End of Year ACC Rankings

                               

 

Since the college football playoff is ending it's time for out annual end of the year rankings for each conference. The ACC didn't rank as highly as we thought in the early season, but still finished with two teams in the college football playoff. As it turned the data showed that it should actually have been two other ACC teams in. The data also showed that two ACC teams that finished with stellar records were really just middle of the pack and one team that finished meh was actually one of the leagues better teams. The last thing we really noted in the ACC was the precipitous fall of Florida State.

It should be noted that each ranking is based on each teams body of work. Head to heads are not given an extra priority here. This means that even if a team beat another head to head they may still be ranked lower than the team they beat based on body of work. The best example from this year of this is Ohio State. The Buckeyes lost to Oregon earlier in the year, but in our evaluation we continued to believe Ohio State was really the better team. This played out in the playoffs.

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Clemson and SMU made the college football playoff, but the data tells us that Miami (FL) and Louisville were actually the better teams. Clemson averaged 11 points more than opponents this season against the 37th hardest schedule. They had two victories against top 25 opponents. SMU averaged 14 points more than opponents albeit against the 57th hardest SOS. They had just one victory against a Top 25 team. 

Conversely Louisville averaged 12 more points per game than opponents so more than Clemson but fewer than SMU. Their SOS was 36th which was better than both of the teams that finished above them. They also had two top 25 wins. Miami beat opponents almost by an average of 19 points, better than other teams in the ACC. Their SOS was not great though at 56. The 'Canes also had two victories over top 25 teams this season.  

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Neither Miami nor Louisville could have competed for a national title most likely, but the data shows that they were at least slightly better than the two teams who represented the ACC.  

The data also pointed out to us a few teams who's record might not have truly represented their strength. Syracuse and Duke despite finishing 10-3 and 9-4 respectively are only ranked 8th and 9th in the conference in our power ranking whereas Virginia Tech, who finished 6-7, rates 5th.

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Despite getting to 10 wins Syracuse's point differential was just 4.2 and their overall strength of schedule was just 63rd. That's the third easiest schedule in the ACC. The Orange did have some big wins, four top 25 wins according to the Aggregate's data, but they also seemed to play down to bad competition. Against three teams ranked 75th, 76th and 77th they went 2-1, but with an average point differential of 4 points. All three games were one possession. Often times when we see this type of data the team does not have nearly as good of record the next year, see Washington or Oklahoma State.

The other team that caught our attention this way was the Duke Blue Devils. Duke finished the season 9-4 in Manny Diaz's first year, but the data tells us they weren't quite as good as that record shows. Duke basically won every game it should have and lost every game it shouldn't. The lone exception on Duke's season was their victory over Virginia Tech. A team at that time that the Aggregate had rated as the 21st best team in the country. In Duke's four losses they lost by an average of 16 points to teams on average ranked 13th. In their 9 wins they won by an average of 9 points to teams ranked on average 82nd. So they won the games they should have, but what the data tells us is that if Duke had played a tougher schedule, such as some of their ACC brethren, their record would not have been near as good.

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Virginia Tech was the opposite of those preceding teams. We know that Hokies fans were not happy with this seasons results, but the data portends that things are going to be better even if Brent Pry hadn't made coaching changes. The Hokies data tells us that they were actually a pretty good team. They finished 26th nationally. Despite finishing 6-7 the Hokies still had a +6 point differential per game. In games they won they averaged winning by almost 20 points. In games they lost they averaged losing by less than 5. They lost twice in overtime. They only lost by two possessions twice and that was to the 11th ranked team and the 26th ranked team at those times.

The biggest disappointment in the ACC and honestly the country was Florida State. The Seminoles started the season ranked 8th in the Aggregate and they clearly had national championship aspirations, but State's season quickly devolved into "quicksand" as Shane Falco would have called it. The 'Noles finished the season 2-10 and dropped 81 spots in the Aggregate rankings. They lost by an average of almost 13 points against the 41st SOS. All of this combined does not bode well for Florida State's next season.   

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ACC Rankings
Rank	Team	Record	Conference	Rating	National Rank	Pre Season
1	Miami (FL)	10-3	6-2	43.4	11	13
2	Louisville	9-4	5-3	39.4	12	26
3	Clemson	10-4	7-1	38.1	14	11
4	Southern Methodist	11-3	8-0	37.4	19	14
5	Virginia Tech	6-7	4-4	34.5	26	22
6	Georgia Tech	7-6	5-3	33.3	29	42
7	Boston College	7-6	4-4	30.7	39	45
8	Syracuse	10-3	5-3	27.6	49	24
9	Duke	9-4	5-3	27.4	50	54
10	Pittsburgh	7-6	3-5	27.2	52	67
11	Virginia	5-7	3-5	24.3	60	71
12	North Carolina State	6-7	3-5	22.4	63	32
13	North Carolina	6-7	3-5	21.9	65	39
14	Wake Forest	4-8	2-6	18.0	80	78
15	Stanford	3-9	2-6	17.6	83	91
16	Florida State	2-10	1-7	14.9	89	8

Week 4 Betting Results

                                                                                                                                             

The Aggregate's week four results are in. We were unfortunately not able to publish our predictions for week 4 of the college football season, but we did make them. We should be able to publish them for this coming week even if we aren't able to mass advertise them yet. Without further ado here are the results.

