SEC Power Poll: Rocky Top Talk Ballot

by David Hooper on Oct 26, 2009 3:00 PM EDT

As always, our Power Poll ballot is taken directly from the RTT computer rankings for the BlogPoll.

First, the table:

SEC	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD	SCORE
1	Florida	1.892	0.420	2.013	1.105	0.897	2.178	1.484	1.940	1.457	2.374	146.225
2	Alabama	1.892	0.805	1.908	1.792	-0.171	1.985	0.123	1.768	0.610	1.356	135.925
3	LSU	1.303	0.878	1.283	0.355	-0.110	0.903	0.479	1.424	-1.253	-0.363	84.657
4	South Carolina	0.861	0.512	1.113	-0.123	0.122	1.162	0.015	0.919	-0.176	0.281	60.270
5	Mississippi	0.714	-0.239	1.794	0.212	0.232	0.971	0.084	1.464	0.288	2.241	58.245
6	Tennessee	-0.465	1.163	1.323	0.659	-0.194	1.490	-0.053	0.790	0.165	0.846	41.791
7	Georgia	0.124	1.604	-0.366	0.348	-0.043	-0.153	0.002	-0.498	-0.746	0.955	28.901
8	Auburn	0.345	0.685	0.706	-0.733	0.122	-0.205	0.227	-0.383	0.986	0.244	26.202
9	Kentucky	0.124	1.295	0.699	-0.737	-0.202	0.075	-1.296	0.156	-0.700	-0.777	17.014
10	Arkansas	-0.465	2.017	-1.165	-0.287	-1.802	-1.079	0.812	-0.459	0.726	-0.054	-11.311
11	Mississippi St.	-0.686	0.595	0.272	0.002	-0.814	-0.013	-0.883	-0.070	-0.090	0.743	-19.259
12	Vanderbilt	-1.202	-0.526	0.995	-0.505	-0.899	0.628	-2.335	0.884	-0.957	0.751	-56.466

As always, the green highlights are the best in each column and the red highlights are the worst. Since Florida doesn't have Alabama on the schedule and they can't play themselves, they will likely never sniff the 'toughest schedule' mark, but they're close to a clean sweep on everything else. Some other observations:

Teams are settling into niches. The spread between teams is growing. The only team with a real opportunity to make wholesale changes in their favor is Tennessee, who plays both of the teams immediately ahead of them. Win those, and Tennessee shoots up to #4.
Somebody tell Arkansas that defense matters. Seriously.
While you're at it, have them look at third downs. The Hogs are great when it's not an obvious passing down but seem to struggle when it's either obvious or trying to run for 3rd and short. Boom or bust + bad defense is not a good combination.
And the worst schedule to boot. Poor Vandy. Poor, poor Vandy.
Third and Chavis gets a respite. Kentucky takes the 'worst 3rd down defense' award for the week.
Spurrier/Nutt are close, as are Richt/Chizik. UGA and AU appear to be on a collision for 7th in the SEC.

And in graphical form, for those who prefer pretty charts to raw numbers:

Other thoughts:

The "no Win/Loss" modification that Incipient_Senescence is a pretty neat trick and helps gauge teams without their win/loss records (i.e. purely by on-field performance without regards to end result). Doing so produces the following grid:

SEC	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	OPPG	TO	3DD	SCORE
1	Florida	1.892	0.420	2.013	1.105	0.897	2.178	1.484	1.940	1.457	2.374	127.024
2	Alabama	1.892	0.805	1.908	1.792	-0.171	1.985	0.123	1.768	0.610	1.356	112.126
3	Tennessee	-0.465	1.163	1.323	0.659	-0.194	1.490	-0.053	0.790	0.165	0.846	81.214
4	LSU	1.303	0.878	1.283	0.355	-0.110	0.903	0.479	1.424	-1.253	-0.363	64.282
5	Mississippi	0.714	-0.239	1.794	0.212	0.232	0.971	0.084	1.464	0.288	2.241	52.390
6	South Carolina	0.861	0.512	1.113	-0.123	0.122	1.162	0.015	0.919	-0.176	0.281	48.742
7	Georgia	0.124	1.604	-0.366	0.348	-0.043	-0.153	0.002	-0.498	-0.746	0.955	36.258
8	Auburn	0.345	0.685	0.706	-0.733	0.122	-0.205	0.227	-0.383	0.986	0.244	22.487
9	Kentucky	0.124	1.295	0.699	-0.737	-0.202	0.075	-1.296	0.156	-0.700	-0.777	19.064
10	Arkansas	-0.465	2.017	-1.165	-0.287	-1.802	-1.079	0.812	-0.459	0.726	-0.054	4.405
11	Mississippi St.	-0.686	0.595	0.272	0.002	-0.814	-0.013	-0.883	-0.070	-0.090	0.743	2.775
12	Vanderbilt	-1.202	-0.526	0.995	-0.505	-0.899	0.628	-2.335	0.884	-0.957	0.751	-28.019

And also in pretty graphic form:

Tennessee is the team whose on-field performance is most above their win/loss record. South Carolina dips the most because of being passed by Tennessee and losing a sliver of ground to Ole Miss, but that's really inconsequential. For this, you would expect Tennessee to outperform their remaining competition, assuming everybody plays to their typical level. But Florida and Alabama are still clearly the best, without or without the wins and losses.

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Comments

I'd love to see the no W/L table

Start to resemble the full table after the next three weeks. Gotta start it off with a win over the Gamecocks. Will be tough, but if Kiffin gets the guys up for the game, I’m confident.

Also, hard to argue with much in this power poll. Kentucky and Arkansas may be ranked a little low (both have wins over Auburn), but we’ll see how it plays out, especially for Kentucky (who has games remaining against two of the three teams ranked directly ahead of them. 1-1 there will bump them).

by Incipient_Senescence on Oct 26, 2009 4:07 PM EDT reply actions

If Kentucky played Arkansas on a neutral field and the spread was a pick-em...

…I would bet a substantial amount of money on Arkansas. The fact that Kentucky is ranked ahead of Arky reaffirms my hunch that maybe the defensive stats shouldn’t outweigh the offensive ones.

I know, I know…I need supporting data for my. And supporting data I shall produce. I have just been swamped.

________________________________
Eric Berry is better at football than you.

by kidbourbon on Oct 26, 2009 6:14 PM EDT reply actions

"I need supporting data for my claim"

________________________________
Eric Berry is better at football than you.

by kidbourbon on Oct 26, 2009 6:14 PM EDT up reply actions

It depends on which Arkansas shows up.

Kentucky’s at least been a little more consistent.

by David Hooper on Oct 26, 2009 7:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Multiplier Effect?

Is it something related to the multiplier effect that takes Florida’s lead over Bama from just over 10 points to almost 15 when you drop the W/L?

by Watchman on Oct 27, 2009 12:22 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah.

This thing is based purely on proportions, and having the W/L even at 1.89 tends to converge their scores. Remove that and you remove the convergence.

I don’t know your math level, so forgive me if this is too simplistic, but I like easy analogies. Let’s say you have 6 eggs and I have 3. You have twice as many eggs, so your egg score is twice mine. Now, if we each subtract 1, you have 5 and I have 2. You have 2.5 times as many eggs. That’s what’s happening in these numbers. That ratio is what matters, even though the absolute difference (3) is the same.

by David Hooper on Oct 27, 2009 1:06 AM EDT up reply actions