An unbiased look at our ranking and progress

[David Webb]

Yes, and it heavily weighs SOS.

It basically says that if next week, we played the most average team in the country, our offense would contribute +/- X points to the final score, our defense would contribute +/- Y points to the final score, and our special teams would contribute +/- Z points to the final score.

X+Y+Z = # of points we would beat that average team by. In this case, it predicts that we would win by about 5 points.

Our FPI looking better than our record indicates that the algorithm thinks the B1G is extremely strong this year.

Sportsbettingdime.com ranks our SOS as #4 in the nation FWIW. ESPN has us #16 in SOS, so there is definitely parity between publications, but we obviously played a brutal schedule either way.

At this point, I feel like your trolling with this. Brutal schedule. Holy shit.

 

[kenyanfeline]

At this point, I feel like your trolling with this. Brutal schedule. Holy shit.

Well according to the sports book in my post we had the #4 toughest schedule and according to ESPN we had #16.

I would call either of those “brutal” considering they are both easily within the top 10% of toughest schedules in the country.

But yeah I’m the one who’s trolling

 

[Blackshirts_Win_'ships]

but we obviously played a brutal schedule either way.

Now the shit's gettin' deep

 

[Blackshirts_Win_'ships]

Well according to the sports book in my post we had the #4 toughest schedule and according to ESPN we had #16.

I would call either of those “brutal” considering they are both easily within the top 10% of toughest schedules in the country.

But yeah I’m the one who’s trolling

There aren't 160 teams in football. Aside from the poor math, SOS is a known squishy stat that relies far too heavily on previous years in a sport that turns over 20-30% of the roster every season. This is a major reason why the FPI is questioned so much.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Now the shit's gettin' deep

I mean it's not surprising that algorithms who love Cockeye, northwestern, Penn State, and ohio state, also produce a really hard SOS ranking.

But this is a pretty solid example of statistics leading people astray as anyone with eyes might have observed that we had 5 easily winnable games, won 3, got boat raped by illinois, and lost to a Minnesota team missing 30 players.

 

[Blackshirts_Win_'ships]

I mean it's not surprising that algorithms who love Cockeyes, northwestern, Penn State, and ohio state, also produce a really hard SOS ranking.

But this is a pretty solid example of statistics leading people astray as anyone with eyes might have observed that we had 5 easily winnable games, won 3, got boat raped by illinois, and lost to a Minnesota team missing 30 players.

Statistics are always unbiased, I don't know what you're talking about, man

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Statistics are always unbiased, I don't know what you're talking about, man

There's some irony in that claim given that people who do stats for a living worry about all kinds of bias in their estimation. (I'm aware that's tongue in cheek)