Kansas is #1! (post week 8 NCAAF musings)

Here's an interesting stat result about the 'top'
teams in the land:
Kansas +0.703
Ohio State +0.659
Arizona State +0.619
Boston College +0.461
LSU +0.376
Oregon -0.119

In my results oriented world, Kansas is the top
team in all the land. What are those numbers?
How did I get them? Well, I'll introduce that in
the rest of this post.

These are a pure results oriented ranking.  
They represent how many more (or less) wins
each respective team has verse the schedule
they played than a generic #5 team in the
land would have. That's the general idea and,
of course, it requires some breaking down as
there are quite a few assumptions
(reasonable I hope) and explanations.  

1) For each team, I gathered their opponents' 
sagarin predictor rating after week 8
Saturday games. Sagarin predictor is the best
known computer evaluation system and the
most reliable from everything I've seen. (In
an ideal world, I'd probably find a weighted
combination of all rankings, like on Massey
compare web page, and assign a rating
through that.)  

2) I then pull out the rating for the #5 team according to sagarin predictor

3) I construct a ex post facto 'spread' for
each game by taking the difference
between the #5 ranking and each
opponent's sagarin predictor and add or
subtract a blanket 3 point home-field
advantage.

4) From there, I convert the 'spread' into
a win pct by comparing
the 'spread' to the a database that has the 
actual win pcts for
each game played at that spread in college
football from 1993 to 2006 (ty to goldsheet
for that info).

5) After obtaining a win pct for a generic
#5 team against each team on the schedule,
I just add simple math to get the average
amount of wins the #5 team should have
against that schedule.

6) I then subtract the projected #5 team
win total from the actual win total for the
specific team to obtain a result for how
many wins a team has outperformed a
generic #5 team.

7) For giggles, I go further and work through
every possible combination to see what
would a generic #5's teams win total look
like against that schedule for all possible
outcomes.

Without further ado, here is some of the
grunt work for each team

Kansas
C Mich 99.00%
SE La 99.00%
Toledo 99.00%
FIU 99.00%
K St 57.34%
Baylor 99.00%
Colorado 77.37%

6.297W 0.703L 0.900%

WINS p
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.4219
6 0.4586
5 0.1143
4 0.0051
3 0.0001
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Ohio State
Youngstown St 99.00%
Akron 99.00%
Washington 81.70%
N'Western 96.48%
Minnesota 92.59%
Purdue 77.37%
Kent St 99.00%
Mich St 88.92%

7.341W 0.659L 0.918%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.4872
7 0.3839
6 0.1124
5 0.0154
4 0.0011
3 0.0000
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Arizona State
SJ ST 99.00%
Colorado 88.13%
SD ST 96.48%
Org St 87.94%
Stanford 85.56%
Wazzu 90.24%
Washington 90.72%

6.381W 0.619L 0.912%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.5185
6 0.3617
5 0.1031
4 0.0154
3 0.0013
2 0.0001
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Boston College
Wake Forest 92.08%
NC St 98.18%
G Tech 76.39%
Army 99.00%
Umass 99.00%
B Green 99.00%
N Dame 90.24%

6.539W 0.461L 0.934%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.6047
6 0.3338
5 0.0573
4 0.0041
3 0.0001
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

LSU
Miss St 93.41%
V Tech 92.08%
MTSU 98.18%
S Car 88.10%
Tulane (N) 99.00%
Florida 62.03%
Kentucky 57.34%
Auburn 72.27%

6.624W 1.376L 0.828%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.1893
7 0.3900
6 0.2970
5 0.1043
4 0.0178
3 0.0015
2 0.0001
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Oregon
Houston 92.11%
Michigan 70.86%
Fresno St 93.81%
Stanford 85.56%
Cal 79.82%
Wazzu 99.00%
Washington 90.72%

6.119W 0.881L 0.874%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.0000
7 0.3756
6 0.4119
5 0.1726
4 0.0357
3 0.0039
2 0.0002
1 0.0000
0 0.0000


Now, don't get me wrong LSU fans.  I do believe you might have the 'best' team. In no sport, however, is the title given to the 'best' team. It's given to the team that earns it on the field. While I don't think Kansas is as good as any of the teams I compared them against here. They've had the best results on the field. But, there are alot of games left and plenty of time for things to change.

BTW-I think LSU has had the toughest schedule and my analysis bears backs that notion. The key is the expected win pct for a #5 team playing the respective schedules.
LSU 0.828
Oregon 0.874
Kansas 0.900
Arizona State 0.912
Ohio State 0.918
Boston College 0.934


I might due some sensitivity analysis and see how the numbers come out if I go with the #1 sagarin predictor instead of #5.