Strangers in the Field: II

Last year I went to Vegas and made a few bets. I made a little money (emphasis on little). So I decided, why not go back? Enjoy.

Over/Under Win Totals
The premise here is simple. These bets are on teams to either go 'over' or 'under' a baseline win total.

Cincinnati over 7.5 wins -120 ($40 to win $33.35)
You know who had the best offense in the American last season (based on Yards per Play)? It wasn't Houston. It wasn't Memphis. It wasn't South Florida. It wasn't Navy. Obviously based on this bet, it was Cincinnati. The Bearcats limped to a 7-5 regular season and then were embarrassed on Christmas Eve by San Diego State in the Hawaii Bowl. The Bearcats primary issues were on defense last season where they finished ninth in the twelve team American in Yards per Play and in regards to turnovers where they committed 23 in eight league games (second worst to UCF's 25). 16 of those were interceptions thrown by Gunner Kiel and Hayden Moore. The defense returns eight starters so there should be improvement on that side of the ball, and if Kiel and Moore can limit their mistakes, the Bearcats could be in for a special season in 2016. The non-conference schedule features a road game at Purdue and a home game against BYU, but an undefeated run outside of American action would not be too surprising. In conference play, the Bearcats get Houston, Memphis, and South Florida at home where they are 15-3 under Tommy Tuberville. If things break right, the Bearcats could find themselves in discussion for the Group of 5's NY6 bowl bid when the calendar turns to November. It wouldn't be the first time Tuberville enjoyed a fantastic season seemingly out of nowhere. 

Fresno State over 4 wins -115 ($40 to win $34.80)
Tim DeRuyter might be the poster child for why you want to leave a mid-major job too early rather than too late. During his first two years in charge of the Bulldogs, they went 20-6 with a pair of Mountain West titles (one shared). However, since Derek Carr and Davante Adams left following the 2013 season, the Bulldogs are 9-17. Last season, the Bulldogs finished 3-9, which was their lowest win total since 1978! Per Yards per Play, the Bulldogs had the worst offense in the Mountain West last season. However, some of that can be attributed to injuries at the quarterback position where two starters were lost for the season. With better health and improved play at the most important position, the Bulldogs should move closer to the middle of the conference on offense. Another reason for optimism is the non-conference schedule. Over the past two seasons, Fresno State faced, BYU, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Southern Cal, and Utah (twice) in non-conference play. The Bulldogs lost those six games by an average of 37 points! Nebraska is on the schedule again in 2016, but the other three non-conference games are against Sacramento State, Toledo, and Tulsa. Toledo and Tulsa were bowl squads last season, but the Bulldogs at least have hopes of finishing better than 1-3 in non-conference play. I think the Bulldogs will get to four wins, and a surprise bowl season would not surprise me.

Georgia Tech over 6.5 wins +125 ($40 to win $50)
I'll be honest, Paul Johnson is one of my favorite college football coaches. So I am probably a bit biased in making this bet. I love the fact that the triple option is being featured at a BCS/P5 school. And regardless of how Johnson's career ends in Atlanta, there is really no argument the option has worked. His offense has ranked in the top half of the ACC in terms of Yards per Play seven times in his eight seasons. The defense on the other hand, has been the Achilles Heal (Stinger?) for the Yellow Jackets. The defense has finished in the bottom half of the ACC seven times in his eight seasons. Now, he is culpable for their struggles on defense, be it poor recruiting, poor development, or bad hires at coordinator positions, but lets just remember the option can work at the BCS/P5 level. But I digress. The Yellow Jackets finished 3-9 last season, which marked their fewest wins since 1994. However, six of their nine defeats came by eight points or less. When a team loses that many one-score games, they usually improve the following season. Of course, Vegas expects Georgia Tech to improve. In fact, for this bet to cash, the Yellow Jackets have to more than double their 2015 regular season win total. Before bottoming out at 1-7 last season, Paul Johnson had developed a pretty consistent track record in conference play. Here are his conference won/loss records through his first seven seasons. 

If Johnson can guide the Yellow Jackets to a 4-4 league record, I feel pretty confident they will get to seven wins. Georgia and Georgia Southern will present a challenge in non-conference play, but home games against Mercer and Vanderbilt should be wins. Maybe this is the end of the line for Johnson at Georgia Tech. Maybe the quality of coaches in the ACC Coastal (Cutcliffe, Fedora, Fuente, Mendenhall, Narduzzi, and Richt) and his inability to field an above average defense will lead to a second consecutive losing season, but I think Johnson has a rebound in him even if I am a bit biased.

Kansas over 1.5 wins -155 ($40 to win $25.80)
Outside of NC State (see a few lines down) this is probably the wager I am most confident in. Make no mistake, Kansas is bad and should once again be the worst team in the Big 12, but even if they lose all their conference games, the Jayhawks have a good shot at cashing this ticket. They face Rhode Island (not only an FCS team, but a bad one) and Ohio in non-conference home games, so they may hit the over before mid-September. Even if they fall to Ohio, I feel pretty assured Kansas will pull off at least one upset in their last ten games. 

Maryland over 5 wins -120 ($40 to win $33.35)
After four and a half years of the milquetoast Randy Edsall, maybe Ralph Friedgen wasn't so bad eh? To replace Edsall, the Terrapins tabbed Michigan defensive coordinator DJ Durkin. Durkin is under 40, has worked for successful head coaches like Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh, and filled out his staff with a few former FBS head coaches (Pete Lembo and Mike London). There is a lot to like here despite the fact that Maryland plays in the tougher Big 10 division and must endure annual clashes with Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State (to say nothing of Penn State). Still, the Terrapins were not as bad as their 1-7 Big 10 record would indicate last season and the non-conference schedule is very soft in 2016. The Terrapins do make the unusual double mid-major road trip when they travel south to Florida to take on FIU and UCF in back-to-back weeks. Even though those games are on the road, the Terrapins should finish non-conference play 3-0 and just need a pair of Big 10 wins to hit the push. Home games against Purdue and Rutgers should do the trick and I wouldn't be surprised if Maryland steals another game somewhere and finishes bowl eligible. 

