Pool C in 2016

[ExTartanPlayer]

Wally, I don't think I'd have the stones to do what you just did regarding DPU. I mean...if DPU gets a pool "C" I buy Zima for the board!

I talked him into it.

DePauw getting in would require about seven different results falling exactly as they need, but I think the right series of dominoes could at least get them on the table.  It's a remote chance, but since this is supposed to be an "eliminator" rather than a projection I made the case that DePauw has a faint pulse if EVERYTHING breaks right for them.

[HansenRatings]

So ESPN Stats & Info has been putting out something called "Strength of Record" to help people make sense of the CFP rankings. The metric is supposed to tell you the likelihood that an average Top 25 team would have the same or better record as a given team. For DIII, the average Top 25 team is essentially Wheaton/John Carroll.

Take Muhlenberg for example: what are the odds that an average Top 25 team (or Wheaton) could play the 9 teams Muhlenberg has played, and have a record of 9-0 or 8-1? About 95%.

I performed this calculation for every team with 2 losses or fewer, and here are the results:

2.23%   UW-Whitewater
10.34%   UW-Oshkosh
16.83%   St. Thomas
21.52%   Mary Hardin-Baylor
32.86%   North Central Ill.
43.68%   Coe
51.24%   Johns Hopkins
53.61%   Mount Union
62.73%   Alfred
62.85%   UW-Platteville
63.94%   Wheaton Ill.
64.58%   John Carroll
74.82%   Linfield
76.18%   St. John's
76.27%   Concordia-Moorhead
76.35%   Monmouth
78.83%   Case Western Reserve
79.25%   Hardin-Simmons
89.46%   Illinois Wesleyan
90.92%   Western New England
91.64%   St. John Fisher
93.34%   Dubuque
93.43%   Thomas More
94.04%   Olivet
94.43%   East Texas Baptist
94.61%   Frostburg State
94.71%   Muhlenberg
94.87%   Hobart
94.98%   Stevenson
95.80%   Central
96.21%   Whitworth
96.51%   Franklin
96.98%   Wittenberg
97.57%   Berry
97.98%   Sul Ross State
98.00%   Wabash
98.46%   Washington U.
98.68%   Centre
98.74%   Redlands
98.74%   St. Lawrence
98.94%   Randolph-Macon
98.96%   Salisbury
98.99%   Delaware Valley
98.99%   Huntingdon
99.05%   Washington and Jefferson
99.17%   Wesley
99.38%   Denison
99.44%   Albright
99.76%   Maryville Tenn.
99.88%   Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
99.94%   DePauw
99.95%   Pomona-Pitzer
99.96%   Salve Regina
99.97%   Bluffton
99.98%   Husson
99.98%   Lake Forest
99.99%   Rose-Hulman
99.99%   Northwestern Minn.
100.00%   Bridgewater State
100.00%   Macalester
100.00%   Eureka
100.00%   MacMurray

[ITH radio]

Doesn't make sense to me that a Top 25 team would win 95% of the games Muhlenberg played, but less than 55% playing JHU's schedule which is basically the same thing. That's a big drop.

[D3MAFAN]

Doesn't make sense to me that a Top 25 team would win 95% of the games Muhlenberg played, but less than 55% playing JHU's schedule which is basically the same thing. That's a big drop.

I think the difference lies with W&L and Wilkes, but does that one game account for 40% (maybe). Also, the Mules haven't played Moravian which is much better than McDaniel which is who Johns Hopkins plays.

[wally_wabash]

I think the number is meant to indicate how often or likely it is for an average Top 25 team to have the same record as Team X.  An average top 25 team could be 8-1 vs. Muhlenberg's schedule 95% of the time.  Against the Hopkins schedule, even though it's basically the same schedule, the bar is raised to having to achieve 9-0, which is considerably harder to do (about 40% or so harder apparently). 

[ITH radio]

Fair enough, what are there like, 12 undefeated teams left? So yeah, going 9-0 no matter is tough for sure. W&L is only 5-4 though and Wilkes is 3-6 but did upset the favorite in their league. Anyway, interesting stuff.

[HansenRatings]

I think the number is meant to indicate how often or likely it is for an average Top 25 team to have the same record as Team X.  An average top 25 team could be 8-1 vs. Muhlenberg's schedule 95% of the time.  Against the Hopkins schedule, even though it's basically the same schedule, the bar is raised to having to achieve 9-0, which is considerably harder to do (about 40% or so harder apparently).

Bingo.

[RtSLl3100]

So lower the percentage is kind of another of saying a harder SOS? Or lower the percentage is better saying only 40% could get the same record?

