by Brian Fremeau

BCS Crisis 2011 is upon us. The SEC West has a stranglehold on the top of the standings and the national championship debate is frustrating voters and fans alike. Are we facing an inevitable rematch? Is it better to vote for the two best teams or the two best teams that haven't already played? Are the quality of losses more important than the quality of wins?

I'm not sure there are any easy answers to these questions. And I'm not sure I have easy answers to the inevitable questions about how the FEI ratings adjusted to the wild weekend of upsets. Oklahoma State managed to remain No. 2 in FEI despite losing to FEI No. 62 Iowa State. That's because Baylor's victory over Oklahoma and Kansas State's victory over Texas actually improved the Cowboys resume more than the loss to the Cyclones damaged it. It's peculiar, but it has been a peculiar season, especially of late.

I expect more shuffling in the last few weeks. There will be multiple matchups ahead in the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 between FEI top-15 teams, and this weekend features games between the ACC and SEC that might result in major rating shifts for entire conferences.

Field Goal Woes

Oklahoma State's field goal kicker Quinn Sharp is 17-for-20 on the season, the eighth-best success rate in the nation. He was named a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza Award, given annually the nation's best placekicker. Florida State's Dustin Hopkins is 20-for-24 on field goals for the year, 15th best in the nation. He is a Lou Groza award finalist.

Sharp and Hopkins missed game-winning field goal attempts last weekend at the end of regulation. Oregon's Alejandro Moldanado shanked a kick that would have sent the Ducks to overtime against USC. A week earlier, Boise State's Dan Goodale missed a potential game-winner against TCU. Alabama's Jeremy Shelley and Cade Foster combined to make only 2-of-6 attempts in a three point loss to LSU back on November 5th.

Missed field goals have been the story of the 2011 season. Pressure kicks have been unusually bad. There have been a total of 20 field goals attempted this season on the final play of an FBS game, excluding overtime, and the kickers have only made seven of those 20 attempts. Only two of those makes were with the game actually on the line -- if the five other made attempts had missed, their games would have only gone to overtime. Last season, kickers were 14-for-18 in end of game, non-overtime attempts.

Field goal kicking overall is down slightly this season, but we'll remember the crucial kicks above all others. It has already dramatically impacted the BCS championship race -- and with a few weeks still to go, the kickers of the top teams will be sure to be called upon again.

Brad Wing vs. Joe Adams

I wrote a piece for ESPN Insider this week about the special teams matchups to watch for in this weekend's LSU-Arkansas game. LSU ranks fifth in STE this week on the strength of its strong field goal unit and punting. Arkansas ranks 10th in STE this week on the strength of its punt returns and kickoff returns. The showdown on fourth down may be the most important of the game. Will punter Brad Wing be able to consistently pin Arkansas deep, or will Razorbacks' return man Joe Adams be able to spring a return or two and flip field position in favor of Arkansas?

The STE ratings are new this year, and one thing I've observed is that they are much more volatile from week-to-week than the offensive and defensive ratings. That's due in part to the fact that single spectacular special teams play, positive or negative, can be worth so much. A fumbled punt or kickoff loses expected drive value and grants the opponent valuable field position. A punt or kickoff return for a touchdown is rare enough to be significantly more valuable than an average expected value on a return.

Which means that while LSU and Arkansas are expected to be strong on special teams, a single unexpected event can make all the difference. Good field goal kickers can miss field goals. Great punt returners can fumble. Great punters can be blocked.

The matchup between Wing and Adams will have as much to do with the other 20 players on the field as it will the two of them. Wing can blast a punt from deep in his own territory, but unless his punt coverage team makes the play, a returner can find some room to roam. And as the following chart shows, drive ending field position is critical too.

Arkansas has had success fielding punts inside its own 20-yard line and bringing them out for a five-to-ten yard gain. Wing's ability to drop a punt inside the opponent's 10-yard line is contingent on LSU not having to punt very often from inside its own 30-yard line. Wing gets plenty of credit when his opposition is forced to march 90 yards or more, but the key to LSU's success has been in keeping virtually every punt from being returned at all. Forcing Joe Adams to call for a fair catch with high, hanging punts is all Wing and LSU need to do to keep him from making an impact on special teams. Pinning the Razorbacks deep would be gravy.

FEI Week 12 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 19. 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 23 Nov 2011

3 comments, Last at 08 Dec 2012, 3:39am by john123456