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Remember ‘game control?’ SEC teams dominated that stat in 2015
By Keith Farner
Published:
The SEC had three of the nation’s top four teams in “game control,” a stat used by ESPN and the College Football Playoff committee that measures in-game win probability.
Game control is designed to find the “most deserving” teams in the College Football Playoff, and the metrics look backward at what a team has accomplished to date. Combined with “strength of record,” game control is “designed to evaluate how each team’s accomplishment stacks up against what everyone else has done to the same point in the season.”
The five SEC teams in the top 25 of the playoff picture rankings by ESPN, ranked even higher in game control. Alabama (1), Ole Miss (3), Tennessee (4) and LSU (10) were in the top 10, while Florida was No. 22.
In another metric, SEC ranked near the top in “strength of record,” which reflects the chance that an average Top 25 team would have that team’s record or better, given the schedule. Those rankings were similar to game control for Alabama (1), Ole Miss (8), LSU (9) and Florida (14) and Tennessee (22).
Strength of record measures a team’s quality wins and bad losses based on the strength of an opponent, and is not concerned with point margin.
The four College Football Playoff teams all ranked in the top six in “strength of record,” and Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma were in the top six in “game control” while Michigan State ranked No. 17.
Alabama ranked No. 1 in strength of schedule, strength of record and game control.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
