Five players from LSU and four players from Alabama were drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft last night, the latest in a long line of draft dominance from two of the powerhouses of college football. In addition, another 6 players from the SEC had their names called during the first round: two from Georgia, two from Auburn, and one from both Florida and South Carolina. That gave the conference a record 15 players selected in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

The previous record for players from one conference getting selected in first round of an NFL Draft was 12, set by the ACC in 2006 and matched by the SEC in both 2013 and 2017. ^[1]If you wanted to be cheekyy, and I would expect nothing less out of you, the schools in the current SEC also had 13 players drafted in 2011… when there were 10 players from the SEC drafted in … Continue reading For as long as I can remember — and, assuredly, for longer than that — SEC fans have boasted about the football talent within its conference. At times, the reputation has exceeded the results. But in recent years, there’s no question that the draft has become dominated by the conference. How much more dominant is the SEC at the top of the NFL Draft relative to prior years? [continue reading…]

Through 14 games this season, Alabama outscored its opponents by 31.5 points per game. Last night, in the most shocking national championship game I can remember, Clemson dominated Alabama in historic fashion. The Tigers beat Alabama 44-16, a 28-point margin of victory against a Nick Saban Alabama team that in 12 seasons had never lost a game by more than 14 points.

No team in NFL history has outscored opponents by 20 points per game and then lost a playoff game by 20+ points. The closest comparisons:

• The 1967 Raiders outscored opponents by 16.8 points per game. Oakland defeated Houston 40-7, to up its average points differential per game to 17.9 through 15 games. Then, in the Super Bowl against the Packers, Oakland lost by 19 points, 33-14.
• The 1969 Vikings outscored opponents by 17.6 points per game.  After a couple of close playoff wins, Minnesota lost Super Bowl IV by 16 points, 23-7.

In more recent times: the 2012 Patriots outscored opponents by 14.1 points and lost in the playoffs by 15 points, the 2013 Broncos outscored opponents by 12.9 points and lost by 35 points, and the 2011 Packers outscored opponents by 12.6 points and lost by 17 points.

My first reaction was to think of the 1983 Redskins: that year, Washington outscored opponents by 13.1 points and lost by 29 points.

What I wanted to do was plot team points differential in the regular season against each team’s worst playoff loss.  I plotted regular season points differential on the X-Axis and worst playoff margin on the Y-Axis; then I realized we just want to focus on the bottom right quadrant of that graph (positive regular season points differential, negative playoff margin).  So here is that bottom right quadrant of the graph: [continue reading…]

The college football regular season is over, with the exception of Army/Navy in two weeks. Below are the final ratings prior to the conference championship games: [continue reading…]

Alabama is the best team in college football, and maybe the best team in a generation of college football.

Clemson is fantastic, and is the second best team in college football. A Crimson Tide/Tigers clash in the playoff for a fourth straight year is not going to surprise anyone.

Notre Dame is 10-0 and will make the playoff assuming the Irish can handle Syracuse and USC, two average teams.

That leaves one final spot for the playoff. Ohio State and Michigan are both 9-1 and will play in two weeks. The Buckeyes and Wolverines face Maryland and Indiana this week, so they should be 10-1 as they enter The Big Game for the final week of the regular season. The winner will have the inside track for that 4th spot, assuming they can handle Big 10 West division winner Northwestern in Indianapolis.

The Big 12 also has a pair of 1-loss teams in 9-1 Oklahoma and 8-1 West Virginia (due to Hurricane Florence, the West Virginia game against N.C. State was canceled). Michigan’s one loss was in South Bend, a better loss than Oklahoma’s neutral site loss to Texas. Oklahoma has arguably faced a tougher schedule and it will only get tougher: the Sooners will have to face West Virginia in Morgantown, and then possibly a rematch with West Virginia (or Iowa State) in the Big 12 title game. There seems to be no momentum for the Committee to vault a 12-1 Oklahoma over a 12-1 Michigan, but I suppose it’s at least on the table.

But both the Big 10 and Big 12 will have the possibility of a 1-loss champion, which will lead to some interesting debates for the final spot. My hunch is that the Committee would rank the 1-loss teams in the following order:

1. Michigan
2. Oklahoma
3. Ohio State
4. West Virginia
5. Washington State

Below are the single game results from week 10. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs.

