2017 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 2017 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.

Finally, Sun Belt teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

Georgia State was the lone Sun Belt team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. In eight conference games, the Panthers allowed five more touchdowns than they scored and were outscored by 28 points overall in conference play. However, the Panthers scored at the right times, finishing 4-0 in one-score conference games. Their five league wins all came by ten points or fewer while each league loss came by at least two touchdowns. That’s quite a tightrope to walk and I have my doubts as to whether they can keep their balance for much longer.

Louisiana-Monroe finished with a losing record for the fourth consecutive season, but the Warhawks played an entertaining brand of football in 2017. They scored the most touchdowns in Sun Belt play, averaging five per contest, but also allowed the most, permitting 5.63 per game. Offensively, they were one of the best Sun Belt teams since I have been tracking APR data (2005). Conversely, they were also one of the worst Sun Belt defenses in that same span. It stands to reason then that a small improvement on defense or a small decline on offense could have a profound impact on the Warhawks in 2018. But which is more likely? Do strong Sun Belt offenses remain that way or do they regress? Do bad Sun Belt defenses stay bad or do they show improvement the next season? To find out, I looked at all Sun Belt offenses that averaged at least five touchdowns per conference game since 2005 and how they performed the following season. I then did the same thing for Sun Belt defenses that allowed at least five touchdowns per conference game. Let’s get to the results, starting with the great offenses.

As expected, these great offenses declined in the aggregate. However, one team managed to improve and the average decline of about two thirds of a touchdown per game still left these teams in great shape offensively. For perspective, that average of 4.56 offensive touchdowns per game would have ranked fourth in the Sun Belt in 2017. What about those bad defenses?

Once again, as expected, those extreme performances were not repeated. Every bad defense improved the following season, and three improved by at least one touchdown per game. I know this is an extremely small sample size, but I would be cautiously optimistic about 2018 were I a Warhawk fan. Matt Viator will be entering his third season in charge, a year when teams often improve. In addition, the offense is likely to remain one of the best in the Sun Belt while the defense is likely to improve upon their horrific performance in 2017. A conference title might be too ambitious, but a return to the postseason is certainly on the table.

Well, that concludes our conference by conference dive into the 2017 season. Unfortunately, we still have 13 more weeks until the first Thursday night action of 2018. Between now and then, expect to see a few posts on polls, a Vegas gambling recap, and an Adjusted Pythagorean look at the NFL. I don't have a specific schedule laid out, but check back once a week or so if you are dying for some Statistically Speaking content. As always, thanks for reading.

2017 Yards Per Play: Sun Belt

Hard to believe, but we have reached the final conference in our offseason sojourn. Here are the 2017 Sun Belt 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 Sun Belt team. This includes conference play only. 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 2017 season, which teams in the Sun Belt met this threshold? Here are Sun Belt teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Coastal Carolina was the lone Sun Belt team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their expected record. The Chanticleers first season as an FBS program was a unique one. It began in the summer when head coach Joe Moglia went out on medical leave. It continued once the season began when Coastal lost to zombie program UAB and FCS Western Illinois before nearly beating Arkansas later in the year. The Chanticleers actually began life in the Sun Belt 0-6 before winning their final two games and sowing some seeds of optimism heading into 2018. The Chanticleers were a little unlucky in close games, finishing 1-3 in one-score Sun Belt contests (1-5 overall with close losses to UAB and Arkansas). However, they were also done in by their inability to cover kick offs. Coastal allowed four kick return touchdowns in 2017 and allowed five more non-offensive touchdowns than they scored in Sun Belt play. Those kickoff returns (and a well-time fumble return) provided the margin of defeat in their games against Louisiana-Monroe and Georgia State.

In other news regarding FBS novices, South Alabama will have a new football coach in 2018. Joey Jones guided the South Alabama program since its inception and this is not intended as a slight, but the Jaguars were a very anonymous team under his watch. If you aren’t a regular mid-week Fun Belt viewer or an alum of USA, you may not even know that South Alabama is an FBS program. It doesn’t help that the Jaguars have not really distinguished themselves as either a very bad or very good mid-major program. In their six seasons as members of the Sun Belt, the Jaguars have finished with either five or six wins four times. They went 2-11 in their first season and 4-8 this past year, but otherwise they have hovered around the six win mark. However, one group that will certainly recognize South Alabama are degenerate gamblers as the Jaguars have pulled off several massive upsets in their brief history.

