Against Ranked Teams (Football) Final

[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.

Clemson beat #1 Alabama 44-16 = +53 points
Clemson beat #3 Notre Dame 30-3 = +50 points
Florida beat #7 Michigan 41-15 = +45 points
Alabama beat #4 Oklahoma 45-34 = +33 points
Texas beat #5 Georgia 28-21 = +28 points
Louisiana State beat #8 Central Florida 40-32 = +26 points
Syracuse beat #16 West Virginia 34-18 = +26 points
Ohio State beat #9 Washington 28-23 = +22 points
Northwestern beat #17 Utah 31-20 = +20 points
Kentucky beat #12 Penn State 27-24 = +17 points
Washington lost to #6 Ohio State 23-28 = +15 points
Oklahoma lost to #1 Alabama 34-45 = +14 points
Iowa beat #18 Mississippi State 27-22 = +13 points
Iowa State lost to #13 Washington State 26-28 = +11 points
Penn State lost to #14 Kentucky 24-27 = +9 points
Oklahoma State beat #23 Missouri 38-33 = +8 points
Central Florida lost to #11 Louisiana State 32-40 = +7 points
Georgia lost to #15 Texas 21-28 = +4 points
Washington State beat #24 Iowa State 28-26 = +4 points
Notre Dame lost to #2 Clemson 3-30 = -3 points
Alabama lost to #2 Clemson 16-44 = -4 points
Arizona State lost to #21 Fresno State 20-31 = -6 points
Utah lost to #22 Northwestern 20-31 = -7 points
Michigan lost to #10 Florida 15-41 = -10 points
West Virginia lost to #20 Syracuse 18-34 = -10 points
North Carolina State lost to #19 Texas A&M 13-52 = -32 points

Comment: What a power play by the Clemson Tigers! The top four performances against ranked this year are: Clemson +53 vs. Alabama, Purdue +53 vs. Ohio State, Alabama +52 vs. LSU and Clemson +50 vs. Notre Dame.


TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Clemson +176 points
Alabama +170 points
Ohio State +162 points
Texas +146 points
Louisiana State +138 points

Georgia +130 points
Notre Dame +127 points
Washington +114 points
Oklahoma State +103 points
Michigan +89 points

Northwestern +85 points
Purdue +85 points
Florida +84 points
Kentucky +65 points
Texas A&M +65 points

Mississippi State +63 points
Iowa State +62 points
Oklahoma +58 points
Missouri +55 points
Texas Tech +55 points

Syracuse +49 points.
Auburn +45 points
Arizona State +44 points
Stanford +42 points
Oregon +41 points
Virginia Tech +41 points


Louisville’s -102 points is the worst