FEI / S&P+ For Big 10 and Selected Others - Week 11
This week's data points....
I tend to lean to FEI over S&P+, as I think the FEI strength of schedule adjustments in particular are more pertinent but I like both over the basic NCAA stats which adjust for nothing. FEI also just seems to work with the eye test more often than not the past few years I have followed these stats.
That said, I find both superior to NCAA stats which judge total offense and total defense on nothing more than yards "gained" or "given up" and don't adjust for SOS in any way.
NCAA Stats for comparison:
- Total Offense: 71 (up from #98 two weeks ago, thank you Scarlet Knights & Hoosiers) - 393.7 yds/game
- Total Defense: 2 (steady with last week but yds per game jumped 28 yds due to Indiana alone) - 268.7 yds/game
UM Notes
- UM FEI defense fell from #5 to #7 (was #2 two weeks ago). S&P+ defense fell from #1 to #3.
- UM FEI & S&P+ offense didn't budge much in this week. Piling up stats on horrid defenses don't move you up much in advanced stats unlike NCAA stats.
- UM FEI "special teams efficiency" fell from #5 to #15. It was #1 two weeks ago.
- UM FEI "field position advantage" fell from #30 to #31. It was #19 two weeks ago.
- Florida continues to be UM's closest doppelganger among top 25 teams ...while Utah is second but not as close as last week.
- UM has played 3 of the worst defenses in P5 ...plus UNLV as a 4th bad D.
Misc Notes
- Iowa's defense stats were dinged pretty bad this week for giving up 35 pts to Minn.
- PSU's doppelganger in advanced stats is 8-2 Wisc whose only losses are to Bama and Iowa. (Wiscy hasn't played NW or Minn yet to be fair)
- Oklahoma's advanced stats mark it as a top 5 team nationally.
- Iowa and OK State are deemed "quite good but not great teams" in adv stats
| dFEI | dS&P+ | oFEI | oS&P+ | ||
| UM | 7 | 3 | 39 | 42 | |
| OSU | 11 | 7 | 31 | 16 | |
| MSU | 31 | 35 | 19 | 32 | |
| NWestern | 10 | 8 | 103 | 109 | |
| PSU | 14 | 13 | 75 | 66 | |
| Minnesota | 40 | 29 | 70 | 63 | |
| Maryland | 56 | 34 | 98 | 103 | |
| Indiana | 106 | 104 | 25 | 19 | |
| Rutgers | 109 | 114 | 76 | 99 | |
| Nebraska | 82 | 60 | 28 | 38 | |
| Wisconsin | 15 | 6 | 63 | 75 | |
| Iowa | 36 | 26 | 32 | 44 | |
| Purdue | 95 | 66 | 79 | 100 | |
| Illinois | 41 | 9 | 66 | 96 | |
| Utah | 9 | 23 | 58 | 47 | |
| BYU | 60 | 44 | 34 | 37 | |
| Oregon St | 94 | 110 | 107 | 108 | |
| UNLV | 117 | 109 | 83 | 90 | |
| Clemson | 6 | 4 | 16 | 10 | |
| Bama | 1 | 1 | 30 | 29 | |
| ND | 30 | 36 | 5 | 6 | |
| Oklahoma | 2 | 14 | 14 | 8 | |
| OK Staee | 24 | 51 | 35 | 20 | |
| Florida | 12 | 5 | 46 | 48 | |
| Stanford | 57 | 46 | 7 | 13 | |
| TCU | 70 | 77 | 20 | 9 | |
| Baylor | 55 | 74 | 3 | 1 | |
| LSU | 34 | 41 | 11 | 14 | |
| Arizona | 100 | 111 | 18 | 31 | |
| Oregon | 87 | 95 | 13 | 11 |
If you are curious how UM graded last year (sorry to bring back the ennui) its was 70s to 90s on offense and 30s to 40s on defense, depending which measure you used.
November 17th, 2015 at 9:13 AM ^
Definitions:
The Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) considers each of the nearly 20,000 possessions every season in major college football. All drives are filtered to eliminate first-half clock-kills and end-of-game garbage drives and scores. A scoring rate analysis of the remaining possessions then determines the baseline possession efficiency expectations against which each team is measured. A team is rewarded for playing well against good teams, win or lose, and is punished more severely for playing poorly against bad teams than it is rewarded for playing well against bad teams.
The S&P+ Ratings are a college football ratings system derived from both play-by-play and drive data from all 800+ of a season's FBS college football games (and 140,000+ plays).
The components for S&P+ reflect the components of four of what Bill Connelly has deemed the Five Factors of college football: efficiency), explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives. (A fifth factor, turnovers, is informed marginally by sack rates, the only quality-based statistic that has a consistent relationship with turnover margins.)