In the College Football Playoff era (beginning with 2014), South Alabama has pulled five outright upsets as a double-digit underdog. This is tied for the second most double-digit upsets in that span and tied for the most among mid-major teams. The Jaguars have also spread their upsets around, pulling at least one in three of the four seasons of the CFP era. Joey Jones never brought the Jaguars a Sun Belt title, but he took them to two bowl games and guided them to quite a few colossal upsets.

2017 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 2017 SEC standings.

And here are the APR standings sorted by division 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.

As with YPP, no SEC team saw their APR differ significantly from their actual record although Texas A&M came close. The Aggies finished 4-1 in one-score conference games, with their quartet of victories coming by 23 total points. Outside of their ‘close’ loss to Alabama (when they cut the deficit to eight with seconds remaining), their other three conference defeats all came by at least two touchdowns.

Back around Columbus Day, you probably could have gotten decent odds that Barry Odom would not be coaching Missouri in 2018. After an uninspiring 4-8 debut, the Tigers were 1-4 in his second season with their lone win against an FCS opponent. Overall, the Tigers had three victories against FBS teams and just two conference wins under Odom’s guidance. The Tigers would lose their next game against Georgia, although they were somewhat competitive against the eventual national runners up, scoring 28 points against a stout Georgia defense. Following that defeat to the Dogs, Missouri would not lose again (in the regular season), pulverizing their last six foes by an average of 30 points per game! Their regular season finale against Arkansas was close, but the other five wins all came by at least four touchdowns. So Missouri is naturally an SEC East darkhorse heading into 2018 right? As the esteemed Lee Corso might say: Not so fast, my friend.

Missouri was quite dominant in their last six games of 2017, but let’s pause and consider the quality of opponent. The Tigers won non-conference games against Idaho and Connecticut, two teams that combined for seven wins in 2017. In addition, the four conference opponents the Tigers slaughtered did not sniff the postseason. Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt combined for a 5-27 SEC record with three of the wins coming against each other (Florida and Vanderbilt over Tennessee and Florida over Vanderbilt). Outside of Arkansas, the Tigers did not struggle to put these teams away, but this is about as easy a closing slate as you could ask for in the rugged SEC. Contrast this with Missouri’s five-game losing streak. That quintet of teams all qualified for the postseason, with Auburn and Georgia winning their respective divisions. South Carolina won eight regular season games and both Kentucky and Purdue eked out bowl eligibility. If you change the sequencing by swapping say Tennessee with Georgia or Idaho with South Carolina, the narrative of a hot finish is not nearly as strong.

Even if the narrative is not completely accurate, Missouri still accomplished something pretty amazing. How many other teams have closed with six straight wins after a 1-5 start? By my count, only one.

Rutgers opened the 2008 season looking for their fourth consecutive bowl bid. The once moribund program was now a force to be reckoned with in college football (sort of). Alas, the Knights began the season 0-3, managing only 40 combined points in losses to Fresno State, North Carolina, and Navy. Rutgers pummeled an FCS school in their fourth games, but lost their next two to West Virginia and Cincinnati respectively. Rutgers held on to beat Connecticut in an ugly 12-10 crapfest, but bowl eligibility seemed out of reach. Discounting the 38 points they scored against Morgan State, Rutgers had averaged just over 13 points per game in their first six FBS contests. Then they flipped the proverbial switch. After edging Connecticut, the Knights won their last five games with ease. The offense put at least 30 points on the board in each game and Rutgers won those five contests by an average of 29 points per game! Unlike Missouri, the Knights also managed to win their bowl game, turning a 1-5 start into an 8-5 finish and third consecutive bowl win.

