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 #8 (October 20-22, 2016)
Auburn beat #17 Arkansas 56-3 62 points
Alabama beat #6 Texas A&M 33-14 39 points
Southern Methodist beat #11 Houston 38-16 37 points
Penn State beat #2 Ohio State 24-21 27 points
Louisiana State beat #23 Mississippi 38-21 20 points
Brigham Young lost to #14 Boise State 27-28 11 points
Iowa lost to #10 Wisconsin 9-17 8 points
Texas A&M lost to #1 Alabama 14-33 6 points
Purdue lost to #8 Nebraska 14-27 5 points
Texas Tech lost to #16 Oklahoma 59-66 3 points
Comments: Auburn’s ‘upset’ of Arkansas was the second most impressive performance of the season after Louisville’s 63-20 demotion of then #2 Florida State in Week #3. An even bigger shocker was Southern Methodist getting 37 points from their win over fading Houston. They haven’t been relevant in 30 years. Is Penn State on their way back? Is LSU? Do they play any defense in the Big 12? I dunno….
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 158 points
Wisconsin 97 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Ohio State 58 points
Washington 57 points
Florida State 43 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Arkansas 38 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Clemson 29 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Louisiana State 20 points
Texas 20 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Texas Tech 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 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 #8 (October 20-22, 2016)
Auburn beat #17 Arkansas 56-3 62 points
Alabama beat #6 Texas A&M 33-14 39 points
Southern Methodist beat #11 Houston 38-16 37 points
Penn State beat #2 Ohio State 24-21 27 points
Louisiana State beat #23 Mississippi 38-21 20 points
Brigham Young lost to #14 Boise State 27-28 11 points
Iowa lost to #10 Wisconsin 9-17 8 points
Texas A&M lost to #1 Alabama 14-33 6 points
Purdue lost to #8 Nebraska 14-27 5 points
Texas Tech lost to #16 Oklahoma 59-66 3 points
Comments: Auburn’s ‘upset’ of Arkansas was the second most impressive performance of the season after Louisville’s 63-20 demotion of then #2 Florida State in Week #3. An even bigger shocker was Southern Methodist getting 37 points from their win over fading Houston. They haven’t been relevant in 30 years. Is Penn State on their way back? Is LSU? Do they play any defense in the Big 12? I dunno….
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 158 points
Wisconsin 97 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Ohio State 58 points
Washington 57 points
Florida State 43 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Arkansas 38 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Clemson 29 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Louisiana State 20 points
Texas 20 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Texas Tech 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 1 point