NC State over 3 wins -120 ($25 to win $20.85)
Out of all the over under totals I saw in Sin City, this one was the most perplexing. Outside of Dave Doeren's first season in 2013, the Wolfpack have won at least five (but never more than eight) regular season games since 2007. Their non-conference schedule is tougher than usual by NC State's typical low standards (the Wolfpack host Notre Dame), but they open with William and Mary, East Carolina, and Old Dominion before the difficulty ratchets up. I could see NC State dropping the road game at East Carolina, but at worst that would leave them needing just a single conference win to push. Even with the loss of quarterback Jacoby Brissett, it is very hard to see NC State going under this number.

New Mexico under 7 wins -145 ($40 to win $27.60)
I know a few lines up I professed my love for the option and New Mexico fits the bill of an exciting option team. Consider that the average New Mexico game since Bob Davie became the coach in 2012 has featured over 63 combined points! Unfortunately, more than 34 of those points have come courtesy of New Mexico's opponent. Hence their 18-32 record (which is of course marked improvement over the previous regime). It says a lot when a defense that ranked tenth in Yards per Play (6.11 per play) represents the high water mark for the team under Davie. 

The Lobos went 5-3 in Mountain West play last season and conservatively assuming a 3-1 non-conference record in 2016 (likely loss is a road game at Rutgers), they would need to do at least that well to hit the over. New Mexico won three games as a double-digit underdog last season and with a conference schedule that includes Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, and Utah State (not to mention a road date with Hawaii), I see a push as best case scenario for the Lobos.

Old Dominion over 5 wins even ($40 to win $40)
If it wasn't for the great success of Appalachian State and Georgia Southern in the Sun Belt, Old Dominion would be one of the better examples of teams transitioning from FCS (is there a bathroom for that?). In fact, the Monarchs rebooted their program in 2009 after laying dormant since the 1940s. Despite being a newcomer to FBS and football in general, 2015 marked the first losing season for the Monarchs. Despite the losing record, the Monarchs were in position to nab their first ever bowl bid before losing their season finale to FAU 33-31. The Monarchs accomplished this despite losing their all-time leading passer (Taylor Heinicke) after the 2014 season. After a rough start on offense to open 2015 (just over 16 points per game through their first five), the Monarchs scored at least 30 points in six of their last seven games. The offense should remain in the upper half of Conference USA in 2016. Couple that with non-conference games against Hampton and Massachusetts (a cautionary tale for moving up to FBS), and Old Dominion should participate in their first bowl game following the 2016 regular season. 

Games of the Year
Typically betting lines are set on Sunday for games beginning the following week. However, sportsbooks set a few 'Game of the Year' lines for certain games that are months away from occurring. The home team in these games is listed in bold.

September 10th
South Carolina +10.5 Mississippi State -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
South Carolina burned me last year as they tanked while the Ol' Ball Coach slipped into retirement. So naturally, I am on them again. This line just feels a tad too high especially with Mississippi State replacing the best quarterback in school history. Dan Mullen has raised the profile of Mississippi State football, but prior to Dak Prescott becoming one of the best players in college football in 2014, the Bulldogs never ranked higher than fifth in the SEC in Yards per Play under Mullen. 

I think their offense will see a significant decline in 2016, and with what should be an improved defense at South Carolina, this line is about a field goal too high.

September 17th
Ole Miss +6 Alabama -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
Alabama has lost three games over the past two seasons. If you are any type of college football fan, you know Ole Miss has inflicted two of those defeats. Can the Rebels make it three in a row? The last team to beat Alabama in three consecutive seasons was LSU which beat the Tide in five consecutive seasons from 2003 to 2007. Thankfully, Ole Miss does not have to actually win this game to cash the ticket. The Rebels are 5-2 against the line as a home underdog under Hugh Freeze and with this game coming early in the season before Alabama usually gets rolling, I like the Rebels to cover here. 

September 17th
UCLA -1.5 BYU -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
After back-to-back ten win seasons, the Bruins slumped to an 8-5 record in 2015. Despite this drop-off, the Bruins were statistically one of the better teams in the Pac-12. They boasted the best defense in the Pac-12 in Yards per Play despite losing linebacker Myles Jack before conference play even began. There should not be much if any regression on that side of the ball in 2016 with nine starters returning. Oh, and UCLA has one of the better young quarterbacks in the nation. The 'Rosen One' if you will. Plus, UCLA is an amazing 17-6 in true road games under Jim Mora. UCLA enters this game off what should be a glorified scrimmage against UNLV. Meanwhile, BYU will be coming off their 'Holy War' battle with Utah. I don't usually like to play team psychologist, but BYU will probably be emotionally spent and this spread is too low to pass up.

November 5th
NC State +15 Florida State -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
NC State has covered against the Seminoles in each of the last five games in Raleigh. The Wolfpack have also won three of those five games. I don't think they have a very realistic shot to win here, but Florida State will be in prime letdown mode after playing in what will likely be the ACC Atlantic Championship Game the week before against Clemson. I think NC State will keep this within two touchdowns.

November 26th
Georgia Tech +13 Georgia -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
This line is probably inflated after Georgia Tech's 3-9 season in 2015 and as I stated earlier, I think Georgia Tech will be much improved in 2016. Once this game actually kicks off, Georgia will probably be favored, but giving nearly two touchdowns against a quality opponent is too much. 

December 10th
Army +11.5 Navy @ Baltimore -110 ($25 to win $22.75)
Is this the year? Can Army finally end the nearly decade and a half run of dominance by Navy? While the Midshipmen have won 14 in a row against the Cadets, they have not covered in four of the last five. In fact, Army has kept the game within one score in those four games. I would expect more of the same this season as Army has perhaps their best team since 1996 and Navy loses the all-time NCAA touchdown scorer. 

Conference Champion Bets
I decided to put a few dollars down on a few teams to win their respective leagues.

