ARGH Power Ratings (9-26-99)

The following are the ARGH power ratings after games of September 25, 1999.

The estimated home field advantage is .590. Home field advantage is the estimated chance that the home team would win a game between two otherwise equal teams.

Mea Culpa Department. Last week I wrote:

A note for those of you who look only at the won-lost records of a team: let me remind you that this system looks not only at a team's record, but at how many points they scored and gave up, how many home games a team has played, who they've played, who they've played, and so on. If you expect a 1-3 team that has lost close games to three top ten teams -- for the sake of argument, let's call this team Notre Dame -- to be somewhere in the bottom part of the rankings, then you're bound to be disappointed. The system judges the team's results, but it also judges the context in which the team achieved the results, and each week it adjusts that context based on the results of that week. As a result, a team that loses can rise in the ratings, and a team that wins can drop. And a team can be ranked above someone that has beaten them. The key is that all teams are judged consistently.

This doesn't mean that there aren't ratings that I can't make sense of, especially early in the season where putting together power ratings is as much art as science. And it doesn't mean that there aren't quirks in the system; every system has them. But the hypothetical Notre Dame team I mentioned has been handled quite properly... much though I might wish it weren't...

In the immortal words of Roseanne Rosannadanna, "Never mind."

The system as I intended it works very much the way I said. I've been able to explain the more obvious quirks this year by the teams' performances against predictions, and those explanations worked well.

In fact, they worked too well.

The system has always implemented a penalty for losses in the past and it just wasn't doing it this year. It turns out that a parameter that I installed six years ago and hadn't touched since had been altered when I was in the process of revising the home field routines. As a result, the system posted in previous weeks this year had been based entirely on points scored and allowed and had totally ignored wins and losses. I don't know whether that mix is any more or less accurate over the long term than what the system was supposed to use, although it was a little less accurate this last week. But I do know that at this time the ARGH Power Ratings are supposed to have a 50-50 mix of won-loss record and points scored. I'll follow the predictions for the rest of the year to see whether there might be a reason to change the mix.

Anyhow, this week I'm including an extra column under the ratings. Along with this week's rankings and last week's rankings (Last Week Reported), there will be a column for what the rankings should have been last week (Last Week Actual). Most teams' rankings weren't affected all that much, but a few, generally the ones that generated the most complaints, moved quite a bit.

And if you still think Notre Dame's 1-3 record means they belong in the bottom part of the rankings, then you're still in for a disappointment...

