Here are the 2023 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 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 Mountain West met this threshold? Here are Mountain West teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.
No Mountain West teams saw their actual record differ significantly from their expected record based on Yards Per Play. Nothing to see here.
Mountain West Championship Game Minutia
I don't really have a consistent through line for the Mountain West Championship Game (some may argue this blog itself does not have a consistent through line), but I wanted to share two unique facts surrounding the relatively new title game.
Four years ago, I developed the original (I think) concept of 'The People's Champ' for college football leagues. To be The People's Champ, a team had to not win their conference, but beat both teams that participated in the conference title game. Its a relatively rare phenomenon, occurring just nineteen times since conference title games began in 1992. It happened this past season in the Mountain West with Fresno State knocking off both title game participants (Boise State and UNLV) in back to back weeks. After the Boise State victory, the Bulldogs were 4-1 in league play and were in good position to defend their 2022 conference title. But the Bulldogs dropped their final three games, with two coming to bad teams (New Mexico and San Diego State), and they finished two games behind both the Broncos and Rebels. While a People's Championing has happened nineteen times, this marked just the second occurrence in a conference without divisions (Iowa State in 2017 was the other). While it is never easy to be The People's Champ, it is more difficult without divisions. In divisional play, a prospective People's Champ only has to finish behind one team they beat on the field. Without divisions, they must finish behind two. While Fresno State's regular season ended in a disappointing fashion with three consecutive defeats, it was still quite historic.
Our other Mountain West factoid also involves Fresno State. Compared to other conference title games, the Mountain West Championship Game is spry and youthful. The game has only been contested eleven times. Four of those eleven matchups have featured Boise State against Fresno State (series tied at two apiece). This is tied for the third most common conference title game matchup in all of FBS.
The SEC had a head start on the rest of the college football world so it is no surprise they have the most common title game matchup with Alabama and Florida facing off an amazing ten times! And let's give some props to the MAC, as Marshall versus Toledo is their most common title game matchup despite the Thundering Herd leaving the league two decades ago.
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