2024 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Mountain West

Last week we looked at how Mountain West 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 2024 Mountain West 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, Mountain West teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Boise State and Nevada were the Mountain West teams that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. The Broncos significantly exceeded their APR while the Wolfpack underachieved. Both teams also over and underachieved relative to their expected record based on Yards Per Play and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

Using the Preseason AP Poll to Handicap College Football Playoff Games

Frequent readers of this blog (if any) know the value of using the preseason AP Poll to handicap both conference title games in college football and the NCAA Tournament in college basketball. Could this proxy for talent also be used to handicap College Football Playoff games? Let's find out. 

Before we get to the College Football Playoff, I wanted to look at one of the more hated ranking systems in college football, the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS. If you weren't a college football fan in this era, there are some great reads on the subject but I'll summarize it in a few short sentences. The BCS was designed to pit the two highest rated teams in the BCS against each other for the national championship. The methodology was quite reactionary changing nearly every season based on previous controversies and never being forward thinking. But it was an improvement on not having the top two teams play each other because of traditional bowl tie-ins. 

In BCS bowl games, of which there were initially four (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar) and later five (BCS Championship Game), the participants were usually motivated. Even if they were not playing for the national championship, it was still a prestigious bowl game and opting out was never really an option. In the sixteen seasons of the BCS era (1998-2013) there were 25 BCS bowl games pitting a team that was ranked in the preseason AP Poll against a team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. There were also thirteen BCS bowl games pitting a team that was ranked in the preseason top ten of the AP Poll against a team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. The table below summarizes how those games played out both straight up and against the spread (ATS). 

The preseason poll was a solid predictor of success both straight up and ATS. Preseason top 25 teams won 68% of their games against teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll and also covered the spread more than 62% of the time. Preseason top ten teams performed at roughly the same level, winning 69% of their games and covering just under 62% of the time. 

Once the BCS ended, the College Football Playoff took its place. Instead of two teams vying for the national title, four teams were selected for a mini-tournament to crown the champion. The two semi-final games rotated among six prestigious bowl games now deemed the New Year's Six. The Cotton and  Peach joined the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar to constitute this new amalgamation of college football greatness. The bowls that were not hosting the semi-finals staged glorious exhibitions. There were eighteen non-playoff New Year's Six bowl games contested between a team that was ranked in the preseason AP Poll and one that was not, There were nine such games involving a preseason top ten team and one that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll. The table below again summarizes how those games played out both straight up and against the spread (ATS). 

For New Year's Six games, you would have been better off flipping a coin. Preseason top 25 teams won just half the time against teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll and covered under 40% of the time. Preseason top ten teams did not fare any better, winning less than half the time and covering just a third of the time. Why the sudden change? ESPN bombarded the air waves with commercials and coverage of the College Football Playoff. If you weren't in the playoff and were merely a top ten team, you might as well not even participate in the sport. I don't think its a stretch to say motivation was an issue, particularly for teams that started with playoff aspirations (ranked in the top 25 or top ten of the preseason AP Poll) when they ended the season in bowl games that were not the College Football Playoff. The College Football Playoff era also coincided with the beginning of opt outs. If a team didn't qualify for the semi-finals, then a likely early round draft pick might sit out rather than risk injury in a 'meaningless' bowl game. 

What about the four-team College Football Playoff? In its ten years of existence, only two teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll qualified for the College Football Playoff. Those two teams played three games. The results are listed below. 

The sample size is small, but teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Poll won two of three games against preseason unranked teams both straight up and ATS. The two victories came by a combined 81 points and the lone loss came by six, so the teams ranked in the preseason AP Poll were quite dominant in their collective performances. 

The four-team College Football Playoff is a thing of the past. The playoff currently invites a dozen teams and seems more likely than not to expand in the near future. In the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff, eight of the twelve participants were ranked in the preseason AP Poll and six of twelve were ranked in the preseason top ten of the AP Poll. The four teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll that were selected for the College Football Playoff were Arizona State, Boise State, Indiana, and SMU. The below summarizes their performance in the College Football Playoff. 

All four teams entered as sizable underdogs against teams that were ranked in the top ten of the preseason AP Poll. All four lost, with three of the losses coming by double digits. Arizona State was the lone team that was unranked in the preseason AP Poll that covered as an underdog in their playoff game. 

The expanded College Football Playoff gives automatic bids to the five highest rated conference champions and awards seven at-large bids. With three times the number of playoff teams (for now), we are likely to see at least one or two teams qualify for the postseason that were not ranked in the preseason AP Poll. One season does not a trend make, but based on the history of teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Poll taking on teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll in 'meaningful' games (conference title games, BCS games, and previous College Football Playoff games), those preseason unranked teams might be a good candidate to fade even if they are massive underdogs.