The Sports Arsenal

Hey, let’s look at preseason rankings and ratings!

First up, some rankings…

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I went to my local Barnes & Noble to check out some preseason magazines. Not all of them include a section for FCS teams, but a few do.

The Sporting News has The Citadel in its preseason Top 25, at #21. However, TSN thinks the Bulldogs will only finish 3rd in the Southern Conference:

1 – Chattanooga (#8 in the Top 25)
2 – Wofford (#19 in the Top 25)
3 – The Citadel (#21 in the Top 25)
4 – Samford
5 – Mercer
6 – Western Carolina
7 – Furman
8 – VMI
9 – East Tennessee State

Lindy’s only has one SoCon team in its top 25 (Chattanooga is ranked 11th). The magazine’s projected conference standings look like this:

1 – Chattanooga
2 – Western Carolina
3 – Mercer
4 – The Citadel
5 – Samford
6 – Wofford
7 – Furman
8 – VMI
9 – East Tennessee State

Athlon doesn’t have an FCS section in its magazine, but its online presence does have an FCS Top 25. The Citadel is ranked 10th in that preseason poll (UTC is #7).

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Last season, I started to incorporate the Massey Ratings into my weekly previews as the season progressed. For the uninitiated, a quick primer on this ratings system:

Ken Massey is a math professor at Carson-Newman whose ratings system was used (with several others) for fifteen years by the BCS. He has ratings for a wide variety of sports, but most of the attention surrounding his work has been focused on college football.

A quick introduction of the Massey Ratings, from its website:

The Massey Ratings are designed to measure past performance, not necessarily to predict future outcomes…overall team rating is a merit based quantity, and is the result of applying a Bayesian win-loss correction to the power rating.

…In contrast to the overall rating, the Power is a better measure of potential and is less concerned with actual wins-losses.

…A team’s Offense power rating essentially measures the ability to score points. This does not distinguish how points are scored, so good defensive play that leads to scoring will be reflected in the Offense rating. In general, the offensive rating can be interpretted as the number of points a team would be expected to score against an average defense.

Similarly, a team’s Defense power rating reflects the ability to prevent its opponent from scoring. An average defense will be rated at zero. Positive or negative defensive ratings would respectively lower or raise the opponent’s expected score accordingly.

…the Massey model will in some sense minimize the unexplained error (noise). Upsets will occur and it is impossible (and also counter-productive) to get an exact fit to the actual game outcomes. Hence, I publish an estimated standard deviation. About 68% of observed game results will fall within one standard deviation of the expected (“average”) result.

…Preseason ratings are typically derived as a weighted average of previous years’ final ratings. As the current season progresses, their effect gets damped out completely. The only purpose preseason ratings serve is to provide a reasonable starting point for the computer. Mathematically, they guarantee a unique solution to the equations early in the season when not enough data is available yet.

In other words, preseason ratings mean very little. However, it’s July and we certainly need something to keep us going until college football season starts!

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Massey rates every college football team — not just FBS and FCS squads, but D-2, D-3, NAIA, junior colleges, even Canadian schools. This season, there are preseason ratings for 923 colleges and universities.

This year, The Citadel is #113 overall in the preseason ratings. As a comparison, the Bulldogs were the preseason #174 squad last season.

As for the teams on The Citadel’s schedule:

• Mercer — #204
• Furman — #199
• Gardner-Webb — #261
• Western Carolina — #143
• North Greenville — #312
• Chattanooga — #106
• Wofford — #172
• East Tennessee State — #554
• Samford — #149
• VMI — #224
• North Carolina — #24

Massey gives the Bulldogs a 5% chance of beating North Carolina. You may recall that last year’s preseason odds gave The Citadel a 1% chance of beating South Carolina. You may also recall that The Citadel finished 2016 as the transitive ACC Coastal Division champions.

One of the neat things about the Massey Ratings website is that it has matchup simulations — single games, best-of-seven series, etc. After refreshing a few times, I came up with a simulated result that favored the Bulldogs over UNC (by a 39-38 score). The average score of the simulations was 44-17 North Carolina, but I’m sure that was due to a programming error.

