Category Archives: Football
NFL Rankings – After week 17 (using only games from 2011 season)
These are the NFL rankings using only data from the 2011 season. My NFL rankings all season have used games from 2010 in my rankings. I wanted to see how they would look if I dropped the 2010 data points.
Rankings updated as of 1/1/2012; Records updated as of 1/1/2012; CHFF rankings as of 12/28/2011.
AFC NFC
Playoff team
Division Champ
Eliminated from Playoffs
| Team | Rank | Seed | Record | CHFF Rank |
| Green Bay | 1 | 1 | 15-1 | 1 |
| San Francisco | 2 | 2 | 13-3 | 4 |
| Detroit | 3 | 6 | 10-6 | 8 |
| Pittsburgh | 4 | 5 | 12-4 | 6 |
| Baltimore | 5 | 2 | 12-4 | 5 |
| New England | 6 | 1 | 13-3 | 3 |
| New Orleans | 7 | 3 | 13-3 | 2 |
| 8 | – | 8-8 | 23 | |
| Houston | 9 | 3 | 10-6 | 7 |
| Atlanta | 10 | 5 | 10-6 | 11 |
| Cincinnati | 11 | 6 | 9-7 | 9 |
| 12 | – | 8-8 | 15 | |
| Denver | 13 | 4 | 8-8 | 16 |
| 14 | – | 8-8 | 13 | |
| 15 | – | 8-8 | 18 | |
| 16 | – | 8-8 | 14 | |
| 17 | – | 9-7 | 20 | |
| NY Giants | 18 | 4 | 9-7 | 10 |
| 19 | – | 7-9 | 19 | |
| 20 | – | 7-9 | 26 | |
| 21 | – | 6-10 | 24 | |
| 22 | – | 6-10 | 17 | |
| 23 | – | 8-8 | 12 | |
| 24 | – | 8-8 | 21 | |
| 25 | – | 4-12 | 31 | |
| 26 | – | 5-11 | 25 | |
| 27 | – | 6-10 | 22 | |
| 28 | – | 4-12 | 27 | |
| 29 | – | 3-13 | 28 | |
| 30 | – | 5-11 | 29 | |
| 31 | – | 2-14 | 30 | |
| 32 | – | 2-14 | 32 |
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
NFL Rankings After week 16
Rankings updated as of 12/22/2011; Records updated as of 6:22pm 12/24/2011; CHFF rankings as of 12/28/2011
AFC NFC
Clinched Playoff Berth
Divison Leader Division Champ
Eliminated from Playoffs
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | CHFF Rank |
| New England | 1 | – | 12-3 | 3 |
| Green Bay | 2 | – | 14-1 | 1 |
| Pittsburgh | 3 | – | 11-4 | 6 |
| Baltimore | 4 | – | 11-4 | 5 |
| Atlanta | 5 | – | 9-6 | 11 |
| New Orleans | 6 | – | 12-3 | 2 |
| NY Jets | 7 | – | 8-7 | 15 |
| 8 | – | 7-8 | 23 | |
| NY Giants | 9 | ↑ | 8-7 | 10 |
| San Francisco | 10 | ↓ | 12-3 | 4 |
| Detroit | 11 | – | 10-5 | 8 |
| 12 | – | 7-8 | 12 | |
| 13 | – | 7-8 | 18 | |
| Oakland | 14 | ↑↑↑ | 8-7 | 14 |
| 15 | ↓ | 4-11 | 30 | |
| Cincinnati | 16 | ↑↑↑↑↑ | 9-6 | 9 |
| 17 | ↓↓ | 6-9 | 26 | |
| 18 | ↑ | 5-10 | 22 | |
| Houston | 19 | ↓↓↓ | 10-5 | 7 |
| 20 | ↓↓ | 7-8 | 19 | |
| Dallas | 21 | ↓ | 8-7 | 13 |
| Tennessee | 22 | – | 8-7 | 20 |
| 23 | ↑ | 6-9 | 24 | |
| Denver | 24 | ↓ | 8-7 | 16 |
| 25 | ↑↑↑ | 2-13 | 30 | |
| 26 | ↑↑↑↑ | 3-12 | 28 | |
| 27 | ↓ | 4-11 | 27 | |
| 28 | ↓↓↓ | 7-8 | 21 | |
| 29 | ↓↓ | 4-11 | 29 | |
| 30 | ↓ | 5-10 | 25 | |
| 31 | ↑ | 6-9 | 17 | |
| 32 | ↓ | 2-13 | 32 |
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
NFL Chernoff faces
Here are some Chernoff faces through week 16 of the 2011 NFL season. From the graph there seems to be two classes of elite NFL teams: 1) tall skinny faces with brownish hair and 2) short, wider faces with green hair.
