Who is the best NCAA FBS team in Florida?

At the end of the sixth week of the 2011 NCAA FBS season the University of Florida, Florida State University and Miami of Florida were all absent from the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time since December 6th 1982. (You might also notice that neither of those three teams were in any of the three top 25 production rankings). So that got me thinking - which NCAA FBS school in Florida is the most productive through the 6th week of the 2011 season?

For those who are reading this blog, you will notice that I have three different top 25 rankings. The reason is that the model I want to use (the one on the left in the link above which only takes into account the results from this season) still does not have enough variation in the data for it to be as accurate as I would like. As of the end of week 6 it has an explanatory power of over 85%, but the other two time periods are better - both over 90%. My hope is that as NCAA FBS teams are now playing primarily other NCAA FBS (and not FCS or Division II) schools that the model using only the 2011 data will become as accurate as the others, as it did last year. Since it currently is not, I have three top 25 ranks for now.

Even though the 2011 weights model has slightly lower explanatory power, I will use it for the rest of this post. So, using the data from only this season, here is how a variety of Florida based NCAA FBS schools are faring in terms of offensive productivity, defensive productivity and total productivity; ranked by total productivity.

The University of Central Florida is currently ranked as the 16th most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 77th most productive offense and 3rd most productive defense.

The University of South Florida is currently ranked as the 20th most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 29th most productive offense and 29th most productive defense.

Florida State University is currently ranked as the 26th most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 70th most productive offense and 7th most productive defense.

The University of Florida is currently ranked as the 32nd most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 51st most productive offense and 25th most productive defense.

Florida International University is currently ranked as the 41st most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 39th most productive offense and 44th most productive defense.

The University of Miami (Florida) is currently ranked as the 56th most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 40th most productive offense and 68th most productive defense.

Florida Atlantic University is currently ranked as the 99th most productive NCAA FBS school, and the 118th most productive offense and 38th most productive defense.

Arizona Under Mike Stoops

Head football coach Mike Stoops was fired by the University of Arizona.

Using my NCAA FBS production model, let's take a look at how Arizona has fared under head coach Stoops from 2008 to this season. (This is the time period in which I have the data from www.cfbstats.com to produce the NCAA FBS production model).

In 2008, Arizona won 7 regular season games (plus their bowl game against BYU), finished as the 19th ranked offense; and the 13th ranked defense and as the 12th overall ranked team in terms of production for that season.

In 2009, Arizona won 8 regular season games (and lost their bowl game against Nebraska), finished as the 56th ranked offense; and the 31st ranked defense and as the 42nd overall ranked team in terms of production for that season.

In 2010, Arizona won 8 regular season games (and lost to Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl), finished as the 31st ranked offense; and the 29th ranked defense and as the 27th overall ranked team in terms of production for that season.

This year Arizona is currently 1-5 overall (with their only win over Northern Arizona which is a non-FBS NCAA football team), and 0-4 in the Pac12. Arizona is currently the 44th ranked offense; and the 119th ranked defense (that's second to last) and as the 101st overall ranked team in terms of production.

Coupled with Arizona State who is currently ranked #18 in the AP poll and #20 in the USA Today coaches poll. Arizona State is 5-1 and 3-0 in the Pac12. Arizona State is currently the 14th ranked offense; and the 49th ranked defense and as the 25th overall ranked team in terms of production.

For this head coach Mike Stoops was terminated. Here is his contract if you are interested.

NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Week 6

We have a new #1 team - in terms of productivity, and it is Alabama. Notice that Wisconsin did not drop to far, and that Oklahoma significantly increased their rankings this week. This is in part due to how well they produced (both offensively and defensively) and in part due to how well other teams produced on both sides of the ball. Keep in mind that the rankings are in terms of total productivity as of last weekend. Next week, I am hoping to only give the model based on this years production data. Here are the top 25 for the three time periods (weights).

	2011 Weights			2010 Weights			2008-2010 Weights
Rank		School			School			School
1		Alabama		1	Alabama		1	West Virginia
2		Wisconsin		2	Wisconsin		2	Alabama
3		Stanford		3	Oklahoma		3	Houston
4		Oklahoma		4	LSU		4	Wisconsin
5		West Virginia		5	Stanford		5	Stanford
6		LSU		6	West Virginia		6	LSU
7		Houston		7	Houston		7	South Carolina
8		Georgia Tech		8	Penn State		8	Arizona State
9		Boise State		9	South Florida		9	Georgia Tech
10		Michigan State		10	South Carolina		10	Oklahoma
11		Cincinnati		11	Michigan State		11	Oregon
12		Illinois		12	Baylor		12	Baylor
13		South Carolina		13	Cincinnati		13	South Florida
14		Michigan		14	UCF		14	Michigan
15		Baylor		15	Georgia Tech		15	North Carolina
16		UCF		16	Illinois		16	Penn State
17		Oregon		17	Michigan		17	Illinois
18		Temple		18	Boise State		18	Boise State
19		Washington State		19	Arizona State		19	Toledo
20		South Florida		20	Oklahoma State		20	UCF
21		Oklahoma State		21	Rutgers		21	Georgia
22		Utah State		22	Georgia		22	Virginia Tech
23		SMU		23	Temple		23	Oklahoma State
24		California		24	Oregon		24	Cincinnati
25		Arizona State		25	Ohio		25	Michigan State

Week 5 NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Ranking
Week 4 NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Ranking
Week 3 NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Ranking

Mississippi and Head Coach Houston Nutt

USA Today reported that Mississippi football fans are not happy with their team's performance, and head football coach Houston Nutt is receiving (and to his credit taking) much of the blame. Given his salary of $2,500,000, Ole Miss fans may well be wondering what they are getting for all of those dollars. So let's take a look at how well Mississippi (Ole Miss) has done during Houston Nutt's four year tenure in terms of their productivity.

