The RTT computer BlogPoll ballot: raw numbers, week six

by Joel Hollingsworth on Oct 5, 2008 10:16 PM EDT

Time for yet another iteration of the RTT Ready, Fire, Aim BlogPoll ballotty thing. For a complete refresher on what we're doing, go here, here, here, and here.

Prior tweaks to the system: (1) added experience ratings; (2) adjusted the weighting with a "square root of the sum of the squares." Why? I'll you why: I don't know. (3) revised the way tied teams were ranked.

Tweaks for this week:

Regarding the Win/Loss category: instead of ranking the teams based on winning percentage, we're moving to ranking them based on losing percentage. This helps to not penalize teams with early byes.
The categories again: Win/Loss, Strength of Schedule, Pass Efficiency Defense, Rush Defense, 3rd Down Offense, Total Defense, Pass Efficiency Offense, Experience, Opponents Points Per Game, Total Offense, and 3rd Down Defense. The AVG R column is Average Ranking, and the last column is Weighted Average.
The current weighting of the categories: 30, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then tweaked by the square root of the sum of the squares manuever.
Current spreadsheet here.

All right, then. The Top 41 (so you can see where some of the teams in the traditional polls ended up in the computer rankings), according to the computer:

Rank	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	EXP	OPPG	TO	3DD	AVG R	W AVG
1	Oklahoma	1	4	1	18	15	11	4	59	15	5	8	12.82	28.31
2	Texas Tech	1	15	29	24	13	49	16	68	33	2	3	23.00	50.89
3	Texas	1	13	39	3	10	28	2	116	4	12	23	22.82	56.87
4	Penn St.	1	61	8	11	8	8	14	38	9	9	7	15.82	58.95
5	Oklahoma St.	1	28	31	65	9	51	3	45	54	6	15	28.00	69.50
6	LSU	1	52	23	8	53	14	40	77	19	28	19	30.36	70.68
7	Missouri	1	17	61	15	5	83	5	32	44	3	79	31.36	72.47
8	Alabama	1	58	17	2	27	16	55	95	14	57	11	32.09	72.77
9	TCU	16	35	14	1	12	1	100	26	11	33	5	23.09	72.85
10	Ohio St.	16	12	21	32	57	18	54	59	22	81	72	40.36	75.04
11	Kansas	24	2	26	17	4	39	11	32	38	14	32	21.73	75.06
12	BYU	1	74	32	35	2	30	9	49	8	13	69	29.27	80.75
13	Florida St.	24	27	10	5	11	3	89	53	20	32	2	25.09	84.20
14	Utah	1	56	76	6	21	13	25	14	48	39	27	29.64	84.24
15	Florida	24	22	15	20	34	19	28	116	4	47	29	32.55	87.43
16	Georgia	24	1	59	4	20	22	26	90	43	30	31	31.82	91.19
17	Vanderbilt	1	32	25	45	79	47	77	90	24	114	51	53.18	91.20
18	South Fla.	16	76	30	10	22	20	34	66	32	27	22	32.27	92.56
19	Northwestern	1	69	33	34	46	37	90	59	13	64	12	41.64	93.97
20	Georgia Tech	24	46	5	42	42	15	19	109	4	37	71	37.64	97.46
21	Boston College	24	37	4	21	58	10	93	68	4	56	21	36.00	97.77
22	Michigan St.	16	26	36	50	87	56	79	68	22	54	30	47.64	103.40
23	Kentucky	24	34	2	39	86	12	94	38	1	82	6	38.00	106.41
24	North Carolina	24	39	19	67	52	57	23	72	40	88	47	48.00	106.80
25	Boise St.	1	89	28	60	25	41	7	114	12	20	9	36.91	107.19
26	California	24	60	7	15	94	25	41	90	30	38	25	40.82	112.76
27	Pittsburgh	24	52	53	43	46	27	91	77	50	66	42	51.91	115.29
28	Arizona	24	97	3	27	14	2	12	77	17	26	18	28.82	115.73
29	Southern California	36	61	20	12	28	4	8	72	10	19	37	27.91	118.79
30	Minnesota	16	70	49	49	77	62	29	112	35	61	33	53.91	120.13
31	Connecticut	16	76	38	55	51	29	112	109	31	46	63	56.91	122.00
32	Virginia Tech	16	36	84	56	67	33	88	105	35	108	38	60.55	122.66
33	Ball St.	1	109	16	83	3	58	10	53	27	11	57	38.91	122.98
34	Cincinnati	24	68	80	23	55	54	17	59	46	35	80	49.18	124.63
35	South Carolina	39	49	22	41	19	6	62	26	16	72	58	37.27	125.58
36	Notre Dame	24	54	35	59	92	84	36	95	40	70	42	57.36	128.99
37	Western Mich.	16	102	74	57	44	67	14	14	53	25	67	48.45	135.42
38	Wisconsin	44	21	18	47	48	31	59	77	29	43	86	45.73	138.05
39	West Virginia	44	45	40	38	34	35	31	53	25	66	98	46.27	139.93
40	Wake Forest	36	59	6	72	89	26	48	49	28	85	78	52.36	140.83
41	Auburn	39	37	11	14	112	7	105	84	2	104	1	46.91	145.92

