Saturday, October 24, 2009

Week 8 WASEAN Top 25 TV Schedule

This week's WASEAN Top 25 TV schedule (all times EDT, rankings through 10/23 games, within FBS):

#12 Georgia Tech @ #46 Virginia, noon (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
#22 South Florida @ #18 Pittsburgh, noon (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
#65 Minnesota @ #19 Ohio State, noon (ESPN)
#24 Central Michigan @ #80 Bowling Green, noon (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
#26 Arkansas @ #20 Mississippi, 12:21 (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
#60 Iowa State @ #10 Nebraska, 12:30 (FSN)
#35 Tennessee @ #1 Alabama, 3:30 (CBS)
#29 Michigan @ #15 Penn State, 3:30 (ABC)
#27 Clemson @ #12 Miami (FL), 3:30 (ABC)
#11 Oregon @ #44 Washington, 3:30 (ABC)
#7 Oklahoma @ #25 Kansas, 3:30 (ABC)
#89 Louisville @ #4 Cincinnati, 3:30 (ESPNU)
#56 UCLA @ #22 Arizona, 6:30 (FSNAZ, FSNLA, FSNNW)
#14 Iowa @ #38 Michigan State, 7:00 (BTN)
#87 Texas A&M @ #17 Texas Tech, 7:00 (no TV that I can find)
#3 Florida @ #58 Mississippi State, 7:30 (ESPN)
#39 Auburn @ #21 LSU, 7:30 (ESPN2)
#8 TCU @ #28 BYU, 7:30 (Versus)
#2 Texas @ #47 Missouri, 8:00 (ABC)
#43 Oregon State @ #9 USC, 8:00 (ABC)
#16 Fresno State @ #116 New Mexico State, 10:15 (ESPNU)
#6 Boise State @ #95 Hawaii, 11:05 (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
idle: #5 Virginia Tech

BCS Top 25 not in or playing against the WASEAN Top 25:
#36 Connecticut @ #35 West Virginia, noon (ESPNU)
#54 Oklahoma State @ #67 Baylor, 12:30 (Versus)
#40 Air Force @ #34 Utah, 4:00 (Versus)
#92 Vanderbilt @ #32 South Carolina, 7:00 (ESPNU)
#76 SMU @ #46 Houston, 7:30 (CBSCS)
idle: #48 Wisconsin

Other significant games:
FCS #22 James Madison @ FCS #5 William & Mary, noon (CSMA)
#42 Boston College @ #31 Notre Dame, 3:30 (NBC)
#66 Wake Forest @ #51 Navy, 3:30 (CBSCS)
#64 Idaho @ #81 Nevada, 4:00 (ESPN360.com, GamePlan)
#55 Arizona State @ #37 Stanford, 10:15 (FSN)

Accounting for the Home Field Advantage

The home field advantage (HFA) is pervasive throughout sports. How to account for it when rating teams is definitely a tough nut to crack. Measuring it in college football isn't as easy as it sounds.

I mean, sure, you could just look at every D-I game, add the home and away scores, divide by games played and be done with it right? Except that non-conference games aren't scheduled randomly, and often the better teams are at home, because they can force the little guys to come to their place. If you try to figure HFA this way, you are going to overstate the impact, due to this quality leakage.

Fortunately, you can get around this by finding a random subset of games - the intra-conference schedule. From 2006-2008, in intra-conference BCS games the HFA was 2.644 points. This seems reasonable as a measurement of the magnitude of the effect. The home team won 56.7% of the intra-conference BCS games during this time-frame.

So now how do we work that into our system? We could just add 1.322 to the visiting team score, and subtract that from the home team score. That was how the WASEAN ratings were calculated in the beginning.

But reading Andrew Dolphin's work gave me a better idea. Dolphin says that when you calculate it this way, you are basically turning a win into a loss in close games, and that doesn't really make sense to do. He contends that it's more appropriate to work home field advantage into the quality of opponent adjustment. So if a team plays on the road, we treat their opponent as a better opponent. If a team plays at home we treat their opponent as a worse opponent.

