My Ranking (11/16/09)

by ejruiz on Nov 16, 2009 5:03 AM EST Comment 8 comments

I like to take as objective a look for rankings such as these and am often surprised by the results of my approach. I've taken a look at the accomplishments (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of every single team with three losses or less so far this season. I assigned numerical values to wins (one point fora victory over a three-loss team, two points for a two-loss team and three points for a one-loss team), losses (+4 for losing to an undefeated team, +3 for every one-loss team, +2 for every two-loss team and +1 for every three-loss team) and record (being undefeated means you "start" with nothing in the loss column, if you have one loss you start at -5, two losses at -10 and three loss at -15). Ties, which are fairly common, are broken by quality of wins first and then quality of average opponent second. I sometimes allow for some subjective distinctions, such as making sure the winner of a head-to-head match-up is ranked above the loser if their scores are within one point of each. I do this all by hand, so this is about as close as I can get to what I believe is fair and there's also the possibility of human error during tabulation. That's about it for methodology, so if you're still curious about the results, please follow me below the fold!

TCU
Alabama
Cincinnati
Florida
Texas
Boise State
Georgia Tech
Pittsburgh
Ohio State
Oregon
LSU
Iowa
Rutgers
Penn State
Oklahoma State
Utah
Virginia Tech
Wisconsin
Brigham Young
Clemson
Temple
Oregon State
Houston
Central Michigan
USC

Others Considered (in order): Arizona, Navy, Miami, Stanford, UNC, Cal, Troy, Boston College, Ole Miss, West Virginia, Northern Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, Nebraska, Nevada and Ohio.

I wanted to add a few notes as for my first impression of this list: don't fret about UF being #4, because the SEC Championship Game gives them enough potential to earn the #2 spot... the SEC is having a woefully down year, what with LSU receiving a reprieve only because it's two losses are to unbeaten teams and Ole Miss barely on the radar now... 35% of the teams mentioned above do not have a single victory over a team with three losses or fewer... the three teams with the most impressive win quality totals are Ohio State, Iowa and TCU... the five teams with the most impressive loss quality totals are Virginia Tech, LSU, Rutgers, Clemson and Navy...

Well, that's it for me. I hope you find these interesting and informative. I'd be happy to field any questions and/or comments below, so feel free to chime in. I just ask that you keep an open mind and remain civil. Oh, and one more thing: go Gators!

A FanPost gives the opinion of the fan who writes it and that fan only. That doesn't give the opinion more or less weight than any other opinion on this blog, but the post does not necessarily reflect the view of TSK's writers.

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flawed.

Ok, so lets take a look at a team like Oklahoma. 6-4, and thus not worth points in your little deal. However, lets take a deeper look at Oklahoma’s 4 losses.

2 of them were 1 point losses. The worse loss they suffered was 7 points, the other was 3 points.

So they lost 4 games yes, but they barely lost those 4 games. But it continues.

When you look at the schedule strength of Oklahoma, you will find that is one of the toughest schedules in college football. I rank it #1 in my computer poll.

A win over Oklahoma is worth more than many of the 2 loss teams. I’m an Alabama and SEC fan, but take 2 loss LSU. If LSU is to play Oklahoma tommorow, then I’d pick Oklahoma to beat LSU.

Meanwhile, take a look at Penn St. 2 loss team. But they have an absolutely weak schedule. Getting 2 losses in that schedule is not something that’s tough. I’d also take Oklahoma over Penn St. How many losses would Penn St or many other teams have with Oklahoma’s schedule?

But you score these teams with much more value than Oklahoma in your method. And that is a huge flaw. The records of teams is all dependent on the strength of their own schedule.

You’ll need to remedy this in order to get more relevant results. Most people do this with a power rating of some sorts, and using that to determine win values, rather than records.

Btw, friendly note – you can use excel or OpenOffice(free) to do your ranking things in. It’s pretty easy to learn/use and will make things alot easier on you than the by hand method. Allows you to spend more time on the formula, and less time figuring it all up.

by cal n on Nov 19, 2009 8:15 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Yeah.

Thanks for the friendly note; I will take a look at that! As for your case study, I can see where you’re coming from. Oklahoma has racked up a solid number of quality losses and they’ve been close, That said, a lot of them have been devalued somewhat since those games were played. Nebraska and Miami are just OK, BYU is good and only Texas is great. The thing for me is the utter lack of anything resembling a quality win. The Sooners would be ranked for me if they had beaten the Longhorns or even the Cougars. At some point, wins and losses have to matter. Take the argument to its logical conclussion and this becomes obvious: an undefeated team that played no one of note would and should be ranked higher than a winless team with nothing but tough losses to quality opponents. I just don’t think that these rankings should reflect power rankings (subjective) instead of rewarding actual performance (objective).

"A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word 'I' when you're in a group makes things complicated." ~ Wanderley Luxemburgo, 1999

by ejruiz on Nov 19, 2009 12:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'd take LSU over Oklahoma

If you are focused on quality losses, there aren’t any better than LSU’s 2 close defeats to the #1 and #2 teams in the country (1 of them on the road). Oh, and they’ve won all their other games.

by skigator93 on Nov 20, 2009 10:30 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah...

I’d take LSU over Oklahoma on a neutral field…

by ejruiz on Nov 20, 2009 11:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well

Well, in terms of how you rank each team, then yes Oklahoma is a quite a bit down in the ranks due to it’s losses. I don’t disagree with you there. They lost, so they don’t get ranked high. No argument from me on that, I don’t rank them as a top20 team.

But, the value that is missing from Oklahoma in your poll is more about the teams that played Oklahoma. Those teams that played Oklahoma should get more credit for beating Oklahoma. But they don’t get proper credit for beating Oklahoma, because OK has 4 losses. However, other teams with much weaker schedules than Oklahoma get less losses as a result of their weaker schedule, and so they end up worth more in your poll.

Good luck with it, it’s a fun hobby I’ve found.

by cal n on Nov 20, 2009 12:41 AM EST reply actions 0 recs