by Brian Fremeau

The only thing that matters in the end is winning and losing. That's a common refrain among college football fans, and it is the ultimate benchmark against which programs and coaches are judged. We collect and analyze thousands of additional data points over the course of each season, but those stats are only part of the picture. If it doesn't lead to victory or defeat, it probably isn't worth measuring.

I wrote a feature article for a Lindy's Sports magazine this summer previewing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and it was all about turnovers. The Irish were prone to costly red zone interceptions and fumbles and also had a very difficult time generating turnovers defensively last year. Worse, Notre Dame's costliest mistakes came in situations that made all the difference between winning and losing.

I introduced a new statistic in the article, Total Turnover Value (TTV), a measure of not just the exchange in field position of the turnover event, but also of the offensive drive value generated prior to the miscue. An interception or fumble is a bad play no matter when it happens, but it is even more costly to an offense when it negates drive value already earned.

We can also extract TTV data to evaluate the performance of each team in a turnover -neutral environment. In other words, how successful was a team on a drive up until the moment just before the turnover occurred? And once we do isolate TTV data, we can measure how much of an impact turnovers had on the final outcome of the game.

It isn't just turnovers that can flip a game in one team's favor, either. A team can win the offensive and defensive battle drive by drive until a special teams play or two swings the pendulum in the other direction. And field position values often hinge on turnovers and special teams as well as offensive and defensive drive success. Field position can also prove to be the difference in the final score.

I plan to make this a regular feature here in the FEI column, a "Revisionist Box Score," if you will, identifying the games each week that were most impacted by turnovers, special teams, field position, or all three. This isn't intended to provide a "coulda, woulda, shoulda" excuse for teams on the wrong end of a given game, and it certainly won't make us reconsider actual win-loss records. Turnovers, special teams, and field position are part of the game. Hopefully though, these tables will provide a bit more context for the season as it plays out.

The numbers in these tables overlap, so we can't combine them without double-counting values exchanged on particular plays. It will be particularly interesting for me to see how often close games could have been turned if not for turnovers, special teams, field position, or a combination of all three. More than 20 percent of the opening weekend's games were impacted, and I would expect that number to climb as games as more games are competitively contested throughout.

FEI Week 1 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 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 listed here includes future games scheduled.

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 Efficiency (OE) is the raw unadjusted efficiency of the given team's offense, a measure of its actual drive success against expected drive success based on field position. Defensive Efficiency (DE) is the raw unadjusted efficiency of the given team's defense, a measure of the actual drive success of its opponents against expected drive success based on field position. Field Position Advantage (FPA) is 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. Since limited data is available in the early part of the season, preseason projections are factored into the current ratings. The weight given to projected data will be reduced each week until Week 7, when it will be eliminated entirely. Opponent-adjusted offensive and defensive FEI ratings will also debut in Week 7.

These FEI ratings are a function of results of games played through September 3. The ratings for all FBS teams can be found here.

Posted by: Brian Fremeau on 05 Sep 2012

3 comments, Last at 06 Sep 2012, 12:15am by Jake