Against Ranked Teams (Football) Week 11

[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 a bit differently this year. The old 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 year and last year 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 11
Ohio State beat #12 Michigan State 48-3 = +59 points
U of Miami beat #3 Notre Dame 41-8 = +56 points
Auburn beat #1 Georgia 40-17 = +48 points
Oklahoma beat #6 Texas Christian 38-20 = +38 points
Wisconsin beat #20 Iowa 38-14 = +30 points
Stanford beat #9 Washington 30-22 = +25 points
Alabama beat #16 Mississippi State 31-24 = +17 points
Mississippi State lost to #2 Alabama 24-31 = +17 points
Georgia Tech beat #17 Virginia Tech 28-22 = +15 points
Oklahoma State beat #21 Iowa State 49-42 = +12 points
Florida State lost to #4 Clemson 14-31 = +5 points
Iowa State lost to #15 Oklahoma State 42-49 = +4 points
Boston College lost to #23 North Carolina State 14-17 = 0 points
Colorado lost to #11 Southern California 24-38 = -1 points
Utah lost to #19 Washington State 25-33 = -1 points
Texas Christian lost to #5 Oklahoma 20-38 = -3 points
Iowa lost to #8 Wisconsin 14-38 = -6 points
Georgia lost to #10 Auburn 17-40 = -7 points
Purdue lost to #25 Northwestern 13-23 = -9 points
Notre Dame lost to #7 U of Miami 8-41 = -14 points
Rutgers lost to #14 Penn State 6-35 = -15 points
Connecticut lost to #18 Central Florida 24-49 = -17 points
Arkansas lost to #24 Louisiana State 10-33 = -21 points
Michigan State lost to #13 Ohio State 3-48 = -32 points

Comments: There were some powerful moves this week: Oklahoma surged to the top of the list. Auburn moved into 3rd place and Ohio State bounced back from their debacle at Iowa with a huge win over Michigan State. Wisconsin got its first points against ranked teams – and moved ahead of us with 30 points. We won’t be long for the top 25 because neither Louisville nor Boston College are ranked.

TOP 25

Oklahoma +102 points
Clemson +100 points
Auburn +97 points
Ohio State +90 points
Alabama +88 points

U of Miami +87 points
Notre Dame +79 points
Iowa +65 points
Iowa State +63 points
Penn State +54 points

North Carolina State +53 points
California +52 points
Texas +42 points
West Virginia +42 points
Louisiana State +36 points

Georgia Tech +34 points
Stanford +34 points
Texas Christian +34 points
Washington State +34 points
Georgia +33 points

Southern California +33 points
Wisconsin +30 points
Arizona +29 points
Syracuse +29 points
Arizona State +26 points

East Carolina is last with -97 points