Playoffs

Earlier today the college football playoff committee released their final rankings.  These rankings determined the teams that qualify for the second ever playoffs: Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State, Oklahoma.  The rankings also have other implications, sending Iowa to the Rose Bowl and qualifying Houston for a major bowl game.

In a not quite equally anticipated revealing, I'm now displaying the final SORTACUS rankings of the year.  I've just posted the top 25, since very few of the teams lower ranked played games last weekend.  If you have complaints, bottle them in.

For the new readers who aren't familiar, SORTACUS is a computer rankings system developed by me in association with Andy Meisner.  It's based entirely off of wins and losses, ignoring margin of victory.  That makes it particularly effective at determining the most deserving teams.  In previous posts I've covered more on the math behind SORTACUS, and my thoughts on a college football playoff.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Clemson	12-0	25.28
2	Alabama	11-1	23.85
3	Michigan St	12-1	22.29
4	Iowa	11-1	21.25
5	Ohio St	11-1	20.45
6	Oklahoma	11-1	20.40
7	Stanford	11-2	20.07
8	Notre Dame	10-2	18.75
9	Northwestern	9-2	17.94
10	Houston	11-1	17.69
11	TCU	9-2	16.13
12	Oklahoma St	9-2	15.84
13	Mississippi	8-3	15.11
14	Florida	10-3	15.07
15	Michigan	9-3	14.96
16	Navy	8-2	14.89
17	LSU	8-3	14.85
18	Oregon	8-3	14.57
19	Florida St	9-2	13.52
20	North Carolina	9-2	13.18
21	Memphis	8-3	13.00
22	Utah	9-3	12.11
23	Temple	10-3	11.81
24	Wisconsin	9-3	11.32
25	Baylor	8-3	11.28

The Playoffs

SORTACUS follows the national trend and picks the top four teams as Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State and ... IOWA?!?!?!

That's right, even with a loss to the Spartans last night the Hawkeyes still stack up favorably against other one loss options like Ohio State and Oklahoma.  Despite early gripes about the Iowa schedule, the rise of Northwestern and Wisconsin plus the addition of Michigan State in the championship game have eliminated that issue in SORTACUS's eyes.

One potential issue with the SORTACUS philosophy is that it values all games equally.  In general I feel that's true.  Conference championship games may be a reasonable exception though.  The Hawkeyes had a fair shot last night, and despite a hard fought battle they couldn't pull it out.  Instead of Michigan State having to potentially face Iowa again, it might be more interesting to see the Sooners have a shot.

Of course, it's also possible that the Hawks faced an uphill battle ever since being unranked in the pre-season, something they couldn't quite overcome.  There is definitely a case for Kirk Ferentz and company to feel bitter.  Still, I won't lose many tears over the upcoming once in a lifetime Iowa-Stanford Rose Bowl matchup.  See you all there!

SORTACUS Full Rankings

This past Thanksgiving weekend signaled the end (largely) of the college football regular season.  There are a few championship games that will cause significant shuffling at the top, but for many teams all the remains is a bowl game, or even nothing.

Because many teams have completed their journeys, and because of an ever increasing number of requests for "How Is My Team Doing" this week I'll take the chance to list all 128 FBS teams by their SORTACUS ranking.

For those who are new to the game, SORTACUS is a mathematical ratings system that I designed to rank college football teams solely by wins and losses.  Because of this it is not as good at predicting future results, but does an excellent job measuring which teams have been the most successful so far.  Details on the behind the scenes Bayesian statistics based ratings were covered last post.

Kobe Bryant

Before launching into the ratings results I should also acknowledge the impending retirement of the inspiration for this blog's name: Kobe Bryant.  In many ways he represented evaluation based of reputation, "clutch" performance, and "the eye-test", all things this blog has campaigned against.  I memorably declared that Kobe was never the NBA's best player.  He was still an all-time player though.  In my heyday I would've ranked him among the best of all-time, but for now I'll just estimate he'd be ~15.  An incredible feat.

