Archive for the ‘College Football’ Category
Hiatus
Well, it’s not much of one, but I’ve decided that I can’t keep this blog up right now. So, I’m going on a brief hiatus. Probably won’t be more than a few months until some things settle down. In the meantime, have a poke around the archives if you’d interested.
Peace.
2009 Bowl Attendance Visualized
Now that the CFB season is over, we can start to look back at the season that was. In this post, I’ll look at the bowl attendance from this year compared to last year.
2009 Bowls
Jay Christensen over at The Wiz of Odds has gone to the trouble of publishing the attendance figures over here. I took the numbers, converted them into a usable data file (here) and threw together a couple of heatmaps to show the results. Obviously, this is based on two years, so take any trends with a grain of salt.
Change in Attendance
Below you’ll find the attendance figures sorted by largest negative loss to largest positive gain. Purple indicates larger positive values while blue indicates larger negative values. White is the middle of the pack.
The first thing you’ll notice is the giant drop off in attendance at the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Pitting the #3 Big East team vs. the #5/#6 ACC team, the bowl saw a loss of almost 20k people. This is despite pitting a 9 win Pittsburgh team vs. an 8 win UNC team. Quite a surprise considering that the 2009 MCCB pitted the same UNC team vs. West Virginia. There could be several reasons for the drop. The increased proximity of the West Virginia fan base to the bowl, the fatigue of UNC fans of attending the MCCB again or even the
On the other end of the spectrum is the Gator bowl. While typically hosting the #2 Big East ( or ND ) and the #3 ACC team, this year the bowl was able to play host to an historic event. That’s right, Bill Stewarts 3rd straight bowl game. Oh, and it was also Bobby Bowdens 31st bowl appearance and his last game as the head coach at Florida State University. This made the Gator bowl one of the prime non-BCS attractions.
Something else to notice that that the lower tier bowls seemingly did better this year than several of the BCS bowls. Aside from the BCS title game, which saw a 20% increase in attendance, the other 4 BCS bowls either saw minimal increase (Fiesta & Rose ~1% ) or almost a double digit decrease. The Fiesta bowl figure is interesting when you consider two non-BCS teams played for the first time ever in a BCS bowl. Any increase over the 2009 Fiesta that featured national powers Ohio State and Texas is impressive.
The Alamo bowl no doubt benefited from the off field drama surrounding the Mike Leech / Texas Tech story. Also, if the Cotton Bowl wants to be included as a 6th BCS game, it’s going to have to improve it’s attendance figured. Having the 5th largest decrease in attendance, despite playing in the larger Dallas Cowboys stadium, isn’t going to cut it. In fact, you could make the case that the Capital One bowl should be the 6th BCS bowl, should a spot be created.
Too Many Bowls?
With 20 bowls increasing attendance and two bowl showing less than a 1% decline, it looks like the bowl system shows no signs of slowing down. Since there’s already more bowls lined up for the future, it looks like the only thing that will slow down the bowls is the lack of a suitable venue.
Seinfeld & CFB Postseason
I know this isn’t stats / data related, but I wanted to post a thought anyway. I know it’s just conjecture, but I still chuckle every time I read about someones proposed CFB Postseason format. I always think of this quote from Seinfeld from “The Voice” episode:
“Kramer: Of course it’s a good idea, it’s my idea. I conceived this whole project two years ago.
Jerry: Which part? The renovating the restaurant you don’t own part or spending the two hundred million you don’t have part?”
Just letting everyone know that real life slammed right into us this fall and this blog suffered. Fortunately, the offseason of ’10 will provide us some time to post more often and about some cooler things. We’re toying with visualizing sports data so stay tuned.
Week 8: Pollin’
Back this week with the updated rankings. A brief overview of the ranking formula:
- I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- Alabama and Iowa keep the top slot with narrow victories this weekend.
- The top 7 teams are from each of the six BCS conferences plus Florida from the SEC.
- 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.
- 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:
- Same order as last week. The Big 10 is ever so close to overtaking the SEC.
- 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.
- With Miami and UNC choking away home games, the ACC is even more of a mess.
- 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.
Herschel Walker, Tim Tebow and Context
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.
AP Rankings, Questionable Logic & Inertia
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.
Week 7: Mumme Pollin’ & Rankings
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:
- I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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:
- The SEC is still king, but the Big 10 is coming up fast..
- 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.
Week 6: Mumme Poll
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
Week 6: Lazy & Blind Rankings
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:
- I picked the simplest scale I could think of: 1-9
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- Despite their big win at LSU last night, Florida has still not played a top-5 schedule.
- 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.
- 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:
- The conference order didn’t change at all.
- 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.
- 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
2009 Mumme Poll Tester Ballot
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.