And here are the updated season standings. Yes, Alabama is ridiculous.

Right now, on a neutral field, Alabama would be:

— 6-point favorites against Clemson
— 9-point favorites against Georgia
— 9.5 point favorites against Michigan
— 16-point favorites against Notre Dame
— 22-point favorites against UCF
— 54.5 point favorites against The Citadel, Alabama’s opponent this weekend (that’s based on The Citadel’s 23.5 SRS rating; there actually is no point spread on the game).

In week 10, Alabama produced the win of the season, blanking #3 LSU, 29-0, in Baton Rouge. It was the worst home loss for Louisiana State since 2002, and yet another example of how Alabama is operating on a different level than any other team in college football.

Alabama scored a 91.8 in the SRS for this performance, and the Crimson Tide now have the best two games of the season (Alabama also had a 91.8 in a 62-0 win over Mississippi). The worst game of the year by Alabama (according to the SRS) was a 51-14 drubbing over Louisville on opening weekend. The second-worst game this season was a 65-31 win on the road against Arkansas. A 45-23 win over Texas A&M was the only game the Crimson Tide have won by less than four touchdowns.

Nick Saban has won 5 national championships with Alabama, and his 2016 team was a dominant squad that went 14-0 and lost in the final minute of the national championship game. And yet… this feels like the best Alabama team under Saban, and by a pretty clear margin. And if it’s the best Alabama team under Saban, it’s not too hard to suggest it’s the best Alabama team ever. And if it’s the best Alabama team ever, well, it’s obviously in the discussion for best college football team ever.

That’s how good this 2018 Alabama team is. Right now, they are a touchdown better than the rest of the FBS. Even Clemson has had a couple of unimpressive games: the Tigers needed to rally and score a last minute touchdown to beat an average Syracuse team, and caught a break in a 2-point win over Texas A&M. That’s perfectly normal for an average elite team, but those two blemishes are a standard deviation below anything an apparently invincible Alabama has done this year. Below are the full week 10 SRS ratings. [continue reading…]

It was not a particularly eventful week in terms of college football upsets. No top-5 SRS teams lost, and only two top-10 SRS teams lost — and both lost to very good teams. Iowa ranked 7th in the SRS last week, and lost on the road to Penn State, who ranked 11th in the week 8 ratings. The annual Florida/Georgia game in Jacksonville featured two top 10 teams, with then-#3 Georgia defeating then-#8 Florida.

Other top teams to lose: #13 Washington, #15 Texas A&M, #16 Purdue, #21 Texas Tech, #22 Missouri, #23 Wisconsin, and #26 Texas. The Longhorns may have been 26th in the SRS, but with a 6-1 record and wins over USC, TCU, and Oklahoma, the Longhorns entered week 8 6th in the AP rankings. A loss to Oklahoma State (hi Doug!) in Stillwater now puts the Big 12 playoff picture into chaos. Next week, West Virginia travels to Austin in a matchup of two of the top teams in the conference.

Alabama was off this week, which opened the way for Georgia and Clemson to be the dominant teams of the week. Both teams demolished teams from Florida: the Bulldogs defeated a pretty good Florida team by 19, while Clemson crushed a bad Seminoles team by 49 points. West Virginia, Arizona, and Utah round out the top 5 teams of the week in terms of single game SRS ratings. [continue reading…]

Four teams saw their SRS ratings drop by at least 4 points from their rating one week ago: Ohio State, Oregon State, Minnesota, and Tulane. In that group, Ohio State was the notable loss, of course: Purdue was 38th in the SRS — so better than people may have realized — but still had a rating 14 points lower than that of the Buckeye. Yet in week 8, Purdue blew out Ohio State 49-20, producing one of the three best performances of the season (joining ALabama’s 62-7 blowout against Ole Miss and LSU’s 36-16 win over Georgia).

Purdue was joined by Virginia, North Carolina, California, and Nebraska as teams that saw their SRS rise by at least 4 points. Below are the full SRS ratings through 8 weeks. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs. [continue reading…]

It was an eventful week of college football, with 6 teams ranking in the top 16 falling in week 7:

• #2 Georgia was blown out by LSU, 36-16.

