SEC End of Season Rankings

 

The end of year rankings for the 2024 SEC season. The SEC had more parody than ever in the conference and without a dominant team at the top many believe they are no longer the strongest conference, but the numbers tell us that top to bottom the SEC is still the best league. 

Best Team: 

The Texas Longhorns are our #1 rated team in the SEC. The Longhorns finished the season 13-3 and 7-1 in the SEC. They were defeated in the semifinals of the college football playoff to eventual national champion Ohio State. Texas averaged 32 points a game and allowed 15. The difference for them was a lack of offense in losses. In their losses the Longhorns only averaged 16 points. Texas's strength of schedule this season was 7th. 

Biggest Surprise: 

The Vanderbilt Commodores was one of the Aggregates biggest surprise teams in the entire country. Vanderbilt started the season ranked 107th in our preseason rankings and finished 41st. That still only landed them 14th in the SEC, but the Commodores were a much improved team. Vanderbilt was +3.6 in point differential against the 31st hardest schedule in the country going 7-6 and 3-5 in the SEC. 

Biggest Disappointment:  

There is no doubt the Sooners were the biggest disappointment in the SEC this year. Oklahoma was projected to finish 4th by the data and many had them in the conversation for an SEC title, but OU could never get their offense off the ground. The Sooners averaged only 24 points a game and if you take out their two blowouts against Maine and Temple it was only 18 a game.  They finished 12th in the SEC in our rankings and 35th nationally. 

SEC Rankings
Rank	Team	Record	Conf Record	Rating	National Rank	Pre Seas Rnk
1	Texas	13-3	7-1	48.6	3	5
2	Mississippi	10-3	5-3	48.3	4	6
3	Alabama	9-4	5-3	45.7	6	16
4	Tennessee	10-3	6-2	44.7	8	19
5	Georgia	11-3	6-2	44.1	10	2
6	Florida	8-5	4-4	37.9	15	20
7	South Carolina	9-4	5-3	37.9	16	38
8	Louisiana State	9-4	5-3	37.6	18	18
9	Texas A&M	8-5	5-3	36.3	23	10
10	Arkansas	7-6	3-5	32.6	32	51
11	Auburn	5-7	2-6	32.0	33	29
12	Oklahoma	6-7	2-6	31.6	35	9
13	Missouri	10-3	5-3	31.2	36	21
14	Vanderbilt	7-6	3-5	30.3	41	107
15	Kentucky	4-8	1-7	23.9	62	37
16	Mississippi State	2-10	0-8	20.9	68	77

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%

SEC Coaches Adjusted Win Percentage

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.

Best Coach

Kirby Smart leads the way for the SEC in adjusted win percentage at 88.2%. Smart is six percentage points higher than the next coach which is Kalen DeBoer. Smart began his tenure at Georgia with an eight win season, but since that point has only won less than 11 games once and that was in the Covid shortened season. 

Overrated/Underrated

The adjusted win percentage indicates Tennessee's Josh Heupel is the leagues most overrated coach. Heupel has a traditional win percentage of 73.3% which would be the 3rd best mark in the SEC, but his adjusted percentage is 3.5% lower. Now 69.8% is still a fantastic percentage, but it lowers him to 5th best in the SEC.

The metric feels that Oklahoma's Brent Venables is the most underrated coach. Venables and Oklahoma join the SEC this year and projections have them anywhere between the second tier and the second half of the SEC. This metric indicates that some might be sleeping on Venables ability as a head coach. Venables has a traditional win percentage of 61.5%, but his adjusted percentage is 5.2% higher than that.

SEC Coaches	Team	W	L	Adjusted W Pct	Traditional W Pct	Difference
Jeff Lebby	Mississippi State	0	0	#DIV/0!	0.00%	#DIV/0!
Kirby Smart	Georgia	78.75	10.5	88.2%	85.50%	2.7%
Kalen Deboer	Alabama	30	6.5	82.2%	80.40%	1.8%
Brian Kelly	LSU	142	48	74.7%	72.90%	1.8%
Billy Napier	Florida	37.25	15.75	70.3%	66.20%	4.1%
Josh Heupel	Tennessee	41	17.75	69.8%	73.30%	-3.5%
Lane Kiffin	Ole Miss	64.75	30	68.3%	66.20%	2.1%
Brent Venables	Oklahoma	13	6.5	66.7%	61.50%	5.2%
Hugh Freeze	Auburn	63	33.75	65.1%	64.00%	1.1%
Eliah Drinkwitz	Mizzou	31.5	19	62.4%	64.50%	-2.1%
Mike Elko	Texas A&M	11.5	7	62.2%	64.00%	-1.8%
Steve Sarkisian	Texas	51.25	31.75	61.7%	59.20%	2.5%
Mark Stoops	Kentucky	67.75	52.25	56.5%	52.90%	3.6%
Shane Beamer	South Carolina	16.5	15	52.4%	52.60%	-0.2%
Sam Pittman	Arkansas	21.5	21.5	50.0%	47.90%	2.1%
Clark Lea	Vanderbilt	8	22	26.7%	25.00%	1.7%

  

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Aggregate Predictions for Games December 29th

The Aggregate predictions for December 29th. The Aggregate likes every one, but one favorite. It favors Ohio State above Missouri. The Tigers are 10-2, but the Aggregate has been very slow to value them. It sees Mizzou losing by 14 to Ohio State. The Aggregate also likes Clemson by 13 compared to the Vegas line of 4. It's almost perfectly in line with Vegas in the other two games though picking Notre Dame by 7, they're a 6.5 point favorite and Iowa State by 8, Vegas has them as an 8.5 point favorite.