Near the bottom of this post: an improved way of thinking about strength of schedule rankings. And first, an explanation.

A warning in advance: no matter who you support for inclusion in the College Football Playoff, the post below is not going to add clarity to the overall conversation. As with every argument in this silly sport, this is about wading and splashing around in the gray area.

1. I hate strength of schedule arguments, partly because of the contradiction. Let me explain.

In my work with advanced stats — the S&P+ ratings and so forth — I field certain insults frequently. Here are two of the most common:

“Watch the games, nerd!” The insinuation: if you’d get your nose out of the spreadsheets, dork, you’d see that Team A is better than Team B. “Team A ain’t played nobody!” The insinuation: How could Team A be any good when they haven’t played a team that clears someone’s arbitrary bar of goodness?

“You saw what happened in the games I watched, right?” the first one says.

The second says to watch one particular game and ignore the others.

2. Football’s going to have a sample size issue no matter what, so we should milk meaning out of every game.

Arguing about strength of schedule the wrong way means limiting the sample even further and acting like we can’t learn from every play of every game.

We can. Honest.

Strength of schedule is at the heart of virtually every argument between October and January. Hell, it’s a point of debate for every college sport. The schedules are too varied and not comprehensive enough.

At the pro level, there are strong and weak divisions, but schedules are infinitely more balanced. In the MLB, everybody plays everybody in their league at least a few times, with some cross-league games. In the NBA and NHL, everybody plays everybody at least once.

With 130 FBS teams and 12 games, that isn’t an option for college football. So we play who we play, and we yell about whom our rivals ain’t played.

3. Strength of schedule determines the national champion, sort of.

College football’s national title is more directly affected by strength of schedule than that of any other major sport. It’s baked into the Playoff selection process.

When circumstances at the margins indicate that teams are comparable, then the following criteria must be considered: * Championships won * Strength of schedule * Head-to-head competition (if it occurred) * Comparative outcomes of common opponents (without incenting margin of victory) We believe that a committee of experts properly instructed (based on beliefs that the regular season is unique and must be preserved; and that championships won on the field and strength of schedule are important values that much be incorporated into the selection process) has very strong support throughout the college football community.

It is decreed that the committee takes strength of schedule into account, but it doesn’t say how. It frowns on advanced analytics and gives no alternative guidance. So the committee goes with things like “wins over top-25 teams” and “assuring there’s no way in hell a team from a Group of 5 conference will get in.”

4. By now, though, some are figuring out how strength of schedule is taken into account.

ESPN’s stats team has created both forward- and backward-looking measures to assess the difference between the “best” teams and those determined most deserving of a title shot. As it turns out, the Strength of Record backward view — or judging your team by whom you’ve beaten, not by how good you are — is effective at mirroring committee action.

Despite the committee’s mantra of selecting the “four best teams in the country,” it appears that in the first two years of playoff selection, the committee favored team accomplishment over team strength. So if you are trying to predict what the committee will do, take a look at strength of record, because seven of eight teams to make the playoff ranked in the top four of that metric before playoff selection.

The committee insists it is looking for the “best” team. It is not. Kirby Hocutt, former chairman of the CFP committee, conflated “best” and “most deserving” on a number of occasions. An example:

Q: Are you looking for the four best teams or the four most-deserving teams? Is there a difference? A: You have to take into account the entire season. The season doesn’t start in October. Everybody has 12 regular-season opportunities, and the committee is watching. At the end of the year, we want to make sure we have the four very best teams over the course of the entire season.

They do not. And that’s fine, I guess.

5. Two major problems: a one-point win is not a 24-point win, and you don’t have to wait ‘til someone plays a good team to start learning.

Take these two old articles as an example.

Here I am in Oct. 2013, writing about how that year’s Florida State had long been elite, despite a weaker schedule.

”Are they tested?” is just a box you check. While you can find examples of teams that look great against awful teams, then stumble when punched in the mouth, you can usually glean just as much from how a team dominates bad competition as from how it plays against really good teams. Picking Team A simply because it is more tested than Team B is usually a recipe for making bad picks. The early-season stats suggested that, despite not playing a top team yet, Florida State was pretty incredible. The Seminoles went out and left no doubt on Saturday night in Clemson.

Here I am a year later writing the opposite, about how 2014 FSU was probably doomed despite wins over good teams.

