THE POWER RANK

Tyrann Mathieu wins the September, 2011 Heisman Trophy

By 3 Comments

Mathieu, or Matthew
Tyrann blows up plays, scores points
No brainer, Heisman

If the season ended today, Tyrann Mathieu should win the Heisman Trophy for most outstanding college football player. Mathieu, pronounced “Matthew” if you believe the cultured commentators on ESPN and ABC, plays cornerback and special teams for LSU. At a pint sized 5-9, 185 pounds, he has a propensity for making game changing plays. Against West Virginia this week, he forced two turnovers in the first half, including a play in which he tipped a pass, caught it and ran back to the West Virginia one yard line. Two plays later, LSU punched the ball in for a touchdown to take a 27-7 lead into halftime, effectively killing any hopes of a close game. LSU won 47-20 on the road in Morgantown. During the first week of the season against Oregon, Mathieu stormed down the field on a LSU punt, striped the Oregon returner of the ball, scooped up the ball after a single bounce on the turf, and ran in for a touchdown. The play gave LSU a 9-6 lead and started the Oregon turnover fest that led to a 40-27 LSU win. His knack for creating turnovers doesn’t seem to be an aberration, as Mathieu was a part of 10 turnovers last year as a freshman. Moreover, he starts at cornerback on an LSU defense that many consider one of the nation’s best.

Mathieu’s play resembles that of Lakers guard Derek Fisher, a player whose strips and turnovers changes games. Of course, these hard nosed plays don’t get much attention next to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. At LSU, Mathieu gets overshadowed by mammoth defensive linemen and the even bigger personality of LSU coach Les Miles. But make no mistake, Mathieu has been the most outstanding college football player this year. Want to vote for Landry Jones of Oklahoma for the Heisman? He has a 5-4 touchdown to interception ratio. How about Stanford’s Andrew Luck? Against San Jose State (108), Duke (86) and Arizona (62), he’s completing 67% of his passes, less than the 70.7% from last year. Well, Luck is still a strong candidate, but Mathieu is making plays against Oregon (3), Mississippi State (25) and West Virginia (35). Kellen Moore? No one one in the east or south is voting for a quarterback from Boise State. Voters tend to cling to the numbers that quarterbacks and running backs produce, statistics that are largely dependent on strength of schedule. We’ll have a lot to say later this season about how statistics depend on schedule. But it also helps to watch the games. Tyrann Mathieu has been the most outstanding player in college football this September, but he will have to score 3 touchdowns in a 21-19 win at Alabama later this season to even enter the Heisman discussion.

With their win over West Virginia, LSU remains at 4th in The Power Rank. The algorithm tends to penalize teams that do not score a lot of points, as margin of victory matters. However, LSU has plenty of opportunities to beat highly ranked teams like Alabama and move up. The Tigers look particularly scary with a competent quarterback in Jarrett Lee. Late in the second quarter against West Virginia, LSU faked a run on 3rd and short, and Lee threw a pass towards Odell Beckham. While Beckham had to jump to make the catch, Lee’s pass was accurate enough that Beckham never broke stride and beat the West Virginia defense to endzone. Lee’s zero interceptions in this game must seem remarkable to a fan base that saw him throw 16 interceptions in 2008. In general this season, LSU has enjoyed large turnover margins against Oregon (4-1) and West Virginia (4-0). Perhaps we should revise our thoughts about Les Miles and his lucky ways?

1. Boise State. Boise State led Tulsa 34-0 in the middle of the third quarter when they pulled quarterback Kellen Moore. The won 41-21 but left room to wonder whether the margin of victory could have been larger. In the end, it doesn’t matter this week, as our rolling one year window of games dropped a win against Oregon State last year. While this win was solid against last year’s Oregon State team, the Beavers are having a terrible season, losing to Sacramento State at home, going 0-3 and dropping to 67th in The Power Rank. Boise State remains on top.

2. Alabama. With the help of both a special teams and a defensive touchdown, Alabama rolled over Arkansas 38-14. Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron threw for 10.0 yards per pass attempt with 20 attempts, and the Tide had zero turnovers. This ability to take care of the ball seems characteristic of Nick Saban’s teams, as Alabama has always ended the year with a positive turnover margin since Saban took over in 2007 according to College Football Stats.

3. Oregon. The Duck’s road game against Arizona provided a chance to compare Oregon with Stanford, who beat Arizona 37-10 last week in Tuscon. Oregon won 56-31, and the 25 point margin of victory is very similar to the 27 point margin of Stanford. However, Oregon’s offense scored more points while Stanford’s defense held Arizona to fewer points. Oregon accumulated 8.8 yards per rush attempt for 415 total rushing yards against Arizona.

