2018 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Mountain West

Last week we looked at how Mountain West teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2018 Mountain West standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, Mountain West teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Using a game and a half as a line of demarcation, Hawaii was the lone team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. The Warriors also exceeded their expected record relative to their YPP and we discussed a few reasons for this last week. Rather than rehash that, let's delve into another characteristic Hawaii has managed to maintain for the last decade or so.

Consistently Inconsistent
Hawaii’s appearance in the 2018 postseason was shocking. The Warriors entered 2018 fresh off a 3-9 season where they won just a single time in Mountain West play. Yet the Warriors opened the season by winning a road game for the first time in nearly a calendar year. They followed that road upset with a pair of home wins, and following a body-clock loss at Army won three in a row to stand 6-1. Their wins were a little fluky, and the Warriors came back to earth over the second half of the season, losing four of six to finish the regular season 8-5. Still, eight wins was a massive improvement and the Warriors ended up finishing 5-3 in the improved Mountain West. However, perhaps it shouldn’t have been so shocking. Two years previous, the Warriors were starting the 2016 campaign fresh off a winless conference season with a first-year head coach. They managed to grind out four conference wins and a surprise bowl appearance (and victory). In fact, the Warriors have been treating (torturing?) their fans with a year-to-year roller coaster ride for the past decade or so. Based on year-to-year differences in conference victories, Hawaii has been the most inconsistent mid-major team since 2007. To illustrate this, I have charted their number of conference wins below.

From 2007 to 2008, the Warriors went from eight conference wins to five, so their absolute difference in wins was three. From 2008 to 2009 they went from five conference wins to three, so their absolute difference in wins was two. Adding these absolute differences together produces a total absolute difference of five. Using this formula through the 2018 season yields an absolute difference of 33, which equates to an average of three wins per year difference in conference record. Only one other mid-major school has come close to being as inconsistent as Hawaii.

So the Mountain West is home to the most inconsistent team of the last decade. It is also home to the two most consistent teams, at least in terms of average difference between conference wins.

Boise State has consistently finished near the top of whatever conference they happen to be a part of, never winning fewer than five conference games since 1998. Nevada has consistently finished within one game of .500 in conference play with a few exceptions sprinkled in when Colin Kaepernick was under center (or more precisely in The Pistol). Heading into 2019, expect Boise State and Nevada to finish within about a game of their 2018 conference record. As for Hawaii, they should either go undefeated and challenge for a playoff spot or finish winless and be in the market for a new head coach.

2018 Yards Per Play: Mountain West

Our offseason sojourn keeps churning through the Group of Five. This week we are examining the Mountain West.

Here are the Mountain West standings.

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each Mountain West team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by division by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2018 season, which teams in the Mountain West met this threshold? Here are Mountain West teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Boise State and Hawaii were the Mountain West teams that significantly exceeded their expected record based on YPP. The reason for Hawaii’s resurgence was simple: they were great in close games. The Warriors were 4-0 in one-score conference games and their other conference win came by just nine points. Contrast that to their losses which all came by at least eighteen points. For Boise State, no one thing stands out, but coupled together, several small factors helped them exceed their expected record. The Broncos were a solid 2-1 in one-score conference games, had a +6 turnover margin in conference play, and were +3 in non-offensive touchdowns in conference play. One non-offensive touchdown proved to be the difference in them winning the division. A 99-yard interception return against Nevada provided the margin of victory in their win against the Wolfpack and allowed them to steal the division when they beat Utah State in the regular season finale.

A Step-Back for Boise?
After compiling the YPP data for 2018, I was surprised Boise State ranked so low. The Broncos were not a bad team, but they did not have the profile of a dominant team either. Yet on the first weekend in December, they were once again hosting the Mountain West Championship Game for the second year in a row and third time in the game’s six year existence. To contextualize just how much Boise State’s actual record exceeded their expected record based on YPP, I went back and looked at all mid-major (non-BCS and Group of Five) teams since 2005 that exceeded their expected record by at least .300 (remember, I consider a difference of .200 significant) and finished with a conference winning percentage of at least .875 (7-1 in an eight game conference schedule). I added this extra qualifier because I wanted to look at teams that not only exceeded their expected record, but were also in contention for their conference title. In other words, I wanted average teams that finished with great records instead of bad teams that finished with average records. So how unique was Boise State in 2018? They were only the sixth mid-major team to exceed their expected record by at least .300 and win at least seven of their eight conference games. Boise and the other five teams are listed below along with their conference records the following season.

