Preliminary NCAA Football Top 25 Week 3

OK, this might be a little premature, but I have been working on downloading the NCAA FBS data and now have the spreadsheet set up so that I should just have to open up the production data file and it automatically update with the newest data - hopefully. Given that the data importing is going quicker for me this year, it still may be preliminary to attempt to use the NCAA FBS production model for ranking the top 25 FBS (football bowl subdivision) programs, so I am going to give a few answers, since at this point in the season I am not convinced that there is one best time period to use. The reason for this is that there is still not enough information (data) and variation in the data to be completely reliable as to the results from the production model. Hence I am going to have three top 25 ranking and you will see that the rankings will be difference depending on the time period that I use.

The first time period covers the 2008-2010 NCAA FBS seasons for the NCAA FBS production model. Using this longer time period, we see that Georgia Tech is currently as the most production football team, primarily because of the strength of their offense. Now I suspect things will be much different next week after they play North Carolina given the Tar Heels strong defense. But the model does not rank teams as to how I expect them to perform in the future, but rather on their actual performance. What is surprising is that Oklahoma is not ranked in the top 25 at all. Again, before you throw out the model, it is very early (i.e. preliminary) to feel all that confident in the exactness of the rankings. One of the advantages of using a longer time period is that the statistical reliability of the model is superior, but the disadvantage is that we are ranking 2011 team's using a model that includes team performance results from three seasons ago. Anyway, here is the top 25 using the 2008-2010 time period for estimating offense and defense productivity.

Rank		School
1		Georgia Tech
2		Alabama
3		Wisconsin
4		Illinois
5		LSU
6		South Florida
7		Arkansas
8		Cincinnati
9		Stanford
10		Vanderbilt
11		UCF
12		Michigan State
13		Florida
14		West Virginia
15		Michigan
16		Virginia Tech
17		Purdue
18		Rutgers
19		Georgia
20		Oregon
21		Ohio
22		Missouri
23		Nebraska
24		Ohio State
25		Texas Tech

In order to give you a feel as to how the Top 25 rankings can change by using different time periods, below is the top 25 using just the data from the 2010 season. While just using the 2010 season is not as academically appealing, this is the time period that I used for the Top 25 rankings for last year. The 2010 time period is statistically valid (which is a plus) but again is a ranking of current teams on past performance. Ignoring this criticism, we see that LSU is the highest ranked team in terms of production, primarily due to the strength of their defense.

Notice that Oklahoma is ranked #18 using the 2010 time period, yet Florida State (which just lost to Oklahoma) is ranked #8. Again, the model is only taking into account actual on-field performance and not how teams fared in the wins and loss column. I suspect as teams play more games there will be a rise in highly productive teams and thus a fall is lower productive teams. This will be a point I will make repeatedly.

Rank		School
1		LSU
2		Texas Tech
3		UCF
4		Stanford
5		Illinois
6		Texas
7		Alabama
8		Florida State
9		Georgia Tech
10		Florida
11		Wisconsin
12		West Virginia
13		South Florida
14		Ohio
15		Virginia Tech
16		Cincinnati
17		Michigan
18		Oklahoma
19		North Carolina
20		Utah
21		Temple
22		Baylor
23		Oklahoma State
24		Missouri
25		Vanderbilt

Finally, let's take a look at the top 25 using the same NCAA FBS production model but only using the data so far from the 2011 season. Remember when looking at the ranking below that there has not been enough variation in the data to get a statistically reliable model just using the data from the 2011 season. That is why I included the prior two rankings. As the season progresses, I will only use the data from the 2011 season, and when that happens I will drop the other top 25 rankings. Well, here is the Top 25 using just the 2011 season below. Take a look and I will make a few comments below in regard to some surprise teams. Of course I have already stated that this type of rank is premature or preliminary.

Rank		School
1		Georgia Tech
2		North Carolina
3		Texas
4		Florida
5		Virginia Tech
6		West Virginia
7		Texas Tech
8		Stanford
9		Illinois
10		Wyoming
11		South Florida
12		LSU
13		Florida State
14		Wisconsin
15		UCF
16		Oregon
17		Alabama
18		Utah
19		California
20		Michigan
21		Cincinnati
22		Missouri
23		Ohio
24		Oklahoma State
25		Miami (Florida)

Some surprises: Texas Tech at #7. That can be explained by the fact that Texas Tech has played Texas State (a non-FBS team) and New Mexico (one of the worst in the FBS last year and so far this year as well - sorry Lobos fans). Wyoming at #10. Similar story, Wyoming played two non-FBS teams and then played Bowling Green (a below average FBS team). My guess is that Wyoming will fall this week as they play Nebraska.