Full College Football Rankings

Enough about Kobe.  The full SORTACUS rankings are below.  There are a few interesting things to note.  Iowa, Clemson, and Alabama have established themselves as a clear top tier.  Oklahoma, Michigan State, and Ohio State are clear second tier.  North Carolina's weak schedule means that even with only one loss they don't deserve consideration for a playoff spot.  Finally, the University of Louisiana at Monroe is further away from average (above or below) than any other FBS team.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Clemson	11-0	24.12
2	Iowa	11-0	23.67
3	Alabama	10-1	22.69
4	Oklahoma	11-1	20.70
5	Michigan St	11-1	20.40
6	Ohio St	11-1	20.31
7	Stanford	10-2	18.90
8	Notre Dame	10-2	18.61
9	Northwestern	9-2	18.04
10	TCU	9-2	16.59
11	Oklahoma St	9-2	16.43
12	Florida	10-2	16.40
13	Houston	10-1	15.95
14	Baylor	8-2	15.34
15	Mississippi	8-3	15.11
16	Navy	8-2	14.81
17	Michigan	9-3	14.78
18	LSU	8-3	14.76
19	North Carolina	9-1	14.44
20	Oregon	8-3	14.18
21	Florida St	9-2	13.64
22	Temple	10-2	13.41
23	Memphis	8-3	12.94
24	Utah	9-3	12.08
25	USC	8-4	11.75
26	Wisconsin	9-3	11.42
27	Georgia	8-3	10.90
28	Washington St	8-3	10.50
29	Tennessee	7-4	10.33
30	Toledo	9-2	10.16
31	Mississippi St	7-4	9.96
32	W Kentucky	10-2	9.55
33	Texas A&M	7-4	9.43
34	UCLA	8-4	9.27
35	Arkansas	6-5	9.04
36	Pittsburgh	7-4	8.61
37	BYU	8-3	8.45
38	West Virginia	6-4	8.44
39	Bowling Green	9-3	8.44
40	Miami FL	7-4	8.27
41	Appalachian St	8-2	7.73
42	California	6-5	7.57
43	Penn St	7-5	7.30
44	South Florida	7-4	6.65
45	Texas Tech	6-5	5.95
46	Cincinnati	6-5	4.16
47	Arkansas St	7-3	4.16
48	Ga Southern	7-3	3.89
49	Auburn	5-6	3.70
50	Arizona St	5-6	3.69
51	Washington	5-6	3.51
52	W Michigan	6-5	3.38
53	Louisville	6-5	3.32
54	Southern Miss	8-3	2.41
55	San Diego St	8-3	2.36
56	Marshall	8-3	2.19
57	Minnesota	5-7	1.79
58	Nebraska	5-7	1.58
59	Indiana	5-6	1.38
60	Ohio	7-4	1.07
61	N Illinois	7-4	0.99
62	Air Force	7-4	0.91
63	Louisiana Tech	7-4	0.48
64	Arizona	5-6	0.45
65	Boise St	7-4	0.31
66	C Michigan	6-5	0.26
67	NC State	6-5	0.08
68	Illinois	4-7	-0.48
69	Duke	6-5	-0.54
70	Missouri	4-7	-0.58
71	Texas	4-7	-0.65
72	Connecticut	5-6	-0.79
73	Virginia Tech	5-6	-1.47
74	Kansas St	4-6	-1.52
75	Tulsa	6-6	-2.01
76	MTSU	6-5	-2.23
77	Akron	6-5	-2.40
78	Utah St	5-6	-3.15
79	Vanderbilt	3-8	-3.17
80	East Carolina	4-7	-3.30
81	South Carolina	3-8	-3.65
82	New Mexico	6-5	-3.76
83	Colorado St	6-5	-3.92
84	Kentucky	4-7	-4.28
85	Maryland	2-9	-4.58
86	Virginia	3-8	-5.60
87	Rutgers	3-8	-6.72
88	Syracuse	3-8	-6.86
89	Iowa St	2-9	-7.20
90	Georgia St	5-5	-7.54
91	Georgia Tech	2-9	-7.69
92	South Alabama	4-6	-8.27
93	Nevada	5-6	-8.35
94	Buffalo	4-7	-9.34
95	Colorado	3-9	-9.37
96	San Jose St	4-7	-9.94
97	SMU	2-9	-10.86
98	Purdue	1-10	-11.58
99	Old Dominion	4-7	-11.70
100	UTEP	4-7	-11.93
101	Rice	4-7	-12.16
102	Florida Intl	4-7	-12.24
103	Wake Forest	2-9	-12.82
104	ULL	3-7	-13.26
105	New Mexico St	3-8	-13.49
106	Oregon St	1-10	-13.50
107	Idaho	3-8	-13.52
108	Ball St	2-9	-13.75
109	FL Atlantic	3-9	-14.18
110	Boston College	1-9	-14.31
111	Kent	2-9	-14.71
112	UT San Antonio	3-9	-15.07
113	Massachusetts	3-9	-15.16
114	Fresno St	2-9	-15.70
115	Tulane	2-9	-15.77
116	Troy	2-8	-15.88
117	Wyoming	2-9	-16.17
118	Miami OH	2-9	-16.43
119	Texas St	2-8	-16.89
120	UNLV	2-9	-16.92
121	Hawaii	2-10	-18.91
122	North Texas	1-10	-19.22
123	Kansas	0-11	-19.53
124	Army	1-8	-21.39
125	Charlotte	1-10	-21.47
126	UCF	0-11	-22.82
127	E Michigan	1-11	-23.59
128	ULM	0-11	-26.17

SORTACUS Football Rankings (And Math!)

There are only a couple weeks left in the college football season, and the race for the playoffs is heating up!  Debate and discussion abound left and right over which teams deserve to reach the playoffs.  Which conferences are the strongest?  Which wins are most impressive?  When can a one loss team pass an undefeated?  Fortunately SORTACUS is here give us an answer.

Mathematics

Back when K,TMHMST was more active it was as much about math as sports.  Probability, game theory, and variance were regularly discussed.  I've given an overview of SORTACUS:  it uses only wins and losses to rank which teams are the most deserving.  I have not discussed much of the internal workings however.  Until now.  Break out your calculators, it's math time!

SORTACUS uses Bayesian statistics to estimate the inherent ability of each team (using only wins and losses).  Each team starts of with a wide normal distribution of ratings estimates as a prior distribution.  Each game then have a likelihood function of a win or loss: it's more likely you have a higher rating if you win.  The likelihood function is the normal cumulative distribution function.  Unfortunately these are not conjugate priors, so there's no pretty mathematical solution.  Instead I have a series of ratings bins (right now 401) that each have a probability and together approximate the distribution.

Whew, that's a lot of words.  Let's try an example instead.

Say Iowa, before playing Minnesota, has three ratings probabilities:  bad, average, and good.  Let's say they have the following odds:

Odds Iowa's rating is... Bad:  10%, Average: 50%, Good:  40%

That's our prior distribution (sort of).  We also know the odds that Iowa beats Minnesota if Iowa's rating is any of those categories.  These odds depend significantly on Minnesota's ratings.

Odds Iowa beats Minnesota if its ratings is... Bad:  20%, Average: 50%, Good: 80%

Now we need the observed data.  Remembering back to an unnecessarily stressful Saturday night we know Iowa did beat Minnesota.  We can apply Bayes's formula (P(x|y) = P(y)*P(y|x)) to calculate the probabilities of Iowa's ratings given a victory over Minnesota: 

Odds after winning that Iowa's rating is... Bad:  2% [10%*20%], Average:  25%, Good:  32%

Don't forget to normalize!

Odds after winning that Iowa's rating is... Bad:  3.4%, Average:  42.4%, Good:  54.2%

That's how SORTACUS works.  It does this process for 401 bins (not 3) for 128 teams for every game they play.  It also does multiple iterations to help converge towards the true value, each iteration having more accurate calculations of opponent quality.  The program takes ~5 minutes to crunch the numbers, and then spits out the college football rankings.

Speaking of rankings, let's get to the part everybody's interested in.

Top 25

The non-mathematical readers likely just jumped straight to these ratings.  Below is the SORTACUS top 25 using games through Saturday November 14.  In theory, the top 4 teams are the most worthy of a playoff spot so far.  Note that only FBS vs FBS games are considered (I see you Washington State), and that "Rating" corresponds roughly to how many points better than the FBS average a school has been.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Clemson	9-0	23.52
2	Iowa	9-0	22.87
3	Oklahoma St	9-0	21.62
4	Alabama	9-1	21.58
5	Ohio St	10-0	21.20
6	Notre Dame	9-1	20.81
7	Houston	9-0	20.22
8	Florida	9-1	18.66
9	Navy	7-1	16.80
10	TCU	8-1	16.75
11	Oklahoma	9-1	16.41
12	Michigan St	9-1	16.35
13	LSU	7-2	15.32
14	Northwestern	7-2	15.32
15	Memphis	7-2	15.27
16	Stanford	8-2	14.73
17	Baylor	7-1	14.07
18	Michigan	8-2	14.06
19	Utah	8-2	13.33
20	North Carolina	7-1	12.72
21	Washington St	7-2	12.35
22	Toledo	8-1	12.24
23	Wisconsin	8-2	12.03
24	Mississippi	6-3	11.91
25	USC	7-3	11.16

The Playoffs

SORTACUS is making me look like a homer this year, but I promise it's just the numbers.  Iowa's victories over Northwestern and Wisconsin continue to get more impressive, and SORTACUS sees the Hawks as the nation's second most accomplished team this season.

