College Football Strength of Schedule

bama61 said:

Whether its fair or not, our cupcake rich out of conference schedule could penalize us heavily if the championship series selection committee considers SoS to be a major factor in their considerations.

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Except for the fact that it's not cupcake rich.

I find it laughable, that a team can play in the ACC or something and not have a cupcake schedule, despite playing Duke, Wake Forest, etc... and someone has the audacity to say Alabama has a soft schedule because only 7 or 8 of the games are tough. It will only penalize Alabama heavily if the other guys are either bad at math, or just bad at understanding what constitutes a tough schedule.

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PacadermaTideUs said:

By the average, the second schedule should be more difficult. But if you're the 25th best team out there, you should go undefeated playing the second schedule and lose two games playing the first.

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You make an excellent point and one I've pondered myself. I looked it up at one point, and I forget the math, but basically I arrived to a particular ranking (Sagarin) that a legit national title contender will always beat. Basically, only games played against teams above a given rank matter in terms of determining who is championship caliber. But, on the flip side, once you get above a certain rank, you couldn't really read anything at all into a loss. A champion might lose to a team and it really in no way was an indication that they were unworthy, but rather than they played an extremely difficult opponent (like Alabama in 2011).

Our schedule will never be as tough as some teams we do not play Bama just saying...............

KrAzY3 said:

Except for the fact that it's not cupcake rich.
tough schedule.

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Notice that I specified "out of conference schedule". Specifically Florida Atlantic(6-6), USM (1-11), and WCU (2-10), all of which are cupcakes, the latter two with extra icing.

I did not criticize our SEC schedule simply because we do not have any real control over it. I also cut the WVU game some slack as they had been at least marginally respectable prior to last season and this type of game is a made for TV spectacle with side implications involving money and recruiting exposure.

bama61 said:

Whether its fair or not, our cupcake rich out of conference schedule could penalize us heavily if the championship series selection committee considers SoS to be a major factor in their considerations.

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The perception of the Power Five teams does carry some weight. I agree with Coach Saban that all our non-conference games should be with those teams. Kansas, Wake Forrest, Illinois and W Virginia sounds a lot tougher than Florida Atlantic, S Mississippi, W Carolina and W Virginia.

This year Georgia has the toughest SEC non-conference schedule with Clemson and Ga Tech, while Mississippi, Miss St, Texas A&M, Missouri and Vanderbilt play no power five foes.

Since most teams play all of their games within a geographic region, it would be very, very difficult to come up with a truly comprehensive SoS formula that treated every school fairly. Consider that most teams on the west coast only play teams out west. So, even when applying a formula like Sagarin's, you still end up with almost no crossover with schools from, say, teams on the east coast. We have, for lack of a better word, silos of teams across America who play one another with only a small percentage of play outside of those silos. Pooling the silos into a large formula does not provide a real SoS analysis across the country, and the small percentage of crossover play does not provide a large enough sample size to be meaningful.

What does this mean? SoS formulas are all flawed and provide only a guess as to how a team will perform when playing a team from a different part of the country. The eye test is far more accurate in predicting outcomes where teams come from very different regions of America. But the eye test is subject to bias, so we are stuck again.

We just have to pick a system and go with it knowing that it will be flawed. There are too many teams spread across too wide a geography to hope for better, IMO.

GrayTide said:

1. A team's SOS for this year is based on how its opponents did last year, is that correct?
2. In the SEC since we cannot play every team then the SOS is determined by the particular year's rotation from the other division. In most years, Florida and Tennessee would be a much more difficult opponents than USCe, Ole Miss and auburn. That is not the case this year, at least I don't think it is.

IMO all 128 team's SOS should be evaluated and reset every week in order to truly reflect any team's current SOS and be taken into consideration in the polls.

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Didn't all those stupid computer polls do just that? I agree about strength of schedule. Wasn't there a really weird formula that they used to use in conjunction with the AP and Coaches polls?

Take a division of 7 teams (named A to G in ascending order by the actual strength of the team) of a major FBS conference, assume that they only play each other, and assume that the outcome of every game is just as it should be (the better team wins). Here's the outcomes:

Team A - record is 6-0
Team B - record is 5-1
Team C - record is 4-2
Team D - record is 3-3
Team E - record is 2-4
Team F - record is 1-5
Team G - record is 0-6

What are the facts and how would you interpret them?

