Sagarin Ratings and Football Trends
by Buck Bravo on Dec 15, 2009 6:36 AM CST
in Gopher Football
12 comments
USA Today's Jeff Sagarin has been using statistics to rank sports teams for over 20 years. Sagarin's ratings take into account several factors such as the difficulty of a team's schedule, and not just their final record. Let's take a look at Minnesota's Sagarin ratings from 1998 through 2009. I was unable to locate the 1997 ranking, so Glen Mason's 3 win 1997 season is not included in the graph. The lower the number, the better the team:
Although Tim Brewster's inaugural 2007 season was horrendous, 2006 had seen a drop in ranking that was headed the wrong way. For 2009, Brewster has the Gophers back to about the 2000 or 2001 level. As can be seen from the graph, Minnesota's strongest team since 1998 is the 1999 squad. What about that 10 win 2003 season? Why isn't it ranked higher than 1999? In the following graph from the last seven seasons, 2003 featured only two top 20 quality opponents, both of whom defeated the Gophers:
The most interesting trend that the above graph shows is that over the last seven seasons the Gophers have only defeated one team that finished the season in Sagarin's top 20, which was Michigan in 2005. Even more interesting is that Glen Mason only defeated top 40 teams five times in his last four seasons, while Tim Brewster has yet to defeat a team that finished in Sagarin's top 40. Besides the anomaly of 2007, Minnesota usually only has a good season when there are several weak teams in the schedule.
If the future is anything like the past, 2010 will probably indicate whether Tim Brewster will ever take the team to the next level and overcome a decade of mediocrity. 2010 could use at least one signature win over a top 20 team.
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Interesting
That 2nd graph is interesting Buck – maybe an addition that would help is where would our 2010 opponents rank on the scale? This might be a very good predictor of our 2010 record (unfortunately).
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Here are the 2010 teams based on 2009 Sagarin
@Middle Tennessee State – 73
South Dakota – 156 (FCS)
Southern California – 13
Northern Illinois – 85
Northwestern – 68
@Wisconsin – 37
@Purdue – 76
Penn State – 20
Ohio State – 12
@Michigan State – 57
@Illinois – 93
Iowa – 18
Five teams in the top 40
In year four, I think the expectation HAS to be at least one win against those teams. That may be unfair but at some point we have to prove we can beat a good team.
We’ll have a chance to win a lot of road games next year (Pur, MSU and Ill). And then we have to win some of these home games. USC, PSU, OSU and Iowa. Four very good teams that you get in your stadium, would be nice to steal one and get some momentum. Next year’s schedule is VERY interesting.
what you say here can, and will, be used against you
by GopherNation on Dec 15, 2009 8:41 AM CST up reply actions
Next year
It is quite possible we are very bad. 4-8 (1-7 in conference) isn’t out of the question. That is what Maturi is waiting for on the extension. If we make a bowl game next year, it should buy Brewster another few years. If not, he is done. 6-6 next year may actually exceed expectations—that is a tough schedule considering that the “beatable” teams are all on the road with the exception of Northwestern and all the big boys are playing in TCF. We are going to have to be a good road team next year.
I would prefer
improvement, rather than a bowl game. 8 Big Ten teams go to bowl games every year.
If Brewster goes 6-6, but doesn’t win a rivalry game, isn’t competitive against USC, Ohio State or Penn State again, and hasn’t figured out his offense, I don’t know what the argument is in favor of keeping him around.
And like you said, there is the distinct fear that 2010 is an implosion. The non-conference schedule is very tough (USC is USC, Northern Illinois is 7-5 and beat Purdue, Middle Tennessee is on the road and they might win 10 games this year), and the conference games are all toss-ups, IME.
Minnesota could be 10-2 next year, and they could be 4-8. Who knows? Regardless, I think an upset of a power, or a trophy, needs to be on Brewster’s resume by December 2010, or else he ought to go back to Mike Shanahan’s staff in the NFL and Minnesota ought to hire Philip Fulmer or Kevin Sumlin to coach the team.
I love the 2nd graph
it really shows simply and clearly how good your wins actually are. It seems to show that Brewster is heading in the right direction.
"they're calling insane hogs???"
I agree...
If you look at the differences between 2006 and 2009, 2006 had more weak wins (120 and 160!) and higher quality losses (4 in the top 10)… The games in the 50-100 strength are about the same.
We can’t control how good the other big 10 teams are (clearly weaker this year vs 2006), but the non conference schedule has clearly ratcheted up. Look at the cupcakes we feasted on – we should never have more than 1 game against a team outside the top 100 (basically an FBS game). 2003 had 4 wins with teams ranked below #100.
Love the work on the data, buck!
we should never have more than 1 game against a team outside the top 100
Absolutely agree. Who the heck was that 175 we played in 2004??? We were playing somebody worse than South Dakota? Shouldn’t be happening. But that brings me to my next point.
What this graph fails to consider is not only wins/losses but the quality of those wins and losses. Does anybody consider our win versus South Dakota this year in the same conversation as our win over, say, Northwestern? Well, this mapping does. And that concerns me. All the graph shows is whether we won or lost but from a performance standpoint, we don’t deserve to label that game a win.
eh..
3 years from now when we look at a graph like this nobody will care how much we won by. A win’s a win – do you really look back at these and think about which of Mason’t wins should or shouldn’t count as much?
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quality of wins
Maybe Buck could factor in margin of victory with the rank of the opponent team and calculate with that info.
by bobbyspringfield on Dec 15, 2009 11:48 AM CST reply actions
Very Interesting- Nice Work Buck
It looks like we are definitely trending the right way. The problem is that we have all seen our offense regress since the MSU game to the point that it is a complete joke. Without Decker it was painful to watch. This doesn’t give me a good feeling about the direction we are heading, even though these numbers indicate we were better than last year’s team.
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