4. LSU. Urban Meyer joined the ABC crew late in the game against West Virginia. They reminded him about the miracle fake field goal attempt that Les Miles called against Meyer’s Florida team last year. Watch how the ball just bounces right into the kickers hands, one of the huge reasons we asked last year whether Les Miles has sold his soul.

5. Oklahoma. The Sooners avenged last year’s loss to Missouri with a 38-28 win in Norman. However, Oklahoma didn’t come close to covering the 20 point spread. The defense allowed Missouri quarterback James Franklin to throw for 8.8 yards per attempt while running back Henry Josey racked up 9.5 yards per carry, including a 48 yard touchdown run. This wasn’t the performance of a national championship team, and The Power Rank rightly places Oklahoma at 5th.

6. Stanford. Take a week off and drop 3 places? For these early season rankings, we’re using a one year window of games and counting this year’s games twice. This system dropped a definitive 37-14 Stanford win over 21st ranked Notre Dame from the games used in the rankings. However, in rankings that only consider this year’s games, Stanford is 2nd behind Alabama. The Cardinal must wait awhile before getting any top ranked competition, as they face UCLA (90), Colorado (73) and Washington State (74) over the next 3 weeks.

7. Wisconsin. Despite the weak competition against UNLV (110), Oregon State (67) and Northern Illinois (52), Wisconsin has moved from a 15.4 rating at the start of the season to 18.4. This rating is inflated a bit since the ranking considers Oregon State and Northern Illinois games from last year when these two teams were much better. However, we’ll find out more about Wisconsin when Nebraska visits Madison this weekend. Bet against quarterback Russell Wilson throwing for 12.5 yards per pass attempt against Nebraska.

8. Oklahoma State. In one of the strangest plays ever, stellar Oklahoma State receiver Justin Blackmon just dropped the ball a yard from the endzone. Oklahoma State led 24-20 at this point in the 3rd quarter and luckily didn’t need this score to prevail 30-29 against Texas A&M. In our preview, we noted that Texas A&M held Oklahoma State to only 6.8 yards per pass attempt last year in Stillwater. This year, Brandon Weeden threw for 438 yards but still only managed to get 7.3 yards per attempt. However, it wasn’t enough in this close game.

9. Auburn. Are the Tigers still in the top ten? Rankings are never perfect, and Auburn remains in the top ten based on last year’s games in the moving one year window of games. For rankings with only this year’s games, Auburn is 44th with a 3.78 rating.

10. TCU. The jury is still out on this TCU team. In the last two weeks, they have beat up on Louisiana Monroe and Portland State. Louisiana Monroe did take a 17-14 lead in the 1st quarter before the Horned Frogs steam rolled them 38-14. In rankings with only this year’s games, TCU is 26th, which is not an unreasonable guess at where this team will end the season.

TCU and other teams that make early season rankings difficult

By Leave a Comment

Long road to the top
Coach Patterson, TCU
Rose Bowl hangover?

There’s always a long road before true success. Gary Patterson’s road started in Davis, California. In the 80’s, this sleepy suburb of Sacramento had an innovative football program that won 20 straight conference championships in Division II. Boise State coach Chris Peterson and former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti both spent time at UC Davis. In 1986, Patterson got the job as co-linebackers coach, a position that paid $1,500… at the end of the season. He made ends meet through the generosity of others. It wasn’t glamorous, but Patterson learned about the flex defense that Tom Landry developed with the Dallas Cowboys, the foundation for the record setting defenses Patterson has coached at TCU.

In the late 90’s, Patterson found himself as the defensive coordinator at TCU when head coach Dennis Franchione left for Alabama. His old boss told TCU that Patterson wasn’t ready to be head coach. The school disagreed, and Patterson has turned TCU into an annual contender. Franchione, on the other hand, is now the coach at Texas A&M… oh wait, he resigned after going 19-21 in Big 12 play in 5 years. No, he’s the coach at Texas… oh wait, they would never hire a guy who sold a secret newsletter about this team at Texas A&M. Franchione recently took the head coaching job at Texas State. At least the Bobcats step up to the top subdivision of Division I football next year. Coaches may want to think twice before leaving a good situation with a great defensive coordinator.