Cincinnati to win the American +450 ($10 to win $45)
See the earlier write up on the Bearcats. They may end of having to beat league favorite Houston twice, but I thought they were too good a value to pass up.

Eastern Michigan to win the MAC +30000 ($10 to win $3000)
Yes. You read that right. Eastern Michigan has pretty much no chance to win the MAC, but I liked the hire of Chris Creighton in 2014 and I think the Eagles will be much improved in his third season. Their first bowl since 1987 wouldn't shock me, and these odds were too absurd to pass up.

Marshall to win Conference USA +350 ($10 to win $35)
Despite massive attrition on both sides of the ball following their 2014 league title, Marshall still had a chance to play in the Conference USA Championship Game heading into the final weekend of the regular season in 2015. Marshall does return only four starters from one of the best defenses in Conference USA, but the Herd are 20-4 against league foes the past three seasons. The East division of Conference USA may once again come down to Marshall and Western Kentucky over Thanksgiving weekend.

Miscellaneous Bets
This is a college football blog, but there were a few other events I wanted to bet on.

Los Angeles Dodgers to win World Series +150 ($10 to win $150)
Despite the best pitcher of his generation not playing for the last month, the Dodgers have surged and are within striking distance of the Giants in the NL West. If Kershaw can return this season (or postseason), the Dodgers are a threat to win it all.

St Louis Cardinals to win World Series +250 ($10 to win $250)
Despite a rather pedestrian record, St Louis is highly regarded by several advanced metrics. The 538 ELO Ratings rank them seventh in all of MLB. The Simple Rating System over at Baseball Reference has them tied for fourth. They are too far behind to catch the Cubs, so to win the World Series, they will have to start by winning the NL Wild Card Game. Still, these long odds were too good to pass up.

Miami Marlins to win World Series +400 ($10 to win $400)
The Marlins are the anti-Cardinals. They also have a middling record (currently good enough for the second Wild Card in the NL), but are just 18th in the 538 ELO Ratings and tied for 15th in the Simple Rating System. Baseball is a weird game though, particularly with the new Wild Card format. Bad teams have won the World Series before, and with them already sitting in playoff position, I had pull the trigger here. 

Reckless Parlay
I couldn't leave Las Vegas without buying at least one lottery ticket. This is your standard six team parlay. All games must be correct for the parlay to pay out and each game occurs over Labor Day Weekend.
$10 to win $400

Game 1: August 26th 
Hawaii +21 Cal @ Sydney
Yes, college football kicks off about a week earlier than normal. Might as well burn this ticket early.

Game 2: September 1st
Tulane +17 Wake Forest
Can't believe my alma mater is giving this many points. 

Game 3: September 2nd
Army +16 Temple
I think this is the best Army team in quite awhile. Might as well take them getting a lot of points from a team that could be a little overrated. 

Game 4: September 3rd
Georgia Tech -3.5 Boston College @ Dublin
Another college football game in a foreign country. This line is probably half a point too high, but I had to throw a favorite in there somewhere.

Game 5: September 3rd
Wyoming +10.5 Northern Illinois
Wyoming plays their home game at more than 7000 feet above sea level. We'll see if the Huskies have problems adjusting.

Game 6: September 4th
Notre Dame -4.5 Texas
I immediately regretted making this bet after the ticket printed.

Non-Offensive Touchdowns: Coaches and Their Track Records

Last time out we talked about Non-Offensive Touchdowns and examined what teams with extreme positive or negative net non-offensive touchdowns can expect the following season. As I mentioned in the previous post, I calculated Net Non-Offensive Touchdown data for every FBS team in conference play during the eleven year period of 2005 through 2015. While compiling that information, I decided to create a leaderboard of coaches with the best and worst margins to see if certain coaches had a predisposition for good or bad results. Before we dive into the leaderboards, here are a few housekeeping notes. To qualify for the leaderboards, coaches must have been head coaches for at least five seasons during the sample. If a coach has a fantastic or poor net margin after a season or two, it is more likely this is just randomness or noise. If a coach has a similar net margin over a longer time period, it is more likely to be a demonstrable skill. In addition, sometimes coaches are fired midway through a season (shocking, I know). In the interest of making things easier on me, a coaches’ net margin for a particular season is assigned to the gentleman who began the year as head coach. No portion of the net margin is given to his replacement. Using 2015 as an example, Steve Sarkisian is credited with +6 even though he was the head coach for just a third of Southern Cal’s conference schedule. If you disagree, the data is freely available. Feel free to apportion the net margin as you so desire. Finally, the data is not broken down into different kinds of returns (punt, kickoff, interception, etc.). Alright, let’s get to the data. First up, here are the top-ten coaches in terms of positive net margin. I have also included their overall conference record as a reference point.

The top three coaches by this metric have all won national titles since 2005. In fact, they have combined for eight of the eleven national titles won since 2005! Every coach on this list is usually held in high regard by even the most casual college football observer. An exception might be Rick Stockstill who toils in relative obscurity at Middle Tennessee State. While his Blue Raiders are not a national power, they have posted a strong conference record in both the Sun Belt and Conference USA during his decade at the school. Based on the coaches who appear on this list, it makes sense that scoring and preventing non-offensive touchdowns could be a repeatable skill. Or at least emphasizing this tactic in scouting and stressing it in practice could lead to a positive margin over the long haul.

What about the other side of the coin? Here are the bottom-ten coaches in terms of net negative margin. Once again, their overall conference record is included as a reference point.

Whereas the positive margin list was a who’s who of great coaches, the negative list is more of a mixed bag. Certainly, there are good coaches on this list. James Franklin led Vanderbilt to heights many never imagined possible while Howard Schnellenberger built the Florida Atlantic program from nothing. Pat Fitzgerald and Mike Riley have succeeded at notoriously tough locales. Tommy Tuberville had a great run at Auburn (although his greatest success occurred before the period examined here) and Ruffin McNeill had just one losing conference record at East Carolina. Ralph Friedgen is one of the better coaches in Maryland history (although his fantastic start from 2001-2003 is not included in this sample). However, there are a few duds on this list. Ron English, outside of one outlier season, was mostly bad at Eastern Michigan, Bob Toledo could not recreate his UCLA success at Tulane, and Mike London somehow managed to stick around for six seasons in Charlottesville despite winning just 14 conference games. And for the love of all that is holy, please hire a special teams coach Mike Leach! There is more to football than the forward pass (and locking kids in sheds).

