FEI / S&P+ For Big 10 and Selected Others - Week 9
Updated tables below.
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, you could always do an average of the two to get an idea of where any team stands in an "adjusted" fashion.
UM FEI "special teams efficiency" is ranked #1, and "field position advantage" is ranked #19.
NCAA Stats
- Defense: 2
- Offense: 98
(this is based only on yds given up or gained)
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.
| dFEI | dS&P+ | oFEI | oS&P+ | ||
| UM | 2 | 1 | 58 | 45 | |
| OSU | 15 | 12 | 25 | 14 | |
| MSU | 31 | 36 | 12 | 27 | |
| NWestern | 12 | 7 | 88 | 111 | |
| PSU | 9 | 16 | 81 | 59 | |
| Minnesota | 27 | 24 | 95 | 87 | |
| Maryland | 78 | 53 | 90 | 100 | |
| Indiana | 91 | 110 | 33 | 20 | |
| Rutgers | 106 | 116 | 70 | 80 | |
| Nebraska | 87 | 72 | 27 | 44 | |
| Wisconsin | 14 | 6 | 50 | 55 | |
| Iowa | 19 | 9 | 41 | 46 | |
| Purdue | 72 | 67 | 73 | 89 | |
| Illinois | 52 | 13 | 79 | 101 | |
| Utah | 13 | 21 | 39 | 43 | |
| BYU | 61 | 48 | 29 | 29 | |
| Oregon St | 81 | 92 | 109 | 110 | |
| UNLV | 112 | 93 | 99 | 104 | |
| ND | 32 | 35 | 5 | 7 | |
| Bama | 1 | 3 | 26 | 36 | |
| Stanford | 51 | 40 | 7 | 15 | |
| LSU | 23 | 34 | 9 | 6 | |
| TCU | 73 | 56 | 6 | 3 | |
| Baylor | 44 | 69 | 2 | 1 | |
| Arizona | 105 | 115 | 13 | 32 | |
| Clemson | 5 | 4 | 14 | 9 | |
| Oregon | 92 | 97 | 21 | 21 | |
| Oklahoma | 6 | 22 | 17 | 12 | |
| Florida | 7 | 8 | 37 | 37 |
In terms of non OSU teams ahead, PSU is looking like a better version of MN. Very diff defensive strengths for PSU (Dline awesome for PSU while meh for MN, secondary good for MN and just ok for PSU). We know what Indiana is; offense simply will have to put up points. Scarlet Knights just are bad.
November 3rd, 2015 at 11:36 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 3rd, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
I watched that Indiana/Sparty game. The defense held up fairly well against the run, allowing only 3.2 avg. Cook again was making throws all over, or it would have been dicey.
That game will be no gimmy if we can't disrupt Sudfeld. Like everybody else, they'll sell out to stop the run and will have some ability to do so. Very excited to see these last few games before OSU.
November 3rd, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
Offense 98?
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^
Based on yards gained, yes. However, having an excellent return game that sets you up with short fields attributes to this somewhat.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:18 PM ^
Yes NCAA grades offenses only on yds gained (and defenses only on yds given up) Which is why Big 10 defenses rank so well often. Not much QB talent in Big 10 past decade so Big 10 defenses tend to dominate the NCAA stats -- you will often see 7-8 Big 10 defenses in the top 30 most yrs with NCAA stats. Because they are playing a lot of awful offenses. (ACC defenses also benefit from the same situation by the way)
To put in perspective Big 10 offenses as follow:
- #93 - Minn (364.8 yds per game)
- #94 - Purdue (363.6)
- #98 - Mich (358.6)
- #99 - Ill (358.0)
- #104 - PSU (349.3)
- #110 - MD (344.4)
- #116 - NW (331.8)
So that is 7 of the 14 teams in very poor range in terms of total offense. Nearly half the league is below 90.
In non Big 10 terms these are the type of offenses Texas, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Kansas, Syracuse, Virginia bring to the table.
We had 220 yds vs MSU and something like 298 v MN.
We have had a lot of nice short fields to score many of our TDs of late (2 40 yd or less fields vs MN and 2 40 yd or less fields vs MSU) - we have struggled on longer distance drives by and large lately. And without big play ability (see Ozone thread) we don't get cheap yards other teams get.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:23 PM ^
their red zone effieciency is off the charts.
November 3rd, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^
Getting the win in Minnesota in that fashion was good for this team as they prepare for the late November showdown with Penn State. I feel really confident about the next two games and think we have a good shot at being 9-2 heading into The Game. Rooting for Penn State this weekend so they will be 8-2 when we come to town.
November 3rd, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
Anyone else worried about Penn State? I feel like as a whole we've been pretty dismissive of them but they've been taking care of business for the most part.
