Margin of Victory

The Power Points System is all about schedule strength. Margin of victory (MOV) receives no consideration. It is my opinion that rewarding MOV will only encourage weak scheduling as teams will attempt to schedule lesser opponents that they are more likely to blowout with less risk of loss. That said, I decided to apply MOV (or average scoring margin) to the Power Points System to see what kind of results it gets. Each team's average scoring margin is added to their power points total to determine a new total and then all teams are ranked accordingly. Here is how the AP top 25 teams ranked amongst each other based on the scoring margin and schedule strength rules respectively.

1 -Alabama 1 2
2 -Oregon 2 5
3 -Ohio State 6 6
4 -Notre Dame 3 1
5 -Texas A&M 7 9
5 -Georgia 8 7
7 -Stanford 5 3
8 -South Carolina 11 8
9 -Florida 4 4
10 -Florida State 9 11
11 -Clemson 12 12
12 -Kansas State 10 10
13 -Louisville 20 17
14 -Louisiana State 15 15
15 -Oklahoma 14 14
16 -Utah State 16 18
17 -Northwestern 22 23
18 -Boise State 18 19
19 -Texas 23 22
20 -Oregon State 21 21
21 -San Jose State 13 13
22 -Northern Illinois 17 20
23 -Vanderbilt 25 25
24 -Michigan 24 24
25 -Nebraska 19 16

The scoring margin and schedule strength rules agreed on the highest ranked team in 282 of 300 pairs (94%). Among the 18 disputed pairs, the AP sided with the scoring margin rules 10 times (56%). The 18 teams favored by scoring margin rules only needed to win one more game versus their weaker schedules to rank higher under the schedule strength rules. The 18 teams favored by the schedule strength rules only needed to win one more game versus their stronger schedules to rank higher under the scoring margin rules.

16 of the 18 teams favored by the scoring margin rules played at least one FCS opponent. FCS wins were artificially valued at 0 power points and the 18 SM favored teams finished on average less than four power points behind the SS favored teams under the schedule strength only rules.

On average, the 25 teams gained/lost 1.2 places between the two sets of rules. Oregon and Northern Illinois gained three spots due to scoring margin rules. South Carolina and Louisville dropped three spots due to scoring margin rules.