By The Numbers - How it Works

But you are awesome. 'Nuff said.

you should add units to your plus/minus so people know what the stat is denominated in. or maybe just refer to it as points above average rather than plus/minus? the former has a lot more concrete meaning and evident utility.

I think historical conference strength would be very useful. Maybe identify the 25th, 50th and 75th percentile teams from each conference against FBS average over however long your database goes. Particularly early in the season when team quality isn't evident, using those levels as proxies could be helpful in sorting out early season variance.

I've also been meaning to get around to investigating recruiting rankings and their effects on winning. The way Rivals is set up now makes it pretty easy to rip average stars per team conference by conference. A simple average or, better, a weighted average based on average starts by years in the program should prove to be a very useful indicator of future wins.

It would go some way to defeating the nefarious forces of Resume Rankers in the Blogpoll, which I think are ridiculous. If anything, it makes far more sense to assume that the history of the program's recent success on the field and in recruiting would be far better predictor than a handful of games early in the season. And I don't see why a poll should not try to be predictive, considering the success of 'wisdom of crowds' and futures markets.

As a sidenote, I suspect the Blogpoll does a poor job of leveraging the potential analytic power of its bloggers. IME, bloggers should be instructed to create a poll that reflects how the blogger thinks the season will play out.

Mathlete, speaking just for my dumb self, I'm still kind of lost. I'm with my understanding of how the numbers add up. So, I'll try to confirm just the result of 1 play:

A 1st/10 at the Opp20 can be expected to yield 1.57 points. If the offense gains 10 yards (a good play), then they've got a 1st/10 at the Opp30 and from there, they can be expected to yield more than 1.57, for the sake of argument, I'll guess a 15% increase in expectation to 1.81. The difference, +.24, between play one and play two expectation is what gets "banked" ... to the credit (or debit in the case of bad plays) of the player and unit.

Is this correct?

So, if a team starts with 1st and 10 on the 20 yard line, and the first play is an 80 yard TD with made PA, there is a +5.4 to the offense? The QB and WR will each also bank +5.4

The next drive starts at the 20 yard line again, only this time, the first play is a rush for no gain, and the second play is an 80 yard TD. The offense again gets credited with a +5.4, only this time, the QB and WR will bank a number higher than 5.4 because the expected point total on the play they scored was lower 1.57, and the RB will have a negative?

The offense's point total is simply a reflection of actual points scored minus expected points based on starting points for all drives?

YOu guys are freaking sweet! Where do you get the data from? I like your system for sure, as it incorporates the other teams skill. This system completely excludes the other team and does a subjecive single team offensive analysis. If it doesn't make sense I'll clean it up, but see what you think.

I have been doing this calculation for a few years, and it has been fairly accurate on predicting the likelihood of winning or losing the given game.

for every third down play you engage in you are penalized, weighted by the number of yards to the opponent's endzone divided by 2 if you are less than halfway between where you took possession of the ball and the opponent's endzone. SO if you get to third and 1 and you are 35 yards from the midpoint, you are charged 3.5 points.

SO each third down should be penalized like this. (yards to endzone) * 0.5 if we are not across the midpoint to the endzone when third down occurs, and if we are across the midpoint, .05 for each third down, reduced by successful fourth down conversions.

So 4 points at the 20, 3.5 at the 30, 3 at the 40, 2.75 at the 45, and 2.5 at the 50. Thereafter, we only add 0.5 for each third down play where the offense either has to kick a field goal or punt. If we go for it on fourth down, the 0.5 penalty from third down is subtracted from the penalty, regadless of success.

THe goal is to break even at 0 at the end of the game.

SO if on your first drive, you get the ball at the 20, and face third down prior to getting to the 30, 4 points. Imagine then that we convert on third down. THe 4 points stays. Thereafter, we have a 3rd down on the 40, so we are charged 3 points. If we convert that third down, but do not make it past the 50 before the next third down, 2.5 points. SO 9.5 total, even assuming we convert that third third down. Two more third downs inside the 50 would give us 1 point more, so a total of 10.5. If we score a touchdown, we offset it with our penalty points, if we don't score a touchdown, we reduce the penalty points by the number of converted third downs on the drive. So on this drive if we didn't score we would have 5.5 penalty points. If the next drive saw no third downs prior to the midway point and there were no turnovers and we scored then we would be at -1.5.

Ultimately then at the end of the game we would want to be at or close to a penalty point number that was at least 7 less than our actual point total.

I think this way now because this, in my opinion, is how you approach the game when you have a team that mostly loses because they beat themselves. I would simply focus on execution and what we're doing on offense, without regard to what the other team is going to bring. When this offense comes of age next year, they are going to go undefeated. We got Lewan and Schofield, Molk back, and all sorts of team speed.