Against Ranked Teams - 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 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 4

Georgia beat #17 Mississippi State 31-3 = +37 points
Texas Christian beat #6 Oklahoma State 44-31 = +33 points
Iowa Lost to #4 Penn State 19-21 = +20 points
North Carolina State beat #12 Florida State 27-21 = +20 points
Baylor lost to #3 Oklahoma 41-49 = +15 Points
California lost to #5 Southern California 20-30 = +11 points
Kentucky lost to #20 Florida 27-28 = +5 points
Arizona State beat #24 Oregon 37-35 = +4 points
Air Force lost to #22 San Diego State 24-28 = 0 points
Purdue lost to #8 Michigan 10-28 = 0 points
Arizona lost to #23 Utah 24-30 = -3 points
Boston College lost to #2 Clemson 7-34 = -3 points
Oklahoma State lost to #16 Texas Christian 31-44 = -3 points
Colorado lost to #7 Washington 10-37 = -8 points
Syracuse lost to #25 Louisiana State 26-35 = -8 points
Toledo lost to U of Miami 30-51 = -9 points
Mississippi State lost to #11 Georgia 3-31 = -13 points
Nevada-Las Vegas lost to #10 Ohio State 21-54 = -17 points
Missouri lost to #15 Auburn 14-51 = -22 points
Old Dominion lost to #13 Virginia tech 0-38 = -25 points
Nevada-Reno lost to #18 Washington State 7-45 = -30 points
Temple lost to #21 South Florida 7-43 = -31 points
Kent State lost to #19 Louisville 3-42 = -32 points
Vanderbilt lost to #1 Alabama 0-59 = -34 points

Comments: This was the first week that teams in the rankings fell back because I am now using negative numbers. Mississippi State had been +44 and #2 on the list below but their loss to Georgia knocked them back 13 points to +31 andsixth. Vanderbilt went from +15 to -19 and out of the top 25.


TOP 25

Clemson +59 points
Alabama +40 points
Georgia +40 points
Oklahoma +39 points
Texas Christian +33 points

Mississippi State +31 points
Southern California +30 points
Michigan +25 points
Iowa +20 points
North Carolina State +20 points

Texas +19 points
Baylor +15 points
Maryland +13 points
California +11 points
Virginia Tech +11 points

Notre Dame +10 points
San Diego State +10 points
Auburn +8 points
Florida State +8 points
Colorado State +7 points

Ohio State +6 points
Memphis +4 points
Western Michigan +4 points
Air Force +3 points
Boise State +3 points

Purdue +3 points

Syracuse is -8 points and Kent State is last with -64 points

 

[Hoo's That]

How does your system handle losses to unranked teams? I would think that whatever positives Boise earned by losing to Wazzu in OT had to be lessened by losing to us.

 

[SWC75]

How does your system handle losses to unranked teams? I would think that whatever positives Boise earned by losing to Wazzu in OT had to be lessened by losing to us.

It doesn't. It measures how teams did against ranked teams.