Elsewhere in the playoffs Clemson stands out as a clear number 1.  A weak ACC is offset by an impressive victory over Notre Dame.  Number 3 Oklahoma State is the Big 12's last unbeaten, and they face a tough road in their last two games.  For the final slot Alabama jumps over defending champion Ohio State even with a loss.  Ohio State could improve that with a couple late wins, but if any undefeated team loses the Tide and Notre Dame are waiting at the door.

Further down in the standings it's interesting to notice the weakness of an ACC schedule (7-1 North Carolina at 20) compared to the surprising strength of an AAC schedule (7-2 Memphis at 15).

How Is My Team Doing

For the unlucky few who don't love the Hawkeyes (or Cardinal) here's a few notable team rankings.

Texas Tech:  44th, rating of 4.32

Auburn:  51, 3.38

Nebraska:  59, 1.22

NC State:  65, 0.17

Vanderbilt:  70, -1.32

Iowa State:  79, -3.80

Maryland:  89, -5.97

Purdue:  98, -10.32

College Football Playoffs By SORTACUS

The first college football playoff rankings will be released tomorrow.  These rankings will use an unknown combination of performance, reputation, and the infamous "eye test" to rank the top 25 FBS teams, with the top 4 in the driver's seat for one of the coveted playoff slots.

The committee actually did a very good job last year, taking the three easy choices and making a tough decision on Ohio State.  Human voters still present risks, conflicts of interest, and a lack of processing power that aren't an issue for an automated algorithm.

Fortunately SORTACUS presents a computer rankings solution to these human problems.  SORTACUS is a win-loss only Bayesian statistical program that was originally created to help my roommate rank his 100 favorite movies.  For the past couple years it's been deployed to help determine the most deserving (not best!) team in college football.  More information on SORTACUS can be found in the first rankings post of the year.

Top 25

The experienced readers likely just jumped straight to these ratings.  Below is the SORTACUS top 25 using games through Saturday October 31.  In theory, the top 4 teams are the most worthy of a playoff spot so far.  Note that only FBS vs FBS games are considered (affecting the record totals), and that "Rating" corresponds roughly to how many points better than the FBS average a school has been.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Clemson	7-0	21.82
2	LSU	7-0	21.71
3	Michigan St	8-0	21.52
4	Iowa	7-0	21.19
5	Memphis	7-0	20.29
6	Ohio St	8-0	19.95
7	Notre Dame	7-1	19.30
8	TCU	7-0	19.04
9	Oklahoma St	7-0	18.16
10	Florida	7-1	17.81
11	Alabama	7-1	17.39
12	Stanford	7-1	17.18
13	Utah	7-1	16.73
14	Baylor	6-0	16.53
15	Toledo	7-0	15.94
16	Houston	7-0	15.16
17	Mississippi	6-2	14.57
18	Temple	7-1	14.51
19	Michigan	6-2	13.69
20	Northwestern	5-2	13.01
21	Oklahoma	7-1	12.83
22	Texas A&M	6-2	12.23
23	Penn St	7-2	12.17
24	Navy	5-1	12.04
25	UCLA	6-2	10.74

The Playoffs

There's a lot of change to happen as teams play out the next few week, but for now we have four teams standing above the rest.  Clemson and LSU have the two most impressive wins of the year so far over Notre Dame and Florida.  Michigan State and Iowa have won every game so far in a surprisingly tough Big Ten.  Iowa is poised to fade however with a weak closing schedule.

That top 4 might look a little different than the committee's.  Teams with successful pasts or blowout wins like Ohio State, TCU, and Baylor may work their way towards the top at the expense of more deserving but lest renowned squads.

Memphis in particular is an interesting case.  The Tigers have ridden an impressive victory over Ole Miss to 5th place in the SORTACUS polls, and their next 3 games are against Navy, Houston, and Temple (all in the SORTACUS top 25).  With all three wins they would deserve serious consideration of a playoff appearance.

How Is My Team Doing?

Not everybody gets to be a fan of the 4th and 12th most successful team in the country.  For the less fortunate, some notable team rankings are listed below.

