2023 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Big 10

Last week we looked at how Big 10 teams fared in terms of yards per play.his 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 Big 10 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, Big 10 teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Using a game and a half as the standard for significant over or underachievement, no Big 10 team saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. 

Losing Teams in Bowl Games

As the bowl schedule has expanded in recent years, more losing teams are finding their way into postseason games. Some may lament the mediocrity (or worse) of their inclusion and hearken back to the days of exclusivity in bowl games. Personally, I don't mind more college football (we don't have any games for roughly eight months out of the year), but to each his own. I'm not here to try and convince you a five win team playing in Detroit the day after Christmas is good (or bad). On the contrary, I want to see if there is any angle where we can make some extra money to pay off those holiday bills. 

In the BCS/College Football Playoff Era, nineteen teams have participated in a bowl game despite owning a losing record entering the game. Those teams have ranged from champions of brand new conferences (North Texas in 2001), to also-rans from the SEC (Mississippi State in 2016), to a glut of teams willing to play postseason exhibitions in a global pandemic. How have these teams fared both straight up and against the spread? Read on to find out!

Those nineteen teams finished with a 10-9 straight up record. Basically, they have been a coin flip to win outright in their bowl games. However, in those nineteen games, they entered as betting underdogs thirteen times meaning we would not have expected them to finish with a winning record. Nineteen games is a small sample, but these losing teams have overachieved at least relative to the moneyline. In addition, motivation does not appear to be an issue for these losing teams. They have won five of the six games in which they entered as favorites. Alas, there does not appear to be a solid ATS trend to take away from this examination. Their cumulative ATS record has also amounted to a coin flip with the teams combing for a 9-10 mark (3-3 ATS as a favorite and 6-7 ATS as an underdog). 

Unfortunately, there has not been an overarching trend when it comes to betting on or against losing teams in bowl games. My advice is to handicap their games as you would any bowl team. Focus on how they played in the regular season, keep tabs on their opt outs and coaching changes, and don't be afraid to back them on the moneyline if they enter as underdogs.