ranking

Title says it all. He also has Alabama at 1, ohio 2, and Oregon 3. Link: http://www.freep.com/article/20130406/SPORTS06/130406016/michigan-wolver... (I know, it's a freep article... Grumble grumble grumble) Phil steele's full projection: http://philsteele.com/Blogs/2013/APR13/DBApr06.html

 I was wondering if some of the more proficient members of this board had any conjectures on how high Wilton Speight, might be ranked when it's all said and done?

Offense and defense rankings based on total numbers and straight averages can be misleading at times. If a team plays opponents with strong rush offense but weak pass offense, the team's pass defense stats might look better than what they really should be. This is something Michigan was being accused of due to the fact that much of our "bad" defensive games came against strong rushing teams (Alabama and Air Force).

One way to mitigate this "effect" would be to not look at the totals and average numbers, but compare the game output against the average output the opponent has produced against all opponents. This produces numbers that show you how good your performance was compared to all other team that your opponent has played. It is more useful comparative method than using just total numbers.

So, exactly how does it work?

Here are the stats for Michigan so far this year:

Opponents	Rush Net Total	Pass Yds Total	Total Yds	Pts	Avg Rush Total	Avg Pass Total	Avg Total Offense	Avg Scoring Offense
Alabama	232	199	431	41	214.38	222	436.38	40.63
Air Force	290	127	417	25	366.25	114.38	480.63	34.5
Massachusetts	112	147	259	13	101.375	169.125	270.5	11.25
Notre Dame	94	145	239	13	196.5	193.25	389.75	26.38
Purdue	56	162	218	13	161.25	220.25	381.5	30.88
Illinois	105	29	134	0	132.5	184.88	317.38	18
Michigan St.	112	192	304	10	131.22	229.11	360.33	19.22
Nebraska	160	166	326	23	264.13	225	489.13	39.25
Average All Opp	145.1	145.9	291.0	17.3	196.0	194.7	390.7	27.5

 

Opponents	Avg Rush Off Diff	Avg Pass Off Diff	Avg Total Off Diff	Avg Scoring Off Diff
Alabama	8%	-10%	-1%	1%
Air Force	-21%	11%	-13%	-28%
Massachusetts	10%	-13%	-4%	16%
Notre Dame	-52%	-25%	-39%	-51%
Purdue	-65%	-26%	-43%	-58%
Illinois	-21%	-84%	-58%	-100%
Michigan St.	-15%	-16%	-16%	-48%
Nebraska	-39%	-26%	-33%	-41%
Average All Opp	-24%	-24%	-26%	-39%

The first four columns of stats represent the actual stats from the game played against Michigan. The second set (of four) columns are the average output of that team against all opponents this year. The last set (of four) columns second table are the differences in percentage of actual game stat versus the total year averages.

As you can see from the table, Alabama produced their average offensive output against Michigan while Purdue and Illinois barely produced about half of their normal offensive output.

By averaging all of the averages, we find that our defense is reducing our opponents' normal offensive output by about 25%, while only allowing only 61% of their normal scoring output.

Sounds pretty good, but how does that compare to rest of NCAA?

I didn't have enough time to calculate the differential averages for every team in NCAA, but I did the analysis for top 10 Pass/Rush/Total defensive teams and all of Big Ten (plus ND). I did not include stats against FCS opponents. Here it is ranked by total offense differential.

Rk	School	Avg Rush Off Diff	Avg Pass Off Diff	Avg Total Off Diff	Avg Scoring Off Diff
1	Alabama	-64%	-34%	-49%	-71%
2	LSU	-50%	-30%	-37%	-45%
3	Florida St.	-34%	-36%	-36%	-51%
4	BYU	-45%	-29%	-31%	-44%
5	Michigan St.	-50%	-15%	-30%	-46%
6	Michigan	-24%	-24%	-26%	-39%
7	Notre Dame	-56%	-15%	-25%	-65%
8	Connecticut	-18%	-24%	-23%	-24%
9	Wisconsin	-29%	-17%	-21%	-31%
10	Maryland	-34%	-11%	-21%	-11%
11	Bowling Green	-32%	-15%	-18%	-39%
12	Boise St.	-15%	-19%	-16%	-44%
13	Stanford	-62%	3%	-15%	-37%
14	Oregon St.	-39%	4%	-15%	-39%
15	Nebraska	-1%	-24%	-14%	-7%
16	Fresno St.	-14%	-18%	-14%	-24%
17	Arizona St.	5%	-32%	-14%	-17%
18	Rutgers	-41%	-5%	-13%	-39%
19	Penn St.	-39%	9%	-13%	-35%
20	Minnesota	16%	-30%	-9%	-1%
21	Iowa	-1%	-17%	-8%	-20%
22	Illinois	-12%	-4%	-6%	5%
23	Ohio St.	-31%	9%	-5%	-20%
24	Vanderbilt	14%	-16%	-1%	-18%
25	Northwestern	-19%	13%	1%	-13%
26	Purdue	14%	6%	11%	15%
27	Indiana	17%	17%	18%	19%