• #6 West Virginia lost to giant killer Iowa State; over the last 53 weeks, the Cyclones have beaten three Big 12 teams that ranked in the top 6: Oklahoma and TCU in 2017, and the Mountaineers 30-14 on Saturday.

• #7 Washington, which had a loss to Auburn in the season opener (and which only looks uglier in retrospect, as the Tigers have gone 2-3 against the rest of the FBS since then), had a perhaps fatal loss to Oregon on Saturday afternoon. The Huskies lost in overtime, 30-27, in Eugene.

• #8 Penn State, a week after a narrow home loss to Ohio State, was upset 21-17 at home against Michigan State.

• #15 Wisconsin was obliterated by Michigan in Ann Arbor, 38-13. The 25-point differential was the worst by the Badgers in a true road game in over a decade.

• #16 Miami lost to Virginia, 16-13.

In addition, Notre Dame narrowly beat Pittsburgh (19-14), Central Florida barely escaped Memphis (31-30), and Texas, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M all escaped with one-score wins. [continue reading…]

It’s time, once again, to release the first edition of the college football Simple Rating System ratings. While it’s too early to put too much weight on these ratings, they help to at least begin framing the discussion of which are the most impressive teams in college football. As a reminder, here is the methodology:

1) For each game not played at a neutral site, 3 points are given to the road team. After that adjustment, all wins and losses of between 7 and 24 points are recorded exactly as such. This means that a 24-10 road win goes down as +17 for the road team, -17 for the home team.

2) With one exception, wins of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7-point wins and losses of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7 point losses. So a 4-point home win goes down as +7 (and not a 1) and a 1-point home loss is a -7 (and not a -4). The one exception is that road losses of 3 or fewer (and home wins of 3 or fewer) are graded as ties. So a 21-20 home victory goes down as a 0 for both teams.

3) Wins/Losses of more than 24 points are scored as the average between the actual number and 24. This is to avoid giving undue credit to teams that run up the score. So a 75-point home win goes down as a 48-point win.

Once we have a rating for each team in each game, we then adjust each result for strength of schedule. This is an iterative process, where we adjust the ratings hundreds of times (to adjust for SOS, you have to adjust for the SOS of each opponent, and the SOS of each opponent’s opponent, and so on.) in Excel. Then we produce final ratings, where the SRS rating is the sum of the Margin of Victory and Strength of Schedule in every week. [continue reading…]

You will not be surprised to learn that Alabama, Ohio State, and Georgia were the three schools that dominated the 2018 NFL Draft. Players from the Crimson Tide were taken using draft slots worth 83.9 points of value, the most of any school; second was Ohio State with 70.4 points of value, followed by Georgia (68.7), USC (55.7), and Penn State (54.5).

On the other hand, with the exception of the number one overall pick, the Big 12 has a pretty shaky draft. In fact, after Baker Mayfield, the next player selected from the Big 12 was Texas guard Connor Williams.  The graph below shows the AV used to select players from each conference in the 2018 Draft:

You probably aren’t surprised to see the SEC finished first among all conferences in draft value spent on its players. The ACC was second, thanks not to the current conference overlord in Clemson, but to…. North Carolina State, Louisville, and Virginia Tech!

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.

UTSA defensive end Marcus Davenport is a likely first round pick who should be one of the more interesting stories of the draft’s opening night. He is also, pound for pound, the fastest man in the draft.

Last year, I used the following formula to project estimated 40-yard dash times based on weight:

Estimated 40-yard dash time = 3.283 + 0.00606 x weight (lbs)

Davenport weighted 264 pounds in Indianapolis, which would give him a projected time of 4.88 seconds.  But Davenport ran the 40 in a blistering 4.58 seconds, a remarkable 0.30 seconds faster than expected for a man of his size.