So what human interventions are called for this week? Candidates:

Possibly too high

Oklahoma State. 5th here, 17th in both the AP and USA Today polls. Why? They've scored 55 points or more in every one of their games except their first against Washington State. Yeah, okay, so Houston, Missouri State, and Troy, but last week's beatdown was of Texas A&M. That's beginning to look legit. Missouri (without the "State") up next, so that'll be fun.
TCU. No. 9 here, unranked by the traditional polls. Excellent stats, and the only blemish is a 35-10 loss to Oklahoma. I don't think they're No. 9, but I don't think they should be unranked, either.
Florida State. 13th here, in the "Others Receiving Votes" category of the AP and USA Today polls. Only wart is a 12-3 loss to Wake Forest. Hmm. Just beat Miami 41-39. Hmm again.
Georgia Tech, Boston College. Unranked in the AP/USA Today polls. Meh.
Kentucky. Losing 17-14 to Alabama is nothing to be ashamed of. You want to see ashamed, see the Third Saturday in October.

Possibly too low

Cal. Dunno.
Southern Cal. Uh, yeah, but mental note that the stats don't support the human perception of these guys just yet.
Virginia Tech. Probably should be ranked somewhere. Only loss is to East Carolina, 27-22, in the first game of the season. Don't get too carried away, though.
Wisconsin. Uh, no. Two losses, to Ohio State and to . . . Michigan.
Wake Forest. Don't think so. Lost to Navy.
Auburn. Let me just say this: we almost beat them. That is all.

Up to eight vetoes of the computer rankings. Go.

Current draft ballot, without any interventions, not even the one obviously needed for Southern Cal:

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Oklahoma	--
2	Texas Tech	14
3	Texas	--
4	Penn State	8
5	Oklahoma State	21
6	LSU	2
7	Missouri	2
8	Alabama	6
9	TCU	11
10	Ohio State	8
11	Kansas	3
12	Brigham Young	3
13	Florida State	10
14	Utah	8
15	Florida	2
16	Georgia	6
17	Vanderbilt	4
18	South Florida	11
19	Northwestern	--
20	Georgia Tech	6
21	Boston College	5
22	Michigan State	4
23	Kentucky	3
24	North Carolina	2
25	Boise State	17

Dropped Out: Southern Cal (#11), Wisconsin (#15), Virginia Tech (#21), Oregon (#22), Wake Forest (#24), Nebraska (#25).

[Note by Joel, 10/06/08 8:25 PM EDT ] Corrected as indicated in the comments below. Basically, though, we ended up with just a different set of anomalies. So what overrides this week?

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Oklahoma	--
2	Alabama	--
3	Boise State	5
4	Missouri	1
5	South Florida	2
6	Ohio State	12
7	Texas	4
8	TCU	12
9	Utah	3
10	Penn State	2
11	Kansas	3
12	Florida State	11
13	Georgia Tech	13
14	Georgia	4
15	Vanderbilt	2
16	Texas Tech	--
17	North Carolina	9
18	Kentucky	8
19	Southern Cal	8
20	LSU	16
21	Ball State	5
22	California	4
23	Brigham Young	14
24	Michigan State	2
25	Oklahoma State	1

Dropped Out: Wisconsin (#15), Florida (#17), Northwestern (#19), Virginia Tech (#21), Oregon (#22), Wake Forest (#24), Nebraska (#25).

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Comments

SOS

Can you explain how Oklahoma’s strength of schedule is #4 while Alabama’s is #58?

by rtr on Oct 5, 2008 10:28 PM EDT reply actions

It comes straight from the NCAA, but if you look at this post, you’ll see that we are skeptical of it as well. In short, Oklahoma’s non-Oklahoma Div. I-A opposition has a cumulative record to date of 8-4, while Alabama’s non-Alabama Div. I-A opposition to date has a cumulative record of 10-8. That’s .571 versus .555.

Oklahoma has played fewer games against I-A opponents. (They played their first against Chattanooga.)

Like I said, we’re skeptical of that result as well, but we haven’t figured out an efficient way to fix it yet. If you have any ideas, we’d love to hear them. Thanks!

