My Final Computer Rankings Formula
All right everyone, I have finally figured out my college football ranking formula. It is going to be epic. It is going to look at five different variables, rank teams accordingly, then take your average ranking to give you an overall rating. So based on how you rank in the five categories, that’s where you will end up in the overall rankings. So let me explain each category and how it works.
1. Losses
All teams will be ranked according to the number of losses they have. Generally speaking this is about how the top 25 rankings look as it is. You don’t see a lot of teams with 3 losses outranking teams with one loss. So if you have no losses, you are No. 1 in these rankings. If you have 1 loss you are behind them and so on. So let us suppose we were ranking the teams at the end of the 2011 season. This is how the top 25 would look according to the loss rankings:
1. LSU
1. Alabama
1. Oklahoma State
1. Boise State
1. Houston
6. Oregon
6. Arkansas
6. USC
6. Stanford
6. South Carolina
6. Michigan
6. TCU
6. Southern Miss
14. Wisconsin
14. Michigan State
14. Baylor
14. Kansas State
14. Oklahoma
14. West Virginia
14. Virginia Tech
14. Cincinnati
14. BYU
14. Arkansas State
14. Northern Illinois
25. All 4 loss teams
You get the point. So according to these rankings, Boise State and Alabama get the same number of points. BYU and Wisconsin get the same number of points. It just orders teams according to the number of losses they have. So points-wise, the #1 teams would all get 25 points. The #6 teams would all get 20 points. The #14 teams would all get 12 points. The #25 teams would all get 1 point. Simple and fair enough?
2. Expectation Score
To calculate the expectation score I use a pretty complicated formula. Here is the basic premise of it:
-First, figure out how many points a team scores and allows on average in a game.
-Second, figure out, on average, how many more points a team scores than their opponents on average allow and how many points a team allows compared to the average their opponents score.
-Third, take those averages and apply them to the opponents average to get an expectation.
I know it is complex. Basically, after running the numbers, Alabama, on average, will score 158% of the points their opponents normally allow and they will allow only 33% of what their opponents normally score. So if you are playing Alabama and you normally give up 20 points and normally score 30 points, then I would expect Alabama to beat you 30-10.
Now let’s say Alabama wins the game 30-10. They get a 0 in the expectation score because they played according to expectation. Let’s say they win 21-17. They would get a negative number for performing under expectations. Let’s say they win 42-0. They would get a positive number for exceeding expectations.
So for the expectation score I add up the expectation scores from each game. If you end up positive, you played above expectations you placed on yourself by your own performance. If you get a negative number you were a disappointment. You can disappoint and still win all your games. That’s why the losses rankings are important too. It’s not just about winning by the score you are supposed to, it is important to just win. Using these numbers, here is how the one loss teams ranked at the end of the year:
1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oklahoma State
4. Boise State
5. Houston
So that means Alabama would get 25 points, LSU would get 24, Oklahoma State would get 23 and so on. Simple and fair enough?
3. Offensive Rankings
I don’t calculate offense the way they normally do. Most stat keepers will track total offense per game. I prefer to look at offense per minute since during a game the teams do not control the ball the same amount of time. Case in point: Oregon ranked dead last in time of possession. However they were in the top ten in points scored. If you look at points per minute of possession they had a very potent offense.
So if we just look at total points scored in the season and divide it by total minutes of possession, we can get a good look at how many points per minute of possession a team scored. I did this with the top 5 teams and here is how they ranked in offense:
1. Oklahoma State
2. Houston
3. LSU
4. Boise State
5. Alabama
Now this stat would look at all 120 teams, so these guys might not be the top 5 in this category, it’s just to give you an idea. Oklahoma State averaged nearly 2 points per minute of possession. Alabama was a little over 1 point per minute. Pretty big disparity. So if you rank the teams on offensive efficiency, Oklahoma State was tops. Simple and fair enough?
4. Defensive Rankings
This is exactly the same thing as offensive rankings but for defense. So we look at the time of possession of their opponents and how many points they gave up. If you play a 12 game season you will play 720 minutes of football. If you had possession of the ball for 400 of those minutes then your opponents had possession for 320 of those minutes. Suppose like Alabama you gave up 85 points. If we divid 85 by 320 we get .265625 points per minute allowed. That’s pretty impressive. If we were to rank the defenses of the top 5 teams here is how they would turn out:
1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Boise State
4. Houston
5. Oklahoma State
So then as before we give 25 points to first place, 24 points to second and so on. Simple and fair enough?
5. Dominance Rankings
This is the most telling stat in all of sports in my opinion, and yet it is not kept for college football anywhere I can find. I’m hoping it will be so I can include it in these rankings. The dominance score is determined by how many minutes you are leading, tied or trailing. For example, Alabama played 720 minutes. They were tied or leading for almost all of them. I’m not so interested in tied minutes since every game starts out tied. I’m interested in time in the lead vs. time trailing. So let’s say Alabama had the lead for 600 minutes and trailer for 30 minutes. We take the difference, 570, and divide by 12 games to get 47.5. that is Alabama’s dominance score. It is just a measure of how many minutes per game they were in the lead minus how many minutes per game they were trailing.
This is the true sign of a champion. Oklahoma State had to come back several times, as did LSU. Alabama dominated all of their games. Even in their loss they were never actually losing. So we would calculate dominance scores and rank teams, something like this:
1. Alabama
2. Boise State
3. Houston
4. LSU
5. Oklahoma State
Again you give 25 points to first place, 24 points to second place and so on. Simple and fair enough?
Final Rankings
Ok, so then we have five rankings and each team should have 5 scores. We just add up those scores and then rank the teams by those scores. The highest score you can have would be 125 points. In my opinion these five ratings really sum up the essence of a football team. What does it mean to be good? It means you don’t lose. It means you beat the teams you are supposed to be. It means you have an offense that can score points. It means you have a defense that can prevent opponents from scoring points. It means you outplay your opponents and don’t have to mount a late comeback to win your games. To me this is the hallmark of a great football team. These five ratings measure teams in those areas.
So if all 120 teams are rated in the same areas and ranked according to their ratings in each category, we simply need to add up all of their ratings to determine which team is truly “the best” team in the country. So what do you think? Is this a fair way to determine which teams are the best? Does this give everyone a fair shot? Are these rankings unbiased? Sound off and let me know what you think.
I 100% on the math test to prove I am a person. So I am qualified to say your 5 rankings are just rankings we all know will not be close to the real quality of teams in 2012. So no poll or computer (or pencil) can beat a playoff with the 16 top winners in Major College Football. Incidentally some coaches in the flawed minds think it is rude to run the score up on an opponent, just in case you are listening take that one out and just use four, but still they don’t prove anything no National Champion without a play off. You know it could have been Houston vs Boise State if they had not lost to So Mississippi and TCU.