This makes intuitive sense, and I've reworked the ratings based on this premise. In practice, it will cause the HFA to have more of an impact in close games than blowouts, which is a good thing. It doesn't drastically change too many of the ratings, but this seems like a better way to approach the issue, and so that's what we'll do.

The ratings tables listed in the earlier posts have been updated to reflect this change.

WASEAN Explained

WASEAN is a college football team rating system. The acronym stands for Winning% Algorithm for Scoring ExpectAtioN. The name not only describes the system, but honors Toledo's star running back during the 1990s, Wasean Tait.

The system uses the Pythagorean theory (developed by baseball author Bill James), which says that you can predict team winning percentage knowing only how many points they scored and allowed. It's an incredibly useful tool. The basic formula (for baseball) is that R^2 / ((R^2)+(RA^2)) = WPct.

Over the years the formula has been refined. Instead squaring the runs and runs allowed, it's been determined that using (R/G + RA/G) ^ .286 as a dynamic exponent based on run environment works even better. For football, the best exponent appears to be (PF/G + PA/G) ^ .26.

Basically I do this on a game by game basis and factor in a home field advantage as well.

However, there is one major issue with this formula. It sees a 30-0 game and a 3-0 game as the same thing.

It sees a 70-30 win as the same as a 7-3 win. So we make an adjustment that fixes this.

The next thing you have to do is work in a strength of schedule adjustment.

Again, I'm borrowing from James, who uses an iterative process to compute his power ratings at billjamesonline.com (which is well worth the $2.99 every 3 months).

Each team starts with the average of their raw individual game Pythagorean scores. If you post a .932 (a 55-7 win at home) but it's against a team whose average score is only .167, that's not nearly as impressive as posting that win against a good team.

Special thanks to the guys at The Hardball Times for helping work through the mechanics of this. Read their site and buy their books if you love baseball. Paul Kislanko and Greg Tamer were also a big help to me throughout this process.

Anyway, after adjusting for strength of opponent, the score for the 55-7 win becomes .735.

We do that once for everyone. After doing that once, the .167 team's new average becomes .211. So we adjust based on .211 instead of .167 and your 55-7 win now becomes a .787 instead of a .735.

We keep doing this over and over, until the numbers stop moving. I run 100 iterations, but after 7 weeks, the last round where the numbers move enough to change a ranking position is the 51st round.

We then make one final adjustment for unbeaten/untied (remember we don't count OT) and winless/tieless teams. We recognize a limitation of the system, and move the unbeaten teams above the best team they beat, and winless teams below the worst team they lost to.

One note . . . WASEAN does not include overtime. The reasoning is that a 21-20 regulation win should score higher than a 27-20 overtime win. This is somewhat ironic, considering who the system is named for . . .

The Legend of Wasean Tait

In the 1995 Las Vegas Bowl a good friend of mine and I both placed what was at the time an insanely large wager of $50 on Toledo getting 3 points vs. Nevada. It was insanely large because after two months of unemployment I was making about $385 a week and had only been working for a month. I wasn't a genius with my money management as a 23-year old . . . so the stakes were huge - there was a day's pay after taxes on this, and probably more money than I had in my checking account.

This was the first bowl of the 1995 season, maybe a week or two before Christmas.

Toledo had a great year that year, they were 10-0-1 and we couldn't believe they were getting points vs. Nevada. This was what we called a 'printing press' - or so we thought.

Toledo jumps to a 21-7 lead and all is well. However, one thing leads to another, an extra point is missed (always when you bet on a team, always) and the game becomes a classic matchup. Despite the incredible Wasean Tait's 3 TD's (18, 31 & 36 yarders), Toledo lets the Wolf Pack back into the game, and in the 4th quarter Nevada tied it up at 34.

In the age before cell phones and unlimited long-distance, I was on the phone with my buddy (who lived a few hours away) for the entire 4th quarter, blowing a significant portion of the potential winnings to the phone bill . . . but to this day it was one of the greatest games I've ever watched and had to share the enthusiasm with someone.

