Geek Stats/Polls: Football Edition

[loran16]

So we do the Geek Poll thread for basketball, but I think it's appropriate now to keep track of these for football. They are very interesting.

First the one everyone knows about, Sagarin (which is actually 4 different rankings) - found here: http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm. Duke comes in at the following:
ELO (Used by BCS): 54
Predictor (Pure score based): 47th
Dimin Curve (Combination of ELO and score-based methods): 50th
Average of rankings: 50th.

For Comparison, last year's Duke team ranked 68th in ELO and 76th in the Predictor.
For other comparison, Duke's remaining opponents are ranked 86th (NC State), 31st (Miami), 75th (Wake), and 53rd (UNC) in the Predictor.

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Sagarin isn't the only geek poll out there. Football Outsiders maintains 2, the FEI Ratings and the S&P+ Ratings (as well as a fusion of the two ratings, known as F/+). Right now only FEI are updated for this week (S&P+ and the fusion will update tomorrow). FEI can be found here: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei

To explain FEI, it is described as:


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.

Duke in FEI shows up at 27th in the nation, just one spot below Notre Dame! Duke Ranks 11th in Offense and 64th on Defense.
For Comparison's sake, Duke last year was ranked 87th in FEI.
For further comparison, Duke's remaining opponents show up at 94th (NC State), 11th (Miami), 76th (Wake), and 48th (UNC).


I'll update when the S&P+ comes out tomorrow, but basically all the geek polls really like Duke as a quality team better than last year and as clear better teams over 3 of our remaining 4 opponents. Damn.

[Dev11]

So we do the Geek Poll thread for basketball, but I think it's appropriate now to keep track of these for football. They are very interesting.

First the one everyone knows about, Sagarin (which is actually 4 different rankings) - found here: http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm. Duke comes in at the following:
ELO (Used by BCS): 54
Predictor (Pure score based): 47th
Dimin Curve (Combination of ELO and score-based methods): 50th
Average of rankings: 50th.

For Comparison, last year's Duke team ranked 68th in ELO and 76th in the Predictor.
For other comparison, Duke's remaining opponents are ranked 86th (NC State), 31st (Miami), 75th (Wake), and 53rd (UNC) in the Predictor.

----------------------------------------

Sagarin isn't the only geek poll out there. Football Outsiders maintains 2, the FEI Ratings and the S&P+ Ratings (as well as a fusion of the two ratings, known as F/+). Right now only FEI are updated for this week (S&P+ and the fusion will update tomorrow). FEI can be found here: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei

To explain FEI, it is described as:



Duke in FEI shows up at 27th in the nation, just one spot below Notre Dame! Duke Ranks 11th in Offense and 64th on Defense.
For Comparison's sake, Duke last year was ranked 87th in FEI.
For further comparison, Duke's remaining opponents show up at 94th (NC State), 11th (Miami), 76th (Wake), and 48th (UNC).


I'll update when the S&P+ comes out tomorrow, but basically all the geek polls really like Duke as a quality team better than last year and as clear better teams over 3 of our remaining 4 opponents. Damn.

Nice post. I would quibble with your summary, though, as UNC is just barely behind us in Sagarin, and neither Wake nor State are considerably far away. Those games should all be competitive, but according to the dorks, we would currently be the favorites to keep the coveted North Carolina Cup (fake) and the Victory Bell (oh so very real).

[loran16]

Nice post. I would quibble with your summary, though, as UNC is just barely behind us in Sagarin, and neither Wake nor State are considerably far away. Those games should all be competitive, but according to the dorks, we would currently be the favorites to keep the coveted North Carolina Cup (fake) and the Victory Bell (oh so very real).

You're correct and incorrect in not going far enough: We are big favorites over State, but since UNC is at home for the finale, they actually would be favored if you went solely by Sagarin #s.

Of course, Duke is only a 3 point dog at home to Miami for the same reasons

[devildeac]

You're correct and incorrect in not going far enough: We are big favorites over State, but since UNC is at home for the finale, they actually would be favored if you went solely by Sagarin #s.

Of course, Duke is only a 3 point dog at home to Miami for the same reasons

Maybe Ross Martin is good for a couple extra FG that game to overcome that difference;).

[loran16]

Maybe Ross Martin is good for a couple extra FG that game to overcome that difference;).

For what it's worth, Duke right now has had the 3rd best results on opposing FGs by the FO Measures. Given that this doesn't count blocks, I'm pretty sure that's a bit of luck we can't expect to continue - but their D measures don't include that fact, so whatever.

[Reilly]

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2013-standings.html

Click on the SRS column to order the teams.

Duke's SRS is 8.43. So ...
... 3 points better than UNC
... 4 points better than WFU
... 9 points better than NCSU
... 7 points worse than Miami

[on a neutral field, I guess]

[devildeac]

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2013-standings.html

Click on the SRS column to order the teams.

Duke's SRS is 8.43. So ...
... 3 points better than UNC
... 4 points better than WFU
... 9 points better than NCSU
... 7 points worse than Miami

[on a neutral field, I guess]

It'll also depend on how many head hunters Larry Sombrero has on his squad compared to Butchy. Next to last time we played over there (I think), there were at least 6 personal foul flags on the cheaters for late/head hits on our QB and WR. There coulda been 3-5 more:mad:. That mighta been worth 6-7 points. Still a loss then as I think the final was about 19-6, but a huuuge intimidation factor.

[Listen to Quants]

So we do the Geek Poll thread for basketball, but I think it's appropriate now to keep track of these for football. They are very interesting.

First the one everyone knows about, Sagarin (which is actually 4 different rankings) - found here: http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm. Duke comes in at the following:
ELO (Used by BCS): 54
Predictor (Pure score based): 47th
Dimin Curve (Combination of ELO and score-based methods): 50th
Average of rankings: 50th.

For Comparison, last year's Duke team ranked 68th in ELO and 76th in the Predictor.
For other comparison, Duke's remaining opponents are ranked 86th (NC State), 31st (Miami), 75th (Wake), and 53rd (UNC) in the Predictor.

----------------------------------------

Sagarin isn't the only geek poll out there. Football Outsiders maintains 2, the FEI Ratings and the S&P+ Ratings (as well as a fusion of the two ratings, known as F/+). Right now only FEI are updated for this week (S&P+ and the fusion will update tomorrow). FEI can be found here: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei

To explain FEI, it is described as:



Duke in FEI shows up at 27th in the nation, just one spot below Notre Dame! Duke Ranks 11th in Offense and 64th on Defense.
For Comparison's sake, Duke last year was ranked 87th in FEI.
For further comparison, Duke's remaining opponents show up at 94th (NC State), 11th (Miami), 76th (Wake), and 48th (UNC).


I'll update when the S&P+ comes out tomorrow, but basically all the geek polls really like Duke as a quality team better than last year and as clear better teams over 3 of our remaining 4 opponents. Damn.

Loran, thanks for this. Do you know if the FEI could be described as offensive, defensive and special team efficiency measures (say points/possession) corrected for the opponents defense (and cleaned up for end of half and end of game and home field advantage issues)? Is there a good argument that that such an index is flawed? (of course, the 'vegas' index is best if one thinks of an efficient market, but that is another can-of-worms/argument)

[loran16]

Loran, thanks for this. Do you know if the FEI could be described as offensive, defensive and special team efficiency measures (say points/possession) corrected for the opponents defense (and cleaned up for end of half and end of game and home field advantage issues)? Is there a good argument that that such an index is flawed? (of course, the 'vegas' index is best if one thinks of an efficient market, but that is another can-of-worms/argument)

FEI purports to be all three of those things - unlike other sports however like BBall, I am not knowledgeable enough in the methodology to know where the flaws are.

Worth noting that Football Outsiders has a second metric which is not yet updated and that their preferred statistical measure is a fusion of both FEI and the other metric (S&P+) into a metric called F/+. Last week Duke's F/+ was 50th in the Country, due to it's S&P+ being 55th.

[loran16]

S&P+ has Duke ranked #47 - 34th on O, 67th on D. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa

For reference, Duke's remaining opponents are now:
72nd (NC State)
22nd (Miami)
68th (Wake Forest)
38th (UNC)


The F/+ poll (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feiplus), which is a fusion of S&P+ and FEI has Duke ranked #36, just below ECU and just above Texas. For reference, our remaining opponents are now:
91st (N.C. State)
17th (Miami0
74th (Wake)
43rd (UNC)

[loran16]

Today, Football Outsiders posted the results of a metric designed to measure the efficiency of receivers (WRs and Tight Ends) in terms of how effective they are per target and in helping a team's passing game.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/varsity-numbers/2013/varsity-numbers-revisiting-rypr

Jamison Crowder shows up as the 22nd best receiver in the Country by this metric (60 catches on 94 targets for 769 yards - 8.2 Yards per target). Some relevant other players of note:
Devin Street shows up at #11 (Pittsburgh). We saw that for sure.
Michael Campanaro of Wake shows up at #30.

Other duke recievers!:
#174: Braxton Deaver: 22 catches on 26 targets for 325 yards
#258: Brandon Braxton: 25 catches on 32 targets for 241 yards
#348: Max McCaffrey: 18 catches on 31 targets for 187 yards
#428: Isaac Blakeny: 12 catches on 21 targets for 158 yards.

[Olympic Fan]

Duke lost one of its two AP votes in this week's poll after being off Saturday.

On the other hand, Duke increased its total in the coaches poll from eight to 11.

Duke is 34th in the coaches' poll. Notre Dame is 25th (and the last official slot) with 106 points.

And while I know that there's no such thing as the transitive property in college football, they Irish did just struggle to beat a Navy team that Duke dominated.

[loran16]

Okay so Sagarin updated already (the other geek polls are not nearly as fast). The results are....interesting.

Duke rises to 40 in Sagarin's Predictor. Meanwhile, two of our opponents in the future have dropped a bit:
Miami is now 33
Wake is now 105
UNC is up to 44.

Thus Sagarin would now set the lines for Duke's remaining games as follows:
DUKE -2 Miami
Duke -11 WAKE
UNC -3 Duke

No those aren't typos: Sagarin would have us as FAVORITES vs Miami next week, and HUGE favorites over Wake (who has dropped like a stone). That's....interesting.

[vick]

No those aren't typos: Sagarin would have us as FAVORITES vs Miami next week, and HUGE favorites over Wake (who has dropped like a stone). That's....interesting.

Also favored by Massey (http://masseyratings.com/team.php?t=2265&s=199231), by one point.

[ForkFondler]

Also favored by Massey (http://masseyratings.com/team.php?t=2265&s=199231), by one point.

Using the Massey odds, the 6-2 scenarios end up like this:

VT 71.9%
Duke 12.3%
GT 2.5%
Miami 3.7% (contrary to my previous assertion, Massey thinks Miami is more likely to win 3 than GT is to beat Clemson).

That only adds up to 90.3% - the other 9.7% involves sending a 5-3 team to the ACCCG. If the VPI loss is to MD, that would favor them since they would have a 5-1 division record.

[loran16]

FO's S&P rankings are now out: Duke is now at 53rd, down from it's previous high of 47th.
We're now ranked 54th on O and 53rd on D. Previously we'd been 34th on O and 67th on D.

Remaining opponents:
Miami - 23rd - 7th on O, 75th on D.
Wake - 68th - 109th on O, 29th on D
UNC - 40th - 30th on O, 47th on D.

The S&P rankings have consistently been the most negative on Duke, so I expect the other rankings to be more favorable.

[loran16]

Football Outsiders' FEI rankings have been updated. They show:

Duke at 30th - 23rd on O, 53rd on D.
Miami is 31st! - 5th on O, 82nd on D.
Wake is 86th (one behind NC State) - 108th O, 51st D
UNC is 44th - 27th on O, 59th on D.

