FEI Rankings
I was very impressed with the FEI data last year and they way they went about ranking teams. They won't have any offensive or defensive ranks up until week 7, but they have team rankings up and it looks pretty good as a resume ballot right now as they have Clemson up there and LSU #1. Mich comes in at #10 so if you are optimistic about where we are going this year, you found some nerds on your side.
For some reason FEI and Kenpom seem to love Michigan so maybe our inner belief that we never get a good break is actually true since their analysis is based on on trying to sift out the bullshit that happens in a given game.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:37 PM ^
[edit: Well this is strange. My phone seems to have posted a comment on its own without any text. Shit. It's becoming sentient.]
September 28th, 2011 at 12:59 PM ^
If you suddenly see an App on your phone you didn't download yourself called "NORAD Control Systems," you might want to seek some professional intervention.
September 28th, 2011 at 1:41 PM ^
September 28th, 2011 at 1:59 PM ^
for the War Games reference.
September 28th, 2011 at 10:39 PM ^
September 28th, 2011 at 11:14 AM ^
Nebraska is at 54 in this ranking, wow!
September 28th, 2011 at 11:18 AM ^
And Ohio is ranked 30nd, ahead of the other Ohio at 32nd!
I love this ranking and I hope it is very accurate.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^
Thirtynd. +1 for making up a number.
All joking aside, I have a hard time buying these rankings based on math formulas and stuff. I appreciate what these people are trying to accomplish, and for the most part, they probably do get a lot of things right. But ranking Ohio U. ahead of tSIO? That's an instance when you become contrained by the math. If those two teams played each other 100 times this season, tSIO would probably win at least 90 of those matchups. Is Michigan really the 10th best team in the country? I'd like to think so, but I just don't think that's rational. I had the same problem with Fangraphs power rankings for MLB. I know these things are based on objective data, but there's a problem with your model when you've got Cincinnati and Colorado as top 10 teams in the middle of August.
/rant
September 28th, 2011 at 1:10 PM ^
Yeah I wish these guys would let me put some money on the over for the 5.1 projected wins for Nebraska.
Also Kansas State beat Miami who destroyed Ohio State so naturally they are ranked
32 Ohio State
33 Kansas State
52 Miami
Sometimes I think the only thing worse than college football polls are the early season computer rankings.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:22 AM ^
The mean wins stat is interesting in that it says that a team with our FEI and schedule should have a mean of 10.3 wins.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:30 AM ^
I would say that M can compete with any team on the schedule except for Wisco. We'll see about Nebraska this weekend, but with what is on the schedule and based on what we have seen thus far from those teams, that 10.3 is not out of the question*
*Yea, I remember the past few years.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:35 AM ^
Uh, Wisco's not on the schedule.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^
He's penciling them in as the winners of the Leaders Division.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^
they will be, give it a few weeks...
September 28th, 2011 at 11:39 AM ^
Wisconsin's the opponent Michigan plays in the Big Ten Championship game. For some reason, scheduling coordinators don't want to list Michigan's opponent that week.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:52 AM ^
I was kind of joking about the championship game/ didn't come off that way
Off my game today guys, think I'm getting sick
September 28th, 2011 at 1:31 PM ^
Let me just say how wonderful it is for us to be even deliriously hopeful of making it to the Big Ten Championship game. Recent experience counsels us, however, to wait a couple of more weeks to see how the boys do in the conference schedule.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:38 AM ^
Yes, I imagine it would be difficult to compete with a team that we don't have on our schedule.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:10 PM ^
FWIW looking at that expected win column, where it has us for 10.3, the only teams it has higher than that are Oklahoma, Boise, Wisco, and Stanford. It is wins expected against your actual schedule, not a stat based on an average schedule, so thats why we can have the 6th highest expected win # but be ranked 10th. I.E. even though it has LSU as the best team, their expected wins is only 9.6. Something is off though because it also says it expects us to win 6.7 of our remaining games. IIRC 4 plus 6.7 is 10.7.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
Read it more closely and answered my own questions: the 10.3 is for our entire schedule, included games already played. So, they gave us an expected win score of 3.6 for the first 4 games (10.3-6.7). That seems too high actually given ND was a toss-up at best. Not sure we would be ND more that half the time if we played 100 times.
