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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 338257, member: 289"] Summary: Decade Averages: 1900’s 4.50; 1910’s 3.48 ; 1920’s 3.17; 1930’s 4.35 ; 1940’s ; 1950’s 3.58; 1960’s 3.97; 1970’s 6.60; 1980’s 5.38; 1990’s 4.47; 2000’s 7.26 SU’s major college opposition played an average of 10 games during the 1900’s, 9 during the 1910’s and 1920’s, 7 in the 1930’s, back to 9 in the 1940’s, 10 in the 1950’s and 1960’s, 11 in the 1970’s, and 1980’s, 12 in the 1990’s and 2000’s The Top 25 1.18 - 1959 1.75 - 1918 1.80 - 1920 2.16 - 1917 2.29 - 1923 2.33 - 1934 2.40 - 1925 2.50 - 1958 2.64 - 1987 2.67 - 1915 2.75 - 1926 2.82 - 1961 2.89 - 1956 3.00 - 1919, 1996 3.10 - 1963 3.11 - 1960 3.14 - 1924 3.16 - 1921 3.20 - 1922 3.25 - 1953 3.40 - 1927 3.42 - 1988 3.50 - 1911 3.63 - 1950 The Bottom 25 9.50 - 2007 9.36 - 2008 8.18 - 2009 8.09 - 2005 8.00 - 1973, 2002 7.90 - 1982 7.55- 2011 7.36 - 1972, 1976 7.38 - 1948 7.18 - 1986, 2010 7.09 - 1974 7.00 - 2003 6.82 - 1983 6.57 - 1947 6.42 - 2004 6.36 - 1977, 1993, 1994 6.33 - 1936 6.00 - 1899, 1944, 1945, 1979 The number of games played by opponents heavily influences the bottom 25 by placing a natural limit on how bad a bad performance can be, as measured by my rankings. Thus recent years dominate. The three teams at 6.36 all had winning records. The 6.33 team was 1-7. With the top 25, it’s the number of big-time opponents played. When you only played 4-5 of them it’s easier to avoid a truly bad game and maintain a high average than it is when you are playing a dozen games vs. big-time teams. That listing thus favors the earlier teams, but not as much as the Bottom 25 “favors” the more recent teams. I decided to take the formula a little farther to look at the bottom teams. The total point differential “points” accumulated by the 2007 team was 114, (114/12 games = their 9.50 ranking). The 12 teams we played that year, (all “big time”) played a total of 152 opponents. If we’d been the worst team each opponent played, the 2007 team would have 152 “points” and a ranking of 12.67. If you divide 114 by 152, you get .750: the 2007 team was 75% as bad as a team that was the worst team every opponent they had played, (a “perfectly bad” team). I did the same thing for our other famously bad teams: 1936 was .731, 1945 was .712, 1948 was .808 1973 was .721, 1974 was .629, 1982 was .745 and 2005 was .690. So maybe the 1948 team was our worst, not 2007. I decided to redo the bottom 25 with that sort of comparison: what percentage of a “perfectly bad” team was each SU team? (I didn’t need to compare each team to a “perfectly good team”: a team that was the best team each opponent played to redo the Top 25: since I’d be giving the perfectly good team a “1” for each game, the list would be the same as the original one where I divided by the number of games.) The New Bottom 25 .808- 1948 .750- 1944, 2007 .731- 1936 .725- 2008 .721- 1973 .719- 1947 .712- 1945 .698- 2002 .690- 2005 .681- 1982 .669- 1972 .648- 1976 .638- 2009 .637- 1986 .629- 1974 .611- 1978 .605- 1937 .600- 1913 .596- 1933 .589- 2011 .586- 1946 .581- 1983 .571- 1979 .563- 1912 That list is probably a little more accurate. [/QUOTE]

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