Against Ranked Teams (Football) Week 11

[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 ELEVEN

Alabama beat #16 Mississippi State 24-0 = +34 points
Tennessee beat #11 Kentucky 24-7 = +32 points
Clemson beat #17 Boston College 27-7 = +29 points
Ohio State beat #18 Michigan State 26-6 = +28 points
Georgia beat #24 Auburn 27-10 = +19 points
Oklahoma State lost to #6 Oklahoma 47-48 = +19 points
Wake Forest beat #14 North Carolina State 27-23 = +16 points
Arkansas lost to #7 Louisiana State 17-24 = +12 points
Boise State beat #23 Fresno State 24-17 = +10 points
Northwestern beat #21 Iowa 14-10 = +9 points
South Carolina lost to #15 Florida 31-35 = +7 points
Boston College lost to #2 Clemson 7-27 = +4 points
Auburn lost to #5 Georgia 10-27 = +3 points
Navy lost to #12 Central Florida 24-35 = +3 points
Mississippi State lost to #1 Alabama 0-24 = +1 points
Texas Tech lost to #19 Texas 34-41 = 0 points
Michigan State lost to #10 Ohio State 6-26 = -4 points
Colorado lost to #8 Washington State 7-31 = -6 points
Florida State lost to #3 Notre Dame 13-42 = -6 points
Wisconsin lost to #20 Penn State = -6 points
Baylor lost to #22 Iowa State 14-28 = -10 points
Rutgers lost to #4 Michigan 7-42 = -13 points
Louisville lost to #13 Syracuse 23-54 = -18 points
Texas Christian lost to #9 West Virginia 10-47 = -20 points

Comments: Alabama and Clemson have been the two dominant teams so far this year but until recently, they hadn’t played many ranked teams. Now they are. They are still dominant and are now piling up the points. Our remaining opponents are currently ranked #3 and #22 so we would get 27 more points for playing them, getting us up to +60. When happens then is up to us.


TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Alabama +112 points
Louisiana State +110 points
Georgia +108 points
Michigan +106 points
Purdue +85 points

Texas +85 points
Notre Dame +83 points
Oklahoma State +74 points
Clemson +73 points
Ohio State +69 points

Northwestern +66 points
Mississippi State +63 points
Missouri +55 points
Texas Tech +55 points
Iowa State +54 points

Washington +52 points
Arizona State +50 points
Auburn +51 points
Kentucky +48 points
Texas A&M +44 points

Stanford +42 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