The first group represents teams with mainly passing offenses who score a lot of points, but also get a lot of points scored against them. These teams are Detroit, New England, New Orleans, and Green Bay.
The other group relies more heavily on running offenses and a stingy defense to earn their wins. These teams are Houston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.
If you look at the 2010 Chernoff faces from last year at the end of the season, you’ll notice that Green Bay has moved from being a team that won with great defense to a team that is now winning with a highly productive offense. You should also notice that the two super bowl teams from last year, Pittsburgh and Green Bay, are located in the area of the graph that I defined as group 2.
Finally, one of the things I find most amazing about both of these graphs from 2010 and 2011 is that they demonstrate very clearly just how many penalties the Raiders are committing. You’d think they would try to improve upon this from one year to the next, but I guess it’s just part of their “style” where, here, “style” means being one of the worst franchises of the decade.
Cheers.
NFL Rankings Christmas Edition – 12/22/2011
Rankings updated as of 12/22/2011; Records updated as of 6:22pm 12/24/2011
AFC NFC
Clinched Playoff Berth
Divison Leader Division Champ
Eliminated from Playoffs
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | CHFF Rank |
| New England | 1 | ↑ | 12-3 | 3 |
| Green Bay | 2 | ↓ | 13-1 | 1 |
| Pittsburgh | 3 | – | 11-4 | 7 |
| Baltimore | 4 | – | 11-4 | 6 |
| Atlanta | 5 | – | 9-5 | 8 |
| New Orleans | 6 | ↑ | 11-3 | 2 |
| NY Jets | 7 | ↓ | 8-7 | 11 |
| Chicago | 8 | – | 7-7 | 23 |
| San Francisco | 9 | ↑↑ | 11-3 | 4 |
| NY Giants | 10 | ↓↓ | 8-7 | 14 |
| Detroit | 11 | ↓ | 9-5 | 9 |
| 12 | – | 6-8 | 17 | |
| San Diego | 13 | ↑↑ | 7-7 | 13 |
| 14 | ↓ | 4-11 | 29 | |
| 15 | ↑↑ | 6-9 | 25 | |
| Houston | 16 | ↓↓ | 10-5 | 5 |
| Oakland | 17 | ↓ | 8-7 | 16 |
| Seattle | 18 | ↑↑↑ | 7-7 | 18 |
| 19 | ↓ | 5-10 | 20 | |
| Dallas | 20 | ↑↑ | 8-6 | 10 |
| Cincinnati | 21 | ↓ | 9-6 | 12 |
| Tennessee | 22 | ↓↓↓ | 8-7 | 22 |
| Denver | 23 | – | 8-6 | 15 |
| 24 | – | 6-9 | 26 | |
| 25 | ↑↑↑↑ | 7-8 | 19 | |
| 26 | ↓ | 4-11 | 27 | |
| 27 | ↓ | 4-11 | 28 | |
| 28 | – | 2-13 | 32 | |
| 29 | ↑ | 5-10 | 24 | |
| 30 | ↓↓↓ | 3-12 | 30 | |
| 31 | – | 2-13 | 31 | |
| 32 | – | 6-9 | 21 |
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
SITW Super Bowl Odds
As of 2:22pm on 12/18/2011.
| Team | SITW Odds | WSEX.com Odds |
| Green Bay | 4-1 | 1.5-1 |
| New England | 5-1 | 4.5-1 |
| Pittsburgh | 7-1 | 11-1 |
| Baltimore | 8-1 | 8-1 |
| New Orleans | 9-1 | 6.5-1 |
| Atlanta | 15-1 | 30-1 |
| Houston | 22-1 | 16-1 |
| NY Jets | 23-1 | 35-1 |
| San Francisco | 24-1 | 18-1 |
| NY Giants | 45-1 | 30-1 |
| Detroit | 45-1 | 66-1 |
| Dallas | 70-1 | 45-1 |
| Chicago | 70-1 | 200-1 |
| Oakland | 160-1 | 100-1 |
| Denver | 160-1 | 30-1 |
| Cincinnati | 500-1 | 250-1 |
Cheers.
NFL Playoff Projections After Week 14
| Seed | AFC | NFC |
| 1 | New England | Green Bay |
| 2 | Pittsburgh | New Orleans |
| 3 | Houston | San Francisco |
| 4 | Denver | NY Giants |
| 5 | Baltimore | Atlanta |
| 6 | NY Jets | Detroit |
Cheers.
