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College Football Projections with Kelly Ford · The Jake Wimberly Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Kelly Ford k Ford Ratings on xkboard Ratings dot Com
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  Speaker 1: on your radio talking college football. Kelly, welcome in by
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  Speaker 1: how you.
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  Speaker 2: Doing hey, Jake? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, I appreciate you. And look, I know that we're
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  Speaker 1: not going to change what I'm fixing to bring up.
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  Speaker 1: I do it every year. But why do we want
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  Speaker 1: to continue to believe that coaches vote in a coaches pol.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, Jake. I mean, as we've talked about,
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  Speaker 2: you know, coaches poll, AP preseason poll. I don't put
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  Speaker 2: much stock in either of those things because there's really
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  Speaker 2: there's even among the voters, not a set criteria of
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  Speaker 2: how are we supposed to be voting. What are we
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  Speaker 2: voting on? Are we voting on, you know, who we
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  Speaker 2: think is going to be the best this year? We're
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  Speaker 2: voting on who we think is going to have the
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  Speaker 2: best record. We are we voting on, you know, based
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  Speaker 2: on how good these teams were last year and what
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  Speaker 2: we think we might expect to be coming back this year.
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  Speaker 2: There's really not a lot of merit, in my opinion,
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  Speaker 2: in doing coaches or AP type polls in the preseason
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  Speaker 2: because we haven't seen any we have these polls that
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  Speaker 2: are trying to project forward, but then once we get going,
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  Speaker 2: they shift and they become a merit pole. Right, So
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  Speaker 2: I don't really believe in preseason polls. Preseason power ratings,
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  Speaker 2: of course, is one thing, and that's something that I
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  Speaker 2: dabble in as we know now. But yeah, coaches polls, AP,
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  Speaker 2: preseason poll I don't even pay it much attention, Jake,
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  Speaker 2: because I just I don't even think they know what
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  Speaker 2: they're voting on amongst themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Kelly Ford talking college football money edition of the program,
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  Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent on that. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, I think the college football Playoff Committee and
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  Speaker 1: then you know where I was talking to Chris Landry
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  Speaker 1: about this yesterday is you know, why do we still
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  Speaker 1: need a committee? But that's neither here nor they are
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  Speaker 1: because the NFL doesn't have a committee, High school football
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  Speaker 1: doesn't have a committee. So you know, for some reason
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  Speaker 1: we still have to have a Division one college football.
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  Speaker 1: But even they got rid of the coaches in the
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  Speaker 1: Associated Press in relationship to what they do with figuring
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  Speaker 1: out the entire playoff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, without a doubt, again, it's just it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: make a whole lot of sense we want to talk about,
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  Speaker 2: you know, what a power rating is for teams moving forward?
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  Speaker 2: That certainly does make sense, but I'm not a supporter
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  Speaker 2: of anything that change is throughout the course of the year.
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  Speaker 2: What it is you're objectively trying to quantify, And yeah,
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  Speaker 2: as we get in the BCS era, they do away
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  Speaker 2: with certain things. Now we have the CFP Selection Committee
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  Speaker 2: that does their ranking at the end, but there's a
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  Speaker 2: reason that that group doesn't get together until what November
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  Speaker 2: or the end of October, because then we have a
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  Speaker 2: sufficient amount of games under our belt to really truly
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  Speaker 2: rate teams or judge teams on what have they achieved
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  Speaker 2: this year relative to what would be expected given the
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  Speaker 2: schedule plays all.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Week one, I'm looking at some of your notes here.
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  Speaker 1: As you look at or see me team watchability, So
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  Speaker 1: you've got usc looks like teams with highest average watchability
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  Speaker 1: scores for all regular season games. Define again for the audience,
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  Speaker 1: what watchability is the way you frame it up.
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  Speaker 2: Means for sure. So watchability has nothing to do with
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  Speaker 2: what I'm projecting TV ratings to be, the number of
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  Speaker 2: eyeballs on that or how big a certain team's fan
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  Speaker 2: base is, how popular a brand is nothing to do
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  Speaker 2: with any of that. When I say watchability on the
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  Speaker 2: website K four ratings dot com, it is a weighted
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  Speaker 2: score of projected quality. So what's the average K forward
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  Speaker 2: rating of the two teams involved? And competitiveness? So what's
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  Speaker 2: the K forward spread of the game. Those are the
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  Speaker 2: only two things that I'm looking at. Is it high
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  Speaker 2: quality teams and is it projected to be a close game.
