Is GT undervalued by the Media in preseason polls? An analysis since reallignment

[smathis30]

One of the big things i see on this site is wondering whether or not GT is truly undervalued by the media during pre season ACC polls.

Went back and the TL;DR results are: Yes, GT is undervalued, but that is moreso a victim of Coastal Chaos then bias.

Went back and scraped the preseason ACC expectations since 2013, when both divisions moved the 7 teams. Originally tried pulling earlier, but couldn't find a satisfying way to try and turn 6 team divisions into average wins for teams finishing in 7th place. Numbers never really turned out well. This information is available on Wikipedia, including standings for those seasons as well. I edited them slightly, in the sense that I made vacated wins count and used those to recalibrate standings, which really only effected 2013, where the Coastal standings sans post season bans would have been 1) UNC (they received rings on accident lol 2) Miami and 3) Georgia Tech by the way tie breakers would have gone. You can argue about ethics all day long, but at the end of the day, these psuedo standings will IMO give a better glimpse at how good those teams were those years. Those true positions also don't have any effect whatsoever on my math later on, so even if you disagree, it has 0 impact.

So what i did:
Chart A: Preseason predictions in rankings
Chart B: Post season rankings
Chart C: Confrence wins
Chart D: Average wins for that finish in the coastal, which are as follows:
1st: 6.5
2nd: 5.2
3rd: 4.5
4th:4.2
5th: 3.5
6th: 2.7
7th: 1.2

Which in short, is.... not very good. low cieling, and huge middle. With rounding, you have 5 teams expected to get between 3 and 5 wins every season, which is.... not good. Especially with predicting. If you miss a single game prediction, it can move a team up to 2 spots down in the coastal rankings.

and chart E: Which used the ranking in chart A for that season with the average wins in chart D for that expected finish, and subtracted that from Chart C to find out what bias existed. Expected wins vs. actual wins.

With that the results are:


Negative numbers are exceeding preseason polls, positive numbers are failing to meet those expectations.
Those are, when ranked from most underrated to most overrated:
1. Pitt
2. UVA
3. Duke
4. Virginia Tech
5. Georgia Tech
6. UNC
7. Miami

If you remove the 2015 season for GT and the 2013 season for Duke, which are outliers, they switch positions. So GT is 3rd at 0.90 and Duke is 5th at 0.77

So in short, Pitt, UVA, and GT on average win 1 more game than expected.
Miami, Duke, and UNC all lost 1 more game than expected
Virginia Tech has finished right where they were expected.

If we go back to the chart, this can potentially explain why there does seem to be a perceived bias. Winning 1 more game than expected would net a change in 2 positions, as opposed to the Atlantic (or really any other confrence/division) which would result in a change of potentially 1 rank. Add in tie breakers, which with 5 teams finishing within 2 games of each other, would by definition have to occur at least twice.

So in short, the bias does exist, but spread across multiple teams, and the nature of the middle of the pack being 80% of the division makes that bias seem larger than what it truly is. Every game matters.

 

[smathis30]

some fun tidbits:
If you were to guess which team was to win the coastal, your money is take the team the media predicts in 5th place. They have won it 4 times, more than any other spot.

If the media got to place bets on not 1, but which 4 teams would win the coastal, they would lose more money than they would win. Only twice have the top 4 teams, and once the top 3 teams, have ever won the coastal.

Miami in 2017 was the only time the favorite actually won it.

Being selected to win has been a curse nearly every other year, with the team expected to finish first averaging somewhere between 3rd and fourth in the division. Yikes, but thats only 1-2 games behind first, so not terrible.

 

[smathis30]

and looking at team by team:
Good guys: Place wise, GT has finished better than expected 3 times, as expected twice, and worse once. Exceed win expectations four times, and underachieved twice.
Third is the most common spot. Which given GTs consistency in 4 and 5 win divisional records, shouldnt really be a surprise. 4th most wins since realignment @ 25.

Miami
Most Overrated, but mostly due to the fact that they have been expected to win over and over while they were on sanctions. didn't make much sense to me in hindsight, but it is what it is. Have been expected to finish top 3 every single season since reallignment, and only failed to do so once. Have the most total coastal wins as well,
@29. so its overrated, but a bit of a victim of the middle of the pack as well. 4 years finished worse, two years meet expected place. Exceeded wins twice, underachieved four times

Virginia Tech:
Pretty much expected to finish second ever year, but have averaged fourth, mostly due to absolute fall off a cliff that they had at the end of the Beamer years. Underachieved in wins 5/6 and overachieved in one. 4 lower finishes, one as expected, and one exceeding in places. 2nd most overall wins since realignment at 28.

North Carolina:
I guess this is a close to tobacco bias as well ever see. 5 seasons with less wins than expected, and 1 with more than expected. 5th most wins at 19. Average predicted place 4th average finish 4th. Have pretty much been all over the board in expectations and results, with only one year of the same place for expectations and end results, which likely has made the hard to predict where exactly they will finish out. Placement was better than expected twice, and worse 4 times.

Duke: Expected finish: 5th, average: 4th. OBviously underrated for the most part it seems, especially taking Cucliffs 2013 7th to first season. 3/3 split with over and under on expected wins. 3-2-1 in better-meets-worse for expected vs actual finish. Have not fisished in the same spot twice at the end of the season for the coastal.
6th most wins @22

Pitt: 3rd most total wins in the ACC since Narduzzi took over, trailing only Miami with 21 and clemson with 30 since 2015. Exceeded expected wins 4 times and failted to meet twice. 3 better finishes, 1 meets, and 2 worse finishes than expected. 3rd most wins @ 27. Has best claim at "most underrated" team by the media IMO

Virginia: Expected 6th or 7th and has finished 6th or 7th every year except last year. GTs best season have come two tears after UVA and Duke went from last to middle to the top, so that could be something to watch out for. 4 seasons exceeding place, 1 meeting, and 1 failing to meet. 4 season with more wins than expected and 2 with fewer. 14 confrence wins is dead last....by a lot.

 

[RonJohn]

I would say that GT is undervalued in the Atlanta media.

I would not say that about the media in general, or the ACC media in general. The Coastal has had a lot of parity recently. The difference between teams in the FBS are not as large as people make them out to be. There are a few teams like Clemson and Alabama who are much better than most. There are a few teams that are much worse than most. There is a very large number of teams between those extremes that are very even. The difference in wins/losses can be as small as one player who isn't at 100%, or one mistake by a player. The Coastal is made up of teams in the middle. Who would have picked Pitt to win the Coastal last year? Which team would you pick to win 8/10 or lose 8/10 to GT? I think for any team in the Coastal against any other team in the coastal, it would probably end up between 5/5 and 7/3. The media has to complete pre-season rankings simply because the fans expect it and it increases magazine sales, clicks, etc. I doubt more than a very small few actually believe that the results will end up the way they predict them. It is kind of like predicting how many heads and how many tails out of 10 coin flips.

What I am trying to say is that the pre-season rankings mean very little. The reporters who complete them are basically just guessing. The Coastal teams are so even that one player getting injured can make the difference between being at the top of the Coastal or the bottom.

 

[takethepoints]

It's like Niels Bohr said, "Prediction is hard, especially about the future."

I have never blamed the media for underrating the Jackets; given the division, I'd probably have done it myself in their shoes. This does show the root of the problem, however.

Btw, a solid nominee for Nerd Post of the Year! Congratulations!