College Football 2012

How Safe Is Oregon From An Upset Against Stanford?

With Alabama’s loss to Texas A&M last week, Kansas State and Oregon are the front runners to play in the national championship game. However, there is plenty of time for more upsets. With Stanford traveling to Eugene to play Oregon on Saturday night, how vulnerable are the Ducks?

Our teams rankings predict that Oregon will win by 3 touchdowns at home. This differs only slightly from the Vegas line of 20.5. But lumping an entire team into a single rating does not tell the entire story.

We have taken our team ranking algorithm and applied it to football specific statistics like yards per play. The result is rankings for offense and defense that account for strength of schedule. For Stanford, it separates an elite defense from an average offense. We also rank offense and defense for passing and rushing using yards per attempt.

It’s most convenient to consume these results in match up visuals. Below, we show the results for Stanford at Oregon. Better defenses have a blue dot further to the right. When shown next to an opposing offense, the unit with the dot further to the right is predicted to have an advantage.

These visuals let you instantly evaluate a game. Sports Illustrated used them in previewing Alabama and LSU two weeks ago in their November 5th issue. To learn more, click here.

What do they say about Oregon’s chances of staying undefeated?

When Oregon has the ball

Oregon’s offense scores so many points that head coach Chip Kelly often pulls his starters well before the end of the game. To account for this, we’ve combed through the play logs to identify drives in which the starters played. Through last week, we documented all the details in this post. For the blowout at California last weekend, we use plays until Oregon got the ball up 52-17 with 9:38 left in the 4th quarter.

These adjustments bump up Oregon’s offense in all categories. However, it may be surprising that Oregon’s pass offense ranks 21st. The last two weeks, quarterback Marcus Mariota has had two brilliant performances against USC and California. When we consider all the drives that Mariota has played this season, Oregon has not had an elite passing game. But a freshman can certainly improve over the season. A stand out game against Stanford’s 4th ranked pass defense will even convince our algorithm.

Can Stanford slow down the Ducks’ offense? They haven’t the last two years. But Stanford’s defense, led by linebackers Chase Thomas and Shane Skov, have made the leap to elite status this season. They must first slow down Oregon’s running game. Then they need to get pressure on Mariota when he drops back to throw. It’s a tall order, but Stanford has a better defense than any team Oregon has faced all year.

When Stanford has the ball

The visual shows the average play of Stanford’s offense this season. However, these season long numbers do not distinguish between the quarterback play of a nervous Josh Nunes versus a speedy Kevin Hogan. Head coach David Shaw gave the reigns to Hogan two weeks ago against Colorado.

When using drives with Hogan at quarterback, Stanford’s offense ranks 11th in the nation in adjusted yards per play. This is quite a contrast from their 47th rankings using all plays. Hogan has improved both the passing and rushing game:

Pass offense: 40th to 8th.
Rush offense: 55th to 15th.

Hogan has played against Colorado and Oregon State, the 112th and 30th ranked defenses by our numbers, the last two weeks.

However, two games does not offer a lot of data. While Stanford’s offense has most likely improved with Hogan, it’s far from certain the Cardinal are the 11th best offense in the nation. Look for the offense to score points against an Oregon defense riddled with injuries on the line and the secondary.

Oregon’s chance to remain undefeated

Our team rankings give Oregon an 87% chance to remain undefeated. But their injuries along the defensive line alone should worry Duck fans. The Vegas line started at 24 but dropped to 20.5. It might be a closer game than anyone expects.

Thanks for reading.

Will The SEC Still Make The BCS Title Game?

By Dr. Ed Feng 5 Comments

When Alabama lost to Texas A&M this weekend, it left no undefeated SEC teams. In response, my friend Chris Haddock, a family practice doctor and raging Georgia Bulldogs fan, posted this on Facebook:

UGA has one win against a BCS Top 10 opponent. Florida has three. Alabama has two. Comined Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame have ZERO. Nada. Zilch. If the SEC Championship Game winner doesn’t play for the national championship then it is a tainted title to whichever of these undeserving non-SEC teams wins.

Since the SEC has won the last 6 national championships, many will share this sentiment.