Few things that stand out:

• Alabama, LSU, and Florida St defense stand above the rest
• Michigan and Michigan St defenses stand above the rest of B1G
• Michigan is pretty good at both run and pass defense
• Ohio St pass defense is HORRIBLE!
• BYU defense is much better than I thought
• Many of the defenses highly ranked in one (pass or rush) only because they are so horrible at the other (I am looking at you Arizona St, Stanford, Nebraska and Oregon St!)
• Notre Dame is living on borrowed time - their scoring differential is MUCH higher than what rest of the defensive differentials would indicate

I do believe converting straight up numbers to percentages makes it much easier to compare between pass/rush and between different teams. I hope most of you find this useful. If I get enough upvotes, I will do the same analysis for offense as well.

This is my first time using Windows Live Writer to post something, so if something looks weird, that’s why. I’m making some changes to my database to allow me to rank past and future seasons, other sports, etc. I wanted to get these ranking out there before I make these changes and before most of the bowls get underway.

There are a few tweaks that I made to the algorithm. The major thing is that I took out FCS teams. Imagine you have Team A that plays 12 FBS teams and Team B that plays 11 FBS teams and 1 FCS team. In graph theory, playing that FCS team gives Team B shorter pathways to the 120ish teams in the FCS. I felt this was an unfair advantage for teams playing weaker schedules.

I also experimented with how to factor in Win-Loss (long story short, nothing changed with this, so you can skip to the next paragraph if you would like). Think about MSU, Wisconsin, and Iowa. MSU beat Wisconsin by 10, which gave them a path of .5 (1 / 2 scores). Iowa beat MSU by 31, which gave them a path of .25 (1 / 4 scores). When multiplied by the Win-Loss factor at the end, Wisconsin would receive a lower path score for Iowa’s win over MSU because they had the better record. I didn’t like the idea that Wisconsin could get more credit for Iowa’s win over MSU than Iowa would. I messed around with applying the winning team’s overall record to each game, then the same with the losing team’s record. I tried lots of different things, but none of them looked right. I didn’t like the idea of doing something just because it looked right, though. I decided that the additional path length that Wisconsin accrues by having to beat Iowa (they only beat Iowa by a point, so the path to Iowa is 1 and the path to MSU is 1.25) was enough of a penalty on Wisconsin.

The last main change since I last posted is that I am now factoring in homefield advantage. I have calculated homefield advantage to be worth 3.77 points in FBS games this year. In the Big Ten games it was roughly 6 or 7 points. When I did the power ranking for the Big Ten, I experimented using the two values and decided that 3.77 was the better number to use. One, it’s closer to the value that is usually associated with homefield advantage, and two, it would change from conference to conference. Mostly, though, it would change the path lengths between teams when going from the NCAA ranking to the conference power rankings, which is something that I didn’t want.

Without further ado, here are your top 25 and conference power rankings to start out the post-season. Keep in mind that because the conference power rankings only take into account the games that are played within the conference, teams might not be in the same order in the conference and in the top 25.

	FBS Top 25
1	Oregon	1.677444
2	Stanford	1.963008
3	TCU	2.011924
4	Auburn	2.066706
5	Oklahoma	2.252090
6	Boise State	2.321805
7	Wisconsin	2.461991
8	Ohio State	2.473381
9	Missouri	2.555164
10	Virginia Tech	2.564181
11	Nevada	2.565927
12	Oklahoma State	2.609843
13	Nebraska	2.610955
14	Michigan State	2.687252
15	Arkansas	2.776214
16	Utah	2.942520
17	Navy	3.108798
18	LSU	3.119942
19	Alabama	3.128550
20	South Carolina	3.163205
21	Texas A&M	3.174412
22	Florida State	3.509243
23	Hawaii	3.525703
24	USC	3.628385
25	West Virginia	3.764604
30	Mississippi State	4.113444
40	Michigan	4.652036

 

ACC

Virginia Tech

Florida State

Miami (YTM)

North Carolina State

Maryland

Clemson

North Carolina

Georgia Tech

Boston College

Virginia

Duke

Wake Forest

 

Big 12

Oklahoma

Oklahoma State

Nebraska

Missouri

Texas A&M

Baylor

Iowa State

Texas

Kansas State

Texas Tech

Colorado

Kansas

 

