CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => SEC => Topic started by: OrangeAfroMan on December 01, 2019, 04:18:07 PM
-
Everyone's played their (paltry?) 8 conference games, so what do we have?
LSU, the top team in the conference, gave up 204 points in SEC games. That's good enough for 6th-best defense in the East - worse than Missouri's - who went 3-5 in-conference.
.
.
By record:
8-0 LSU
7-1 Georgia
6-2 Florida, Alabama
5-3 Auburn, Tennessee
4-4 Texas A&M
3-5 Kentucky, Missouri, Carolina, Miss St
2-6 Ole Miss
1-7 Vanderbilt
0-8 Arkansas
.
.
Strength of Schedule (SEC games only, opponents' record against everyone else):
33-23 Florida, Auburn
30-26 Vanderbilt, Texas A&M
29-27 Georgia, Tennessee, Carolina
28-28 Alabama, Miss St
27-29 LSU
26-30 Arkansas
24-32 Ole Miss
23-33 Kentucky
22-34 Missouri
So this is where we can see some context. Florida and Alabama both went 6-2, but Florida did it against a tougher schedule. We all knew Auburn and A&M had tough schedules, but no worse than Florida and Vanderbilt.
.
This is the problem with unbalanced scheduling, though. Auburn had to play the top 4 teams (by record) in the conference this year. So before the first ball was snapped, it was highly unlikely they were going to have a great season. And how is any coach going to get Vanderbilt to a bowl when they're not only facing in-division foes like Florida and Georgia, but they're served with playing LSU as well?
On a surprising note, Tennessee seems to have earned its 5-3 conference mark, facing a tougher-than-average schedule. Kentucky was unable to build on its strong year last year, despite a relatively weak schedule. That is revealing. This may also be why Missouri felt right to fire its HC, not reaching .500 despite the easiest schedule in the conference.
.
.
Now to mesh. If we combine the rankings of record and SOS, and assign points like the polls do, here's what we're left with:
26 Florida
24 Auburn
23 Georgia
20 Tennessee, Texas A&M
19 LSU, Alabama
17 Carolina
14 Miss St, Vanderbilt
9 Kentucky
8 Missouri
6 Ole Miss
5 Arkansas
.
.
I hope this is a useful exercise in showing the limits of simply using a team's record. Now yes, this method holds SOS the equal of W/L record, but I promise you if we did the same exercise with point differential, the results would be more in line with the general consensus.
Florida was not the best team in the conference this year. Tennessee wasn't better than LSU or Alabama. But when we just use wins and losses and take into account the wildly imbalanced schedules these teams (even in the same division) face, you see silly outcomes.
-
Now, if we simply take winning % and multiply it by SOS, we get results that look a little more feasible:
.482 LSU
.442 Florida
.427 Georgia
.375 Alabama
.368 Auburn
.324 Tennessee
.268 Texas A&M
.194 Carolina
.188 Miss St
.154 Kentucky
.147 Missouri
.067 Vanderbilt
.054 Ole Miss
.000 Arkansas
To be sure, this is a way of ranking teams if you REALLY value strength of schedule. I find it useful, because plainly, when ranking teams, you want to know who they played and how they did.
Still, I'd trust it a lot more if point differential was used instead of plain win%.
-
Interesting, but I don't see any "next steps" or solutions. You play the cards you draw.
A team might schedule Oklahoma OOC and find in that year they are mediocre, or fantastic.
Another piece might include where you happen to play the toughest teams on your slate, home or away. Florida had to travel to LSU this year for example, Auburn got UGA and Bama at home. Georgia got A&M at home perchance, Tennessee on the road and USCe at home (not that it helped).
-
I lean to thinking that "we" often ascribe too much importance to venue (not to say it isn't important at all). But, a team like Florida could have a year where they face LSU at home and Tennessee at home (I don't know if this is possible) when the Vols are competitive and catch Arkansas on the road and the rest of the SEC East is middlin' (or UGA is decent). I do like the NS series with Florida because it takes that game out of the equation. For UGA, it's helpful to face the Vols and Auburn in Athens given those are usually two of their most formidable opponents. That means USCe on the road which can be a challenge. UK, Mizzou, Vandy - meh.
-
Wasn't the winner of the UGA-AU game the road team for like 6-7 straight years under Richt? Something crazy like that.
Florida never plays @Knoxville and @Baton Rouge the same season, they're off-set*. The Gators do play @Knoxville and @Tallahassee the same year, every other year. Both both programs have been down.
*except for the hurricane makeup extra home game in 2017
-
it's always the intangibles that tilt our attempts to make an equation out of this.
UK, for instance, played a WR as QB and those weird schemes worked in gave some DC's fits while others none- but it's safe to say that with a real QB back there their season would have played out a lot differently.
now it doesn't seem like a big deal, this one 'intangible', but suggesting that UK would net two more wins with a decent QB in the game, and suggest them giving other teams tougher games for the 'eye test' which moves teams up and down the totem throughout the season, and... our perspectives on each team could be different.
-
Scheduling was a little strange this year.
Florida ended up with 3 byes compared to everyone else's two.
UGA played South Carolina, Missouri and Auburn when they were coming off by weeks. Georgia Tech had 9 days to prepare. (they could have had a month, wouldn't have mattered)
The cupcakes the week of November 23rd need to go. It's embarrassing. Play those in the first few weeks of the season.