The ARGH pre-season power ratings are computed using the following factors, with the strength of each factor varying each year based on what has happened in the three previous years:
Previous Year's Power Rating. This is the single most powerful predictor of the current year's power rating, both because much of the team responsible for the previous year's results will be back and because the previous year's results are an indication in and of themselves of the talent level of the team. This factor is down for 2001.
Second Previous Year's Power Rating. This is used because much of the team will still be around after two years, and because it helps to create a historical context with which to judge a team. In other words, if a good team has an off year, this factor will tend to predict that team to bounce back. This factor is up for 2001.
Number of returning starters. The number of projected starters is a fairly powerful indicator of whether a team will get better or worse. This factor is up for 2001.
In the past, I've used the number of returning starters from The Sporting News' College Football Yearbook with a few modifications because they had the most complete information. In 1999 TSN decided to reformat their team previews and in the process they decided to stop naming the returning starters, instead going with either two-deep projected starters and the number of starters lost or one-deep projected starters only, depending on whether the team in question was prominent enough for them. In 2001, some teams don't have returning starters listed at all. As a result, and combined with the fact that I found their choices of who was a returning starter to be unreliable, I no longer buy their preview. This year I used a projected starter figure averaged from Athlon, Phil Steele, Jim Feist and cbs.sportsline.com, with research at Stats, Inc. and elsewhere determining whether a team returned a starting quarterback, kicker, or punter.
Returning Coach. A team changing coaches tends to get a little worse during the year immediately after the change, presumably due to a period of adjustment to the new coach's system. This factor was gone for 2000, but is back in 2001.
Returning Starting Quarterback. The quarterback is far and away the most important position in terms of experience, and a returning starting quarterback is worth much more than a returning starter at any other position. This factor is up for 2001.
Previous year's strength of schedule. This factor is supposed to work under the theory that teams tend to play up or down to the level of their competition. This factor came back in 2000 after a one year absence, and although it's still fairly weak, it's about twice as strong in 2001 as it was in 2000.
Recruiting. I'm using Athlon's recruiting rankings again in 2001, as analysis has consistently shown a small but reasonably significant positive correlation between recruiting and a team's preformance in the next season. The recruiting factor is down in 2001.
In actual usage, this factor will probably serve to keep teams and conferences somewhere near the level they've played at in previous years. The model I'm using isn't going to vault a team with a #1 recruiting ranking over a team with a #2 recruiting ranking unless they were very, very close to begin with, but it will usually jump a team ranked in the top 50 recruiting classes over a team that isn't from four or five places down.
Factors that are NOT used to calculate the ratings are:
Previous years' power ratings beyond two years. There's no evidence that these are statistically significant to the current year's power rankings.
Current year's strength of schedule. Almost every year some team is touted for the national championship because their schedule is so weak. You may recognize this year's version of that team; they're known as the Texas Longhorns. Every year that team loses, usually more than one game, and usually early. Having a weak schedule does not make a team strong, and having a tough schedule does not make a team weak. These power ratings are meant to measure how good a team is, not to measure a team's ability to beat patsies.
Individual player talent. I don't pretend to know how to judge anything like this, and even the people who do are usually subject to either their own biases or a lack of context. Talent usually manifests itself in a team's record for the previous year, or possibly in a team's recruiting.
Because I like them. Cal, my alma mater, is ranked seventh among Pac-10 teams in the 2001 preseason rankings. To be fair, that's probably more optimistic than most will have them...
Because I dislike them. Notre Dame and Stanford are both in the top fifteen this year.
Because you like them. These ratings are strictly mathematical, and an e-mail that says something like
"Your ratings suck! I'm a 1977 alumni of Wild Card U., and in my unbiased opinion, my Jokers are going to go all the way!! Go Jokers!!!!!!"
--myopicphan@wildcardu.edu
won't change the formulas or the ratings.
This page last modified July 17, 2001.
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