And our numbers agree. Alabama only dropped to 2nd behind Oregon in our rankings, and 6 of the top 10 teams come from the SEC. With this many good teams in a conference, you expect every team to lose at least once.

The question becomes whether the SEC champion, either Alabama or 7th ranked Georgia, makes the BCS title game. For this to happen, two of these 3 teams must lose.

Oregon.

Team rank: 1st.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 58.7%.
Toughest remaining game: 76.3% chance to beat Oregon State.

Kansas State.

Team rank: 3rd.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 64%.
Toughest remaining game: 80% chance to beat Texas.

Notre Dame.

Team rank: 8th.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 41.4%.
Toughest remaining game: 44% chance to beat USC.

Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be able to publish Chris’s next post if Notre Dame squeaks past USC and into the national title game ahead of the SEC champion.

Last week, Alper Akanser, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech, took our undefeated probabilities and determined the chance that 0, 1, 2… teams would remain undefeated. This week, his code gives a 42.7% chance that 0 or 1 teams remain undefeated, opening the door for the SEC champion.

That’s pretty good odds for the SEC.

How Likely is BCS Chaos?

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, we calculated that Alabama, Kansas State, Oregon and Notre Dame had a 6.7% chance to all remain undefeated. Alper Akanser, a member of The Power Rank, went one step further. Using our probability for each team to remain undefeated, he calculated the likelihood that any number of teams remain undefeated.

0 of 4 teams remain undefeated: 5.4%.
1 of 4 teams remain undefeated: 23.5%.
2 of 4 teams remain undefeated: 38.0%.
3 of 4 teams remain undefeated: 26.4%.
4 of 4 teams remain undefeated: 6.7%.

For those of us keen to inflict extra embarrassment upon the lame duck BCS system, there’s a 33.1% chance that at least 3 of these teams remain undefeated.

Thanks, Alper. We appreciate others doing work for us 🙂

How Digging Through Play Logs Helps Evaluate Oregon

By Dr. Ed Feng 2 Comments

Oregon is a difficult team to pin down with analytics. Head coach Chip Kelly’s up tempo offense scores so many points that the starters hit the bench in the 2nd quarter. The rest of the game doesn’t reflect the performance of the first string players.

You know, the players that would be on the field in a big game against Alabama.

At The Power Rank, we adjust statistics like yards per play for strength of schedule. For Oregon, their numbers against USC matter more than those against Tennessee Tech.

However, using the box score does not accurately portray the performance of Oregon’s starters. We dug into the play logs to find the drives in which the starters played. First, we looked for when Kelly pulled starting quarterback Marcus Mariota after taking a huge lead. This usually corresponded to the time at which back ups started making tackles on defense. The remainder of the game was excluded when calculating statistics such as rush yards per attempt.

Oregon’s Rush Defense

With these filtered statistics, Oregon made small improvements in most categories. For example, their defense ranking, which comes from adjusting yards per play for strength of schedule, rose from 17th to 13th. However, one category jumped out: rush defense. The Ducks rose from 51st in the nation to 18th. Two games had the most effect on these results:

Arkansas State rushed 6.11 yards per attempt (226 yards on 37 carries) for the game, but only 2.17 yards per attempt before Oregon took a 50-3 lead in the 2nd quarter.
Tennessee Tech rushed for 3.56 yards per attempt (146 yards on 41 carries), but only 2.0 yards per attempt before Oregon took a 42-7 lead in the 3rd quarter.

While the 51st rush defense might have problems stopping Eddie Lacy and the Alabama rushing attack, the 18th ranked defense would most likely fare better.

Oregon’s Offense

On offense, Oregon went from the 11th to 6th after filtering the drives. The Ducks have the best rushing attack in the nation but only the 39th pass offense. To slow down Oregon’s offense, a defense must take away the run and make freshman quarterback Mariota throw the ball. On their remaining schedule, only Stanford (3rd) has an elite rush defense. However, the Ducks have had their way with Stanford the last two years.

From our premium product, here’s a look at how Oregon matches up with Stanford next weekend.

Match Up Visual from The Power Rank. Better defenses are plotted further to the right. The unit with blue dot further to the right is predicted to have an advantage in the match up.