The most likely championship teams are the ones that handle their business early and put games out of reach before luck, chance, fumbles, and offensive pass interference calls can impact the outcome. According to the F/+ rankings, the Seminoles have been just barely good enough to survive No. 9 Clemson at home (without Jameis Winston), No. 15 Louisville on the road, and No. 19 Notre Dame at home. They survived No. 44 Oklahoma State on a neutral field, and they pulled away from No. 53 NC State in the fourth quarter. They pummeled No. 76 Syracuse and got around to doing the same to No. 89 Wake Forest. They have solidified that they should be ranked around seventh to 12th in these ratings. Without sustained improvement, they will in no way be a favorite to beat two top-four teams in the Playoff.

The 2013 team that hadn’t played nobody, but that was destroying its opponents, won the national title.

The 2014 team that was winning, but not impressing the numbers, eked out a Playoff bid and got embarrassed. (To its credit, the CFP committee did dock FSU a bit for its lackluster performance.)

These two FSU teams are examples for this simple truism:

6. You can learn something from every game, if you try.

That’s the point of using advanced stats, be it S&P+ or any other. You set the baseline depending on the opponent(s), and you compare actual output to that adjusted expectation.

It fills in what your eyes are missing. (And with 800-plus college football games in a season, your eyes are always missing something.)

Your record does matter. Even as an advanced stats loyalist, I’m not going to call for a three-loss team to get a CFP spot, even if said team was unlucky in every loss and ranks first in S&P+. Wins and losses aren’t particularly predictive in and of themselves, but they have to mean something.

The best team shouldn’t get in, if it’s not high on the most-deserving list.

7. So what if we tried to combine the two? What if we used a “best” measure to approximate what “most deserving” means?

What if we took the Strength of Record idea and added an extra level of team quality? Let’s reintroduce Résumé S&P+, which made its debut here in 2017.

Below are each FBS team’s rankings in three categories:

S&P+ , an overall team efficiency rating system you can read more about here. It can be used to predict wins and losses going forward.

, an overall team efficiency rating system you can read more about here. It can be used to predict wins and losses going forward. Strength of Schedule (SOS) , which amounts to how well the average top-five team (according to S&P+) would fare, in terms of win percentage, against your schedule. The lower the number, the harder the schedule. Why top-five? Because we’re using the Playoff’s four-team field as a target, and usually only about five teams have solid playoff cases.

, which amounts to how well the average top-five team (according to S&P+) would fare, in terms of win percentage, against your schedule. The lower the number, the harder the schedule. Why top-five? Because we’re using the Playoff’s four-team field as a target, and usually only about five teams have solid playoff cases. Résumé S&P+, which looks at a team’s season scoring margin* and compares it to what the average top-five team’s scoring margin would’ve likely been against that schedule. If the number is positive, that team is faring better than the typical top-five team would be. Instead of advanced stats or win probability info, I’m adhering to actual margins.

* While I think we care far too much about scoring margins, I still install a cap — if either a team’s scoring margin or the top-five projected scoring margin is above 50 points, we’ll simply use 50. That creates plenty of space for dominance, but it assures that, for instance, Fresno State doesn’t get too much credit for beating Idaho by 66 points.

8. With a regular season’s worth of 2018 data, let’s check out what Résumé S&P+ can tell us. Let’s look at Clemson, the No. 2 team in both S&P+ and the CFP rankings, as an example.

Clemson finished the regular season 13-0, challenged only a couple of times and winning its games by an average margin of 31.7 points (30.1 with a 50-point cap on each game).

Have the Tigers played a rigorous schedule? Goodness, no. If the average top-five team — by which, I mean literally the average of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Michigan, and Oklahoma, the top five teams per S&P+ — played Clemson’s 13 opponents a countless number of times, it would have won about 90 percent of those games.

That’s a strength of schedule that ranks 76th, not amazing but certainly harder than that of any of the other unbeatens.

SOS rankings for college football’s unbeaten teams:

17. Alabama (0.834)

61. Notre Dame (0.888)

76. Clemson (0.901)

83. UCF (0.907)

Clemson’s schedule was closer in competition level to UCF’s than Alabama’s, and by quite a bit. And it was worse than Notre Dame’s.