Big East

West Virginia

Pittsburgh

Connecticut

Syracuse

Louisville

South Florida

Cincinnati

Rutgers

 

Big Ten

Wisconsin

Michigan State

Ohio State

Iowa

Illinois

Penn State

Northwestern

Michigan

Minnesota

Purdue

Indiana

 

Conference USA

UCF

Tulsa

Southern Miss

Southern Methodist

East Carolina

Houston

Marshall

Rice

UTEP

UAB

Tulane

Memphis

 

MAC

Northern Illinois

Toledo

Miami (NTM)

Ohio

Western Michigan

Temple

Kent State

Ball State

Central Michigan

Eastern Michigan

Bowling Green

Buffalo

Akron

 

MWC

TCU

Utah

Air Force

Brigham Young

San Diego State

UNLV

Colorado State

Wyoming

New Mexico

 

PAC 10

Oregon

Stanford

USC

Washington

Oregon State

Arizona State

Arizona

California

UCLA

Washington State

 

SEC

Auburn

Arkansas

LSU

Alabama

South Carolina

Florida

Mississippi State

Georgia

Tennessee

Kentucky

Mississippi

Vanderbilt

 

Sun Belt

Troy Trojans of Troy (We’re from Troy!)

Florida International

Middle Tennessee

Arkansas State

Louisiana-Monroe

North Texas

Florida Atlantic

Louisiana-Lafayette

Western Kentucky

 

WAC

Boise State

Hawaii

Nevada

Fresno State

Louisiana Tech

Idaho

Utah State

New Mexico State

San Jose State

I have an idea for game predictions, so I’ll probably post another poll along with bowl game predictions and comparisons to actual results. Sometime in January I’ll post polls for Basketball and Hockey.

Here's this week's update to The Michigan Difference, updated with stats from this week's games.

Another bipolar game against Wisconsin.  The final offensive output was pretty good, but the defense couldn't stand up to their rushing attack.  We remain #5 in Total Offense (TO) and are now #112 in Total Defense (TD).

Disclaimer: The NCAA stats are not linear, of course, and a difference of 1 yd/gm can be a large or small difference in rankings depending on how closely spaced everyone is.  So as I cautioned, this isn't a hard-core statistical exercise.  This analysis is pretty one-dimensional because it's long and complicated enough as it is.

I think the greatest value in this is to look back at the early games and see how well we did in comparison to what other teams ended up doing against them - what seemed like a good or bad performance at the time may look different in retrospect.

 

Part the First: Offense

We know our offense is great, but what kind of damage has it done to the Total Defense (TD) ratings of our opponents?  Here they are thus far:

Opponents' Total Defense, Season

Opponent	Games	Yards Yielded	Yds/gm	NCAA Rank
Connecticut	10	3512	351.20	44
Notre Dame	11	3977	361.55	55
Bowling Green	11	4742	431.09	104
Indiana	11	4612	419.27	94
Michigan State	11	3657	332.45	28
Iowa	11	3423	311.18	14
Penn State	11	3899	354.45	48
Illinois	11	3766	342.36	35
Purdue	11	4025	365.91	58
Wisconsin	11	3598	327.09	26

 

What would these guys' defensive stats look like if they hadn't played Michigan?

Michigan Offensive Performances

Opponent	Total Offense, M	Opp. Avg - M, Yds/gm*	M Total Offense, % of Opp Avg - M**	NCAA Rank Without M
Connecticut	473	337.67	140%	32
Notre Dame	532	344.50	154%	40
Bowling Green	721	402.10	179%	84
Indiana	574	403.80	142%	86
Michigan State	377	328.00	115%	27
Iowa	522	290.10	180%	6
Penn State	423	347.60	122%	44
Illinois	676	309.00	219%	13
Purdue	395	363.00	109%	57
Wisconsin	442	315.60	140%	16

*Opponents' average Total Defense yards per game, minus the Michigan game

**Michigan's Total Offense in game as a % of the opponent's average TD minus the Michigan game

Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin's defenses really wish they hadn't played us.  They'd be in the top 20 nationally but for one game.  Michigan has gained above our opponents' average yardage yielded in every game thus far, and their Total Defense rankings have suffered as a result.  What's the damage?

The Michigan Difference, Offense

Opponent	TD Rank With M	TD Rank Without M	Difference
Connecticut	44	32	-12
Notre Dame	55	40	-15
Bowling Green	104	84	-20
Indiana	94	86	-8
Michigan State	28	27	-1
Iowa	14	6	-8
Penn State	48	44	-4
Illinois	35	13	-22
Purdue	58	57	-1
Wisconsin	26	16	-10

Average change in Total Defense ranking for all opponents:  -10.1 places.

