Against Ranked Teams (Football) week 4

[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 4

Wisconsin beat #11 Michigan 35-14 = +36 points
Georgia beat #7 Notre Dame 23-17 = +23 points
Southern California beat #10 Utah 30-23= +23 points
Auburn beat #17 Texas A&M 28-20 = +17 points
Notre Dame lost to #3 Georgia 17-23 = +17 points
Pittsburgh beat #15 Central Florida 35-34 = +12 points
UCLA beat Washington State 67-63 = +11 points
Texas A&M lost to #8 Auburn 20-28 = +10 points
Oklahoma State lost to #12 Texas 30-36 = +8 points
Colorado beat #24 Arizona State 34-31 = +5 points
Southern Methodist beat #25 Texas Christian 41-38 = +4 points
Air Force lost to #20 Boise State 19-30 = -5 points
Mississippi lost to #23 California 20-28 = -5 points
Stanford lost to #16 Oregon 6-21 = -5 points
Old Dominion lost to #21 Virginia 17-28 = -6 points
Vanderbilt lost to #4 Louisiana State 38-66 = -6 points
Michigan lost to #13 Wisconsin 14-35 = -8 points
Tennessee lost to #9 Florida 3-34 = -14 points
Charlotte lost to #1 Clemson 10-52 = -17 points
Southern Mississippi lost to #2 Alabama 7-49 = -18 points
Brigham Young lost to #22 Washington 19-45 = -22 points
Miami University lost to #6 Ohio State 5-76 = -51 points

Comment: Maybe Southern California doesn’t need a new coach after all.

TOP 25

Southern California +51 points
Maryland +48 points
Auburn +38 points
Wisconsin +36 points
Louisiana State +24 points
Texas A&M +21 points
Pittsburgh +18 points
Notre Dame +17 points
Army +16 points
U of Miami +14 points

California +13 points
Texas +13 points
Arizona State +11 points
Colorado +10 points
Kentucky +9 points

Oklahoma State +8 points
Temple +8 points
Iowa State +6 points
Oregon +4 points
Southern Methodist +4 points

Houston +3 points
Northern Iowa +2 points
Middle Tennessee State 0 points
South Carolina 0 points
Brigham Young -1 points
Louisville -1 point
Vanderbilt -1 point

The worst team so far is New Mexico State with -76 points.

Syracuse has -10 points