Regardless of the merits of their schedule, though, the Tigers have done more with their ain’t-played-nobody schedule than almost anyone else. Even with the 50-point cap, they have still defeated their opponents by an average scoring margin that is 5.8 points per game higher than the nameless, faceless top-fiver would expect. Only Alabama can top that.

9. Here are Résumé S&P+ and strength of schedule ratings for everyone.

(This is a wide table, because it has to be; if it’s not showing well on your phone, consider taking a look on another device later.)

2018 Resume S&P+ rankings after 14 weeks

Team Rec S&P+ Rk SOS Rk Resume S&P+ Rk Team Rec S&P+ Rk SOS Rk Resume S&P+ Rk Alabama 13-0 29.7 1 83.4% 17 11.8 1 Clemson 13-0 27.9 2 90.1% 76 5.8 2 Georgia 11-2 25.9 3 82.5% 11 1.0 3 Michigan 10-2 21.3 5 84.9% 28 -1.9 4 Mississippi State 8-4 15.6 12 83.1% 15 -4.2 5 Central Florida 12-0 19.6 8 90.7% 83 -4.9 6 Ohio State 12-1 19.8 7 88.0% 55 -5.9 7 Missouri 8-4 14.4 16 80.7% 5 -5.9 8 Oklahoma 12-1 22.1 4 89.3% 68 -6.0 9 Notre Dame 12-0 20.6 6 88.8% 61 -7.2 10 Penn State 9-3 16.1 11 84.3% 21 -7.4 11 West Virginia 8-3 12.6 20 88.1% 56 -7.5 12 Fresno State 11-2 16.2 10 92.4% 105 -7.8 13 Florida 9-3 15.1 14 84.3% 22 -8.2 14 LSU 9-3 14.8 15 78.9% 1 -8.6 15 Washington State 10-2 10.9 25 88.7% 60 -9.4 16 Utah State 10-2 12.4 21 94.7% 128 -9.7 17 Texas A&M 8-4 12.7 19 79.1% 3 -10.1 18 Iowa 8-4 10.8 26 89.3% 67 -10.3 19 Utah 9-4 14.4 17 86.3% 37 -10.5 20 Cincinnati 10-2 9.0 32 91.7% 96 -10.9 21 Boise State 10-3 10.0 29 87.7% 49 -11.1 22 Washington 10-3 17.0 9 87.1% 43 -11.5 23 Auburn 7-5 12.8 18 79.4% 4 -11.5 24 Kentucky 9-3 6.5 40 83.4% 18 -11.6 25 Appalachian State 10-2 15.5 13 93.3% 112 -11.6 26 Syracuse 9-3 6.1 43 87.3% 45 -13.7 27 NC State 9-3 9.9 30 89.6% 71 -13.9 28 Miami-FL 7-5 12.1 22 91.0% 86 -15.0 29 South Carolina 7-5 8.8 33 81.4% 9 -15.3 30 Stanford 8-4 10.6 27 84.9% 25 -15.5 31 Purdue 6-6 6.7 37 85.8% 33 -15.7 32 Texas 9-4 7.6 36 84.9% 26 -15.8 33 Temple 8-4 8.1 34 90.9% 84 -17.0 34 Oregon 8-4 5.2 47 89.1% 65 -17.2 35 Vanderbilt 6-6 1.4 68 82.5% 12 -17.3 36 Georgia Tech 7-5 0.5 74 84.9% 27 -17.4 37 Boston College 7-5 1.2 71 86.4% 40 -17.5 38 Arizona State 7-5 3.5 54 87.4% 46 -17.6 39 Memphis 8-5 12.0 23 90.0% 74 -18.1 40 Oklahoma State 6-6 10.4 28 87.8% 50 -18.1 41 Army 9-2 -1.6 83 91.8% 98 -18.3 42 Ohio 8-4 5.6 45 94.4% 126 -18.5 43 Houston 8-4 6.2 41 93.2% 110 -18.8 44 Wisconsin 7-5 11.4 24 87.8% 52 -19.3 45 Texas Tech 5-7 6.1 44 87.2% 44 -19.4 46 Michigan State 7-5 7.7 35 84.5% 23 -19.6 47 Iowa State 8-4 4.0 52 87.0% 42 -20.0 48 Virginia 7-5 6.2 42 91.8% 97 -20.2 49 Northwestern 8-5 -1.1 80 83.1% 16 -20.3 50 Pittsburgh 7-6 1.4 67 81.1% 6 -20.6 51 BYU 6-6 3.1 56 87.6% 47 -20.7 52 North Texas 9-3 9.8 31 96.3% 130 -20.7 53 UAB 10-3 3.7 53 93.8% 118 -20.8 54 Toledo 7-5 4.6 48 92.2% 104 -21.0 55 Minnesota 6-6 2.9 58 86.3% 36 -21.5 56 Maryland 5-7 0.7 73 83.9% 20 -21.6 57 Georgia Southern 9-3 2.9 59 90.3% 80 -21.7 58 TCU 6-6 3.0 57 85.2% 30 -22.0 59 Buffalo 