Archive for October, 2009


26
Oct
0

Week 8: Pollin’

by Griffin

Back this week with the updated rankings. A brief overview of the ranking formula:

  1. I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
  2. Teams are given a point value for every game on their schedule thus far. The point system looks like this:
    Opp Team & Result Win Pts Loss Pts
    BCS – Road 9 -1
    BCS – Neutral 8 -2
    BCS – Home 7 -3
    Non-BCS – Road 6 -4
    Non-BCS – Neutral 5 -5
    Non-BCS – Home 4 -6
    1-AA – Road 3 -7
    1-AA – Neutral 2 -8
    1-AA – Home 1 -9

    So beating a BCS team on the road is worth 9 points, but losing to a 1-AA team at home docks you 9 points.

  3. To get a teams culmative score, you assign the correct value for the game and sum up all of the resulting values. So, for example, beating a BCS team on the road, but losing to a Non-BCS team at home would give you a total of 3 points.
  4. These are non-weighted scores, which is where the ‘Blind’ part comes in. This means the actual opponent doesn’t matter. So beating Duke on the road is the same as beating Florida on the road.

Teams

Tidbits

  1. Alabama and Iowa keep the top slot with narrow victories this weekend.
  2. The top 7 teams are from each of the six BCS conferences plus Florida from the SEC.
  3. With conference schedules in full swing, the non-BCS teams are quickly falling out of the top slots. This mirrors the human polls. Any non-BCS team not in the polls by about weeks 4-5 will likely not reach the polls for the rest of the season.
  4. The Big 12 North is brutally mediocre.
Rank Conference Team Score
1 SEC Alabama 55
2 Big 10 Iowa 55
3 ACC Georgia Tech 48
4 SEC Florida 46
5 Big East Cincinnati 45
6 Big 12 Texas 45
7 Pac-10 USC 44
8 SEC LSU 42
9 Big East Pittsburgh 42
10 MWC TCU 39
11 Big 10 Penn State 38
12 Pac-10 Oregon 37
13 WAC Boise State 36
14 Big 10 Ohio State 36
15 MAC Central Michigan 35
16 SEC South Carolina 33
17 MWC Utah 32
18 CUSA Houston 32
19 Pac-10 Stanford 31
20 Big East WVU 31
21 Big 12 Oklahoma State 31
22 ACC Virgina Tech 31
23 Ind Notre Dame 30
24 Pac-10 Cal 29
25 SEC Georgia 27
26 SEC Auburn 26
27 Pac-10 Arizona 26
28 ACC Miami 26
29 WAC Idaho 25
30 MWC BYU 25
31 SEC Mississippi 23
32 Pac-10 Oregon St 23
33 ACC Boston College 23
34 Big East South Florida 22
35 Big 12 Kansas 21
36 Big 12 Kansas State 21
37 Big 10 Minnesota 21
38 Big 10 Wisconsin 21
39 Big 12 Iowa State 20
40 Big 10 Northwestern 20
41 Sun Belt Troy 19
42 Ind Navy 19
43 ACC Clemson 19
44 Big 10 Michigan 18
45 SEC Kentucky 17
46 Big 12 Texas Tech 17
47 Pac-10 Arizona St 16
48 Big East Uconn 16
49 Sun Belt Middle Tennessee 15
50 Big East Rutgers 15
51 Big 12 Texas A&M 15
52 Big 10 MSU 15
53 ACC Wake 15
54 MAC Temple 14
55 CUSA Southern Miss 14
56 Big 12 Nebraska 14
57 CUSA Marshall 13
58 Big 12 Oklahoma 13
59 Pac-10 UCLA 12
60 Big 12 Missouri 12
61 Big 10 Indiana 12
62 MAC Ohio 11
63 WAC Nevada 10
64 Sun Belt La-Lafayette 10
65 SEC Arkansas 10
66 ACC Duke 10
67 WAC Fresno State 9
68 Sun Belt La-Monroe 9
69 Pac-10 Washington 9
70 MAC Northern ILL 9
71 CUSA East Carolina 9
72 CUSA Tulsa 8
73 ACC UNC 8
74 SEC Tennessee 7
75 MWC Wyoming 7
76 MAC Toledo 7
77 MAC Kent St 6
78 Big 12 Baylor 6
79 ACC FSU 6
80 Big 10 Purdue 4
81 MAC W. Michigan 3
82 ACC Virgina 3
83 CUSA UTEP 2
84 Big East Syracuse 2
85 ACC NC State 1
86 SEC Miss St 0
87 MWC Air Force 0
88 CUSA SMU -1
89 Sun Belt FAU -2
90 MWC San Diego St. -2
91 CUSA UCF -2
92 Big 12 Colorado -2
93 Ind Army -3
94 WAC La Tech -4
95 Big East Louisville -5
96 Sun Belt Arkansas St -7
97 MAC Bowling Green -7
98 ACC Maryland -7
99 SEC Vandy -8
100 CUSA UAB -8
101 MWC Colorado St -10
102 MAC Buffalo -10
103 Big 10 Illinois -10
104 MWC UNLV -12
105 WAC Hawaii -14
106 WAC Utah St. -14
107 WAC New Mexico St. -15
108 Sun Belt FIU -16
109 CUSA Memphis -16
110 WAC San Jose St -17
111 Pac-10 Wash St -17
112 Sun Belt North Texas -21
113 MAC Akron -21
114 CUSA Tulane -21
115 CUSA Rice -27
116 MAC Miami (OH) -29
117 MAC Eastern Michigan -30
118 MAC Ball State -30
119 Sun Belt W. Kentucky -33
120 MWC New Mexico -34

