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 #2 (9/8-10/2016)
Troy lost to #2 Clemson 24-30 18 points
Nicholls State lost to #9 Georgia 24-26 15 points
Arkansas beat #15 TCU 41-38 14 points
Central Michigan beat #22 Oklahoma State 30-27 7 points
Last week was loaded up with made for TV games between top teams to get the season started off with a bang. This week, the top teams played the sort of teams they would really prefer to begin the season with. The result was a series of blow-outs. But if you are going to play small-time teams, you still need to bring your "A" game. if you don't you could find yourself in the situation Clemson, Georgia and Oklahoma State found themselves in. Clemson opponents have thrived so far this year, getting 24 points from that#2 rating and losing by close margins. Both Auburn and Troy got 18 points out of it. I suspect future Clemson opponents might not have as much of a windfall if he Tigers keep playing this way.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 52 points
Houston 33 points
Florida State 26 points
Wisconsin 23 points
Texas 19 points
Auburn 18 points
Troy 18 points
Texas A&M 17 points
Nicholls State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Georgia 13 points
Mississippi 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Kansas State 5 points
Oklahoma 1 point
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 #2 (9/8-10/2016)
Troy lost to #2 Clemson 24-30 18 points
Nicholls State lost to #9 Georgia 24-26 15 points
Arkansas beat #15 TCU 41-38 14 points
Central Michigan beat #22 Oklahoma State 30-27 7 points
Last week was loaded up with made for TV games between top teams to get the season started off with a bang. This week, the top teams played the sort of teams they would really prefer to begin the season with. The result was a series of blow-outs. But if you are going to play small-time teams, you still need to bring your "A" game. if you don't you could find yourself in the situation Clemson, Georgia and Oklahoma State found themselves in. Clemson opponents have thrived so far this year, getting 24 points from that#2 rating and losing by close margins. Both Auburn and Troy got 18 points out of it. I suspect future Clemson opponents might not have as much of a windfall if he Tigers keep playing this way.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 52 points
Houston 33 points
Florida State 26 points
Wisconsin 23 points
Texas 19 points
Auburn 18 points
Troy 18 points
Texas A&M 17 points
Nicholls State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Georgia 13 points
Mississippi 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Kansas State 5 points
Oklahoma 1 point