Full Disclosure on Oregon’s Play Logs

These were the last plays included in each game.

Arkansas State. Oregon goes up 50-3 with 7:34 remaining in the 2nd quarter.
Fresno State. Entire game, as Oregon didn’t pull away until late.
Tennessee Tech. Oregon goes up 42-7 with 13:11 remaining in the 3rd quarter.
Arizona. Entire game, as Mariota takes a snap late in 4th quarter, even though Oregon led 42-0.
Washington State. Up 51-19, Oregon holds on 4th and 7 with 8:15 remaining in the 4th quarter.
Washington. Oregon goes up 45-14 with 14:39 remaining in the 4th quarter.
Arizona State. End of 1st half with Oregon up 43-7.
Colorado. Oregon goes up 49-0 with 7:02 left in 2nd quarter.
USC. Entire game.

If you’re a Ducks fan that closely follows these games, please let us know if this makes sense in the comments. Thanks for reading.

14 Reasons The Top 4 BCS Teams Won’t All Remain Undefeated

By Dr. Ed Feng 6 Comments

The Playoff PAC made this trophy for those undefeated teams that do not play in the National Championship game.

If Alabama, Kansas State, Oregon and Notre Dame remain undefeated, there will be some angry college football fan in early December. The antiquated BCS can pick only 2 teams for its championship game. The four team playoff that will grace this sport in 2014 can’t come soon enough.

However, the likelihood that all 4 teams remain undefeated is small. To understand why, assume these teams have a 80% chance to win each of their remaining games. The 80% reflects the dominance of these teams, and the uniform win probability makes the math simple. Including the conference championship games, these teams have 14 games remaining. The probability that they all remain undefeated is 0.8 to the 14th power, or 4.4%.

Not very likely.

What Retirement Says About College Football

To understand why this probability is so small, consider a retirement account. If this investment returns 10% annually, then $10,000 becomes $11,000 next year but compounds to $174,494 in 30 years. In the opposite way, the chance these teams remain undefeated decreases rapidly with the number of remaining games. Your mathematician friends call this an exponential decrease. The 14 remaining games are the reasons we won’t likely see four undefeated teams at season’s end.

Again, the 80% win probability is a uniform number that simplifies the math in showing the exponential decrease. On the field, Alabama has a higher likelihood (81.1%) of beating Texas A&M on Saturday. With the more realistic win probabilities of The Power Rank, there is a 6.7% chance these 4 teams remain undefeated. This includes an Alabama versus Georgia SEC championship game. Also, it assumes UCLA, the most likely team to win the Pac-12 South, travels to Oregon for the Pac-12 championship game.

Detailed Breakdown of the Four Teams.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the remaining defeated teams. The team rank come from our college football rankings. The offense and defense rankings results from adjusting yards per play for strength of schedule.

Alabama. Either the Crimson Tide pass defense had an off night against LSU or Zack Mettenberger became Andrew Luck overnight. The former is more likely.

Team rank: 1st.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 58.7%.
Toughest remaining game: 75.6% chance to beat Georgia.
Offense rank: 1st.
Defense rank: 2nd.

Kansas State. While Colin Klein’s arm motion isn’t pretty, he is leading the 4th best pass offense according to our numbers.

Team rank: 3rd.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 57.1%.
Toughest remaining game: 82.2% chance to beat TCU.
Offense rank: 7th.
Defense rank: 30th.

Oregon. Can a team slow down Oregon’s rushing attack enough to make freshman quarterback Marcus Mariota beat them? While Stanford has the 3rd best rush defense, the Ducks have made them look silly the past two years.

Team rank: 2nd.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 48.2%.
Toughest remaining game: 72.4% chance to beat Oregon State.
Offense rank: 6th.
Defense rank: 13th.

Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish were 5th in our rankings before their near death experience at home against Pitt.

Team rank: 9th.
Probability of remaining undefeated: 41.6%.
Toughest remaining game: 49.7% chance to beat USC.
Offense rank: 23rd.
Defense rank: 11th.

What do you think?

Will these teams all remain undefeated? Who will go down first? Please leave us a comment.