Sagarin ranks 4-3 USC #10 in the country

[thirdandpunting]

The Sagarin rankings says Iowa is a three point dog to Stanford on a neutral field. Is that unreasonable?

Iowa a 9 point dog to Alabama... 9 point favorites win about 75% of the time. Hawks and Tide play 4 times... Bama wins 3 of 4. Seems reasonable.

Teams 10 to 15 are separated by a safety... How often do safeties determine games?

You want to criticize these rankings.. ok. Iowa doesn't speed up the game to maximize possessions. Iowa isn't 60 points better than North Texas because Iowa doesn't create as many possessions as Baylor would. Baylor under a point differential system will get more credit, Iowa less.

But to say these ratings would not be correlated with game outcomes would be wrong (stupid).

How much worse is Iowa if a 57 yard field goal doesn't go through? King drops a interception in our own end zone?

Listen, Hawks are an underdog to win the whole thing. So what? They've got more of a chance than Michigan or any other 2 loss team ahead of them in the Sagarin rankings.

Also, what gets lost is Iowa still has to win 6 more games. But so does every other school... When ESPN pundits say "Iowa needs some help" they are implying teams ahead of them need to lose. Iowa will have a chance to beat MSU or OSU. Other conferences play championship games. The reality of the situation is, if Iowa wins out and wins the BTCG they are in.

Iowa's probability is about 36% to win out. Seems low right? Well here we go...

Maryland win % = 90% (17 pt favorite looks like (Sagarin Iowa - Sagarin Maryland)*.75 )
Purdue win % = 90% (17 pt favorite)
Minny win % = 80% (13 pt favorite)
Indiana win % = 80% (17 pt favorite)
Nebraska win % = 70% (6 pt favorite)

.9 * .9 * .8 * .8 * .7 = 36%

Even if the other 9 teams ahead of Iowa were double digit favorites (not true) in their next 5 games. You would only expect 3 of them to win out.

Also according to the Sagarin rankings Iowa would need to beat Maryland by more than 23 points to increase their ranking. (all things being equal... no opponent performance change) Alabama is one because they've beaten Texas AM, Wiscy, and Georgia by double digits. In Sagarin world that really matters.

To sum up:

Sagarin rankings are points and efficiency based... not win based. Polls are ladders, valuing wins.
Nothing is certain
Enjoy the run

/rant

 

[ichawk24]

Perhaps a simplification of the Sagarin ratings will help: it is essentially a metric that is designed to provide "accurate" projections of future matchups. Essentially the logic flows like this: (1) to win, you need to score more points than the other team, (2) in order to score points you need to gain yards efficiently, and (3) in order to prevent points, you need to prevent other teams from gaining yards.

So far this season, USC has been very good at #2 and #3, which is why they rank so high in the Sagarin ratings. Unfortunately for them, being good at #2 and #3 has not translated into a good record. However, statistical studies will show that #2 and #3 are generally the best indicators of future performance.

USC does not "deserve" to be ranked in the top 10 or even in the top 25 at this point, because at the end of the day all that matters in sport is winning. They haven't done that well enough this year to be in the top 25. However, if I were asked to bet on a certain game, I would look to something like the Sagarin ratings rather than to a ranking system based on where teams "deserve" to be ranked.

I can't find anything stating that his ratings use yards. Do you have a cite? It appears to use just wins/losses and points.

 

[icantfindausernamethatisntused]

I can't find anything stating that his ratings use yards. Do you have a cite? It appears to use just wins/losses and points.

Sagarin does not disclose any of his formulas beyond a generic description. I assume he uses some offensive and defensive efficiency metric, beyond a simple point spread calculation. Stacey Brook is an economics professor at the University of Iowa and calculates his own rankings which relies heavily on yards gained. Linked is a post which describes this formula in more detail than anything we can find for Sagarin - I would assume Sagarin's predictor ratings utilizes the same metrics in some fashion.

http://teamsportsanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/11/ncaa-fbs-complex-invasion-sport-model.html