So what conclusions can we draw from this? I don’t think it is a coincidence that every coach with a great net margin is highly regarded and considered among the best in their profession. Perhaps they have identified a market inefficiency and focus a disproportionate number of their resources (players, practice time, etc.) on scoring in unconventional ways. Perhaps they specifically recruit players they believe can score on defense or special teams. Or perhaps it is something else. Finally, I ran these numbers for all coaches since 2005, so here is a list of some miscellaneous coaches who failed to make either list. I included every coach since 2005 who either won a national title or coached in the BCS title game or CFP title game. Keep in mind Chip Kelly did not make the main list because he only coached Oregon for four seasons, narrowly missing the threshold for inclusion. I also included a few other coaches that I was curious about. If you have any specific requests, I will be more than happy to share them in the comments. Enjoy.

Non-Offensive Touchdowns: What Can We Learn?

Welcome back dear readers. It has been a while since I last posted, and in the interest of keeping up my streak of at least one post a month, I decided to satiate my esteemed audience. Today we are going to talk about Non-Offensive Touchdowns. These would be touchdowns scored via returns of interceptions, fumbles, punts, kickoffs, blocked kicks, and occasionally (and gloriously) missed field goals. What I have done in the last month is meticulously sift through data from cfbstats.com and box scores available at sports-reference.com/cfb/ (big thank you to these two great sites) to find every return touchdown between conference opponents since 2005. I neglected to included non-conference games, championship games, and postseason contests (which are non-conference games) because the other numbers I use on this site are all focused around conference play. Sorry Notre Dame and Army fans. Using these numbers, I tested a simple hypothesis: While return touchdowns are modicum of skill, they are also highly random events that can tilt the outcome of an individual game. Thus, teams with an extreme positive net non-offensive touchdown margin (return touchdowns scored minus return touchdowns allowed) will tend to decline the following season. Similarly, teams with an extreme negative net non-offensive touchdown margin will tend to improve the following season. What is an ‘extreme’ net non-offensive touchdown margin? I decided to use + or – 4. This number is a bit arbitrary, but in the context of a conference season that lasts only seven, eight, or nine games, this seems a reasonable baseline for extreme. Well, was I right?

The following table lists the results for teams with an extreme positive net non-offensive touchdown margin from 2005-2014.

75 teams met the standard of +4. On average, these teams with extreme positive margins declined by about a game in the conference standings the next season. Looking at the data another way, only about a quarter of the teams improved the next season while more than 60% declined. A little more than 13% finished with the same conference record the next season. With conference expansion, since teams occasionally play a different number of conference games from one year to the next (because of changes in their conference affiliation or changes in their current conference’s size), I considered any conference record within a half game to be ‘stayed same’. For example, Central Michigan went 7-1 in the MAC in 2006 with a margin of +5 so they are included as an extreme positive team. The next year they played just seven league games thanks to the addition of Temple to the conference. Though their record ‘declined’ to 6-1, it is within a half game and considered the same for bookkeeping purposes.

What about teams with extreme negative net non-offensive touchdown margins? The following table summarizes the results for those teams from 2005-2014.

63 teams met the standard of -4. On average, these teams improved by about a game in the conference standings the next season (quite similar to the one game decline by the other group). About 57% of the teams improved the following season, a little more than one-fifth got worse, and 22% stayed the same. Once again, a difference of only a half game in either direction was considered ‘stayed same’. So yes, I was correct in my initial hypothesis. Teams with extreme positive net non-offensive touchdown margins tend to decline the following season and those with extreme negative margins tend to improve. However, while real, the impact should not be overstated. Nearly 40% of those teams with extreme positive margins either stayed the same or got better and more than 40% of those with extreme negative margins either stayed the same or got worse.

So, which teams from 2015 met the standard of + or – 4? Glad you asked. Take a gander at this table.

Of the six teams with extreme positive margins, four (Alabama, Arkansas State, Houston, and Michigan State) won their respective leagues. In fact, three of the teams played in the College Football Playoff or New Year’s Six bowls. Plus, Southern Cal also won their division and played for the Pac-12 title. Be wary when projecting these teams to repeat in 2015. Perhaps the most interesting team with an extreme positive margin is Washington. The Huskies are getting a lot of preseason love and have probably shed their status as Pac-12 sleeper heading into 2016. It’s interesting their extreme margin could not land them a winning conference record in 2015.

On the other side of the same coin, only two of the six teams with extreme negative margins played in the postseason in 2015. Cincinnati finished with at least six losses for the first time since 2010 and the seat is probably getting a little warm for Tommy Tuberville. Don’t be surprised if the esteemed Tuberville has one of his patented ‘out of nowhere’ fantastic seasons in 2016. Washington State was the other school to qualify for the postseason despite an extreme negative margin. Somehow the Cougars finished with their best record in more than a decade. Looking at this list, perhaps the three other mid-major strugglers and the Big 12’s resident punching bag can show some signs of life in 2016.

2015 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 2015 Sun Belt standings.

And here are the APR standings sorted by rank 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.

Arkansas State and Troy saw their actual record differ from their APR by more than a game and a half each. These two schools also saw their records differ significantly from their expected records based on YPP. So, instead of rehashing what I said last week, let’s take a sojourn through Sun Belt history.

For most of its existence, the Sun Belt has been the weakest of all the FBS conferences. It has been the home of FBS nomads and neophytes. No Sun Belt school has ever been ranked or finished a season ranked (former member Western Kentucky did end the year ranked in 2015). This of course does not mean the Sun Belt lacks entertaining football. I for one, enjoy their midweek games. So let’s celebrate the fifteen years the Sun Belt has been an FBS conference by revisiting all their wins against BCS and Power 5 opponents. Sun Belt teams have won 20 games against BCS/P5 opponents. Those wins are listed by year in the tables below.

