Welcome to the 2020 college football Hourglass
By Jake Wimberly
When we look back there will be no words to really describe 2020. As I sit here and write this, on the 30th of March – 2020 has been filled with global sickness and death due to COVID-19, loss of jobs, assets, family and more. 2020 will be a year we will never forget – but we will want to. We continue to keep you all in our thoughts and prayers and may we all come together to beat this horrible outbreak.
As I write this today, we need a silver lining, we need something to look forward to. This year we have seen businesses close, sports come to a screeching halt, and more.
That is why if we can get to the other side of this – and we can make it happen in a safe way, we need football this year.
We just celebrated 150 years of college football this past year – we need 151 now more than ever.
For the fourth straight year we are pleased to bring you the College Football Hourglass – an analytical approach to the game of college football; inspired by others around the globe, and our love for a more intelligent look into the greatest game out there – college football.
We can only hope we have a regular season like we are accustomed to, and we will project as such here – but, we may have an abbreviated season; one that is shifted a bit to accommodate all that has gone on in 2020.
For now – we will begin projections as though we are going to play an entire season – like we are accustomed to, in the greatest land on earth.
Let’s get to it shall we. Today we will look at just what is the Hourglass, often referred to the “HG”, what defines it – past records and our initial power ranking.
Our power ranking is not the same as our final rankings – which we will drop very shortly.
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Explaining the Hourglass:
If you are new to what we are doing here – the Hourglass is an analytical look into the future on what we think will happen for all 129 Division One football teams in college football.
We use a set of criteria to give each team a defined number, that lets us develop a power ranking – that in turn lets us predict games, set Vegas betting lines and more.
We use the following criteria.
- A three-year recruiting metric for each team that factors in attrition, the transfer portal and early entry into the National Football League Draft.
- A returning quarterback metric (or revised starter metric for new and transfer quarterbacks)
- A three-year coaching metric for every head coach. OR New identifier(s) for new head coaches.
- A two-year offensive and defensive scoring coefficient
- A national strength of schedule coefficient; because who you play, when you play – before and after opponents’ matter.
- An adjusted home field coefficient.
All of this information is put into a cooker and we spit out a “number stamp” for every program.
We can then project games months in advance (wins or losses) and use the data in season for gaming purposes.
Since 2017 we have gone 1790-405 on straight up game picks (82 percent); and 1000-800 ATS (against the spread), 56 percent.
2018 results - percentages of missed games per team(s)
2019 results - games missed per team
Below we break down the top ten in recruiting, quarterbacks, coaches and ODE (offensive and defensive scoring efficiency) for 2020. We will also drop the HG Power 129, our official power rankings. Later this week and moving forward, we will present records for everyone, our New Years Day Six and more.
Recruiting:
“Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program”, we hear that all the time, but you still have people that want to try and discredit recruiting. It is true, not all top recruiters win the National Title and it is true many programs squander top talent or mis-evaluate talent. After all, the process isn’t perfect - but, it’s damn close.
We will explain this in more detail in our recruiting piece in the coming days, but what we and others have found is since 1998, if you are not recruiting in a certain range, the odds of you winning or even playing for a national title are slim to none.
There are no Cinderella’s in college football - the Jimmy’s and Joe’s do far exceed the X’s and the O’s. Below is our top ten teams this year on our three year recruiting model. If your team is not on this list, odds are you will not be punching a ticket to the College Football Playoff.
Coaching:
We base all our coaching metrics on a recent three year trend if possible, because sometimes coaches just aren’t what they use to be and sometimes they are much more than they use to be.
We break down the Power Five and Group of Five, because we want everyone included and there are great G5 coaches that will make good to great P5 coaches in the future.
As with recruiting we will get more into these coaches in the coming days with specific write ups and podcasts.
Quarterbacks:
Quarterback is the most important position in arguably all of sports. A great quarterback can take an average team and make them really good. A bad quarterback can take a good team and make them bad.
To my knowledge we are the only analytical system that accounts for returning quarterback play in the country. This one element can propel or handicap a roster. If you don’t believe it look no further than Joe Burrow and how he totally transformed LSU and their run to the National Championship.
Is there another Burrow in 2020? Who will be the best quarterback or backs this year?
Two Year ODE TRACKER:
Offensive and Defensive scoring efficiency is another element to what we do and this matters as well. We call this our college football stock market watch. You can follow the ODE during the season and it can tell you how teams are trending. Last year we saw LSU living in the top of the country offensively and making the surge defensively by years end, in our College Football Playoff projector poll.
