Here are the 2023 ACC 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 ACC team. This includes conference play only, with the championship game not included. The teams are sorted 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 2023 season, which teams in the ACC met this threshold? Here are ACC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.
NC State and Florida State exceeded their expected record based on YPP, while Pittsburgh underachieved relative to their YPP numbers. For the Wolfpack and Seminoles, the reasons they exceeded their expected records are obvious. Both schools combined to finish 6-1 in one-score conference games and they were also the top two teams in terms of in-conference turnover margin in the ACC (at +10 and +6 respectively). As for Pittsburgh, I can't find anything in the stats that helps explain why their expected record differs so significantly from their actual record. The Panthers were not unlucky in close games (1-1) and their in-conference turnover margin was mediocre (-1). Their fourth down conversion rate and red zone touchdown rates were close to their opponents. They actually scored more non-offensive touchdowns (3) than they allowed (2) in ACC play. This one will remain a mystery. I suppose we can just lay the blame at the feet of Pat Narduzzi and his antiquated approach to offense.
Moving On Up
As you may have read or heard, the ACC has had some membership drama over the past year. I'm not a reporter and I am not in the business of making membership predictions, so I will be just as surprised as you when Clemson jumps to the Big 10 and the ACC replaces them with Memphis. Instead of dealing with hypotheticals, lets examine the universe as it is.
When the Pac-12 died over the summer, the ACC tossed a life raft to Golden State nerd schools Cal and Stanford. Whether that life raft brought them on to a ship that was also sinking remains to be seen. While Cal and Stanford will be interesting fits in the ACC for however long the conference exists in its current incarnation, I think the more intriguing case is the third team from west of the Mississippi that is joining the league, the SMU Mustangs.
Before the term was coined, SMU was a member of a power conference. The Mustangs joined the Southwest Conference in 1918 and were members of the Texas cabal until the league dissolved after the 1995 season. SMU had a good run in the early 1980's, finishing ranked in each season from 1980 through 1984. That success was later deemed to be ill-gotten (check out the 30 for 30 film Pony Excess for details) and SMU was given the 'Death Penalty' for the reprehensible violation of paying college athletes. The 'Death Penalty' did its job and pretty much killed the SMU program. Thus, they were not a hot commodity when the Southwest Conference died and were forced to downgrade to the WAC (the nation's first Super Conference) in 1996. They have continued to bounce around since, joining Conference USA in 2005 and the AAC in 2013. Now, after nearly 30 years, they are back in a power conference. What then, are reasonable expectations in their first year in the 'big leagues'? To answer that, we look as we often do, to the past for guidance.
Just a note before we dive into this, when I use the term 'power conference', I am referring to conferences that were part of the old BCS system and are now part of the Power Four (formerly Power Five) in the College Football Playoff era. SMU's move to the ACC marks the fifth time a power conference has drafted teams from non-power conferences to fill out its ranks. The first conference to do this was the Big East in 2004 and 2005. The league lost Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC prior to the 2004 season and replaced them with a team in just their fifth year as an FBS program, the Connecticut Huskies. The following season, the Big East lost another team, Boston College, to the ACC and replaced the Eagles with three Conference USA teams (Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida). While this is technically two replacements, I'm grouping them together since they happened back to back in the same conference. How did those four newcomers perform?
Louisville and South Florida posted winning conference records in their first season in the Big East. And while these teams started out hot, Cincinnati had the most staying power in the league, posting winning conference records in six of their eight years as a member of the Big East. Collectively, these four teams combined to go 14-13 in their first season of Big East play. And while that is a winning record, it should be noted that only half the teams in the eight team league were power conference veterans (Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, and West Virginia).
The next conference to bring a non-major conference team into their mix was the Pac-10 in 2011. The league added Colorado from the Big 12 and Utah from the Mountain West and rechristened themselves the Pac-12. Utah was a Mountain West power, but it took the Utes awhile to acclimate in their new league.
The Utes posted losing conference records in each of their first three seasons in the Pac-12 before becoming a veritable power in the late aughts. The Utes played in four consecutive non-Covid Pac-12 Championship Games between 2018 and 2022, with the final two resulting in conference titles.
The third conference to add a non-major team was the Big 12 which did so the very next season. The Big 12 brought West Virginia over from the Big East, but their non-major draft pick was TCU. The Horned Frogs were another Mountain West power, but they also struggled initially in their new home.
The Horned Frogs had losing conference records in their first two seasons in the Big 12 and despite breaking through with a shared league title and near College Football Playoff bid in 2014, they have struggled to consistently win in league play, posting just five winning conference records in their twelve years in the league.
After adding the Horned Frogs, the Big 12's membership was constant for a few years until the SEC surprised everyone and poached Oklahoma and Texas in the summer of 2021. The Sooners and Longhorns would remain in the league for three more seasons, but the Big 12 made plans to replace them by raiding the AAC. They brought over Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF in 2023 and augmented that trio with BYU which had been playing as an independent for more than a decade. However, to say those teams struggled when moving up is putting it lightly.
The quartet combined for an 8-28 league record in 2023 and were just 4-24 against veteran Big 12 members.
With that history, I think expectations should be muted for SMU, at least in their first season. The previous ten teams that moved up combined to finish 30-51 in league play in their first seasons in their new locales. Seven of the ten teams finished with losing conference records and the only teams that finished with winning records (Louisville and South Florida) played in a conference that was populated with other teams moving up. SMU finished ranked for the first time since 1984 and won the AAC last season, but they also finished 0-3 against Power Five opponents. All of those games came away from home and one was in a bowl where things can get weird. However, only one of those opponents could be classified as good. Oklahoma was top-fifteen last season, but TCU and Boston College were mid at best. SMU dominated their AAC opponents last season, but they only beat three teams that played in a bowl game (Rice, Memphis, and Tulane) The ACC is not the strongest power conference, but I think the Mustangs will struggle as they adjust to a more difficult schedule. If they win half their league games next season, I would consider that a success.
No comments:
Post a Comment