Despite some key offensive losses (a senior quarterback and a pair of NFL caliber receivers), in a transitional Big East, Rutgers got some preseason love in 2009. In his Norman Mailer sized preview magazine, Phil Steele even predicted a conference championship for the Knights. Record-wise, Rutgers improved in 2009, winning eight regular season games (and getting to nine with their bowl victory), but their schedule was very soft. They beat a pair of FCS teams, Florida International, and Army for half of their regular season victories. In Big East play, they managed just a 3-4 mark and were never in contention for the league title. In a more formidable SEC, Missouri will have the luxury of tempered expectations. The Tigers do bring back a talented quarterback, but lose their offensive coordinator as well as their leading rusher and receiver. Derek Dooley was brought in to be the new offensive coordinator and his hire does not inspire the utmost confidence. 2017 was the worst season for both Florida and Tennessee in a generation, so the window for a real breakthrough under Barry Odom could be slamming shut. Betdsi currently has Missouri’s over/under win total at 6.5. On the surface, this seems low considering how the Tigers finished the 2017 season, but upon further examination of the schedule and the dearth of quality teams the Tigers faced after mid-October plus the fact that Florida and Tennessee (and even Vanderbilt) are unlikely to be as bad as they were in 2016, this number seems right on the money.

2017 Yards Per Play: SEC

Eight conferences down, just two to go. This week we move cross country from the west coast to the southeast. Next up is the SEC. Here are the 2017 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, championship game excluded. 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 2017 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.

No SEC teams significantly over or under-performed relative to their expected record based on YPP. The top three teams dominated the conference, finishing a combined 21-3 with Auburn’s loss to LSU the only one coming against the other eleven. There is really nothing interesting or new to report in that regard. So, instead I’ll focus on something that is rather interesting.

When Jim McElwain was relieved of his duties in late October, I realized no current coach in the SEC East at that point had ever won the division! In fact, the last three head coaches to win the division (McElwain, Pinkel, and Richt) had all departed within three seasons of winning the division! Is this standard practice in the SEC? To find out, I looked at all SEC coaches that have won division titles since the league expanded in 1992. I then calculated how many seasons they coached at their school after their most recent title. For example, Steve Spurrier won pretty much every SEC East title in the 90’s at Florida, but his most recent title with the Gators came in 2000. He coached just one additional season at Florida before resigning to become head coach of the Washington Redskins. Obviously, Spurrier was not forced out at Florida, but I still wanted to get an idea of how long each coach lasted after their last division title. I rounded partial seasons up, so Jim McElwain gets credit for one full season and Les Miles get credit for five even though they did not finish out their final campaigns. The following table lists the SEC division winning coaches who are no longer employed by the schools where they won titles. I have highlighted coaches who were removed for performance based reasons to differentiate those from coaches who moved on voluntarily. We can quibble with a few of those distinctions, but for the most part, I think they are accurate.

Those 17 head coaches combined to coach for 35 seasons after their most recent division title. It doesn’t take an abacus to calculate that is an average of just over two seasons. Ten of the 17 coaches lasted one season or less with Les Miles and Jackie Sherrill surviving the longest (five seasons) after their last division title. When we remove the coaches who left voluntarily or for reasons other than performance, the numbers look a little better. Those eleven coaches lasted a total of 26 seasons with five lasting one season or less.

Examining the SEC in a vacuum allows us to gleam a little information, but a comparison is what we really want. Are SEC coaches on a much shorter leash? To answer that, we need to look at the other Power Five conferences. The SEC had a decade or more head start on every other major conference except the Big 12, and the Big 12 ended divisional play eight seasons ago, so I have decided to lump the other four conferences together. Once again, I have included all division title winning coaches while highlighting those that were fired or forced out for performance-based reasons.

Overall, coaches in other conferences lasted longer. These 24 coaches remained employed a combined 58 years after their most recent division title. This is roughly 2.4 seasons versus 2.1 for SEC coaches. In addition, ten of those 24 coaches lasted one season or fewer. Recall this is equal to the number of short-tenured coaches from the SEC albeit with a much higher denominator. Once we remove those coaches who were not fired for performance, the numbers get better. Those 13 fired coaches lasted a total of 36 seasons which is 2.8 seasons on average versus 2.4 for fired SEC coaches and less than a quarter of the fired coaches (four of 13) lasted one season or less.

It does appear life is tougher for coaches in the SEC, at least in regards to longevity. Winning a division title doesn’t buy you a lot of time. Of course, the compensation, on par with the GDP of some Central American countries and the guaranteed contracts that are the envy of NBA players helps keep the fired coaches above the poverty line.

2017 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 2017 Pac-12 standings.

And here are the APR standings sorted by division 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.

Stanford and Utah were the only Pac-12 teams that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. Stanford over-performed relative to their APR and we went over a few reasons for this last week. Meanwhile, Utah under-performed relative to their APR. The Utes finished 1-4 in one-score conference games, losing three times (to the best three teams in the conference no less) by three points or less.