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  Speaker 2: When I do that for all four one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: thirty four FBS teams and every single game they play,
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  Speaker 2: I'm able to come up with a score of zero
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  Speaker 2: to ten for every single one of their games, and
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  Speaker 2: then you average those together and that's how you can
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  Speaker 2: figure out who has the highest watchability by that metric
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  Speaker 2: in college football, and for me, it's USC that comes
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  Speaker 2: out with an eight point seven to seven. So over
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  Speaker 2: the course of their twelve regular season games, USC averages
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  Speaker 2: an eight point seven to seven on a zero to
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  Speaker 2: ten scale with regard to each of their games when
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  Speaker 2: they're looking at just the quality of the teams involved
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  Speaker 2: and the projected competitiveness of those games. Florida, Alabama, LSU,
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  Speaker 2: and Oklahoma State round out the top five for me
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  Speaker 2: in terms of average watchability.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you just look through their schedule,
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  Speaker 1: you look at USC, you just kind of do a
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  Speaker 1: little homework here, and it takes just a second. I
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  Speaker 1: me LSU that that game with LSU week one, it
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  Speaker 1: could be the biggest game that weekend simply, but I
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  Speaker 1: mean you could argue some others as well. But because
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  Speaker 1: of you know, the projection, I mean, we just had
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  Speaker 1: an offensive tago for LSU said, hey, it's National championship
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  Speaker 1: time for them down there. USC wants to, you know,
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  Speaker 1: prove I think that they belong in this race. So
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  Speaker 1: that's a big game. Utah State not so much. But
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  Speaker 1: then they go to Michigan, they host Wisconsin, They'll have
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  Speaker 1: Penn State coming in two weeks after that. They will
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  Speaker 1: play a Rutgers team that should be pretty salty at Washington,
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  Speaker 1: which is a natural rivalry of sorts. Nebraska that still
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  Speaker 1: has somewhat of a brand there as well, of course
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  Speaker 1: at UCLA and Notre Dame. So I could see where
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  Speaker 1: that kind of calculates out because most of their ballgames
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  Speaker 1: are maybe not like taking on George every week or
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  Speaker 1: Texas every week, but the potential eyeballs in the brands
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  Speaker 1: are there for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's four games on us against teams power rated
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  Speaker 2: in the top twelve of my preseason rating. There's only
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  Speaker 2: two games on the schedule against teams power rated outside
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  Speaker 2: the top fifty. And when you combine that with the
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  Speaker 2: fact that I have USC right there at number twenty,
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  Speaker 2: you could say, Okay, the average quality of these games
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  Speaker 2: is going to be pretty high with teams you know,
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  Speaker 2: power right in the top fifty almost exclusively, and then
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  Speaker 2: with USC being twenty, they're going to be you know,
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  Speaker 2: pretty close the teams above them or below them with
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  Speaker 2: regard to projected spread. Of course you're adjusting for home
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  Speaker 2: field advantage and all those things, but that's how USC
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  Speaker 2: is going to come out with on average an eight
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  Speaker 2: point seven to seven even though they don't play, as
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  Speaker 2: you said, some of the marquee teams on a weekend,
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  Speaker 2: week out basis. But this is a difficult schedule. It's
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  Speaker 2: number fourteen, most difficult in the entire country by my numbers.
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  Speaker 2: And you mentioned that Week one game against LSU. I've
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  Speaker 2: got that with a watchability score of nine point six. Again,
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  Speaker 2: it's on a zero to ten scale, So at nine
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  Speaker 2: point six for the Trojans, right out of the gate.
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  Speaker 2: For me, Jake, that's the number two game of week one,
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  Speaker 2: behind noted Aime at Texas A and M, which I
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  Speaker 2: have at a nine point watchability score.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to come back to Notre Dame because of
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  Speaker 1: a piece that was out on them earlier. But first
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  Speaker 1: I'm asking about Alabama now Florida. That makes sense. We
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  Speaker 1: know about their schedule. It's it's it's lights on them
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  Speaker 1: every week Alabama. Is it more about who they play?
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  Speaker 1: Is just more about the Alabama brand.
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  Speaker 2: So for Alabama, just like for everybody, it's a combination, right,
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  Speaker 2: it's because of how good Alabama's projected to be number
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  Speaker 2: five in my Power ratings, So a really, really good team,
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  Speaker 2: even though there is a post Nick saban Era, but
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  Speaker 2: also it's who they're playing. It's the top ten most
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  Speaker 2: difficult schedule in the country. They've got Georgia in Conference, Tennessee, Missouri, LSU, Oklahoma, Auburn,
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  Speaker 2: all of those teams are top twenty five in the
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  Speaker 2: Power Ratings. You're throw in a non conference game against Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 2: So when you're looking at watchability again, for me, it's
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  Speaker 2: an average, a weighted average. It's not equal a weighted
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  Speaker 2: average of the quality of the teams involved, so certainly
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  Speaker 2: Alabama's equality, and then most of their opponents are pretty
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  Speaker 2: high quality, and then what's the projected spread. Alabama doesn't
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  Speaker 2: grade out quite as well there because they are going
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  Speaker 2: to be, you know, a significant favorite, I would say,
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  Speaker 2: in any of their games. But you look at the
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  Speaker 2: Georgia game, the Tennessee game, the LSU game, the Oklahoma game,
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  Speaker 2: all of those games should have a single digit spread,
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  Speaker 2: maybe even a one possession spread. And so they're going
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  Speaker 2: to get almost max credit for each of those games.
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  Speaker 2: And that's about a third of their schedule right there.