'05 FBR Rankings - 11-30-12

Welcome back, B-dub!
Hope you and the fam enjoyed Mickey and his friends!
We missed you..

LA's record is not exactly right. They had 2 ties and I one loss. Does this include the Addidas tournament the weekend before primetime?

W L T
15-1-2

medge05mom wrote:LA's record is not exactly right. They had 2 ties and I one loss. Does this include the Addidas tournament the weekend before primetime?

WingNut wrote: W L T
15-1-2

Wingnut has it correct... FBR stands for "FootballRankulator", not "FutbolRankulator". It's a SW program built for overzealous college football fans to put together their own BCS style rankings.

We just use it to satisfy overzealous NTX soccer parents' need to see rankings of 7-10 yr. old girls soccer teams in NTX

So you just have to deal with the "Throwball" way of displaying W/L/T record, instead of the "proper" (said with my best European accent) way of displaying a Futbol Table.

Gophers,

I won't pretend to understand the complexities and nuances of the FBR, but I am curious about a couple of the latest changes. Since the FBR was last updated, Kicks has gone 6-0, one of those being a 4-0 win against then #5 and another being a 4-1 win against then #1. Their other wins are all against FBR top 15 teams. Additionally, a 1-0 loss to #4 has also been dropped. And they've improved a mere 3 points? By the same token, I see DT South has arrived in the top five, where they certainly belong in my opinion. How they got there, however, is a bit of mystery. Fifty-one points for a 1-1 record, the one loss being a 2-1 defeat at the hands of then #1, the same team Kicks beat 4-1 a week later. I think I do recall something about the more games there are on the books, the less a win or loss is valued.

Is that the case here?

For the record, I have no problem with where teams are actually ranked. I just see the top three a little closer than the point value would suggest.

Thanks.

ZenFutbol wrote: And they've improved a mere 3 points?

Not exactly. They've actually improved 11 points because Lady Aztecs, who were #1, dropped 8.

ZenFutbol wrote: I think I do recall something about the more games there are on the books, the less a win or loss is valued.

A bit of semantics here... it's not that the games are valued any more or less, it's that they have less impact on the ranking calculation. 90% of the FBR ranking calculation is based on performance averaged over all games a team has played. So, the more games a team has played, the less any single game result will move a team's total ranking point value up or down.

For example, DT South has played 2 games, one of which is against Lady Aztecs "A", so LA accounts for 50% of DTS's SoS calculation. Kicks has played 2 games against LA and 1 against RASE (both teams count similar towards SoS) in 14 total games. So those opponents account for 3/14 = 21% of Kicks SoS calculation. That's a big difference in the overall SoS calculation, and as a result, DTS has a significant advantage in that area, which helps boost their overall point total.

The main reason why there is still such a large separation in total ranking points between Kicks and RASE/LA, is that Kicks has played a larger % of their games against teams that were in CFBAL Gold or below...

5/14 = 36% for Kicks vs. 4/18 = 22% for LA vs. 0/10 = 0% for RASE.

Here is where some subjectivity comes in to play because the '05 FBR is still relatively new. I had to start somewhere with ranking tiers for FBR, and I started by essentially assigning teams based on the CFBAL divisions from the fall. I have started applying the results based criteria that I use to move teams up or down between ranking tiers in the other age groups, but so far, there has not been much movement in the '05's because there has not been a large amount of "crossover" play between teams in the different CFBAL divisions and/or different leagues from CFBAL. So far, none of the teams from CFBAL Gold have done anything to get them moved up into a tier with some of the CFBAL Platinum teams. It may be that some of the better CFBAL Gold teams like LFCA Carragher or LFCA Rush deserve to be considered on the same level as some of the CFBAL Platinum teams like Cosmos, LFCA Heighway, or Celtic, but I don't have any game results that would justify such a move yet. So, the 5 wins that Kicks has against the teams from that ranking tier count significantly less. Since that is a larger % of Kicks total # of games, they are hit pretty hard in this category and that category is 40% of the total FBR calculation.