In 2016, Oregon endured their first losing season since 2004 and just their second since 1993. Their response was swift and probably justified. They fired Mark Helfrich and hired former Western Kentucky and South Florida coach Willie Taggart to take his place. Despite quarterback injuries, the Ducks won seven games in Taggart's first season. Unfortunately, a bigger job came open and Taggart left for Florida State after just one season in Eugene. Since 2005, eight other coaches have stayed at an FBS program for one season before leaving for another FBS program. How have those jilted teams fared the following season? Glad you asked.

Lane Kiffin is probably the example that most easily springs to mind, but it has occurred more frequently than you might think. Overall, no team improved following the departure of their coach and in the aggregate, the eight teams declined by about 1.4 games in the regular season. This makes sense. Having three different coaches (and likely three different systems) in three seasons would seem to be a difficult transition in a sport with as many moving pieces as football. And of course, there is the recruiting angle. Having a coach take over late in the process in back-to-back years is not the ideal way to attract incoming talent. So, it seems a little regression, or at best, no progression might be in store for Oregon in 2018. Of course, the Oregon optimist could point out (accurately I might add) that the majority of these schools were Group of Five/non-BCS programs. Tennessee and Pitt were the only Power Five/BCS programs to lose their head coach after one season. And those teams collectively declined by one game the next season. A sample size of two is not a good tool for making bold proclamations, but the odds are against Oregon making significant strides in 2018. However, even if the Ducks decline slightly or merely maintain their current trajectory, let's not be too hasty in judging the hiring of Mario Cristobal.

And what about the other side of things? How do the teams perform that snap up the one-year coach?

Those eight coaches improved their new teams on average by more than two games the next season. The only two teams that did not improve were Southern Cal with Kiffin and Louisville with Bobby Petrino. Those are understandable, as Southern Cal was hit by sanctions thanks to the rampant cheating that occurred under Pete Carroll and Louisville had just lost one of the best quarterbacks in school history (up to that point) and was moving from the AAC to the ACC. Barring the return of Jeff Bowden as offensive coordinator, it would be very shocking if Willie Taggart does not lead Florida State to more than six wins in 2018.

2017 Yards Per Play: Pac-12

We'll stay out west this week as we review the Pac-12. Here are the 2017 Pac-12 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 Pac-12 team. This includes conference play only, championship game excluded. 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 2017 season, which teams in the Pac-12 met this threshold? Here are Pac-12 teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers. Arizona State and Stanford significantly exceeded their expected record based on YPP and no Pac-12 team significantly under-performed relative to their expected record.

Arizona State finished with a decent record in close conference games, winning two of their three contests and the Sun Devils also had a decent in-conference turnover margin of +4. But we’ll have to dig a little deeper to uncover why their expected winning percentage is so low. The Sun Devils played poorly in just two conference games. In losses to the eventual Pac-12 Championship Game participants, Southern Cal, and Stanford, Arizona State was outgained on a per play basis by over two yards per snap (5.80 to 8.05). In their other seven games, the Sun Devils were much more competitive. In those seven contests, they were slightly outgained per play (5.59 to 5.63), yet they managed to win six of them. Credit Todd Graham’s voodoo and the vagaries of an even smaller sample size. Meanwhile, it’s much easier to see why Stanford exceeded their expected record. The Cardinal had the best in-conference turnover margin of any Pac-12 team (+12) and won all four of their one-score conference games. Those close games, especially the Friday night tilt with Washington, decided the Pac-12 North. That close game good fortune continued a trend under David Shaw. Since Shaw’s arrival on The Farm prior to the 2011 season, Stanford is 16-8 in one-score conference games.

The 2017 Pac-12 Championship Game was a rematch (or is it re-imagining?) of the 2015 Pac-12 Championship Game. Southern Cal was able to exact a modicum of revenge and claim their first ever Pac-12 title and first conference title since 2008! But, let’s go back to the 2015 game. Southern Cal won their first Pac-12 South title that season. It also marked the fourth consecutive year a different team won the division (with no repeats). Allow me to explain. UCLA won the South in 2012, Arizona State won it in 2013, Arizona won in 2014, and Southern Cal won in 2015. Colorado would extend the streak to five in 2016 before Southern Cal ended it in 2017.