Gary Patterson has brought TCU to the pinnacle of college football, winning 99 games over the last ten years and the Rose Bowl over Wisconsin last year. But this year, the Horned Frogs are one of those teams that make early season rankings so hard. They lost senior quarterback Andy Dalton, 4 of 5 starters on the offensive line, and 6 starters on defense. In their season opener, TCU lost 50-48 to a Baylor team they thumped 45-10 last year. Patterson’s secondary, which returns no starters from last year, gave up 6 touchdown passes and 14.3 yards per pass attempt. This past week against Air Force, TCU won 35-19 but the defense gave up 5.8 yards per carry compared to 4.5 last year against Air Force. With these two weak performances from the defense, it’s not clear whether this TCU team will end up 7th or higher in The Power Rank at the end of the season. This week, we highlight other teams whose early season rank might not reflect their true strength.

2. Oregon. The Ducks lost 3 offensive linemen and 6 starters on defense. They make this list largely due to their 69-20 win over Nevada this weekend. Nevada ended last season 11th in The Power Rank, but they might not sustain such a high rank this year. While they ended 2010 with a 15.0 rating, they averaged a -1.6 rating the 5 seasons before that. So Oregon’s win this past weekend might not mean as much by the end of the year.

4. Auburn. The Tigers lost quarterback Cam Newton and only had 6 returning starters overall. Last week, they should have lost to Utah State at home. However, they rebounded this week to beat 19th ranked Mississippi State by 7 at home with a brilliant goal line stand as time expired. But it’s reasonable to question whether Auburn will end the season as high as 4th.

36. Notre Dame. Thank you, fighting Irish, for having two turnovers within twenty yards of Michigan’s endzone. Thank you, Irish, for giving up 28 points in the fourth quarter. The Power Rank made its first prediction in which some common sense about turnovers modified our calculations. While we said Notre Dame would cover the 3 points they were favored by, they lost by 4 when Michigan drove 80 yards in 0:28 for the winning touchdown with 0:02 left in the game. We would make the same call every time. While many expected Notre Dame to content for a major bowl this year, their performance so far this year makes a rise in the rankings questionable.

Rankings through Saturday, September 10.

1. Boise State, 13-1, 23.52
2. Oregon, 12-3, 22.25
3. Alabama, 12-3, 20.73
4. Auburn, 16-0, 20.31
5. LSU, 13-2, 19.91
6. Stanford, 14-1, 19.83
7. TCU, 13-2, 19.73
8. Arkansas, 12-3, 17.12
9. Wisconsin, 13-2, 16.57
10. Oklahoma, 12-2, 15.59
11. Ohio State, 14-1, 15.38
12. Virginia Tech, 15-1, 15.13
13. Oklahoma State, 13-2, 14.75
14. Nebraska, 12-4, 13.60
15. Florida State, 11-3, 13.25
16. South Carolina, 11-5, 12.60
17. Missouri, 10-5, 12.06
18. Texas A&M, 9-4, 11.64
19. Mississippi State, 10-5, 11.09
20. Arizona State, 8-6, 10.67
21. West Virginia, 11-4, 10.33
22. San Diego State, 11-4, 9.33
23. Nevada, 11-3, 9.23
24. North Carolina State, 9-6, 8.74
25. Florida, 10-5, 8.66

Boise State tops Week 1 rankings

By Leave a Comment

March into the South
Win a game, beat SEC
Boise State earns top

College football is back. After months of talk and speculation, fans can finally enjoy a weekend of action with some meaningful games. Boise State marched into the heart of the south and beat Georgia. Oregon traveled to Dallas to face LSU but didn’t fare as well. Final exams in college football start week 1, and we found out a bit about some teams with national championship aspirations. However, a single game for each team doesn’t give The Power Rank much data to contemplate. In fact, we usually only use games from the current year, which implies waiting until week 4 for the first rankings. With such sparse data, one got whiplash trying to following the rankings those early weeks, as teams would bounce from 20th to 60th to 14th in the span of weeks (USC last year). This year, our early season rankings use a moving one year window of games. For week 1, we use all games since week 2 of last year, and this season’s games have twice the importance as last year’s games.

With this system, Boise State tops our week 1 rankings. They played a road game against Georgia in Atlanta and won 35-21. The margin of victory could have been larger, as Boise State got the ball on downs at the Georgia 3 yard line with 8 seconds remaining. Instead of attempting to impress any voters with another score, they kneeled on the ball. Classy. Oregon finished atop the rankings last season but dropped to second after a 40-27 loss to LSU. In the AP poll, the Ducks dropped from 3rd to 13th. This highlights the key distinction between The Power Rank and human rankings: homo sapiens place an enormous importance on the recent past. The algorithm, as it contains games from last year, remembers that Oregon was a pretty good team last year. Particularly towards the end of this season, we’ll see how The Power Rank tends to stabilize while human polls will make drastic changes based on a single game.