Conferences

Tidbits:

  1. Same order as last week. The Big 10 is ever so close to overtaking the SEC.
  2. The Big East and Pac-10 are now tied for 3rd. Frankly, I would put those conferences at the top of the heap right now.
  3. With Miami and UNC choking away home games, the ACC is even more of a mess.
  4. The MAC is just awful this year.
Rank Conference Score
1 SEC 23.17
2 Big 10 23
3 Pac-10 21
4 Big East 21
5 Big 12 17.75
6 ACC 15.25
7 MWC 5
8 WAC 1.78
9 CUSA 0.25
10 Sun Belt –2.89
11 MAC –3.23

Wrapping up

My Mumme Poll ballot is the same as the top 12 teams listed above, in that order.

25
Oct
11

Herschel Walker, Tim Tebow and Context

by Griffin

Historical Records

During games, announcers are always looking to fill some of the dead time. One of the ways they do that is to point out when players are approaching certain records, either for their team, school, conference, division or league. While it’s exciting to chase a record, all performances are were not created equal. By this I mean one of the constant misuses of stats is to present a record as a simple total of something the player did. Points scored, yards rushed, field goals made, etc…. Unfortunately, this leads to a skewed point of view for the record and what it means. Let’s take a look at one example from the current college football season.

SEC Rushing TDs

By far the biggest record that’s going to fall this year is the SEC record for most career rushing TDs. Last night, Tim Tebow had 1 rushing TD, tying him with Herschel Walker for the SEC career record at 49. With at least 6 games to go, Tim Tebow will likely surpass Walker and put himself atop the record books by several TDs. Of course, it cannot be understated how unusual it is for Tebow to even be on the list of leaders, let alone at the top, because he’s a QB, not a RB. It’s truly a signifiant achievement for any player, let alone a non-RB. However, there are several problems with this record.

What’s A Career?

The biggest issue in comparing the two players above is that Walker played 3 years and Tim Tebow played 4 years. In fact, with the addition of an SEC championship game and a 12th regular season game, the difference in playing time becomes even more stark. Assuming another SEC championship appearance by Florida in 2009, Tim Tebow will end up playing 53 games (incl. bowl games ) compared to Walkers 36 games ( incl. bowl games ).

Tim Tebow did not play in 2 games his freshman year and did not play in a SEC championship game his sophomore year.

This is a huge advantage for Tim Tebow with regards to any record that measures a simple aggregate. By focusing on records and stats without some sort of normalizing factor or average, like games played, you end up with skewed statistics that don’t really mean a whole lot.

Stats

We’ll present Tim Tebows stats as projected through 14 games in the 2009 season, using his 2009 season averages so far. Even if they don’t make the 2009 SEC championship game, the stats will not change that much. As for Walker, his totals don’t include bowls, which we’ll tackle below.

So let’s take a look at both players career stats for a second:

Stat Tim Tebow Herschel Walker
Attempts 757 994
Yards 3124 5259
Yds/Att 4.13 5.29
TD 57 49

Again, even though Tim Tebow is listed as a QB, Florida clearly used him as a RB for a significant percentage of his career. However, this is what Walkers stats have looked like if he played his Sr. year (using his career averages for another 11 games):

Stat Tim Tebow Herschel Walker Herschel Walker (4 yrs)
Attempts 757 994 1325
Yards 3124 5259 7012
Yds/Att 4.13 5.29 5.29
TD 57 49 65

If Waker had played his Sr year, the record would likely still be his at the end of this year, though not untouchable by Tebow.

However, this ignores one more disparity between the two players: Tebow played 13 regular season games for 2 years, 12 for 1 and 11 for the other. Compared to Tebows 49 regular season games, Walkers stats over 33 regular season games look even more dominating. Walker averaged almost a touchdown and a half (1.48) per game, compared to Tebows 1.08 per game average. Given that, if Walker played 49 regular season games, his record would be an astounding 72.5 TDs

But, Uh, What About The Bowls?

Some readers will notice that I kept mentioning regular season games above. That’s because until recently, bowl game statistics were not counted towards records. Both Tebow and Walker played in 3 bowl games. The difference is that Walkers 5 TDs are not part of his TD record, but Tim Tebows 3 TDs are. If we add Walkers 5 to the 49 game total above and then add another 1.5 TDs (Sr. season bowl game), he’s be sitting atop the record books with a amazing 79 TDs, 22 ahead of Tebows projected total at the end of his Sr. season.

Over the goal line

I should also mention the number of times Tim Tebow got the call in short yardage situations as opposed to a more traditional running back. A more complete ( and perhaps useful ) analysis would be to look at the TDs by yardage for each player. I have a hunch that Tebows would be much lower than Walkers. However, I can’t find any sort of drive by drive stats for Walker to back that up.

