Monday, November 7, 2011

Week 11: Top 25 -- RBA


Rank +/- Team WinPct SoS Adjusted
Off. Def. Pace
1 -- Alabama 1.000 0.550 12 25.8 6 4.8 1 157.1 120
2 -- Stanford 0.992 0.542 27 28.8 2 10.1 8 167.1 52
3 -- LSU 0.992 0.551 11 25.0 8 7.2 2 160.5 112
4 -- Oregon 0.974 0.530 45 26.0 4 9.2 4 176.1 3
5 -- Oklahoma 0.974 0.545 23 25.3 7 9.5 5 171.4 15
6 +2 Boise St. 0.966 0.461 94 25.9 5 10.2 10 168.9 32
7 -1 Oklahoma St. 0.957 0.549 16 27.4 3 14.7 50 172.9 8
8 -1 Wisconsin 0.949 0.536 39 28.9 1 11.2 14 162.0 107
9 -- Southern Miss. 0.941 0.484 75 22.0 14 14.7 49 168.6 36
10 +1 Clemson 0.920 0.526 57 20.4 25 13.4 36 166.6 63
11 +5 Florida St. 0.920 0.550 13 21.0 20 10.1 9 166.0 72
12 +1 Ohio St. 0.919 0.529 49 19.1 37 10.7 11 159.2 117
13 +2 Arizona St. 0.912 0.529 51 20.2 27 12.0 20 173.9 6
14 -4 South Carolina 0.911 0.543 26 20.5 23 9.8 6 158.0 119
15 +4 Arkansas 0.910 0.567 1 22.7 13 12.7 29 165.6 78
16 +7 Notre Dame 0.902 0.564 2 20.1 30 11.8 19 164.8 86
17 -3 TCU 0.893 0.461 93 23.1 10 13.1 33 168.0 42
18 -- Nebraska 0.893 0.530 47 20.6 22 13.0 32 166.8 60
19 -7 Georgia 0.874 0.550 14 22.8 12 12.3 24 159.7 114
20 +2 USC 0.857 0.534 41 20.0 32 12.3 25 166.9 58
21 -4 Florida 0.853 0.555 8 20.8 21 8.3 3 161.5 108
22 -1 Michigan St. 0.850 0.543 25 18.5 42 11.7 18 167.1 54
23 +1 Iowa 0.838 0.522 60 18.3 43 13.4 38 163.8 93
24 -4 Texas A&M 0.829 0.554 9 20.5 24 12.1 21 172.4 11
25 NA Texas 0.805 0.523 59 21.1 17 11.1 13 168.2 40
Rankings through games of 2011-11-06


New entries: Texas.

Dropped out: Virginia Tech.

You idiot! LSU beat Alabama last weekend! This is entirely true. Our systems have always been about predicting what happens tomorrow, not what happened yesterday. Here's what I saw on Saturday night -- four missed field goals and a fluky interception at the LSU 1. RBA says that if they played again next weekend on a neutral field that (1) Alabama would beat (3) LSU. I'm completely comfortable with that. Does that mean that Alabama should be ranked ahead of LSU in the BCS? No, because they are retrograde rankings, not predictive rankings.

You idiot! Southern Miss isn't a top 10 team! Generally, I'm tempted to believe you on that. Then, I went back and looked at how they got here. Last weekend, the (9) Golden Eagles went on the road and scored 48 points by a 97-yard interception return, a 79-yard interception return, a 60-yard punt return, a blocked punt return, and a few conventional scores. The week before, they hung 450 yards and 31 points on UTEP. The week before that, their defense held SMU to a mere field goal, as the offense rang up another 453 yards and 27 points. The Golden Eagles plastered Navy, 63-35, with 584 yards of offense. They scored 48 on Rice with 654 yards of offense. The only close game of the past two months was at Virginia, where the Golden Eagles managed only 374 yards in a 30-24 victory. Does that mean that Southern Mississippi is going to crash the BCS party? No, because they haven't beaten anybody. However, I wouldn't want to play them right now.

You lazy bum! I thought you were going to fix this! I looked into the Working-Hotelling Method last week. The basic idea behind the Working-Hotelling Method is that linear regression has higher uncertainty in areas of the graph where there are few points. Southern Miss is elevated to a top 10 team because they have not played enough games against strong competition to see the natural degradation of offensive efficiency that usually occurs as competition becomes more difficult. As I looked into the Working-Hotelling Method, I came to realize that it only affects the confidence intervals, not the actual prediction itself. I could theoretically include the uncertainty as a negative modifier in the predictions, but that requires a fairly substantial modification to my algorithm, and I'm not terribly sure if its mathematically rigorous. I'm ordering a pricey book on linear regression, so we may see the modifications in time for next year's picks. In the meantime, take heart in knowing that the Golden Eagles' offensive slope is dropping.


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