It's time once again for the most anticipated rankings reveal of the day! If you haven't been following along with my posts from previous weeks, what the hell's wrong with you? Honestly. Are you living under a rock? This is major stuff over here!
Things are shaking out in the final weeks of the season, and the numbers are starting to get interesting. Over the past few weeks, they've been fairly palatable for the general audience of this site, but I have a feeling I'm in for a bit more scrutiny than usual. Can't wait!
Fed up with the constant bias and subjective reasoning that leads to overrated teams and feedback loops of inflated rankings **cough*SEC*cough**, I set out to create an objective system of ranking every team on the only statistic that matters at the end of the day. Did you win the damn game?
The premise is simple, but explaining can be hard. I'll do my best, though!
Opponent Value:
Each team on your schedule is given an opponent value. This value is based on your opponent's record over their last twelve games. If a team on your schedule is 10-2 over their last twelve games, beating them will earn you a score of +10 for that week, and losing to them will give you a score of -2.
If you play an FCS team, your win value is divided by two, and your loss value is multiplied by two. Playing a 10-2 FCS team would net you +5 for a win and -4 for a loss.
Scoring:
For each team you play, the value you earn for that win or loss is determined by two variables, that team's value at the time of the win, and that team's value in the current week. Beating a team in week one with a prior record of 10-2 returns a value of +10. In week eleven, if that team now has a prior record of 8-4 for an opponent value of +8, those scores will be averaged on a 1:3 ratio, the average of 10,8,8, and 8, for a score of +8.5. So, in week eleven, your score will return as +8.5 for beating that team in week one rather than the +10 it'd been originally. If that team continues to lose, your win score will continue to decay. If that team improves, your score for beating that team will improve.
Your opponent score for each game you've played is then added up and divided by the number of games played for an average total score.
**For those of you who have been following along, this is a switch from the original rankings system to the 1:3 system that I've discussed previously
Love it? Hate it? Neat. Here you go...
- Oh how the mighty have fallen. After weeks of commanding the #1 spot in this ranking system, Ohio State is now coming in as the number three team. This system is heavily reliant on W/L vs SoS reasoning, so this drop can be explained by our last two opponents in Northwestern and Indiana. The Buckeyes week 9 score has dropped from an average of 6.56 to 5.58 with the addition of these team's data points, +1 and +3 respectively.
- That being said, Ohio State has an opportunity to finish strong with Maryland and TTUN holding opponent values of +8 and +11, both above our current 5.58 average.
- Speaking of TTUN, lol. I honestly can't believe some of them have tried justifying their non-conference slate saying their opponents were respectable at the time they scheduled them. You don't schedule Hawai'i and Colorado State with the expectation that they'll be major powers ten years out you dip-shits. //end rant
- Alabama makes a big jump after a splash win over a highly valued Ole Miss. I expect them to need some serious help to get any higher than this, though, with a weak finish to their schedule and Penn State, USC, and LSU lurking behind them.
- UCF makes a big jump into the top 25 with their win over Tulane, officially making them the highest ranked AAC team in this poll.
- If you have an issue with Troy at #11, so do I. I broke that down last week, and you can see that analysis here. If you want the sparknotes version, it's all downhill from here. I'd expect the same for UTSA, but haven't looked into their numbers.
For the Nerds:
Last week, I started looking deeper into my theory that G5 teams will hit a glass ceiling and consistently be ranked lower than P5 teams due W/L numbers reflecting the relative strengths of conferences based on non-conference scheduling. The current average opponent values for each conference are as follows:
| Week 11 Avg. Conf. Opp. Values | |
|---|---|
| SEC | 7.214 |
| Big 12 | 7.000 |
| Big Ten | 6.714 |
| ACC | 6.429 |
| AAC | 6.273 |
| Pac 12 | 6.250 |
| Sun Belt | 6.214 |
| Mountain West | 5.833 |
| CUSA | 5.273 |
| MAC | 5.250 |
In real life, these numbers are the average winning percentage of FBS teams by conference (so no independents, eat shit Notre Dame) over their last twelve games. In the context of my ranking system, they represent the average score that an undefeated team can roughly expect to earn by going undefeated in conference play. Teams essentially gather wins in non-conference play, and then trade wins and losses within conference play.
Last week, the Sun Belt and AAC were flipped in rank from what we see this week, which raised an eyebrow from me regarding where the Sun Belt's non-conference wins were coming from. I also wanted to see whether the Pac 12 was playing more difficult schedules relative to other P5 schools, and whether the SEC was truly as dominant as they appear, or if their average opponent score is also inflated with weak wins.
Here are scheduling tendencies, broken down by P5 and G5 conferences, and ordered by the ranks we see above to see if these tendencies indicate any possible correlation with the rankings themselves.
| P5 | G5 | FCS | Indep. | |
| SEC | 75.60% | 13.69% | 8.33% | 2.38% |
| Big 12 | 83.33% | 9.17% | 6.67% | 0.83% |
| Big Ten | 80.95% | 11.31% | 5.36% | 2.38% |
| ACC | 76.79% | 9.52% | 7.74% | 5.95% |
| Pac 12 | 80.56% | 9.03% | 6.94% | 3.47% |
Percentages reflect the percent of P5, G5, FCS, and Independent opponents scheduled by the conference this year as a whole.
At first glance, wow. For my rankings, this shows a pretty significant inflation in the value of the SEC, with them playing what appears to be by far more G5 and FCS opponents than any other conference. However, I think my system mirrors the way we valuate teams in real life, and it seems the SEC is stealing little wins here and there from inferior opponents, and then pounding their chests in conference play. If I have to hear Kirby Smart talk about a tough SEC opponent in his post game interview after beating Mizzou or Mississippi State one more time, I might just drive my ass right down to Georgia and throw hands. I'd lose, but it's the thought behind the gesture that counts.
The ACC seems to follow a similar pattern, but I will give them a slight pass as a big chunk of games in the Independent category come from Notre Dame, one of the two Independents, the other being BYU I'd lump into the P5 category based on typical standard of play. I'd also do the same, but to a smaller extent, with the Pac 12 as they also have scheduled multiple games with Notre Dame and BYU.
Lets look at the G5 conferences, you know, for funsies.
| P5 | G5 | FCS | Indep. | |
| AAC | 12.12% | 75.76% | 7.58% | 4.55% |
| Sun Belt | 10.18% | 76.65% | 8.38% | 4.79% |
| Mountain West | 11.03% | 73.10% | 8.28% | 7.59% |
| CUSA | 9.02% | 79.70% | 7.52% | 3.76% |
| MAC | 14.58% | 73.61% | 8.33% | 3.47% |
Get that money, MAC!
As for the rest of this table, the only thing I'm really gathering is that only one G5 conference scheduled more FCS opponents this year than the SEC. Jesus Christ guys.
There might be more to take from this table, but to be honest, I've spent way too much time on this already, and don't really care.
So, I'll leave it up to you guys. I'm sure there's some really interesting stuff in these numbers that I could break down further. If anyone has any suggestions on where to take this from here, I'd be happy to consider it. As for making changes to my ranking system, I'd be interested to see what would happen if I made FCS wins count as 0.5 towards the opponents values of FBS schools, but that'd require quite a bit of data entry to be able to code, so I'm not sure if I'll get to that. I'm enjoying this SEC rabbit hole anyway.