Wisconsin:  30th, rating of 10.01

Texas Tech:  44, 3.93

Auburn:  54, 1.44

NC State:  68, -1.39

Iowa State:  71, -1.65

Nebraska:  82, -4.60

Vanderbilt:  84, -5.12

Maryland:  88, -6.60

Purdue:  98, -9.95

The Return Of SORTACUS

Last year I applied an algorithmic program named SORTACUS to rank college football teams.  SORTACUS was created in tandem by Andy Meisner and me during our grad school suffering.  Although originally written to help Andy rank his favorite movies, it applies well to college football.  With most teams seven games into the season, I thought it was time to put SORTACUS to work again.

SORTACUS and the College Football Playoffs

I've long had a fascination with the college football postseason, something I treated in detail a few years ago during BCS Week.  I believe that playoff appearances should be determined by an algorithm to calculate which team is most deserving (based solely on wins and losses).  This is done in nearly all sports, but due to the nature of college football it needs to be a more complex algorithm.  After years building and examining ranking systems, I think SORTACUS is optimal for this task.

SORTACUS is an entirely algorithmic ranking system based solely on wins and losses.  It relies on Bayesian statistics, using a prior rating and each game as an observations to calculate a posterior ratings distribution.  I haven't given a full description yet, but last year I shared a few more details of SORTACUS.

It's important to note that SORTACUS is designed to rank teams in order of performance so far.  In effect, this calculates which teams are most deserving of being in the playoffs.  If you instead want to predict which teams will win in the future, check out my work with TeamRankings.

Top 25

The experienced readers likely just jumped straight to these ratings.  Below is the SORTACUS top 25 using games through Saturday.  In theory, the top 4 teams are the most worthy of a playoff spot so far.  Note that only FBS vs FBS games are considered (affecting the record totals), and that "Rating" corresponds roughly to how many points better than the FBS average a school has been.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Utah	6-0	21.60
2	LSU	6-0	20.52
3	Iowa	6-0	20.47
4	Michigan St	7-0	19.94
5	Ohio St	7-0	19.03
6	TCU	6-0	18.63
7	Clemson	5-0	18.59
8	Memphis	5-0	17.66
9	Florida	6-1	16.57
10	Oklahoma St	5-0	16.27
11	Baylor	5-0	16.10
12	Florida St	6-0	16.10
13	Temple	6-0	15.86
14	Notre Dame	6-1	14.97
15	Alabama	6-1	14.94
16	Toledo	6-0	14.64
17	California	4-1	14.61
18	Houston	5-0	13.76
19	Michigan	5-2	12.92
20	Texas A&M	5-1	12.89
21	Stanford	5-1	12.60
22	Northwestern	4-2	11.51
23	Oklahoma	5-1	11.33
24	Washington St	4-1	10.48
25	Pittsburgh	4-1	10.12

Through October 17th the 4 teams most deserving of a playoff spot are Utah, LSU, Iowa, and Michigan State, with a gaggle of undefeateds looking on.

Wait.

What?

IOWA IN THE PLAYOFFS?!?!?!

That's right, as of now the Iowa Hawkeyes are the third most accomplished team in college football.  They have four surprisingly good wins against Northwestern, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, and Illinois.  The Hawks have a weak schedule going forwards, and are ranked only 31st in TR's predictive rankings.  For now though, Iowans have reason to celebrate.

Outside of Iowa the rankings follow roughly as expected.  Utah has taken college football by storm so far, and is clearly deserving of it's top spot.  One loss teams like Florida, Notre Dame, and Alabama are ahead of some undefeated squads, and absolutely still have a chance to finish the year on top.  It's all setting up for a fun fall.

How Is My Team Doing?

Not everybody gets to be a fan of the 3rd most successful team in the country.  For the less fortunate, some notable team rankings are listed below.

Texas Tech:  37th, rating of 6.17

Auburn:  38, 6.12

Nebraska:  65, -0.52

NC State:  70, -2.07

Maryland:  82, -5.47

Iowa State:  83, -5.70

Purdue:  121, -15.81

Final SORTACUS Rankings

Saturday was an eventful day for the first ever college football playoffs, with all six teams under consideration playing.  Alabama, Oregon, and Florida State were all likely in with a win, but TCU, Ohio State, and Baylor were wrapped in a fierce battler for the fourth and final slot.

All six teams won their games, but the Buckeye's 59-0 demolition of a good Wisconsin team stood out as an Ohio Statement win.  It impressed the playoff committee enough to jump TCU when the final playoff bracket was revealed today. 

Was this a just decision?  Did Ohio State really deserve a spot in the playoffs, or did a big name team in a big name conference sneak their way in?  SORTACUS is a computerized ranking system that only uses wins and losses, therefore effectively ranking the most worthy teams as opposed to the best. 