Fact 1: Only 3 teams in the division have a winning record. Obviously, this is a weak conference division.
Fact 2: The summary record of teams that played Team A is 15-21 (.416 win %) Team A is undefeated, but look at their SOS... they play cupcakes.
Fact 3: The summary record of teams that played Team B is 16-20 (.444 win %) Team A may have won head-to-head, but they played against weaker competition overall.
Fact 4: The summary record of teams that played Team C is 17-19 (.472 win %) This team has lost to both teams it has played that had winning records and its only wins are against non-winning teams.
Fact 5: The summary record of teams that played Team D is 18-18 (.500 win %) A mediocre team and a mediocre schedule.
Fact 6: The summary record of teams that played Team E is 19-17 (.528 win %) Bob Stoops says you're just dead weight in this conference division, but at least you play against better competition.
Fact 7; The summary record of teams that played Team F is 20-16 (.555 win %) Bob Stoops says the same about you
Fact 8: The summary record of teams that played Team G is 21-15 (.583 win %) Hey cupcake, Baylor is calling to schedule you.

There may not be a substantial drop-off from one team to the next, but it's a zero-sum game here and there's no possible way in this scenario for the best team to have a good strength-of-schedule ranking. In fact, the strength of schedule should be almost identical for all of these teams because they played the same teams with only the exception of themselves, but the outcomes of those games automatically make the lowest teams in the division have the highest opponent winning %.

It would be very difficult to create any accurate SOS algorithm because there are so many circular references. If I beat a team, I affect their record and if their record is a component of a SOS algorithm, I have just lowered my own SOS by winning a game. If I beat the opponent of an opponent, I affect the SOS of the latter (which in turn will affect my own SOS) and all the other opponents of that opponent. There needs to be some coefficient that reflects the quality of a team's opponents, but it seems that it would be very complex to develop one in which a team doesn't affect it's own SOS by the outcome of its own games. While a team's performance against your team is a reflection of its overall strength, it seems that if your team is very good, factoring the opponent's performance against you into your own SOS is penalizing you for your own performance against that competition.

BamaMoon said:

The original point of the thread.

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Well alrighty then.

IH8Orange said:

Take a division of 7 teams (named A to G in ascending order by the actual strength of the team) of a major FBS conference, assume that they only play each other, and assume that the outcome of every game is just as it should be (the better team wins). Here's the outcomes:...

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Great post and it perfectly illustrates the point at hand, but that is why W/L record and human polls (eye test) are also weighed in rankings. SoS alone is useless in determining the quality of a team, but it is not meant to do so. But it does add value in a very general way when trying to determine which teams with similar W/L records are more "deserving" of recognition.

It is a single tool, no more valuable than the others and less valuable than some - but not completely without value.

Any reasonable SoS calculation will not use the previous year's data, nor will it be as simplistic as calculating according to winning percentage.

B1GTide said:

What does this mean? SoS formulas are all flawed and provide only a guess as to how a team will perform when playing a team from a different part of the country. The eye test is far more accurate in predicting outcomes where teams come from very different regions of America. But the eye test is subject to bias, so we are stuck again.

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A good example would be Alabama's SoS prior to the 2012 bowl season. Alabama was over 10 spots behind Notre Dame in SoS from what I recall. Then, after it was all said and done (and the SEC had yet another good bowl season), Alabama had an Sos of 19th and Notre Dame was at 21. This, despite the fact that Notre Dame got a bigger SoS boost from playing Alabama. The SoS needs a lot of data to function correctly, and it can't predict even the obvious (like the SEC having a good bowl season). It should not be relied on heavily. It's a rough indicator.

bama61 said:

Notice that I specified "out of conference schedule". Specifically Florida Atlantic(6-6), USM (1-11), and WCU (2-10), all of which are cupcakes, the latter two with extra icing.

I did not criticize our SEC schedule simply because we do not have any real control over it. I also cut the WVU game some slack as they had been at least marginally respectable prior to last season and this type of game is a made for TV spectacle with side implications involving money and recruiting exposure.

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I have to put the disclaimer out there again, which is that I take exception to the notion that Alabama, in any way, plays a soft, or cupcake schedule. I understand that might not be what you specifically were trying to say, but there's an overt agenda out there and that's the aspect that bothers me. Since SoS is listed as criteria for the playoff, people want to SoS to mean something other than what it should. They want conference games in and of themselves to have particular emphasis, we see ridiculous things like the list that's been posted, and this all serves to try and move SoS from a rough indicator of schedule difficulty, to something else. It's misleading, and I'm not saying you've been mislead, but what you said plays into their (false) narrative. To be clear, I don't take exception to you personally.

Forget about FIU and UCF. I'll just focus on Alabama, and the allegedly #1 SoS Arkansas.