How rare is a run of five unique champions in five seasons? Pretty darn unique. The only other Power Five conference that can boast a similar run is the ACC, with the Coastal division producing a unique champ in the past five seasons.

Outside of the Power Five, one conference can claim a longer streak, but it required some division shuffling which was a direct result of conference expansion.

By the time Rice won the West division of Conference USA, SMU, Houston, and Tulsa were members of the AAC. Louisiana Tech won the division in 2014; their second season in the conference after the WAC’s dissolution. Southern Miss was a charter member of the East division of the conference, but came over to the West following the league’s shifting in 2013.

If Utah can come away with the crown in 2018, every member of the Pac-12 South will have won the division. This would be a remarkable achievement considering the conference did not begin divisional play until 2011. The league would still not be able to match Conference USA in terms of egalitarian streaks, but it would be a distinctive accomplishment in its own right. And if either Virginia or Pitt claim the ACC Coastal in 2018, Conference USA will have company in terms of rotating division winners.

2017 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 2017 Mountain West standings.

And here are the APR standings sorted by division 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.

Utah State was the only Mountain West team that saw their actual record differ significantly from their APR. Utah State also under-performed based on what we would expect from their YPP numbers and we went over a few reasons for that last week.

In 2017, Wyoming finished with a winning record and participated in a bowl game for the second consecutive season. This marked the first time the Cowboys posted consecutive winning seasons since 1999 when they finished up a run of five straight winning campaigns. However, the Cowboys went about posting those winning records in drastically different ways. In 2016, the Cowboys emerged from out of nowhere to win the Mountain Division of the Mountain West Conference. Led by presumptive first round draft choice Josh Allen as well as a few other future NFL players, the Cowboys were involved in numerous shootouts. In conference play, the Cowboys scored 40 offensive touchdowns while allowing 35. Those 75 total touchdowns meant the average Wyoming conference game featured nearly ten combined offensive touchdowns! Despite Allen’s return in 2017, the Cowboys were not able to overcome their other losses on offense and the team scored just 21 offensive touchdowns in conference play. Fortunately, at the same time the offense was cratering, the defense was getting its act together. The Cowboys allowed just 14 offensive touchdowns in 2017 and the team was in contention for another division title until late November. In 2017, the average Wyoming conference game featured just a little over four combined offensive touchdowns, or less than half of the 2016 total. Whereas in 2016, the Cowboys lost a conference game despite scoring 66 points (just 52 in regulation), in 2017, they won a conference game despite scoring just 16 points. Overall, the 40 touchdown difference in combined offensive touchdowns in conference play marked the third largest decrease since 2005!

In a nice coincidence, the other instances occurred in the same season. Oklahoma went from having one of the best offenses on earth in 2008 to being merely decent on that side of the ball in 2009. However, the defense improved substantially, allowing the Sooners to remain a quality team despite five regular season losses. Nebraska more closely resembles Wyoming as they went from being involved in a lot of shootouts to nearly winning the Big 12 title despite not scoring an offensive touchdown in the title game. Obviously, they had a little more star power on defense than Wyoming, but otherwise, the comparison is apt.

2017 Yards Per Play: Mountain West

Our next conference is the Mountain West. Here are the 2017 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, championship game excluded. 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 2017 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.

Air Force significantly over-performed relative to their YPP numbers while Utah State and to a lesser extent, New Mexico, under-performed. Air Force finished 3-1 in close conference games, while New Mexico and Utah State both finished 0-2 in such contests. New Mexico also had an in-conference turnover margin of -12 which was second worst in the Mountain West (more on the worst team later). For Air Force and Utah State, 2017 continued long term trends, at least in regards to over and under-performance, under their respective head coaches.

Troy Calhoun has been in charge at Air Force since 2007. During his eleven seasons in charge of the Falcons, his teams have finished with a winning conference record eight times despite never finishing higher than third in Net YPP. His teams have exceeded their expected conference record based on Net YPP by at least .100 seven times. Overall, his teams have averaged a winning percentage about .122 points higher than would be expected based on their YPP numbers. That equates to nearly one additional conference win over an eight-game season. The table below summarizes what I just said, listing the Falcons Net YPP finish each season under Calhoun as well as the difference in their actual winning percentage and expected winning percentage based on YPP.

