The College Football Blog: 2012 Final Season Résumé Rankings

Final Résumé Rankings

1. Alabama 13-1 (4^th)

2. Notre Dame 12-1 (1^st)

3. Florida 11-2 (2^nd)

4. Stanford 12-2 (3^rd)

5. Oregon 12-1 (7^th)

6. Ohio State 12-0 (6^th)

7. South Carolina 11-2 (10^th)

8. Kansas State 11-2 (5^th)

9. Texas A&M 11-2 (NR)

10. Georgia 12-2 (NR)

Out: Oklahoma (8^th); LSU (9^th).

Comments: So these are the final season résumé rankings for 2012. It’s kind of cool because this is the first year that I’ve really had a good formula. It took a while for me to get my final rankings out this year, and that was partially due to the fact that it’s just a longer process making these rankings than it used to be. But it’s worth it. 

I try not to overreact to the results of the bowl games but I did end up changing the strength of opponent levels of 12 teams, so I had to go back and recalculate some teams’ résumés. In addition, I had to add in the results of the bowl games. Finally, I decided to expand the pool of eligible teams to include all teams with less than 4 losses. That increased the number of eligible teams from 32 to 41. The 41 teams included in the pool were made up of 1 team with no losses; 3 teams with 1 loss; 13 teams with 2 losses; 8 teams with 3 losses; and 16 teams with 4 losses. 

However, just as I found when I included 3-loss teams in the previous edition of these rankings, expanding the pool of eligible teams to include 4-loss teams had no effect on the top 10. No team in the final top 10 lost more than 2 games. This is not to say that the process of including 3-loss and 4-loss teams was unnecessary. The two teams that just missed the top 10 (Oklahoma and LSU) both had 3-losses. No 4-loss team was that close but Nebraska was close enough to measure for sure. Next year I’ll be expanding these rankings from a top 10 to a top 15 and that will make it even more important to include multi-loss teams. But in reality, the “eligibility line” is just something to help make the process less time consuming.  

When I finished tallying all the scores and ranked the teams 1-10 I was surprised. I was not only surprised but admittedly relieved that the rankings worked out with Alabama at #1 and Notre Dame at #2. I was worried that Notre Dame would end up #1 despite being blown out by Bama in the national title game, especially considering that Florida had been the closest team to ND going into the bowl season and they had suffered a terrible loss to Louisville. In the end, Bama was able to close the gap by getting excellent wins during championship week and bowl season, while Notre Dame got no wins after week 13. 

ND’s win over USC was also downgraded after bowl season, but to be honest, that was a correction that absolutely had to be made. USC just wasn’t any good this season. They ended up at “Average” on my strength of opponent scale, and if my rankings were sophisticated enough to account for injuries, they would have been worse than that when Notre Dame played them. Bama benefited from Vandy moving up on the scale to “Good,” but ND got an equal boost from Michigan State making an identical rise from “Average” to “Good.” 

There was quite a bit of change in the final edition of these rankings; more than I expected. Overall, 9 of 10 spots experienced change; this was a big shift from the previous edition when there were no changes at all. 3 teams moved up in the rankings and all 3 of those teams moved up more than 1 spot. I also switched out 2 teams in the final edition of these rankings. 4 teams moved down in the rankings while remaining in the top 10. Of those 4 teams, only 1 fell more than 1 spot. 

Oklahoma fell out of the rankings from #8, while LSU dropped out of the rankings from #9. Texas A&M and Georgia climbed back into the rankings at #9 and #10 respectively. Alabama and South Carolina both moved up 3 spots in the final rankings. Bama climbed 3 spots from #4 to #1, while SC rose 3 spots from #10 to #7. Kansas State took the biggest fall in the rankings in the final edition, dropping 3 spots from #5 to #8. 

Bama moved all the way from #4 to #1 to claim the top spot in the final edition of the season résumé rankings. It was their first time at the top of these rankings since week 7. Notre Dame’s 4-week run atop the season résumé rankings came to a halt, as they dropped 1 spot to #2 in the final edition. 

Despite suffering a terrible loss to Louisville in the Sugar Bowl, Florida fell only 1 spot in these rankings from #2 to #3. Stanford also fell 1 spot in the rankings from #3 to #4, despite their win over Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Oregon got a huge win over Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl and managed to slip into the top 5 in the final edition, climbing 2 spots from #7 to #5. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the only team that remained in place within the top 10 in the final edition was Ohio State. The Buckeyes did not play in a bowl game and they stayed at #6 in the final rankings. Ohio State was the only team in the country that finished the season undefeated but that ended up out of the top 5 in these rankings. On the other hand, Alabama was the only team that finished the season with 13 wins and they ended up at the top of these rankings. 

No team with more than 2-losses finished in the top 10. Florida finished as the highest ranked 2-loss team in these rankings at #3, while Oregon was the lowest ranked 1-loss team in these rankings at #5. 

For next season I think I’m going to keep the formula mostly the same, while expanding the list from a top 10 to a top 15. One reason for this is that I’ll be able to combine my power rankings and my season résumé rankings to come up with a third top 15. 

I’m also considering ranking teams by per-game average rather than total number. That would have made ND #1 and Bama #2 this season. However, at this point I don’t think I’ll make the switch. Most of the time I value per-game average over total, but the college football season is very unusual. One of the things about my formula is that you aren’t rewarded for playing weak teams and you aren’t punished for playing the most difficult teams. However, I don’t really want to punish teams simply for playing weak teams. That’s what it would come down to in a lot of cases. Instead of simply getting no credit for destroying an FCS team, it would almost be like a loss because it would count as a zero in the average. 

I don’t know if that makes any sense. In truth, I’m sure a reasonably smart math guy could destroy my entire formula. But I honestly don’t care. I like the formula and I think these rankings are useful.