Conclusion

None of the above is meant to disparage Florida or Tim Tebow fans. Clearly, he’s one of the greatest players ever and a talent unlike anything football has seen since the days of the single wing back. I simply wanted to present an example of how people can be misled with statistics when they’re not given any sort of context. From the above, it’s clear that Tim Tebow is no Herschel Walker when it comes to running the football. However, the fact that he’s in the discussion is impressive enough.

College football is certainly not the only sport where this type of record keeping rears its head. The MLB, NFL and Mens College Basketball all have had issues with keeping records consistent across generations. This is mostly because they love to sell a record as a single, dominating number as opposed to anything involving fractions or decimals. It’s unfortunate because I think it would be easier to gauge performance if we relied on stats that took into account games played, minutes played or similar factors.

19
Oct
0

AP Rankings, Questionable Logic & Inertia

by Griffin

Here at Three’s A Pattern, we’re always on the lookout for things that seem off. With the newest AP rankings, we started to notice a funny trend. I thought it would be interesting to play a little game called ‘Find The Ranked Team’. I’m going to pick two teams that have very similar resumes, but are regarded as radically different to the the polls & voters. See if you can guess which is the ranked team.  All rankings below are from the current AP poll unless otherwise noted.

First up:

Team 1: 4-2. 2 losses: @ #25 team & at home to #5 team.

Team 2: 3-3. 3 losses: neutral site to #16 team, @ #8 team and at neutral site to #3 team.

Next up:

Team 1: 5-2. 2 losses: at home to #4 team, by 3 & on the road to unranked Big 10 team by 8.

Team 2: 4-2. 2 losses: at home to #4 team, by 7 & on the road to unranked Big 10 team by 4.

Lastly:

Team 1: 5-1. 1 loss to unranked Big 12 team on the road.

Team 2: 6-1. 1 loss to unranked Pac 10 team on the road.

Answers:

Team 1: Tulsa, unranked, with wins @Tulane, @New Mexico, Sam Houston State (1-AA), @Rice. 3 non-BCS road wins and 1 1-AA win.

Team 2: Oklahoma, #25, with wins Idaho State (1-AA), Tulsa and Baylor. No road wins, 1 1-AA win and 1 BCS home win over a 3-3 team.

Team 1: Ohio State, #18, with wins over Navy, @ Toledo, Illinois, @ Indiana and Wisconsin. 2 road wins, 1 BCS and 1 non-BCS, and 2 BCS home wins.

Team 2: Notre Dame, unranked with wins over Nevada, Michigan State, @ Purdue and Washington. 1 BCS road win and 2 BCS home wins.

Team 1: Kansas, #24, with wins Northern Colorado (1-AA), @ UTEP, Duke, Southern Miss and Iowa State. 1 non-BCS road win and 1 BCS home win.

Team 2: Central Michigan, unranked, with wins @ Michigan State, Alcorn State (1-AA), Akron, @ Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, @ Western Michigan. 1 BCS road win and 2 non-BCS road wins.

The above examples are not meant to stump for one team over another. They’re all at the end of the rankings and not really going to affect the BCS rankings at the end of the year. It’s just meant to illustrate just how much momentum & inertia effects the polls. All of the ranked teams above, except Kansas, started out very high in the preseason polls. Kansas started out 25th and rose as high as 16th. This just shows how difficult it is to overcome preseason guesses and predictions by the voters.  Of course, 2 out of the 3 unranked teams are from non-BCS conferences, which carries a lot of bias also.

19
Oct
0

Week 7: Mumme Pollin’ & Rankings

by Griffin

Back this week with the updated rankings. I’ve fallen incredibly behind with the other rankings I wanted to crank out, so these will have to do for at least one more week. A brief overview of the ranking formula:

  1. I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
  2. Teams are given a point value for every game on their schedule thus far. The point system looks like this:
    Opp Team & Result Win Pts Loss Pts
    BCS – Road 9 -1
    BCS – Neutral 8 -2
    BCS – Home 7 -3
    Non-BCS – Road 6 -4
    Non-BCS – Neutral 5 -5
    Non-BCS – Home 4 -6
    1-AA – Road 3 -7
    1-AA – Neutral 2 -8
    1-AA – Home 1 -9

    So beating a BCS team on the road is worth 9 points, but losing to a 1-AA team at home docks you 9 points.

  3. To get a teams culmative score, you assign the correct value for the game and sum up all of the resulting values. So, for example, beating a BCS team on the road, but losing to a Non-BCS team at home would give you a total of 3 points.
  4. These are non-weighted scores, which is where the ‘Blind’ part comes in. This means the actual opponent doesn’t matter. So beating Duke on the road is the same as beating Florida on the road.

