SWC75
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We often hear teams being evaluated at the end of the season by how they did “against ranked teams”. A couple of years ago I came up with a simple system for evaluating this, one with an acknowledged flaw but which nonetheless produced interesting results so I’ll do it again this year.
The system is very simple. First I hand out points to teams based on the ranking of their opponent. If you play the #1 ranked team, you get 25 points for playing such a powerful team. You get 24 points for playing the #2 team, 23 for playing the #3 team, etc. I’ll call them schedule points. Here’s a chart to make it easy:
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.
That’s step one. Now we play the games and see how these teams actually do on the field. What cued me into this is that most games will be won or lost by 25 points or less, so the points involved are comparable. You just compare the point differential to the points teams have gotten for playing a ranked opponent. If they beat the ranked opponent, their points will grow by the margin of victory. If they lose, you subtract the margin of victory from the schedule points. If that reduces them to zero or less, they get zero points. I’m not going to deal with minus points, just add up the positive points earned, or else my rankings would be cluttered up with a lot of inferior teams who were below the Mendoza line because they’d gotten blown out by their ranked opponents. If you play the #1 team and lose by 21 points, you’ll get 4 points: 25 schedule points minus the 21 points you lost by. If you play the #10 team and lose by 13 points, you’ll get three points. If you play the #15 team and lose by 14 points, you’ll get nothing, (11-14 = 0 in this system).
I’ll record the points earned each week and how the teams got them and add them up over the course of the season. That will show us how each team did “against ranked teams”. Like all cumulative standings, they will sort themselves out as the season goes on and come more and more into focus. Later listings will be more meaningful than early ones as more and more teams get through the meat of their schedules. The cumulative listing should I think be less a ranking of teams than a statistic you look at in determining where to rank the teams.
WEEK #10 (November 3-5, 2016)
Ohio State beat #10 Nebraska 62-3 75 points
Texas Christian beat #17 Baylor 62-22 49 points
Arkansas beat #11 Florida 31-10 36 points
Mississippi State beat #4 Texas A&M 35-28 29 points
Alabama beat #13 Louisiana State 10-0 23 points
Louisiana State lost to #1 Alabama 0-10 15 points
Vanderbilt lost to #9 Auburn 16-23 10 points
Duke lost to #19 Virginia Tech 21-24 4 points
Northwestern lost to #8 Wisconsin 7-12 4 points
Iowa State lost to #14 Oklahoma 24-34 2 points
Kansas State lost to Oklahoma State 37-43 2 points
UCLA lost to #15 Colorado 10-20 1 point
Comments: Ohio State’s 59 point crushing of #10 Nebraska earned them the most points of any team in any game since I’ve been keeping track of this, (I started in 2013), breaking their own record from their 59 win over #13 Wisconsin in the 2014 Big Ten title game. The top teams all won blow-outs but there were a number of more competitive games behind that that earned several teams points. Alabama has earned their #1 ranking but Auburn could give them trouble and whoever else will be in the playoff will be a formidable team.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 181 points
Wisconsin 122 points
Ohio State 117 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Arkansas 74 points
Washington 73 points
Florida State 63 points
Ohio State 58 points
Oklahoma State 55 points
Texas Christian 49 points
Clemson 46 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Texas 39 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Louisiana State 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Mississippi State 32 points
Michigan State 30 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Northwestern 20 points
Troy 18 points
South Carolina 17 points
Nebraska 16 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Virginia 16 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Utah 15 points
Wyoming 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Duke 13 points
Iowa State 12 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
South Florida 11 points
UCLA 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Vanderbilt 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Kansas State 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Texas Tech 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
U of Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 1 point
The system is very simple. First I hand out points to teams based on the ranking of their opponent. If you play the #1 ranked team, you get 25 points for playing such a powerful team. You get 24 points for playing the #2 team, 23 for playing the #3 team, etc. I’ll call them schedule points. Here’s a chart to make it easy:
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.
That’s step one. Now we play the games and see how these teams actually do on the field. What cued me into this is that most games will be won or lost by 25 points or less, so the points involved are comparable. You just compare the point differential to the points teams have gotten for playing a ranked opponent. If they beat the ranked opponent, their points will grow by the margin of victory. If they lose, you subtract the margin of victory from the schedule points. If that reduces them to zero or less, they get zero points. I’m not going to deal with minus points, just add up the positive points earned, or else my rankings would be cluttered up with a lot of inferior teams who were below the Mendoza line because they’d gotten blown out by their ranked opponents. If you play the #1 team and lose by 21 points, you’ll get 4 points: 25 schedule points minus the 21 points you lost by. If you play the #10 team and lose by 13 points, you’ll get three points. If you play the #15 team and lose by 14 points, you’ll get nothing, (11-14 = 0 in this system).
I’ll record the points earned each week and how the teams got them and add them up over the course of the season. That will show us how each team did “against ranked teams”. Like all cumulative standings, they will sort themselves out as the season goes on and come more and more into focus. Later listings will be more meaningful than early ones as more and more teams get through the meat of their schedules. The cumulative listing should I think be less a ranking of teams than a statistic you look at in determining where to rank the teams.
WEEK #10 (November 3-5, 2016)
Ohio State beat #10 Nebraska 62-3 75 points
Texas Christian beat #17 Baylor 62-22 49 points
Arkansas beat #11 Florida 31-10 36 points
Mississippi State beat #4 Texas A&M 35-28 29 points
Alabama beat #13 Louisiana State 10-0 23 points
Louisiana State lost to #1 Alabama 0-10 15 points
Vanderbilt lost to #9 Auburn 16-23 10 points
Duke lost to #19 Virginia Tech 21-24 4 points
Northwestern lost to #8 Wisconsin 7-12 4 points
Iowa State lost to #14 Oklahoma 24-34 2 points
Kansas State lost to Oklahoma State 37-43 2 points
UCLA lost to #15 Colorado 10-20 1 point
Comments: Ohio State’s 59 point crushing of #10 Nebraska earned them the most points of any team in any game since I’ve been keeping track of this, (I started in 2013), breaking their own record from their 59 win over #13 Wisconsin in the 2014 Big Ten title game. The top teams all won blow-outs but there were a number of more competitive games behind that that earned several teams points. Alabama has earned their #1 ranking but Auburn could give them trouble and whoever else will be in the playoff will be a formidable team.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 181 points
Wisconsin 122 points
Ohio State 117 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Arkansas 74 points
Washington 73 points
Florida State 63 points
Ohio State 58 points
Oklahoma State 55 points
Texas Christian 49 points
Clemson 46 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Texas 39 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Louisiana State 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Mississippi State 32 points
Michigan State 30 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Northwestern 20 points
Troy 18 points
South Carolina 17 points
Nebraska 16 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Virginia 16 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Utah 15 points
Wyoming 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Duke 13 points
Iowa State 12 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
South Florida 11 points
UCLA 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Vanderbilt 10 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Kansas State 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Texas Tech 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
U of Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 1 point