SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 33,958
- Like
- 65,486
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.
For reference, here is last season’s top 25 teams vs. ranked teams:
Florida State 214 points
Stanford 147 points
Oklahoma State 110 points
Auburn 108 points
Alabama 107 points
Louisiana State 92 points
Missouri 90 points
Georgia 83 points
Oklahoma 68 points
Arizona State 67 points
Baylor 66 points
Wisconsin 65 points
Washington 63 points
South Carolina 62 points
Michigan State 62 points
Mississippi 52 points
UCLA 51 points
Arizona 49 points
Oregon 46 points
Michigan 45 points
Utah 37 points
Duke 36 points
Ohio State 36 points
Virginia Tech 33 points
Bowling Green 32 points
Central Florida 32 points
Tennessee 32 points
Texas A&M 32 points
So you can see that the right names end up at the top, even if you might wish to re-arrange them based on other criteria. If a team is ranked higher, (Oklahoma State), or lower, (Ohio State), in this list than you expected, that might be something to think about in evaluating them.
WEEK ONE
The following teams wound up with positive points:
TEXAS A&M beat #9 South Carolina 52-28. They get 17 points for playing the #9 ranked team and they won by 24 points, so that equals +41 points.
GEORGIA beat #16 Clemson 45-21 = +34 points
OKLAHOMA STATE lost to #1 Florida State 31-37 = +19 points
LOUISIANA STATE beat #14 Wisconsin 28-24 = +16 points
WEST VIRGINIA lost to #2 Alabama 23-33 = +14 points
VIRGINIA lost to #7 UCLA 20-28 = 11 points
WISCONSIN lost to #13 Louisiana State 24-28 = +9 points
NAVY lost to #5 Ohio State by 17-34 = +4 points.
It being the first week, those are also our cumulative totals so far.
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.
For reference, here is last season’s top 25 teams vs. ranked teams:
Florida State 214 points
Stanford 147 points
Oklahoma State 110 points
Auburn 108 points
Alabama 107 points
Louisiana State 92 points
Missouri 90 points
Georgia 83 points
Oklahoma 68 points
Arizona State 67 points
Baylor 66 points
Wisconsin 65 points
Washington 63 points
South Carolina 62 points
Michigan State 62 points
Mississippi 52 points
UCLA 51 points
Arizona 49 points
Oregon 46 points
Michigan 45 points
Utah 37 points
Duke 36 points
Ohio State 36 points
Virginia Tech 33 points
Bowling Green 32 points
Central Florida 32 points
Tennessee 32 points
Texas A&M 32 points
So you can see that the right names end up at the top, even if you might wish to re-arrange them based on other criteria. If a team is ranked higher, (Oklahoma State), or lower, (Ohio State), in this list than you expected, that might be something to think about in evaluating them.
WEEK ONE
The following teams wound up with positive points:
TEXAS A&M beat #9 South Carolina 52-28. They get 17 points for playing the #9 ranked team and they won by 24 points, so that equals +41 points.
GEORGIA beat #16 Clemson 45-21 = +34 points
OKLAHOMA STATE lost to #1 Florida State 31-37 = +19 points
LOUISIANA STATE beat #14 Wisconsin 28-24 = +16 points
WEST VIRGINIA lost to #2 Alabama 23-33 = +14 points
VIRGINIA lost to #7 UCLA 20-28 = 11 points
WISCONSIN lost to #13 Louisiana State 24-28 = +9 points
NAVY lost to #5 Ohio State by 17-34 = +4 points.
It being the first week, those are also our cumulative totals so far.
