2022 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Pac-12

Last week we looked at how Pac-12 teams fared in terms of yards per play. his 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 2022 Pac-12 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, Pac-12 teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Southern Cal was the lone Pac-12 team to see their APR differ significantly from their actual record. The Trojans also overachieved relative to their expected record based on Yards Per Play and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

Not So Lonely at the Bottom

Take a look back at last week's YPP write up of the Pac-12. I'll wait.

Did you notice something at the bottom of the standings? Yes, Colorado and Stanford both finished with a single conference win. But perhaps more significantly, they both nearly finished underwater by two yards per play. The Buffaloes were outgained by their Pac-12 opponents by 2.66 yards per play. Meanwhile, the Cardinal were play away from joining them as they were outgained by 1.98 yards per play by their Pac-12 opponents. This got me wondering how often two teams in the same conference (in the same year of course) were dominated on a per play basis to such an extent. Well, now I have the answer. 

The Cardinal and Buffaloes just missed the cut in 2022, but this phenomenon had occurred three times in the previous two non-pandemic years. My YPP data goes back to 2005, and while it is a rare event, it does seem to be happening more frequently now. Three times in the past four seasons is not a robust sample and could be random, but it is worth monitoring in this new era of college football. With the transfer portal, accelerated recruiting calendar, and college football traditional hegemonic distribution of talent, some bad teams may phone it in late in the year.