10-3 4.2 51 94.2% 123 -22.1 60 Nebraska 4-8 3.2 55 84.7% 24 -22.7 61 Ole Miss 5-7 1.3 70 82.6% 13 -22.9 62 Air Force 5-7 -2.7 89 92.2% 102 -23.1 63 Florida International 8-4 -1.9 86 94.5% 127 -23.3 64 Troy 9-3 5.4 46 93.3% 111 -23.4 65 Middle Tennessee 8-5 2.8 61 90.2% 79 -23.5 66 USC 5-7 6.6 39 86.8% 41 -23.6 67 California 7-5 1.6 64 89.2% 66 -23.6 68 Indiana 5-7 -1.5 82 83.7% 19 -24.0 69 Duke 7-5 1.4 66 87.9% 53 -24.3 70 Colorado 5-7 -2.4 88 88.6% 59 -24.4 71 Marshall 8-4 4.4 49 93.8% 119 -24.8 72 Kansas State 5-7 -4.1 92 85.6% 32 -25.0 73 Tennessee 5-7 -2.2 87 79.0% 2 -25.4 74 Virginia Tech 6-6 1.3 69 89.1% 63 -25.4 75 Arkansas State 8-4 4.2 50 90.4% 81 -25.6 76 Arizona 5-7 0.3 75 89.5% 70 -25.7 77 Wake Forest 6-6 -0.1 77 86.3% 35 -25.8 78 Eastern Michigan 7-5 2.0 63 94.0% 121 -26.0 79 UCLA 3-9 -3.5 91 81.3% 8 -26.2 80 Nevada 7-5 -0.6 79 92.2% 101 -26.3 81 Southern Miss 6-5 0.3 76 93.4% 115 -26.5 82 Florida Atlantic 5-7 2.9 60 88.4% 58 -26.9 83 Miami-OH 6-6 2.4 62 93.1% 108 -27.0 84 Northern Illinois 8-5 1.6 65 90.7% 82 -27.0 85 San Diego State 7-5 6.6 38 91.2% 89 -27.3 86 Tulane 6-6 -3.3 90 89.5% 69 -27.6 87 UL-Lafayette 7-6 -1.6 84 86.4% 38 -27.7 88 Baylor 6-6 -1.9 85 87.6% 48 -27.8 89 Wyoming 6-6 -0.1 78 89.0% 62 -28.2 90 Florida State 5-7 -1.4 81 82.3% 10 -28.8 91 SMU 5-7 -4.4 94 86.0% 34 -29.5 92 Louisiana Tech 7-5 -4.5 95 91.2% 90 -30.4 93 Kansas 3-9 -13.0 108 87.8% 51 -30.7 94 Western Michigan 7-5 -6.3 97 91.1% 88 -31.4 95 North Carolina 2-9 -4.6 96 90.0% 75 -31.5 96 South Florida 7-5 1.0 72 91.4% 92 -31.7 97 Navy 3-9 -9.8 102 86.4% 39 -32.1 98 Tulsa 3-9 -9.6 101 91.5% 94 -32.8 99 Arkansas 2-10 -4.3 93 81.1% 7 -32.9 100 Charlotte 5-7 -13.6 112 92.2% 103 -33.0 101 Hawaii 8-5 -9.3 100 92.2% 100 -33.5 102 Coastal Carolina 5-7 -14.2 114 91.6% 95 -35.2 103 UL-Monroe 6-6 -7.1 98 93.1% 109 -35.2 104 Liberty 6-6 -16.3 118 93.3% 114 -36.1 105 Ball State 4-8 -15.8 117 91.5% 93 -37.0 106 UNLV 4-8 -13.1 110 91.0% 87 -37.5 107 New Mexico 3-9 -11.8 104 89.8% 73 -37.6 108 Illinois 4-8 -10.6 103 89.1% 64 -37.9 109 Akron 4-8 -16.6 119 92.8% 107 -38.0 110 Western Kentucky 3-9 -12.3 106 94.3% 124 -38.3 111 Old Dominion 4-8 -9.2 99 94.3% 125 -38.4 112 East Carolina 3-9 -12.8 107 88.0% 54 -39.3 113 Georgia State 2-10 -17.8 122 90.2% 78 -39.5 114 Rutgers 1-11 -15.6 116 85.0% 29 -39.7 115 Massachusetts 4-8 -13.8 113 90.9% 85 -39.9 116 Oregon State 2-10 -18.1 123 85.5% 31 -40.3 117 Texas State 3-9 -12.0 105 93.8% 120 -40.9 118 San Jose State 1-11 -18.5 125 89.7% 72 -40.9 119 Colorado State 3-9 -13.2 111 91.3% 91 -41.0 120 South Alabama 3-9 -15.0 115 90.1% 77 -41.1 121 Kent State 2-10 -17.6 121 92.1% 99 -42.4 122 Central Michigan 1-11 -17.5 120 93.6% 117 -42.8 123 Louisville 2-10 -13.0 109 82.9% 14 -45.4 124 Bowling Green 3-9 -19.8 127 93.5% 116 -45.8 125 UTSA 3-9 -19.0 126 93.3% 113 -46.2 126 Rice 2-11 -22.2 129 92.4% 106 -46.7 127 UTEP 1-11 -21.5 128 94.8% 129 -47.4 128 New Mexico State 3-9 -18.2 124 94.2% 122 -48.4 129 Connecticut 1-11 -25.9 130 88.3% 57 -53.6 130

