Final Against Ranked Teams

[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.

POST SEASON
Alabama beat #1 Clemson 24-6 = +43 points
Ohio State beat #8 Southern California 24-7 = +35 points
Michigan State beat #18 Washington State 42-18 = +32 points
Georgia beat #2 Oklahoma 54-48 = +30 points
Alabama beat #3 Georgia 26-23 = +26 points
Central Florida beat #7 Auburn 34-27 = +26 points
Penn State beat #11 Washington 35-28 = +22 points
Georgia lost to #4 Alabama 23-26 = +19 points
Oklahoma lost to #3 Georgia 48-54 = +17 points
Texas Christian beat #13 Stanford 39-37 = +15 points
Notre Dame beat #17 Louisiana State 21-17 = +13 points
Oklahoma State beat #22 Virginia Tech 30-21 = +13 points
U of Miami lost to #6 Wisconsin 24-34 = +10 points
Stanford lost to #15 Texas Christian 37-39 = +9 points
Auburn lost to #12 Central Florida 27-34 = +7 points
Iowa State beat #20 Memphis 21-20 = +7 points
Clemson lost to #4 Alabama 6-24 = +4 points
Kentucky lost to #21 Northwestern 23-24 = +4 points
Southern California lost to #5 Ohio State 7-24 = +4 points
Louisiana State lost to #21 Notre Dame 17-21 = +1 point
Washington lost #9 Penn State 28-35 = +1 points
Louisville lost to #23 Mississippi State 27-31 = -1 points
Virginia Tech lost to #19 Oklahoma State 21-30 = -2 points
Oregon lost to #25 Boise State 28-38 = - 9 points
Washington State lost to #16 Michigan State 18-42 = -14 points
Arizona State lost to #24 North Carolina State 31-52 = -19 points

TOP 25

Clemson +184 points
Alabama +165 points
Oklahoma +158 points
Ohio State +153 points
Auburn +140 points

Georgia +127 points
Stanford +91 points
U of Miami +87 points
Notre Dame +79 points
Penn State +76 points

Iowa State +70 points
Iowa +65 points
Wisconsin +58 points
Southern California +54 points
California +53 points

North Carolina State +53 points
Texas Christian +48 points
Michigan State +45 points
Texas +42 points
Washington +41 points

Central Florida +39 points
Louisiana State +37 points
West Virginia +36 points
Wake Forest +35 points
Michigan +33 points
Oklahoma State +33 points

Syracuse had +29 points

East Carolina was last with -148 points