Implied SRS Ratings of Most College Football Teams

June 10, 2013 College

The Simple Rating System is a set of computer rankings focused on only two variables: strength of schedule and margin of victory. I published weekly college football SRS ratings each week last season, and you can read more about the SRS there. Last month, Jason Lisk of the Big Lead took the Las Vegas point [...]

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Comparing Geno Smith to other Leach-Holgorsen quarterbacks

April 3, 2013 College

What does it mean that Geno Smith comes from a long line of Mike Leach/Dana Holgorsen star quarterbacks? I don’t know. At a minimum, it means he’s part of a very interesting and distinguished set of college quarterbacks. Because few players have dominated college football over the last 15 years like quarterbacks under Mike Leach [...]

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Are Pick Sixes becoming more common in college football, too?

March 31, 2013 Checkdowns

On Thursday, I looked at the increase in pick sixes per interception in the NFL. Brian Fremeau asked if that was also going on at the college level, so let’s take a look. In 2012, there were 159 pick sixes according to cfbstats.com, matching the number provided at Sports-Reference.com. That’s right in line with previous [...]

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Consecutive weeks with a quarterback starting from each college

March 17, 2013 College

There was a streak in jeopardy in week 17 of the 2012 season. With former Trojan Carson Palmer injured, the Raiders skipped over his former USC teammate, Matt Leinart, and started ex-Ohio State Buckeye Terrelle Pryor at quarterback for the season finale. Since the Chiefs had previously benched Matt Cassel for Brady Quinn, if it [...]

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College Football: The Top Passing Games Since 2005

March 3, 2013 College

This week, I looked at the best college quarterback seasons in 2012 and over the last eight years. Today I’m going to do a quick data dump on the top passing performances by a college quarterback since 2005. I’ll be using the same formula as I did before, so check there if you want to [...]

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College Football: The Best Passing Quarterbacks since 2005

February 27, 2013 College

Yesterday, I ranked every quarterback in college football last season. Today, I’ll do the same for every quarterback since 2005. If you read yesterday’s article, you can skip the next three paragraphs, which explain the system I used. I start by calculating each quarterback’s Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, done by starting with passing yards [...]

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College Football: The Best Passing Quarterbacks from 2012

February 26, 2013 College

A few weeks ago, I discovered cfbstats.com, which has made available for download an incredible amount of college football statistics from the last eight seasons. Thanks to them, I plan to apply some of the same techniques I’ve used on NFL numbers over the years to college statistics. If you’re a fan of college football, [...]

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Courtney Upshaw wins back-to-back championships with Alabama and Baltimore

February 5, 2013 College

Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun pointed out an interesting bit of trivia today: Courtney Upshaw has now won back-to-back titles in college and the NFL. Back in October 2009, the Minnesota Vikings were 5-0, and new additions Brett Favre and rookie Percy Harvin were a big part of their success. Harvin had won the [...]

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Fourth and Harbaugh: Which coach is more aggressive?

February 1, 2013 Coaches

I’m going to hold off until Sunday morning to post my Super Bowl preview, but today, I’m going to look at a possible hidden key to the game. In most playoff games, each coach is faced with a critical fourth down decision. Often times the conservative coach delays the decision to go for it in [...]

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Week 15 College Football SRS Ratings

December 9, 2012 College

I didn’t publish my college football SRS ratings last week, but with the conclusion of yesterday’s Army-Navy game, the college football regular season is over. But before we turn our attention to the Bowls, here is a look at the final regular season SRS ratings. I’ve also updated the NCAA Games page, which displays every [...]

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My college football playoff system

December 4, 2012 College

If Friday (or sometimes Thursday) is rant day at Football Perspective, then perhaps the first Tuesday in December can be fantasy day. Since everyone else does it, allow me to describe to you my preferred college playoff system. A modified 8-team playoff that’s actually a 10-team playoff with a four-team “play-in” round. A playoff system [...]

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Previewing the Conference Championship Games

November 30, 2012 College

There are six conference championship games this weekend. Here’s a short preview breaking down this weekend’s action. All times Eastern. MAC Championship (Detroit, MI) Friday, 7PM: Kent State vs. Northern Illinois (-6.0) Weeknight MACtion doesn’t get better than this, and this is one of just two conference championship games featuring two 11-1 teams. The SRS [...]

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A four team playoff in college football would be great, except for the teams left out

November 29, 2012 College

I’ve got a real post ready for tomorrow, so Thursday is Rant Day this week. There’s been a lot of talk this week about how this would be a great year to implement the four-team playoff that’s coming to college football for the 2014 season. I suspect part of that reason is because people are [...]

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Checkdowns: Lane Kiffin’s 4th down decision

November 26, 2012 Checkdowns

Lane Kiffin is not a very good coach, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s one of the most hated men in college football and he’s the face of a USC team that has had the worst season of any preseason favorite since at least 1964. With a 7-5 record, no one is defending Lane Kiffin. [...]

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Checkdowns: FCS ratings and the FCS playoffs

November 25, 2012 Checkdowns

In connection with calculating my college football SRS ratings at the FBS level, I also calculate them at the FCS level but rarely publish them. But with the FCS playoffs underway, I figured, why not? Here are the FCS ratings as of November 25th, 2012: Tweet

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Four SEC Games Give the ACC One Last Chance to Change the Narrative

November 23, 2012 College

Florida-Florida State. Georgia-Georgia Tech. South Carolina-Clemson. And, as a technical matter, Vanderbilt-Wake Forest. I’m not exactly breaking any news when I tell you this, but the ACC is not having a very good year. In the abstract, it might seem like any other elite conference. It has two 10-1 teams and each team has at [...]