Top 25

For the fourth consecutive week I am applying the Bayesian statistics of SORTACUS to rank college football teams.  These are the final rankings, using every regular season game involving two FBS teams.  Below are the Top 25.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Florida St	12-0	25.31
2	Alabama	11-1	23.66
3	Oregon	11-1	22.37
4	TCU	10-1	20.77
5	Ohio St	12-1	19.93
6	Baylor	10-1	19.40
7	Mississippi St	9-2	17.77
8	Mississippi	8-3	16.39
9	Michigan St	9-2	15.83
10	Arizona	10-3	15.81
11	UCLA	9-3	15.31
12	Boise St	11-2	14.84
13	Kansas St	8-3	13.92
14	Auburn	7-4	13.85
15	Georgia Tech	9-3	13.42
16	Marshall	11-1	12.93
17	Missouri	9-3	12.67
18	Clemson	8-3	12.66
19	Georgia	8-3	12.49
20	Wisconsin	9-3	12.20
21	LSU	7-4	11.91
22	Arizona St	8-3	11.80
23	Colorado St	9-2	10.81
24	Louisville	8-3	10.75
25	Nebraska	8-3	10.59

It's extremely close, but SORTACUS has TCU emerging from the pack of three.  Why?  Largely because the Big 12 had a better year then the Big 10.  Both teams had weak out of conference schedules (although Minnesota was a nice win for TCU), but Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Texas form a better middle of the pack than Maryland, Rutgers, and Penn State.  Baylor's horrible non-conference schedule dropped them to number 6.

It's possible that the committee used a different criteria than I have.  In fact, it appears pretty likely that Ohio State's margin of victory yesterday was a big factor in their trip to the inaugural playoffs.  It should be noted however that Team Ranking's college football rankings have TCU at #3 and Baylor at #4, both ahead of Ohio State. 

Overall, the playoff committee seems to have done a fine job though.  Florida State, Alabama, and Oregon are the three teams that definitely deserve to be in the playoffs, and they are.  The committee then had to pick one from a tier of three, and although I believe the wrong team was picked it's clear there was only small separation between them.

How Is My Team Doing?

Schools I'm associated with don't show up in the top 25.  Not much has changed since last week, but here's where a few notable ones land:
Stanford:  35th, 6.51
Washington:  42, 4.94
Maryland:  47, 4.45
Iowa:  58, 1.66
Northwestern:  73, -1.43
Iowa St:  93, -7.62
New Mexico:  96, -8.28
Purdue:  100, -9.19
SMU:  125, -20.83 (Sorry Uncle Mark)

SORTACUS Penultimate Rankings

It's late, so I'll do this quick.  SORTACUS is back again to rank the top 25 (really all, I only post 25) teams in college football.  These rankings use only win loss results, and answer which teams are the most deserving of a spot in the playoffs, not which teams are the best.

Top 25

Below are the top 25 in the SORTACUS rankings through the games of November 29.  With only a few games left the rankings won't change much before the end of the regular season.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Florida St	11-0	24.13
2	Alabama	10-1	22.68
3	Oregon	10-1	21.04
4	TCU	9-1	20.58
5	Ohio St	11-1	18.56
6	Mississippi St	9-2	17.71
7	Baylor	9-1	17.56
8	Arizona	10-2	17.04
9	Mississippi	8-3	16.29
10	Kansas St	8-2	15.60
11	Michigan St	9-2	15.56
12	UCLA	9-3	15.35
13	Georgia Tech	9-2	14.45
14	Boise St	10-2	14.44
15	Auburn	7-4	14.08
16	Missouri	9-2	13.63
17	Wisconsin	9-2	13.51
18	Oklahoma	8-3	13.10
19	Clemson	8-3	12.80
20	Georgia	8-3	12.78
21	LSU	7-4	11.99
22	Arizona St	8-3	11.96
23	Marshall	10-1	11.23
24	Colorado St	9-2	10.80
25	Nebraska	8-3	10.77

As expected Mississippi State drops out of the top 4 after a loss to Ole Miss.  SORTACUS still recognizes the strength of the SEC West (or has a HUGE SEC BIAS!) and keeps the Bulldogs at number 6.  Once again however, SORTACUS's 4 most deserving playoff teams match the Playoff Committee's top 4.  Other notable features of the rankings include:

-TCU is well ahead of Baylor, again agreeing with the committee. Baylor's head to head win may have some value that SORTACUS doesn't see, but there is a pretty substantial difference.