Georgia linebacker Lorenzo Carter weighed in at 250 pounds, and he ran the 40 in just 4.50 seconds! That’s also 0.30 seconds faster than the weight-influenced expectation of 4.80 for a man of his size. Davenport and Carter ran the two fastest 40-yard dashes after adjusting for weight at the combine. Coming in third? Perhaps the first non-QB off the board in the 2018 Draft, Penn State RB Saquon Barkley. [continue reading…]

Penn State, at 10-2 and a runner-up in the Big Ten East, is not in the college football playoff discussion. But that doesn’t mean the Nittany Lions haven’t been as good as any team this season. After all, had Penn State had played Ohio State at home and won by 1 point instead of losing on the road the Buckeyes by 1 point, the Nittany Lions wouldn’t be any “better” than they are now, while their record would be much better. An 11-1 Penn State with wins over Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan, and Northwestern, and be a lock to make the college football playoff with a win over Wisconsin in the Big 10 Championship Game.

Penn State ranks 7th in points scored and 7th in points allowed among the 130 teams in the FBS. The Nittany Lions are the only team in the top 10 in both categories, and Alabama (1st in points allowed, 12th in points scored) is the only other team in the top 15 in both; Washington (18th in scoring, 6th in points allowed) is the only other team to rank in the top 20 in both. Penn State has outscored opponents by 26.1 points per game, second to only Alabama (27.6) despite a harder schedule. Penn State lost two games on the road by a total of 4 points; but, even though the Nittany Lions rank 1st in the SRS, the loss to Ohio State — which goes down as the best loss of the season (edging Utah’s 3-point road loss in Washington) — is enough to eliminate them from contention.

As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs. The full week 13 NCAA SRS ratings below: [continue reading…]

The SRS ratings this week didn’t change much, with very few meaningful games among top teams.

Penn State, Notre Dame, Washington, and Iowa State fell a bit in close wins over bad teams, while Oklahoma State and Iowa suffered losses. The only other top-25 teams (by the SRS) to lose lost to even better teams: Michigan lost to Wisconsin, and N.C. State losing to Wake Forest.

Right now, three Big 10 teams crack the top four, with Georgia and Auburn combining with #1 Alabama to give the SEC three top-10 teams. The full week 12 SRS ratings are below. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs. [continue reading…]

A week ago, Iowa beat Ohio State 55-24 and recorded the single-best SRS game score (87.5) of the 2017 season. And after the Buckeyes crushed Michigan State on Saturday, that win looks even better: it now measures a whopping 88.5 in the SRS. And yet, it is no longer the top game of the year, not after what Miami just did.

At home against the then-#1 team in the SRS, Notre Dame, the Hurricanes crushed the Irish 41-8. Because Notre Dame still has an impressive 62.2 SRS rating, the 33-point win — which gets knocked down to 27 due to home field and as part of the compression against blowouts — produced an SRS score of 89.2, the best game of the year. And the Buckeyes win over MSU? That was the third best performance of the season, scoring an SRS score of 81.7. And let’s not forget about what Auburn did to Georgia — the Tigers produced the 7th-best game of the year by SRS standards. The table below shows the single-game SRS scores from this week: [continue reading…]

Let’s start today’s post in a different direction: with a look at the biggest surprises of the week. And there was no bigger surprise than Iowa’s blowout win over Ohio State.

After week 10 (which, of course, compresses the ratings since the year-long ratings include the week 10 results), Iowa has an SRS of 55.0, while Ohio State is at 61.6. Given that the game was in Iowa, we would have expected Iowa to lose by 3.6 points.  But Iowa won 55-24, for a difference of 31 points, and an adjusted MOV of 26 points.  That means Iowa exceeded SRS expectations by 29.6 points, the most of any FBS team this week.

Army, Bowling Green, Baylor, and Utah round out the top 5 in terms of biggest overachievers in week 10:

[continue reading…]

You probably weren’t expecting that headline after Penn State lost its first game of the season on Saturday.

A week ago, I wrote that Penn State rose to #2 in the SRS after blowing out Michigan. Now, this week, Penn State is #1 after losing on Saturday? What happened?

#1 Alabama was idle this week, but Penn State had as good a loss as you can get. The Nittany Lions had an SRS rating of 68.2 last week, and only dropped to 67.6 this week. That’s because Penn State lost by 1 point, on the road, to an Ohio State team that ranks 3rd in the SRS. But the real issue is that Alabama dropped significantly, by 3.5 points from week 8 to 9, despite not playing.

