Against Ranked Teams (football ) after Week 13

[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 a couple years ago. 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 13
Ohio State beat #8 Penn State 28-17 = +29 points
Arizona State beat #6 Oregon 31-28 = +23 points
Texas A&M lost to #4 Georgia 13-19 = +16 points
Penn State lost to #2 Ohio State 17-28 = +13 points
Texas Christian lost to #9 Oklahoma 24-28 = +13 points
Navy beat #25 Southern Methodist 35-28 = +8 points
Temple lost to #19 Cincinnati 13-15 = +5 points
Illinois lost to #17 Iowa 10-19 = 0 points
Northwestern lost to #10 Minnesota 22-38 = 0 points
Texas lost to #14 Baylor 10-24 = -2 points
West Virginia lost to #21 Oklahoma State 13-20 = -2 points
Kansas lost to #22 Iowa State 31-41 = -6 points
Purdue lost to #12 Wisconsin 24-45 = -7 points
Arizona lost to #7 Utah 7-35 = -9 yards
Arkansas lost to #1 Louisiana State 20-56 = -11 points
Indiana lost to #13 Michigan 14-39 = -12 points
UCLA lost to #23 Southern California 35-52 = -14 points
Texas State lost to #24 Appalachian State 13-35 = -20 points
Boston College lost to #16 Notre Dame 7-40 = -23 points
Utah State lost to #20 Boise State 21-56 = -29 points
South Florida lost to #18 Memphis 10-49 = -31 points
Samford lost to #15 Auburn 0-52 = -41 points
Western Carolina lost to #5 Alabama 3-66 = -42 points

Comments: It’s the week before the Big Week in the SEC. The top rivalry games will be next week. But most of the right teams have surfaced at the top of the standings already. Clemson has no way to get there but should still get into the playoffs and many win it all again.

TOP 25

Louisiana State +105 points
Ohio State +98 points
Michigan +72 points
Georgia +71 points
Auburn +64 points

Southern California +52 points
Notre Dame +51 points
Florida +48 points
Arizona State +47 points
Texas Christian +42 points

Washington +41 points
Alabama +40 points
Oklahoma +38 points
Wisconsin +38 points
Texas +37 points

Texas A&M +37 points
Virginia Tech +35 points
Iowa +34 points
Penn State +34 points
South Carolina +32 points

Iowa State +31 points
Minnesota +29 points
Clemson +28 points
Kansas State +28 points
U of Miami +28 points

Syracuse has -10 points

SU opponents: Liberty -20, Maryland has -83, Clemson +28, Western Michigan -27, Holy Cross 0, North Carolina State -55 points, Pittsburgh +18, Florida State -13, Boston College -53, Duke -35, Louisville -3, Wake Forest -26

The worst team so far is Rutgers with -110 points.