Conversely, Utah State teams coached by Matt Wells have tended to under-perform relative to their Net YPP. Wells has been in charge in Logan for five seasons beginning with 2013. His teams have never finished lower than fourth in the conference in Net YPP (the top third in the twelve team Mountain West), and yet his teams have twice finished with non-winning conference records (including a last place divisional finish in 2016). His teams have under-performed by at least .200 twice in five seasons and have over-performed by at least .100 just once. Overall, his teams averaged a winning percentage about .130 points lower than would be expected based on their YPP numbers. That equates to about one fewer conference win over an eight-game season. I have duplicated the previous table with the same stats for Wells’ teams.

With eleven season’s worth of data, teams coached by Troy Calhoun seem to have an ability to win more games than we would otherwise expect based on their Net YPP numbers. With less than half the data, it’s unfair to render judgement on Matt Wells yet. His teams could be in the midst of a slump that breaks in 2018 (his first three teams slightly exceeded their expected record in the aggregate). However, if his teams significantly under-perform again in 2018, it might be time to further scrutinize his in-game decision making.

Before leaving the Mountain West for the week, I wanted to mention San Jose State. The Spartans struggled in their first season under Brent Brennan, winning just one game against an FBS opponent while losing nine games by at least 20 points. The Spartans were bad, but their suckitude was amplified by their awful turnover margin. In conference play, the Spartans turned the ball over 25 times while gaining just eight turnovers of their own for a margin of -17. Since 2005, only four other teams have posted an in-conference turnover margin of at least -2 per game, including a recent Mountain West team. Those teams all improved substantially the following season.

I wouldn’t go purchasing Mountain West Championship Game tickets just yet were I a San Jose State fan, but the Spartans should be much more competitive in 2018.

2017 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: MAC

Two weeks ago, we looked at how MAC 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 2017 MAC standings.

And here are the APR standings sorted by division with conference rank in offensive touchdowns, touchdowns allowed, and APR in parentheses. This includes conference games only, with the championship game excluded.

Finally, MAC teams are sorted by the difference between their actual number of wins and their expected number of wins according to APR.

I use a game and a half as a line of demarcation to determine if teams drastically over or under perform their APR. By that standard, no MAC teams saw their record differ significantly from their predicted APR.

Ball State was bad in 2017. That’s not a controversial statement. The Cardinals finished 2-10 (0-8 in MAC play) and nine of their ten losses came by double-digits. But its spring, and at least where I live, that means longer days, warmer temperatures, and a deluge of pollen. In other words, after a long cold mild winter, things are looking up. With that in mind, I’m going to give Ball State fans a reason for hope heading into 2018. Here are a few reasons why you should not only be cautiously optimistic regarding the 2018 season, but why you may want to schedule some additional time off work around the holidays to catch the watch Ball State in their bowl game.

2017 was a disaster for Ball State, but the Cardinals endured a historic glut of injuries. Mid-major teams tend to have depth problems regardless, but suffering through a biblical scope of injuries can only tamper down the won/loss record. Consider that before conference play began, the Cardinals nearly upset Illinois (yes, the Illini were bad as well, but it was a road game against a Power 5 opponent) and beat the resurrected UAB Blazers by 20. A team with that level of talent would likely have been competitive in the MAC instead of the winless bunch Ball State eventually became.

Ball State was a sieve defensively last season. They allowed 45 offensive touchdowns in conference play (or more than five and a half per game). Since 2005, that is one of the worst MAC defenses I have ever tracked. See below for a chronological list.

How did those worst of the worst MAC defenses perform the next season? They got better. One of the principle tenets of statistics is that extreme performances are unlikely to be repeated. For a team to play as poorly as Ball State did last season, a lot of things have to go wrong. It is unlikely the same confluence of factors will exist in 2018.

The previous seven bad MAC defenses all improved the next season. Every defense allowed at least five fewer offensive touchdowns and collectively they allowed about eleven fewer on average (almost one and a half per game).

Aside from being quite bad on defense, Ball State was also unlucky in regards to non-offensive touchdowns. The Cardinals allowed eight non-offensive touchdowns (three interception returns, two fumble returns, and three punt block/returns) in MAC play while scoring none of their own. Think about that number for a second. The Cardinals played eight conference games and were net negative eight in non-offensive touchdowns. This means the Cardinals effectively spotted every conference opponent one touchdown. That is very difficult to overcome. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I would wager a significant sum Ball State does not see a similar rate of non-offensive touchdowns scored against them in 2018. These events are extremely consequential in terms impact, but they are also quite random. Since 2005, only six other teams have had a non-offensive touchdown net in conference play of negative six or worse. Here is how their conference record changed the following season.

