Sad trombone edition… This regular feature was inspired the Reddit dude last year who created a Python script to do these charts for every FBS team. Recapping the methodology again: These aren’t actual SP+ win probabilities, as SP+ creator Bill Connelly doesn’t publish those regularly after his preseason previews. We used a slightly tweaked version of the formula that the Reddit guy reverse-engineered to get close to published probabilities. That formula does some probability magic on the differential in SP+ rating for the two teams (with a bump for home field). I applied this formula to the preseason ratings and nudged it a bit until most of the probabilities were within 1-2 percentage points of Connelly’s published numbers, and will rely on that formula for the rest of the season. So it won’t exactly match the official win probability for each game but it’ll be close enough for our purposes.
Post-Week 4 Update
As to how to read this chart:
As you move down each column, you find the probability of Notre Dame owning that many wins at that point of the schedule. In the first row, you can see that the probability of owning 0 wins through week 1 is 0% and one win is 100%, since we already won. Same for the New Mexico row. Since we just lost to Georgia, that row now shows a 100% of two wins at that point.
The 15.3% figure in the Stanford row translates to our chances to win out at this point. The color coding ranges from green for the most probable outcome to red for the least probable. From this chart, you can see that SP+ still predicts 10-2 as our most likely season record at 33.8%.
In the last row, we’re tracking how much the probability of each win total has changed from the previous week. This is largely a function of our own outcomes, the quality of play that led to those outcomes, and SP+’s changing perceptions of our opponents. Not surprisingly, the loss and the performance that went with it led to most of our individual game probabilities decreasing, albeit slightly in most cases.
Week by Week Game Trends
Some slight downward trend, but clearly the Irish are still in great shape for the season. Also… Pure Michigan.ā¢
Other Nuggets
- Tackling the “Big Three”: With a loss to Georgia now officially in the books, we’ll pivot on the composition of the Big Three – now it’s USC, Michigan, and Stanford. Since all the individual win probabilities in that group are above 50%, it should surprise no one that the most probable outcome is a sweep, at 38.1%. The next most probable is wins over USC and Stanford and a loss to Michigan, at 27.1%. I would imagine most Irish fans would be bitterly disappointed with anything other than a sweep at this point.
- Taking care of business: Despite losing the game, Notre Dame’s expected win total only dropped by about one-third of a game to 9.38 wins. If the Irish win all games in which SP+ heavily favors them (70% or higher win probability), that expectation jumps to 10.58 wins.
- Ann Arbor Is a Vacuum: You know why… There’s only one opponent who SP+ has felt is less likely to beat the Irish with each passing week. Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!! With about five minutes left in the third quarter, Wisconsin went up 35-0 on the Skunkbears. Michigan’s seven offensive series to that point ended thusly: fumble, punt, punt, interception, end of half, punt. They gained 68 yards on the first play of the game, then gained 56 yards on the next 26 plays. Yes, we’re only three games into the season, but Michigan is already in crisis mode with very few answers on the horizon. Just hate to see it.
- Mover and shakers: The Irish’s win probabilities against four opponents moved by less than two percentage points this week: Virginia, Bowling Green, Virginia Tech, Duke, and Boston College. Not much point to going over those. Recapping the more notable movers:
- USC moved 7.1 points in the wrong direction after Utah did everything in their power to not win. I think they were people in the stands who could’ve played the ball better than the Utes secondary did. We’ll see what happens against Washington this week, but I still have the sense that USC’s success thus far is made of pyrite.
- Michigan jumped 5.1 points for the reasons cited above. Briefly, they’re bad.
- Navy dropped 13.4 points; I’m still trying to figure that one out. They didn’t play this week, and to date they’ve only played FCS Holy Cross and East Carolina, who ranks 111th in SP+. This is the week where preseason projections really start to rotate out of SP+, so that’s probably the big driver here. Keep an eye on how they do this week at Memphis, who ranks 17th in SP+.
- Stanford jumped 6.9 points (nice?) after getting waxed by Oregon. The Cardinal managed just 234 yards of total offense and are now 1-3 for the first time since 2007, which was Jim Harbaugh’s first season on the Farm. Again, you just hate to see it.
What do we know about pyrite?
Well, one thing is the chemical makeup is Iron and sulfur. Iron, of course is the main ingredient(along with Magnesium) needed to make THERMITE. What does thermite do? It burns like a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddd mofo. Burn Troy!
Iām no hyper-optimist, but near equal odds of 8-4 and 11-1 seems off to me. It seems like 11-1 and 9-3 should be more or less equally likely, and 10-2 should be the expectation/maybe even >50% at this point.
Hey man, math is math… š That Michigan number, which I believe is still over-valued despite the steadily increasing gap between our respective SP+ ratings, is dragging down the full season odds. As preseason projections fall out further over the next couple of weeks Iād expect that to move more favorably.
To me, it seems as though either they go 11-1 OR they go 9-3, so those odds should be 50-50, right?
#ACKSUALLY every record from 2-10 to 11-1 is 50/50, as they each either will or will not happen.
While I’m not too worried about USC, watching them against Utah gave me a little bit of “Unstoppable Standford Jump Ball Offense” terror. Which is always fun.
Where’s Gary at?
Hopefully ND knows D’Eric King’s cell phone number…
Big fan of the week-by-week game trends addition! Keep up the good work!
In my mind this loss actually increased my expected win total for the season. This game made me think we could fairly easily handle all of our remaining opponents. I am sure we won’t, but prior to Saturday, I thought 10-2 was our ceiling, now I think 11-1 is just as in play.