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[QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2750131, 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.

Arizona beat #19 Oregon 44-15 =                +36 points
Georgia beat #9 Florida 36-17 =                    +36 points
Houston beat #21 South Florida 57-36 =                +26 points
Mississippi State beat Texas A&M 28-13 =            +25 points
Oklahoma State beat #6 Texas 38-35 =                +23 points
Georgia Southern beat #25 Appalachian State 34-14 =        +21 points
Northwestern beat #20 Wisconsin 31-17 =            +20 points
Penn State beat #18 Iowa 30-24 =                +14 points
Syracuse beat #22 North Carolina State 51-41 =            +14 points
California beat #15 Washington 12-10 =                +13 points
Missouri lost to #12 Kentucky 14-15 =                +13 points
Stanford lost to #14 Washington State 38-41 =            +9 points
Washington State beat #24 Stanford 41-38 =            +5 points
Iowa lost to #17 Penn State 24-30 =                +3 points
Navy lost to #3 Notre Dame 22-44 =                +1 points
Florida lost to #7 Georgia 17-36 =                0 points
Kansas State lost to #8 Oklahoma =                -19 points
Florida State lost to #2 Clemson 10-59 =                -25 points
UCLA lost to #23 Utah 10-41 =                    -28 points
Baylor lost to #13 West Virginia 14-58 =                -31 points

Comments: 5 ranked teams were idle, including three in the top ten and #1 Alabama. The teams that earned the big numbers above had not been among the leaders so the top of the standings didn’t change all that much. What did change was the bottom of the AP top 25: Nine of the teams ranked from #15-#25 lost. #17 was idle and #23 won. That creates a lot of room for newcomers to the Top 25. Could Wake forest get some schedule points for playing a ranked Syracuse team next week? The bad news is that we had gotten no votes at all in last week’s poll. (UAB got a vote.) Nine of the fourteen schools who got votes but weren’t ranked won, (Auburn was idle) Of the 11 teams that beat Top 25 teams, three were already ranked, one had a losing record and the rest had winning records. So the competition for the vacated spots will be fierce.

TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1

Louisiana State             +114 points
Notre Dame            +83 points
Purdue                +73 points
Texas                +73 points
Mississippi State        +62 points

Michigan            +59 points
Georgia                +55 points
Oklahoma State            +55 points
Iowa State            +54 points
Washington            +52 points

Virginia Tech             +47 points
Kentucky            +45 points
Northwestern            +45 points
Clemson            +44 points
Texas A&M            +44 points

Stanford            +42 points
Ohio State            +41 points
Oregon                +41 points
Texas Tech            +41 points
Florida                +39 points

Auburn                +38 points
Arizona                +36 points
Penn State            +35 points
[B]Syracuse            +33 points[/B]
Utah                +33 points
Washington State        +33 points

Connecticut’s    -86 points is the worst
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