Aside from Baylor, which was dying a painful death under Guy Morriss, every other team not only improved, but improved significantly. A similar result for Ball State would not surprise me at all.

Finally, 2018 will be Mike Neu’s third year in charge of the Cardinals. You don’t have to look far to find instances of significant improvement in a coach’s third season. Taken together, all these trends point to marked improvement for Ball State in 2018.

College Basketball Tiers

A significant portion of my readership was likely concerned for my safety. Like clockwork, I have posted YPP and APR recaps of each FBS conference every Thursday. However, this week in honor of the Final Four I want to do something a little different. Don’t worry, we’ll pick back up with the MAC APR next Thursday and continue unabated through the remainder of the FBS conferences.

Last year over this same weekend, I wrote that conference expansion (driven primarily by football) has been making March less mad. That trend continued in the 2017-2018 season. Shortly after that post, Wichita State officially joined the American Athletic Conference further consolidating power into eight conferences (ACC, American, Atlantic 10, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC). Those eight leagues each sent multiple representatives to the 2018 NCAA tournament and accounted for all of the at-large bids save one. Teams like Saint Mary’s and Middle Tennessee State were passed over in favor of teams from those eight conferences like Syracuse and Arizona State. Of course, St Mary’s and Middle Tennessee were not perfect at-large candidates, especially considering St Mary’s non-conference schedule and Middle Tennessee’s stumbles to close the season, but it was indicative of a disappointing (in my opinion anyway) trend. Read that previous post for a full numerical analysis of recent at-large bids. But I digress. That lone additional bid went to Nevada of the Mountain West Conference. And speaking of the Mountain West, rumors are presently swirling the league will add Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference. The move would be great for Gonzaga and the Mountain West, but it would make garnering an at-large bid for other West Coast Conference teams (like St Mary’s) infinitely more difficult. Anyway, I don’t have a whole lot more to say about mid-major teams getting at-large bids. Nothing much has changed since last season. However, I still wanted to do a numbers based basketball post.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to sports talk radio and somehow the name Fran McCaffery came up. I remembered McCaffery from his time at Siena in the late 00’s. I did not remember him at all from his time at UNCG and Lehigh prior to that. I knew he was at Iowa and I reckoned he had probably been there close to a decade. I remembered seeing Iowa in my NCAA tournament bracket a few times and thought McCaffery had done a decent job at Iowa. Has he? Iowa has made three NCAA tournament appearances (three straight from 2014-2016) in his eight season at the helm. Is this good? Or, more accurately I suppose, does this qualify as success at Iowa? Does making the tournament not quite half the time qualify as success? Obviously, McCaffery would have been run out of town were he the coach at Duke, Kansas, Kentucky or some other literal or figurative blueblood program. At Iowa though, that seems like a decent track record. Looking at McCaffery’s record made me wonder what would be considered ‘success’ at every major conference school? Since those eight conferences I mentioned in the previous paragraph account for pretty much all the at-large bids nowadays, I decided to calculate the total number of NCAA tournament appearances for each program in those eight conferences (Super Eight?) and divide them into tiers based on how often they qualified for the NCAA tournament. Fans and aspiring athletic directors can use this data to determine if it might be time to make a change at the top.

Before we dive into the results, here a few housekeeping notes. I looked at all NCAA tournament appearances since 2001. The 2001 season provides a nice arbitrary starting point since that is the year the NCAA instituted the (don’t call it a) play-in game pitting the lowest rated automatic qualifiers to determine who would advance to the main bracket as the final 16 seed. A decade later, the tournament again expanded, adding three additional play-in games and dubbing them the ‘First Four’. Going back to 2001 gives us a large cross-section of data (18 seasons), but keeps us grounded in relatively recent history. There are 101 teams in those eight conferences. Fastidious readers will notice I have only included 99 of them in the following tables. As conference membership has been quite volatile since 2001, I included any current member of a Super Eight conference as long as they were a member of a conference in the past that could at least conceivably receive an at-large bid. Thus, the only teams that were eliminated were UCF, which spent time in the low-major Atlantic Sun during this time period, and Davidson, which was a long-time member of the Southern Conference. The Southern Conference certainly has a great history, but the league has never produced an at-large NCAA tournament team. Using these criteria, UCF and Davidson are excluded, but a school like East Carolina, which has not had any recent success on the basketball court, but did play in the CAA and Conference USA before joining the American is included. If you are mad about that, well, you probably don’t have a lot to be mad about in your life, so I envy you. Finally, I included total tournament appearances and not percentage of times making the tournament. If a team was ineligible for the tournament, those extenuating circumstances did not factor into the results listed here. If you are disappointed with that decision, I recommend your team either stop cheating or start cheating better.