How? Alabama is 8-0 with zero of those wins coming against teams that rank in the top 45 in the SRS. Four of those wins have come against terrible SEC teams that rank outside of the top 70 in the SRS in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Vanderbilt. The other four wins came against Florida State, Fresno State, Texas A&M, and Colorado St.

FSU lost 35-3 to Boston College this weekend, causing the Seminoles to drop from 51.1 to 44.5 in the SRS, a -6.6 point drop.

Fresno State lost 26-16 to a terrible UNLV team, causing west coast FSU to drop from 49.5 to 43.4, a -6.1 SRS point drop.

The Aggies lost 35-14 to Mississippi State, dropping Texas A&M by 3.9 points, from 46.2 to 42.3 in the SRS.

And Colorado State lost at home to Air Force by 17 points; that led to a 4.4 point SRS drop, from 43.4 to 39.0.

A week ago, Alabama’s SOS was 42.6 points; that was a little weak, but overwhelmed by the Crimson Tide’s dominance. Now? The average Alabama opponent has a 39.1 SRS rating, and that 3.5-point drop was enough to move Alabama from #1 to #4 in the SRS. It’s weird for sure to see Alabama drop this far, but look at the big picture: the Crimson Tide haven’t faced an opponent in the top 45 of the SRS, and their three best wins are against #48 Florida State, #50 Fresno State, and #58 Texas A&M. [continue reading…]

Week 8 of the college football season didn’t see any big contenders fall. In fact, none of the top 14 teams in last week’s ratings lost. And the two best teams that lost all fell to better teams: last week’s #15 lost to last week’s #3 Penn State, #16 USC lost to #5 Notre Dame.

Let’s start with the most impressive wins of the week, which go to Notre Dame and Penn State. Beating a strong opponent helps, but both teams blew out top 20 opponents.  And Iowa State — a school that hadn’t won more than 3 games since 2012 — continued their remarkable run.  In week 6, the Cyclones shocked a great Oklahoma team to win 38-31 in Norman. The next week, Iowa State stomped on Kansas 45-0, the second largest margin of victory for Iowa State in a game in the last 15 years.  Then, on Saturday, the Cyclones upset Texas Tech, 31-13.  This marked the third straight game where Iowa State covered the point spread by more than 21 points!

The table below shows the SRS ratings from each game in week 8: [continue reading…]

Last week, I introduced the first version of the SRS ratings. Well, there were some big upsets this week which have moved the rankings.

Clemson, which ranked 5th last week and 2nd in the polls, was upset by a Syracuse team that ranked 73rd in the SRS.

Washington, which ranked 8th in the SRS, was upset by Arizona State, which ranked 45th last week.

Washington State looked to be soaring this time a week ago: they ranked 14th in the SRS and were 6-0. But the Cougars were obliterated 37-3 by a Cal team that ranked 58th in the SRS a week ago.

Auburn, Texas Tech, Texas, and San Diego State were also SRS top 25 teams that suffered a loss in week seven.

Even Georgia moves down this week by virtue of a sluggish win over a terrible Missouri team. Entering this week, Missouri was 0-4 against FBS opponents (Auburn, Purdue, South Carolina, Kentucky) with an average loss of 23.25 points; therefore, a 25-point home win over Missouri drops 3 to 4. Right now, Ohio State and Penn State joint Alabama in the top 3.

As for the Buckeyes, yes, they rank #2 despite a 15-point home loss to Oklahoma. Why? They beat Rutgers by 56, Maryland by 48, Nebraska by 42, UNLV by 33, and Army by 31 points: those are the worst losses each of those five teams have had this year. They also beat Indiana by 28, and the Hoosiers have only had one loss worse this year (31 points to Penn State). Yes, the Oklahoma loss was bad, but it’s not easy dropping 40-point wins against Big 10 teams. Think of the SRS as a proxy for the Vegas rankings: and right now, I expect Ohio State to be a home favorite against Penn State in two weeks.

As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs. Below are the SRS ratings through 7 weeks: [continue reading…]

For the last few years, I have introduced the first edition of the College Football SRS Ratings after five weeks. I’m a week late this year, so it’s time to release the first college football ratings. And while it’s too early to put too much weight on these ratings, they help to at least begin framing the discussion of which are the most impressive teams in college football. As a reminder, here is the methodology:

1) For each game not played at a neutral site, 3 points are given to the road team. After that adjustment, all wins and losses of between 7 and 24 points are recorded exactly as such. This means that a 24-10 road win goes down as +17 for the road team, -17 for the home team.

