Versus Ranked Teams- Week Four

[SWC75]

Again this year I’m going to keep track of how teams have done against ranked teams. And again I’ll remind the reader that this is not itself an attempt to rank teams, although I will have cumulative standings: it’s intended just as a stat to look at in determining where teams should rank. Also, as with all stats, the early results are hardly definitive but they will become more meaningful as the season progresses.

Another issue is that I’m using a team’s ranking at the time the game is played, not their final ranking. When we played Northwestern last year, they were ranked 19th in the writer’s poll, (the one I use for this). They wound up 5-7 and unranked. Auburn, coming off a 3-9 season, was unranked. They wound up playing for the national title. But I’d have to wait to the end of the season to compute this using the final rankings, by which time no one would care about a breakdown of some of a team’s games. I’m trying to maintain a running tally of how teams are doing in their biggest games. Besides, a tams ranking at the time you played them may truly reflect how good the team was at that time. Northwestern played like a top ten team against us and went on to a 4-0 start before losing a series of close games. Auburn was not as great early in the season as they later became.

Also I’m not making any allowances for home vs. road, (which I think affects the top teams less than the mediocre teams), or injured players, the impact of which is impossible to compute, (and top teams can usually replace guys).

So here we go. I’ll stick to the writer’s poll for the rankings for consistency, (I need one #1 team, one #2 team, etc.) and because they have a poll each week from preseason to post season. The formula is pretty simple, although there are two parts to it. First you compute the “schedule points”. A team gets 25 points for playing the #1 ranked team, 24 points for playing the #2 ranked team, 23 points for playing the #3 ranked team, etc. down to getting 1 point for playing the #25 ranked team. Then you add or subtract to/from that the margin of victory or defeat. If they have any positive points left, I’ll record it here and add them up as the season goes along. I’m not going to record any net negatives or I would be documenting the season of Louisiana-Lafayette or somebody like that. That’s not what we are interested in here. We want to know about teams likely to wind up ranked and in consideration for the playoffs or the bowls.

WEEK FOUR

MISSISSIPPI STATE beat Louisiana State by 5 = 23 points
CLEMSON lost to #1 Florida State by 6 = 19 points
WASHINGTON STATE lost to Oregon by 7 = 17 points
KANSAS STATE lost to #5 Auburn by 6 = 15 points
INDIANA beat #18 Missouri by 4 = 12 points
AUBURN beat #20 Kansas State by 6 s = 11 points
FLORIDA STATE beat #22 Clemson by 6 = 10 points
WEST VIRGINIA lost to #4 Oklahoma by 22 = 10 points
FLORIDA lost to #3 Alabama by 21 = 2 points

Five of the nine teams that gained points did so in losses. It was a week for throwing scares into top teams. Mississippi State lost an opportunity for an even bigger haul when they let a 34-10 fourth quarter lead become a 34-29 game. They had 42 points on the table, which would have bene the best performance this season against a ranked team, even more than Texas A&M’s week one performance vs. South Carolina. West Virginia became the first team to earn points in two games this season, having given both Alabama and Oklahoma all they wanted in terms of completion.



CUMULATIVE POINTS

Texas A& M 41
Oregon 38
Georgia 34
Virginia Tech 32
West Virginia 24
Boston College 23
Mississippi St. 23
South Carolina 23
Clemson 19
Oklahoma St. 19
Virginia 18
Washington St. 17
East Carolina 16
Louisiana St. 16
So. California 16
Kansas St. 15
Indiana 12
Auburn 11
Texas 11
Florida St. 10
Stanford 9
Wisconsin 9
Memphis 8
Michigan St. 4
Navy 4
Florida 2
Iowa St. 2
San Diego St. 1