by Brian Fremeau

The season is young, but last weekend featured a handful of upsets that made an immediate impact on expectations and the road to the BCS bowls. The biggest move in the FEI rankings was Arizona's climb from 79th to 44th on the heels of its explosive and opportunistic victory over Oklahoma State. Cincinnati and Kansas State made leaps as well after big victories over teams FEI was previously fond of.

We've had losses by top-10 teams in the major polls over the first couple of weeks, but no major shockers from top-10 FEI teams yet. None of them have played one another, of course. Virginia Tech is the only FEI top-25 team to have played another current FEI top-25 opponent, beating Georgia Tech in Week 1. Michigan State is the only other FEI top-25 team to have knocked off a current FEI top-30 team, Boise State. Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida each have a victory over an FEI top-40 team.

Since preseason data is still a big factor (roughly two-thirds of each team's rating on average), it isn't worth fretting over the handful of teams that appear to be out of whack. Whenever I doubt a particular team's rating, I'm often surprised to see that team perform closer to FEI expectations the next week than to my own personal expectations. Florida and Notre Dame are probably a bit too high, Oregon is a bit too low. But I'm confident teams will shift and settle in appropriately over the coming weeks. Three games coming up this weekend feature FEI top-25 teams: Florida at Tennessee, Notre Dame at Michigan State, and USC at Stanford.

One thing I'm paying attention to over the first few weeks of the season is the new kickoff rules and their impact on the game. Kickoffs were moved forward to the 35-yard-line this year (from the 30-yard-line), and touchbacks on kickoffs are now placed at the 25-yard-line (instead of the 20-yard-line). From my observations, some teams are still trying to figure out how to handle the new rules.

Many kickers have plenty of leg strength to boot the ball through the end zone every time, but it appears that some are being coached to kick the ball short enough to force a return. If the kickoff coverage team can make a stop inside the 25-yard line, it is a good play, but is the risk of allowing a longer return worth it? Probably not.

The difference in field position scoring expectations between a team's own 20-yard-line and its own 25-yard-line is only about 0.1 points per drive. That will add up, over the course of a season, to a little more than six points on the year. That's negligible on a game-by-game basis. The average starting field position following kickoff returns last year was a team's own 28-yard-line. So far in 2012, the average field position is a team's own 26-yard-line.

Kickers capable of consistently booting touchbacks would be wise to do so. Through the first two weeks of the year, 37 teams are averaging better than a 50 percent touchback rate. Last year, only two kicking teams had a touchback percentage better than 50 percent. It is a better-than-average play for the kicking team, and under the new rules, it is well within the means of many teams to execute it.

Week 2 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 14 of 86 FBS games (16.3 percent)
• Net Special Teams Value was the difference in 6 of 86 FBS games (7.0 percent)
• Net Field Position Value was the difference in 11 of 86 FBS games (12.8 percent)
• Turnovers, Special Teams and/or Field Position was the difference in 19 of 86 FBS games (22.1 percent)

FEI Week 2 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 8. The ratings for all FBS teams can be found here.

Posted by: Brian Fremeau on 12 Sep 2012

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