[USee]

So Wheaton and JCU are about 64% likely to have the same record as Wheaton and JCU?

[HansenRatings]

So lower the percentage is kind of another of saying a harder SOS? Or lower the percentage is better saying only 40% could get the same record?

The lower the percentage, the less likely an average Top 25 team would be to win at least as many games.

So Wheaton and JCU are about 64% likely to have the same record as Wheaton and JCU?

Yeah, basically, if they replayed their schedule, they would do just as well more often than not.

[HansenRatings]

The big difference between Strength of Record (SOR) and SOS is that SOS is independent of a team's record. SOR depends on a team's record.
Platteville is 7-2. Their SOS wouldn't change if they were 8-1 or 9-0, but their SOR would change to basically match Oshkosh's or Whitewater's.
Another takeaway from this is that, according to my model, it's about the same difficulty to go 0.800 in the WIAC as it is to go 0.900 in most other "power" conferences, but going undefeated is pretty hard to do regardless of your conference.

[CruGuy]

That number for UMHB's schedule doesn't pass the smell test. Wheaton or John Carroll is undefeated vs Linfield, HSU, ETBU & others >20% of the time?

[HansenRatings]

That number for UMHB's schedule doesn't pass the smell test. Wheaton or John Carroll is undefeated vs Linfield, HSU, ETBU & others >20% of the time?

Here's a sanity check for that:

These are the odds my model would give an average Top 25 team over the three teams you mentioned:
Linfield (#8): 45%
HSU (#14): 61%
ETBU (#44): 88%

Going 3-0 over that stretch is 24% (0.45*0.61*0.88=0.24). Their odds of going undefeated against the rest of the schedule would only need to be 83% to result in an overall SOR of 20%.

As a caveat, my model isn't as high on ETBU as most other models (or the D3Football/AFCA polls), but it's slightly higher on Linfield. The same thing that plagues human voters in making judgements makes it hard on computer systems--there's not enough out-of-region games played by teams on the island.

If you assume ETBU more along the lines of a borderline Top 25 team, instead of a Top 50 team, those odds would go from 20% to about 15%.

[ExTartanPlayer]

That number for UMHB's schedule doesn't pass the smell test. Wheaton or John Carroll is undefeated vs Linfield, HSU, ETBU & others >20% of the time?

Fair point on Linfield, but are we really sure that HSU and (especially) ETBU are all that good?  ETBU had no recent history of success until they went 7-3 last year, including three blowout losses (49-22 vs. 4-6 McMurry, 55-27 vs. 8-2 Texas Lutheran, and 67-20 vs. UMHB).  The only really impressive notch on their belt was a 27-21 home win against Hardin-Simmons team that was one week removed from the program's biggest win in over a decade (beating UMHB).  ETBU has followed that up with a 7-2 season that, again, includes 30+ point losses against UMHB and HSU.

I know you Texans think that everyone down there would beat everyone else up here if only they would get rid of the Texas sub-bracket in the playoffs, but I'm not sure the body of evidence we do have really supports that. 

ETBU and HSU are good teams, sure, especially HSU.  But let's not pretend that UMHB ran some gauntlet of three top-10 teams.  They have one outstanding win (Linfield), one very good win (HSU) and then the win over ETBU is probably about the same as any generic top-10-team-beats-another-pretty-good-team win, like Whitewater beating UW-Stevens Point maybe. 

[Ralph Turner]

That number for UMHB's schedule doesn't pass the smell test. Wheaton or John Carroll is undefeated vs Linfield, HSU, ETBU & others >20% of the time?

Fair point on Linfield, but are we really sure that HSU and (especially) ETBU are all that good?  ETBU had no recent history of success until they went 7-3 last year, including three blowout losses (49-22 vs. 4-6 McMurry, 55-27 vs. 8-2 Texas Lutheran, and 67-20 vs. UMHB).  The only really impressive notch on their belt was a 27-21 home win against Hardin-Simmons team that was one week removed from the program's biggest win in over a decade (beating UMHB).  ETBU has followed that up with a 7-2 season that, again, includes 30+ point losses against UMHB and HSU.

I know you Texans think that everyone down there would beat everyone else up here if only they would get rid of the Texas sub-bracket in the playoffs, but I'm not sure the body of evidence we do have really supports that. 

ETBU and HSU are good teams, sure, especially HSU.  But let's not pretend that UMHB ran some gauntlet of three top-10 teams.  They have one outstanding win (Linfield), one very good win (HSU) and then the win over ETBU is probably about the same as any generic top-10-team-beats-another-pretty-good-team win, like Whitewater beating UW-Stevens Point maybe.

ETBU played without its starting QB versus McMurry.