FO again combines its FEI rankings with its S&P+ rankings to form it's preferred measure: F/+:

Duke is 37th: 34th O, 52nd D
Miami is 30th: 6th on O, 84th on D
Wake: 84th, 110 on O, 39 on D
UNC: 41st, 28th on O, 53rd on D

PS: One thing all of these rankings agree on is that Miami is the worst Defense we'll face among remaining teams on the schedule. The O really will need to be on target in this opportunity.

[wilson]

...Miami is the worst Defense we'll face among remaining teams on the schedule. The O really will need to be on target in this opportunity.Here's the key, in my opinion. The way I see it, our offense is already on borrowed time, having been bailed out by spectacular defensive performances in two straight games. They've also benefited from the fact that VA Tech and NC State are by no means offensive juggernauts, so they were able to paper over a few missed opportunities.
Miami's offense is more capable than the last two teams we've played, so they'll presumably do our offense no such favors. We'll need the Devils to avail themselves of the opportunity presented by a less-than stellar defense so that our own D doesn't have to pull quite so much weight this time.

[ForkFondler]

Football Outsiders' FEI rankings have been updated. They show:

Duke at 30th - 23rd on O, 53rd on D.
Miami is 31st! - 5th on O, 82nd on D.


So, we might in for another 100 point game.

[vick]

Massey's site has a comparison (http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm) of a wide number of computer polls. At present, the rankings are as follows:

38. Duke
39. Nebraska
40. Michigan

Amazing.

[loran16]

Football Outsiders is now updated with all three statistical measures.

FEI:
#26 Duke, 1 spot below #25 CLEMSON. FEI has us with the #22 O and #40 D

Our future opponents:
#86 Wake
#42 UNC

S&P+:
#50 Duke - (basically we've hovered around 49-53 since the VaTech game).
We have the #47 O (40th rushing, 39th passing), #53 D (81st against the pass, 83rd against the rush).

Our future opponents:
#68 Wake
#43 UNC

Finally, F/+, their combined and preferred measure:
#32 Duke (#32 O, #41 D).

Future Opponents
#40 UNC
#79 Wake

[Reilly]

We're #39 in Sagarin predictor, about a half point behind #36 UNC

[nyesq83]

Is there any way to find out the stats for a NCAA football team that scores 60 or 70 or 80 points in one week, and how many points they score on average in the game(s) following such an offensive outburst?

Just wondering.

[orrnot]

Good question. Last season UNC scored over 60 twice. After the first such outburst they lost to Wake Forest. After the second they beat Virginia Tech. I'm not sure what that means.

I was at the 80 point gun show last weekend, and I am concerned about UNC's tall receivers. I think we can move the ball on their defense and suspect we'll have to. Anyone who has desired a do-over of the Pitt game might get her/his wish.

[loran16]

Is there any way to find out the stats for a NCAA football team that scores 60 or 70 or 80 points in one week, and how many points they score on average in the game(s) following such an offensive outburst?

Just wondering.

UNC won like 63-0 vs Elon last year and still lost to us. I don't put much stock in D1AA blow outs.

-----------------

MORE GEEK STATS. Football Outsiders' S&P+, which didn't love us and had UNC ahead of us already, now has:
#47 Duke
#35 UNC

So both teams moved up. Duke is the #44 O, #57 D. UNC is #26 O, #44 D.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa

[nyesq83]

Thanks for the data, about what I expected.

I expect Duke to win if mistakes are limited.

Expect extra effort by all hands on Saturday, and lots of taunting by Carolina.

[loran16]

Football Outsiders' remaining polls have updated.

FEI again favors us greatly: We're 27th (Dropped slightly due to Wake game) but UNC is 41, such that the projections based upon FEI have Duke as 3 point favorites even on the road.

FPlus has Duke ranked just ahead of UNC - Duke at 35, UNC at 37. Duke is ranked 31 on O, 46 on D, 36 on special teams while UNC is ranked 28 on O, 52 on D, and 63 on Special Teams.