Ohio State v LSU is the BCS solution

At least according to the methodology used here.
I went through and looked how the contenders compared to
what one would expect from the #2 team in the country.

The results were Ohio State and, by a very slim margin, LSU.
It appears as though the extra SEC title game vaults LSU to
the top.

+/- compared to a #2
Ohio State +0.212W 0.899p
LSU -0.259W 0.866p
USC -0.263W 0.855p
Georgia -0.288W 0.857p
V Tech -0.577W 0.891p
Oklahoma -0.628W 0.895p

Ohio State did have the weakest schedule as shown by 0.899
expected win percentage. However, the differences based on
percentage points are small and Ohio State did only lose once
compared to the other contenders.

Digging Through the One Loss Teams

Right now, there are a mess of contenders
with one loss. I decided to apply the OTFRR
methodology to see how the teams measure
up. Let's see how everyone has done in W/L
compared to what we'd expect a #5 team to
do verse their respective schedules.

OTFRR#5 (Methodology)
Ohio State + 1.065 Expected 8.935 W 0.893 Winp
Kansas + 0.797 Expected 8.203 W 0.911 Winp
LSU + 0.662 Expected 7.338 W 0.815 Winp
Oregon + 0.469 Expected 7.531 W 0.837 Winp
Mizzou + 0.404 Expected 7.596 W 0.844 Winp
Arizona State + 0.318 Expected 7.682 W 0.854 Winp
West Virginia + 0.036 Expected 7.964 W 0.885 Winp
Oklahoma -0.013 Expected 8.013 W 0.890 Winp
Boston College -0.146 Expected 8.146 W 0.905 Winp

Digging through, the schedule strength from
easiest to hardest goes as follows:
Kansas
Boston College
Ohio State
Oklahoma
West Virginia
Arizona State
Mizzou
Oregon
LSU

As most college football experts hypothesize,
LSU and Oregon are the class of one-loss
teams. However, Mizzou is going under the
radar and should be getting some more
pub. They've looked impressive in a points
evaluations as well, which isn't considered
here. With Kansas and a potential BigXII
title game, Mizzou can make a major jump
in reality as well as in this evaluation tool.

I don't think Oregon can pass LSU if they
both run out the season due to LSU's lead
right now and the additional SEC title
game. But, alot can change. The SEC has
many intersectional games left that can
cause a change in how the LSU opponents
look at season's end.

Sorry UConn fans that I didn't consider you.
If your team wins next week, I'll have to add
in an evaluation.

Kansas Remains #1! Post Week 9

Methodology for ranking system. Rankings
are on-the-field win-loss results based.

So, another Saturday is in the books and it's
time to update the ratings. What follows is
the OTFRR#5 through Saturday, October
27th. The top 4 did not shift at all after all of
them surprisingly won their games, most in
dominating #1 fashion. The big news is that
Oregon has caught upto LSU among one loss
teams. Look for a post on the one-loss teams
coming up in the next few days.

Here are the rankings compared to a #5 team
Kansas +1.005W
Ohio State +0.887W
Arizona State +0.844W
Boston College +0.774W
Oregon +0.210W
LSU +0.204W

Kansas is over a full game ahead of what a
typical #5 team would be playing their
schedule. That's right-Kansas could've lost
a game this season and still had a top5 resume.

Oregon has played the toughest schedule so far
for the top 6 teams, but is essentially tied with
LSU for that honor. BC and Ohio State have
played the weakest schedules of the six teams
profiled here.

Expected #5 team performance for team schedules:
Oregon 6.790W 1.210L 0.8488winp
LSU 6.796W 1.204L 0.8495winp
Kansas 6.995W 1.005L 0.874winp
Arizona State 7.156W 0.844L 0.895winp
Ohio State 8.113W 0.887L 0.901winp
Boston College 7.226W 0.774L 0.903winp

Despite what the talking heads on tv say,
there are teams earning it on the field. The
tv pundits prefer to ignore it because it is
not the 'best' teams that are showing it on
the field. Sorry, it's not the 'best' team that
wins, it's the team with the best results.

Right now, I'd guess that Kansas and
Arizona State are the teams in control of
their destiny according to this ranking
system with BC a close third and Ohio
State a distant fourth.


Here are the details for each team:
Ohio State
Youngstown St 99.00%
Akron 99.00%
Washington 82.83%
N'Western 97.51%
Minnesota 93.33%
Purdue 73.76%
Kent St 99.00%
Mich St 93.15%
Penn St 73.76%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.3707
8 0.4150
7 0.1753
6 0.0352
5 0.0036
4 0.0002
3 0.0000
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Boston College
Wake Forest 89.33%
NC St 96.31%
G Tech 73.99%
Army 99.00%
Umass 99.00%
B Green 99.00%
N Dame 91.96%
V Tech 73.99%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.4203
7 0.4113
6 0.1443
5 0.0225
4 0.0017
3 0.0001
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Arizona State
SJ ST 99.00%
Colorado 87.40%
SD ST 97.51%
Org St 80.02%
Stanford 86.57%
Wazzu 94.15%
Washington 94.74%
Cal 76.24%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.3975
7 0.4030
6 0.1622
5 0.0334
4 0.0038
3 0.0002
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Kansas
C Mich 99.00%
SE La 100.00%
Toledo 99.00%
FIU 100.00%
K St 50.83%
Baylor 99.00%
Colorado 73.43%
Texas A&M 78.27%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.2835
7 0.4641
6 0.2177
5 0.0339
4 0.0009
3 0.0000
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