The good news is that this means they are actually predicting 10.7 wins for us at this point (4+6.7)!
September 28th, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^
I can help.
We have won only 3.70 games so far:
Just kidding. I don't know. They said there wouldn't be any math.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:35 AM ^
More important than points for or points against.
Or so we've been told...
September 28th, 2011 at 11:35 AM ^
"Through the first six weeks of the season, the FEI ratings will include some preseason projected data. Beginning with the Week 7 ratings, only 2011 game data will be included. At that time, Offensive FEI and Defensive FEI data will be provided as well."
Too soon to put much stock in it.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:35 AM ^
Ken Pom liked Michigan, but stil had us as the 5th best team in the conference...and we finished tied for 4th.
So, I'm not sure we were "unlucky". We played in the best conference in college basketball (in KenPom's rankings).
September 28th, 2011 at 11:57 AM ^
1. Florida International-.782
2. Houston- .752
3. Tulane- .744
4. Utah St- .701
5. Central Michigan- .655
6. Boise St- .640
6. Rice- .640
Wow, Boise St is in some "elite" company there. I don't care how good they are, it should be expected that they go undefeated with a SOS above .500. They shouldn't get a free pass to a BCS bowl, let alone the National Championship by beating up on MAC-Caliber teams every week, aside from their one good team they play each season. Even though Georiga was over-rated.
September 28th, 2011 at 11:59 AM ^
September 28th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
This is a college football blog. The front page has a post comparing defenses from last year to this year after 4 games.
You are correct most of this is meaningless at this point, but this is just another ranking that I thought was fun to look at, because I think when there is more data it is a better indicator of success than the "real" polls.
You sound like the guy at the porn shop saying look at those perverts over there looking at the rubber dongers.....uh sir you yourself are standing in the porno shop no place to be laying down moral judgements.
If you want to make fun of the "morons" obsessing over meaningless drivel. You have every right to and you are probably right, but you need to find another site to do it on.
Everyones hitting refresh waiting for the breakdown of a game against some scrub team from the west coast. This isn't a place of sanity right now.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:28 PM ^
I don't have an issue with looking at rankings this early in the season even though they don't carry a whole lot of information.
I think with FEI in particular extra caveats have to apply because, as I said above, they're using projected data. They don't say (as far as I can find) what they're basing their projections on, what weight the projected data carries compared to the real data, etc.
But their preseason projections had to have been based largely on last year (what else could they have used?). FEI loved the offense last year. It isn't surprising, then, that FEI had Mich ranked highly last year and has them ranked relatively high based at least partially on projections based on last year. FEI will be very informative in a couple of weeks, but for now it isn't a useful way to compare last year with this year.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^
True about the offense, and I'm not saying this definitely means we're going to the Rose/Orange Bowl this year as a top ten team, but the projected data had to include the defense as well, which was ranked 108 in FEI last year.
September 28th, 2011 at 1:35 PM ^
but they don't tell us how they project defensive stats or weight them either, so we have no idea how they come to have Michigan 10th. I just don't see how looking at FEI at this stage in the season is any more helpful than saying that an alphabetical ranking of teams has Michigan ranked 55th.
Alright, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.
September 28th, 2011 at 1:42 PM ^
I share your opinion, although I guess not to the same extent. It's silly to take this to the bank, but I don't think it's garbage either. Are we number ten in the country? I doubt it. But if you were to break this list up into sixths, I do think we're closer to the top sixth than the middle or bottom percentiles.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^
September 28th, 2011 at 1:20 PM ^
I'm pretty sure you are right that we are not the 10th best team in the nation, but our schedule may allow us to fool people into ranking us that high by the seasons end if we get a few breaks.
September 28th, 2011 at 12:41 PM ^
I'm sure this kool-aid is delicious, but I can't trust the water it was made from. The hundreds of thousands of cases of Michigan giardiasis over the past 3+ years makes me say, "Thanks, but no thanks."
September 28th, 2011 at 2:46 PM ^
+1 for use of giardiasis.
Although watching the defense/special teams last year gave me intussusception.
September 28th, 2011 at 7:02 PM ^
love the radar