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Oct 6, 2008 6:57 AM EDT up reply actions

Ok, more seriously this time:

That NCAA spreadsheet is not sorted by the past opposition records, but by bast and future opposition records. For example, you list Oklahoma’s .571 and Alabama’s .555 from the “Past Opposition” column, but Oklahoma’s .571 is only good for 33rd in the past opposition list while Alabama’s .555 gives them a ranking of 43rd. However, Oklahoma’s cumulative opposition score is 0.6818 (30-14 total record by the method stated in your post) while Alabama’s cumulative opposition score is 0.5111 from a record of 23-22.

I’m partial to using Past Opposition rather than Cumulative Opposition; the cumulative is the only piece of the algorithm that uses future data; everything else is based purely on the accomplished resume. A lot of the squirreliness you saw in the SoS results from before was probably due to the small number of games played and due to the wackiness from the nonconference schedule. I think the Past Opposition will prove to be usable during the middle and late phases of the season. (Both will be identical at season’s end.)

Perhaps instead of using Cumulative to try to compensate for early-season foibles in SoS, you could change the weighting. A simple method would be to weight with the number of weeks into the season. For example, you’d multiply the results by 6 this week rather than 10. Next week, you’d use 7. That would give a final weight of 14, IIRC, which is in-line with the weight you want it to have. But that would hide the funky factor early on.

by David Hooper on Oct 6, 2008 9:24 AM EDT up reply actions

Ah, yes. My bad

Meant to use this. We’ll see how much of a difference it makes. I’m hoping it corrects the USC problem.

Will keep in mind the graduated weighting.

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Oct 6, 2008 10:40 AM EDT up reply actions

The only thing that will correct USC’s problem is for USC to stop hanging out at the beach and to start playing some football games!

by David Hooper on Oct 6, 2008 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Bonus help:

It corrects Texas Tech currently having the 15th best schedule in the country, which: what?

by Chris Pendley on Oct 6, 2008 8:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Joel's explanation is tactful, but the real reason

is that the civilized world hates Alabama football.

:-D

by David Hooper on Oct 6, 2008 9:03 AM EDT up reply actions

I use all my vetoes

1: TTU down at least 8 spots, preferably 10.
2: Oklahoma State: what TTU did.
3: TCU: repeat as above, except replace with 15.
4: I will fight Florida State tooth and nail: drop ‘em. Let’s say 15 again. I say this based on seeing them, not just visceral hate for all things ACC.
5: Kansas – below USF. That Iowa State game was not pretty.
6: Let’s see some love for Ball State. Move ‘em up! Low end of the top 25 – 24?
7: Boise State needs some love too – 25 looks too low by half.
8: Kentucky probably shouldn’t be ranked after a loss. Just a thought.

Hey, if I have 8….

by Chris Pendley on Oct 6, 2008 8:26 PM EDT reply actions

Ha

Just posted the revised ballot as you were posting that. So . . .

1. How about 14 spots? ;-)
2. How about 20? ;-) again.
3.Computer: FAIL. Agree. 15 sounds about as high as they should be. Shoot, that might be a bit extreme.
4. I have a history of overranking Florida State. Funny, though, that my computer is doing the same thing as I was doing subjectively last year. But I agree, they just seem funny where they are now. I have no problem with 15 or so.
5. Re Kansas. My thoughts here are that there are so many upsets these days that avoiding one should be no penalty, especially when it looks like the lost cause it did for the Jayhawks Saturday. I like ‘em where they are. Counter-argument?
6. Congratulations! The corrected computer rankings agree.
7. Um, I have a feeling that going from 25 to 3 wasn’t exactly what you meant.
8. Kentucky — but their numbers! Oh, all right. I give.

How about our new problems:

Possibly too high: Boise St., South Florida, Ohio State, TCU (addressed), Florida State (addressed), Georgia Tech, Kentucky (addressed).

Possibly too low: Southern Cal, LSU, BYU.

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Oct 6, 2008 8:35 PM EDT up reply actions

Wow!

What’d you do to give Boise that much love? :)

Also, I meant drop TCU and FSU by 15 spots, not stick ‘em around 15. Have you checked to make sure your computer doesn’t have a horned frog emblazoned on its CPU? Again, that’s one I’ll fight. (Well, two.)

On Kansas: there’s a fine line between avoiding an upset and looking like a terrible, terrible mess as Kansas did for 30 minutes at Iowa State. They get points for coming back against ISU in a 15-minute span, but I’d argue that a) that never should’ve happened in the first place and b) scoring 21 points in 15 minutes against ISU could’ve easily happened at any given time. Yes, it was a comeback, but it …well, should’ve happened in the 1st quarter, not the 3rd.

by Chris Pendley on Oct 6, 2008 8:49 PM EDT up reply actions