2023 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: SEC

Last week we looked at how SEC 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 SEC 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, SEC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Alabama and Ole Miss significantly exceeded their APR. The Crimson Tide and Rebels also overachieved relative to their YPP numbers and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

Dominated by Your Conference Opponents

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote about Georgia's dominant 2021 run through the SEC. The Bulldogs became just the eighteenth team in the BCS/College Football Playoff era (since 1998) to finish unbeaten in conference play and have all those wins come by double digits. The Bulldogs famously went on to lose to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game (they were not the first dominant team to lose their conference title game), but won the rematch against the Crimson Tide to capture their first national title in forty years. Were that post on Georgia a coin, this would be the flip side. In a nice bit of symmetry, in 2023, Vanderbilt became the eighteenth team in the BCS/College Football Playoff era to lose all their conference games and have all those losses come by double digits. Let's celebrate some futility!

Before we get to the Commodores and their ilk, let's look at the nine non-BCS/Group of Five teams that fit the aforementioned criteria. The nine teams are listed chronologically in the table below. The table also includes the conference they played in, their Margin of Defeat (MOD) in league play, their conference record, the closest they came to winning a conference game, and their head coach. 

The first thing that sticks out to me regarding this list is the number of (somewhat) successful coaches on it. While he was a failure as a head coach, Vic Koenning was a good defensive coordinator at Clemson and Illinois. However, he won just a single conference game during his stint in Laramie. George O'Leary engineered (see what I did there?) a top ten finish at Georgia Tech and won or shared four league titles at UCF before the wheels fell off during his final season. Bob Davie won nine games twice at Notre Dame and actually took New Mexico to consecutive bowl games before his tenure soured. Butch Davis nearly won a national title at Miami, contributed to the academic standing of North Carolina, and went to three straight bowl games at FIU (and also beat Miami) before losing his last thirteen conference games. The two MAC coaches on this list (Mike Neu and Scott Loeffler) are still at their respective schools. Neu even won a conference title at Ball State and Loeffler has taken Bowling Green to consecutive bowl games. I suppose the lesson here is that if you are going to put up an historically awful season, make sure it comes early in your tenure. 

Now let's look at the nine BCS/Power Five schools that have been dominated by their conference foes. 

There are significantly fewer successful coaches on this list. Kevin Steele is probably more famous for getting jacked up by Kevin Greene when was an assistant coach for the Carolina Panthers and for somehow being a finalist for the Auburn head coaching job in 2020. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and the Tigers hired Bryan Harsin, who I am assume is still in charge and enjoying great success. Anyway, back to Steele. He did something Clark Lea hopes to avoid in that he appears on this list twice, in back-to-back seasons! Baylor also dropped all their conference games in Steele's third season (2001), but they did manage to lose one of those games by six points to avoid the trifecta. Steele finally won his first and only conference game at Baylor in 2002 when the Bears beat Kansas. Between 1998 and 2002, Baylor lost 29 consecutive Big 12 games! Suddenly Dave Aranda doesn't seem so bad. The only coaches from this list that I think you can classify as successful are Dan McCarney and Ron Zook. McCarney's career record is not great, but he took Iowa State to five bowl games. Weirdly enough, this ineffective winless season is sandwiched between three bowl games in the immediate past (2000-2002) and two in the immediate future (2004-2005). Ron Zook is probably not what you picture when you think of successful college coaches, but he did have a decent (albeit disappointing) record at Florida and he took Illinois to a Rose Bowl. The other coaches on this list are mostly trash, with the exception of Paul Wulff who had a successful FCS career and the subject of this post, Clark Lea. If Lea knows any domesticated super fowl, I'm sure they often tell him that he knew the job was dangerous when he took it. Its not easy to win at Vanderbilt and it certainly is not getting any easier with the SEC's addition of Oklahoma and Texas. Lea's goals should be to avoid reappearing on this list and following in the footsteps of his predecessor by finding a defensive coordinator position and then becoming the head coach of a Group of Five program with some potential. 

2023 Yards Per Play: SEC

We finally come to the big bad SEC. This was the last year of divisions in the conference that originated them. So how did things play out?