Sun Belt teams did not win any games against Power 5 opponents in 2015, but they did win eight in the four-year span from 2011-2014, so hopefully they can get back their winning ways in 2016. Feel free to peruse the table at your leisure, but I have combed through the results and come up with a few Sun Belt superlatives. Enjoy.

Most Wins Vs BCS/P5: Middle Tennessee State
The Blue Raiders, a former Sun Belt member, have beaten six BCS/P5 teams while playing under the Sun Belt banner. Their best win was probably the beatdown of a Georgia Tech team that would play in the 2012 ACC Championship Game (thanks to a technicality). For current members, Louisiana-Monroe has the most wins against BCS/P5 opponents with four.

Most Losses Vs Sun Belt: Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt has three losses to Sun Belt teams with all three coming to Middle Tennessee State. The last loss in 2005 was particularly damaging as it kept a Commodore team with Jay Cutler at the helm home for the holidays. Vanderbilt would rebound and qualify for a bowl game just three seasons later, but at the time it had to feel like a huge missed opportunity for the Commodores in their quest to end their two-decade bowl drought.

Largest Margin of Victory: North Texas over Baylor 52-14
My, how times have changed. North Texas was in the midst of winning the first four Sun Belt league championships while Baylor was a perennial Big 12 punching bag. Baylor won the return match in Waco the following year, and I think they would be favored if the two were to play in 2016.

Best Finish: Western Kentucky over Kentucky 32-31
Overtime: Check. Two-point conversion for the win. Check. A video is worth a thousand words.
This concludes our in depth look at all ten FBS conferences. I will be back sporadically throughout the summer with some gambling advice, a Vegas trip recap, and perhaps a few season previews. In the meantime, check my Twitter for witty observations and my Instagram for humorous memes. Thanks for reading.

2015 Yards Per Play: Sun Belt

We now turn our attention to the final conference alphabetically. Here are the 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 Yards per Play (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 2015 season, which teams in the Sun Belt met this threshold? Here are the Sun Belt teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

The 2015 Sun Belt season saw a pair of teams with records that diverged significantly from their expected records based on YPP. The league champion, Arkansas State, significantly over-performed their expected record, and former league heavyweight, Troy, significantly under-performed under first year coach Neal Brown. Arkansas State was a bit unusual as they went unbeaten in Sun Belt play and won each of their conference games by at least ten points. How were they able to win games so easily despite good, but not great YPP numbers? For starters, they boasted a turnover margin of +17 in their eight Sun Belt games. A few weeks ago, in the Mountain West YPP post, I examined similar teams that averaged turnover margins greater than +2 per game or less than -2 per game. Like San Diego State, Arkansas State is due for some regression in the turnover department and likely in their record as well. In addition to their healthy turnover margin, Arkansas State also managed to score in unconventional ways. They scored eight non-offensive touchdowns in Sun Belt play (five interception returns, two fumble returns, and one punt return), and their net non-offensive touchdown margin was the highest in the conference by far.

As you can see, Troy also had a solid non-offensive touchdown margin, but the Trojans finished 0-3 in one-score league games. Meanwhile, all their wins came in dominating fashion, with each coming by at least 24 points. 

One of the bigger surprises (at least to me) from the 2015 Sun Belt season was the struggle of Louisiana-Lafayette. After four consecutive bowl appearances (and wins) under head coach Mark Hudspeth (perhaps the strongest FBS coach), the Ragin' Cajuns slipped to a 4-8 record and finished in the bottom half of the conference. Was this a random blip for Lafayette or a sign of things to come? To try and answer this question with something aside from wild speculation, I looked at other coaches who like Mark Hudspeth: began coaching since 1984 (the relative modern era), coached at an FBS mid-major (like Louisiana-Lafayette), had at least four consecutive winning seasons to begin their tenure, and then suffered a losing campaign. Perhaps not surprisingly, with so many stipulations, only six other coaches met the criteria. And one of them is probably familiar to Ragin' Cajun fans. The following table lists the six coaches, the school they coached at, their record in their first few years until their losing year, the year they suffered a losing record, the year they got back to their winning ways (if they ever did), and their career record after their first losing season. I know that's a lot to digest, but take a look at the table, and I'll summarize later.

To help you read the table, I'll go through Fisher DeBerry's row. DeBerry coached at Air Force and posted a 35-14 record in his first four years. In his fifth year, the Falcons slipped to 5-7. His charges rebounded immediately, posting a winning record in his sixth season. All told, after going 5-7 in his fifth season, DeBerry managed a 129-88-1 record over the next 18 seasons at Air Force.

Of the six coaches who met the criteria, I think we safely say just two could be deemed 'successful' after their first losing campaign, and both happened to coach for the Air Force Academy. Fisher DeBerry rebounded from his first losing season to spend 18 additional years at the school. His successor, Troy Calhoun, has also bounced back from his first losing season. The three seasons since his first losing year have resulted in a rather mediocre 20-19 overall record, but that includes a putrid 2-10 record in 2013. Over the past two seasons, the Falcons are 18-9, with a division championship. The other Lafayette coach, Nelson Stokley (father of Super Bowl hero Brandon Stokley), lasted eight years at Lafayette after his first losing season, but posted just three winning records over that span. The other three coaches, Gary Blackney, Tom Amstutz, and Gary Darnell (all MAC coaches coincidentally), failed to produce any winning seasons after their first losing campaign. Based on an admittedly small sample size, 2016 appears to be a very important year for Mark Hudspeth. DeBerry and Calhoun got back to their winning ways within two years after posting their first losing season. The lesson appears to be that despite past success, mid-major coaches have a very short time frame to pull out of their tailspin. Either the plane crashes or someone else hops in the pilot seat.

2015 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 2015 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.

