Against Ranked Teams (Football) Week 3

[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 THREE

Oklahoma State beat #17 Boise State 44-21 = +32 points
Texas beat #22 Southern California 37-14 = +27 points
Brigham Young beat #6 Wisconsin 24-21 = +23 points
Ohio State beat #15 Texas Christian 40-28 = +23 points
Louisiana State beat #7 Auburn 22-21 = +20 points
Auburn beat #12 Louisiana State 21-22 = +13 points
Vanderbilt lost to #8 Notre Dame 17-22 = +13 points
Iowa State lost to #5 Oklahoma 27-37 = +11 points
San Diego State beat #23 Arizona State 28-21 = +10 points
Texas Christian lost to #4 Ohio State 28-40 = +10 points
Utah lost to #10 Washington 7-21 = +2 points
UC Davis lost to #9 Stanford 10-30 = -3 points
Georgia Southern lost to #2 Clemson 7-38 = -7 points
San Jose State lost to #20 Oregon 22-35 = -7 points
Boise State lost to #14 Oklahoma State 21-44 = -11 points
Southern Methodist lost to #19 Michigan 20-45 = -18 points
Middle Tennessee State lost to #3 Georgia 7-49 = -19 points
Toledo lost to #21 U of Miami 24-49 = -20 points
Mississippi lost to #1 Alabama 7-62 = -30 points
(SW) Louisiana lost to #16 Mississippi State 10-56 = -36 points
Kent State lost to #11 Penn State 10-63 = -38 points

Comment: Our ol’ pal Ed Orgeron is at the top of the list with his victories over U of Miami and Auburn. The SEC seems be making a strong move to continue their dominance. LSU is #1 in my standings, Auburn #2 and Georgia #6. And Alabama has yet to play a ranked team. Vanderbilt and Kentucky are #13 and #14. We’ll see if they can stay up there.


TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Louisiana State +54 points
Auburn +38 points
Oklahoma State +32 points
Virginia Tech +28 points
Texas +27 points

Georgia +26 points
Brigham Young +23 points
Ohio State +23 points
Stanford +23 points
Texas A&M +22 points

Notre Dame +19 points
Arizona State +14 points
Vanderbilt +13 points
Kentucky +12 points
Washington +12 points

Iowa State +11 points
Ball State +10 points
Texas Christian +10 points
Appalachian State +9 points
Maryland +8 points

Utah State +8 points
Michigan +7 points
San Diego State +2 points
Southern California +2 points
Utah +2 points

Connecticut -83 points is the worst

Syracuse Hasn’t played a ranked team yet – and won’t until Clemson.