by Brian Fremeau

There are now only three undefeated contenders remaining in the BCS championship race, and the polls and computers responded to the Alabama upset pretty much as expected. Slide the Crimson Tide down a few notches, move a few teams up one spot, and maintain poll anchoring logic above all else. Readers of this column over the years won’t be surprised to know that the FEI ratings responded a bit differently.

Poll anchoring is not the goal here. The season cannot be evaluated based only on the results of the previous weekend as compared to the previous week’s rankings. From my perspective, the totality of the season needs to be re-evaluated each week.

Why is Kansas State the No. 1 team in FEI this week? The answer is not tied to its position last week. The answer is that the Wildcats have the best overall profile, ranking in the top 20 in Offensive FEI (OFEI), Defensive FEI (DFEI), and Special Teams Efficiency (STE). They are No. 1 in that last category by a large margin, earning 4.5 points more than average per game on special teams play (2.6 standard deviations better than average).

Why is Alabama the No. 2 team in FEI this week? The answer is that, along with Kansas State, they are the only other team in the nation to rank among the top 20 in OFEI, DFEI, and STE. (In fact, they are in the top-15 in all three categories.) A five-point loss to No. 6 Texas A&M in a game in which they lost the turnover value margin by 12.2 points is not a crippling loss. They have a stronger Game Efficiency than the Wildcats against what is now measured as a slightly stronger schedule to date. (They do play the nation’s easiest remaining regular-season schedule, so don’t be surprised if that position doesn’t hold firm in the coming weeks.)

Why is Oregon the No. 3 team in FEI this week? The Ducks are in the top 25 in OFEI, DFEI, and STE, despite playing a much weaker schedule strength to date than the other major contenders. Their raw Game Efficiency is No. 1, and if that keeps up in their remaining games against good teams (Stanford, Oregon State, and a Pac-12 title game against USC or UCLA), I expect Oregon will vault ahead to the top of the season-ending FEI ratings.

Why is Notre Dame the No. 4 team in FEI this week? The Irish have not been as dominant as the three teams ahead of them, but they have played the toughest schedule to date among them. Their offensive strength of schedule (opposing defenses) is light years better than Oregon’s and Kansas State’s, and their opponent-adjusted OFEI ranking reflects that. Their defense has been consistently dominant all season long and ranks No. 1 in that category. Their weakness is special teams, where they have cost themselves field-position value in seven of their ten games to date. With above-average special teams, their closest calls wouldn’t have been as close.

Those four teams are the best four teams in the country. The BCS ranks them in a particular order. FEI ranks them in another order, and the difference between their overall profiles is very close. Reasonable poll voters can consider this and other data, weight teams based on who is most deserving, trump up teams for best wins, knock teams down for worst wins, etc. I still expect an upset or two may shake up the BCS standings down the stretch, and I expect we’ll be considering the merits of all four of these teams when the championship match-up is selected.

Week 11 Revisionist Box Scores

This weekly feature identifies the games played each week that were most impacted by turnovers, special teams, field position, or some combination of the three. The neutralized margin of victory is a function of the point values earned and surrendered based on field position and expected scoring rates.

2012 totals to date:

• Net Total Turnover Value was the difference in 88 of 567 FBS games (15.5 percent)
• Net Special Teams Value was the difference in 42 of 567 FBS games (7.4 percent)
• Net Field Position Value was the difference in 55 of 567 FBS games (9.7 percent)
• Turnovers, Special Teams and/or Field Position was the difference in 123 of 567 FBS games (21.7 percent)

2012 Game Splits for all teams, including the offensive, defensive, special teams, field position, and turnover values recorded in each FBS game are provided here.

FEI Week 11 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.

Other definitions:

• SOS Pvs: Strength of schedule to date, based on the likelihood of an elite team going undefeated against the given team's schedule to date.
• SOS Fut: Strength of schedule, based on the likelihood of an elite team going undefeated against the given team's remaining schedule.
• FBS MW: Mean Wins, the average number of games a team with the given FEI rating would be expected to win against its entire schedule.
• FBS RMW: Remaining Mean Wins, the average number of games a team with the given FEI rating would be expected to win against its remaining schedule.
• OFEI: Offensive FEI, the opponent-adjusted efficiency of the given team's offense.
• DFEI: Defensive FEI, the opponent-adjusted efficiency of the given team's defense.
• STE: Special Teams Efficiency, the scoring value earned by field goal, punt and kickoff units measured in points per average game.
• FPA: Field Position Advantage, the share of the value of total starting field position earned by each team against its opponents.

These FEI ratings are a function of results of games played through November 3rd. The ratings for all FBS teams, including FEI splits for Offense, Defense, and Special Teams can be found here. Program FEI (five-year weighted) ratings and other supplemental drive-based data can be found here.

Posted by: Brian Fremeau on 14 Nov 2012

10 comments, Last at 15 Nov 2012, 9:52pm by Brian Fremeau