No SEC team significantly over or under-performed their expected APR. Since no team significantly over or under-performed, let's talk about a team that was able to efficiently turn their small per-play advantage into a much larger advantage in terms of scoring touchdowns. The Florida Gators were good, especially on defense in 2015. They featured the best defense in SEC play in terms of yards per play. If one adjusts for the quality of competition in their division, they may only rank as the second or third best defense (full disclosure, I didn't do the math), but they were strong on that side of the ball nonetheless. Offense was another story, as their unadjusted per play average ranked just 12th in the 14-team conference. However, when it came to scoring touchdowns, Florida went from being bad to being average. Their 23 offensive touchdowns in SEC play ranked sixth in the league. The efficiency gains by the offense were not offset by any losses in defensive efficiency. The Gators allowed just 12 touchdowns in SEC play which was tops in the conference. By paying off drives with touchdowns, Florida was able to post an APR more in line with their actual record as opposed to a middling record predicted by YPP (see last week's post). So since their APR was sterling, its clear sailing for the Gators in 2016 right? Maybe not. You may have noticed 2015 was a lot like 2012 for the Gators. From the 7-1 league record, to the disappointing bowl loss, to the narrow win over a Sun Belt school (I know Florida Atlantic is in Conference USA, but humor me), 2015 was eerily similar to 2012 in other ways as well. Here are Florida's vital stats in the conference metrics I track: YPP, APR, and turnover margin with conference rank in parentheses.

Over the course of eight conference games three years apart, with mostly different players and a different head coach, the 2012 and 2015 Florida Gators were effectively the same team. In fact, statistically (again unadjusted numbers), the 2012 incarnation was a little bit better. The offensive struggles of both teams were balanced by strong defenses, good to great turnover margins, and an ability to score more touchdowns than one might expect from those weak offenses (be it clutch play, great field position, or what have you). Looking forward though, it pays to heed history when projecting what happens next. The Florida defense remained strong in 2013, posting the best (unadjusted) YPP and allowing the fewest touchdowns. However, the offense remained stagnant (13th in YPP), the turnover margin regressed (to +1), the offense scored six fewer touchdowns in SEC play, and the Gators fell to 3-5 in and missed a bowl. I wouldn't call for a decline of that magnitude in 2016, but a finish of third or even (gasp!) fourth in the SEC East wouldn't shock me.

2015 Yards Per Play: SEC

We are closing in on the home stretch. Just two conferences to go. This week we examine the SEC. Here are the 2015 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 Yards per Play (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 underperforming by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2015 season, which teams in the SEC met this threshold? Here are the SEC teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

The SEC saw a pair of teams fall below and a pair of teams exceed their YPP expectations. For Missouri and South Carolina, the two teams that failed to reach their expected record based on YPP, the culprit was simple: close game results. Missouri and South Carolina finished a combined 0-6 in one-score conference games. While both teams were especially bad on one side of the ball (offense for Missouri and defense for South Carolina), it took several bad bounces for them to finish a combined 2-14 in SEC play. The two teams that vastly exceeded their YPP results also happened to meet in the SEC Championship Game. A confluence of factors allowed the Gators to win the SEC East in their first season under Jim McElwain. Florida finished 3-1 in one-score conference games, boasted the best in-conference turnover margin (+8), and scored three non-offensive touchdowns. For Alabama, the results are more mystifying. The Crimson Tide lost only once all season (by six points), and won just a single conference game by fewer than thirteen points. The Tide were not especially buoyed by turnover margin either, finishing a respectable, but hardly superb +1 in SEC play. However, the Tide did take advantage of unconventional touchdowns. They returned four interceptions for touchdowns in SEC play, including three against Texas A&M. The Tide continued to score in unconventional ways in the playoffs, returning a punt for a touchdown against Michigan State (not needed for the victory) and a kickoff for a touchdown against Clemson (vital to the win).

2015 closed the book on the Steve Spurrier era at South Carolina. As a Columbia resident and degree holder from the university (I try to keep this a secret), I decided to conduct a review of Mr. Spurrier’s overall body of work in the SEC. We’ll start with some basic housekeeping. While Spurrier retired/resigned/quit halfway through the season, we are going to credit the win over Vanderbilt and the three other conference losses under Shawn Elliott to his account. This was his team after all, even if he couldn’t stand to see them play defense either.

Let’s start by looking at his SEC record. The following table lists the conference record for each SEC team since the 2005 season. Newcomers Missouri and Texas A&M are listed at the bottom.

Among the twelve tribes of the SEC, South Carolina ranks almost exactly in the middle over the last eleven years. They also rank third in the East, significantly behind Florida and Georgia, but also significantly ahead of once (and perhaps future) power Tennessee. One interesting, non-Gamecock related observation: Kentucky should be very ashamed. Their league record is worse than Vanderbilt’s over the past eleven seasons!

Let’s break that record down a little further. How have the Gamecocks performed against every SEC team? The following table lists South Carolina’s record against every SEC team since 2005. The table is sorted alphabetically with SEC East teams appearing first.

A few observations. Based on historical precedent, the Gamecocks performed well against the ‘Big 3’ in the East, compiling a 15-18 record with identical 5-6 marks against each team. That being said, it is easy to see where Spurrier padded has record. The Gamecocks went a combined 17-5 against Kentucky and Vanderbilt, collecting more than a third of his SEC victories (and exactly half of his wins versus the East) against that pair. Finally, outside of a perfect record against the Mississippi schools, the Gamecocks had a horrible track record against SEC West schools. Take away the wins against Ole Miss and Mississippi State, and the Gamecocks are just 5-18 against the West.

Finally, how did Spurrier performe as a favorite and as an underdog? The following table lists Spurrier’s record against conference foes in both roles. These results are straight up, and not against the spread.

