SOS thoughts?

[Gator]

I have a pet peeve with most SOS ratings. Nearly all (and ALL of them that I am aware of) determine SOS using an “average” team. This produces an absurd outcome for certain teams. There are 130 teams in FBS so the “average team is # 65.5. Because of the assumed bell curve the odds of the #65.5 team beating the #1 team are mirrored in the odds of the #65.5 team losing to the #130. This goes for the #2 and #129 teams etc. Thus, to the #65.5 team playing teams 1-6 and 125-130 is equivalent to team #65.5 playing teams 160-171 because in each schedule the opponents are symmetrically arrayed around team #65.5 and thus team #65.5 team is predicted to end up 6-6. For every other team is gives UN-equal results. Which schedule do you think the #15 team would rather play teams 60-71 or 1-6 and 125-130? In the first schedule, team #15 is 45+ positions higher rated than ANY of its opponents and thus would probably go 12-0 but let’s play devil advocate and say they screw up and lose to TWO of those teams (i.e., they go 10-2). In the second schedule they are 110+ position ahead of teams 125-130 and therefore will go 6-0. In order to match the 10-2 record of the worst case scenario for the first schedule team #15 would have to beat 4 of the teams rated 1-6! Those two schedules are NOT the same for team #15! The odds of the #15 team beating team #65.5 would probably be around 99%. The odds of beating team #165.5 would be 99.9+% and the odds of beating team 465.5 would be 99.99+. Thus, to the #15 team there is less than 1% difference in the odds of victory between playing team #65.5 and #465.5. Compare that to the odds for the #15 team against playing #1 and playing #21. Against team #1, team #15 would be the underdog but against team #21 they would be expected to be the favored team. For “good” teams the “strength” of the schedule is determined by the teams at the top of their schedule and NOT by those at the bottom.