Teams

Tidbits

  1. The Big East and ACC are not nearly as laughably as people thought at the start of the year. The Big 12 is way worse than people think.
  2. A total of SEVEN non-BCS teams are in the top 20. A staggering amount
Rank Conference Team Score
1 SEC Alabama 48
2 Big 10 Iowa 46
3 ACC Georgia Tech 39
4 Big East Cincinnati 38
5 Pac-10 USC 37
6 SEC Florida 37
7 Big 12 Texas 36
8 Big East Pittsburgh 35
9 SEC LSU 35
10 MWC TCU 33
11 ACC Virgina Tech 31
12 MWC BYU 31
13 WAC Boise State 30
14 ACC Miami 29
15 Big 10 Ohio State 29
16 Big 10 Penn State 29
17 MAC Central Michigan 29
18 WAC Idaho 29
19 CUSA Houston 28
20 MWC Utah 28
21 Pac-10 Oregon 28
22 SEC Auburn 27
23 SEC Georgia 27
24 SEC South Carolina 26
25 ACC Boston College 24
26 Big 12 Kansas 24
27 Big East WVU 24
28 Pac-10 Stanford 24
29 Pac-10 Oregon St 24
30 Big East South Florida 23
31 Ind Notre Dame 23
32 Big 10 Minnesota 22
33 Big 12 Oklahoma State 22
34 Pac-10 Cal 22
35 Big 10 Wisconsin 21
36 Big 10 Michigan 21
37 Big 12 Texas Tech 20
38 ACC Wake 19
39 Pac-10 Arizona 19
40 Big 10 MSU 18
41 Big 12 Nebraska 17
42 Big East Uconn 17
43 MAC Ohio 17
44 Pac-10 Arizona St 17
45 SEC Mississippi 16
46 Sun Belt La-Lafayette 16
47 Big 12 Missouri 15
48 Sun Belt Troy 15
49 Big 12 Kansas State 14
50 Big 10 Northwestern 13
51 Big 10 Indiana 13
52 MAC Toledo 13
53 Pac-10 UCLA 13
54 SEC Kentucky 13
55 Sun Belt La-Monroe 13
56 CUSA Tulsa 12
57 Ind Navy 12
58 Pac-10 Washington 12
59 ACC UNC 11
60 Big 12 Iowa State 11
61 SEC Arkansas 11
62 Sun Belt Middle Tennessee 11
63 ACC Clemson 10
64 CUSA Southern Miss 10
65 Big 12 Baylor 9
66 Big East Rutgers 9
67 CUSA Marshall 9
68 CUSA East Carolina 9
69 MAC Temple 8
70 SEC Tennessee 8
71 MWC Wyoming 7
72 ACC Virgina 6
73 Big 12 Texas A&M 6
74 WAC Nevada 6
75 Big 12 Oklahoma 4
76 MWC Air Force 4
77 ACC Duke 3
78 CUSA SMU 3
79 Ind Army 3
80 MAC Northern ILL 3
81 SEC Miss St 3
82 WAC Fresno State 3
83 ACC NC State 1
84 MAC Kent St 0
85 WAC La Tech 0
86 Big 12 Colorado -1
87 MAC W. Michigan -1
88 MAC Bowling Green -1
89 Big East Syracuse -2
90 CUSA UCF -2
91 CUSA UTEP -2
92 ACC FSU -3
93 Big 10 Purdue -3
94 Big East Louisville -4
95 CUSA UAB -4
96 MWC Colorado St -4
97 ACC Maryland -6
98 MAC Buffalo -6
99 SEC Vandy -7
100 MWC San Diego St. -8
101 Sun Belt FAU -8
102 WAC Hawaii -8
103 Big 10 Illinois -9
104 WAC New Mexico St. -9
105 Sun Belt Arkansas St -11
106 Sun Belt FIU -12
107 CUSA Memphis -16
108 Pac-10 Wash St -16
109 CUSA Tulane -17
110 MAC Akron -17
111 Sun Belt North Texas -17
112 WAC San Jose St -17
113 MWC UNLV -18
114 WAC Utah St. -18
115 CUSA Rice -21
116 MAC Miami (OH) -23
117 MAC Eastern Michigan -24
118 MWC New Mexico -28
119 Sun Belt W. Kentucky -29
120 MAC Ball State -36

Conferences

Tidbits:

  1. The SEC is still king, but the Big 10 is coming up fast..
  2. The WAC has made a huge jump, due in large part to Idahos success
Rank Conference Score
1 SEC 20.33
2 Big 10 20
3 Pac-10 18
4 Big East 17.5
5 Big 12 14.75
6 ACC 13.667
7 MWC 5
8 WAC 1.778
9 CUSA 0.75
10 Sun Belt –2.44
11 MAC –2.923

Wrapping up

My Mumme Poll ballot is the same as the top 12 teams listed above, in that order.

12
Oct
0

Week 6: Mumme Poll

by Griffin

Previously, I discussed my participation in the 2009 Mumme Poll. Here is this weeks poll. Since there’s not much to base the rankings on yet, once again, I went with the top 12 from my Lazy & Blind Rankings:

Top 5:
Alabama
Iowa
LSU
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech

Rest:
Ohio State
Auburn
Florida
Concinnati
TCU
Texas
USC

11
Oct
0

Week 6: Lazy & Blind Rankings

by Griffin

Back this week with the updated rankings. I’ve also made a tweak to the conference ranking formula used last week that you’ll see below. A brief overview of the ranking formula:

  1. I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
  2. Teams are given a point value for every game on their schedule thus far. The point system looks like this:
    Opp Team & Result Win Pts Loss Pts
    BCS – Road 9 -1
    BCS – Neutral 8 -2
    BCS – Home 7 -3
    Non-BCS – Road 6 -4
    Non-BCS – Neutral 5 -5
    Non-BCS – Home 4 -6
    1-AA – Road 3 -7
    1-AA – Neutral 2 -8
    1-AA – Home 1 -9

    So beating a BCS team on the road is worth 9 points, but losing to a 1-AA team at home docks you 9 points.

