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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2739277, 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 last year. 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 EIGHT Purdue beat #2 Ohio State 49-20 = +53 points Clemson beat #16 North Carolina State 41-7 = +44 points Washington State beat #12 Oregon 34-20 = +28 points Louisiana State beat #22 Mississippi State 19-3 = +20 points Michigan beat #24 Michigan State 21-7 = +16 points Temple beat #20 Cincinnati 24-17 = +13 points Michigan State lost to #6 Michigan 7-21 = +6 points Mississippi State lost to #5 Louisiana State 3-19 = +5 points Vanderbilt lost to #14 Kentucky 7-14 = +5 points Indiana lost to #18 Penn State 28-33 = +3 points Colorado lost to #15 Washington 13-27 = -3 points Connecticut lost to #21 South Florida 30-38 = -3 points Texas Christian lost to #9 Oklahoma 27-52 = -8 points East Carolina lost to #10 Central Florida 10-37 = -11 points North Carolina State lost to #3 Clemson 7-41 = -11 points Tennessee lost to #1 Alabama 21-58 = -12 points Oregon lost to #25 Washington 20-34 = -13 points Maryland lost to #19 Iowa 0-23 = -16 points Illinois lost to #23 Wisconsin 20-49 = -26 points Comments: it was “get down to business” week. Every game was a conference game. No ‘guarantee’ opponents. Purdue’s win over Ohio State was the most impressive of the season, +53, the previous high being LSU’s +44 win over Georgia in Week Seven. Clemson’s win over Wake Forest also tied their fellow Tigers. It was Clemson’s first game against a ranked team. Meanwhile, Eddie Orgeron’s team became the first team to break the 100 point mark. TOP 25 against ranked teams after week #1 Louisiana State +114 points Notre Dame +83 points Purdue +73 points Texas +73 points Michigan +59 points Iowa State +54 points Washington +52 points Virginia Tech +47 points Kentucky +45 points Clemson +44 points Texas A&M +44 points Ohio State +41 points Oregon +41 points Texas Tech +41 points Florida +39 points Auburn +38 points Mississippi State +37 points Stanford +33 points Utah +33 points Oklahoma State +32 points Washington State +28 points Old Dominion +27 points Alabama +26 points Northwestern +25 points Michigan State +22 points Syracuse has +19 points Connecticut’s -86 points is the worst [/QUOTE]

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