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Week 12 College Football SRS Ratings

November 18, 2012 College

Your assumptions are no longer valid. Kansas State entered the weekend as the most balanced team in college football. Through 11 weeks, Baylor ranked 120th in yards allowed and 118th in points allowed. But last night in Waco, the Wildcats were unable to do much of anything on offense. Collin Klein had never thrown more [...]

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Checkdowns: College Team Efficiency Ratings

November 17, 2012 College

Note: There are many things theoretical issues with this post. That said, if I had to write down and explain all the drawbacks of the data I’m about to present, I wouldn’t have the time to make quick posts like this. So…. I thought it would be cool to take a slightly (emphasis on slightly) [...]

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Should Notre Dame be ranked in the Top 2?

November 16, 2012 College

Before I get to the question of the day, below is a quick roundup of some good college football articles I read this week: Bill Connelly, of Football Outsiders and SB Nation, argues that Texas A&M’s victory proves head coach Kevin Sumlin was the right man for the job and that the spread works — [...]

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Chip Kelly is as likely to be the next great coach as anyone else

November 15, 2012 Coaches

I’m a big fan of Mike Tanier, an excellent writer formerly of Football Outsiders and now with Sports on Earth. Yesterday, Tanier threw cold water on the idea that Chip Kelly is going to be the next great NFL coach. Tanier labeled him him this generation’s Steve Spurrier, and argued that it is lazy and [...]

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Week 11 College Football SRS Ratings

November 11, 2012 College

For the second straight season, the game of the year took place in Tuscaloosa. A week after Alabama eeked out a victory over LSU, and 53 weeks after Alabama loss to LSU in last year’s “Game of the Century”, Johnny Manziel produced one of the performances of the season in leading Texas A&M to an [...]

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A guide to Saturday’s games

November 10, 2012 College

The game of the day is in Tuscaloosa, as the #4 team in the SRS tries to ruin the perfect season of the best team in the country. Here’s a look at the weekly results for Alabama and Texas A&M, sorted from highest to lowest SRS score: Both teams blew out Arkansas in September and [...]

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College Football Week 10 SRS Ratings: The Big 4 Survive and Advance

November 4, 2012 College

There were close calls in Baton Rouge and in South Bend, but all six undefeated teams escaped week 10 without a blemish. Ohio State is now the first team to win 10 games in 2012, although the Buckeyes are not eligible to participate in postseason play. Louisville ran its record to 9-0 yesterday, with winnable [...]

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Oregon, Kansas State, and Notre Dame look undervalued this weekend

November 2, 2012 College

November 3rd has been circled on the calendars of college football fans for nearly a year. Unfortunately, the two biggest games of the day — Alabama/LSU and Oregon/USC — will compete for the eyeballs of the nation. The Ducks and Trojans kick off at 7PM on the East Coast, with the Crimson Tide stealing our [...]

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There is only a 10% chance Oregon, Kansas State, and Notre Dame all go undefeated

October 28, 2012 College

Neil once pointed out, that you can approximate a team’s odds of winning a game by using the point spread and the following formula: p(W) = 1 – (1-NORMDIST(0.5,SPREAD,13.86,TRUE))+0.5*(NORMDIST(0.5,SPREAD,13.86,TRUE)-NORMDIST(-0.5,SPREAD,13.86,TRUE)) For college football games, there is research by Wayne Winston and Jeff Sagarin that the standard deviation in the above formula should be 16 instead of [...]

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Week 9 SRS Ratings: When Will Oregon Stop Scoring?

October 28, 2012 College

Oregon’s offense is ridiculous, and its defense and special teams aren’t far behind. Entering this weekend, Oregon had outscored opponents 234-46 … in the first half. Prior to their game against Colorado, Bill Connelly ranked Oregon as the third best defense in college football. Against the horrible Buffaloes, the Ducks didn’t disappoint. Oregon jumped out [...]

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Week 8 SRS Ratings: The Crimson Tide death star marches on

October 21, 2012 College

I didn’t think this was possible. In 2009, Alabama had an incredible defense, ranking 1st or 2nd in points allowed, yards allowed, first downs allowed, completion percentage allowed and rushing yards allowed en route to a 14-0 season and a national title. In the 2010 draft, Rolando McClain and Kareem Jackson went in the first [...]

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Week 7 NCAA SRS Ratings and the B12 lovefest may be back

October 14, 2012 College

Last year, the computers loved the Big 12. The first BCS Standings will be released tonight, and I suspect the B12 will again be viewed favorably by the computers. As a whole, B12 teams have just three nonconference losses, and two of them were by Kansas (to Rice and Northern Illinois). As long as the [...]

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College Football BCS odds

October 13, 2012 College

Before today’s games, I figured we could take a second to look at the latest odds to win the BCS Championship: Tweet

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NCAA SRS Ratings: Week 6

October 7, 2012 College

For the last couple of weeks, I noted that the SEC East was inching its way back towards respectability. In 2009, the West went 12-7 against the East; in 2010, the dominance was much more pronounced, with the West going 16-3, and Ole Miss being responsible for two of the three losses. Last year, the [...]

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