StatsInTheWild picks all 35 bowl games
I’ve picked all 35 bowl games based on my rankings. I’ll post my running record as the games are played. (Also, check out my final regular season rankings here.)
And which games am I looking forward to this year? My number one pick for bowl entertainment is the Fight Hunger bowl. This monstrosity of a “bowl game” will feature a UCLA team with a losing record who had to petition the NCAA to even be allowed to play in a bowl game and an Illinois team on a 6 game losing streak. These are the kind of match-ups that I live for.
Record: 21-14
✓=Correct Pick; ✗=Incorrect Pick
| Bowl | Predicted Winner | Outcome |
| New Mexico | Wyoming | ✗ |
| Famous Idaho Potato | Ohio | ✓ |
| New Orleans | San Diego State | ✗ |
| St.Petersburg | Marshall | ✓ |
| Poinsetta | TCU | ✓ |
| Las Vegas | Boise State | ✓ |
| Hawaii | Southern Miss | ✓ |
| Independence | Missouri | ✓ |
| Little Caesars | Purdue | ✓ |
| Belk | Louisville | ✗ |
| Military | Toledo | ✓ |
| Holiday | Texas | ✓ |
| Champs Sports | Notre Dame | ✗ |
| Alamo | Baylor | ✓ |
| Armed Forces | Tulsa | ✗ |
| Pinstripe | Iowa State | ✗ |
| Music City | Miss State | ✓ |
| Insight | Oklahoma | ✓ |
| Texas | Texas A&M | ✓ |
| Sun | Georgia Tech | ✗ |
| Liberty | Cincy | ✓ |
| Fight Hunger | UCLA | ✗ |
| Chick-fil-A | Auburn | ✓ |
| Ticketcity | Houston | ✓ |
| Outback | Georgia | ✗ |
| Capital One | South Carolina | ✓ |
| Gator | Florida | ✓ |
| Rose | Oregon | ✓ |
| Fiesta | Oklahoma State | ✓ |
| Sugar | Virginia Tech | ✗ |
| Orange | Clemson | ✗ |
| Cotton | Kansas State | ✗ |
| Compass | SMU | ✓ |
| Godaddy.com | Arkansas State | ✗ |
| BCS Championship | LSU | ✗ |
Cheers.
One More Arbitrary NCAA Football Ranking Scheme for the BCS – 12/4/2011
Rankings as of 12/04/2011. Previous weeks rankings here.
The BCS explained: It used to be that a national champion in college football was determined solely by human polls. However, human polls are suspect because you are asking each voter to process the results of hundreds of college football games from teams all across the country and form a well thought out, reasoned ranking of the top 25 teams, which is clearly impossible; It’s too much data for a human to handle. That’s why the BCS introduced the computer rankings which could, without personal bias, crunch the numbers and produce a ranking taking all games into account equally. The computer rankings, on the average, do a very reasonable job of ranking the teams. Ultimately, however, the non-human polls, a computational exercise in futility, are simply ignored, as they are overwhelmed by the human polls, and the BCS gets what it wants while it hides behind the computer polls to offer a whiff of legitimacy to the absolute garbage it spews out.
BCS Bowl Team
ACC Big East Big Ten Big 12 Pac 12 SEC Other
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | BCS Rank |
| LSU | 1 | – | 13-0 | 1 |
| Oklahoma State | 2 | – | 11-1 | 3 |
| Kansas State | 3 | ↑↑ | 10-2 | 8 |
| Alabama | 4 | ↑ | 11-1 | 2 |
| Oklahoma | 5 | ↓↓ | 9-3 | 14 |
| Baylor | 6 | ↑ | 9-3 | 12 |
| Stanford | 7 | ↓ | 11-1 | 4 |
| Oregon | 8 | ↑↑↑ | 11-2 | 5 |
| Arkansas | 9 | ↓ | 10-2 | 6 |
| South Carolina | 10 | ↓ | 10-2 | 9 |
| USC | 11 | ↓ | 10-2 | |
| Georgia | 12 | – | 10-3 | 16 |
| Virginia Tech | 13 | – | 11-2 | 11 |
| Boise State | 14 | ↑↑↑ | 11-1 | 7 |
| Michigan | 15 | ↑ | 10-2 | 13 |
| Wisconsin | 16 | ↑↑ | 11-2 | 10 |
| Texas | 17 | ↓↓↓ | 7-5 | 24 |
| Clemson | 18 | ↑↑↑↑ | 10-3 | 15 |
| Nebraska | 19 | ↓ | 9-3 | 20 |
| Houston | 20 | ↓↓↓↓↓ | 12-1 | 19 |
| Missouri | 21 | – | 7-5 | |
| TCU | 22 | ↑↑↑↑↑ | 10-2 | 18 |
| Michigan State | 23 | ↓↓↓ | 10-3 | 17 |
| Penn State | 24 | ↑ | 9-3 | 22 |
| Texas A&M | 25 | ↓ | 6-6 |
And finally, representing the Big East/Big Least: West Virginia
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
One More Arbitrary NCAA Football Ranking Scheme for the BCS – 11/27/2011
Rankings as of 11/27/2011. Previous weeks rankings here.