The game goes into overtime - the first overtime game in the history of Division I-A college football. OT was implemented for the 1995 bowl season before going full-bore in 1996. Of course we would have been content with the tie since we were getting 3 points, and were cursing this rule change.

Toledo fell behind on a Nevada field goal to start OT, but just 4 plays later, the incredible Wasean Tait scored the winning TD and we rejoiced.

Tait became a legend to my friend and I, as he carried 31 times for 185 yards and the 4 TDs. He also caught 6 passes for 53 yards.

Here's a summary of that great game, and you can also check out the box score.

Tait ran for 1905 yards & 20 TDs during the regular season, and was a 2nd team All-American. He was a top contender for the Heisman heading into 1996 and he was expected to be a high pick in the 1997 NFL Draft.

Then tragedy struck. Wasean Tait blew out his knee in the 1996 season opener. After 4 operations he was finally able to finish his collegiate career in 1998, but he never did play in the NFL.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

2009 WASEAN ratings, week 7

What a week! #1 Nebraska gets rolled by #33 Texas Tech. #3 Florida pushed to the limit by #31 Arkansas. #4 Virginia Tech's comeback falls shorts at #20 Georgia Tech. #5 Texas outlasts #8 Oklahoma 16-13 after Sam Bradford goes down again. #7 Cincinnati was the most impressive team among the contenders this week, handling #17 South Florida rather easily on the road.

The new #1 is Alabama and the top 3 has finally aligned with the consensus, which has Alabama, Texas and Florida (in various orders) at the top. 

EDIT: The ratings below reflect a revised home-field advantage calculation (10/23/2009 1:05 AM CDT)