-Ohio State is a clear number 5 team, and probably the most likely to sneak in if one of the top 4 teams loses next week.

-Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia Tech, and Arizona all appear out of striking distance, even if an upset wins them a conference title.

All of these pale to one point the committee needs to see however:

Florida State Is Number One!

They have gone undefeated in a power conference, and played solid out of conference teams like Notre Dame, Florida, and Oklahoma State.  SORTACUS doesn't even know they're defending national champions, and still has them a clear number one!  Games are about winning and losing, not how pretty you look along the way, and the playoff committee is dancing on the edge of disaster with the Seminoles ranked number 4.

How Is My Team Doing?

Schools I'm associated with don't show up in the top 25.  Here's where a few notable ones land:
Stanford:  34th, 6.51     (Nice win over UCLA!)
Maryland:  46, 4.45     (Bad loss to Rutgers)
Iowa:  57, 1.80
Northwestern:  73, -1.37
Iowa State:  93, -7.58
New Mexico:  96, -8.20
Purdue:  99, -9.12

SORTACUS playoff update

Last week The Taste returned for the first time in a couple years to help determine which teams most deserve to be in the four team college football playoffs.  I'm running the rankings anyway, so I'll likely continue to post the results.  For now I won't give details of the system (someday maybe) but last week has some insight.  Or you can ask Andy Meisner.

Top 25

SORTACUS creates rankings using Bayesian statistics and FBS wins and losses.  Score doesn't matter, PPG doesn't matter, beating UNI doesn't matter, location doesn't matter.  Those last two are not necessarily on purpose, but just because I'm lazy.  Below are the rankings through November 22nd, along with record against FBS teams and SORTACUS rating.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Florida St	10-0	23.32
2	Alabama	9-1	21.71
3	Mississippi St	9-1	20.88
4	Oregon	9-1	20.55
5	TCU	8-1	19.70
6	UCLA	9-2	18.18
7	Ohio St	10-1	17.52
8	Marshall	10-0	17.48
9	Baylor	8-1	16.86
10	Auburn	7-3	15.75
11	Arizona	9-2	15.43
12	Kansas St	7-2	15.28
13	Georgia	8-2	15.11
14	Michigan St	8-2	14.54
15	Mississippi	7-3	14.49
16	Colorado St	9-1	14.18
17	Arizona St	8-2	13.35
18	Missouri	8-2	12.90
19	Oklahoma	8-3	12.81
20	Boise St	9-2	12.66
21	Georgia Tech	8-2	12.24
22	Wisconsin	8-2	12.22
23	Clemson	7-3	11.19
24	Texas A&M	6-4	10.93
25	LSU	6-4	10.77

The top few teams held strong this past week, with Mississippi's loss to Arkansas the only upset impacting potential playoff teams.  The top 5 from last week hold strong, and match (with a slight rearrangement in the top 4) the committee's top 5.  Things diverge a little from there though.

How Much Does Record Matter?

UCLA, Ohio State, Marshall, and to some extent Auburn are an interesting set of teams to compare.  They all have a different number of losses, but their disparate schedule strengths make evaluation difficult.  Auburn has fought through the weekly gauntlet in the SEC West.  UCLA has been waging through a tough PAC-12 that has knocked out quality teams such as Stanford and Utah.  Ohio State is in the Big Ten, but this version of the conference is one of the weakest of all time.  Finally, Marshall has been dominating a string of nobodies.

What does the committee find valuable?  Marshall's unjustifiable absence from the top 25 would indicate it's strength of schedule.  But if that's the case, UCLA and maybe even Auburn should be ahead of an Ohio State team that is somehow sneaking it's way into the playoff discussion.  The way it's currently playing out the Buckeyes might reach the top 4 largely on their reputation.

How Is My Team Doing?

Maryland:  35th, rating of 6.34
Stanford:  47th, 3.59
Iowa:  52nd, 2.88
Northwestern:  64th, 0.46
Iowa State:  93rd, -6.73
Purdue:  94th, -7.18
New Mexico:  109th, -11.11

Who Should Make The Playoffs? (feat. SORTACUS)

It's now been over two years since I made a blog post, but the process behind the college football playoff selection was too much for me to resist.  Does Ohio State deserve a shot?  Is the SEC overrated (or underrated)?  Should we be talking about Marshall?  I brushed off an old skill set in an attempt to answer these questions and more.

