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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2766773, member: 289"] 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 TEN Alabama beat #3 Louisiana State 29-0 = +52 points Michigan beat #14 Penn State 42-7 = +47 points Missouri beat #11 Florida 38-17 = +36 points Georgia beat #9 Kentucky 34-17 = +34 points Arizona State beat #15 Utah 38-20 = +29 points Texas Tech lost to #7 Oklahoma 46-51 = +14 points California lost to #8 Washington State 13-19 = +12 points Northwestern lost to #4 Notre Dame 21-31 = +12 points Purdue beat #16 Iowa 38-36 = +12 points Texas lost to #13 West Virginia 41-42 = +12 points Nebraska lost to #10 Ohio State 31-36 = +11 points Pittsburgh beat #25 Virginia 23-13 = +11 points Auburn beat #20 Texas A&M 28-24 = +10 points West Virginia beat #17 Texas 42-41 = +10 points Kentucky lost to #6 Georgia 17-34 = +3 points Temple lost to #12 Central Florida 40-52 = +2 points Louisiana State lost to #1 Alabama 0-29 = -4 points Virginia Tech lost to #22 Boston College 21-31 = -6 points Wake Forest lost to #19 Syracuse 24-41 = -10 points Florida State lost to #21 North Carolina State 28-47 = -14 points Penn State lost to #5 Michigan 7-42 = -14 points Kansas lost to #24 Iowa State 3-27 = -22 points Louisiana Tech lost to #15 Mississippi State 3-45 = -31 points Louisville lost to #2 Clemson 16-77 = -37 points Nevada-Las Vegas lost to #23 Fresno State 3-48 = -42 points Comment: It was a weekend of big games against good teams for the Top 25 and some big point totals were racked up. Alabama looked great against unranked teams but were not piling up the points in this system. Now they’ve looked great against a ranked team and have now positioned themselves near the top of the rankings. They will get several more chances to add to their +78 total in the next few weeks. Michigan moved up to #2 with their crushing victory over Penn State while LSU fell back a bit. Georgia moved into third place by bursting Kentucky’s bubble. Purdue and Texas, (even in defeat) moved up. The last two weeks of the season Syracuse will play the 3rd and 17th ranked teams. That gives them 32 schedule points on top of the +33 points they’ve already earned, effectively +65 points. Let’s see if they can add to that total. TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1 Louisiana State +110 points Michigan +106 points Georgia +89 points Purdue +85 points Texas +85 points Notre Dame +83 points Alabama +78 points Mississippi State +62 points Northwestern +57 points Missouri +55 points Oklahoma State +55 points Texas Tech +55 points Iowa State +54 points Washington +52 points Arizona State +50 points Auburn +48 points Kentucky +48 points Clemson +44 points Texas A&M +44 points Stanford +42 points Ohio State +41 points Oregon +41 points Virginia Tech +41 points Florida +39 points Arizona +36 points Syracuse has +33 points. Connecticut’s -86 points is the worst [/QUOTE]

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