Against Ranked Teams Week 4

[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.

WEEK FOUR
Texas Tech beat #15 Oklahoma State 41-17 = +35 points
Kentucky beat #14 Mississippi State 28-7 = +33 points
Old Dominion beat #13 Virginia Tech 49-35 = +27 points
Alabama beat #22 Texas A&M 45-23 = +26 points
Texas beat #17 Texas Christian 31-16 = +24 points
Purdue beat #23 Boston College 30-13 = +20 points
Army lost to #5 Oklahoma 21-28 = +14 points
Stanford beat #20 Oregon 38-31 = +13 points
Oregon lost to #7 Stanford 31-38 = +12 points
Missouri lost to #2 Georgia 29-43 = +10 points
Arizona State lost to #10 Washington 20-27 = +9 points
Louisiana Tech lost to #6 Louisiana State 21-38 = +3 points
Texas A&M lost to #1 Alabama 23-45 = +3 points
Iowa lost to #18 Wisconsin 17-28 = -3 points
Georgia Tech lost to #3 Clemson 21-49 = -5 points
Florida International lost to #21 U of Miami 17-31 = -9 points
Florida Atlantic lost to #16 Central Florida 36-56 = -10 points
Wake Forest lost to #8 Notre Dame 27-56 = -11 points
Indiana lost to #24 Michigan State 21-35 = -12 points
Arkansas lost to #9 Auburn 3-34 = -14 points
Kansas State lost to #12 West Virginia 6-35 = -15 points
Tulane lost to #4 Ohio State 6-49 = -21 points
Illinois lost to #10 Penn State 24-63 = -23 points
McNeese State lost to #25 Brigham Young 3-30 = -26 points
Nebraska lost to #19 Michigan 10-56 = -39 points

Comments: The meek Inherited the earth with 7 ranked teams going down and some of them went down hard. On one show they were saying that Va tech’s loss to ODU destroyed the reputation of the ACC such that if Clemson, the only good team, loses, they won’t make the playoff because they were an ACC team. Scott Frost has a lot of work to do to thaw out the Cornhuskers.


TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Louisiana State +54 points
Texas +51 points
Kentucky +45 points
Auburn +38 points
Stanford +36 points

Texas Tech +35 points
Oklahoma State +32 points
Virginia Tech +28 points
Old Dominion +27 points
Alabama +26 points

Georgia +26 points
Texas A&M +25 points
Arizona State +23 points
Brigham Young +23 points
Ohio State +23 points

Purdue +20 points
Notre Dame +19 points
Army +14 points
Vanderbilt +13 points
Oregon +12 points

Washington +12 points
Iowa State +11 points
Ball State +10 points
Missouri +10 points
Texas Christian +10 points

Connecticut -83 points is the worst

Syracuse Hasn’t played a ranked team yet – and won’t until Clemson.