Against ranked teams- Week 12

[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 12
Kansas State beat to #13 Oklahoma State 45-40 = +18 points
Wisconsin beat #24 Michigan 24-10 = +16 points
Wake Forest beat #19 North Carolina State 30-24 = +13 points
Navy lost to #8 Notre Dame 17-24 = +11 points
UCLA lost to #11 Southern California 23-28 = +10 points
Michigan lost to #5 Wisconsin 10-24 +7 points
Virginia lost to #3 U of Miami 28-44 = +7 points
Utah lost to #18 Washington 30-33 = +5 points
Nebraska lost to #10 Penn State 44-56 = +4 points
Arkansas lost to #16 Mississippi State 21-28 = +3 points
California lost to #22 Stanford 14-17 = +1 points
Maryland lost to #17 Michigan State 7-17 = -1 point
Louisiana-Monroe lost to #6 Auburn 14-42 = -8 points
Kentucky lost to #7 Georgia 13-42 = -10 points
Texas Tech lost to #13 Texas Christian 3-27 = -11 points
Tennessee lost to #20 Louisiana State 10-30 = -14 points
Temple lost to #15 Central Florida 19-45 = -15 points
Kansas lost to #4 Oklahoma 3-41 = -16 points
Southern Methodist lost to #21 Memphis 45-66 = -16 points
Illinois lost to #9 Ohio State 14-52 = -21 points
Air Force lost to #25 Boise State 19-44 = -24 points
Mercer lost to #1 Alabama 0-56 = -31 points
The Citadel lost to #2 Clemson 3-61 = -34 points
Minnesota lost to #23 Northwestern 0-39 = -36 points (heh, heh, heh…)

Comment: Many of the top teams were taking the week off, playing inferior opponents in preparation for rivalry week, so the top of the standings didn’t move much. We continue to hang on at the bottom of the rankings but BC isn’t rank so we are probably about to drop off.

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

California +53 points
North Carolina State +53 points
Wisconsin +46 points
Texas +42 points
West Virginia +42 points

Louisiana State +36 points
Wake Forest +35 points
Georgia Tech +34 points
Stanford +34 points
Texas Christian +34 points

Washington State +34 points
Georgia +33 points
Southern California +33 points
Arizona +29 points
Syracuse +29 points

East Carolina is last with -97 points