SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 32,681
- Like
- 62,967
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 #5 (9/29-10/1/2016)
Washington beat #7 Stanford 44-6 57 points
Clemson beat #3 Louisville 42-36 29 points
Michigan beat #8 Wisconsin 14-7 25 points
South Alabama beat #19 San Diego State 24-42 24 points
Oklahoma State beat #22 Texas 49-31 22 points
North Carolina beat #12 Florida State 37-35 16 points
Louisville beat #5 Clemson 36-42 15 points
Wisconsin lost to #4 Michigan 7-14 15 points
California beat #18 Utah 28-23 13 points
Georgia lost to #11 Tennessee 31-34 12 points
Indiana beat #17 Michigan State 24-21 12 points
Oklahoma beat Texas Christian 52-46 11 points
Iowa State lost to #13 Baylor 42-45 10 points
South Carolina lost to #9 Texas A&M 13-24 6 points
Tennessee beat #25 Georgia 34-31 4 points
Comment: Washington’s crushing of Stanford was shocking but still got them 10 less points than Louisville got for their demolition of Florida State, still the best performance by any team this year.
One anomaly of this system is that in a game between ranked teams, the winning team doesn’t necessarily get the most points out of it. We’ve all seen Tennessee beat Georgia on that Hail Mary and celebrate. That sure beats losing. But Tennessee was ranked #11 and Georgia #25, so the Bulldogs got 15 points for playing the Viols and the Vols only got 1 point for playing the ‘Dogs. The three point margin of victory increased Tennessee’s haul to 4 points and reduced Georgia’s to 12 points, but Georgia still got more points out of a game they lost – because they got credit for playing a much high ranked team close while the Vols, by their ranking should have beaten the Dogs by more than that.
Similarly, losers Louisville and Wisconsin now move to the top of the standings: former #1 Mississippi didn’t play a ranked team and thus got no points.
SEASON STANDINGS
Louisville 82 points
Wisconsin 80 points
Mississippi 76 points
Alabama 63 points
Washington 57 points
Texas A&M 47 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
Ohio State 33 points
Auburn 31 points
Clemson 29 points
Florida State 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Texas 19 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Indiana 12 points
Georgia State 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Southern California 2 points
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 #5 (9/29-10/1/2016)
Washington beat #7 Stanford 44-6 57 points
Clemson beat #3 Louisville 42-36 29 points
Michigan beat #8 Wisconsin 14-7 25 points
South Alabama beat #19 San Diego State 24-42 24 points
Oklahoma State beat #22 Texas 49-31 22 points
North Carolina beat #12 Florida State 37-35 16 points
Louisville beat #5 Clemson 36-42 15 points
Wisconsin lost to #4 Michigan 7-14 15 points
California beat #18 Utah 28-23 13 points
Georgia lost to #11 Tennessee 31-34 12 points
Indiana beat #17 Michigan State 24-21 12 points
Oklahoma beat Texas Christian 52-46 11 points
Iowa State lost to #13 Baylor 42-45 10 points
South Carolina lost to #9 Texas A&M 13-24 6 points
Tennessee beat #25 Georgia 34-31 4 points
Comment: Washington’s crushing of Stanford was shocking but still got them 10 less points than Louisville got for their demolition of Florida State, still the best performance by any team this year.
One anomaly of this system is that in a game between ranked teams, the winning team doesn’t necessarily get the most points out of it. We’ve all seen Tennessee beat Georgia on that Hail Mary and celebrate. That sure beats losing. But Tennessee was ranked #11 and Georgia #25, so the Bulldogs got 15 points for playing the Viols and the Vols only got 1 point for playing the ‘Dogs. The three point margin of victory increased Tennessee’s haul to 4 points and reduced Georgia’s to 12 points, but Georgia still got more points out of a game they lost – because they got credit for playing a much high ranked team close while the Vols, by their ranking should have beaten the Dogs by more than that.
Similarly, losers Louisville and Wisconsin now move to the top of the standings: former #1 Mississippi didn’t play a ranked team and thus got no points.
SEASON STANDINGS
Louisville 82 points
Wisconsin 80 points
Mississippi 76 points
Alabama 63 points
Washington 57 points
Texas A&M 47 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
Ohio State 33 points
Auburn 31 points
Clemson 29 points
Florida State 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Texas 19 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Arkansas 14 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Indiana 12 points
Georgia State 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Southern California 2 points