  3. To get a teams culmative score, you assign the correct value for the game and sum up all of the resulting values. So, for example, beating a BCS team on the road, but losing to a Non-BCS team at home would give you a total of 3 points.
  4. These are non-weighted scores, which is where the ‘Blind’ part comes in. This means the actual opponent doesn’t matter. So beating Duke on the road is the same as beating Florida on the road.

Teams

Tidbits

  1. With 4 teams in the top-10 and 5 in the top-15, the SEC is the sexy conference right now. Strangely, the next SEC team isn’t until 35 and that’s Georgia. The rest of the SEC is pretty bad.
  2. Despite their big win at LSU last night, Florida has still not played a top-5 schedule.
  3. The ACC has two teams in the top-5. Va Tech is not a surprise, but Georgia Tech gets in with 2 road wins and 2 home wins over BCS teams combined with a single loss on the road to a BCS team.
  4. The Big East is not nearly as laughably as people thought at the start of the year.
Rank Conference Team Score
1 SEC Alabama 41
2 Big 10 Iowa 37
3 SEC LSU 35
4 ACC Virginia Tech 32
5 ACC Georgia Tech 32
6 Big 10 Ohio State 30
7 SEC Auburn 30
8 SEC Florida 30
9 Big East Cincinnati 29
10 MWC TCU 29
11 Big 12 Texas 28
12 Pac-10 USC 28
13 Pac-10 Oregon 28
14 SEC South Carolina 27
15 Big East South Florida 26
16 Big East Pittsburgh 26
17 Ind Notre Dame 26
18 Big 12 Kansas 25
19 MWC BYU 25
20 Pac-10 Stanford 25
21 WAC Idaho 25
22 Big 10 Wisconsin 24
23 WAC Boise State 24
24 ACC Miami 23
25 Big 10 Minnesota 23
26 MAC Central Michigan 23
27 Big 10 Penn State 22
28 CUSA Houston 22
29 MWC Utah 22
30 Big East WVU 20
31 ACC Wake 20
32 Big 10 Michigan 20
33 Big 12 Nebraska 20
34 CUSA Tulsa 18
35 SEC Georgia 18
36 ACC Boston College 17
37 Pac-10 Oregon St 17
38 Big 12 Missouri 16
39 Ind Navy 16
40 Pac-10 UCLA 16
41 Big 12 Oklahoma State 15
42 Big 10 Northwestern 14
43 Sun Belt Middle Tenn 14
44 MAC Ohio 13
45 Pac-10 Cal 13
46 Pac-10 Washington 13
47 Big East Rutgers 12
48 Pac-10 Arizona 12
49 SEC Mississippi 12
50 SEC Arkansas 12
51 ACC UNC 11
52 Big 10 MSU 11
53 Big 12 Texas Tech 11
54 MWC Wyoming 11
55 Big 12 Baylor 10
56 Big East Uconn 10
57 CUSA Marshall 10
58 Pac-10 Arizona St 10
59 Sun Belt La-Laff 10
60 CUSA SMU 9
61 MAC Toledo 9
62 Sun Belt La-Mon 9
63 Sun Belt Troy 9
64 SEC Tenn 8
65 Big 12 Texas A&M 7
66 Ind Army 7
67 MAC Northern ILL 7
68 Big 10 Indiana 6
69 Big 12 Oklahoma 6
70 CUSA Southern Miss 6
71 Big 12 Kansas State 5
72 CUSA East Carolina 5
73 MAC W. Michigan 5
74 Big 12 Iowa State 4
75 MAC Temple 4
76 SEC Kentucky 4
77 ACC Clemson 3
78 ACC Duke 3
79 ACC NC State 2
80 CUSA UCF 1
81 MWC Air Force 0
82 MWC Colorado St 0
83 WAC Nevada 0
84 WAC Fresno State -1
85 Big East Syracuse -2
86 CUSA UTEP -2
87 ACC FSU -3
88 ACC Maryland -3
89 ACC Virginia -3
90 Big East Louisville -3
91 CUSA UAB -3
92 SEC Miss St -3
93 MWC San Diego St. -4
94 SEC Vandy -4
95 WAC Hawaii -4
96 WAC La Tech -4
97 WAC New Mexico St. -5
98 MAC Kent St -6
99 Sun Belt FIU -6
100 MAC Bowling Green -7
101 Sun Belt Arkansas St -7
102 Big 10 Illinois -8
103 Big 12 Colorado -8
104 Big 10 Purdue -10
105 MAC Buffalo -10
106 CUSA Tulane -11
107 Sun Belt North Texas -11
108 CUSA Memphis -12
109 MWC UNLV -12
110 WAC Utah St. -12
111 MAC Akron -13
112 Pac-10 Wash St -13
113 WAC San Jose St -13
114 Sun Belt FAU -14
115 CUSA Rice -17
116 MAC Eastern Michigan -18
117 MAC Miami (OH) -19
118 Sun Belt W. Kentucky -23
119 MWC New Mexico -24
120 MAC Ball State -30

Conferences

Last week, I presented conference rankings as a simple aggregate of the individual member scores found above. I realized that such a formula would skew in favor of conferences with a small number of teams in with very high scores. So from now on, I’ll be dividing a conferences aggregate by the number of teams in that conference.

