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2024 Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings!
Welcome to the 2024 Week 9 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!What does it take to impress a computer rating system? We are now 9 weeks into the 2024 campaign, and the Indiana Hoosiers have yet to trail for a single second. At 8-0, AP #13 Indiana seems to be playing markedly better than...
What does it take to impress a computer rating system? We are now 9 weeks into the 2024 campaign, and the Indiana Hoosiers have yet to trail for a single second. At 8-0, AP #13 Indiana seems to be playing markedly better than the likes of AP #4 and 6-1 Ohio State.
Just this week for example, Ohio State struggled to put away the Nebraska Cornhuskers at home in a 21-17 victory. Last week, Indiana demolished Nebraska 56-7. In the expanded Big Ten, there are few common opponents between the Indiana and Ohio State schedule, so the only data point we have on their collective strength seems meaningful. Still, the computers have their own methods for assessing team strength, and those methods continue to have Ohio State neck and neck for the title of “strongest team” while Indiana remains mired in the double digits. It brings into question the modeling methodologies themselves, the phasing out of preseason priors, and the usage of 2024 season results. Let’s take a look at a few of the models, the methods used, and where Indiana and Ohio State rate in each.
- SP+ - “What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing.” – Bill Connelly
- Ohio State (2nd)
- Indiana (13th)
- ESPN FPI – “Football Power Index that measures team's true strength on net points scale; expected point margin vs average opponent on neutral field.” – ESPN
- Ohio State (2nd)
- Indiana (11th)
- ESPN Efficiency – “Net efficiency on 0-100 scale; incorporates offense, defense and special teams efficiencies into a single schedule-adjusted measure of per-play efficiency.” – ESPN
- Ohio State (1st)
- Indiana (6th)
- KelleyFord – “Points per game above FBS average. Power ratings designed to be purely predictive, or forward-looking.” – Kelley Ford
- Ohio State (1st)
- Indiana (11th)
- Sagarin Predictor, Golden Mean, Recent – “The PREDICTOR, is such that the score is the only thing that matters. GOLDEN_MEAN also utilizes the actual SCORES of the games in a different way but is also completely SCORE BASED and thus should be a good match for the PURE POINTS in terms of predictive accuracy for upcoming games. The RECENT, is score-based and weights RECENT play more heavily than earlier games. Its effect will become more pronounced the longer a season goes if a given team happens to have an upward or downward trend.” – Jeff Sagarin
- Ohio State (1st, 1st, 3rd)
- Indiana (16th, 18th, 16th)
- SRS – “SRS is primarily concerned with two data points: A team's average scoring margin; Strength of schedule. It spits out a number that essentially functions as a weighted scoring margin. A team's weighted scoring margin is basically their average margin adjusted up or down for SOS. A team with a final rating of 0 is considered to be completely average whereas a team with a +5 rating is considered to be 5 points better than an average team.” – Bill Radjewski
- Ohio State (1st)
- Indiana (4th)
- Beta Ranks – “Beta_Rank is an advanced college football model built on drive level data from every game. It is an interlocking series of hierarchical models that provide deep insights into team performance.” – Rob Bowron
- Ohio State (1st)
- Indiana (11th)
- Massey – Rating overall strength considering “Off: Offensive power to score” and “Def: Defensive power to prevent opponent from scoring” – Kenneth Massey
- Ohio State (3rd)
- Indiana (21st)
- Colley – “The method is based on very simple statistical principles, and uses only wins and losses as input—margin of victory does not matter. The scheme adjusts effectively for strength of schedule, in a way that is free of bias toward conference, tradition, or region. Comparison of rankings produced by this method to those produced by the press polls shows that despite its simplicity, the scheme produces common sense results.” – Wesley Colley
- Ohio State (7th)
- Indiana (12th)
Quick Hitters:
- In the Friday night 29-24 win over UNLV, Boise State took a necessary step ahead toward CFP contention. Amongst the feathers in the cap for the Broncos are a strong win over 7-1 Washington State, a close road loss to the #1 Oregon Ducks, and now a road win over a top 5 Group of 5 team in UNLV. Boise State controls their own destiny at this point of the season, with only Army standing as a team with the potential opportunity to jump the Broncos for a CFP Auto Bid. Army has opportunity with Notre Dame still on the schedule and could create a 2021 Cincinnati situation if they can upset the Fighting Irish, but absent that dynamic Boise State at 12-1 should remain ahead of all other potential playoff hopefuls.
- Texas followed up the loss to Georgia with a quality road win in a close game over Vanderbilt. Texas A&M secured their position atop the SEC with a runaway home win over LSU. Texas now looks ahead at 3 unranked teams before a season ending game against Texas A&M, who projects to also enter the November 30th showdown at 10-1. The winner of this game likely plays for the SEC title. The loser hopes for a CFP At Large bid. Will we see any upsets, or are these teams on a collision course for an all-time rivalry renewal showdown? Time will tell!