2) With one exception, wins of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7-point wins and losses of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7 point losses. So a 4-point home win goes down as +7 (and not a 1) and a 1-point home loss is a -7 (and not a -4). The one exception is that road losses of 3 or fewer (and home wins of 3 or fewer) are graded as ties. So a 21-20 home victory goes down as a 0 for both teams.

3) Wins/Losses of more than 24 points are scored as the average between the actual number and 24. This is to avoid giving undue credit to teams that run up the score. So a 75-point home win goes down as a 48-point win.

Once we have a rating for each team in each game, we then adjust each result for strength of schedule. This is an iterative process, where we adjust the ratings hundreds of times (to adjust for SOS, you have to adjust for the SOS of each opponent, and the SOS of each opponent’s opponent, and so on.) in Excel. Then we produce final ratings, where the SRS rating is the sum of the Margin of Victory and Strength of Schedule in every week. [continue reading…]

Over the last few days, we have looked at how the top college athletes performed in various drills at the NFL combine, after adjusting for height and weight. Today, we look at the full results and crown a combine champion.

That is a pretty easy thing to do, as it turns out. Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett is likely going to be the first overall pick in the draft, and his performance in Indianapolis cemented such a distinction. Garrett had the 2nd best performance in three separate drills: the 40-yard dash, the bench press, and the vertical jump. Then, he produced a 5th-place finish in the broad jump, while sitting out the 3-cone drill. Garrett competed in four of these five events and his averaged finish was 2.8. That’s tremendous.

The table below shows the results in these five drills. I have also included an average rank, excluding all events where a player didn’t participate. That’s not the best way to do this, but I don’t know of a simpler method to rank them. The far right column shows how many of the 5 events each player competed in, so that can be a useful guide. It’s clear to me that the runner up for Combine King is Solomon Thomas rather than Aviante Collins. Thomas had an average rank of 7.6, but he competed in all five events. Collins has a higher rank at 5.0, but the TCU tackle only competed in the 40 and the bench press. To me, a 1-7-8-8-14 is more impressive than a 5-5-dnp-dnp-dnp, but to keep things simple, I just used a simple average. [continue reading…]

As you can imagine, heavier players fare much worse in the 3-cone drill, and taller players have a slight advantage, too. Here was the best-fit formula from the 2017 combine:

7.3397 -0.0317 * Height (Inches) + 0.0091 * Weight (Pounds)

Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey is one of the more interesting prospects from this draft, and he dominated in the 3-cone drill, finishing in 6.57 seconds, just one hundredth of a second behind the leader. Given his dimensions — 71 inches, 202 pounds — he’d be expected to complete the drill in 6.93. McCaffrey therefore finished the drill in 0.36 seconds more than expected, the 7th-best adjusted performance in this drill.

The top performance belonged to a different Stanford player, defensive end Solomon Thomas, who finished a full 0.50 seconds above expectation. The full results, below: [continue reading…]

Yesterday, we looked at the vertical jump, which is biased towards lighter players. The star at the combine was Connecticut safety Obi Melifonwu, who had both the top vertical jump and the top weight-adjusted vertical jump. Well, Melifonwu also had the longest broad jump at the combine.

The broad jump is also biased in towards lighter players, but it’s also biased towards taller players. As a result, we need to adjust broad jump results for both weight and height: the best-fit formula from the results of the 2017 combine is:

Broad Jump = 84.14 + 1.0766 * Height (Inches) – 0.1940 * Weight (Pounds)

For Melifonwu, he weighed 224 pounds and was 76 inches tall; that means he’d be projected to jump a solid 122.5 inches. That’s a pretty high projection, showing that Melifonwu’s body is well-tailored for this drill. But even still, he exceeded that jump by 18.5 inches, courtesy of his remarkable 141 inch jump. As a result, he once again had both the top jump and the top adjusted jump: [continue reading…]

Let’s begin with the most remarkable of today’s feats: Myles Garrett is getting pretty good at this number two thing. After finishing second in the weight-adjusted 40 and second in the height and weight adjusted bench press, Garrett has again finished second in a combine drill, this time the weight-adjusted vertical.