RK
LW
Team
WASEAN
RW
RL
RT
1
2
Alabama
0.8867
7
0
0
2
5
Texas
0.8781
6
0
0
3
3
Florida
0.8705
6
0
0
4
7
Cincinnati
0.8574
6
0
0
5
4
Virginia Tech
0.8527
5
2
0
6
6
Boise State
0.8465
6
0
0
7
8
Oklahoma
0.8341
3
3
0
8
16
TCU
0.8322
6
0
0
9
9
USC
0.8212
5
1
0
10
1
Nebraska
0.8151
4
2
0
11
15
Oregon
0.8007
5
1
0
12
11
Miami (FL)
0.8002
5
1
0
13
20
Georgia Tech
0.7999
6
1
0
14
13
Iowa
0.7970
7
0
0
15
19
Penn State
0.7803
6
1
0
16
12
Fresno State
0.7759
3
2
1
17
33
Texas Tech
0.7745
5
2
0
18
18
Pittsburgh
0.7685
6
1
0
19
10
Ohio State
0.7654
5
2
0
20
29
Mississippi
0.7634
4
2
0
21
24
LSU
0.7566
5
1
0
22
23
Arizona
0.7548
4
2
0
23
17
South Florida
0.7546
5
1
0
24
28
Central Michigan
0.7533
6
1
0
25
14
Northern Iowa
0.7531
5
2
0
26
31
Arkansas
0.7519
3
3
0
27
22
Kansas
0.7505
5
1
0
28
44
Clemson
0.7470
3
3
0
29
25
Brigham Young
0.7425
6
1
0
30
39
Michigan
0.7352
5
1
1
31
52
Villanova
0.7343
6
1
0
32
42
South Carolina
0.7294
5
2
0
33
30
Notre Dame
0.7286
3
2
1
34
37
Utah
0.7276
5
1
0
35
46
West Virginia
0.7260
5
1
0
36
26
Connecticut
0.7256
4
2
0
37
27
Tennessee
0.7247
3
3
0
38
38
Florida State
0.7173
2
4
0
39
48
Jacksonville State
0.7170
4
2
0
40
32
Stanford
0.7154
4
3
0
41
45
Richmond
0.7006
6
0
0
42
36
Michigan State
0.6981
3
3
1
43
34
Auburn
0.6977
5
2
0
44
43
Air Force
0.6954
4
2
1
45
54
Boston College
0.6917
4
2
1
46
60
Houston
0.6905
5
1
0
47
57
William & Mary
0.6904
5
1
0
48
49
Oregon State
0.6897
4
2
0
49
41
Washington
0.6863
3
3
1
50
62
California
0.6860
4
2
0
51
53
North Carolina
0.6860
4
2
0
52
58
Virginia
0.6836
3
3
0
53
21
Missouri
0.6834
4
2
0
54
61
Oklahoma State
0.6790
5
1
0
55
35
Wisconsin
0.6789
4
2
1
56
50
Navy
0.6726
3
2
2
57
67
Kentucky
0.6720
3
3
0
58
40
Northern Illinois
0.6712
3
3
0
59
77
Georgia
0.6652
4
3
0
60
68
Arizona State
0.6631
4
2
0
61
65
Tulsa
0.6544
4
2
0
62
71
Massachusetts
0.6487
4
2
0
63
83
Southern Illinois
0.6470
4
1
0
64
63
Elon
0.6439
5
1
0
65
47
UCLA
0.6431
3
3
0
66
66
South Dakota State
0.6422
5
1
0
67
56
Duke
0.6400
3
3
0
68
69
New Hampshire
0.6338
5
1
0
69
79
Mississippi State
0.6302
3
4
0
70
72
Delaware
0.6295
4
2
0
71
80
Iowa State
0.6280
4
3
0
72
59
Ohio
0.6278
4
2
1
73
82
Southern Miss
0.6128
4
3
0
74
70
Idaho
0.6122
6
1
0
75
75
Minnesota
0.6119
3
3
1
76
51
Wake Forest
0.6102
4
2
1
77
84
Rutgers
0.6090
4
2
0
78
64
Baylor
0.6085
3
3
0
79
111
Lafayette
0.6031
4
1
1
80
95
Colorado
0.6027
2
4
0
81
55
Arkansas State
0.6013
1
4
0
82
86
Purdue
0.6008
2
5
0
83
98
Stephen F. Austin
0.5978
4
1
0
84
76
Montana
0.5946
4
0
1
85
106
Liberty
0.5940
3
2
0
86
105
Kansas State
0.5875
4
3
0
87
94
East Carolina
0.5874
4
3
0
88
97
Louisiana-Monroe
0.5857
4
2
0
89
74
Central Arkansas
0.5833
2
2
0
90
73
North Carolina State
0.5798
3
4
0
91
78
Colorado State
0.5773
3
4
0
92
99
Southern Methodist
0.5762
3
1
2
93
143
Pennsylvania
0.5672
3
1
1
94
85
Troy
0.5646
4
2
0
95
88
Marshall
0.5610
4
3
0
96
91
Temple
0.5597
4
2
0
97
92
Bowling Green
0.5564
3
4
0
98
103
South Carolina State
0.5485
5
1
0
99
101
Northern Arizona
0.5457
4
1
1
100
93
Nevada
0.5455
3
3
0
101
87
Columbia
0.5448
2
3
0
102
122
Louisiana Tech
0.5310
3
3
0
103
112
Western Michigan
0.5268
3
4
0
104
104
UCF
0.5261
3
3
0
105
107
Central Connecticut State
0.5221
5
1
0
106
90
James Madison
0.5204
2
3
1
107
110
Indiana
0.5203
4
3
0
108
100
San Diego State
0.5177
2
4
0
109
81
Texas A&M
0.5173
3
3
0
110
116
Northwestern
0.5145
4
3
0
111
124
Louisville
0.5141
2
4
0
112
118
Appalachian State
0.5115
3
2
1
113
126
Weber State
0.5111
4
3
0
114
108
Buffalo
0.5101
3
4
0
115
125
McNeese State
0.5063
3
2
0
116
115
Syracuse
0.5024
2
3
1
117
89
Harvard
0.5012
3
2
0
118
131
Colgate
0.4993
6
0
1
119
102
Vanderbilt
0.4967
2
4
1
120
96
Florida A&M
0.4934
4
2
0
121
114
Florida International
0.4857
1
5
0
122
120
Hawaii
0.4834
2
4
0
123
109
Utah State
0.4833
1
5
0
124
117
Holy Cross
0.4827
5
1
0
125
138
Wyoming
0.4793
4
3
0
126
135
Toledo
0.4743
4
3
0
127
119
Albany
0.4735
5
2
0
128
155
Drake
0.4704
3
1
0
129
129
Akron
0.4691
1