In 2008, Mississippi won 8 regular season games (plus their bowl game against Texas Tech), finished as the 29th ranked offense; and the 22nd ranked defense and as the 25th overall ranked team in terms of production for that season.

In 2009, Mississippi won 8 regular season games (plus their bowl game against Oklahoma State), finished as the 48th ranked offense; and the 18th ranked defense and as the 29th overall ranked team in just production for that season.

In 2010, Mississippi won 4 regular season games (no bowl game), finished as the 72nd ranked offense; and the 97th ranked defense and as the 87th overall ranked team in terms of production.

This year Mississippi is currently 2-3 overall (with wins over Southern Illinois, a non-FBS team, and Fresno St., which is currently ranked 85th in the nation in terms of their overall productivity), and 0-2 in the SEC. Ole Miss is currently the 105th ranked offense; and the 70th ranked defense and as the 96th overall ranked team in terms of production - all well below average. On top of that, it is not as if Ole Miss has had that tough a schedule to date. In fact, they have had one of the easiest schedules in the SEC so far. It will only get more difficult as Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU and Mississippi State are upcoming and not looking favorable for Mississippi.

NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Week 5

Here is the Top 25 NCAA FBS teams in terms of production through week #5. As you may notice, Wisconsin still is the most productive NCAA FBS school in the nation. Otherwise, there has been a great deal of change. For example, Oklahoma and Boise State are now ranked in the top 25 production model, where last week they were not in the top 25 production ranking. Refering to the 2011 only weights, some schools have moved up a small amount even though they lost (Baylor) and some schools have dropped even though they won (LSU). Again, it is rather early to say whether the 2011 only weighted model is accurate or not. I will talk more about this when the BCS rankings come out in a few weeks. Either way, here are the results for each of the three models.

	2011 Weights			2010 Weights			2008-2010 Weights
Rank		School			School			School
1		Wisconsin		1	Wisconsin		1	Wisconsin
2		Georgia Tech		2	Alabama		2	West Virginia
3		Michigan		3	Oklahoma		3	South Florida
4		Stanford		4	Texas		4	Alabama
5		Houston		5	Michigan		5	Stanford
6		Cincinnati		6	South Florida		6	Michigan
7		Baylor		7	LSU		7	Georgia Tech
8		Alabama		8	West Virginia		8	Arizona State
9		West Virginia		9	Stanford		9	Virginia Tech
10		Texas Tech		10	Michigan State		10	North Carolina
11		Washington State		11	Cincinnati		11	LSU
12		Oklahoma		12	Penn State		12	Houston
13		Michigan State		13	UCF		13	Cincinnati
14		Texas		14	Georgia Tech		14	Baylor
15		South Florida		15	Ohio		15	Michigan State
16		Oregon		16	Baylor		16	Oregon
17		Missouri		17	Illinois		17	Texas
18		Oklahoma State		18	Virginia Tech		18	Oklahoma
19		Illinois		19	Arizona State		19	Penn State
20		Boise State		20	Houston		20	Texas Tech
21		Florida		21	Oklahoma State		21	Florida
22		Oklahoma State		22	Southern Mississippi		22	Ohio
23		Air Force		23	Texas Tech		23	Illinois
24		UCF		24	Boise State		24	SMU
25		LSU		25	Wake Forest		25	Boise State

Week 4 NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Ranking
Week 3 NCAA FBS Top 25 Production Ranking

Competitive Balance in MLB

In our book, The Wages of Wins, we show that historically MLB is more competitively balanced now than it was in its early history and that competitive balance in MLB has been improving over the last few decades. Yet, MLB is still not as competitively balanced as European football (soccer) or American football. In The Wages of Wins and in published peer-reviewed journal articles, Dave, Marty and/or I have said this is due to the changes in the population of players in that sport. As we state in our book, this is Steven Gould's argument for the disappearance of the 0.400 hitter in MLB.

So, just how competitively balanced was Major League Baseball in 2011? Using the Noll-Scully competitive balance metric, which calculates competitive balance by taking the standard deviation of actual winning percent and dividing it by the standard deviation of winning percent in an ideal league (i.e. in a league where wins and losses are randomly drawn in a statistical manner) and using the data from the end of the 2011 season, I calculate that the American League's Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance = 1.788 and for the National League the Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance = 1.858. Note if wins and losses are completely random then the Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance equals 1.000.

Thus the American League was about 79% more competitively unbalanced than what we would observe if wins and losses were determined randomly and that the National League was almost 86% more competitively unbalanced than if wins and losses were randomly assigned. So is this high or low? Compared to MLB historically, this year's measure is much more competitive and is much closer to the historical average of the NHL.

Syracuse Should Vacate Toledo Win

Officials in the Syracuse-Toledo game missed a call on an extra point, that ended up resulting in the game being tied at the end of regulation. If the call would have been made correctly, Toledo would have won the game in regulation. Mid-American conference officials are upset that the call was made incorrectly. Rightly so. Syracuse should vacate this win and Toledo should be awarded the win. I will be watching this for the rest of this season. If Syracuse wins six games and becomes bowl eligible, or if Toledo wins five games and does not become bowl eligible, this will be another black eye on college football.

Here is a clip from the Big East Network.