Looking at the offensive performance versus the quality of the defense:

There is little correlation between Michigan's Total Offense for a game and their opponent's average Total Defense (minus M).  Whatever is limiting our offense's output in a game, it is not directly related to the number of yards the opponent usually gives up.  This would suggest that the offense tends to be limited by itself, rather than the opponent.

Part the Second, Defense

So the flipside of this, then, is how much has our defensive suckitude helped out our opponents stat sheet?  Where would they rank in Total Offense without having played us?  We'll run the same tables again, but from the opposite tack:

Michigan Opponents' Offensive Performances, Season

Opponent	Games	Yards Gained	Yds/gm	NCAA Rank
Connecticut	10	3311	331.10	95
Notre Dame	11	4243	385.73	58
Bowling Green	11	3137	285.18	114
Indiana	11	4247	386.09	57
Michigan State	11	4549	413.55	37
Iowa	11	4335	394.09	51
Penn State	11	4093	372.09	66
Illinois	11	4230	384.55	61
Purdue	11	3429	311.73	102
Wisconsin	11	4843	440.27	23

Wisconsin is easily the strongest offensive team we've faced thus far.  The results of the game show that.  MSU was pretty good, the rest varying degrees of average to bad.

                              

Michigan Defensive Performances

Opponent	Total Defense, M	Opp. Avg - M, Yds/gm*	Opp Total Offense, % of Opp Avg - M**	NCAA Rank Without M
Connecticut	343	329.78	104%	96
Notre Dame	535	370.80	144%	69
Bowling Green	283	285.40	99%	114
Indiana	568	367.90	154%	71
Michigan State	536	401.30	134%	47
Iowa	383	395.20	97%	51
Penn State	435	365.80	119%	72
Illinois	561	366.90	152%	70
Purdue	256	317.30	81%	101
Wisconsin	558	428.50	130%	32

* Opponents' average Total Offensive performance, minus the Michigan game

** Opponents' Total Offense as a percentage of their average offensive performance, minus the Michigan game

Here's a nifty graph of our opponents' Total Offense against Michigan, versus their average Total Offense per game without the Michigan game:

In this case, we do have a reasonably good correlation.  Our defense does worse against better offenses.  That would suggest that we're talent-limited somewhere (either coaches or players) and the opponents' offenses tend to have their way with us.  In other words, our defense doesn't shut anybody down.  The more yards our opponents average per game, the better they'll do against us.

To summarize:

The Michigan Difference, Defense

Opponent	TO Rank With M	TO Rank Without M	Difference
Connecticut	95	96	+1
Notre Dame	58	69	+11
Bowling Green	114	114	0
Indiana	57	71	+14
Michigan State	37	47	+10
Iowa	51	51	0
Penn State	66	72	+6
Illinois	61	70	+9
Purdue	102	101	-1
Wisconsin	23	32	+9

Average boost to opponents' Total Offense NCAA ranking: +5.9 places

From this perspective, the Wisconsin game was our 4th worst defensive performance of the year.  As bad as we looked, three other games were worse.  We were up against a very good offense, and it showed.

Part the Third:  Summary

The Michigan Difference, Overall

Opponent	Michigan's O Difference on Opp TD Ranking	Michigan's D Difference on Opp TO Ranking
Connecticut	-12	+1	W: Good O, OK D
Notre Dame	-15	+11	W: Good O, Terrible D
Bowling Green	-20	0	W: Awesome O, OK D
Indiana	-8	+14	W: Good O, Terrible D
Michigan State	-1	+10	L: OK O, Terrible D
Iowa	-8	0	L: Good O, OK D
Penn State	-4	+6	L:Good O, Bad D
Illinois	-22	+9	W:, Awesome O, Terrible D
Purdue	-1	--1	W: OK O, OK D
Wisconsin	-10	+9	L: Good O, Terrible D

In subtly maize-and-blue graphical form:

 

New observations for this week:

• Many of our previous opponents had good weeks offensively, making our defense look a bit better less bad in those previous games.
• Wisconsin is easily the best team we've faced yet.  Offensive and defensive performances were close to mid-pack, but we got our butts kicked.
• Our offense remains impressive and will keep getting better.
• Our defense is terrible and had better get a lot better.
• Winning is still a lot more fun than losing.

So, I do a lot of schedule analysis for my own purposes for hockey, and, I was just doing something similar for basketball, and figured, well, why not sign up for an account at MGoBlog and let other people see my work? So, I hope to carve out a little niche here and post analysis of schedules and figure out what the basketball team must do to attain a ranking, and which other teams must lose for them to get one, and what the Michigan hockey team must do to advance in rankings.