5
0
130
113
Middle Tennessee
0.4643
3
3
0
131
121
Cal Poly
0.4640
3
3
0
132
136
Southern Utah
0.4615
1
4
0
133
139
San Jose State
0.4576
1
5
0
134
149
Kent State
0.4551
3
4
0
135
140
California-Davis
0.4545
1
3
1
136
130
Furman
0.4543
4
2
0
137
150
South Dakota
0.4514
2
2
2
138
127
Chattanooga
0.4500
3
2
0
139
162
Yale
0.4493
3
2
0
140
128
Brown
0.4477
3
2
0
141
146
Eastern Washington
0.4440
3
3
0
142
156
Samford
0.4424
2
4
0
143
142
UTEP
0.4404
2
4
0
144
145
North Dakota State
0.4369
1
6
0
145
144
Montana State
0.4352
2
2
1
146
134
UNLV
0.4349
2
5
0
147
168
Fordham
0.4329
3
3
0
148
159
Hofstra
0.4329
4
3
0
149
123
Illinois
0.4313
1
5
0
150
158
North Dakota
0.4289
3
2
0
151
137
UAB
0.4286
2
4
0
152
141
Maryland
0.4280
1
5
1
153
181
Norfolk State
0.4246
2
3
0
154
161
Georgia Southern
0.4201
4
3
0
155
147
Maine
0.4185
2
4
0
156
148
Florida Atlantic
0.4183
1
4
0
157
157
Stony Brook
0.4166
3
4
0
158
178
Dayton
0.4135
5
0
0
159
133
North Texas
0.4082
1
4
1
160
151
Eastern Illinois
0.4013
5
2
0
161
152
Louisiana-Lafayette
0.3923
4
2
0
162
166
Missouri State
0.3916
4
3
0
163
153
Army
0.3887
2
4
1
164
190
Monmouth
0.3867
3
3
0
165
165
Youngstown State
0.3852
4
2
0
166
164
Memphis
0.3826
2
5
0
167
169
San Diego
0.3740
2
3
0
168
154
Citadel
0.3685
2
3
1
169
160
Ball State
0.3666
0
7
0
170
172
Washington State
0.3652
0
5
1
171
170
Cornell
0.3628
2
3
0
172
132
Delaware State
0.3627
1
4
0
173
171
Eastern Kentucky
0.3548
4
2
0
174
174
Illinois State
0.3491
3
4
0
175
177
Lehigh
0.3399
1
5
0
176
173
Coastal Carolina
0.3374
3
3
0
177
176
Grambling State
0.3371
4
3
0
178
192
Marist
0.3359
3
3
0
179
200
Prairie View A&M
0.3359
4
1
0
180
191
Texas State
0.3309
2
2
1
181
195
Old Dominion
0.3295
3
2
0
182
211
Bryant
0.3247
2
3
0
183
221
Jacksonville
0.3246
2
3
0
184
189
Northern Colorado
0.3227
2
5
0
185
188
Miami (OH)
0.3205
0
7
0
186
179
Rhode Island
0.3152
1
5
0
187
187
Western Illinois
0.3135
1
5
0
188
217
Robert Morris
0.3116
1
6
0
189
163
Hampton
0.3111
3
3
0
190
198
Wagner
0.3104
1
2
1
191
184
Wofford
0.3081
1
5
0
192
167
Alabama A&M
0.3078
3
3
0
193
183
Tulane
0.3068
2
4
0
194
175
St. Francis (PA)
0.2997
1
5
1
195
182
New Mexico State
0.2909
3
4
0
196
193
Virginia Military
0.2897
1
5
0
197
185
Eastern Michigan
0.2853
0
6
0
198
180
Sacred Heart
0.2825
1
5
0
199
213
Southeastern Louisiana
0.2803
1
2
1
200
214
Duquesne
0.2799
2
5
0
201
194
Portland State
0.2790
1
5
0
202
186
Western Kentucky
0.2709
0
6
0
203
212
Tennessee Tech
0.2650
2
3
0
204
202
New Mexico
0.2615
0
6
0
205
201
Gardner-Webb
0.2603
3
2
0
206
219
Bucknell
0.2594
3
3
0
207
205
Princeton
0.2577
1
3
1
208
204
North Carolina A&T
0.2549
2
3
1
209
203
Rice
0.2534
0
7
0
210
199
Towson
0.2526
2
4
0
211
197
Butler
0.2492
2
0
1
212
218
Dartmouth
0.2484
0
5
0
213
196
Sacramento State
0.2443
2
4
0
214
210
Sam Houston State
0.2383
2
3
0
215
209
North Carolina Central
0.2320
0
4
2
216
207
Morgan State
0.2277
4
1
1
217
236
Alcorn State
0.2211
2
3
0
218
206
Tennessee State
0.2181
3
4
0
219
216
Austin Peay
0.2156
1
4
0
220
227
Davidson
0.2125
2
3
0
221
223
Tennessee-Martin
0.2119
1
5
0
222
208
Bethune-Cookman
0.2080
2
3
0
223
215
Arkansas-Pine Bluff
0.2077
1
1
1
224
233
Western Carolina
0.1965
1
5
0
225
222
Southern University
0.1915
2
2
0
226
220
Winston-Salem State
0.1858
0
5
1
227
225
Northeastern
0.1819
0
6
0
228
231
Charleston Southern
0.1782
1
4
0
229
235
Murray State
0.1765
1
4
0
230
232
Georgetown
0.1736
0
7
0
231
224
Jackson State
0.1620
1
4
1
232
234
Northwestern State
0.1606
0
6
0
233
229
Southeast Missouri State
0.1604
0
5
0
234
230
Howard
0.1603
2
4
0
235
228
Presbyterian
0.1592
0
6
0
236
241
Campbell
0.1579
0
4
0
237
240
Valparaiso
0.1561
0
3
0
238
226
Morehead State
0.1557
0
4
2
239
238
Nicholls State
0.1553
1
5
0
240
237
Indiana State
0.1411
0
6
0
241
242
Texas Southern
0.1329
1
4
0
242
239
Idaho State
0.1113
0
6
0
243
244
Alabama State
0.1042
1
3
0
244
243
Mississippi Valley State
0.0764
1
4
0
245
245
Savannah State
0.0560
0
4
0

