Is there any chance I could peek behind the curtain on your rankings? I’m dying to know how you do things.

I wish I were smart enough to be able to write a script that could crawl through the ESPN scoreboard pages and mine the data for every D-1A game. That would be pimp.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/drivechart?gameId=283130142

I think number of possessions per game is the critical factor, allowing for running out the clock situations at the end of a half. Determining the number of possessions in a game should be able to be fairly accurately estimated using box scores. It would simply be number of punts plus number of non-safety scores plus turnovers. If anyone keeps track of turnovers on downs that would be the last factor.

Running out the clock drives would be the problem that couldn’t be handled with quick box score estimates.

It seems obvious to me, and the rough stats I’ve looked at support, that a team’s offensive pace has a relatively severe negative effect on that team’s gross yardage/point stats. In other words, offensive TOP should have a strong correlation with defensive yards and points surrendered for that team. Right? I’m sure I’m WAAAAAY behind you on all of this, sorry about that.

Also, my ratings normalize for competition but do not account for pace specifically. Essentially, the offense and defense ratings can be considered a combination of the pace and efficiency ratings from Pomeroy’s system.

In my system, the offense number represents the number of points that a team would be expected to score on average against an average team (this includes all levels of college football, hence the large numbers). The defense number represents the number of points that a team will prevent its opponent from scoring on average compared to an average defense.

So, for example, using the ratings, Texas will be expected to score 29.3 points (68.23-38.93) at a neutral site on average against Ohio State.

As you can see, the Big 12 teams rank as follows on defense (not out of 120 teams because I-AA, etc. are included):

Texas – 4
Oklahoma – 23
Texas Tech – 34
Oklahoma State – 40
Missouri – 41
Baylor – 46
Colorado – 47
Kansas – 51
Nebraska – 63
Kansas St. – 95
Iowa St. – 97
Texas A&M – 112

SEC defenses:

Florida – 3
Alabama – 7
Auburn – 14
South Carolina – 15
Tennessee – 16
Vanderbilt – 18
Ole Miss – 20
Kentucky – 50
LSU – 54
Georgia – 55
Mississippi St. – 74
Arkansas – 80

So, the SEC defenses do rate better.

Big 12 offenses:

Oklahoma – 1
Texas – 4
Texas Tech – 5
Missouri – 6
Oklahoma St. – 10
Nebraska – 14
Kansas – 23
Kansas St. – 31
Baylor – 42
Texas A&M – 49
Iowa St. – 76
Colorado – 103

SEC Offenses:

Florida – 2
Georgia – 15
Ole Miss – 18
Alabama – 24
LSU – 26
Arkansas – 67
South Carolina – 78
Kentucky – 80
Vanderbilt – 88
Tennessee – 101
Auburn – 129
Mississippi St. – 135

So there are 5 offenses in the SEC that aren’t dog shit.

But, of course, pace isn’t included. I’m still working on a way to pull that out of my data, but I don’t think it’s possible at this point using only the relationship between the power, offense, and defense ratings.

I’m weary of the hits the Big 12 defenses are taking. It seems obvious to me that Big 12 defenses suffer in national yards/points rankings for at least two reasons. One, Big 12 offenses are yardage machines. Two, Big 12 offenses are more prone to the no huddle hurry up system, resulting in more plays against Big 12 defenses.

I’m trying to brainstorm about ways to normalize national defensive statistics, both for Big 12 offensive prolificacy and pace of play. I’d like to bounce ideas off you guys, if one or more of you could shoot me an email. Thanks.