Charting the SEC Nationally
by Year2 on Jul 19, 2010 10:30 AM EDT
in Football
6 comments
Note: I appreciate all feedback, but I am out on vacation this week and will not be able to respond to any comments or questions. Thanks for understanding.
In the comments and in emails, I got requests to chart the SEC teams against some others nationally. I wasn't originally going to do that because once you throw it open to everyone, you get issues regarding schedule strength, amount of garbage time everyone had, I-AA opponents, and so forth.
But, I got enough requests that I went ahead and charted the SEC schools against 18 others nationally for a total sample of 30 teams. I tried grabbing some interesting ones along the spectrum of both good and bad. Keep in mind though that these charts encompass the raw end-of-year stats, complete with the issues mentioned above. I make no warranty on the value of these charts beyond entertainment value.
OFFENSE
The charts this time are bigger to make room for more teams, so click on the image for the full size.
Vandy was really bad, but Louisville wasn't too far off. LSU and Kentucky were pretty near Nebraska, which goes to show how great Nebraska's defense was. Mississippi State and Northwestern were near the realm of USC interestingly enough, and Houston is way up there by its lonesome. Tennessee and Michigan were right on par with each other, as were Georgia and Ohio State. Florida's way up there in contrast to its SEC-only play, but that shows just how badly the Gators beat their cupcakes.
DEFENSE
The scale on this one is identical to the offense chart, but the axis values are slightly different. That is because the data set isn't completely closed thanks to I-AA games.
You can see a big cluster of BCS teams there on the lower left, while Texas is kind of above everyone having given up more points. Nebraska was great, and Oklahoma is not that far off from everyone. Had Sam Bradford and Jermaine Gresham not gotten injured, the Sooners would probably have been in the thick of the national title race.
The two USCs were fairly close, while Boise State wasn't as good as you'd figure for having played in the WAC. I have a feeling that garbage time had something, though not everything, to do with that. Also, it's almost sad to see how bad FSU's defense was in Mickey Andrews' last season. That's not the way to go out.
1 recs |
6 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
I wonder if there was some way to normalize the defense numbers...
for the time a defense spent on the field. Like dividing the yards allowed by opponents time of possession. Or maybe divided by series or downs played. While outside of Tech and UT, there was not alot of offensive juggernauts on Neb. schedule, but it was absurd how much time and how many series that Neb. D had to play because of that offense.
I preface this by that it would be time consuming
You could do yards/points per possession which would give a true effect of a teams offense efficiency, this similar to the NBA and college hoops work to figure out teams who run and others who slow down the game. Houston has a ton of yards and possessions to put their rank up high while other teams grind the ball out, but their efficiency could be the same if they say both average 35 yards per possession.
Another way to compare to try to create a balance would be to take a teams top 5 defenses they play against. That would level the strength of schedule argument to an extent.
Mountain West Connection The best site for MWC sports!
Boise St. never played a good defense on the road after Georgia
Nebraska had a better defense than Florida or Alabama is because of Ndamakung Suh
People have a week dedicated to sharks, sharks have a week dedicated to Jason Heyward, let's follow in the "footsteps" of the sharks.....
I realize you're out of the loop for the moment, but...
…when you return would you mind doing this exercise with the data from http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa ? As their work accounts for the inherent subjectivity in yards/points/counting stats, I think it would be an excellent visual representation of the true balance of power in D-I football. I’d do it myself but you have already figured out a good method of data presentation. Thanks for the excellent work, Year2.
If I hit a hole-in-one on this grand slam the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