College Football Playoffs

I have long had a fascination with the process used to select college football's champion.  It a sport uniquely unsuited for a large playoff bracket, the kind the selects appropriate champions in the NBA, or creates a month of excitement in college basketball.  I wrote about my philosophy on NCAA football champions extensively a few years ago during what I termed BCS Week. 

For now I'll skip the details on who deserves to be in the playoffs, and instead hit upon the main points here.

-Championships, and therefore playoffs, should reward performance, not potential.  Luck happens in sports, and sometimes Northwestern beats Notre Dame.  The only goal in a game is to win, and playoff selection should reflect that.

-Not all wins are equal.  In other sports nothing besides record determines seeding, but with the disparity in college football that is often unreasonable.

-There should be an algorithm for determining qualifiers.  This is true in most other sports, the algorithm is just wins and tie breakers.  A committee of people, all with ties to teams, has inherent biases a computer doesn't.  Coming up with an algorithm is a challenge.  Fortunately, I have a proposal.

SORTACUS

SORTACUS is a computer ranking system that I created with Andy Meisner to rate items based off head to head comparisons.  It's currently used only to rank Andy's 100 favorite movies, and occasionally help my family select where to go to dinner.  Because games are just head-to-head comparisons however, it is easily applied to college football.

If these posts continue I'll describe the algorithm in detail at some point, but a summary will have to satisfy the math nerds for now.  It uses Bayesian theory to adjust the odds that a team has any given rating.  Each game is another observation to adjust the probability that team A has rating X.  It's fun and exciting math, if you're into that sort of thing.  For now though, I'll post a few summary points.

-Only wins and losses matter.  Margin of victory is ignored.  This makes the ratings worse at predicting future results, but better determining the most deserving playoff qualifiers.  If you want predictions and projections, check out my work for TeamRankings.

-Home and away are not implemented currently.  I think it would be reasonable to adjust and include a game's locations, it would just require some additions to the code.

-Only games against FBS teams matter.  A loss to Northern Iowa would slip through the cracks (for now).

-A win never hurts a team.  Many ratings systems include average opponent strength in some way.  A win against a bad team could hurt a good team, even if it was a lopsided game.  With SORTACUS, even a win against a junior high team can't hurt.

Top 25

The experienced readers likely just jumped straight to these ratings.  Below is the SORTACUS top 25 using games through Saturday.  In theory, the top 4 teams are the most worthy of a playoff spot so far.

Rank	Team	Record	Rating
1	Florida St	9-0	22.62
2	Alabama	9-1	21.90
3	Mississippi St	8-1	20.39
4	Oregon	8-1	19.95
5	TCU	8-1	19.26
6	Mississippi	7-2	17.49
7	Ohio St	9-1	17.41
8	UCLA	8-2	16.68
9	Marshall	9-0	16.29
10	Baylor	7-1	16.20
11	Auburn	7-3	15.63
12	Georgia	8-2	14.38
13	Colorado St	8-1	14.36
14	Arizona	8-2	14.06
15	Michigan St	7-2	13.70
16	Kansas St	6-2	13.70
17	Boise St	8-2	13.44
18	Arizona St	7-2	12.90
19	Oklahoma	7-3	12.72
20	Georgia Tech	8-2	12.53
21	Nebraska	7-2	11.90
22	Missouri	7-2	11.23
23	Wisconsin	7-2	11.20
24	Louisiana Tech	7-2	10.53
25	LSU	6-4	10.46

Through Novermber 16 the playoffs should contain Florida State, Alabama, Mississippi State, and Oregon with TCU on the outside looking in.  The playoff rankings this week may actually agree with that, which is a good check for both SORTACUS and the committee.

What else stands out here?

The Big Ten is probably being overrated by the committee.  Ohio State is probably worthy of a fair shot at the playoffs, but Michigan State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin don't fare well with SORTACUS.

The SEC is as good as midseason polls said.  Schools in the West have beaten up on each other, potentially jeopardizing an SEC spot in the playoff.  SORTACUS puts five teams in the top twelve though, almost guaranteeing at least one deserves a final spot.

Marshall is number nine?  That seems high and probably is.  There aren't enough inter-conference data points for SORTACUS to work with.  Still, for Marshall to be undefeated but not among the 25 most deserving playoff teams is a silly mistake on the committee's part.

How is my team doing?

Schools I'm associated with don't show up in the top 25.  Here's where a few notable ones land:
Maryland:  41st, rating of 5.18
Iowa:  49, 3.51
Stanford:  55, 1.96
Northwestern:  68, -0.26
Iowa State:  85, -4.92
Purdue:  91, -6.15
New Mexico:  106, -10.68