FEI Off/Def/SpT Rankings 2018

Cam

Cam

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Football Outsiders released their first Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) offensive, defensive, and special teams rankings today. For anyone who doesn't know, FEI is a pretty reliable set of ratings/rankings for teams that does its best to clean up and normalize all of the data. This means things like taking out garbage drives at the end of games/halves (taking a knee or safely running the ball to kill clock) and adjusting ratings based on opponents' strength. The latter makes it a lot more accurate than simply quoting points per game or per drive because all the data for each team feeds off the others.

You can read up on it more on their site (linked below), but they're generally an accurate set of rankings that measure overall efficiency on both sides of the ball. They generally hold off until after the 7th week in order to make sure there is enough data. Their rankings will get more accurate as the season goes on, but below are the rankings as of now.

Website: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei

Offense:
3. Georgia
11. Georgia Tech
19. Clemson
64. Virginia Tech
67. Miami
68. Virginia
71. Duke
79. Pittsburgh
83. South Florida
87. North Carolina
108. Bowling Green
111. Louisville

Defense:
1. Clemson
6. Miami
21. Georgia
22. Duke
27. Virginia
72. South Florida
81. Pittsburgh
82. Virginia Tech
99. Georgia Tech
106. North Carolina
111. Louisville
127. Bowling Green

Special Teams:
6. Georgia
10. North Carolina
32. Virginia Tech
34. Virginia
42. Louisville
44. Pittsburgh
49. Duke
54. Clemson
78. Miami
121. Georgia Tech
123. Bowling Green
124. South Florida

I find it interesting to look at these and compare to our opponents and see how they change as the season goes on. They also have an overall ranking that looks like: 1. Clemson, 4. Georgia, 14. Duke, 20. Miami, 25. Virginia, 41. Virginia Tech, 56. Georgia Tech, 81. North Carolina, 85. Pittsburgh, 88. South Florida, 119. Louisville, 124. Bowling Green. They seem to think we're not as bad as our record shows.
 

Josh H

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I question those stats. The only games where the offense performed well was USF (where bad special teams and D doomed us), Bowling Green (terrible team), and Louisville (terrible team).

Offense had terrible days against Pitt, Duke, and Clemson. Clemson is understandable. The other two teams are not very good.
 
tech_wreck47

tech_wreck47

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Josh H said:
I question those stats. The only games where the offense performed well was USF (where bad special teams and D doomed us), Bowling Green (terrible team), and Louisville (terrible team).

Offense had terrible days against Pitt, Duke, and Clemson. Clemson is understandable. The other two teams are not very good.
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You do know every team in the country has the luxury of playing really bad teams right? It’s just part of football and where the numbers come from. I actually like FEI and think they do a good job. It’s pretty dry cut of how they calculate their numbers.
 

Deleted member 2897

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Josh H said:
I question those stats. The only games where the offense performed well was USF (where bad special teams and D doomed us), Bowling Green (terrible team), and Louisville (terrible team).

Offense had terrible days against Pitt, Duke, and Clemson. Clemson is understandable. The other two teams are not very good.
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Right. Against Clemson, I can't really "blame" anybody. We just lost.

USF scored on something like 5 of 12 possessions. That's not too bad for the defense, but I'd say it was a shared loss by special teams and defense.

Pitt we only scored 19 points. Hard to blame the defense for giving up 24 points when the offense doesn't do much all day.

Duke got the ball multiple times on our side of the field, including 1 start on our own 5. Hard to blame the defense when they really only gave up 14 or 21 points, depending on how you look at it.

All of our wins were dominating - we scored 170+ points in those 3 games.

I think what's skewing these ratings is how lopsided those 3 performances were. Overall, we have outscored our opponents by 64 points - a win margin on average of nearly 10 points a game across all 7 games. Yet we are only 3-4. By comparison, Duke is 5-2 and have outscored their opponents by only 1 more point per game. When you're winning by 40 points, its only natural for the defense to start slacking off - especially if you're playing 3rd stringers and walk-ons.
 
bobongo

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bwelbo said:
Right. Against Clemson, I can't really "blame" anybody. We just lost.