When it comes to the vertical jump, weight is by far the most important thing that matters. For every additional 16.7 pounds a player weights, his expected vertical declines by one inch. That’s because the best-fit formula for projecting the vertical jump at the 2017 combine was 46.38 – 0.0597 * weight (pounds). Connecticut safety Obi Melifonwu weighed 224 pounds in Indianapolis, which would project him to jump an even 33 inches if he was average at this drill.

Well, Melifonwu was anything but average. He jumped an incredible 44 inches: for comparison’s sake, Florida State / Jacksonville safety Jalen Ramsey had a 41.5 inch vertical last year, tied for the most of any player at the 2016 combine. And that was at 209 pounds. Melifonwu was 15 pounds heavier and jumped 2.5 inches higher. That’s a remarkable feat, and brings to mind some of the great verticals from the 2015 combine.

And while Melifonwu was 11 inches better than expected, Garrett was right on his heels at +10.9 inches. Garrett weighed 272 pounds at the combine, but still jumped an insane 41 inches. That’s only three fewer inches than Melifonwu at 48 pounds heavier. Now because the average player lost 16.7 inches for every pound, that makes Melifonwu’s jump just slightly better, but the two of them were far ahead of the rest of the pack. Below are the full results: [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I looked at the best weight-adjusted 40-yard dash times at the 2017 NFL Combine. The Browns are expected to select Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett with the first overall pick, and with good reason: he had the 2nd best weight-adjusted 40-yard dash time, and he comes in 2nd place again today in the height and weight adjusted bench press.

In 2015, Clemson/Atlanta Falcon Vic Beasley was the bench press champion, using a formula involving expected bench press reps based on a player’s height and weight.  That turned out to be pretty predictive of future success; on the other hand, last year’s winner was Nebraska fullback Andy Janovich, who wound up being a 6th round pick and a minor contributor as a rookie with the Broncos.

The best-fit formula to project bench press reps for the 2017 Combine was:

17.401 -0.3354 * Height (Inches) + 0.1075 * Weight (Pounds)

Using that formula, Garrett — at 76 inches and 272 pounds — would be projected to bench press 225 pounds for 21.1 reps. In reality, Garrett produced a whopping 33 reps, or 11.9 more than expected. The only way to top him was Auburn’s Carl Lawson, who measured at 74 inches and only 261 pounds. Being shorter is better, but being lighter is worse, and Lawson would be projected using the regression to have 20.6 reps on the bench press. Instead, he had 35, or 14.4 more than projected, easily the largest margin at the combine.
[continue reading…]

As I have done for the last few years, this week I will be using the raw NFL combine data and adjusting them various metrics.  With respect to the 40-yard dash, the only adjustment I’ve made is for weight, as no other variable (e.g., height) impacts a player’s 40 time quite like weight.  The best-fit formula to predict 40-yard dash time during the 2017 combine was 3.283 + 0.00606 x weight. ((This time around, I excluded punters, kickers, and long snappers when running regressions, as those players aren’t invited to their combine for their raw athleticism (and removing them made the numbers a little tighter). As you can see

Let’s use Alabama tight end O.J. Howard as an example.  He weighed 251 pounds at the combine, which means he would be projected to run the 40-yard dash in 4.81 seconds. Instead, he ran it in just 4.51 seconds, a full 0.30 better than expected.

That was the best performance of any player at the combine. A very close second was produced by the presumptive number one pick in the draft, Myles Garrett. The Texas A&M defensive end weighed 272 pounds, so using the formula above, a player of Garrett’s size should run the 40 in 4.93 seconds.  But Garrett was 0.29 seconds better than expected, completing the drill in 4.64 seconds. Garrett reportedly bested that time by running 40 yards in 4.57 seconds at his Pro Day, too. [continue reading…]

The college regular season is over, other than Army/Navy this weekend. Let’s start with a review of the final week of the season for the B12, and the conference championship games for the rest of major college football.