LSU
Miss St 94.15%
V Tech 88.44%
MTSU 99.00%
S Car 88.94%
Tulane (N) 99.00%
Florida 68.67%
Kentucky 69.15%
Auburn 72.23%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.2490
7 0.4044
6 0.2547
5 0.0785
4 0.0124
3 0.0010
2 0.0000
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Oregon
Houston 94.74%
Michigan 69.01%
Fresno St 95.05%
Stanford 86.57%
Cal 76.24%
Wazzu 97.51%
Washington 83.68%
USC 76.24%

WINS P
12 0.0000
11 0.0000
10 0.0000
9 0.0000
8 0.2552
7 0.3969
6 0.2495
5 0.0817
4 0.0150
3 0.0016
2 0.0001
1 0.0000
0 0.0000

Les Miles managed the endgame terribly

In case anybody missed it, the final of the
LSU-Auburn game was fantastic this past
Saturday. LSU came back from a 17-7
deficit to gain a 23-17 lead. With 3:35 to go
in the game, Auburn scored a TD and hit
the xp for a 24-23 advantage. After six
plays and a nice spot, LSU had moved to
the Auburn 25 and Les Miles decided to
slow his offense down rather than stay in
a hurry-up scenario. LSU had a first down
and about 1:45 on the clock. This is a
crucial point where I believe Les Miles
really hurt his team's chances to win the
game.

Here is the yahoo summary of what
happened next:
1st-10, Aub25 1:30 M. Flynn rushed up
the middle for 2 yard gain
2nd-8, Aub23 0:50 M. Flynn passed to
R. Dickson to the right for 1 yard gain
3rd-7, Aub22 0:10 M. Flynn passed to
D. Byrd to the left for 22 yard touchdown.
C. David made PAT

Yuck! Despite a timeout and 1:30, LSU
under Miles direction played to make
that the last set of downs.

Basically, Miles decided to have one shot
at the goaline from 20+ yards away and
to have a FG chance, and I emphasize
the word chance, if that play didn't work
out. Now, many will point out how it
seemed Miles was playing for the FG and
how his deep pass suckered Auburn.
That just isn't the case; Auburn was not
suckered. The CB was running stride for
stride with the wideout. It took a near
perfect pass and a great reception to
complete that pass over very good
coverage.

In essence, Miles played for a 20+ yard
TD pass and a FG try of 36-40 versus
running the hurry-up for the last 1:30
to see if his team could drive and,
possibly, leaving some time on the clock
for Auburn if LSU scored early.

Even with a QB who was 21 0f 33 for 297
yards at that time, the chances of a 22 yd
TD pass are not good. Note that only 4
of LSU's passes during the rest of the
game were for more yards than that. At
this point, the best anyone can do is
guess at the likelihood of completing that
pass. I'll give Miles the benefit of the doubt
and say LSU had a 30% chance of hitting
the 22 yarder.

If they don't hit the pass, LSU would be
forced to attempt a FG about 39 yards.
Colt David was 14 of 19 for the year on
FGs, but those numbers are a fraud to
use out of context. This year, Colt David
is 12 for 12 inside 35 yards on FGs. He is
2 for 4 on 36-40, 0 for 2 on 41-45, and 0
for 1 on 50+. The misses in the 36-40
range where on his home field and in the
SuperDome! What does this mean?
It means that if LSU doesn't come up with
that TD pass, they are playing for a 50%
chance of making a FG.
For those that can do math, the way Les
Miles played the endgame gave LSU a
65% chance of winning the game.

Now, consider the alternative pathway for
Miles and the Bayou Bengals. 1:40 on the
clock and a first down at the Auburn 25.
Why not just stick with a slight hurry-up
version of the offense they'd run the whole
second half that allowed for first downs
and moving the ball in segments rather than
going for the whole chunk.
LSU had scored (2TDs, 2FGs) four times on
its five second half possessions. They were
averaging nearly 9 yards per pass attempt
and nearly 7 yards per play. For those that
don't track such things, that is extremely
successful movement of the ball. Their
recent drives were covering lots of yards,
40+ on all of them, and not taking much
time off the clock.

Yahoo's second half drive log for LSU:
time of poss/where drive began/# plays/
yards/result
3:39 LSU 32 8 56 FG
2:38 LSU 4 8 45 Int
1:07 LSU 33 5 58 FG
2:18 LSU 16 8 84 TD
2:54 LSU 29 7 55 FG
3:12 LSU 42 9 58 TD

Considering LSU was one first down from
Colt David's 100% zone, the endzone
was only 25 yards away, LSU was on a roll
offensively against a tired defense, and the
time pressure wasn't bad with over a 1:30
on the clock with a timeout, I am dumb-
founded for why Les Miles played for only
a 65% chance to win the game. If they just
continued with a slight hurry-up, I have LSU
scoring a td 50% of the time and getting a FG
90% of the time they don't get a TD. There
would be little chance of Auburn scoring again
after an LSU score considering a large number
of those scores come very late in the game, less
than 20 seconds, and Auburn's offense hadn't
been very good the entire game (4.7 yppl). The
scoring drives for Auburn had all taken numerous
plays and over 4:30 on the gameclock. This was
not an offense that had a good chance to drive
the field in less than a minute.

I'm being very nice on Mr. Miles here with the
numbers and erroring to his side of things on
the scale. However, it looks like Miles turned a
game that had an 80%+ chance of LSU victory
into a game with only a 65% chance for LSU to
pull down the 'W'! That's not a gamble, that is
a blunder!

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.