Cougs Daily

Rankings Update: BYU's Resume Would Get Massive Boost With Win Over Utah

Joe Wheat|
BYU RB LJ Martin against Arizona
BYU RB LJ Martin against Arizona | BYU Photo

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BYU Cougars

Another week, another chaotic weekend in college football. BYU certainly played a part in that chaos with a wild fourth quarter comeback against Arizona. That win was much closer than any BYU fan wanted. It very easily could have been a loss, but what did it say about the strength of BYU’s team and metrics?

How the AP Voters view BYU

BYU jumped three spots in the AP poll after losses by Missouri, Michigan, and Illinois. Voters are finally coming around as BYU found itself on all but one AP ballot this week, with BYU’s most popular ranking being 14th. BYU is joined in the polls by #no. 7 Texas Tech, no. 23 Utah and no. 24 Cincinnati. Both Utah and Cincinnati deservedly entered the rankings following blowout conference wins.

How the predictive metrics view BYU

Definition: Predictive metrics measure absolute strength of a team relative to the average team. Similar ratings are used by sports books to generate betting spreads.

SP+: 23

FPI: 19

KFord: 24

FEI: 24

Average: 22.75 (Prior week: 21.5)

BYU slightly underperformed their predictive metrics with an overtime win, as the metrics predicted a three-point win in regulation. BYU’s average predictive ranking dropped roughly one spot while their total team rating dropped by just .2 points to 15.0 points over average. On a national level, the predictive metrics suggest that the gap seems to be shrinking between the haves and have nots. For example, in FPI, the gap between the number 1 team and the number 19 team (BYU) is just 11 points. In 2021, the gap between those rankings was just under 20 points.

It's important to note that preseason expectations are still about 50% at the halfway point of the season. If preseason expectations were removed, BYU has performed like the no. 19 power rated team in SP+ and 9th most efficient team in FPI. It truly is remarkable how far BYU has come in just two years.

What’s most interesting about the predictive metrics this week is what they say about this week's Holy War matchup. BYU is a projected 1-point favorite in FPI, a 0.4 point underdog in SP+, a 2-point underdog in KFord, and a 2.3-point underdog in FEI. Translation, the strength of these two teams is about as close as it's been in a very long time.

What do the resume-based metrics say?

Definition: Resume based metrics compare the teams performance to how the average top 10 team would have performed against the same schedule. They measure not only strength of schedule, but how a team performs against that schedule.

SP+: 12

FPI (SOR): 9

KFord:

FEI: 9

Average: 10 (Prior: 12)

The deeper we get into BYU’s season, the less the strength of schedule argument holds weight. BYU’s “bad” wins were one-score road wins over two top 50 teams in FEI. Their other FBS wins were by an average of 20 points per game over the teams that are considered to be around the FBS average. BYU’s resume is significantly boosted by the fact that they are 1 of 11 remaining undefeated teams in the FBS, but only 5 of the 11 have a higher strength of record. One of the prevailing narratives continues to be that they have beaten no one and are squeaking by at that. That is simply not what their resume suggests. They have a tougher strength of schedule than teams like Penn State and undefeated Georgia Tech per FPI and have performed better against their schedule than either of those schools. At a certain point, the narratives are just noise that ignore the data.

Conclusion

BYU has a massive opportunity to vault into the playoff discussion with a win Saturday. While Utah is lower than BYU in the AP poll, they are considered the better team by predictive metrics and the betting public. Utah is rated as a top 15 team in every predictive metric and as high as 12th in FEI. You might think all this numbers talk is silly, but beating a team of that strength would vault BYU up the committee's resume rankings and cement BYU as the chief challenger to Texas Tech in the Big12.

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Joe Wheat
JOE WHEAT

Joe Wheat has covered BYU since 2020. He specializes in passionate opinions fueled by statistics and advanced analytics. Joe’s goal in writing is to celebrate the everyday fan by understanding what they are feeling and giving them the data to understand why.

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