Who did you beat?

[SWC75]

This morning Bud and the Manchild were talking about who Syracuse should schedule to fill it’s football schedule. There was talk they could get Boise State or Oklahoma or Arkansas. But maybe they should settle for another FCS team. One guy said “FCS teams sh0ould count as half-wins and if you lose to them it should count twice.

It got me to thinking that perhaps there could be a system for granting points for wins based on who you beat. I tried something like this a couple years ago but the weakness of the system is that you couldn’t re0assess a victory in light of subsequent events. How about if you had a power ranking system that would rank the teams each week and then you got points based on the ranking of each team. The amount of points could be adjusted when new rankings came out. Jeff Sagarin ranks all FBS and FCS teams together on a weekly basis. There are 246 of them. What if you got 246 points for beating the #1 team, 245 for #2, etc. and then you totaled the points for the teams you’d beaten/ It could be adjusted as new rankings came out, (if you wanted to use something other than Sagarin or a compilation of similar rankings, fine, as long as you had rankings for all Division 1- FBS and FCS teams. As far as I know FBS teams don’t play Division II teams.)

Here is Alabama in 2011-2012, with the final Sagarin ranking to the left and the resulting points to the right.
ALABAMA
116 Kent State 131
28 Penn State 219
121 North Texas 125
6 Arkansas 240
29 Florida 217
42 Vanderbilt 204
103 Mississippi 143
50 Tennessee 196
2 LSU 0 (lost)
31 Mississippi St 215
81 Ga. Southern 165
33 Auburn 214
2 LSU 245
Total points 2314 (2069 at the end of the regular season)

Here’s LSU:
5 Oregon 242
167 NW Louisiana 80
31 Mississippi St 216
22 West Virginia 225
85 Kentucky 162
29 Florida 218
50 Tennessee 197
33 Auburn 214
1 Alabama 246
101 W Kentucky 146
103 Mississippi 144
6 Arkansas 241
21 Georgia 226
1 Alabama 0 (lost)
Total Points 2557

OKLAHOMA STATE
82 La Lafayette 165
64 Arizona 183
35 Tulsa 212
14 Texas A&M 233
91 Kansas 156
17 Texas 230
16 Missouri 231
13 Baylor 234
19 Kansas State 228
53 Texas Tech 194
43 Iowa State 0 (lost)
4 Oklahoma 243
7 Stanford 240
Total Points 2549 (2309 in regular season)

STANFORD also had one regular season loss
96 San Jose St 151
113 Duke 134
64 Arizona 183
66 UCLA 181
107 Colorado 140
83 Washington St 164
44 Washington 203
12 USC 235
87 Oregon State 160
5 Oregon 0 (lost)
38 California 209
26 Notre Dame 221
3 Oklahoma St 0 (lost)
Total Points 1981

BOISE STATE
21 Georgia 226
40 Toledo 207
35 Tulsa 212
60 Nevada-Reno 187
105 Fresno St 142
142 Colorado St 105
72 Air Force 175
155 UNLV 92
20 TCU 0 (lost)
70 San Diego St 177
84 Wyoming 163
175 New Mexico 72
41 Arizona State 206
Total Points: 1964 (1758 in the regular season)

HOUSTON
66 UCLA 181
121 North Texas 126
48 Louisiana Tech 199
208 Georgia State 39
92 UTEP 155
93 E. Carolina 154
79 Marshall 168
89 Rice 158
152 UAB 95
171 Tulane 76
51 SMU 196
35 Tulsa 212
24 So. Mississippi 0 (lost)
28 Penn State 219
Total Points: 2201 (1982 in the regular season.)

You can use a lot of systems to rank teams, (including the Sagarin rankings themselves), but if you are going to rank victories, this might be a way to do it. It rather strongly suggests that the national championship game shouldn’t have been an LSU rematch with Alabama, but rather a match-up with Oklahoma State. But, of course, this is just one way of looking at it.
　

 

[zibby]

Sagarin's ratings are a joke. He ranks FCS teams WAY WAY WAY too high. He ranked Buffalo 135 and Stony Brook 138. UB beat Stony Brook 35-7. And it wasn't even that close.

The best FCS team should be ranked only around #100. There should be only around 10-15 FCS teams ranked ahead of the worst 10-15 FBS teams.

 

[SWC75]

Sagarin's ratings are a joke. He ranks FCS teams WAY WAY WAY too high. He ranked Buffalo 135 and Stony Brook 138. UB beat Stony Brook 35-7. And it wasn't even that close.

The best FCS team should be ranked only around #100. There should be only around 10-15 FCS teams ranked ahead of the worst 10-15 FBS teams.

I used his as a way of ranking the oppoents because he ranks both divisions and thus eveyrone that an FBS school would be playing. If you wanted to use another system or combine the rankings of several systems to evaulate the strength of an opponent, fine. We just need something that ranks all of them. The idea is to have a number that represents the value of a win, (even if it might change as the season progresses).