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 EIGHT (10/22-24)
Southern California beat #3 Utah 42-24 23 + 18 = 41 points
Mississippi beat #15 Texas A&M 23-3 11 + 20 = 31 points
Georgia Tech beat #9 Florida State 22-16 17 + 6 = 23 points
UCLA beat #20 California 40-24 6 + 16 = 22 points
Tennessee lost to #8 Alabama 14-19 18 – 5 = 13 points
Iowa State lost to #2 Baylor 27-45 24 -18 = 6 points
Virginia Tech lost to #23 Duke 43-45 3 -2 = 1 point
Comment: Not a very active week among the ranked teams, despite a couple of memorable games. Points were earned in only seven games, the lowest number of the season. And the most points were earned by teams that have been disappointing this year and thus were not that high in the standings. UCLA did move into third place but well behind the leaders. The highest team on the list that is undefeated is LSU, in 7th place, which gives you a clue as how teams remain undefeated.
SEASON TOTALS
Alabama 110 points
Michigan 101 points
UCLA 66 points
Florida 64 points
Mississippi 61 points
Utah 61 points
Louisiana State 60 points
Stanford 59 points
Texas A&M 50 points
Iowa 47 points
Southern California 43 points
Michigan State 40 points
Arizona St 34 points
Georgia Tech 34 points
Oklahoma 33 points
Brigham Young 32 points
Notre Dame 32 points
Utah State 31 points
Tennessee 27 points
Memphis 26 points
Louisville 25 points
Texas 23 points
Clemson 22 points
Purdue 21 points
Duke 20 points
Kansas State 20 points
Texas Tech 20 points
Indiana 18 points
Northern Illinois 18 points
Oregon 18 points
Minnesota 17 points
California 15 points
Northwestern 15 points
Rutgers 15 points
Washington 14 points
Jacksonville State 13 points
Toledo 12 points
Vanderbilt 12 points
Arkansas 10 points
Mississippi State 10 points
Virginia 10 points
Kentucky 9 points
U of Miami 9 points
Syracuse 8 points
Virginia Tech 8 points
Wake Forest 8 points
Western Michigan 8 points
Air Force 7 points
Boston College 7 points
Arizona 6 points
Iowa State 6 points
Wisconsin 6 points
Ball State 4 points
Central Michigan 4 points
Maryland 4 points
Southern Methodist 4 points
Connecticut 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 EIGHT (10/22-24)
Southern California beat #3 Utah 42-24 23 + 18 = 41 points
Mississippi beat #15 Texas A&M 23-3 11 + 20 = 31 points
Georgia Tech beat #9 Florida State 22-16 17 + 6 = 23 points
UCLA beat #20 California 40-24 6 + 16 = 22 points
Tennessee lost to #8 Alabama 14-19 18 – 5 = 13 points
Iowa State lost to #2 Baylor 27-45 24 -18 = 6 points
Virginia Tech lost to #23 Duke 43-45 3 -2 = 1 point
Comment: Not a very active week among the ranked teams, despite a couple of memorable games. Points were earned in only seven games, the lowest number of the season. And the most points were earned by teams that have been disappointing this year and thus were not that high in the standings. UCLA did move into third place but well behind the leaders. The highest team on the list that is undefeated is LSU, in 7th place, which gives you a clue as how teams remain undefeated.
SEASON TOTALS
Alabama 110 points
Michigan 101 points
UCLA 66 points
Florida 64 points
Mississippi 61 points
Utah 61 points
Louisiana State 60 points
Stanford 59 points
Texas A&M 50 points
Iowa 47 points
Southern California 43 points
Michigan State 40 points
Arizona St 34 points
Georgia Tech 34 points
Oklahoma 33 points
Brigham Young 32 points
Notre Dame 32 points
Utah State 31 points
Tennessee 27 points
Memphis 26 points
Louisville 25 points
Texas 23 points
Clemson 22 points
Purdue 21 points
Duke 20 points
Kansas State 20 points
Texas Tech 20 points
Indiana 18 points
Northern Illinois 18 points
Oregon 18 points
Minnesota 17 points
California 15 points
Northwestern 15 points
Rutgers 15 points
Washington 14 points
Jacksonville State 13 points
Toledo 12 points
Vanderbilt 12 points
Arkansas 10 points
Mississippi State 10 points
Virginia 10 points
Kentucky 9 points
U of Miami 9 points
Syracuse 8 points
Virginia Tech 8 points
Wake Forest 8 points
Western Michigan 8 points
Air Force 7 points
Boston College 7 points
Arizona 6 points
Iowa State 6 points
Wisconsin 6 points
Ball State 4 points
Central Michigan 4 points
Maryland 4 points
Southern Methodist 4 points
Connecticut 1 point