2023 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: Sun Belt

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

South Alabama was the only team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. The Jaguars also underachieved relative to their YPP numbers and we went over some reasons for that last week. 

As Far as Winless Teams Go...

Terry Bowden's FBS coaching career ended in a nearly perfect bit of symmetry. In 1993 at his first FBS stop, his Auburn Tigers finished a perfect 8-0 in SEC play. Exactly 30 years later, he coached Louisiana-Monroe through a winless Sun Belt campaign. Bowden was fired from his post after losing to in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette in the season finale. Despite finishing with zero Sun Belt wins and dropping their final ten games, the Warhawks were actually pretty good for a winless team. 

After finishing 4-8 in each of Bowden's first two seasons, the 2023 campaign actually began on a positive note. The Warhawks upset Army in their opener and then beat Lamar of the FCS in their second game. They were not competitive in a body bag game the next week at Texas A&M, but at 2-1 and with a bye on the horizon, a bowl game was at least on the table. After the bye, the Warhawks opened conference play hosting Appalachian State. Since joining the Sun Belt in 2014, the Mountaineers had mostly had their way with the Warhawks, winning six of seven games, with five of the wins coming by at least 18 points. But the Warhawks put forward a spirited effort in this game, jumping out to a 14-0 lead and never trailing by more than a touchdown. Down seven in the third quarter, the Warhawks scored a touchdown to pull within one, but a missed extra point would prove significant. Down a point, the next time the Warhawks scored a touchdown, they went for two, failed and only led by five. The Mountaineers then converted two field goals in the fourth quarter to steal the win, with the last coming from 54 yards out on the final play of the game. Would things have gone differently if that kick sailed wide? Would the Warhawks ride the momentum of a home upset to additional victories? We can never know for sure, but that kick set the tone for the rest of the season. The Warhawks were blasted by South Alabama in their next game, but two weeks later, they led Texas State by eleven points with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Two late touchdown passes, the last of which came with under a minute remaining sent the Warhawks to a third consecutive Sun Belt loss. After losing to Texas State, the Warhawks did not come within one score of their last five league opponents. However, they were competitive in a couple. They trailed Georgia Southern by three with under two minutes to go before throwing a pick six and they led Arkansas State early in the second half of a ten-point loss. The wheels fell off over their final three games (lost by a combined 79 points), but their season long league stats did not befit a team that finished winless. In fact, since 2005, among non-BCS/Group of Five teams, they had the ninth best YPP Net of any team that finished with zero conference wins. 

Curiously, Terry Bowden teams appear on this list twice as was also the coach of Akron in 2012. Now the big question is, how do these teams perform the next season? Do they improve and post records more in line with their underlying performance. For the most part, the answer is yes. 

Of course, improvement is not guaranteed. The two best non-BCS/Group of Five teams to finish winless also finished winless the following season. But in the aggregate, these good (or at least not terrible) winless teams improved and won about 30% of their league games the next season (2.4 wins on average in an eight game league schedule). Louisiana-Monroe is a hard job, perhaps the hardest G5 job in FBS, and will probably remain so. New head coach Bryant Vincent has his work cut out for him, and the schedule, with two SEC schools will artificially suppress the overall win total. A bowl game is probably out of reach in 2024, but if the Warhawks manage two league victories, which history suggests is quite possible, I think you would have to consider the season a success. 

That concludes our look back at the 2023 college football season through the YPP and APR lenses. Thanks for reading. We are now 13 weeks from the opening Thursday of college football and 86 days from a light Week Zero slate. I will be taking a brief sabbatical, but will return on Independence Day with a First Half Point Differential rundown for the Group of Five. Two weeks after that, the Power Five will receive the First Half Point Differential treatment, and then shortly thereafter I will make my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas and let you know who I (foolishly) bet on and against. By that point, the season will nearly be upon us. Enjoy your summer and check back when you get the urge.