points
Southern California 2 points
