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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 3155808, 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 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 9 Michigan beat #8 Notre Dame 45-14 = +49 points Ohio State beat #13 Wisconsin 38-7 = +44 points Kansas State beat #5 Oklahoma 48-41 = +28 points Auburn lost to #2 Louisiana State 20-23 = +21 points Texas Christian beat #15 Texas 37-27 =- +21 points Louisiana State beat #9 Auburn 23-20 = +20 points Washington State lost to #11 Oregon 35-37 = +13 points UCLA beat #24 Arizona State 42-32 = +12 points Oklahoma State beat #23 Iowa State 34-27 = +10 points Houston lost to #16 Southern Methodist 31-34 = +7 points Michigan State lost to #6 Penn State 7-28 = -1 points Wisconsin lost to #3 Ohio State 7-38 = -8 points Northwestern lost to #20 Iowa 0-20 = -14 points Arkansas lost to #1 Alabama 7-48 = -16 points California lost to #12 Utah 0-35 = -21 points South Alabama lost to #21 Appalachian State 3-30 = -22 points Notre Dame lost to #19 Michigan 14-45 = -24 points Boston College lost to #4 Clemson 7-59 = -30 points Maryland lost to #17 Minnesota 10-52 = -33 points Comments: The games are getting bigger and more of the better teams are rising to the top of the standings. Poor Clemson may only have one more game against a ranked team, (Wake Forest, if they keep winning). But they had a good day when K-State took out Oklahoma. South Alabama could have used Ryan Alexander. TOP 25 Louisiana State +77 points Michigan +72 points Ohio State +69 points Southern California +65 points Auburn +64 points Florida +37 points South Carolina +32 points Washington +29 points Clemson +28 points Kansas State +28 points U of Miami +28 points Wisconsin +28 points Utah +27 points Texas +26 points Arizona State +24 points North Carolina +24 points Oklahoma State +23 points Oklahoma +22 points Alabama +21 points Texas A&M +21 points Texas Christian +21 points Pittsburgh +18 points Penn State +17 points Army +16 points Notre Dame +16 points The worst team so far is Rutgers with -99 points. Syracuse has -10 points [/QUOTE]

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