While this is not a perfect measure (I made no distinction between being a twenty point favorite and a two point favorite), it can give you an idea of how South Carolina was perceived by the tools bookmakers use to set the point spread and by the public once those spreads are made. For example, in his first season (2005), the Gamecocks were only favored in a pair of conference games. Contrast that with 2011 when the Gamecocks were favored in every league game save one. Overall, especially prior to the wheels sort of coming off at the end of his tenure, Spurrier has very good as a favorite (32-6 through 2013). By the same token, he was pretty bad as an underdog, especially in his final season. I’ll leave you with this bit of statistical minutia: If Spurrier had won every SEC game in which the Gamecocks were favored and lost each one in which they were an underdog, he would have ended up with the same record he actually achieved: 45-43. Eerie.

2015 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 2015 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.

A pair of Pac-12 teams saw their APR numbers differ significantly from their actual records. Oregon finished 7-2 in the Pac-12 despite allowing 40 touchdowns in league play! Meanwhile Washington finished with a losing conference record despite scoring nine more touchdowns in Pac-12 action than their opponents. Close games played a small role in the disparity. Oregon went 3-1 in one-score games, while Washington was 1-2. However, neither was extremely lucky nor unlucky in close games. Turnovers don’t do anything to augment the story, as both had positive differentials in conference play. No, dominating wins and losses explain most of the disparity. While Oregon was still figuring things out early in the season, they lost by 42 points to Utah! That defeat tampers down their numbers. Couple that with the fact that the Ducks were unusually permissive on defense, and you can see why Oregon posted middling APR numbers. On the other hand, while Washington won just four of nine conference games, they were absurdly dominant in three of those wins. The Huskies defeated Arizona, Oregon State, and Washington State by a combined 126 points with no win coming by less than five touchdowns!

Awkward segue.

One of the more interesting developments that has coincided with the Pac-12’s expansion has been the absolute disappearance of Colorado’s homefield advantage since joining the league. The table below lists Colorado’s home and road splits in conference play from their final six seasons in the Big 12 with the same splits over their first five seasons in the Pac-12.

While they were mediocre at home during their last few seasons in the Big 12, their home record was far superior to the duds they consistently laid on the road. However, since joining the Pac-12, their home and road records are effectively the same. Now, some might point out that Colorado’s move to the Pac-12 has corresponded with a cratering of the football program. And to that point, I would 100% agree. In the interest of analyzing this further, I decided to look at a metric that takes into account how well a team is ‘supposed’ to perform and judges them based on expectations, not raw results. I am talking of course, about the Las Vegas line or point spread. For the uninitiated (and churchgoing) audience, the point spread is an unbiased look at who should win a certain game, and more importantly, by how much. Using the points spread, I calculated the Spread Adjusted Margin (SAM) for each Colorado conference game from 2005-2015 and determined the per game averages for their home and away contests. The SAM is pretty easy to calculate. Here are two examples. Say Colorado is expected to beat a team by 3 points. They win by 7. Their SAM for this game is +4. This is, the margin they were supposed to win by (3) subtracted from how much they actually won by (7). Now say Colorado is expected to win by 10 points. Instead they lose by 2 points. Their SAM for this game is -12. That is, the margin they were expected to win by (10) subtracted from how much they actually won by (-2). Easy right? Here are the results separated by their conference affiliation.

As you can see, there does appear to have been a real change since the Buffaloes joined the Pac-12. In their final six Big 12 seasons, the Buffaloes produced a SAM that was almost five points per game better at home. However, in Pac-12 play, the Buffaloes have about the same SAM at home and on the road. I have my own theories (cough cough Marijuana) as to why this might have occurred, but I’d be interested to hear if any readers have (preferably crackpot) theories on why this might be.

2015 Yards Per Play: Pac-12

Seven conferences down, three to go. This week we go over the Pac-12. Here are the 2015 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, 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 Yards per Play (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 underperforming by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2015 season, which teams in the Pac-12 met this threshold? Here are the Pac-12 teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Stanford was the sole Pac-12 team to significantly over or under shoot their expected record based on YPP. How did the Cardinal manage to do this? Well, it is a bit of a mystery. The Cardinal won eight conference games, with seven coming by at least ten points, which indicates they were pretty dominant. Their lone conference loss came by just two points and they actually had a negative in-conference turnover margin. So why don’t their YPP numbers indicate a dominant team? I think the answer lies in the one game they lost. While the Cardinal fell to Oregon by just two points on a failed two point conversion, the YPP numbers in the game were much starker. Oregon averaged over nine yards per play and outgained the Cardinal by three yards per play on average. Remove that game and Stanford’s YPP numbers are +1.15 instead of their solid, but hardly elite +0.74.

Speaking of Oregon and Stanford, even casual college football observers know they have dominated the Pac-12 North since the conference split into a pair of divisions beginning in 2011. Either the Ducks or Cardinal have won the North each season and gone onto defeat the South champion. The South on the other hand, has never had a repeat champion (UCLA appeared in the title game for two consecutive years thanks to postseason ineligibility at the other Los Angeles school) and four of the division’s six schools have represented the South in the title game in five seasons of divisional play. A half-decade into the new incarnation of the Pac-12, I wanted to take a look back and see which school has been the best in the South. Pac-12 teams play nine conference games, which includes four games against teams from the North. As those games can vary from very difficult (Oregon and Stanford) to piece of cake (Oregon State in 2015), I decided to look at only intra-divisional games. In other words, I only looked at contests involving Pac-12 South teams. The year by year and overall results are listed below. 

There has been a great deal of parity at the top of the Pac-12 South. Arizona State, Southern Cal, and UCLA are separated by just a single game with the Bruins ranking as the best of the Pac-12 South five years in. Arizona has been middling, while conference newbies Colorado and Utah have struggled, especially the Buffaloes. After beating Utah to end the 2011 regular season, Colorado is in the midst of a 20-game losing streak to divisional foes. Yikes! Somewhere Gary Barnett is smiling. Or more likely, looking the other way while sexual assaults happen.

2015 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 2015 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.

Colorado State was the only Mountain West team to significantly outperform their APR numbers. The Rams actually allowed more touchdowns than they scored, but managed to win five of eight league games (their bowl game with conference rival Nevada is excluded from this analysis). The Rams won both of their one score league games and were outscored by significant margins in each of their league losses. Boise State, San Diego State, and Utah State beat the Rams by a combined 70 points.

