NIRA D1 By The Numbers
NIRA D1 By The Numbers
NIRA’s standings are out and if you’re looking at the D1 standings you’ll see a whole bunch of weird numbers.
That’s because NIRA is starting to use a Power Rating formula for the competition, starting with D1 but with plans to expand if it works. The Power Rankings formula is something we’ve been briefed on by the NIRA super-computer which resides in a bunker in the Berkshire Mountains, and we could explain it all to you … but wed have to … you know.
Anyway, the thing is that the factors that go into the Power Rating, such as strength of schedule, are continually in flux. If a team starts poorly, and your team beats them, you get credit for beating a team that’s not-so-strong. But if that team you beat ends well, then your strength of schedule gets a boost.
In addition, there’s some stuff with league average points and standard deviations that also change every week, making exact predictions on how the rankings will change almost impossible.
But … here’s some info on how it happens.
1. Winning teams see their points scored in games capped at 65. So scoring more than that doesn’t help you. In fact, it hurts you, because points allowed is NOT capped, so a massive blowout only serves to undercut your strength of schedule. This is a metric that is fully supported by athletic directors within NIRA.
2. Points Per Game and Point Allowed Per Game are measured against the league, and those ratings combine to make the Team Rating.
3. An adjusted winning percentage takes into account the strength of the team you play. Normally you win a game it’s a win and you lose a game and it’s a loss. In this formula, if you beat a very strong team it’s more than a one win, and if you beat a team that’s struggling it’s less than a single win.
Conversely, if you’re not rated highly, a loss to a leading team won’t hurt you so badly.
4. That adjusted winning percentage and the Team Rating factor into the Power Rating.
So now we look at last weekend and the coming weekend.
Brown got a nice boost with a 33-0 victory over Queens, significantly cutting their points-allowed per game. What that did was put Brown into a very good position to look over the shoulders of the three undefeated teams, Harvard, Sacred Heart, and Dartmouth.
(There are some games between NIRA teams that are not officially scheduled by NIRA, and they don't count in the standings. Dartmouth vs Quinnipiac last week is an of that.)
So now what Brown can do it make a massive move with a win over Harvard. With Dartmouth idle, Brown could potentially overhaul them with a win.
The other matchup of note is Sacred Heart vs Quinnipiac. The tough thing about Sacred Heart’s prospects is their strength of schedule. They have beaten Army, Brown, and Mount St. Mary’s, but after Quinnipiac they have Navy and LIU. Every team plays an Ivy, but Sacred Heart avoids Dartmouth and Harvard this season. That can be good—they are very strong and you might lose, but you could win, as well.
So Sacred Heart really needs a win here, and could also really benefit from Brown or Army finding success.
Army vs Mount St. Mary’s could be a big game, also, and Army might have targeted this game as a turning point.
Who makes the semifinals then? It’s still very much up in the air. Even if 1-3 Army seems out of it, they can, at the very least, affect the strength of schedule boost for someone else.