Adv. Stats Schedule Rundown - Week 13 Results

Submitted by Ecky Pting on

Here's the Advanced Statistics Schedule Rundown for U-M as of the end of Week 13, which is more or less the final week notwithstanding some movement due to championship game results. Iowa is still included, for woulda-shoulda-coulda reasons, but is lined-out, because that's just reality rearing it's ugly head.

To add some value, some potential bowl opponents have been included in the list. You'll notice they're all from the SEC, and here's why. The CFP & Rose Bowl will take the top 2 B1G teams, and #3 probably goes to the last of three NY6 at-large spots (?), where the top 3 are MSU, Iowa and tOSU, in no particular order. Next with a 10-2 record is Northwestern, which would put it in the Holiday Bowl. This leaves U-M and Wisconsin at 9-3 to be assigned by B1G officials to either the Citrus or Outback Bowls, both of which have tie-ins with the SEC in the #3 and #4 pecking order, respectively. Yes that's right. The #3/#4 SEC picks get matched with the #5/#6 B1G picks, so there's an artifact of institutionalized SEC bias right there.

Dennis the Bloody Peasant, MP&tHG

In reality I think the #3 SEC would probably get an at-large NY6 spot, so that might offset the selections by one spot. So, taking a quick look at the SEC standings, it looks like the #3 to #6 picks might be Georgia, Ole Miss, LSU (should be 9-3, not 8-3, due to a cancellation) and Tennessee. Plus Florida, because they're widely regarded as overrated. Those 5 are included in the rundown.  Here's your embiggable chart:

Adv. Stats Comp. Sched. 2015wk13

In the S&P+ ratings, M still managed to improve its standing in offense again over last week's results, moving from #40 to #34, while MSU climbed from #29 to #26. Meanwhile, after having sandbagged the entire season, OSU soared from #24 to #13. Curiously though on S&P+ Defense, M held onto its #2 spot. This belies any rational explanation other than perhaps the defense started out well, and then collapsed quickly into garbage time. The rating did erode by 1.2 points from 11.7 to 12.9. OSU maintained its #8 spot and improved its rating by 1.4 points, while the MSU defensive moved up from #21 to #18 by improving its rating by 0.7 points. Overall, M dropped by only 2 spots to #6, while OSU moved up one from #5 to #4. Despite finishing the regular season undefeated, Iowa's overall S&P+ ranking remains unchanged at #29, while MSU moved up 3 spots to #11. Only now after the season is complete is M not favored in all of its games by S&P+ metrics, and that would be against OSU, who is a 0.4 point favorite. Meanwhile, the S&P+ favorite for the B1GC is MSU -5.0.

As for the FEI Ratings, U-M’s Special Teams dropped back from #14 to #16. The roughing the punter and the touchback would seem to explain that downturn. The next closest teams are Iowa and OSU at #33 and #40, respectively. As for MSU and PSU Special Teams ... they continue to wallow in the lower echelons.

FEI warmed slightly regarding M's offense, which improved its rating and rank to #35, thanks yet again to a gutsy three quarters of Jake Rudock. MSU dropped in rank from #19 to #21 despite a demolition of PSU, but yet, piling on 21 points late tends to not improve S&P+. OSU’s season-long sandbagging operation is once again manifest in its leap in FEI Offense from #38 to #28. On the other hand, Iowa dropped back from #24 to #30. Too bad a matchup of Rudock and C.J. Beathard in the B1GCG didn’t work out.

Carrying on with the trend from last week, and further quantifying what was witnessed on field in Ann Arbor last weekend, the most alarming aspect here is the FEI Defensive numbers, which sees M continue retrograde movement from #11 to #19, but also a decline for OSU from #8 to #10. MSU popped up from #24 to #21, as did Iowa's defense from #44 to #36. As such, the FEI and S&P+ characteristics for offense are largely congruent, but the same can’t be said for the Defense ratings.

FEI Overall rankings show M dropping from #10 to #16, while OSU climbed from #9 to #5, and MSU held on at the #6 spot. Iowa climbed back up from  #24 to #18.

Rolling the S&P+ and FEI numbers together, Connelly & Fremeau come up with the F/+ Combined Ratings, in which M finally drops out of CFP range from #4 to #11, while OSU slips in at #4 and MSU advances from #10 to #8. Iowa inched up from #25 to #24.

Last but not least are the Football Power Index (FPI) ratings from ESPN. Here M reversed last weeks trend, dropping 1.6 points and 3 places to #19, while OSU moved further into CFP placement at #3, with a 1.5 point better score. As for MSU and Iowa in the B1GC, they are ranked #14 and #26, respectively, with a point spread of MSU -4.7 on a neutral site.

Looking ahead to potential bowl game matchups, the advanced stats are mixed. S&P+ favors U-M in all matchups except against Ole Miss, whereas FEI and FPI see U-M as an underdog against all opponents except Georgia.

Yours in football, and Go Blue!

Comments

Balrog_of_Morgoth

December 1st, 2015 at 5:33 PM ^

Florida is our projected opponent according to ESPN, so it might be a good idea to add them to this analysis.

If I am calculating this correctly, S&P+ favors us by 3.3 over Florida, but FPI favors Florida by 2.2.