This Week Last Week's Actual Last Week's Reported Team Record Power Rating
1 1 1 Florida St. 4 - 0 0.892
2 2 2 Nebraska 4 - 0 0.882
3 8 6 Michigan St. 4 - 0 0.847
4 3 3 Michigan 4 - 0 0.843
5 6 5 Texas A&M 3 - 0 0.840
6 5 8 Florida 4 - 0 0.825
7 4 9 Penn State 5 - 0 0.811
8 7 7 Purdue 4 - 0 0.800
9 9 4 Tennessee 2 - 1 0.766
10 16 18 Kansas St. 3 - 0 0.757
11 10 14 Marshall 4 - 0 0.749
12 19 24 Virginia Tech 3 - 0 0.744
13 15 12 Syracuse 3 - 1 0.735
14 24 17 Oregon 3 - 1 0.721
15 12 11 Georgia Tech 2 - 1 0.714
16 18 16 Texas 4 - 1 0.707
17 14 22 Southern California 2 - 1 0.706
18 17 21 Georgia 3 - 0 0.704
19 28 28 Virginia 3 - 1 0.701
20 23 23 Alabama 3 - 1 0.701
21 25 27 Mississippi St. 4 - 0 0.699
22 11 13 Ohio St. 3 - 1 0.696
23 31 38 East Carolina 4 - 0 0.693
24 13 10 Miami, Florida 2 - 2 0.669
25 35 34 Utah 3 - 0 0.660
26 21 25 Arkansas 2 - 1 0.657
27 42 35 Mississippi 3 - 1 0.656
28 26 20 Southern Mississippi 2 - 2 0.647
29 38 41 Stanford 3 - 1 0.636
30 32 33 Miami, Ohio 3 - 1 0.633
31 20 26 Air Force 2 - 1 0.629
32 53 52 Oklahoma 3 - 0 0.625
33 40 43 Louisiana Tech 2 - 2 0.624
34 36 36 Minnesota 3 - 0 0.622
35 30 15 Notre Dame 1 - 3 0.622
36 22 32 Auburn 3 - 1 0.620
37 43 47 Illinois 3 - 1 0.611
38 33 37 Brigham Young 2 - 1 0.602
39 39 45 Missouri 2 - 1 0.588
40 37 19 Wisconsin 2 - 2 0.586
41 52 53 Wyoming 2 - 1 0.584
42 29 30 UCLA 2 - 2 0.581
43 41 40 Colorado St. 2 - 1 0.579
44 44 46 Louisiana St. 2 - 1 0.574
45 45 49 Maryland 3 - 0 0.567
46 34 29 Colorado 2 - 2 0.558
47 51 42 Oklahoma St. 2 - 1 0.551
48 50 48 Idaho 2 - 1 0.548
49 47 54 Iowa St. 3 - 1 0.548
50 48 39 North Carolina 1 - 2 0.545
51 64 70 Vanderbilt 3 - 1 0.545
52 27 44 North Carolina St. 3 - 2 0.541
53 54 55 Tulane 2 - 1 0.532
54 68 62 San Diego St. 2 - 2 0.529
55 59 51 Washington 1 - 2 0.528
56 57 65 Arizona 3 - 2 0.526
57 56 60 Oregon St. 3 - 0 0.523
58 76 81 Wake Forest 2 - 1 0.515
59 46 31 Houston 2 - 2 0.511
60 70 84 Boston College 3 - 0 0.504
61 49 50 New Mexico St. 3 - 1 0.503
62 55 56 Louisville 2 - 2 0.489
63 63 75 California 2 - 1 0.484
64 77 74 AL-Birmingham 1 - 2 0.483
65 61 57 Clemson 1 - 2 0.475
66 60 59 West Virginia 1 - 3 0.469
67 66 64 Toledo 2 - 1 0.466
68 62 68 Kentucky 2 - 2 0.451
69 65 63 Pittsburgh 2 - 1 0.448
70 58 58 Arizona St. 1 - 2 0.446
71 78 72 Memphis 1 - 3 0.440
72 67 66 Western Michigan 2 - 2 0.440
73 98 98 Texas-El Paso 2 - 2 0.432
74 71 89 Northwestern 2 - 2 0.431
75 80 80 Fresno St. 2 - 2 0.428
76 72 69 Texas Tech 1 - 2 0.410
77 82 86 Iowa 1 - 2 0.399
78 74 67 Indiana 1 - 3 0.396
79 75 73 Texas Christian 1 - 2 0.395
80 88 85 San Jose St. 2 - 2 0.392
81 73 71 Central Florida 0 - 4 0.384
82 87 79 Cincinnati 2 - 2 0.376
83 84 87 Utah St. 1 - 2 0.370
84 81 76 Rice 1 - 3 0.367
85 97 93 Eastern Michigan 1 - 2 0.353
86 69 61 Kansas 1 - 3 0.352
87 102 111 Hawaii 3 - 1 0.340
88 79 77 Duke 0 - 3 0.324
89 89 95 Central Michigan 1 - 3 0.318
90 101 106 Northeast Louisiana 2 - 2 0.312
91 83 83 Washington St. 0 - 4 0.308
92 100 103 Boise State 2 - 2 0.307
93 96 92 Navy 1 - 3 0.303
94 92 78 New Mexico 1 - 3 0.294
95 106 100 Army 1 - 2 0.288
96 91 96 Tulsa 1 - 3 0.284
97 85 82 Nevada 0 - 4 0.283
98 93 97 Nevada-Las Vegas 2 - 2 0.281
99 86 88 Bowling Green 1 - 3 0.278
100 95 104 Akron 2 - 2 0.276
101 94 91 Rutgers 0 - 3 0.247
102 107 101 Ohio 1 - 3 0.244
103 105 110 North Texas 1 - 2 0.241
104 99 99 South Carolina 0 - 4 0.240
105 90 90 Southern Methodist 0 - 3 0.236
106 103 94 Baylor 0 - 4 0.223
107 109 112 Connecticut 2 - 2 0.223
108 104 105 Middle Tennessee St. 1 - 3 0.215
109 108 102 Arkansas St. 0 - 4 0.211
110 110 109 SW Louisiana 1 - 3 0.210
111 115 114 Kent 1 - 3 0.190
112 114 107 Northern Illinois 0 - 4 0.157
113 111 113 Temple 0 - 4 0.154
114 113 115 Wild Card U. 4 - 35 0.145
115 112 108 Ball St. 0 - 4 0.142
116 116 116 Buffalo 0 - 3 0.058

The following are the current power ratings for the various conferences:

Conference OOC RecordPower Rating
Big Ten 28-7 .640
SEC 22-4 .620
Big Twelve 23-10 .587
ACC 12-5 .586
Pac-10 14-10 .546
Mountain West 13-8.520
Big East 12-12 .496
Conference USA 14-13.495
Independents 7-19 .382
WAC 10-16 .359
Big West 9-16 .352
MAC 9-22 .331

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