As for the other ten games on The Citadel’s schedule…believe it or not, the Bulldogs are currently projected to win all of them. The likelihood of that happening is remote, obviously, but it’s definitely a far cry from past prognostications.

I’ll go ahead and list the percentage chances of The Citadel winning each of those games, along with the median score, as calculated by the Massey Ratings:

• at Mercer — 78% (30-17)
• Furman — 87% (31-14)
• at Gardner-Webb — 89% (27-7)
• at Western Carolina — 56% (28-26)
• North Greenville — 97% (41-10)
• Chattanooga — 51% (24-23)
• at Wofford — 66% (28-21)
• East Tennessee State — 100% (48-3)
• Samford — 70% (34-24)
• at VMI — 83% (35-20)

To be honest, I’m not buying all of those ratings, even from a preseason ratings perspective.

I’m particularly dubious about the ratings for Mercer and North Greenville, and I’m not so sure about Furman’s numbers, either (I think all of them should be significantly higher). Also, Massey’s algorithm doesn’t account for SoCon officiating, especially for games played in Spartanburg.

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As for FCS-only ratings, here is a list of select schools:

• North Dakota State – 1
• Northern Iowa – 2
• Jacksonville State – 3
• Illinois State – 4
• South Dakota State – 5
• Dartmouth – 6
• Harvard – 7
• Chattanooga – 8
• Western Illinois – 9
• Youngstown State – 10
• The Citadel – 11
• Southern Utah – 12
• Richmond – 13
• Charleston Southern – 14
• Southern Illinois – 15
• Montana – 16
• Coastal Carolina – 21
• Western Carolina – 22
• James Madison – 23
• William & Mary – 26
• Samford – 27
• Villanova – 28
• Liberty – 34
• Wofford – 39
• Towson – 46
• Furman – 49
• Lehigh – 50
• Mercer – 52
• Presbyterian – 57
• VMI – 61
• Elon – 68
• Delaware – 70
• South Carolina State – 76
• Kennesaw State – 77
• Dayton – 81
• Gardner-Webb – 82
• Jacksonville – 88
• Campbell – 102
• Davidson – 120
• East Tennessee State – 122
• Mississippi Valley State – 125

The highest-rated FCS school is, naturally, North Dakota State, which checks in at #60 overall. Other schools in the “overall” list that may be of interest:

• Alabama – 1
• Ohio State – 2
• Mississippi – 3
• Stanford – 4
• Clemson – 5
• Arkansas – 6
• Tennessee – 7
• LSU – 8
• Oklahoma – 9
• Mississippi State – 10
• Notre Dame – 14
• Auburn – 17
• Georgia – 18
• Florida State – 20
• Texas A&M – 22
• Florida – 27
• Navy – 33
• Louisville – 35
• Toledo – 39
• Texas – 42
• Miami (FL) – 46
• Georgia Tech – 48
• Virginia Tech – 49
• North Carolina State – 55
• South Carolina – 58
• Georgia Southern – 59
• Duke – 64
• Virginia – 67
• Maryland – 69
• Vanderbilt – 70
• Appalachian State – 71
• Kentucky – 72
• Northwest Missouri – 77 (highest-ranked Division II team)
• Boston College – 78
• Air Force – 79
• East Carolina – 85
• Wake Forest – 92
• Calgary – 111 (highest-ranked Canadian team)
• Kansas – 116
• Army – 121
• Idaho – 141
• Tulane – 144
• UCF – 154
• Wyoming – 155
• UTEP – 156
• Hawai’i – 157
• New Mexico State – 158
• City College of San Francisco – 159 (highest-ranked junior college team)
• Old Dominion – 161
• Mt. Union – 175 (highest-ranked Division III team)
• ULM – 176
• Eastern Michigan – 181
• North Texas – 192
• Charlotte – 198
• Marian (IN) – 244 (highest-ranked NAIA team)

The overall Top 10 is very SEC-heavy, similar to the MVC flavor for the FCS Top 10.

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Football season is getting closer…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Massey Ratings, Mercer, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford |