Ducks, Warriors, and Rainbows

This post is a response for an interesting point
brought up by BobJoeJim and Semtex from
the twoplustwo forums.
What about Hawai'i?

They are obviously going to have an
outperformance number since they haven't
lost. Does this mean they are a better team
than Oregon? Ironically, if we are comparing
both by the top 5 standards, it appears so.
However, this points out how the
on-the-field results ranking (hereafter
OTFRR) needs to be used only for teams that qualify for it based 
on previous rankings--such as: as the #50 team, as the #25 team, 
as the #15 team, and so on. The same 
process used to determine the top team can
be used to whittle down who qualifies to be
considered. As IggyMcfly(2p2er) said, "Yeah,
really comparing the Top 5's expected wins
only works with Top 5 caliber teams."

To show this point in action, let's look at
Hawai'i and see how they compare to Oregon
as a #15 team and see if Hawai'i are warriors
or rainbows.

The initial confusion is this
as a top 5 team playing their respective
schedules, Hawai'i is outperforming verse
their schedule while Oregon is
underperforming.

Hawai'i is +0.225 wins
Oregon is -0.029 wins (notice the correction
from the previous post)

Oregon if #5
Houston 92.11%
Michigan 70.86%
Fresno St 93.81%
Stanford 85.56%
Cal 79.82%
Wazzu 99.00%
Washington 81.70%



WINS
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.3382
6 0.4121
5 0.1964
4 0.0469
3 0.0059
2 0.0004
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Hawai'i if #5
N Colorado 100.00%
La Tech 90.24%
UNLV 90.24%
Charleston So 100.00%
Idaho 99.00%
Utah St 99.00%
SJST 99.00%

WINS
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.7901
6 0.1949
5 0.0147
4 0.0003
3 0.0000
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

sidenote is that a #5 team should have a
0.968 win pct verse Hawai'i's schedule.
This is far easier than the top contenders
we visited in the previous post.

Now, let's look at how they are faring as a
#15 team playing their respective schedules.

Oregon 
+0.838W expected 5.162W 1.838L 0.737winp
Hawai'i
+0.288W expected 6.712W 0.288L 0.959winp

The details are as follows:

Oregon if #15
Houston 79.81%
Michigan 53.94%
Fresno St 88.13%
Stanford 70.86%
Cal 61.20%
Wazzu 96.11%
Washington 66.13%


WINS
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.1046
6 0.2969
5 0.3355
4 0.1929
3 0.0597
2 0.0096
1 0.0007
0 0.0000

Hawai'i if #15
N Colorado 100.00%
La Tech 91.96%
UNLV 87.50%
Charleston So 100.00%
Idaho 99.00%
Utah St 99.00%
SJST 93.75%

WINS
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.7393
6 0.2345
5 0.0251
4 0.0011
3 0.0000
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

It's clear that Hawai'i's schedule isn't even
tough enough to test if they are truely a
top15 team. The #15 team would be
undefeated ~74% of the time facing that
schedule.

In essence, I think this knocks Hawai'i out
of competing for the top spot right now.
However, as the season goes on, there are
more 'losable' games that can 'test' and
'flesh out' where Hawai'i belongs in the
picture.