Initial 02 Girls FBR Rankings

02 FBR Notes:

Since this is new to many of you, I'm sure there will be lots of questions. Here are some basics details about the FBR rankings for the '02's that will hopefully answer a large number of those questions. I will spare the general forum the gory details behind the ranking calculation forumla, but am willing to share/discuss details via PM with anyone. Also, if anyone desires, you can go to footballrankulator.com (shameless plug) and buy a copy of the FBR software for ~$30 and I can send you the ranking files.

1) Database starts from January 1, 2011. Includes January tourney results and league results from SDL, SDLII, EAL, PTSAL, Dallas CAL, & Arlington PAL.

2) Results for games against '03 teams are included in the database and used in calculating the rankings, but I am removing the '03's from the rankings before I publish them.

3) I am not listing teams in the rankings until they have at least 3 game results in the database. We usually don't get an accurate ranking on a team until it has played at least 3 games. Currently the list of teams excluded from the rankings due to <3 game results includes:

Aces Black McCallum
Aces Red McCallum
Bandits McFarlane
FC Dallas Barakat
FC Dallas Ptak
Fusion Duke
Liverpool Hansen (Savage)
Mustangs Parker
Rowdies May
Solar East Sanchez
Texas Blitz Peabody
Texas Lightning
Texas Spirit North
TFC Larry

4) Ranking Tier Placement

In FBR, we use ranking "Tiers" to help with appropriate weighting of teams for Strength of Schedule (SoS) calculation. The Tiers are designed to be completely independent of any league or tournament assignment. However, for the initial Tier placement of the '02's, I did go along league division assignments:

Tier 1 = SDL Div1, SDLII, EAL, PTSAL U10 11v11
Tier 2 = SDL Div2, PTSAL U9 11 v 11
Tier 3 = PTSAL U9 9v9, Dallas CAL, Arlington PAL

Then, after putting together the initial database, I looked at team performance and made adjustments accordingly, including the creation of a Tier4 where I dropped the lowest performing teams from the original Tier 3. The general rule I have followed is that teams that have Won all of their games against teams within their initial Tier placement were bumped up 1 ranking Tier. Teams that have not won any games against teams in their initial Tier placement were bumped down 1 ranking Tier.

Over time, the Tier placements will be governed strictly by performance using promotion/relegation criteria. We have used this system with the '01's and it has worked very nicely over time. The promotion/relegtion rules are as follows:

Promotion:
Win or Draw against higher Tier opponent and >=80% win% vs. current Tier opponents in last 7 games
2nd Win or Draw against higher Tier opponent and >=60% win% vs. current Tier opponents in last 7 games

Relegation:
Lose to lower Tier opponent and <20% win% vs. current Tier opponents in last 7 games
2nd Loss to lower Tier opponent and <40% win% vs. current Tier opponents in last 7 games
0% win% vs. current Tier opponents last 7 games

Placement:
Teams placed initially based on result and Tier of first three opponents. Default placement
of new team is Tier4 unless Win or Draw against higher Tier team in first 3 games

Misc:
Tier promotion/relegation considers Tier of opponents at game date (i.e., a team that beats an intra-Tier opponent that later gets promoted, does not then have their old intra-Tier Win converted to a higher Tier Win).

Win % is calculated using 3-0-1 W-L-D point system. Win % = 100*(Total Points Scored)/(Maximum Possible Points)

When the rankings are published, I will also publish a summary of the W-L records in games between teams from different ranking tiers. This is used as a sanity check to ensure that the Tier placement is set properly.

One final note about the ranking Tiers... The Tier that a team is placed in has minimal impact on the ranking calculation for that team. What is important for the ranking calculation is the Tier placement of a team's opponents.

Initial FBR '02 Rankings



Records Between Tiers


Initial Ranking Tiers

Huh huh. AWESOME.

Great Job! Thanks

BW, just noticed that Fever Red and Black are listed, but not White. I think they are doing pretty well in Primetime. 3 and 0, 3 and 1, 4 and 0. Something like that. I will try and find out for you.

Wow. Great job.

Fever White is playing Primetime 01s and are 3 and 1. Now I know why they aren't listed.

tmcc wrote:Fever White is playing Primetime 01s and are 3 and 1. Now I know why they aren't listed.

You hit it on the head tmcc. When it's 1 or 2 '02 teams playing in an '01 league, it's very hard to include those games in the rankings because you do not get enough games against common opponents in the rankings database that can provide an accurate reference for strength of schedule (SoS) calculations. Fever White and Rowdies fit in this category. Even with Fever Red, the only game I am counting from PTSAL is the game against DT South '02. Fever Red also had some games against other '02's in one of the Jan. tourneys, so I have enough to at least get them a somewhat accurate ranking, although we'll really have to wait for them to play some tourney's this Spring against other '02's to get a truly accurate read on them.

I actually have a somewhat similar problem with the teams in PAL and CAL because I don't have a lot of reference games (either league or tourney) between most of those teams and the main SDL teams. However, I do at least have 1 crossover reference (Cosmos Black in CAL, Polaris in PAL) with SDL in each of those league to provide some kind of reference for Tier placement. So I have more confidence in the rankings for those teams.

FBR will likely be a bit noisy until we get a few more games in the database for most teams, and also until we hopefully get some cross-league matchups in the Spring tourneys. That will help to get teams dialed in to their appropriate ranking tier, which will dial in the SoS part of the FBR calculation.