Some weeks I might do Basketball on Monday and Hockey on Tuesday, but, that seems silly since hockey's heading into a break.

As a general rule, I'll only talk about the 5 teams above us in the rankings. Unless we're not ranked, in which case I'll talk about teams 21-25 and those with more votes than us.

So, a hockey mini-analysis:
This weekend, we swept Michigan State. It was awesome. As a consequence, we moved from #14 to #12, and cracking the top 10 is always nice. We don't play until the GLI, so, there's no way to analyze our schedule here.

So, teams that can affect us just by losing that play this weekend:
#11 Vermont plays at St. Lawrence, just on Saturday. St. Lawrence? Not very good. Not terrible. Just sub-.500. Vermont probably leaves with a win. Doesn't affect us.
A very important Saturday/Sunday series to watch is #10 Colorado College playing at #2 Minnesota. A Minnesota sweep could mean Michigan leapfrogs CC without even playing.
No games for #9 Cornell, #8 Boston College, or #7 Princeton.

So, the skinny: The best Michigan can hope for is Minnesota sweeps Colorado College at home and Michigan is #11 next week. There's a very off chance St. Lawrence wins, and, if both things happen, we may just crack the top 10.

Basketball is way more complicated.

In the USA Today Coach's Poll, we're a theoretical #30. In the AP Media Poll, we're a theoretical #28. Our only game this week is Saturday against a one-win Eastern Michigan at Crisler. 4:00, BTN. I'm excited. Not really. Should pick it up easily. And by that I mean, WE MUST KILL THEM IF WE WANT TO BE RANKED NEXT WEEK. A NARROW WIN WON'T BE GOOD ENOUGH.

This is the part where you skip to the last paragraph, unless you're a ridiculous die-hard. Trust me, you'll do it pretty soon.

I'll start with the non-ranked teams that separate us from the Top 25. For the rest of the article, I will list rankings in the same order I listed ours. If its only a theoretical ranking, there will be a "T" before it, and if a team's ranked in one poll and non-ranked in another, I'll mention their non-ranking. So, if a team was a theoretical #31 in the USA Today Poll and non-ranked in any fashion in the AP Poll, they'd be listed as "T#31/NR".

T#29/T#31 BYU: Two games this week, one against Boise State on Wednesday, one against Portland on Saturday, both at home. Neither team has votes of any sort, also, neither team has more than two losses. Losing to both? Unlikely. Losing to one? Not unreasonable.

T#28/T#35 Wisconsin: The Badgers (who we happen to open Big Ten play against) play tomorrow against a two-win Idaho State team, and play Wisconsin-Green Bay on Saturday. WGB is 5-2 (2-0), but, that doesn't mean I'm impressed with any of their wins.

T#27/T#26 Dayton: Losable game on the road at 5-2 Creighton Wednesday. Easy win at home against Coppin State Saturday.

T#26/#22 Baylor: Easy game Saturday against Prairie View A&M. Can't see them falling from AP, may enter USA Today.

T#31/T#27 Clemson: Game Saturday against South Carolina State. I anticipate a Clemson win. SCS is over .500, but, Clemson is undefeated.

#25/T#29 Miami (FL): Florida Intl. on Friday. Robert Morris on Sunday. Win. Win.

#23/#25 Kansas: Saturday v. 1-win UMass. Win.

#24/#24 Marquette: Saturday v. crappy IPFW. They're 3-5, which means I don't care about them enough to look up what that stands for. Win.

#22/#23 Davidson: Would you look at that, a real contest. Tuesday Davidson plays a 6-1 West Virginia team (and, while it's basically irrelevant, they're T#39/NR. The T#39 ties them with Florida St. at 1 vote, last in the poll). So, they could lose that one. Saturday, 1-win Chattanooga. Win.

#21/#21 Ohio State: I don't know why, but OSU has only played five games this season. Saturday they play their sixth in Columbus vs. an undefeated Butler. Butler could definitely win. I'm not sure they will, but they could.

So, the skinny:
We can hope for an Ohio State loss. We can hope for a Davidson loss. We can hope for a Dayton loss. We can hope for two BYU losses. If all of those things happen, and we KILL EMU, by my estimation, we still end up something like T#26/T#26, unless we get lucky. Next week, we beat Oakland at a "neutral" site (I imagine it'll be a slightly pro-UofM crowd), then we might be talking ranking.

I'll post Thursday-ish saying how goes it so far. Until then, good night, don't let the Tommy Amakers bite.