Obviously, this reeks of small sample size, but the results should not be encouraging for Boise State fans. The other five teams on this list all declined by at least two games in conference play the next season and the average decline was over three games (3.1). The Broncos do have a better and longer track record than these five teams. All five were coming off losing seasons when they significantly exceeded their expected record, with UCF fresh off a winless campaign when they surprised the nation by nearly winning Conference USA in 2005. Meanwhile, the Broncos have not won fewer than eight games in two decades. Still, they are losing a four-year starter at quarterback and their defensive YPP was the worst (in terms of actual yards per play and conference rank) it has been in the fourteen years I have been tracking YPP data. The Broncos will likely open as the Mountain West favorite when odds are released in the coming months, and they will be an even more prohibitive favorite to win the Mountain Division. I wouldn’t place a bet on one of the other teams in the division (Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, Utah State, Wyoming) to win it individually, but collectively, I would take the field over the Broncos to represent the Mountain half of the conference in the championship game.

2018 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: MAC

Last week we looked at how MAC teams fared in terms of yards per play. This week, we turn our attention to how the season played out in terms of the Adjusted Pythagorean Record, or APR. For an in-depth look at APR, click here. If you didn’t feel like clicking, here is the Reader’s Digest version. APR looks at how well a team scores and prevents touchdowns. Non-offensive touchdowns, field goals, extra points, and safeties are excluded. The ratio of offensive touchdowns to touchdowns allowed is converted into a winning percentage. Pretty simple actually.

Once again, here are the 2018 MAC standings.

And here are the APR standings with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only with the championship game excluded.

Finally, MAC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

I use a game and a half as an arbitrary measure to determine if a team over or under-performed relative to their APR. By that standard, in 2018, no MAC team significantly over or under-performed so we'll move on to a more interesting conversation.

The Dean of MAC Coaches
Mid-major (Group of Five) coaches at the FBS level typically follow one of two career paths. They succeed and move up to a bigger job (another mid-major or Power Five) or they fail and get fired and return to their previous life as an assistant coach. There are exceptions to the rule of course. Sometimes these coaches leave of their own accord to become assistants in the NFL or at a better college job, but for the most part these guys are promoted or fired depending on their success at the mid-major school. For this reason, you rarely see ‘lifers’ at mid-major programs. But in the closing act of Frank Solich’s career, he has become a mi-major lifer.

Beginning a half-century ago, Frank Solich certainly appeared to be a lifer. A Nebraska lifer. Solich played for legendary Nebraska head coach Bob Devaney in the 1960s, coached high school football in Nebraska until the late 1970s, and then became an assistant under another legendary Nebraska coach, Tom Osborne. When Osborne retired following the 1997 season, after winning three national titles in his four years, Solich succeeded him as head coach. Despite three-top ten finishes and a conference title in six seasons, Solich was Gene Bartowed following a 9-3 regular season in 2003. After a gap year, Solich returned to coaching in 2005 at Ohio. The Bobcats had gone just 11-35 in four seasons under Brian Knorr, but Solich had them in the MAC Championship Game in just his second season. The Bobcats dipped a bit in his third and fourth seasons (combined 10-14 record), but beginning in 2009, Solich has had the Bobcats bowl-eligible each of the past ten years. In that span, the Bobcats have made three additional appearances in the MAC Championship Game, won their first bowl game in school history (plus three more), and briefly appeared in the AP Poll for the first time since 1968.

While 2005 may not seem like that long ago, Solich is very close to becoming the longest-tenured MAC coach ever. Only four other men in history have lasted more than ten seasons as head coach at a MAC school. They are listed below.

First off, Ohio fans, don’t @ me. I know Bill Hess was the coach at Ohio from 1958-1977. However, in those first four seasons, Ohio was not an FBS school and the MAC was not an FBS conference. Northern Illinois fans, don’t @ me either. The Huskies were an FBS independent in Joe Novak’s first season (1996). Solich has been Ohio’s head coach for fourteen seasons, so if he is still the head coach in December of 2020, he will tie Hess and Herb Deromedi from Central Michigan as the longest tenured MAC coach. In addition, thanks to the twelve-game regular season, potential conference championship games, and the proliferation of bowl games, Solich already owns the MAC record for games coached and is just four wins shy of tying Deromedi for most wins all time as a MAC coach. However, thanks to Deromedi’s phenomenal conference record, Solich would probably need to coach at least four more seasons to tie or break the record for most MAC conference wins (he would be 78 in December 2022).