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Overall:

The Aggregate: 45-18 (71.4%)

The Aggregate's main predictor. If a team has a 50.1% chance to win according to the Aggregate then they fit into this category. The only game the Aggregate didn't predict this week was the Texas Tech vs. California game as they both had a 50.0% chance to win.

ESPN's FPI: 49-14 (77.8%)

Taken off of ESPN's website. It should be noted ESPN had the worst cumulative rate last year, but early this year is leading.

W-L: 37-27 (57.8%)

We track this because it's often suggested that the most important information when predicting games is a teams win loss ratio. This is often not actually the case, but it's good to have the data to back that up. When teams have an equal record than the second decider is home field advantage.

Jeff Sagarin: 42-22 (65.6%)

By far the best predictor last year as it was at an over 80% hit rate going into the college bowl season. It is definitely a surprise to see it as the low man after one week. It will be interesting to see if this changes throughout the season. 

Vegas's Betting Line: 39-14 (73.6%)

Vegas had the almost the worst percentage last year, but has a good start this season. It should be noted that there are less games here because when we pulled the numbers there were still certain games the Vegas sites we follow had not posted a line for. 

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Summary:

ESPN's FPI has been the best indicator through this week. It will be interesting to see if that continues as it finished both behind the Aggregate and Jeff Sagarin's ratings last year. It is at least possible to think that ESPN's metric is better with limited data than the Aggregate or Jeff Sagarin's as last years data was more from the back half of the season then the front. 

Also Vegas's betting line did very well. Better than the Aggregate which is exactly opposite of what our goal is here. The fact that the Aggregate out performed the Vegas betting line was one of the reasons we decided to actually invest in this betting scheme this college football season. However, because of the way we are betting we still made out more details on that below.

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Betting Results:

The Aggregate made 11 bets for the fourth week of college football. We put money on 10 games in which the Aggregate had predicted at least an 80% chance or better for a team to win. We then more then doubled the money in three games in which the Aggregate saw a 90% chance or better. We also made one parlay bet that included four money line bets on teams in which the Aggregate saw one team as a 90% chance or better. 

We won 8 out of the 10 single game bets and won the parlay bet. As a result we came out ahead and made about a 6.5% gain on our money for the week. Unfortunately because of a dismal week 0 we are still down about 10% on our total money. 

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Single Game Bets:

LSU over UCLA

Chance to win: 96.7%

Money line: -2100

Gain %: 2.9%

Duke over MTSU

Chance to win: 91.7%

Money line: -600

Gain %: 15.2%

Miami (FL) over USF

Chance to win: 100%

Money line: -850

Gain %: 11.8%

Mizzou over Vandy

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -1200

Gain %: 7.1%

Sam Houston over New Mexico

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -850

% Change: 7.1%

Kansas State over Brigham Young

Chance to win: 88.9%

Money line: -225

% Change: 4.8% (total)

Clemson over NC State

Chance to win: 88%

Money line: -1200

% Change: 7.1%

Memphis over Navy

Chance to win: 88%

Money line: -355

% Change: 4.8% (total)

Kentucky over Ohio

Chance to win: 86.1% 

Money line: -1350

% Change: 7.1%

Fresno State over New Mexico

Chance to win: 86.1%

Money line: -600

% Change: 14.3%

Parlay

Miami over USF

Duke over MTSU

LSU over UCLA

Indiana over Charlotte (100%)

Money line: -263

Return on Investment: 38.3%

Total

90% Single game picks: 3/3 

ROI: 8.9%

Remaining Single game picks: 5/7

ROI: 10.2%

Parlay: 1/1

ROI: 38.3%

Total: 9/11

ROI: 6.6%

Friday CFB Picks

Here are the Aggregate's Friday college football picks. The biggest note is the Aggregate is not picking any of the underdogs to win. Again if using the Aggregate as a betting guide be warned that the Aggregate's ability to discern chances to win at this point is very subjective as these teams have not played any games. Also remember that the Aggregate uses a comparison system for FCS schools. We do not yet have the manpower to rate and rank FCS schools individually.