November 17th, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
#2 to #7 in FEI defense seems like a rather significant fall in two weeks. Really, it is rather a significant hit, but all the same it is very nice to see that despite Minneosta and Indiana being lackluster performances for the defense, we're still a top 10 team in this metric. I have to think the Penn State game might help this one a little bit, especially if we do well.
November 17th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^
Main area we get dinged is giving up long drives which is fair, esp after last week. Couldn't get off the field ...and that's an offense which wants to get off the field pretty fast in general. UM now is 34th of among all defenses in giving up drives of 10 plays or more (and I think IND had a few of 8-9 plays)
DMe: Methodical Drive Rate, the percentage of opponent drives that last at least 10 plays.
We've also fallen off quite a bit on this stat the past month, which was top 10ish for most of the year, now has dopped to #26.
DFD: First Down Rate, the percentage of opponent drives that result in at least one first down or touchdown.
Still a very good defense but outside of BYU and Utah we played a lot of quite bad offenses led by very young QBs early (and UNLVs solid QB was hurt and in and out). Also MN's offense has jumped quite a bit the past few weeks - it used to be at NW level a month ago in the 100s but now is at least in the 70s with the Mitch Leidner revival the past 3 weeks. I think Sudfeld is a NFL QB (late round) so two NFL Qbs and a NFL rb is going to ding you some. Both Indiana and MSU have NFL talent on OL as well.
Last week I said Howard would be the X factor for Indiana, not Sudfeld. This week I am going to flip it - I think Barkley gets some run yards on us but how we handle Hack will be the interesting part - he is so variable week to week who the hell knows who shows up Saturday.
November 17th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
Leidner isn't considered to be a draftable QB prospect for 2016 draft.
November 17th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
I have Sudfeld and Cook as my 2 NFL QBs in the comment.
November 17th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
It's right where we want to be (the MSU ending aside) and probably at worst, we're slightly above our wildest-best expectations. But it's still sobering that after all that wonderful mess of shutouts and last-play wins, we could still end up 8-4. Winning this weekend is huge so we can lock down 9 wins and make the OSU game the way it used to be: For all the marbles (which today just means a trip to Indy, not Pasadena :(
A loss to Penn State would take a significant edge off the OSU game, although if we bounced back and won it we would probably still get into an NY6 game. We still have a decent shot at getting into an NY6 with three losses (Ole Miss did it last year) after either 1-1 finish scenario.
Winning out, of course, probably guarantees us no worse than the Rose Bowl or a lock on a NY6 with no nervousness on selection day. So let's do THAT!
November 17th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
But I see PSU as an alternate reality version of Northwestern, with just slightly better offense and slightly worse defense. Given that, even with this being a road game, I bet we can have a similar game like we did against NW (especially if we cross our fingers really hard).
November 17th, 2015 at 11:24 AM ^
If we beat these guys 38-0 like we did NW I will be surprised. Come on now. You can't even believe that.
November 17th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
I think PSU has better athletes than NW up and down the lineup. It reminds me a lot of UM's 2014 Defense in fact. NW is coaching up projects out of HS whereas PSU gets the talent UM does. They have a great DC and 3 NFL players on the DL - Nassib, Zettel, and Johnson. Back 7 is not the greatest but solid in a 2014 UM kind of way.
OSU and PSU DL is on par with MSU and Utah which gave the OL fits.
Offense is just tough to figure out in any week because Hackenberg is all over the place. They have found themselves a very good freshman rb and they have some talent at wr if Hack can get them the ball. OL seems to run block decent but pass block is iffy - they are the opposite of UM's OL.
I think UM is the better team but I thought that vs MN and IND too and those were nail biters just the same.
November 17th, 2015 at 2:35 PM ^
Sorta getting addicted to these rankings. Have used them in preparation for betting games on the weekend with great success the last 2-3 weeks.
November 17th, 2015 at 2:39 PM ^
I like to add them together as it paints a pretty respectable picture of the conference breakdown...
Offense:
1. Ohio State
2. Michigan State
3. Indiana
4. Nebraska
5. Iowa
6. Michigan
7. Wisconsin
8. Penn State
9. Minnesota
10. Illinois
11. Rutgers
12. Purdue
13. Maryland
14. Northwestern
Defense:
1. Michigan
2. Northwestern
3. Ohio State
4. Penn State
5. Wisconsin
6. Iowa
7. Illinois
8. Minnesota
9. Michigan State
10. Maryland
11. Nebraska
12. Purdue
13. Indiana
14. Rutgers
Overall:
1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Michigan State
4. Iowa
5. Penn State
6. Wisconsin
7. Nebraska
8. Minnesota
9. Northwestern
10. Illinois
11. Indiana
12. Maryland
13, Purdue
14. Rutgers