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Ohio State jumps ttun to become No. 1 team in the country in advanced stat

+7 HS
Defiance's picture
September 27, 2016 at 1:30pm
27 Comments

Even after a bye, the Buckeyes are still dominant.

Of course they're dominant, just look at Weenie Arm leading the troops into battle...

Keeping with the ratings theme here at 11W on a brisk Autumn Tuesday, the latest S&P+ rankings, a mathematical college football rating system, have the Buckeyes jumping from the No. 5 spot in last week’s ratings to the top spot this week. Michigan Meat Chicken, who had previously sat at No. 1, fell to the No. 2 spot ahead of Alabama, Louisville and Clemson.

It was a good bye week for the Ohio State Buckeyes, partly because they were able to, once again, beat the Michigan Wolverines, all while staying off the football field.

Sounds like a win-win, right? Stay off the field, avoid (most) injuries and still jump your rival in the rankings! Who's got it better than them, according to the S&P+ rankings, tOSU does, for this week at least.

Rounding out the rest of the B1G behind Ohio State and Michigan, Wisconsin sits at No. 16, with Nebraska coming in at No. 23. Iowa, a week out from losing to FCS North Dakota State, sits just outside the top-25 at No. 28.

I won't bore you with all the sorted details but this does a pretty good job of breaking down what the numbers mean:

The S&P+ ratings analyze play-by-play and drive data for each college football team for every game, accounting for more than 800 games and 140,000 plays per season. Specifically, the rating focuses on four key factors, including efficiency, explosiveness, field position and finishing drives, with each factor adjusted for a given opponent. This rating is compared overall, as well as for offense, defense and special teams specifically for each team. Finally, the rating accounts for second-order wins, which uses advanced statistics to compare what should have happened in the game (statistically-based projections) to the actual result of the game.

While preseason polls account for much of the data in the first weeks of the season (as there is less on-field information to go on), that ratio decreases as the season goes on until, by week six, all the data is derived from actual on-field play, which explains why LSU remains in the top-20, and Wisconsin is still out of the top-15. This week, the preseason projections fell from 50 percent of the total score to 30 percent, which gave the Buckeyes enough room to jump despite the bye week.

The fact that the preseason factors drop from 50 percent to 30 percent this week may help to explain how The Buckeyes make a jump even on their bye week, they've just been that dominant the first three weeks of the season.

Representing the Warriors like only he can, here's a little nugget from 11W's own Johnny Ginter:

“A great coach can put those conditions in place, but it takes a great culture to keep it going, and the Buckeyes are lucky enough to have that with the kind of leadership we’ve seen from the players and assistant coaches in recent years.”
-Johnny Ginter, Eleven Warriors

The article does a great job of talking about how UFM has affected change at all his stops on his coaching resume. It further talks about how, since his arrival at tOSU, he uses the players and coaches to continue to elevate the entire program.

There is no doubt that Urban Meyer is one of the great college football coaches of our time, having found success everywhere he has been from the start of his career at Bowling Green. However, the “Great Man theory of history,” which would claim that Meyer’s success is his and his alone, is somewhat flawed in this instance.

First, while Meyer deserves much credit for his ability to find talented recruits and mold them into even more talented players for Ohio State, the onus is not on him alone in turning this year’s inexperienced group into the No. 2 team in the country. Players with significant experience at key positions--J.T. Barrett at quarterback, Pat Elflein and Billy Price on the offensive line and Raekwon McMillan, Gareon Conley and Tyquan Lewis all on different defensive units--have helped to lead their various position groups, bringing them up to speed with the talent that was lost to April’s NFL Draft.

Even moreso, Meyer managed to place exceptional help in his coaching staff vacancies, including Greg Schiano and Greg Studrawa, to the staff to assist in player development and take the burden off of Meyer. And Meyer is not afraid to think outside the “Ohio” box, recruiting players and assistant coaches from across the country and, in the case of Australian punter Cameron Johnston, around the world. Buckeyes on the roster represent 20 different states, including a number from Texas, Florida and Georgia in the midst of SEC recruiting hotbeds.

Like to delve further into the numbers and calculations, here's a link for the read. 

Oh, and just so we don't take our eyes off the prize, the article finishes with this little nugget:

So while Meyer has been instrumental in creating success at Ohio State and elsewhere, perhaps the greater credit is in bringing these groups and individuals together under a common banner--winning yet another College Football Playoff.

Don't you just love how that phrase yet another CFP rolls off the tongue?!? 

Ain't it a GR8 time to be a Buckeye!!

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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