Photo Attribution: US Presswire
Where does OSU rank as a program? I’m sure you’ve had this conversation before. There are a million different ways to guage it and there is no way to come up with an official answer, but that won’t stop me from trying.
Here’s the method I used. I took the F+ ratings (you know I love these) for every program’s offense, defense, special teams — as well as their overall ratings — for 2009 to current. That is four years of data.
For each category, I weighted them this way:
2012: 40% weighting
2011: 30%
2010: 20%
2009: 10%
Because really, who cares what happened 5 years ago? I know your average high school senior doesn’t care. This is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately ratings system.
Let’s dive in. I’ll show you the calculation for each first place team and then list the top 10 in each category.
Offense
1) Alabama: 36th in 2009, 5th in 2010, 7th in 2011, 9th in 2012 – 10.3 avg
2) Oregon – 10.9
3) Baylor – 13.6
4) USC – 14.2
5) Arkansas – 15.9
6) Notre Dame – 17.2
7) Wisconsin – 18.4
8) Oklahoma State – 18.5
9) Texas A&M – 19.3
10) Georgia – 19.4
No shocker here, right? OSU has a top 10 offense. We’ll appreciate it someday when we don’t have one. Until then, let’s all agree to take it for granted.
Defense
1) Alabama: 1st in 2009, 15th in 2010, 1st in 2011, 1st in 2012 – 3.8 avg
2) LSU – 6.8
3) Oklahoma – 7.2
4) Boise State – 8.3
5) Oregon – 10.1
6) Florida – 13.5
7) South Carolina – 15.0
8) Ohio State – 16.2
9) Notre Dame – 18.3
10) Michigan State – 19.1
15) Oklahoma State – 23.9
Wait. We have a top 15 defense over the last four years? This is mostly due to our defense last year, which was rated #3 in the nation by the F+ system because of the ridiculous/historic number of turnovers they generated. If you take out that year, we fall in around #26 in this list. Still good and much better than most would think, but remember F+ is a “smart” system that looks at teams on a per-drive and per-play basis, removing the bias against up-tempo teams that traditional stats have.
Special Teams
1) Florida: 11th in 2009, 24th in 2010, 4th in 2011, 2nd in 2012 – 7.9 avg
2) Florida State – 12.3
3) Kansas State – 13.2 (I believe this)
4) LSU – 16.2
5) La Tech – 18.3
6) Clemson – 21.3
7) Texas – 21.6
8) Temple – 22.9
9) Central Florida – 23.4
10) Utah – 24.4
19) Oklahoma State – 32.7
We were 7th in 2010 and 2011. This year we are 64th in special teams overall, and I don’t think you’ll be surprised to discover that we are 117th in kickoff coverage.
Overall
1) Guess who? Alabama: 1st in 2009, 3rd in 2010, 1st in 2011, 1st in 2012 – 1.4 avg
2) Oregon – 4.6
3) Oklahoma – 7.1
4) LSU – 7.7
5) Florida State – 10.7
6) Boise State – 12.1
7) Stanford – 13.2
8) Notre Dame – 13.7
9) Wisconsin – 16.3
10) Oklahoma State – 16.3
Show this list to an OSU fan in 1994 and then talk your way out of an asylum. Please note that I didn’t monkey around with the calculations to get OSU into the top 10 — that’s where we are as a program right now. Pretty cool, but we’ll need to keep our foot on the gas to stay there.
Other notable programs:
15) Nebraska – 18.9
16) Texas A&M – 19.5
20) Texas – 25.2
21) TCU – 25.6
24) Kansas State – 29.0
30) Missouri – 36.6
31) West Virginia – 36.8
49) Texas Tech – 50.8
55) Baylor – 56.7
61) Iowa State – 61.0
107) Kansas – 104.1
One other interesting thing that I discovered…which of these categories is most highly correlated from year to year? For example, if you have a good defense in one year, how likely is it to carry over to the next year? Here’s how the categories rank in terms of year-to-year correlation:
1) Overall – 77%
2) Defense – 64%
3) Offense – 50%
4) Special Teams – 44%
So it’s easier to maintain a good defense than a good offense — or maybe coaching matters more on the defensive side of the ball and talent matters more on the offensive side. There are more things I can do with this data, but we’ll save them for future posts.
Awesome
That’s solid work. You look at the other teams in the Top 10 overall and you know those stats are skewed because all those programs are legit. Great post
Steak sauce.
This is another awesome article. (As Monken shakes his head at all of us “losers”)
What do the rankings look like without your weighting scheme?
If you take a simple average of the last four years (2009 – current), we are the 14th best program over that time period:
11) TCU
12) Notre Dame
13) Nebraska
14) OSU
15) USC
16) Clemson
17) Virginia Tech
2009 – Competitive with most everyone in the league
2010 – Lost two “down to the wire” games (OU, Huskers)
2011 – Dominated the Conference w/ the exception of the ISU wake
2012 – Fielding 22 Freshman and Sophomore’s on our 2-deep, and STILL competitive in the Conference
– Lose a total of 10 Sr’s from the 2-deep.
2013 – Looks to be a very good year for the Cowboys…
FYI, I know how to spell “teams” and “believe”. Evidently I just don’t know how to take a second look at my posts before I send them to Kyle. Sorry, I just cringe when I see typos in my stuff.
Apparently I can’t edit either. Fixed.
i’m kind of shocked OU has the 3rd best D over the past 4 yrs. Didn’t they get lit up a few times last year? And in ’09 they lost 5 games.
In 2009 the problem was offense, not defense. They were 99th in offense that year. Their defensive rankings from 2009 to 2012 are 3-6-7-9. I think the lesson is that everyone in the Big 12 gets lit up from time to time.
Nicely done.