Welcome back sports fans. Yesterday we published the first GCR of the season with some surprising results. The top 5 teams are all from the SEC. I know some of you out there may be accusing me of bias, but I’m really not that smart. My good friend JW who is the other guy in the logo photo this year accused me of that anytime South Carolina was ranked higher than Auburn. The reality is the GCR is too complex for me to build bias in. More on that in a minute. So what happened? Well, if you look at the top 25 it’s made up of 9 Big Ten teams, 8 SEC teams, 5 ACC teams, 2 Big 12 teams, and Notre Dame. When we look at the 130 games last week, there were 14 shutouts and 22 additional games in which the loser scored 7 points or less. The SEC at 13-3 averaged over 45 points a game and gave up less than 10 while the Big Ten averaged just over 32 a game and gave up less than 9 while totaling a 17-1 record. It makes sense that after a single game, the algorithm would highlight them. Keep in mind, it’s week 1. Things will change. The GCR is not like the polls where voter’s bias clouds the facts.
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The GCR, at the same time, cannot say “every team is treated equally” because there is one assumption built in. Is it fair? I don’t really know. I have checked after a complete season and things sort of work out without The Assumption, but not to reality. Let’s say an FCS team runs the table like South Dakota St did last year. Without The Assumption, they would have been ranked in the top 40. Does that mean they would beat most of the FBS? The honest answer is no. They would have won some and maybe even been favored in some, but they wouldn’t be considered equal to, say an 9-4 Mountain West Team or a 7-5 Big Ten team. So The Assumption: all ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC teams along with Notre Dame (the Core 4) have The Assumption that playing them is harder than other levels. The Group of 5 (American, Conference USA, UCONN and UMASS (Independents), MAC, MWC, Pac-(1)2, and Sun Belt) are considered “lesser” than the Core 4 but greater than the FCS. The FCS (everyone else in Division I) is considered “lesser” than the Group of 5 but greater than non-Division I teams.
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So why does that matter? Playing an FBS team maximizes the Strength of Schedule (SOS) for any opponent. FBS vs FBS is equal, but when a G5 or FCS team plays up they get a big boost. Playing “down” diminishes the SOS a good bit depending on how far “down”. Also losing “up” doesn’t impact the performance score as much as losing “equal” or “down”. Winning “down” counts a little less than winning “equal”. If a team in this week’s Top 25 got there by beating an FBS team but plays an FCS team next week, they could drop a few places even if they win 77-0 because of The Assumption and its impact. Oh yeah, to avoid rewarding blowouts against lesser opponents, the GCR has a sliding scale for victory margin. Roughly anything after the 21st point has such a small fraction of impact it would only potentially help a team in week 1. For example, in the first game of the season, an ACC team beats an FCS school 73-0 at home and an SEC team beats an FCS school 72-0 at home. The GCR would take that millionth of a point difference and give the ACC team a higher rating.
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The takeaway. I was just as surprised as you were that the SEC took the top 5. I’ve never seen that before in 12 years or so of doing this math. There’s no bias, just a bunch of blowouts that created first-week-type numbers that won’t hold up over the season for any team. All of that to say, just hang on. There will be a shakeup next week, even if all of the top 25 wins again. There’s a reason I used to wait until week 4 to publish – weird things happen when the denominator is small.
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That’s it for today. Thank you for reading and especially for sharing with others, G