Here are the 2023 SEC 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 SEC 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 2023 season, which teams in the SEC met this threshold? Here are SEC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Alabama and Ole Miss significantly exceeded their expected record based on YPP while Mississippi State underachieved based on their YPP numbers. Alabama and Ole Miss finished a combined 7-0 in one-score conference games. And while Alabama did not lose a single conference game, Ole Miss was dominated in both their league losses, losing to Alabama and Georgia by a combined 49 points while being outgained by over two and a half yards per play. Mississippi State was not unfortunate in close games (1-1 in one-score SEC games), but they had the worst in-conference turnover margin in the SEC (-9).

Jayden Daniels and the Other SEC Heisman Quarterbacks

In the second half of the 2023 season, LSU got a couple of breathers from their SEC gauntlet. In late October, they pounded Army 62-0 with Jayden Daniels throwing for an incredible 279 yards on just 15 pass attempts. The in mid-November, the Tigers blasted Georgia State 56-14 with Daniels accounting for eight total touchdowns (six passing and two rushing). Daniels also tossed five touchdown passes in an early season game against Grambling State. Did these scrimmages unfairly buoy his successful Heisman campaign or was Daniels a deserving Heisman winner? In my research, I could only find a single truly contrarian take regarding his candidacy. Did that isolated opinion have any validity? To answer that question, I decided to compare Daniels to the other 21st century Heisman winning quarterbacks in the SEC (Tebow, Newton, Manziel, Burrow, and Young). However, instead of comparing their full season stats, I used only regular season conference games. The SEC has not altered its conference schedule this century so all six quarterbacks got eight conference games to accumulate stats in their Heisman winning seasons. How did they do? Let's start with the passing stats. 

If you watch football, you probably don't need an explanation of any of those stats except for potentially AY/Att. This stands for Adjusted Yards Per Attempt. It is passing yards with a 20 yard bonus for passing touchdowns and a 45 yards penalty for interceptions. Daniels stacks up well in these statistics, ranking third out of six quarterbacks in total passing yards, second in passing touchdowns, first in interceptions thrown, and first (by a significant margin) in AY/Att. Now Daniels is also a bit of a dual-threat quarterback, to put in mildly. Here are the rushing stats for those six quarterbacks. Cam Newton's numbers include two receptions for 42 yards and a touchdown (he was the only SEC quarterback to catch a pass in conference play during his Heisman campaign). 

Once again, Daniels compares pretty favorably. He ranks second in total rushing yards and fourth in total rushing touchdowns. Now let's add those passing and rushing numbers together. 

Daniels ranks in the upper echelon of SEC Heisman winning quarterbacks when we combine passing and rushing numbers. He is second in both total yards and total touchdowns despite having the fewest total of passing plus rushing attempts (321). 

The only argument against Daniels is that he did not lead LSU to the SEC title or even to the SEC Championship Game. But I think we all understand the Tiger defense is more responsible for LSU's 'disappointing' season. In their two conference defeats (versus Ole Miss and Alabama), the Tigers allowed 55 and 42 points respectively. Daniels played well in both games, accounting for over 500 yards and 5 total touchdowns against the Rebels and over 350 yards and 3 total touchdowns against Alabama. In fact, Daniels may be the best SEC Heisman winning quarterback of the 21st century. Yes, he dominated outmanned opponents, but he also put up incredible numbers in the best conference in college football. 

2023 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Pac-12

Last week we looked at how Pac-12 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 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.

Washington saw their actual record significantly exceed their APR while Colorado and UCLA significantly underachieved relative to their APR. Washington also significantly exceeded their expected record based on YPP and we went over some reasons for that last week (primarily, their remarkable 6-0 record in one-score conference games). Despite their hot start in the non-conference and some ridiculous think pieces written in September, Colorado actually won the same number of conference games in 2023 as they had in 2022. For what its worth, Deion Sanders has a worse conference record at Colorado than Mike Sanford. But in reality, Colorado was much improved. They just could not close the deal in close conference games, finishing 1-5 in one-score Pac-12 games (were 1-1 in such games in 2022). UCLA can't blame close game misfortune (1-1 record in one-score Pac-12 games) for their underperformance, but a confluence of other events. The Bruins did not have a terrible turnover margin in Pac-12 play, but opponents returned three of quarterback Dante Moore's passes for touchdowns and added a kick return touchdown for good measure. The Bruins were also woefully inept on fourth down conversions. The Bruins attempted to convert on fourth down 27 times in Pac-12 play, and were only successful on 12 occasions. Their conversion rate of 44.4% was actually better than their opponents (35.7%), but their opponents only attempted to convert 14 times. The sheer volume of their own attempts (and failures) meant the Bruins had in effect an additional six net turnovers than their opponents. Finally, the Bruins also struggled converting field goals. They made just 5 of 14 attempts in Pac-12 play while their opponents all seemed to channel Justin Tucker as they made 16 of 18 attempts against the Bruins. 

