The numbers are in, and we have finally had a chance to review some fairly interesting things from the 2008 season. A few weeks back, I took you through the
top 25 most statistically balanced teams. What we found was quite expected in some cases, but in others the results were a little more surprising – maybe a bit disturbing.
Today what I thought we could discuss – ok, I’ll discuss, and you can comment – is the “Shame on You” factor. While these teams may have done well in terms of rankings in 17 statistical categories, they were horribly mismatched when we looked at their entire 2008 schedule – FCS, non-conference, and conference games alike. Kind of like LeBron James one-on-one against Webster. Just… shame on you LeBron.
So what we did was again analyze each team and averaged their rankings in 17 categories. We then averaged all the rankings of their respective opponents (yes, the deviation was a bit more constrained, but we’re not the BCS here) and compared them. These teams just absolutely had no business playing against the some of the teams that they did because they were “on paper” universally better than those opponents.
The top ten in descending order are:
10) Florida State (28.76 ranking differential) What really hurt them was playing two FCS teams right at the start of the season. One is enough fellas.
9) Mississippi (30.15 ranking differential) Heard of Samford? Yeah, they have a team apparently. And Mississippi State didn’t do Ole Miss any favors here.
8) Utah (33.13 ranking differential) Pretty sad when you think they wanted to be #1 because of their 13-0 record. That Mountain West conference must be a bitch, huh Utah?
7) Florida (35.34 ranking differential) Can’t really dog Florida too much because of their superior rankings, but those Hawaii, Arkansas, and Citadel games weren’t really fair at all, were they?
6) USC (35.40 ranking differential) Good stats, but Washington and Washington St. are kinda close to FCS anyway.
5) Ball State (41.78 ranking differential) Wouldn’t be an OTP post without a little Cards action. Statistically the best in the MAC, but maybe we should only schedule one cupcake instead of two from now on.
4) TCU (42.66 ranking differential) You played Stephen F. Austin. I hope to God that wasn’t just one guy.
3) Troy (42.89 ranking differential) Alcorn State, and the two Louisiana stepchildren. That Sun Belt, I tell ya…
2) Penn State (43.48 ranking differential) Quite a bit above the rest in the Big Ten really, so they are a bit like Florida. Too bad they had to murder half of Coastal Carolina’s team.
1)
Boise State (46.07 ranking differential) Man, if only the WAC was a tougher conference. Then we could see just how good this team really is. But until then, Boise State is just the 13 year old in the home run derby against 8 year-olds. 8 year-olds, dude. For shame.
Ok readers, how do you feel about this list? Coming up soon: the top 10 teams that played out of their league on the other side of the coin.