Solich has yet to reach the MAC mountaintop at Ohio, and realistically, he is probably running out of time to win Ohio’s first MAC title since 1968. I’d love to see the Bobcats win the MAC in the next year or two while simultaneously making Solich the dean of MAC coaches, not just in the present, but of all time.

2018 Yards Per Play: MAC

After a two week break where we talked about basketball, this blog makes its triumphant return to the only sport that really matters - football. This week, we will be examining the MAC.

Here are the MAC standings.

So we know what each team achieved, but how did they perform? To answer that, here are the Yards Per Play (YPP), Yards Per Play Allowed (YPA) and Net Yards Per Play (Net) numbers for each MAC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted by division by Net YPP with conference rank in parentheses.

College football teams play either eight or nine conference games. Consequently, their record in such a small sample may not be indicative of their quality of play. A few fortuitous bounces here or there can be the difference between another ho-hum campaign or a special season. Randomness and other factors outside of our perception play a role in determining the standings. It would be fantastic if college football teams played 100 or even 1000 games. Then we could have a better idea about which teams were really the best. Alas, players would miss too much class time, their bodies would be battered beyond recognition, and I would never leave the couch. As it is, we have to make do with the handful of games teams do play. In those games, we can learn a lot from a team’s YPP. Since 2005, I have collected YPP data for every conference. I use conference games only because teams play such divergent non-conference schedules and the teams within a conference tend to be of similar quality. By running a regression analysis between a team’s Net YPP (the difference between their Yards Per Play and Yards Per Play Allowed) and their conference winning percentage, we can see if Net YPP is a decent predictor of a team’s record. Spoiler alert. It is. For the statistically inclined, the correlation coefficient between a team’s Net YPP in conference play and their conference record is around .66. Since Net YPP is a solid predictor of a team’s conference record, we can use it to identify which teams had a significant disparity between their conference record as predicted by Net YPP and their actual conference record. I used a difference of .200 between predicted and actual winning percentage as the threshold for ‘significant’. Why .200? It is a little arbitrary, but .200 corresponds to a difference of 1.6 games over an eight game conference schedule and 1.8 games over a nine game one. Over or under-performing by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2018 season, which teams in the MAC met this threshold? Here are MAC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Buffalo was the lone MAC team to significantly exceed their expected record based on YPP. The Bulls were not exceptionally lucky (1-0 in one-score games), nor were they fueled by a fluky turnover margin (+1 in conference play). They simply were not quite as dominant as we might expect from a team that lost just once in eight conference games. On the flip side, three MAC teams significantly under-performed relative to their expected record based on YPP. Bowling Green, Central Michigan, and Kent State finished a combined 1-8 in one-score conference games and the lone victory came in a game played between these teams (Kent State edged Bowling Green in October). Those three teams were bad, they just weren’t quite as bad as their respective records.

The MAC LEast
While the MAC East champion lost in the MAC title game for the third straight year and seventh time in the last ten seasons, the division as a whole finally enjoyed a modicum of success against the MAC West. For the first time since 2009, the MAC East did not post a losing record against the MAC West in inter-division play.

Which MAC East teams have been most responsible for this ghastly record over the past nine seasons? It really has been an equal opportunity performance them. Between 2010 and 2018, eight teams spent time in the MAC East. Akron, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Kent State, Miami, and Ohio were fixtures in the division, but Massachusetts (2012-2015) and Temple (2010-2011) also vacationed there. How did those teams do against the MAC West?

No MAC East team posted a winning record against the MAC West. Ohio carried water best for the MAC East squads (although their bucket was littered with holes) as they almost won half their games against the MAC West. I find it interesting that Bowling Green is the lone MAC East team with multiple conference titles since 2010 (which obviously means they were able to beat a MAC West team in the conference title game), yet they have the worst record against the MAC West. 

Was 2018 an outlier or will the MAC East continue to close the gap on the MAC West and usher in a new era of competitive inter-division play? Stay tuned to ESPN2 on November weeknights to find out.