Should We Have Seen the Holiday Bowl Coming?

If I had told you before the season that Southern Cal comfortably beat Louisville in the Holiday Bowl, you would not have thought much of it. You may have correctly surmised that the Trojans suffered a somewhat disappointing season, but otherwise, that wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. If I had told you thirty minutes or so before kickoff that Southern Cal comfortably beat Louisville in the Holiday Bowl, you might have been somewhat taken aback. After all, the Trojans finished the season losing five of their final six games while Louisville was a pleasant surprise, rolling through a 10-2 regular season and earning a berth in the ACC Championship Game. The Trojans would also be without the services of star quarterback Caleb Williams, who was sitting out the game. The betting line reflected the consensus that Louisville would win, as the Cardinal were about a touchdown favorite. But the Trojans did have something Louisville did not: a preseason ranking in the top ten of the AP Poll.

I've written numerous times about the predictive power of the preseason AP Poll. The short of it is the preseason AP Poll is a good proxy for talent (better than the end of year poll) and should be factored into your handicap of any college football game. That being said, was Southern Cal a stone cold lock? Should we have backed the Trojans blindly heading into this game? To answer that question, I looked at all teams since 1998 with a similar profile to Southern Cal in 2023. That is, teams that began the year in the preseason top ten, ended the regular season unranked, and played in a bowl game. Including 2023, 37 teams fit that criteria. And how did they perform once they got to the postseason?

Those preseason top ten teams with disappointing regular seasons were alright in terms of straight up performance. They won right at 59% of the time. But ATS, it was pretty much a coin flip, as they prevailed 51% of the time. That is pretty much how things played out in 2023 as the Trojans were not the only preseason top ten team to find themselves unranked and in a bowl game. 

Clemson also began the year in the top ten of the AP Poll. The Tigers opened the year by losing on Labor Day Night in Durham and were 4-4 at the end of October. Though they won their final four regular season games, they were outside the rankings when they faced off against Kentucky in the Gator Bowl. The Tigers entered as six-point favorites and outlasted the Wildcats in a back and forth affair, winning 38-35. A victory on the field, but a loss at the window. 

Before we leave this subject, let's look at the data one more way. You may have noticed that Southern Cal was getting points against Louisville while Clemson was laying points against Kentucky. If we divide these disappointing preseason top ten teams into favorites and underdogs, an interesting trend emerges. 

Disappointing preseason top ten teams win at about the same clip whether they are a favorite or an underdog in their bowl game. However, ATS, the favorites lose money, while the underdogs cover more than twice as often as not. Oh, and one more thing before we sign off. Louisville was not ranked in the preseason poll. What if we group these disappointing preseason top ten teams by the preseason quality of their bowl opponent.

Ding ding. I think we found something. Disappointing preseason top ten teams are 2-2 (both straight up and ATS) when facing fellow preseason top ten teams in their bowl. They are just 3-5 (both straight up and ATS) when facing teams ranked between 11 and 25 in the preseason AP Poll. But against teams that were unranked in the preseason poll, they are 17-8 straight up. Favorites still struggle ATS, but look at those underdogs. Perfecto. The sample size is small. In fact, its so small, I can list every instance. Which I shall do below. 

So, maybe we should have seen Southern Cal's victory coming. It doesn't happen often, but the next time you see a disappointing preseason top ten team catching points in their bowl game against a team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll, consider taking them plus the points. Oh, and don't be scared to take them on the moneyline either.