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 # 9 ((October 27-29 2016)
Oklahoma State beat #10 West Virginia 37-20 33 points
Wisconsin beat #7 Nebraska 23-17 25 points
Florida State lost to #3 Clemson 34-37 20 points
Texas beat #8 Baylor 35-34 19 points
Clemson beat #17 Florida State 37-34 17 points
Northwestern lost to #6 Ohio State 20-24 16 points
Virginia lost to #3 Louisville 25-32 16 points
Washington beat #17 Utah 31-24 16 points
Michigan State lost to #2 Michigan 23-32 15 points
Utah lost to #4 Washington 24-31 15 points
Wyoming beat #13 Boise State 30-28 15 points
South Carolina beat #18 Tennessee 24-21 11 points
South Florida beat #22 Navy 52-45 11 points
Nebraska lost to beat #11 Wisconsin 17-23 9 points
Comments: It’s amazing that so many games combined rankings and scores to produce 15 or 16 points. There were several “Bonfire of the Vanities” games were undefeated teams who may not have been that good went down: West Virginia, Nebraska, Baylor, Boise State. Tennessee had that epiphany a while back. Utah has had a good year- they were ranked 17th. But this is the first week they earned any points, despite their loss. Note the dearth of points against ranked teams that Michigan has accumulated (25). They are being promoted as the team that could beat Alabama (who has 158 points) but I wonder if they might be a bit overrated. The Big Ten tends to be over-rated and they seem especially so this year.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 158 points
Wisconsin 122 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Washington 73 points
Florida State 63 points
Ohio State 58 points
Oklahoma State 55 points
Clemson 46 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Texas 39 points
Arkansas 38 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Michigan State 30 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Louisiana State 20 points
Troy 18 points
South Carolina 17 points
Nebraska 16 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Northwestern 16 points
Virginia 16 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Utah 15 points
Wyoming 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
South Florida 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Texas Tech 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 # 9 ((October 27-29 2016)
Oklahoma State beat #10 West Virginia 37-20 33 points
Wisconsin beat #7 Nebraska 23-17 25 points
Florida State lost to #3 Clemson 34-37 20 points
Texas beat #8 Baylor 35-34 19 points
Clemson beat #17 Florida State 37-34 17 points
Northwestern lost to #6 Ohio State 20-24 16 points
Virginia lost to #3 Louisville 25-32 16 points
Washington beat #17 Utah 31-24 16 points
Michigan State lost to #2 Michigan 23-32 15 points
Utah lost to #4 Washington 24-31 15 points
Wyoming beat #13 Boise State 30-28 15 points
South Carolina beat #18 Tennessee 24-21 11 points
South Florida beat #22 Navy 52-45 11 points
Nebraska lost to beat #11 Wisconsin 17-23 9 points
Comments: It’s amazing that so many games combined rankings and scores to produce 15 or 16 points. There were several “Bonfire of the Vanities” games were undefeated teams who may not have been that good went down: West Virginia, Nebraska, Baylor, Boise State. Tennessee had that epiphany a while back. Utah has had a good year- they were ranked 17th. But this is the first week they earned any points, despite their loss. Note the dearth of points against ranked teams that Michigan has accumulated (25). They are being promoted as the team that could beat Alabama (who has 158 points) but I wonder if they might be a bit overrated. The Big Ten tends to be over-rated and they seem especially so this year.
SEASON STANDINGS
Alabama 158 points
Wisconsin 122 points
Auburn 93 points
Louisville 82 points
Texas A&M 77 points
Mississippi 76 points
Washington 73 points
Florida State 63 points
Ohio State 58 points
Oklahoma State 55 points
Clemson 46 points
Virginia Tech 40 points
Texas 39 points
Arkansas 38 points
Southern Methodist 37 points
Washington State 37 points
California 35 points
Houston 33 points
North Carolina 33 points
Michigan State 30 points
Penn State 27 points
Indiana 26 points
Navy 26 points
Georgia 25 points
Michigan 25 points
South Alabama 24 points
Syracuse 23 points
Tennessee 23 points
Louisiana State 20 points
Troy 18 points
South Carolina 17 points
Nebraska 16 points
North Carolina State 16 points
Northwestern 16 points
Virginia 16 points
Nicholls State 15 points
North Dakota State 15 points
Utah 15 points
Wyoming 15 points
Oklahoma 14 points
Brigham Young 11 points
Georgia State 11 points
Southern California 11 points
South Florida 11 points
Appalachian State 10 points
Arizona 10 points
Iowa State 10 points
UCLA 10 points
Duke 9 points
Missouri 9 points
Iowa 8 points
Central Michigan 7 points
Colorado State 6 points
Notre Dame 6 points
Tulsa 6 points
Kansas State 5 points
Purdue 5 points
Colorado 4 points
Mississippi State 3 points
Texas Tech 3 points
Florida 2 points
Georgia Tech 2 points
Miami 2 points
Ohio University 2 points
Wake Forest 1 point