Look at the schedules, objectively, and I think don't think that Arkansas' schedule is anything other than perhaps marginally more difficult. It's hard to argue that on any given year, for instance, West Virginia, Southern Miss, Tennessee, and Florida are going to be any easier than Texas Tech, Northern Illinois, Missouri, and Georgia. You cite last year's standings, but those are asinine.

Florida had a great year and then a bad one, Auburn had a bad year and then a great one, it's not a good indicator by itself. What is? Let's look at that list (non SEC West opponents) from a historical context, and see how they're ranked (the historical data has some of its own flaws, as some programs are no longer at the FBS level but still ranked).

Alabama:
West Virginia 60
Florida Atlantic NR
Southern Miss 82
Florida 12
Tennessee 10
Western Carolina NR

Arkansas:
Nicholls State NR
Texas Tech 63
Northern Illinois NR
Georgia 11
UAB NR
Missouri 35

It might be a fair assumption, to say that any team that comes up as NR, that isn't in the top 125 all time is probably going to be a cupcake. As you can see, Arkansas has 3 and Alabama has only 2. The key point to reiterate is Alabama is not playing last year's teams, nor is Arkansas. Interestingly enough, Alabama appears to have the more difficult schedule is historical context. If I give the NRs a rank of 126, it comes out to an average of 69 for Alabama, and 82 for Arkansas. You might take exception to my using that statistic as an indicator, but it's no less specious than using last year's records.

I'll specifically address a couple teams you alluded to.

First is West Virginia. remember they were the Big 12's big addition to offset the loss of Nebraska and Texas A&M. If they are not a legitimate football power, then it condemns the entire Big 12 conference really. If they need to get a pass, so does their conference. Secondly, it's easy to argue that they typically would be a more difficult foe than Texas Tech, which is certainly a valid OOC opponent and towards the upper half of the Big 12 as well

Secondly, I really take exception of you using the whole cupcake with extra icing comparison when talking about Southern Miss. They've been to 22 bowl games. Historically, they're ahead of programs like Boise St., BYU, Cincinnati, Louisville, etc... when you go outside of the "power 5", it's really hard to find a better foe than Southern Miss. Alabama fans, of all people should know to respect their program. Furthermore, they were 11-2 in 2011. So, I guess you'd be calling them something else entirely if Alabama had scheduled for 2012, which turned out to be a horrible year for them. Alabama scheduled a solid football program, which happens to have had two bad years in a row. I don't see cause for criticizing Alabama for having them on their schedule.

This all plays into the ludicrous nature of trying to judge schedules before the start of a season, or to criticize a football program for scheduling a typically good program that happens to have found them self struggling recently. Like Southern Miss in 2011-2012, Auburn and Florida in 2012-2013, we just don't know how good these teams are yet. Missouri turned out to be much improved, Auburn turned out to be much improved, but this whole cupcake with extra icing stuff? There should be a bit more perspective...

KrAzY3 said:

Any reasonable SoS calculation will not use the previous year's data, nor will it be as simplistic as calculating according to winning percentage.

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Sorry, that is obvious and I didn't think that it needed to be repeated in my reply to the thread. It has no bearing on my post as I was referring to more legitimate SoS formulas.

This is all good stuff... To me SoS encompasses a lot of factors in addition to basic wins and losses. Seriously, who wants to get a SoS bump because of how Auburn won 2 of their games last year? Just measuring on wins and losses would do that. To me, you also have to look at or incorporate some efficiency statistics (offense and defense) to find out how good a team is. Adding this in would seem to indicate how tough a particular team is on an average play throughout the season regardless of how the game was won or what the score was or the style of offense played.

Mathematically, Boise St can look the same as Bama on paper from an SoS standpoint if their opponents have identical wins and losses. I think you also have to incorporate some sort of longer term view of an opponents quality - like the win/loss record over a 4yr rolling average. The voting public perceives the quality of an opponent over a period of time not just one season. I am not saying any of these factors should be equally weighted but I do think they have some bearing on the quality of the opponent. But doing something like this would obviously give you a little bit of a SoS bump for playing Auburn in 2012 because some of the talent was still on hand that produced a NC in 2010. Going into the season no one knew how bad Auburn was going to be that year and you really didnt know until about half way through the season.

In basketball scheduling, schools like at their prospective opponents' resume as a barometer for scheduling. I dont see any reason why over a period of time you could not do the same thing with football.

Bama Lee said:

Didn't all those stupid computer polls do just that? I agree about strength of schedule. Wasn't there a really weird formula that they used to use in conjunction with the AP and Coaches polls?