Tidbits:

  1. The conference order didn’t change at all.
  2. The gap between the Big 12 and the ACC is incredibly small. That flies in the face of the conventional wisdom of the Big 12 being the 1A to the SECs 1 conference ranking.
  3. The only non-conference games left for the Pac-10 are against Notre Dame.
Rank Conference Score
1 SEC 17.5
2 Big 10 16.9
3 Pac-10 14.9
4 Big East 14.75
5 Big 12 11.58
6 ACC 11.17
7 MWC 5.22
8 CUSA 2.17
9 WAC 1.11
10 Sun Belt –2.11
11 MAC –3.23

Wrapping up

I’ll use this ranking for my Mumme Ballot for one more week. Next week, every 1-A team will have played at least 6 games, so I’ll transition to a more exhaustive ranking formula. I’ll be unveiling it this week

7
Oct
0

2009 Mumme Poll Tester Ballot

by Griffin

Previously, I discussed my participation in the 2009 Mumme Poll. Monday the 5th marked the deadline to register and submit your first test ballot. Since there’s not much to base the rankings on yet, I went with the top 12 from my Lazy & Blind Rankings:

Top 5:
LSU
Alabama
Auburn
Iowa
Cincinnati

Rest:
USC
South Florida
Stanford
Norte Dame
Virginia Tech
Wisconsin
Boise State

This one doesn’t actually count. The first ballot isn’t released until after the 6th week of games. By then, I should have a more balanced ranking system in place.

4
Oct
2

Week 5: Lazy & Blind Rankings

by Griffin

A Simple Look

After writing my previous post about Oklahoma being ranked despite a very weak schedule, I got to thinking about what the other 1-A teams would look like if you ranked their schedules & results. Since I’m a huge fan of Ed over at The National Championship Issue, I thought I’d take a stab as some of my own team / conference rankings. ( BTW, you can find his Week 5 rankings here ). Thus the first version of the Blind Schedule Rankings were born.

These rankings are going to skew towards BCS teams. I’m trying to get a feel for what criteria AP voters would use. Since they usually skew towards BCS teams, this should be spot on.

Simple, Comprehensible and Full Of Holes

The rules are simple:

  1. I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
  2. Teams are given a point value for every game on their schedule thus far. The point system looks like this:
    Opp Team & Result Win Pts Loss Pts
    BCS – Road 9 -1
    BCS – Neutral 8 -2
    BCS – Home 7 -3
    Non-BCS – Road 6 -4
    Non-BCS – Neutral 5 -5
    Non-BCS – Home 4 -6
    1-AA – Road 3 -7
    1-AA – Neutral 2 -8
    1-AA – Home 1 -9

    So beating a BCS team on the road is worth 9 points, but losing to a 1-AA team at home docks you 9 points.

  3. To get a teams culmative score, you assign the correct value for the game and sum up all of the resulting values. So, for example, beating a BCS team on the road, but losing to a Non-BCS team at home would give you a total of 3 points.
  4. These are non-weighted scores, which is where the ‘Blind’ part comes in. This means the actual opponent doesn’t matter. So beating Duke on the road is the same as beating Florida on the road.

Now, I know that last one will cause a lot of people to complain. I am fully aware of how big of a hole this is. These are only meant to get a rough idea of the teams and who they’re playing. Sagarin adds weights in his rankings early on in the season, so all I’m doing is ignoring any artificial bias I could throw in for now. Later in the year, I may make a slightly more complex version of these rankings that include weights and connections, but I think this is good for now. I’ve always favored simplicity & comprehension over complex and opaque anyway.

Teams

Some interesting things below.

