ranking the fbs teams to date this season

[beorach]

I like to fool around with spreadsheets for gambling purposes. I know enough about statistics to make some basic judgments. What I'm doing to rate a team's performance in nine areas (pass d&o, rush d&o, scoring d&o, total d&o, and turnover margin) is taking averages and standard deviations for all the individual stats within those areas to compare a team's stats to and assign appropriate composite figures on a consistent scale. I'm also coming up with SOS ratings based on the average ratings of the teams a team has played. I get my stats from cfbstats.com because it allows me to remove the games against lower division teams. If I haven't put you to sleep yet, the ratings are below:

 

B1G Overall (w/o SOS)

Michigan Wisconsin Ohio State Iowa Penn State Northwestern Michigan State Illinois Nebraska Indiana Minnesota Rutgers Purdue

Maryland

 

B1G Overall (w/ SOS)

Northwestern Iowa Michigan Illinois Indiana Wisconsin Penn State Ohio State Nebraska Michigan State Minnesota Rutgers Purdue Maryland

 

B1G Defensively (w/o SOS)

Michigan Wisconsin Northwestern Iowa Ohio State Penn State Illinois Minnesota Michigan State Rutgers Indiana Nebraska Maryland Purdue

 

B1G Offensively (w/o SOS)

Nebraska Ohio State Indiana Michigan Iowa Wisconsin Michigan State Purdue Penn State Illinois Northwestern Rutgers Minnesota Maryland

 

Top 25 for All FBS Overall (w/o SOS)

Boise State North Carolina State Michigan Houston West Virginia Alabama Wisconsin Ohio State Notre Dame Baylor Iowa Florida State USC Georgia LSU Duke Florida Utah Oklahoma State Navy Clemson Appalachian State TCU North Carolina Oklahoma

 

Top 25 for All FBS Overall (w/ SOS)

Alabama Clemson West Virginia Northwestern Iowa North Carolina Michigan Utah Duke Oklahoma Illinois Louisville Florida Boston College Washington Oregon Arizona State Georgia Tech Pittsburgh Florida State Houston USC Georgia Tennessee LSU

 

p.s. - My SOS adjustment probably needs work as it's too simplistic. E.g., Illinois playing Middle Tennessee counts as positively toward their SOS rating as their having played Nebraska because the Blue Raiders have the same cumulative rating as Nebraska per my calculations. At this point in the season, they've played a pretty tough schedule but that won't be the case by season's end (relative to a P5 team's). I'm thinking I should probably compare a team's SOS rating to the bell curve, like I do with all other stats, and make adjustments to a team's overall rating(s) given its place on it.

 

p.p.s. - Nebraska's highest rated category is total offense. This is because the Huskers have run 304 total plays, which is very close to the average plus one standard deviation (equaling 311). That gives them a value of 0.75 on my scale of 0-1 for this stat. They're getting 6.84 yards per play, on average, which exceeds the national average plus one standard deviation value of 6.81. Their average yards per game is 519.5, which exceeds the national average plus one standard deviation value of 508.5. For the latter two stats in this category, I rate them at 1.0. Ratings are just 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1...based on the range the value falls into. Some categories have more measurables than others.

 

Nebraska's lowest rated category is total defense. The number of plays the Huskers are having to face, on average, exceeds the national average plus a standard deviation. Their average yards given up per play is between the average plus half a standard deviation and the average plus a whole standard deviation...such that I give them a rating of 0.25. The yards they're giving up per game, on average, is within the central range I'm not considering statistically significant (though it's just a little more than a yard off the sum of the average and half a standard deviation).

 

p.p.p.s. - I considered just rushing offense, rushing defense, scoring defense, and turnover margin stats to come up with a category I'm just going to call toughness.

 

Top 25 Toughest FBS (w/o SOS)

Navy Michigan Houston North Carolina State Boise State LSU Appalachian State Baylor Wisconsin Ohio State Toledo Georgia Utah Clemson Alabama Florida State Iowa Penn State USC Michigan State Georgia Southern Temple West Virginia Florida Duke

 

Top 25 Toughest FBS (w/ SOS)

Clemson Navy Alabama Boston College Utah Northwestern Michigan LSU Iowa Illinois Toledo West Virginia Houston Georgia Arizona State Duke Tennessee Florida State Florida Kansas State Georgia Tech Appalachian State Pittsburgh USC Washington

 

p.p.p.p.s. - Sorry for my misunderstanding on formatting. I guess it's easier to read L-R anyway. I had pasted things in from Excel.