Since APR didn’t give us a whole lot to discuss, let’s talk about something else, namely the Mountain West’s standing among mid-major (Group of Five) leagues. With the advent of the College Football Playoff, the current structure of haves (Power Five) and have nots (Group of Five) has been in place for just two seasons. The table below lists how each Group of Five conference, as well as the Group of Five independents (and BYU is considered Group of Five here) have fared against each other (regular season games only) in 2014 and 2015.

After faring well against their fellow mid-majors in 2014, the conference took a step back in 2015, winning just a third of their games against other Group of Five members. This could well be a one-year blip, so let’s look at things another way. This next table lists every current Mountain West team alphabetically and indicates the last season they finished ranked in the AP Poll and the last season during which they appeared in the AP Poll at any point.

Outside of Boise State, the results for the other Mountain West teams are not too great. San Jose State and Utah State each registered historic seasons in 2012, and while they have been contending for bowl games in the three seasons since, those were clearly outlier years. Similarly, Nevada rode Colin Kaepernick to a top-10 finish in 2010, but has not sniffed the polls since. While Fresno State flirted with a BCS bowl bid in 2013, they have not finished a season ranked in over ten years. I could go on. If the Mountain West wants to assert itself as the best mid-major conference it needs a team to join Boise State in the national conscience. San Diego State ran roughshod over the Mountain West in 2015, but the Aztecs stumbled in the non-conference, losing to California and Penn State as well to South Alabama of the Sun Belt. Group of Five teams are at a disadvantage when they go up against Power Five schools, but Mountain West teams can improve their national profile by winning more games in the non-conference against teams of similar regard.

2015 Yards Per Play: Mountain West

Only four more conferences to go in our 2015 recap. This week we go over the Mountain West. Here are the 2015 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, 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 Yards per Play (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 underperforming by more than a game and a half in a small sample seems significant to me. In the 2015 season, which teams in the Mountain West met this threshold? Here are the Mountain West teams sorted by performance over what would be expected from their Net YPP numbers.

Only one team saw their actual record differ significantly from their expected record based on their YPP differentials. And boy did it ever differ. For the second time in three seasons, Hawaii finished winless in Mountain West play. The 2013 team also posted decent YPP numbers and improved to three league wins in 2014, so there is hope for new coach Nick Rolovich. So how did Hawaii go about losing all their conference games despite bad, but not horrendous YPP numbers? Close games are not the culprit, as Hawaii only lost a single one-score league game (by a single point at New Mexico). No, turnovers told the story for the Warriors. Hawaii turned the ball over 26 times in their eight conference games, while only forcing six of their own. Their in-conference turnover margin of -20 was by far the worst in the conference (13 worse than second to last Wyoming). We’ll discuss more about this historic margin later. I am not making the argument that Hawaii was a ‘good’ team in 2015. They were shut out in each of their first three road games (albeit against strong competition in Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Boise State). However, they did show signs of life early in the year by beating Colorado of the Pac-12 thanks to a little assist from some bumbling officials. If their turnover margin was merely bad and not historically poor, the Warriors probably would have scrounged up at least one and potentially a pair of conference wins.

Hawaii was not the only Mountain West team with a historical in-conference turnover margin in 2015. While Hawaii was struggling with a -20 margin, San Diego State was rolling through the conference en route to an undefeated record and league title with a +19 turnover margin (excluding their championship game win over Air Force). To get a handle on what one might expect from these two polar opposites going forward, I decided to look at teams with similar extreme in-conference turnover margins and see how they performed the following year. Here we’ll define extreme as averaging two more or two less turnovers per game that your opponent. For an eight game conference schedule, that would equate to a turnover margin of +16 or -16. Similarly, for a nine game schedule that would be either +18 or -18. Hawaii and San Diego State were certainly unique in 2015. Only ten other teams since 2005 posted such an extreme turnover margin (Arkansas State also fit the criteria, but like the Warriors and Aztecs, their follow up performance is unknown at this time). We’ll start with the teams with extreme negative turnover margins.

Obviously, teams with extremely poor turnover margins don’t tend to win a lot of games. These four squads combined to go 2-28 in conference play. Perhaps not surprisingly, three of the teams had new head coaches the following year. Oklahoma State elected to retain their head coach (probably since he was in his first season), and that has worked out pretty well for the Cowboys. New Mexico State is a bit of an oddity, as they became a college football independent after their turnover plagued final season in the WAC. That is why there is no follow up conference record listed for them. As for the other three teams, well, they all improved their conference record by at least two games with Oklahoma State and Wyoming qualifying for bowls. For what it’s worth, New Mexico State’s overall record improved from 1-11 to 2-10, so each member of the quartet improved the next season. A pessimist might point out each team had nowhere to go but up after their poor showings and a statistician might highlight the small sample size here. However, another statistician might bring up something about regression (or in this case progression) to the mean and opine that an extremely poor turnover performance is unlikely to be repeated. As for me, I would set the over/under on league wins at two for Hawaii in 2016.

Now let’s look at the other side of the coin. Here are teams with extreme positive turnover margins.

In a not too surprising development, teams with historically great turnover margins tend to have good records. These six teams combined to go 47-3 with Oregon and Toledo being the only teams to not win a conference title. Unlike the poor turnover teams there was continuity at the head coaching position the following season with only Oregon losing their head coach (to the NFL no less). For the most part, each team remained strong the next year with only Kansas State falling out of contention for a conference title. Each team qualified for a bowl game in the following season and two thirds of the teams declined by one game or less. An optimist would likely say these teams had nowhere to go but down after compiling their pristine conference records, and once again, a point can be made about small sample sizes. However, as with Hawaii, San Diego State is unlikely to see their extreme turnover margin repeated. The Aztecs did not throw a single interception in conference play last year! While I expect them to be contenders in the conference in 2016, expecting another undefeated, scorched earth run through the Mountain West is likely folly.