Alabama’s plus-11.8 Résumé S&P+ rating is nearly a touchdown better than Clemson’s. Only one other team (Georgia) enjoys a rating above zero.

At this stage, we know that Alabama, Clemson, and Notre Dame (sixth in overall S&P+, fourth if you remove the first three games of the season, before Ian Book was named starting QB) will be the top three teams in the final College Football Playoff rankings.

After that, we think OU’s combination of résumé-building wins and conference title will be enough to earn the No. 4 seed. But data does nothing but make this a blurrier battle.

Selective resumes

Team Rec S&P+ Rk SOS Rk Resume S&P+ Rk Team Rec S&P+ Rk SOS Rk Resume S&P+ Rk Georgia 11-2 25.9 3 82.5% 11 1.0 3 Central Florida 12-0 19.6 8 90.7% 83 -4.9 6 Ohio State 12-1 19.8 7 88.0% 55 -5.9 7 Oklahoma 12-1 22.1 4 89.3% 68 -6.0 9

The debate appears to be between Oklahoma and Georgia, and Ohio State technically still has a shot. Georgia grades out the best in all three of the above categories but has suffered two losses, and no two-loss teams have made the CFP yet.

The most frustrating part of this, though, is that it is crystal clear that UCF deserves a spot in this conversation. The Knights have managed to mostly hold steady despite losing star quarterback McKenzie Milton to injury, though they fell ever-so-slightly behind Ohio State in both S&P+ and Résumé S&P+ this week. But they’ll rank, at best, a distant seventh overall in the official rankings.

The Knights will be patted on the head, told how great their accomplishment is, and told to schedule better (with minimal hope of actually pulling that off). They’ll also be one win away from going unbeaten for two straight years without even the faintest sniff at a shot at the national title. We’ve always assumed that mid-major teams will never again get a chance at winning a national title. It has been pretty definitively proven over the last two years.

9. To those who want to moan about incentivizing running up the score in this measure (since we’re using scoring margins), suck it up.

Margin of victory is infinitely more informative than “did they win?” It just is. Besides, it’s odd to suddenly care about hurt feelings when I’m pretty sure telling half of FBS they don’t have a shot at the national title, no matter how well they play, is more hurtful to those feelings than winning 49-0 instead of 38-0.

10. Best versus most deserving. How you’ve played versus who you’ve played.

Maybe there’s a way to tie together these worlds after all.