2009 WASEAN conference ratings, week 7

The SEC has started to pull away from the Big 12. There isn't a whole lot of difference between the ACC, Pac-10 and Big East, while the Big 10 really is as bad as everyone is saying. They aren't anywhere near the Mountain West or anything, but it's pretty clearly the worst BCS league. The Big East at #5 is almost as close to the SEC (.038 difference) as the Big Ten is to the Big East (.033 difference).


I-A-BCS SEC 0.720
I-A-BCS Big12 0.697
I-A-BCS ACC 0.686
I-A-BCS Pac10 0.683
I-A-BCS BigEast 0.682
I-A-BCS Big10 0.649
I-A I-A-Ind 0.597
I-A MWC 0.585
I-A WAC 0.558
I-AA Colonial 0.513
I-A MAC 0.506
I-A CUSA 0.502
I-A SunBelt 0.466
I-AA GreatWest 0.452
I-AA MVC 0.451
I-AA Ivy 0.422
I-AA Southern 0.422
I-AA Patriot 0.399
I-AA BigSky 0.388
I-AA NEC 0.358
I-AA Southland 0.357
I-AA MEAC 0.332
I-AA BigSouth 0.319
I-AA OVC 0.302
I-AA Pioneer 0.285
I-AA I-AA-Ind 0.226
I-AA SWAC 0.208