USF scored on something like 5 of 12 possessions. That's not too bad for the defense, but I'd say it was a shared loss by special teams and defense.

Pitt we only scored 19 points. Hard to blame the defense for giving up 24 points when the offense doesn't do much all day.

Duke got the ball multiple times on our side of the field, including 1 start on our own 5. Hard to blame the defense when they really only gave up 14 or 21 points, depending on how you look at it.

All of our wins were dominating - we scored 170+ points in those 3 games.

I think what's skewing these ratings is how lopsided those 3 performances were. Overall, we have outscored our opponents by 64 points - a win margin on average of nearly 10 points a game across all 7 games. Yet we are only 3-4. By comparison, Duke is 5-2 and have outscored their opponents by only 1 more point per game. When you're winning by 40 points, its only natural for the defense to start slacking off - especially if you're playing 3rd stringers and walk-ons.
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#11 on offense? Piffle. As Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".
 

Deleted member 2897

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bobongo said:
#11 on offense? Piffle. As Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".
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Yea but look back at some of our games - across BG and LV in 18 possessions we scored 19 touchdowns. 17 on offense and 2 in defense. We put up 41 on Alcorn State, 21 against Clemson who only gives up like 12 a game, 35 on USF. Those big efficient performances more than offset the bad stretches we’ve had. And like you say damned lies :D who cares if you win 300-0 if you then lose the next week 28-14.

We’re the #1 offense in the country against below average teams. We’re the #75 offense against above average teams. (Yes I made that up for illustration purposes.)
 
bobongo

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bwelbo said:
Yea but look back at some of our games - across BG and LV in 18 possessions we scored 19 touchdowns. 17 on offense and 2 in defense. We put up 41 on Alcorn State, 21 against Clemson who only gives up like 12 a game, 35 on USF. Those big efficient performances more than offset the bad stretches we’ve had. And like you say damned lies :D who cares if you win 300-0 if you then lose the next week 28-14.

We’re the #1 offense in the country against below average teams. We’re the #75 offense against above average teams. (Yes I made that up for illustration purposes.)
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It's really pretty simple. We rock and roll against defenses that can't penetrate our backfield, and cough and sputter against those that can.
 
bobongo

bobongo

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melloace said:
Man I knew Virginia Tech had defensive woes this year but didn't except to see them at 82.
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They give up only 123 yds. per game on the ground, 295 through the air. But as someone pointed out, a lot of those yard were "passes" behind the line. Bottom line is whether they can get into our backfield.
 
tech_wreck47

tech_wreck47

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tech_wreck47 said:
You do know every team in the country has the luxury of playing really bad teams right? It’s just part of football and where the numbers come from. I actually like FEI and think they do a good job. It’s pretty dry cut of how they calculate their numbers.
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@Josh H i should have probably added that yes those 3 games probably made our offense look better than what it is. I was just making a point that all teams have the same chance to play bad teams like we have.
 
Longestday

Longestday

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The offense has done very good in all but 2 games, Pitt and Duke. GT played Clemson above the average they face and scored >35 in all the other games except Pitt and Duke.

Pitt and Duke... What the heck is going on that we have to fumble and brain fart so much. Duke has a good defense, but GT should be able to score >21 points.

Now that said... I think we have a DR Jekyl and Mr Hyde Offense that has some issues when feelin pressure. The pressure seems to be making our players push. The passing/pass blocking/WR routes is an issue as well... Special teams is not helping either.

The defense has improved and still has a chance to increase thier FEI, as long as the less than 30 yard line fumbles reduce.
 
IronJacket7

IronJacket7

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Our offense is not very good.
Our defense is not very good.
Our special teams is not very good.

Things can change obviously but that's where we're at and I don't need an FEI or any other format to explain it to me.
 
iceeater1969

iceeater1969

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I like your stats toward end of year as a good way to look at team ranking.

We have soundly defeated 3 very very crummy teams. One is fcs and the other 2 are in last place of their conference.

Our next 3 games are against 2 teams that are highly ranked and against 1 team that is historically a good team but is playing .
poorly.

Must win 2.
 
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