2023 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Conference USA

Last week we looked at how Conference USA 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 2023 Conference USA 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, Conference USA 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 a somewhat arbitrary standard to determine whether or not a team's actual conference record differed significantly from their APR. By that standard, New Mexico State and Liberty overachieved relative to their APR. The Aggies and Flames also overachieved relative to their YPP numbers and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

First Timers

The 2023 Conference USA Championship Game was a matchup of two teams (Liberty and New Mexico State) making their first ever conference championship game appearance. It also marked the first year in Conference USA for each school as both the Flames and Aggies had been competing on the independent circuit for the previous few seasons. How often has an FBS conference title game matched up two teams making their first title game appearance? Glad you asked. Lets take a stroll down memory lane beginning with the birth of the conference title game in the 1990s. 

Only four conferences held title games in the 90s, so the first championship games held by the SEC (1992), Big 12 (1996), WAC (1996), and MAC (1997) featured first time participants. The first three SEC Championship Games were all clashes between Florida and Alabama and the Gators did not relinquish their stranglehold on the SEC East until 1997. The Big 12 was a little more fluid at the top of the league following Tom Osborne's retirement after the 1997 season. Finally, the WAC only staged a title game for three seasons before the strongest members broke away and formed their own conference (the Mountain West). In the 2000s, the ACC and Conference USA got into the conference championship business. 

The first two ACC Championship Games featured teams making their first conference title game appearances, but the league has not had a pair of newbies in the title game since. The first two Conference USA Championship Games also featured teams making their first conference title game appearances. And finally, the MAC, after years of domination by Marshall and Toledo in their respective divisions, became the egalitarian league we all know and love when its title games featured a pair of greenhorns in four our of six seasons between 2003 and 2008. The 2010s brought even more leagues to the conference title table with all ten FBS conferences eventually staging one. 

The Big 10 and Pac-12 both held their inaugural title games in 2011, but have not featured two neophytes in the title game since. The American Athletic Conference began holding a conference championship game in 2015, but many of their participants had already played in conference title games in other leagues. It was not until 2019 that their title game featured two teams making their title game debuts. Conference USA's membership was in flux for much of the decade and they saw three consecutive championship games feature teams making their first title game appearance. The Mountain West played their first conference title game in 2013 and two of their first three games saw both participants make their title game debuts. Finally, the Sun Belt became the final FBS conference to host a championship game in 2018. And now we come to the current decade. 

The 2022 Sun Belt Championship Game featured a pair of teams making their conference title game debuts even thought Coastal Carolina technically won the Sun Belt East in the pandemic impacted 2020 season. The championship game was canceled that season, so the Chanticleers never got to play in the title game. That Sun Belt clash and the most recent Conference USA Championship Game are the only two title games this decade to feature title games newcomers and the odds of another all newbie title game continue to dwindle each season. 

Here are the potential all-newbie combinations in each championship game beginning with the Power Four. 

In the ACC, NC State and Syracuse are the only longtime members that have never played in a championship game. They are joined by newcomer Cal who never qualified for the Pac-12 Championship Game. The Big 10 has a quintet of teams that have never played in a conference title game, but with the league jettisoning divisions, a combination of two of these five teams playing in the conference title game in the same season seems quite remote. With traditional powers Oklahoma and Texas departing for the SEC, there is a bit of a power vacuum in the Big 12. This makes it the most likely power conference to stage a championship game where both participants are first timers. Like the Big 10, the SEC is also doing away with divisions, making the odds of an all-first timer title game slim to none. 

Finally, here are the potential all-newbie combinations for each Group of Five title game. 

Conference USA and the Sun Belt have by far the best odds of hosting the next all-first timer title game. Five of ten current Conference USA members have never played in a conference title game while eight of fourteen Sun Belt members have been shut out of the game. The Sun Belt is the only FBS conference to maintain divisions though, so that may make things a little more difficult. Eleven of twelve Mountain West members have played in a conference title game (Colorado State and New Mexico faced off in the second ever WAC Championship Game), so until they officially merge with or add the remaining two members of the Pac-12 (Oregon State and Washington State), it is not possible for that league to have two first time championship game participants. The MAC will not be able to host an all-first timers title game until 2025 at the earliest when Massachusetts rejoins the league. 

I hope you enjoyed the 2023 Conference USA Championship Game. While it was historic in that it clinched an unbeaten regular season for Liberty and sent them to a New Year's Six Bowl, it also likely marked one of the last times a conference title game will feature two schools with no experience in title games.