by Brian Fremeau

Last weekend’s Alabama-LSU game answered some questions and raised a few others. As predicted, a close contest resulted in little impact on the FEI ratings. Alabama remains No. 2 and may very well have a solid argument at season’s end that they are the second-best team in the nation. We can’t jump to any conclusions yet, of course. The gap between the Crimson Tide and other contenders is slim, and there will be opportunities ahead for Stanford, Oklahoma State, and others to make impressive statements as well. Of course, if there are upsets -– and there are always upsets –- Alabama might very well have an argument that they are the nation’s best team. I’m looking forward to watching it all unfold.

As for my impressions of the game, I’m not one to lament the lack of offensive fireworks. As others have stated, incredible athleticism on the defensive side of the ball can be extraordinarily enjoyable to watch too. These two teams are among the top defenses in the country, without a doubt. LSU is No. 1 in DFEI this week, Alabama ranks No. 6.

There is great sentiment in the college football world to get to see a truly elite offense square off against one of these defenses. According to my ratings, LSU (No. 23 OFEI) was the best offense Alabama has faced this year, and Alabama (No. 13 OFEI) was the second-best offense LSU has faced this year, behind only West Virginia (No. 6 OFEI). As things stand right now, LSU won’t face a tougher offense even if Stanford (No. 28 OFEI), Oklahoma State (No. 31 OFEI), or Boise State (No. 37 OFEI) snag the championship bid.

This is where I furrow my brow. The Offensive and Defensive FEI ratings have always been part validation and part bewilderment for me. Most of the top OFEI teams make sense, but then there’s the Miami Hurricanes sitting there at No. 1. Most of the top DFEI teams make sense, but then there’s the Oklahoma State Cowboys sitting there at No. 2. What’s going on there?

Let’s talk about Miami first. The Hurricanes are averaging a pedestrian 385 yards per game (67th in the nation), but unlike some of the teams at the top of those stat sheets, they play at a very deliberate pace. They are maximizing value on the plays they do run (6.5 yards per play, 15th nationally) and possessions. Last weekend against lowly Duke (No. 91 DFEI), Miami scored touchdowns on each of its first five offensive possessions, the fifth of which concluded with less than 10 minutes left in the third quarter. Garbage time hadn’t officially kicked in at that point, but they were ruthlessly efficient against a weak opposing defense, as elite offenses must be. Against a similarly ranked Louisiana-Lafayette defense (No. 94 DFEI) in Week 1, Oklahoma State’s explosive offense scored its fifth touchdown late in the third quarter, too. But it was the Cowboys’ 13th possession of the day –- two field goals, three punts, two interceptions, and a turnover on downs preceded that drive. Oklahoma State’s 666 yards in the game impressed a lot of people. Miami’s efficiency impressed FEI.

That’s on one end of the spectrum. Against the second-best defense Miami has faced to date, Virginia Tech (No. 16 DFEI), the Hurricanes had only nine non-clock kill possessions and scored five touchdowns. Two of those other four possessions were thwarted on downs in the red zone, so they had little trouble moving the ball. That game ranks as the No. 1 opponent-adjusted OFEI game of the year, and it’s the biggest reason why Miami sits at the top of the overall OFEI ratings. More on that in a moment.

On defense, Oklahoma State is surrendering 460 yards per game (only 10 teams are worse), and they just had Kansas State run up 45 points and 507 yards in a shootout this past weekend. So why are the Cowboys rating as an elite defense according to FEI? The Wildcats game was their worst opponent-adjusted effort of the year, so I’m not going to defend it. But, due to their own high-octane offense, the Cowboys defense is facing many more possessions than an average defense.

Against Missouri (No. 18 OFEI) Oklahoma State gave up 463 yards and 24 points, but the Tigers had the ball 16 times in that game. Against Baylor (No. 2 OFEI), Oklahoma State held the Bears to only three points in nine non-garbage possessions. Baylor has averaged better than 3.5 points per non-garbage possession in all other games. Like the Miami offensive game against Virginia Tech, that effort against the Bears gives Oklahoma State’s defense the best opponent-adjusted DFEI game of the year.

You may be wondering, as I am, whether those outlier performances are getting a little too much weight in the formula. Both Miami and Oklahoma State have had fairly high variance in their opponent-adjusted stats this season, and the numbers shouldn’t suggest that those extreme performances are going to happen again. But those units certainly are better than raw metrics give them credit for. There’s more data to collect this year though, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions based only a couple of examples. Last season, Auburn’s defense appeared to be severely overrated according to FEI and then they managed to hold Oregon’s offense down in the BCS championship game. Time will tell again this year -- if not in the BCS title game, then in other marquee matchups in the coming weeks.

FEI Week 10 Top 25

The Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. FEI is drive-based, not play-by-play based, and it is specifically engineered to measure the college game.

FEI is the opponent-adjusted value of Game Efficiency (GE), a measurement of the success rate of a team scoring and preventing opponent scoring throughout the non-garbage-time possessions of a game. FEI represents a team's efficiency value over average. Strength of Schedule (SOS) is calculated as the likelihood that an "elite team" (two standard deviations above average) would win every game on the given team's schedule. "SOS Pvs" represents only games played to date. "SOS Fut" represents only remaining scheduled games.

Mean Wins (FBS MW) represent the average total games a team with the given FEI rating should expect to win against its complete schedule of FBS opponents. Remaining Mean Wins (FBS RMW) represent the average expected team wins for games scheduled but not yet played.

Offensive FEI (OFEI), Defensive FEI (DFEI), Special Teams Efficiency (STE) are also provided, along with Field Position Advantage (FPA), the share of the value of total starting field position earned by each team against its opponents.

Only games between FBS teams are considered in the FEI calculations. These FEI ratings are a function of results of games played through November 5. The ratings for all FBS teams can be found here. You can also find OFEI, DFEI, and STE on their own pages.

Posted by: Brian Fremeau on 09 Nov 2011

14 comments, Last at 22 Mar 2013, 1:57am by Leah Bathurst