1. Boise State. Rivals.com had Kellen Moore as the 31st best quarterback in the 2006 recruiting class. The most similar quarterback was Matt Ballenger, who went to Colorado. One day, we here at The Power Rank hope to understand the success of the Boise State football program. Part of the answer must be their ability to recruit good football players no matter how goofy they look.

2. Oregon. Against LSU, the Ducks had 4 turnovers, including a play in which punt returner Kenyon Barner handed the ball to LSU for a touchdown. No team in America is going to beat a tough LSU team when they lose the turnover battle 4-1.

3. Auburn. Utah State marched into Jordan-Hare stadium and held a 38-28 lead with 3:38 left in the game against the defending national champions. Auburn needed two touchdown drives sandwiched around a recovered onside kick to win the game. Coach Gene Chizik said, “Offensively and defensively we’re a long way off of being able to win very many games right now.”

6. TCU. Baylor scored 50 points against TCU on Friday night. In 8 games, the Mountain West scored 75 points against TCU last year. The Horned Frogs lost a wild game to Baylor in which they overcame a 24 point 4th quarter deficit before losing on a field goal. What kind of adjustments will coach Gary Patterson make after this game?

7. LSU. Quarterback Jarrett Lee threw for 4.5 yards an attempt against Oregon. He missed a number of short, easy throws during the game. What would LSU look like with Darron Thomas as quarterback?

Rankings after Week 1, 2011.

1. Boise State, 13-1, 24.31
2. Oregon, 11-3, 20.71
3. Auburn, 15-0, 20.02
4. Stanford, 13-1, 19.84
5. Alabama, 11-3, 19.54
6. TCU, 12-2, 19.04
7. LSU, 12-2, 18.72
8. Ohio State, 13-1, 17.74
9. Oklahoma, 13-2, 17.06
10. Arkansas, 11-3, 16.15
11. Nevada, 12-1, 15.50
12. Wisconsin, 12-2, 15.02
13. Virginia Tech, 13-2, 13.79
14. Nebraska, 11-4, 13.62
15. Missouri, 11-3, 13.15
16. Oklahoma State, 12-2, 12.41
17. Texas A&M, 10-4, 11.77
18. South Carolina, 10-5, 11.63
19. Florida State, 11-4, 11.54
20. North Carolina State, 10-4, 10.49
21. Iowa, 9-5, 10.42
22. West Virginia, 10-4, 10.14
23. San Diego State, 10-4, 10.09
24. Arizona State, 7-6, 9.53
25. Mississippi State, 10-4, 8.59

College Football Wrap Up

By Leave a Comment

With the conclusion of bowl season, two thing stand out. First, the National Championship game was absolutely unpredictable. Auburn’s much maligned defense dominated Oregon’s high powered running game. Oregon’s defense held quarterback Cam Newton in check. In the end, Auburn won by 3 as the SEC took home its 5th straight national championship. With Oregon as an almost 10 point favorite, The Power Rank got this one wrong.

Second, Black New Year’s for the Big Ten. The powers from the Midwest went 0-5 in New Year’s Day games, including an embarassing loss by co-champion Michigan State to Alabama. While The Power Rank missed the championship game, we were more accurate on the Big Ten. Ohio State and Wisconsin are good; everyone else is mediocre. Ohio State won a dramatic Sugar Bowl against Arkansas, while there’s no shame in Wisconsin’s close loss to TCU in the Rose Bowl. (OK, Badgers fans might disagree, but TCU is a solid program). Four other Big Ten teams lost, while Iowa needed a late interception returned for a touchdown to beat Missouri.

Overall, The Power Rank predictions went 16 for 29 against the line for a 55% win percentage. In addition, there was a push in the Auburn Oregon game and 5 games in which our system would not bet because our predictions were too close to the line. Not bad for an algorithm that doesn’t have any information about injuries or even understands the rules of American tackle football. In arriving at these results, we took lines from USA Today the night before each game. A hypothetical bet was made against the most favorable line. For example, Auburn was both a 2.5 and 3 point favorite against Oregon. Since we had Oregon winning by almost 10, we took Auburn -3. The game was a push. Strangely, the line moved to Oregon by 1 by the time the game kicked off.