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 # 7 (10/13-15/2016)
Alabama beat #9 Tennessee 49-10 56 points
Ohio State beat #8 Wisconsin 30-23 25 points
Syracuse beat #17 Virginia Tech 31-17 23 points
Arkansas beat #12 Mississippi 34-30 18 points
North Carolina beat #16 Miami 20-13 17 points
Wisconsin lost to #2 Ohio State 23-30 17 points
North Carolina State lost to #3 Clemson 17-24 16 points
Indiana lost to #10 Nebraska 22-27 11 points
Duke lost to #7 Louisville 14-24 9 points
Colorado State lost to #15 Boise State 23-28 6 points
Tulsa lost to #13 Houston 31-38 6 points
Wake Forest lost to #14 Florida State 6-17 1 point
Comment: I’m not sure anybody can handle Alabama this year, (not even North Dakota State, who lost). We were just nipped for the second best performance of the day when Ohio State came back against Wisconsin, (who was ranked 9 spots higher that Va Tech, (who was last week’s champ for the best performance). Our 23 points matched what we got from the Clemson and LSU games last year –but those were in losses. We’ll have a chance to get more.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 119 points
Wisconsin 97 points
Louisville 82 points
Mississippi 76 points
Texas A&M 71 points
Ohio State 58 points
Washington 57 points
Florida State 43 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Arkansas 38 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Auburn 31 points
Clemson 29 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Texas 20 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
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 # 7 (10/13-15/2016)
Alabama beat #9 Tennessee 49-10 56 points
Ohio State beat #8 Wisconsin 30-23 25 points
Syracuse beat #17 Virginia Tech 31-17 23 points
Arkansas beat #12 Mississippi 34-30 18 points
North Carolina beat #16 Miami 20-13 17 points
Wisconsin lost to #2 Ohio State 23-30 17 points
North Carolina State lost to #3 Clemson 17-24 16 points
Indiana lost to #10 Nebraska 22-27 11 points
Duke lost to #7 Louisville 14-24 9 points
Colorado State lost to #15 Boise State 23-28 6 points
Tulsa lost to #13 Houston 31-38 6 points
Wake Forest lost to #14 Florida State 6-17 1 point
Comment: I’m not sure anybody can handle Alabama this year, (not even North Dakota State, who lost). We were just nipped for the second best performance of the day when Ohio State came back against Wisconsin, (who was ranked 9 spots higher that Va Tech, (who was last week’s champ for the best performance). Our 23 points matched what we got from the Clemson and LSU games last year –but those were in losses. We’ll have a chance to get more.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 119 points
Wisconsin 97 points
Louisville 82 points
Mississippi 76 points
Texas A&M 71 points
Ohio State 58 points
Washington 57 points
Florida State 43 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Arkansas 38 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Auburn 31 points
Clemson 29 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Oklahoma State 22 points
Texas 20 points
Troy 18 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Michigan State 15 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Nebraska 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
South Carolina 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 1 point