At U8, there are fewer tournaments, and fewer teams play in more than one league at a time. That impacts the accuracy of FBR, which uses that type of "crossover" play to self-calibrate the ranking tiers, and take some of the subjectivity out of the rankings. As the '05's move in to U9 and eventually U10, there will likely be more crossover play, and the result will be a more accurate overall ranking system. (Although, as you said, when you take a step back and look at the whole picture, I think the '05 FBR as a whole is in pretty decent shape for this early in the process).

May not be the exact answer you were looking for, but hopefully helps you to understand why the numbers are the way they are.

bwgophers wrote:

ZenFutbol wrote: And they've improved a mere 3 points?

Not exactly. They've actually improved 11 points because Lady Aztecs, who were #1, dropped 8.

ZenFutbol wrote: I think I do recall something about the more games there are on the books, the less a win or loss is valued.

A bit of semantics here... it's not that the games are valued any more or less, it's that they have less impact on the ranking calculation. 90% of the FBR ranking calculation is based on performance averaged over all games a team has played. So, the more games a team has played, the less any single game result will move a team's total ranking point value up or down.

For example, DT South has played 2 games, one of which is against Lady Aztecs "A", so LA accounts for 50% of DTS's SoS calculation. Kicks has played 2 games against LA and 1 against RASE (both teams count similar towards SoS) in 14 total games. So those opponents account for 3/14 = 21% of Kicks SoS calculation. That's a big difference in the overall SoS calculation, and as a result, DTS has a significant advantage in that area, which helps boost their overall point total.

The main reason why there is still such a large separation in total ranking points between Kicks and RASE/LA, is that Kicks has played a larger % of their games against teams that were in CFBAL Gold or below...

5/14 = 36% for Kicks vs. 4/18 = 22% for LA vs. 0/10 = 0% for RASE.

Here is where some subjectivity comes in to play because the '05 FBR is still relatively new. I had to start somewhere with ranking tiers for FBR, and I started by essentially assigning teams based on the CFBAL divisions from the fall. I have started applying the results based criteria that I use to move teams up or down between ranking tiers in the other age groups, but so far, there has not been much movement in the '05's because there has not been a large amount of "crossover" play between teams in the different CFBAL divisions and/or different leagues from CFBAL. So far, none of the teams from CFBAL Gold have done anything to get them moved up into a tier with some of the CFBAL Platinum teams. It may be that some of the better CFBAL Gold teams like LFCA Carragher or LFCA Rush deserve to be considered on the same level as some of the CFBAL Platinum teams like Cosmos, LFCA Heighway, or Celtic, but I don't have any game results that would justify such a move yet. So, the 5 wins that Kicks has against the teams from that ranking tier count significantly less. Since that is a larger % of Kicks total # of games, they are hit pretty hard in this category and that category is 40% of the total FBR calculation.

At U8, there are fewer tournaments, and fewer teams play in more than one league at a time. That impacts the accuracy of FBR, which uses that type of "crossover" play to self-calibrate the ranking tiers, and take some of the subjectivity out of the rankings. As the '05's move in to U9 and eventually U10, there will likely be more crossover play, and the result will be a more accurate overall ranking system. (Although, as you said, when you take a step back and look at the whole picture, I think the '05 FBR as a whole is in pretty decent shape for this early in the process).

May not be the exact answer you were looking for, but hopefully helps you to understand why the numbers are the way they are.

I wasn't looking for a certain answer, merely understanding. Very thorough and certainly thought-provoking. Thanks for your response.

Hey Gophers,

I really appreciate you taking the time to put these ranking lists together. With all that rocket science, it looks like these girls are headed to the moon.

Why are there no teams on the list from the UAL and SDL leagues?

travelin light wrote:

Why are there no teams on the list from the UAL and SDL leagues?

Because those leagues do not post scores on-line, and no one is reporting the scores on the forum. I had one person PM me scores for a team from SDL, but unfortunately I need the scores from all of the teams in the league to add any single team from the league into the database. Also, for whatever reason, none of the UAL/SDL teams played in any tournaments.