The difference in Bama and LSU's defensive ranking

No matter how I look at it, Bama has played stiffer competition than LSU has played. Even when I figure in scoring, which would be an indication of abiity to score, Bama still comes out on top. I would have thought that would have boosted Oregon's and WVU's contribution .. but, their SOS is so weak, their 50 pnts per game doesn't amount to much.

I tell you what though, playing with these numbers gives you a whole new perspective on "ranking". It is without doubt .. CRAP.

You take an Oregon or WVU ...yep, they are highly ranked offenses ... (#2 and #12) ... against a bunch of PANSIES. It's not a wonder now that when they play teams from more elite conferences, they lose. I mean .. WVU .. with the exception of LSU and Maryland, has played nothing but lower conference teams .. and Maryland is one of the more suckish teams in the ACC at 2-3. Somehow, I don't think WVU would fair too well against Clemson or GT .. the two elite teams of the ACC.

Oh Well ... I still think LSU can put a woopin on Bama. :geaux:

 

Yep .. I haven't included those numbers yet, but after I finally figured out how to run this comparison, it became clear that LSU has faced stiffer offenses.

Basically ... I took the W/TG ratio, multiplied by the BCS ranking to come up with a base number for all teams [the multiplier] in LSU's and Bama's schedule, as well as for all teams that played the opponents of LSU and Bama. [BCS rankings were multiplied by 10 to give a whole number; all teams below BCS rank 24 received a 1]

Then .. I calculated the strength of each opponent against each of it's opponents by taking the ratio of the score, and multiplied those figures by the respective multiplier. For example: Oregon and Arizona.

Oregon 4/5=0.8*(0.619*10) = 4.95
Arizona 1/6-.17*(0.1*10) = 0.17

Oregaon beat Arizona by a margin of 1.81; 1.81*0.17, gives a 0.3 contribution in the sum of all games played against oregon. The "Sum" of all games played against Oregon represents Oregon's SOS. Their full composite ....

LSU - 6.43
Nevada - 1.38
MO St. - 0
Arizona - 0.3
Cal - 1.43

The sum of which is 9.54. This 9.54 represents Oregon's SOS, and 4.95 represents Oregon's strength alone. Multiplied together, you get 47.25.

Thus, Oregon contributes 47.25 points to LSU's SOS.

LSU"s full composit of SOS is:
Oregon - 47.25
MState - 2.94
WVU - 39.93
Kentucky - 1.39
FLorida - 5.01

TOTAL = 96.53

Bama's full composit of SOS is:
Kent State - 0.53
Penn State - 27.76
AR - 56.81
Florida - 5.01
Vandy - 2.89

TOTAL = 93.01

The beauty of it all is that not only does it calculate each individuals opponents strength, it measures the performance of each opponent against it's SOS (eg., Oregon's performance against its schedule).

To tease out "offense" I used average "Points For" .... but I think I'm going to go back and redo this as a ratio of "Points For/Points Against" to determine the contribution of the offense and defense to each figure.

Anyway .. I know nobody cares .. but what the hell .. It's fun for me!

 

Oh what the hell .. the orginal passes the eyeball test.

Offense [Multiplier * Points For/1000]
LSU has faced stiffer offenses 4.24 to Bama's 3.04

BUT .....

Defense [Multiplier/Points Against]
Bama's Offense has faced stiffer defenses 5.48 to LSU's 4.30.

This is mainly driven by Penn State, who's ranked 6th in the nation allowing only 11.6 points per game.

Overall composits ...
LSU's offense comes in at 3.7, our defense comes in at 8.25

Bama's offense comes in at 3.7, defense, ...... 9.52
Bama's defense is good. That 9.52 takes into account their SOS, which means they've played very well against that level of play. LSU's defense does not perform quite as well given our SOS, and I think this is consistent with what you see in the game stats. ... for example, Bama shut down FL's run game allowing only 15 yrds, but LSU allowed 113 yrds, and that was with Demps out. LSU, while great against the run when it counts, does allow more yrds to be gained on the ground than the score would dictate.

I hope Chavis has some tricks up his sleeve. .. TR is not your average RB.

 

I dunno, I thought it was an interesting read.

 

Through all of my analysis ..... I've come to quite a new twists on the comparison of Bama vs LSU.

#1 .. CONTRARY to belief, and confirmed by my earlier analysis ... Bama's Offense is no more effective than is LSU's ... Trent Richardson and all.

The average defensive strength that the offenses of the two have faced are almost identical ... at 22.5 and 21.5 each.

Here's the catcher ........

#2 .. Bama's defense has faced Significantly WEAKER offenses than has LSU's defense. 30% weaker to be exact. This makes one wonder just how good are they going to be against a competent offense?? Hard to say!

Due to the mentality of CLM, who refuses to pull an Oregon, Boise, OU, or even a Bama on other teams, we really don't know just how good our offense is. I would not be suprised to see LSU win this game by a fairly larger magin than the pin heads think. ... for that matter, the pin heads think that Bama is going to win. Their problem is they are looking at Bama being #1 in all these defensive categories ... problem is, if LSU had faced the same offenses, odds are, LSU would be tied, maybe even a little better ranked than Bama.

At least, that is what the "real" numbes seem to say.