The Tulane Green Wave is coming off a remarkable 31-24 victory over Houston last weekend with a big-time matchup against the Memphis Tigers on the way.
I'll be publishing an interview with an expert on Memphis football tomorrow for my "Know Your Enemy" piece, but with three games remaining this season, I couldn't help but think: what is this year going to look like?
Saturday will be a big factor. Memphis -- like Houston -- is fighting for the top spot in the American Conference. Tulane will be an 11 point underdog, which will shock no one, when they enter Yulman Stadium on Saturday.
Thinking about our chances, I have been getting really into the Football Outsiders website, which specializes in advanced stats for college football. If you're into that sort of think, you'll probably dig this post. If math isn't your thing, I'd probably use this as a jumping off point.
Memphis at Tulane:
While the conventional wisdom was that this season would come down to UCF vs. Cincinnati vs. East Carolina, that has not been the case. Memphis has already thrown a wrench in that dynamic with a single in-conference loss so far this year.
Memphis is a damn good football team. They took UCLA to the wire on the Bruins' field, and then hung with a very talented Ole Miss team into the fourth quarter in the Liberty Bowl. But how good are they?
Using the F/+ formula of Football Outsiders, which rates teams on the basis of offensive, defensive, and special teams performance excluding garbage time and garbage drives, here's a quick preview of Saturday:
Tulane Green Wave [3-6]:
- Ranking: 99th out of 128 in FBS
- Offensive Ranking: 92nd
- Defensive Ranking: 63rd
- Special Teams: 126th
- F/+ Rating: -14.5%
Memphis Tigers [6-3]:
- Ranking: 45th out of 128 in FBS
- Offensive Ranking: 75th
- Defensive Ranking: 46th
- Special Teams: 2nd
- F/+ Rating: 6.1%
A couple things pop out immediately. For one, as you can see in the full ranking, Memphis is the highest rated team in the American Conference. The Tigers, through this week, have been on par with the likes of Texas A&M, Texas, and the University of Florida. That is a big time college football team.
While both teams boast a serious strength on defensive with relatively low-ranked offenses through this week, you will notice the discrepancy at special teams: Memphis being ranked second in the country to Tulane, ranked second to last.
Interesting, but still 6.1% vs. -14.5% in a F/+ rating? What does that actually mean in terms of the football game that is about to be played.
An Underdog Story:
SB Nation writer Bill Connelly writes a pretty cool blog called Football Study Hall, which is worth checking out if you like this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, they do awesome projections for the power conferences but the AAC doesn't get any love.
My question this week was how meaningful the difference between Memphis and Tulane in their play so far this year should be as a factor in projecting who wins this game. After tweeting at Bill, they do not publish their algorithm for how they turn the F/+ ratings into pretty impressive predictions for win probabilities, so I decided to try to do it myself.
Using this college football season as a data set, in games so far between teams with a margin of F/+ ratings between 19 and 20 points, the favorite won about 96.8% of the time. If we played a game like that 100 times, you would expect the underdog to win about three of those times.
Does It Matter?
Depends who you ask. The ratings tend to be pretty solid. If you are picking games straight up using the F/+ ratings, you would be right about 78% of the time (it's a little tougher in projecting beating the spread, so that's a whole other conversation).
A relevant factor that we don't pick up from these numbers is that a team trending upward is obviously desirable when you need one to beat the odds, even if the chance of victory is fairly small.
I think Tulane fits that profile as much as any team can. For one, reports from practice this week indicate that not only has Tulane seen a couple key components coming back online after injury, but quarterback Tanner Lee is starting to hit his peak.
Tanner Lee had his best practice of the year and @teddyencalade was back in action. Good signs. #BeatMemphis http://t.co/uaOq5MnG4c
— Fear the Wave (@FearTheWaveBlog) November 13, 2014
That's a good sign. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the Tulane offensive unit -- which along with the special teams -- really anchors the Green Wave down in such ratings has been forced to evolve in some pretty absurd ways.Does the trajectory of the offense under Nick Montana, which slowed to a crawl as the team tried to minimize risk against UConn and UCF, have anything to do with where the offense is right now?
Is the fact that 70% of the yardage Tulane has put up offensively has been produced by freshman a factor in that each game is basically multiplying the amount of experience this team has?
It's very possible. Tulane will be able to choose its own fate on Saturday playing in front of a sold-out crowd against the toughest team in its league.
If the Green Wave can survive this one again, it will be a huge statement not only to the development of this team but also to its viability against East Carolina and Temple, which on paper will prove to be easier games.
Predicting the Other AAC Matchups:
Thursday:
East Carolina at Cincinnati: This one is extremely close on paper. Ranked 57th to 64th respectively, I have East Carolina with a 53% win probability. This is going to be a toss-up.
Saturday:
Tulsa at UCF: Huge disparity between these two teams. UCF playing at home will have a 98.5% chance of beating the Tulsa Golden Hurricane to stay in the AAC contender race.
Temple at Penn State: Temple will head to Penn State after a tough loss by a field goal to Memphis. The Owls should lose this one but have a 31% win probability, so they may be able to find some magic on the road.
USF at SMU: Both of these teams are considered the worst 15 squads in the country, but the Mustangs are putting up some historic numbers in their badness. USF will have an 81% win probability for this one on the road.
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