Revised Power Rankings

I’ve noted my struggles with my current methodology in my Power Rankings that allows teams with multiple losses to be ranked higher than they ought to be based on having strong schedule strength and other data points.

In particular Oklahoma troubles me. With 5 losses they come in at 11th in my poll because of their high national rankings in Scoring Offense and Defense, and strong SOS. However, since they have lost virtually every game against a decent opponent, their SOS is helping them in my rankings while it has hurt them in their overall record.

I’m not alone in this conundrum – Sagarin ranks Oklahoma 7th in his predictor system.

Reader “Robert” points out in Oklahoma’s case their national stats are skewed by their games against Idaho State and Tulsa, in which the Sooners won by a combined score of 109-0, impacting both their national ranks in Scoring Offense and Defense. He also suggested I find a way to make multiple losses count more against teams.

I may have found a method to do just that.

Right now I count the Win-Loss record as a mere percentage – a record of 8-2, for instance, is a 0.80 score. What I have done here is use a multiplier for losses that works like this –

W/ (W+(L*L)) =W/L Value

Here’s how that works practically –

For an 11-0 team

11/ (11+(0*0) = 1.0 (the highest value, and unchanged from old formula).

For a 10-1 team

10/ (10+(1*1)) = 0.9091 (the same value, again, as the old formula as 1 times 1 equals 1)

For a 9-2 team

9/ (9+(2*2))= 0.6923 (here is the first change, where a 9-2 was 0.8182 before, it is 0.6923 now)

And, for a 6-5 team

6/ (6+(5*5)) = 0.1935 (A very BIG difference here, instead of the old 0.5455 the score is now 0.1935).

Using this methodology we get the following top 25 –

1 Alabama
2 Florida
3 TCU
4 Texas
5 Cincinnati
6 Ohio St.
7 Penn St.
8 Oregon
9 Virginia Tech
10 Boise St.
11 Georgia Tech
12 Pittsburgh
13 Oklahoma St.
14 Iowa
15 North Carolina
16 Clemson
17 Miami (FL)
18 Nebraska
19 Oklahoma
20 Arkansas
21 Mississippi
22 Wisconsin
23 Houston
24 Texas Tech
25 Oregon St.

To me, this “looks” better the last poll, even with Oklahoma at 19th.

Let me hear what you think.