  1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the SEC holds the top 3 slots. All 3 teams have at least 3 wins over BCS teams (LSU has 4), including quality road and neutral site wins.
  2. Cincinnati & Iowa should both be ranked higher than they are, given the teams they beaten and where they’ve beaten them.
  3. Despite tripping up with Washington, USC is in good position to make a run at the the BCS NCG.
  4. 2 teams in the top 10 are unranked in most, if not all, polls. Notre Dame & Stanford both have 3 wins over BCS teams, including a road win.
  5. TCU & Boise St. are both in the top 15, though TCU is just barely in. However, if at least two BCS teams win out, they’re be on the outside looking in.
Rank Conference Team Score
1 SEC LSU 38
2 SEC Alabama 32
3 SEC Auburn 31
4 Big 10 Iowa 30
5 Big East Cincinnati 29
6 Pac-10 USC 28
7 Big East South Florida 26
8 Pac-10 Stanford 26
9 Ind Notre Dame 26
10 ACC Virginia Tech 25
11 Big 10 Wisconsin 25
12 WAC Boise State 24
13 ACC Georgia Tech 23
14 Big 10 Ohio State 23
15 MWC TCU 23
16 ACC Miami 22
17 Big 12 Texas 21
18 Big East West Virginia 21
19 Big 10 Michigan 21
20 Big 10 Penn State 21
21 SEC Florida 21
22 SEC South Carolina 20
23 Big 12 Missouri 19
24 Big East Pittsburgh 19
25 Pac-10 Ore 19
26 Pac-10 UCLA 19
27 SEC Georgia 19
28 MAC Central Michigan 19
29 MWC BYU 19
30 WAC Idaho 19
31 ACC Boston College 18
32 Big 12 Kansas 18
33 CUSA Tulsa 18
34 Sun Belt Middle Tennessee 18
35 Big 10 Minnesota 16
36 MWC Utah 16
37 SEC Mississippi 15
38 MAC Toledo 15
39 Pac-10 Arizona 13
40 Pac-10 California 13
41 CUSA Houston 13
42 ACC Wake Forrest 11
43 Big 12 Nebraska 11
44 Big 12 Baylor 11
45 Big East UConn 11
46 Big East Rutgers 11
47 ACC North Carolina 10
48 Big 12 Texas A&M 10
49 Big 10 Northwestern 10
50 Pac-10 Oregon St 10
51 Ind Navy 10
52 CUSA East Carolina 9
53 Sun Belt La-Monroe 9
54 Big 10 Indiana 7
55 CUSA Southern Mississippi 7
56 MAC Ohio 7
57 MAC Northern IL 7
58 MWC Wyoming 7
59 Big 12 Kansas State 6
60 Big 12 Oklahoma State 6
61 Pac-10 Washington 6
62 MWC Air Force 6
63 MWC Colorado St 6
64 Sun Belt La-Laff 6
65 ACC North Carolina State 5
66 Big 12 Iowa State 5
67 SEC Kentucky 5
68 SEC Arkansas 5
69 CUSA SMU 5
70 Sun Belt Troy 5
71 Big 12 Texas Tech 4
72 CUSA Marshall 4
73 ACC Clemson 3
74 SEC Miss St 3
75 Big 10 Michigan State 2
76 CUSA Texas El-Paso 2
77 WAC Hawaii 2
78 Big East Syracuse 1
79 Pac-10 Arizona St 1
80 SEC Tennessee 1
81 CUSA UCF 1
82 ACC Florida State 0
83 SEC Vanderbilt 0
84 Ind Army 0
85 MAC Kent St 0
86 MAC Temple 0
87 WAC La Tech 0
88 Big 12 Oklahoma -1
89 MAC W. Michigan -1
90 ACC Maryland -2
91 CUSA UAB -3
92 MWC San Diego St. -4
93 WAC Nevada -4
94 Big 10 Illinois -5
95 CUSA Tulane -5
96 ACC Duke -6
97 MWC UNLV -6
98 Big 12 Colorado -7
99 Big East Louisville -7
100 MAC Akron -7
101 Sun Belt Arkansas St -7
102 Sun Belt North Texas -7
103 WAC Fresno State -7
104 WAC San Jose St -7
105 WAC Utah St. -8
106 Big 10 Purdue -9
107 WAC New Mexico St. -9
108 ACC Virginia -10
109 Pac-10 Wash St -10
110 CUSA Rice -11
111 MAC Buffalo -11
112 Sun Belt Florida International -12
113 MAC Bowling Green -13
114 MAC Eastern Michigan -14
115 Sun Belt FAU -14
116 CUSA Memphis -16
117 Sun Belt W. Kentucky -17
118 MAC Miami (OH) -18
119 MWC New Mexico -20
120 MAC Ball State -26

Conferences

Some surprises for me here:

  1. The Big 10 2nd and the Big 12 5th seemed reversed to me. I would have thought the opposite.
  2. Not surprisingly, the MWC top the non-BCS conferences, but surprisingly Conference USA comes in 2nd. Equally shocking is the MAC occupying the bottom rung, normally the spot for the Sun Belt. The MAC has 4 teams with a combined record of 1-18.
  3. The ACC looks to be just awful, but only slightly worse than the Big 12.
Rank Conference Score
1 SEC 190
2 Big 10 141
3 Pac-10 125
4 Big East 111
5 Big 12 103
6 ACC 99
7 MWC 47
8 CUSA 24
9 WAC 10
10 Sun Belt -19
11 MAC -42

Proceed to Throw Your Tomatoes

I know the above rankings are completely full of holes in several ways. However, it was easy to throw together and gave me a rough idea about the first quarter of the season. I will probably keep it up to date throughout the year, with some modifications. If I’ve made an error or you have some input, please let me know. I welcome any feedback.