November 3rd, 2015 at 11:56 AM ^
Yes, I think from last weekend we should realize we cannot dismiss PSU and Indiana. If we play at PSU like we did at Minnesota we will lose.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^
PSU's DL is prob 1st or 2nd in the conf. Which is an issue for UM OL and running game. You can throw on them. If your QB can complete downfield passes and you avoid Nassib's pressure (leads the country in sacks with something ridiculous like 16). Glasgow and the guards are going to have hands full with Zettel and Johnson, 2 of the best DTs in the league.
Offensively Hack is looking better of late and they found a true freshman running back horse in Barkley. Godwin is also a big play wr. Their OL is meh like UMs.
We have the special teams advantage and will need it.
I expect this to be a game decided on the last drive.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^
I no longer like the PSU matchup.
The way to attack Michigan's defense is through the air and PSU is getting better at that week by week. Hackenberg is heating up and while he still struggles with accuracy on shorter passes he is very good throwing the long ball. On passes greater than 15 yards, his QBR is 13th in the country. On passes greater than 25 yards, his QBR is 10th. PSU has a good set of WRs, much better than Minnesota's WRs and while I don't think they have anyone individually as good as Burbridge, collectively the PSU WRs are better than MSU's WRs. I would expect a near Cook type performance from him to be honest.
It will be up to Michigan's DBs to make plays (pass breakups, INTs). Aside from Lewis, the secondary has been underwhelming the past two games.
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:45 PM ^
"On passes greater than 15 yards, his QBR is 13th in the country. On passes greater than 25 yards, his QBR is 10th."
Where do you get that info? Would be useful for the future in scouting opponents and then researching our own i.e. how O'Korn did on those passes in 2013.
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:55 PM ^
I got it from the Big Ten Blog over at ESPN.com. They did a story about Hackenberg and referenced those stats:
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/126264/christian-hackenberg-he…
I'm not sure where the author is pulling that information from though.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
as this season has demonstrated, anyone can beat anyone. Ramp up for Indiana later. Hope we see more disciplined football against Rutgers.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:19 PM ^
If we played like we did against Minnesota we will likely lose to Indiana, Penn State and Ohio State.
Fortunately we've seen that we are capable of playing quite a bit better.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:21 PM ^
We're basically Alabama with a slightly worse offense, I'll take it.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
Well thats' a stretch...20-25 diff is rank is not "slightly". Moving up from say rank 80 to 60 is pretty easy but moving from say 50 to 20 means you hhave to pass a lot of high quality units.
We are basically Iowa or Wisconsin with a bit better defense. Which is fine for year 1 with a mediocre QB - our offense looks like Wisc or Iowa in a typical year right now. Without the high quality rb Wisc always has (Clement has been out almost the entire year for Wisc so their offense is better than stats indicate with him in - he just got back last week)
We are also pretty similar to FL with a slightly worse offense. But they lost their starting QB and are doing quite well with the backup.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:23 PM ^
Rutgers should be the easiest/most overmatched opponent of the year.
After them I still think Indiana will be pretty summarily dispatched. I know people are wringing their hands about their offense, and rightfully so, but I wouldn't be surprised if we just nibbled away at their poor defense and held the ball for 45 minutes. It seems more like a poor matchup for them than for us -- if we force one three and out, we get the ball and plod down the field for nine minutes, and they get gassed. It's like playing 2010 Michigan, except this Indiana offense isn't as statistically celebrated as that one was.
I am irritated at the growing concern over Penn State because it is valid. Hopefully we will smash Rutgers and Indiana in the head and get to Happy Valley pumped up.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^
Yep I think MSU had the ball for 39 min vs Indiana. Indiana put up 26 pts in 21 min vs MSU. We have to do the same. Indiana gave OSU all it could handle in Bloomington. I expect another close one. I'd expect Indiana to attack our safeties a lot as they have multiple decent wrs so it cant just be Lewis covering 1 guy like we can do with rutgers.
November 3rd, 2015 at 12:24 PM ^
I know I'm supposed to be scared of IU but I just am not. I'm sure they'll score some points, but I have to assume that the running game will be able to get on track against them.
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^
Just so I'm clear, we're all a little worried about Indiana. The same Indiana that lost to Rutgers 55-52? And, yes, I know we lost to Rutgers last year, but this Rutgers team isn't that Rutgers team.
The Penn State game, in Happy Valley, at night, is definitely a potential L with The Game looming in the background.
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^
November 3rd, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
If we come out focused, I think we'll beat Ind easily enough. If we come out flat like we did against Minnesota, we could be in trouble.
November 3rd, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^
November 3rd, 2015 at 2:35 PM ^