Anyway, with this long intro out of the way, let’s start with a list of teams that are main stays in the NCAA tournament. Teams highlighted in yellow (in each table) have appeared in at least one Final Four.

Duke, Kansas, and Michigan State. Those are the only three major conference teams (I see you waving frantically Gonzaga) to have appeared in every single NCAA tournament since 2001. If I had compiled the data before this season, Wisconsin would have joined them, but the Badgers missed out on the tournament for the first time since 1998. The other mainstays include one surprise (at least to me). Xavier has been a consistent NCAA tournament force this century despite losing four coaches to ‘better’ jobs. Going back even further, their last six coaches all won enough at Xavier to merit jobs at ‘better’ locales. Has Xavier been that good at nailing their hires or is there something in the university’s culture and infrastructure that allows them to continuously put good basketball teams on the floor regardless of the man in charge?

These next few teams have been consistent NCAA tournament participants, missing a tournament here or there, but for the most part you can expect them to appear on Selection Sunday.

It’s funny a team that just finished up a winless conference season appears as a consistent NCAA tournament team, but the Pitt Panthers have a solid history this century. This list has a vintage Big East flavor, with five teams (Cincinnati, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Villanova) spending significant portions of their time in that conference.

These teams miss a tournament here or there, but more often than not, they wind up in the Big Dance.

To me, the most interesting team on this list is Connecticut. The Huskies have participated in eleven tournaments since 2001, or exactly one more than Creighton, but they have made the most of their appearances. They have won three championships (2004, 2011, and 2014) and have another Final Four appearance (2009). Along with Maryland (2002), they are the only team in the third tier or lower to win a national title since 2001.

Now we come to your ‘average’ major conference team. These teams make the tournament about half the time.

Unlike the previous three tiers, there are not a lot of Final Four participants to be found here. Whereas over 78% (25 out of 32) of the teams in Tiers 1-3 had played in a Final Four, just a quarter of the teams in Tier 4 have made it to a national semifinal.

This next group of teams sometimes makes the tournament. Casual fans know they have a basketball team, but probably don’t give them much thought.

The impetus for this exercise, Fran McCaffery’s Iowa team, appears on this list. I would say McCaffery has slightly exceeded expectations based on Iowa’s recent history, but he’s no Tom Davis. Remember when Georgia Tech made a run to the national title game? Me neither, but it did buy Paul Hewitt seven more years in Atlanta. That’s more time than a deep tourney run bought John Brady though. He was out of a job less than two years after leading LSU to the Final Four in 2006.

These schools make sporadic appearances in the NCAA tournament, but you would probably be surprised to see them in your bracket.

Most of the teams on this list are either football schools (or schools that typically invest more in football) or members of the Atlantic 10.

Finally we come to the chaffiest of the chaff. These teams have made at most one appearance in the last 18 tournaments.

Thankfully Ray Meyer and George Mikan are not around to see how much the DePaul program has imploded. The Blue Demons along with other woebegone programs in major cities like Northwestern, TCU, Fordham, and Rutgers have failed to utilize their proximity to elite talent in building their basketball programs. There is evidence that some of the teams on this list are at least trying now. TCU just made their first NCAA tournament appearance in two decades, Northwestern made their first ever appearance last season, and Tulane has a former NBA coach on the bench (though he might be past his sell by date).

So there you have it. You can tell a lot about your team by the company they keep. Which tier does your college basketball program fall under? Is the new coach pushing your team into another tier or is he dragging them down? Or do you not even know the basketball coach’s name? These tiers can serve as a starting point to determine if your coach is meeting expectations. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming next week. Thanks for reading.