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It is ironic this discussion has turned into a way to analyze data. Seems to me the BCS tried to assemble a lot of data and arrive at the best team. Now the CFP committee is going to need data to determine in their view who the best teams are but for whatever reason all the BCS data has been tossed aside. It looks to me like we will eventually end up with something similar to the BCS at least as a measuring tool if not again an outright selection criteria. I just dont see any other way around if you truly do want to pit best against best.

At times, playing Alabama has had devastating consequences on a team and subsequently hurt Bama's SOS in the process.

At the beginning of the 2008 season, Clemson was coming off a good season during which they seemed to improve week-by-week, they were ranked #9, were expected to compete for or win the ACC, and seemed like a very good opponent. After Bama demolished them, the wheels came off, their coach was fired, and they barely ended up with a winning season.

In 2011, Florida was 4-0 and ranked #12 when we met them in the Swamp. Their QB had suffered through a year of Urban blight before Muschamp brought in the Great Offensive Buddha of Decided Schematic Advantage (GOBDSA) to run a pro-style offense and he came out smoking, throwing for a TD and leading a productive drive that looked like it might produce another TD before halftime. After one of the oddest plays in football history where after a Courtney Upshaw sack he appeared to fumble the ball which was recovered by Adrian Hubbard and returned for an apparent TD (the officials I believe decided that Florida had called a timeout before the play), his college career and Florida's perfect record was ended by another Courtney Upshaw sack. Florida went 3-6 after that. I'm sure Muschamp would have preferred that the officials had just given Bama the fumble return TD instead.

In 2012, Michigan was coming off their best season (11-2 with a win over tOSU) in years, was ranked #8, had a Heisman candidate (Denard Robinson) at QB, and were expected to compete for the BigTenEleven crown. Robinson had a gutty performance in that game, but our defense was dominating and it threw the entire Michigan offensive strategy into turmoil. By the end of the season, they were 8-5 and Denard Robinson was splitting his time between multiple positions in an attempt to find some offensive production.

We've so thoroughly processed UThug that they are a liability on our SOS now.

Sometimes you're your own worst enemy for your SOS.

I think that SoS needs to be viewed as what it is supposed to be - a guide, not an infallible barometer of truth. SoS discussions really should only happen when you have a situation like 1998 Tulane, the Boise State fiascoes, or something like that. While the SEC is usually better than the Big 12, it's not like the chasm of football is so much better in the SEC that it's like, say, FBS vs FCS.

Furthermore, I'd say SoS gets inflated sometimes. In 1996, Florida won the national championship playing the toughest schedule in the nation. But up to a point it was all a farce. Entering their last game of the regular season unbeaten, Florida's opponents only had a record of 54-49, barely above .500 (and that entire margin was achieved by one team, 10-2 LSU). In their last three games, Florida played:

a) unbeaten Florida State
b) 9-win Alabama (eventually 10)
c) unbeaten Florida State

The win totals of those three games shot Florida from well down in the pack as far as SoS to number one. But it's a little deceiving. Not bashing Florida, but SoS sounds like you played a bunch of 8 or 9-win foes that were very good. In Florida's case, they played six decent foes: Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, LSU, and FSU twice. Florida State was an unbeaten number one when they met Florida. Record of their opponents? 57-57.

This is where we have to avoid arguing in a circle. Florida had a high-powered offense and a very good defense that year (coached by Big Game Bob). But were they that good? I think in their case, yes.


But then consider two other teams: Arizona State and Ohio State, who met in the Rose Bowl. Arizona State was undefeated but had played only two decent foes all season long: 9-3 Washington (in the opener) and the two-time defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers, whose 26-game winning streak ended against the Sun Devils by a 19-0 count (there were three safeties on that game). Basically, Arizona State beat Nebraska and got a free ride as a "great team" the rest of the year. Sure, they played an excellent game, but does that make up for their soft SoS? Or is it soft?

Ohio State, meanwhile, played a slightly lesser schedule than FSU but - unfortunately for the Buckeyes - blew the Michigan game.

My point is that we can't just sit there and say, "Team A has an SoS of number 18 and Team B had 20 - therefore, it's team A." The SoS is only an argument when there's a huge gap between two teams with the same record needing one spot.

One more thing: it only helps if you lose to one of the GOOD teams you play. Don't believe me? Go ask Okie State. Their schedule was tougher than ours in 2011 but their loss was to a .500 Iowa State team. That undoes any SoS advantage. Had we lost to MSU and they lost to K-State, the whole scenario would have been different.

selmaborntidefan said:

I think that SoS needs to be viewed as what it is supposed to be - a guide, not an infallible barometer of truth. SoS discussions really should only happen when you have a situation like 1998 Tulane, the Boise State fiascoes, or something like that. While the SEC is usually better than the Big 12, it's not like the chasm of football is so much better in the SEC that it's like, say, FBS vs FCS.

