So, naturally I thought of looking at Florida State this year to see why my college football model has the Seminoles currently as the #2 ranked team overall (and #1 for much of the year)? My model has FSU having the #5 ranked offense and the #8 ranked defense. To put his in perspective, Florida State is currently the only FBS school to be in the top 10 in both offense and defense in my model.
As I mentioned yesterday, the model looks at on-field production in terms of what and how much various on-field actions affect points scored and points surrendered and then ranks each team in terms of their production relative to the other 123 FBS teams.
Here is FSU's 2012 regular season schedule.
| Date | Opponent | PF | PA | Result | Site | SOS | ||||||
| 9/1/2012 | Murray St. | 69 | 3 | Won | Home | 125 | ||||||
| 9/8/2012 | Savannah St. | 55 | 0 | Won | Home | 125 | ||||||
| 9/15/2012 | Wake Forest | 52 | 0 | Won | Home | 94 | ||||||
| 9/22/2012 | Clemson | 49 | 37 | Won | Home | 43 | ||||||
| 9/29/2012 | South Fla. | 30 | 17 | Won | Away | 74 | ||||||
| 10/6/2012 | North Carolina St. | 16 | 17 | Loss | Away | 71 | ||||||
| 10/13/2012 | Boston College | 51 | 7 | Won | Home | 62 | ||||||
| 10/20/2012 | Miami (FL) | 33 | 20 | Won | Away | 100 | ||||||
| 10/27/2012 | Duke | 48 | 7 | Won | Home | 39 | ||||||
| 11/8/2012 | Virginia Tech | 28 | 22 | Won | Away | 75 | ||||||
| 11/17/2012 | Maryland | Away | ||||||||||
| 11/24/2012 | Florida | Home |
Notice that the first two games the Seminoles played were against non-FBS teams (hence a Strength of Schedule or SOS of 125 for those schools). Now the model that I use includes team performance against non-FBS schools. I grant that this might not be the best, but is what I am currently using. All of the BCS computer models and the USA Today and Harris Poll use performance by FBS schools against non-FBS schools and some of the BCS computer models use FCS school performance to rank FBS schools. So, my use of on-field production by FBS schools against non-FBS schools is not different from current BCS rankings systems. Someday I will go back and take out the non-FBS performance and see how this matters, but for now I will include it.
With that issue addressed, notice that the Seminoles are 9-1 with a one-point loss to North Carolina State. Florida State has consistently been more productive than the teams they have played and even the North Carolina State game was fairly evenly matched in terms or on-field production. Otherwise, Florida State has out produced their opponents in each game they played this year with the exception of Virginia Tech - which FSU won. Finally, from the table above, notice that FSU has played a rather easy schedule with a current strength of schedule of 80.8, which is easier than the average league strength of schedule of 67.52.