Washington’s destruction of Colorado lead the way, while yet another Alabama blowout only comes in second due to the weaker opponent (yes, Florida is nearly ten points worse than Colorado; 2016 is weird). Also, Temple with a huge upset win over Navy comes in third. [continue reading…]

The rankings haven’t changed much from last week. Here’s how the top 15 teams in the SRS last week fared in week 13:

• #1 Alabama handled Auburn in the Iron Bowl, 30-12. The Crimson Tide is a lock for the playoffs, even if they lose in the SECCG (which they’re not going to do).

• #2 Ohio State beat Michigan in perhaps the game of the college football season, 30-27 in double overtime. Ohio State seems like a lock for the playoffs; the Buckeyes regular season is over, as Penn State won the Big 10 East.

• #3 Michigan lost to Ohio State. Michigan’s playoff chances appear dead in the water.

• #4 Washington had the single best game of the week, according to the SRS, beating Washington State in the Apple Cup, 45-17.  It was the 5th best single game score of the year. Washington looks to be in a “win and they’re in” situation, as the Huskies will face Colorado in the P12CG.

• #5 Clemson blew the doors off of South Carolina, 56-7, to finish the regular season 11-1.  The Tigers are in a “win and they’re in” scenario against Virginia Tech in the ACCCG.

• #6 Colorado beat Utah, at home, 27-22, to capture the Pac 12 South.  The Buffaloes may well be in a “win and they’re in” situation in the P12CG against Washington.  More on that in a bit.

• #7 Wisconsin handled Minnesota, 31-17.  Wisconsin won the Big 10 West, and will face Penn State in the B10CG.

• #8 Southern Cal beat Notre Dame, 45-27, but USC’s season is over now that Colorado has won the South.

• #9 Louisville shockingly lost to Kentucky, 41-38. Louisville finished the year 9-3, with two straight bad losses.

• #10 Washington State lost to Washington, ending WAZZOU’s playoff hopes.

• #11 Oklahoma was off.  The Sooners can still win the conference at 10-2 with a win in the de facto B12CG this weekend against Oklahoma State.

• #12 Penn State beat Michigan State, 45-12.  The Nittany Lions will face Wisconsin in the B10CG.

Below are the week 13 SRS results: [continue reading…]

It was a very good week for Oklahoma.

The Sooners were easy to write off early in the 2016 season, after two bad losses in the first three weeks. Oklahoma failed to cover by 23 points against Houston (33-23 loss, as a 13-point favorite) and Ohio State (45-24, as a 2-point favorite), which appeared to knock them out of the national discussion.

But Houston did the Sooners a favor by knocking off Louisville on Thursday night, eliminating (for now) the Cardinals from the playoff picture. Houston recorded a single-game SRS score of 79.5 for that performance, the top game of the week. And the better Houston looks, the more forgivable that loss is from Oklahoma’s perspective.

Oklahoma also doubled-up on West Virginia, 56-28, the third-best game of the week. And the fourth-best game of the week came from Oklahoma State, who destroyed TCU. The Sooners and Cowboys face off in two weeks in a de facto Big 12 playoff game: the teams are 8-0 and 7-1 in conference play, respectively, with every other team having at least two conference losses.

Below are the single-game ratings from week twelve: [continue reading…]

The story of the college football season had been the lack of any crazy upsets. It felt as though we were on a predetermined path to the college football playoffs, with Alabama, Clemson, Washington, and the Ohio State/Michigan winner taking the four spots.

Then, Saturday happened. The six best teams this year have combined to lose just five games, and *three* of them came in week eleven:

• Pittsburgh went into Clemson and won, 43-42. This was a shocking upset: the Tigers were favored by 21.5 points.

• Less of an upset was seeing USC (+10) go in to Seattle and double up the Huskies, 26-13.  This registered as the 2nd most dominant win of the week, behind only Ohio State’s 62-3 thrashing of Maryland.

• And then the most shocking development of the weekend: Michigan, #1 in the SRS last week, falling to Iowa in Iowa City.  The Wolverines were 24-point favorites, and would have been 22.7-point SRS favorites over a Hawkeyes team that ranked 44th in the SRS a few days ago.

Oh, and in addition to Ohio State taking care of business, Alabama crushed MSU, 51-3, for the 3rd best SRS game of the week.  Below are the single-game SRS ratings from week 11: [continue reading…]