4
Oct
0

Oklahoma, Big 12 and AP Poll

by Griffin

Walking Around The AP Poll

We’re fans of resume voting here at Three’s A Pattern. We tend to not pay a lot of attention returning starters, hunches or tradition when ranking teams within a college football season. Simply who have you played, who have you beat and who have you lost to. So while perusing the latest AP Poll, it’s hard not to notice that the biggest drop for a ranked team was Oklahoma:

Rank Team Record Points
19 Oklahoma 2-2 370

They dropped 11 spots from #8 to #19. That sounds like a large drop, but frankly, to us, it’s not enough. Based on this season, it’s difficult to see why they’re ranked at all. Take a look at Oklahomas record thus far:

Wins: Tulsa(H), Idaho State(H)

Losses: BYU(N), Miami(R)

Not a very impressive resume. Certainly not one strong enough to overcome a 2-2 record. Oklahoma fans will point out that the two losses are by one point each to ranked opponents and that Heisman winner Sam Bradford was injured for most of the year. However, their only wins are at home, over a mid-major program and a 1-AA team. They have played a single team from a BCS conference and lost to them in their only road game of the year. The other loss was to a quality BYU team at a neutral site.  It’s tough to justify a high ranking simply on the strength of who you lost to. Juxtapose this with Houston dropping from #12 to unranked, despite having a road win vs. Oklahoma State and a home win vs. Texas Tech.

Mediocrity Loves Company

However, Oklahoma isn’t the only suspect Big 12 team in the back half of the poll. Let’s take a look at the the teams ranked below Oklahoma (BCS teams in bold):

Rank Team Wins Losses
20 Mississippi Memphis(R), SE Louisiana(H), Vanderbilt(R) South Carolina(R)
21 Nebraska FAU(H), Ark St(H), Louisiana-Laf(H) Virginia Tech(R)
22 Georgia Tech Jacksonville St.(W), Clemson(H), UNC(H), Mississippi St(R) Miami(R)
23 South Florida Wofford(H), W. Kentucky(R), Charleston Southern(H), FSU(R), Syracuse(R) None
24 Missouri Illinois(N), Bowling Green(H), Furman(H), Nevada(R) None
25 South Carolina North Carolina St.(R), FAU(H), Mississippi(H), South Carolina St.(H) Georgia(R)

Two things jump out at me from the above:

  1. Not only does every team have a better record than Oklahoma, two are undefeated. The two undefeated teams have a combined 2 road wins and 1 neutral site win over another BCS team. This also doesn’t mention 5-0 Wisconsin or 4-1 Stanford, which can each claim a pair of wins over BCS opponents, but are unranked. There’s also 3-1 Notre Dame, which has 3 wins over BCS opponents.
  2. Oklahoma is not the only team getting an unusually large amount of AP love. Eagle eyed readers will note that #21 Nebraska has a resume similar to Oklahoma, with no road wins and no wins over BCS teams. Just like Oklahoma, it’s a little difficult to see how they’re ranked as high as they are, given their resume. Out of 6 ranked Big 12 teams, they’re the only two teams without a win vs. a BCS conference team.

The Hypeman Cometh

With 6 ranked teams in the top 25, the hype machine for the Big 12 is already starting to build. However, in addition to Oklahoma and Nebraska, the rest of the ranked Big 12 teams, with two exceptions, have feasted on a slate of cream puffs & home games. Except for Oklahoma State over Georgia(H) & Texas over Wyoming(R), it’s hard not to see a pattern of home wins over cream puffs or conference opponents. While a combined record of 20-4 for the ranked teams looks impressive, broken down it loses it’s luster. The ranked Big 12 teams are basically .500 away from home:

Home Away Neutral
17-1 2-2 1-1

Conclusion

As Mergz from Saurian Sagacity foretold , the Big 12 has built a early season rep as one of the two top conferences in the country. They’ve done this, primarily, by coasting through easy home games. Once conference play begins and they start knocking each other off, they’re rankings will remain artificially inflated. In an ideal world, the voters will follow the chain of logic to really look into a teams resume & performance based on their wins, not just ‘quality losses’. We don’t have a lot of faith in that. Instead, for this week, we’ll suggest that if voters want to only look at ‘quality losses’, then they should look at Norther Iowa, who only has a single loss to undefeated and 5-0 Iowa.

2
Oct
0

2009 Mumme Poll

by Griffin

Being new to the college football blogging scene doesn’t mean I am new to college football. And you can’t discuss college football without discussing the polls. I was too late to get into the BlogPoll, but not too late to get into the Mumme Poll. Started in 2008 by the authors of Get The Picture, it’s an attempt to rank teams in a non-baised way. Quote:

This is accomplished by means of conducting the voting in two very different ways from other football polls:

  1. The first vote does not take place until after the games of Week Six have been played. Voters are not asked to evaluate teams based on preseason expectations and are not expected to use those as a baseline from which to rank teams for the rest of the year.
  2. Rather than being required to rank twenty five D-1 teams in order of preference, Mumme Poll voters submit ballots of the top twelve teams in the country, without ranking (other than to designate the top five of those twelve, for use as a tiebreaker). The poll rankings are then compiled by means of approval voting; that is, the teams are ranked in the order of the total number of times they appear on voters’ ballots.

It should be a fun time. I’m going to be ranking teams according to a soon to be unveiled ranking system, so it should be interesting. Also, the poll is open to everyone, so register if you’re interested.

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