Statistical Rationalization of Football Mediocrity
Category: Sports (Pro/College/HS)...
Posted Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 03:40 PM [GMT-6]

The meat of the college football season is over, and while some interesting match-ups loom in those conferences that have playoffs, fans of the upper tier teams can start speculating about the high profile bowl games that await their programs. The rest of us must be content with defining success (or explaining the lack thereof) statistically.

One of the favorite rationalizations for a lack of success focuses on strength of schedule. "Sure, so-and-so had a better record than my team, but they also played a bunch of pansies." Now, while I'm not usually one to resort to such excuses, that just so happens to be my story this season, and it's a good one (in my opinion, anyway). A&M finished the regular season at 7-5, a pretty dismal showing for one of the largest universities in the country, and one of the highest paid (former) coaches. On the other hand, compared to some of its rivals, A&M really did have a tougher row to hoe. Here's a quick statistical comparison, which I'm sure you'll find riveting:

A&M Kansas UT
Opponents Winning % 61.3% 43.0% 49.3%
# of Opponents >.500 7 3 5
5 or < wins 3 7 6
9 or > wins 4 1 2
# of Ranked Opp* 4 2* 2*
Schedule Rank** 3 82 63

*Includes Kansas State, which ended the season at 5-7
**Out of 119 schools in the Football Bowl Series (FBS) subdivision of NCAA football (see the official NCAA stats website for details)

Kansas, in particular, had a "Perfect Storm" kind of schedule this season, in that it didn't play Oklahoma, Texas, or Texas Tech. The two opponents on its schedule with the best records, other than Missouri, were A&M and Central Michigan, both of which ended up 7-5. It had one opponent with no wins (Florida International), and three with only 3 wins (SE Louisiana, Baylor, and Iowa State).

Now, I'm not denigrating what KU accomplished, because they still beat every team they faced until the last game, and both A&M and UT lost to teams with overall losing records (Miami and Kansas State, respectively). I'm a KU fan, for personal reasons, and I hope they draw a good bowl and win it in impressive fashion. Nevertheless, it's hard to dispute the contention that they faced an overall less formidable set of foes than did, say, A&M (whom they beat, by the way).

So, there you have it. Indisputable evidence that there's much more to the game of football than wins and losses. Especially when your team doesn't have enough of the former.

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Comments

There's no doubt that KU had to have all of its stars in alignment to perform as well as they did this season. so your statistics do prove that out. ;-) It's too bad they couldn't sinc up until the 4th quarter in the game against MU. I hope they get a shot at a good bowl game.

Posted by: gwynne at November 27, 2007 05:04 PM

Wow. That was... thorough.

Posted by: Jim at November 27, 2007 06:44 PM

As a Baylor fan, I think you are looking at this all wrong-- You should think of it more like golf and reward low scores. Baylor would take most categories in head to head NCAA Div 1 football matchups.
Examples--

Wins-3
Sellouts-0
Bluechip high school recruits Winning streaks-2

Go Bears

Posted by: Mark M at November 27, 2007 09:56 PM

stars in alignment

That's a good way to put it. It'll be interesting to see if and how they build on what they accomplished.

Jim, anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

Mark, I've heard stories about the mythical Baylor fan, but never realized they actually existed! You guys are like, what...unicorns? ;-) [I do remember when A&M used to lose regularly to Baylor, so I know your alma mater has the potential. But, now that I think about it, A&M lost regularly to everybody.]

Posted by: Eric at November 27, 2007 10:04 PM
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