Against Ranked Teams (football) - Week 7

[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 a couple years ago. 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 7
Louisiana State beat #7 Florida 42-28 = +33 points
South Carolina beat #3 Georgia 20-17 = +26 points
Oklahoma beat #11 Texas 34-27 = +22 points
Alabama beat #24 Texas A&M 47-28 = +21 points
University of Miami beat #20 Virginia 17-9 = +14 points
Southern California lost to #9 Notre Dame 27-30 = +14 points
Texas lost to #6 Oklahoma 27-34 = +13 points
Louisville beat #19 Wake Forest 62-59 = +10 points
Florida lost to #5 Louisiana State 28-42 = +7 points
Temple beat #23 Memphis 30-28 = +5 points
Washington State lost to #18 Arizona State 34-38 = +4 points
Texas Tech lost to #22 Baylor 30-33 = +1 point
Florida State lost to #2 Clemson 14-45 = -7 points
Illinois lost to #16 Michigan 25-42 = -7 points
Hawaii lost to #14 Boise State 37-59 = -10 points
Houston lost to #25 Cincinnati 23-38 = -14 points
Michigan State lost to #8 Wisconsin 0-38 = -20 points
Colorado lost to #13 Oregon 3-45 = -29 points
Oregon State lost to #15 Utah 7-52 = -34 points

Comments: We’re not getting power conference teams against power conference teams and ranked teams against ranked teams so things are getting more interesting. But Clemson hasn’t played a ranked team yet and aren’t scheduled to play a currently ranked team unless Wake holds on, (they aren’t in the coaches’ poll that just came out. Alabama just played their first in #25 Texas A&M.


TOP 25

Southern California +65 points
Louisiana State +57 points
Notre Dame +40 points
Auburn +43 points
Florida +37 points

Wisconsin +36 points
Arizona State +29 points
U of Miami +28 points
South Carolina +26 points
Texas +26 points

Ohio State +25 points
North Carolina +24 points
Oklahoma State +23 points
Oklahoma +22 points
Alabama +21 points

Texas A&M +21 points
Washington +19 points
Pittsburgh +18 points
Army +16 points
California +16 points

Temple +13 points
Michigan +11 points
Colorado +10 points
Kentucky +9 points
Louisville +9 points

The worst team so far is New Mexico State with -76 points.

Syracuse has -10 points