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Week One CFB Predictions
Teams	Record	Score Prediction	Chance to Win	Vegas Line	O/U	Moneyline
Friday, August 30th
Elon	0-0	0	0.0%
Duke	0-0	36	100.0%	-23.5	49.5	-$2,500.00
Florida Atlantic	0-0	14	0.0%
Michigan State	0-0	31	100.0%	-14	45.5	-$600.00
Lehigh	0-0	9	0.0%
Army	0-0	34	100.0%	-32	47.5	-$20,000.00
Temple	0-0	3	0.0%
Oklahoma	0-0	47	100.0%	-42.5	57.5
Texas Christian	0-0	41	100.0%	-9.5	59.5	-$340.00
Stanford	0-0	24	0.0%
Western Michigan	0-0	6	0.0%
Wisconsin	0-0	35	100.0%	-23.5	56.5	-$3,000.00

Adjusted Winning Percentage for ACC Coaches

I've often felt that winning percentage is not a great look at how good coaches actually perform as it does not factor in a multitude of items including environment, player talent and competition. As a result I devised a formula to try and tackle some of that problem and give a more accurate portrayal of what part of the wins and losses the head coach was responsible for. 

This metric, the adjusted win percentage for FBS coaches, tries to take into account at least the players that each coach is responsible for. For example when a new head coach wins in their very first year the credit only lies somewhat with them. Many of the players they are winning with were recruited by the previous staff. Often these coaches go on to not be successful in the long term. The best examples I can think of are Ed Orgeron at LSU or Gene Chizik at Auburn. Both should be noted actually had their best year a few years in, but neither lasted after a prolonged time. On the flip side new coaches often lose heavily in their first year because it takes time to recruit and install new systems and to get a full buy-in from players. Think Sabin's first year at Alabama or Bobby Petrino's first at Arkansas.

The basic thrust of the formula is this, the longer a coach has coached a team the more accountable he is for their wins and losses. The transfer portal has changed some of this in that the formula now holds coaches more accountable sooner. Gone are the days when you had four years to show some results.

Special notes, these statistics are based on fbs wins and losses only. The time period for the coaches is endless so all the coaches years are included, but it is only an evaluation of current coaches not coaches from the past.

In the ACC no one has a higher adjusted winning percentage than Dabo Swinney at Clemson. No surprise, Swinney has helmed one of the best college football programs of this century and it shows in his win percentage. Many consider the last few years at Clemson to be down years because of Swinney's unwillingness to embrace the transfer portal, but he still has 80.6% winning rate since the portal began. Time will tell if the Tigers are going to regress, but the Aggregate has them as the 11th best team in the country this year.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of the metric for the ACC was which coaches seem to have been helped by rosters that they did not create. Dave Doeren at NC State, Bill O'Brien at Boston College, Pat Narduzzi at Pitt, Justin Wilcox at Cal and Tony Elliot at Virginia all have a better traditional winning percentage than adjusted, but no one has a bigger difference than Jeff Brohm at Louisville at -1.5% worse. This shows these coaches have had more success early in their time at programs which at least implies that these coaches have come into favorable situations early in their coaching and their traditional win percentages are at least a little inflated. 

Here are the full results:   

ACC Coaches	Team	W	L	Adjusted W Pct	Traditional W Pct	Difference
Fran Brown	Syracuse	0.0	0.0	#DIV/0!	0.0%	#DIV/0!
Dabo Swinney	Clemson	154.3	32.1	82.8%	79.8%	3.0%
Rhett Lashlee	SMU	14.5	6.0	70.7%	66.7%	4.0%
Mike Norvell	Florida State	54.5	23.3	70.1%	67.6%	2.5%
Mack Brown	UNC	252.0	109.5	69.7%	65.7%	4.0%
Dave Doeren	NC State	81.3	48.5	62.6%	62.7%	-0.1%
Manny Diaz	Duke	18.5	11.5	61.7%	58.3%	3.4%
Bill O'Brien	Boston College	5.5	3.5	61.1%	62.5%	-1.4%
Jeff Brohm	Louisville	48.3	32.5	59.8%	61.3%	-1.5%
Pat Narduzzi	Pittsburgh	53.8	42.0	56.1%	56.5%	-0.4%
Dave Clawson	Wake Forest	82.0	69.0	54.3%	50.5%	3.8%
Mario Cristobal	Miami	57.8	51.1	53.0%	50.3%	2.7%
Brent Key	GT	9.0	8.0	52.9%	52.4%	0.5%
Brent Pry	Va Tech	8.5	10.0	45.9%	41.7%	4.2%
Justin Wilcox	California	28.8	34.8	45.3%	45.6%	-0.3%
Tony Elliott	Virginia	4.5	12.5	26.5%	27.3%	-0.8%
Troy Taylor	Stanford	1.5	4.5	25.0%	25.0%	0.0%

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