Furthermore, I'd say SoS gets inflated sometimes. In 1996, Florida won the national championship playing the toughest schedule in the nation. But up to a point it was all a farce. Entering their last game of the regular season unbeaten, Florida's opponents only had a record of 54-49, barely above .500 (and that entire margin was achieved by one team, 10-2 LSU). In their last three games, Florida played:

a) unbeaten Florida State
b) 9-win Alabama (eventually 10)
c) unbeaten Florida State

The win totals of those three games shot Florida from well down in the pack as far as SoS to number one. But it's a little deceiving. Not bashing Florida, but SoS sounds like you played a bunch of 8 or 9-win foes that were very good. In Florida's case, they played six decent foes: Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, LSU, and FSU twice. Florida State was an unbeaten number one when they met Florida. Record of their opponents? 57-57.

This is where we have to avoid arguing in a circle. Florida had a high-powered offense and a very good defense that year (coached by Big Game Bob). But were they that good? I think in their case, yes.


But then consider two other teams: Arizona State and Ohio State, who met in the Rose Bowl. Arizona State was undefeated but had played only two decent foes all season long: 9-3 Washington (in the opener) and the two-time defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers, whose 26-game winning streak ended against the Sun Devils by a 19-0 count (there were three safeties on that game). Basically, Arizona State beat Nebraska and got a free ride as a "great team" the rest of the year. Sure, they played an excellent game, but does that make up for their soft SoS? Or is it soft?

Ohio State, meanwhile, played a slightly lesser schedule than FSU but - unfortunately for the Buckeyes - blew the Michigan game.

My point is that we can't just sit there and say, "Team A has an SoS of number 18 and Team B had 20 - therefore, it's team A." The SoS is only an argument when there's a huge gap between two teams with the same record needing one spot.

One more thing: it only helps if you lose to one of the GOOD teams you play. Don't believe me? Go ask Okie State. Their schedule was tougher than ours in 2011 but their loss was to a .500 Iowa State team. That undoes any SoS advantage. Had we lost to MSU and they lost to K-State, the whole scenario would have been different.

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I must say I think you can be very abrasive, condescending, and unreceptive to differing opinions.

But you most often make very good points, and validate your opinion and reasoning with the facts you used to derive them

IGetBuckets said:

I must say I think you can be very abrasive, condescending, and unreceptive to differing opinions.

But you most often make very good points, and validate your opinion and reasoning with the facts you used to derive them

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He needs to make some bad points that are unreasonable and lack any factual basis and then we can all bust his chops. :biggrin:

B1GTide said:

Sorry, that is obvious and I didn't think that it needed to be repeated in my reply to the thread. It has no bearing on my post as I was referring to more legitimate SoS formulas.

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That statement wasn't in response to you. Some things are obvious to those of us that have followed SoS over the years, but to many I think SoS largely remains a mystery. Unfortunately, what type of formula the committee will use is also a mystery and I have to echo the complaint that there was no need to do away with the BCS formula (although clearly they didn't like the all SEC final).

selmaborntidefan said:

My point is that we can't just sit there and say, "Team A has an SoS of number 18 and Team B had 20 - therefore, it's team A." The SoS is only an argument when there's a huge gap between two teams with the same record needing one spot.

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You made a lot of good points. I think this part really hits the nail on the head. SoS is, to reiterate, a rough indicator. Yes, it means something, but it by no means should rise to the level of RPI for instance in college basketball (which in my opinion has taken on ridiculous importance).

In 2012, Alabama finished with an SoS of 19 and Ohio State had an SoS of 60. I think that left more than enough room to be dismissive of Ohio State's undefeated season, without need for further investigation. Once SoS starts to get closer (within about 20 spots), then I think you have to set aside SoS and analyze the merits of each team, for instance the fact that Oklahoma State lost to a very bad team in 2011.

IGetBuckets said:

I must say I think you can be very abrasive, condescending, and unreceptive to differing opinions.

But you most often make very good points, and validate your opinion and reasoning with the facts you used to derive them

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People's thought processes (in my opinion) tend to be driven by two things, emotion and logic. Some people will always be primarily driven by emotion and you'll hear it in the way they express themselves ("I feel..."), and on the other hand some people are going to be driven almost entirely by logic, which is far more unforgiving than emotion. For most of us, we can't help but be clouded by emotion, I remember things through the filter of how they felt to me at the time. Selma, due to his uncanny memory, must live in the unforgiving world of facts. In that state, I don't think he really has any choice in terms of how he views things.

Once I became aware of his memory, I think I appreciate more what he brings to a discussion.