Courtesy of ESPN dot com - “Team efficiencies are based on the point contributions of each unit to the team's scoring margin, on a per-play basis. The values are adjusted for strength of schedule and down-weighted for "garbage time" (based on win probability). The scale goes from 0 to 100; higher numbers are better and the average is roughly 50 for all categories. Efficiencies update daily during the season.”
We average two years worth of data to come up with the top ten. Most years, all college football teams are inside the top ten by years in, in one or mostly both categories.
The 2020 CFBHG Power Poll:
Below is our power poll for this year and this poll does NOT suffice for a top 25 or a top 129. This is strictly how we have everyone positioned before we play out schedules and the season, based on the criteria we set.
Coming up in the coming days - our final rankings, which DO suffice as a poll, along with records and such.
The 2020 CFHG Power 129
1 Clemson 169.72
2 Ohio State 161.09
3 Georgia 151.26
4 Notre Dame 150.50
5 Alabama 147.56
6 Oklahoma 134.75
7 Penn State 132.03
8 Florida 128.20
9 Texas 123.92
10 Auburn 121.24
11 Texas A&M 120.40
12 LSU 114.34
13 Michigan 114.00
14 Wisconsin 112.78
15 Oregon 112.14
16 North Carolina 108.94
17 USC 108.29
18 Minnesota 103.62
19 Miss. State 102.99
20 UCF 96.12
21 Stanford 96.11
22 Tennessee 95.17
23 Arizona State 94.99
24 Miami 94.63
25 Washington 93.93
26 Utah 93.40
27 Florida State 92.97
28 Boise State 92.64
29 Oklahoma State 92.22
30 Kentucky 89.12
31 TCU 88.53
32 South Carolina 85.48
33 UCLA 84.50
34 Iowa 84.40
35 Ole Miss 84.14
36 Virginia Tech 82.52
37 Cincinatti 82.42
38 Louisville 81.22
39 Nebraska 80.72
40 California 80.39
41 Baylor 80.11
42 Arkansas 76.48
43 NC State 75.87
44 Syracuse 75.16
45 Iowa State 75.03
46 Michigan State 73.84
47 West Virginia 72.79
48 Memphis 72.56
49 Florida Atlantic 72.21
50 Missouri 70.67
51 Indiana 70.40
52 Virginia 70.28
53 Pittsburgh 69.92
54 Purdue 69.71
55 SMU 68.23
56 Maryland 67.60
57 Georgia Tech 65.58
58 Texas Tech 64.94
59 LA-Lafayette 64.14
60 Colorado 62.41
61 Arizona 59.80
62 Washington State 59.22
63 Boston College 59.15
64 Wake Forest 58.87
65 Kansas State 56.80
66 Northwestern 56.17
67 Duke 55.13
68 Toledo 54.81
69 Arkansas State 53.21
70 Rutgers 52.76
71 Illinois 51.83
72 Kansas 51.68
73 Marshall 51.26
74 App State 50.91
75 East Carolina 50.52
76 LA Tech 48.94
77 Vanderbilt 48.88
78 Southern Miss 47.78
79 Oregon State 46.82
80 Navy 46.48
81 FIU 45.83
82 MTSU 45.08
83 South Florida 44.27
84 BYU 42.52
85 Colorado State 41.04
86 Kent State 40.72
87 Temple 39.91
88 Houston 39.77
89 Western Kentucky 39.32
90 UAB 39.22
91 North Texas 38.73
92 Tulane 37.13
93 UNLV 36.09
94 Western Michigan 35.92
95 UTSA 33.26
96 Georgia Southern 33.18
97 Troy 32.04
98 San Diego State 31.96
99 Charlotte 31.83
100 Air Force 30.91
101 Army 29.28
102 Miami Ohio 26.62
103 Nevada 26.58
104 Texas State 25.88
105 Northern Ill. 25.82
106 Wyoming 24.84
107 Hawaii 23.66
108 Fresno State 23.54
109 Buffalo 22.86
110 Tulsa 22.66
111 Ohio 21.96
112 Georgia State 20.73
113 Utah State 19.11
114 Ball State 16.55
115 Old Dominion 15.78
116 Bowling Green 15.45
117 New Mexico 14.05
118 Eastern Michigan 13.28
119 Central Michigan 13.28
120 South Alabama 13.03
121 Liberty 12.87
122 Costal Carolina 12.75
123 Massachusetts 11.83
124 Rice 11.67
125 Akron 7.31
126 San Jose State 6.70
127 LA-Monroe 3.34
128 UTEP -3.08
129 Uconn -4.14
All photos are courtesy of 247sports.com
