Against Ranked Teams - Week 10

[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 a bit differently this year. The old 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 year and last year 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 10

Iowa beat #6 Ohio State 55-24 = +51 points
Alabama beat #19 Louisiana State 24-10 = +31 points
U of Miami beat #13 Virginia Tech 28-10 = +31 points
Oklahoma beat #11 Oklahoma State 62-52 = +25 points
Michigan State beat #7 Penn State 27-24 = +22 points
Southern California beat #22 Arizona 49-35 = +18 points
West Virginia beat #15 Iowa State 20-15 = +16 points
North Carolina State lost to #4 Clemson 31-38 = +14 points
Clemson beat #20 North Carolina State 38-31 = +13 points
Wake Forest lost to #3 Notre Dame 37-48 = +12 points
Oklahoma State lost to #5 Oklahoma 52-62 = +11 points
Louisiana State lost to #2 Alabama 10-24 = +10 points
Washington State beat #21 Stanford 24-21 = +8 points
Massachusetts lost to #16 Mississippi State 23-34 = +5 points
Southern Methodist lost to #18 Central Florida 24-31 = +1 point
Texas lost to #8 Texas Christian 7-24 +1 point
Penn State lost to #24 Michigan State 24-27 = -1 point
Stanford lost to #25 Washington State 21-24 = -2 points
Virginia Tech lost to #10 U of Miami 10-28 = -2 points
Texas A&M lost to #14 Auburn 27-42 = -3 points
Arizona lost to #17 Southern California 35-49 = -5 points
Indiana lost to #9 Wisconsin 17-45 = -11 points
South Carolina lost to #1 Georgia 10-24 = -11 points
Oregon lost to #12 Washington 3-38 = -21 points
Tulsa lost to #23 Memphis 14-41 = -24 points

Comments: Ohio State was so thrilled with their win over Penn State that they didn’t show up at Iowa and blew any chance to make the playoff. So did Penn State in losing to Michigan State. Or could we have a 2 loss playoff team for the first time? We had 7 games between ranked teams so the standings really percolated. Clemson, a team we beat, moved back into the #1 spot.

TOP 25

Clemson +100 points
Notre Dame +93 points
Alabama +71 points
Iowa +71 points
Oklahoma +64 points

Iowa State +59 points
Penn State +54 points
North Carolina State +53 points
California +52 points
Auburn +49 points

Michigan State +45 points
Texas +42 points
West Virginia +42 points
Georgia +40 points
Texas Christian +37 points

Louisiana State +36 points
Washington State +34 points
Southern California +33 points
U of Miami +31 points
Ohio State +31 points

Arizona +29 points
Syracuse +29 points
Arizona State +26 points
Northwestern +24 points
Wake Forest +22 points

East Carolina last with -97 points