2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 1

I'm starting a new weekly post in relation to the Death to the BCS Playoffs this season. Since the NCSS rankings do have a bit of a weakness to them, I want to more closely analyze the standings in this more important metric on a weekly basis after all the teams are done playing in a given week.

The first link above will take you to the guide for how playoff points work, but I'll expand on it here. I borrow a model similar to what the Illinois High School Association uses for its football playoffs. In the IHSA, you make the playoffs automatically if you win a minimum of 6 games, though if you win 5 you can sneak in if you have enough "Playoff points", which equal the total number of wins of all your scheduled opponents. I like the idea, but I'm going a step further. The IHSA includes combined wins of defeated opponents in the chart on their page, and that's the metric I use for "First Degree Playoff Points".

Obviously, the more games your team wins, the more playoff points you'll have, but they're worth more if you beat good teams. But how do we define "good teams"? That's why I added the "Second Degree Playoff Points" metric this season. Those are calculated by taking the average number of First Degree Playoff Points of the teams you beat. The average, however, will be determined out of the number of wins each team has. So for example, so we don't imbalance the difference between an eight-win team and an eleven-win team, the gross number of playoff points of the teams beat by our eight and eleven-win teams in question are divided by eight and eleven, respectively. This is to ensure that a ton of zeroes don't screw over the smaller teams. The Second Degree metric is used to see, on average, how good the teams you beat actually were.

Photo by Steven Branscombe (USA TODAY Sports)

One note to make though: because I condemn most FCS matchups (unless people lose to North Dakota State, which I think is hilarious, and so does Rodger Sherman at SBNation), wins over those schools add no playoff points to your resume, First or Second Degree. The idea is that you want to beat the best opposition possible. Of course, this could theoretically mean that if Iowa State runs the table from here on out, they'd get the Big 12 automatic bid and would look like a tank at 11-1, but I'd have to dock them somewhat for losing to NDSU.

So what I'll do in this post is go by conference and look at the average number of Playoff Points, starting with First Degree and then Second Degree. It may not mean a ton, but it helps rank the conferences a little better.

I'm not listing rankings this week though, and if you know the math you'll understand. Teams have played, at most, one game. That means that the 1-0 teams beat 0-1 teams and thus have no playoff points yet; likewise, the 0-1 teams have no wins with which to add playoff points, so they also have no playoff points. Next week will start to see some separation, but in the meantime, I'll give you access to the Google Doc that has my NCSS and Playoff Point spreadsheets so you can keep track of this stuff. Next week's post will have more substance to it, I promise.

Tomorrow I look at the Week 2 schedules in college football as we get into the full swing of things. Hope you enjoyed the opening week!