Some people were not thrilled about my rankings last week when I still had Oklahoma State ranked number 1. For example, one guy critically criticized me by saying: “I’m impressed! You spell very well and your paragraph structure is spot in. That us amazing since it is apparent that you are fucking retarded.” He will be happy to know that I now have LSU ranked number 1.
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | BCS Rank |
| LSU | 1 | 1 | 12-0 | 1 |
| Oklahoma State | 2 | -1 | 10-1 | |
| Oklahoma | 3 | 1 | 9-2 | |
| Alabama | 4 | 1 | 11-1 | |
| Kansas State | 5 | -2 | 9-2 | |
| Stanford | 6 | 3 | 11-1 | |
| Baylor | 7 | 0 | 8-3 | |
| Arkansas | 8 | -2 | 10-2 | |
| South Carolina | 9 | 1 | 10-2 | |
| USC | 10 | 2 | 10-2 | |
| Oregon | 11 | 0 | 10-2 | |
| Georgia | 12 | 2 | 10-2 | |
| Virginia Tech | 13 | -5 | 11-1 | |
| Texas | 14 | -1 | 7-4 | |
| Houston | 15 | 0 | 12-0 | |
| Michigan | 16 | 2 | 10-2 | |
| Boise State | 17 | 4 | 10-1 | |
| Nebraska | 18 | 5 | 9-3 | |
| Wisconsin | 19 | 10-2 | ||
| Michigan State | 20 | 4 | 10-2 | |
| Missouri | 21 | 1 | 7-5 | |
| Clemson | 22 | -6 | 9-3 | |
| Iowa State | 23 | -6 | 6-5 | |
| Texas A&M | 24 | -4 | 6-6 | |
| Penn State | 25 | -6 | 9-3 |
BCS: My offer still stands…….if you want to contact me you can send me a tweet @StatsInTheWild.
Cheers.
Defending my rankings
Ok. So I’m not sure I can defend my rankings, but I am going to try. Even after losing to Iowa State, I still have Oklahoma State ranked number 1. Let me try to explain what I think it going on.
The Big 12 won a lot of their non-conference games at the beginning of the season, so I’ve had them ranked as the best conference for most of the way. What this means is that since most of the teams are ranked so high in the Big 12, that a loss to one of those really good teams doesn’t hurt that much
Ok State won it’s first three games easily over Louisiana-Lafayette, Arizona, and Tulsa. Then they had to play 9 straight conference games in the toughest conference in the country. Their only real weak game in conference play is Kansas. They’ve beat Texas A&M, Texas, Kansas State, Missouri, Texas Tech, and Baylor before falling to Iowa State. That’s impressive. According to my rankings, all 6 of these teams are top 25. And their one loss is to a team that I had ranked at 22 before they beat Ok State (I have Iowa State at 17 now). They also beat Tulsa, who I have ranked 29th.
LSU’s conference wins are against Mississippi, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, and Alabama. (Georgia and South Carolina are noticeably absent from LSU’s schedule.) The first 6 teams have a combined record of 29-38. Then they have that big win over Alabama.
Their non-conference games were against Oregon, West Virginia, Northwestern State, and Western Kentucky. The Oregon win is impressive, but the other three games are jokes. West Virginia is currently third in the Big “We still really get an automatic BCS berth?” East, and LSU shouldn’t even be allowed to schedule games against Northwestern State and Western Kentucky. As I see it, LSU has three wins over top 25 teams (Alabama, Oregon, and Auburn).
In review, I have Ok State at 6-1 against top 25 teams and LSU at 3-0. My ranking system rewards teams for playing tough games and Oklahoma State has had one of the toughest schedules in the country this season week in and week out, while LSU the occasional tough opponent. From top to bottom the Big 12 is much deeper than the SEC.
So that’s my attempt at a defense. I guess I’ll have to wait until the bowl game results to see if I am right.
Cheers.
Stats in the Wild 