2012 Schedule Analysis

2012: The More Things Change...

© Copyright 2012, Paul Kislanko

The 2012 ronud of conference realignments didn't change this: the decrease in connectivity of the FBS field is accelerating. In addition to the continued increase in number of games against non-FBS teams and decreasing number of interconference games, there are four additional teams in the field (there are 486 more team-pairs to try to connect just because of the four additions.)

As a result, at the end of the 2012 regular season the teams that are connected by no worse than an opponents' opponent relationship is the lowest I've ever measured.

Asof	#Gms	%O+OO	APL	maxPL	#Pairs	#O+#OO	%O+OO	PL=1	PL=2	PL=3	PL=4	PL>4
20120905	42	0.6	∞	∞	42	42	0.6	42	0
20120912	87	1.8	∞	∞	206	139	1.8	87	52	31	19	17
20120919	135	4.1	10.64	32	7626	310	4.1	135	175	225	288	6803
20120926	183	7.3	5.02	10	7626	555	7.3	183	372	726	1296	5049
20121003	234	11.3	3.99	8	7626	864	11.3	234	630	1487	2562	2713
20121010	288	16.4	3.43	6	7626	1251	16.4	288	963	2465	3045	865
20121017	342	21.3	3.15	5	7626	1623	21.3	342	1281	3129	2625	249
20121024	398	26.4	2.96	5	7626	2014	26.4	398	1616	3572	1978	62
20121031	455	30.6	2.82	5	7626	2336	30.6	455	1881	3851	1431	8
20121107	513	34.3	2.72	5	7626	2619	34.3	513	2106	4036	969	2
20121114	569	37.7	2.64	4	7626	2877	37.7	569	2308	4084	665
20121121	622	40.4	2.58	4	7626	3082	40.4	622	2460	4066	478
20121128	678	43.4	2.52	4	7626	3308	43.4	678	2630	4000	318
20121206	690	44	2.5	4	7626	3357	44.0	690	2667	4013	256
20121208	691	44.1	2.5	4	7626	3363	44.1	691	2672	4009	254

In the Football Bowl subdivision, there are 108 games against non-FBS opponents. There are 110 games between AQ conference teams and non-AQ conference teams (72 at the AQ team's field.) There are 52 interconference matchups between teams from non-AQ conferences, and only 48 between teams from the "big 6."

Scheduled Interconference Games

Home→ ↓Road	ACC	BigE	B10	B12	ND	P12	SEC	CUSA	Ind	MAC	MW	SBC	WAC
ACC		5	1	3	2	1	2	0	1	0	0	0	0
BigE	3		2	0	1	0	2	2	1	4	1	1	0
B10	1	1		0	2	3	0	0	1	3	1	0	0
B12	0	0	1		0	1	1	2	0	1	0	1	1
ND	1	0	1	1		1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
P12	0	1	1	0	1		2	1	2	0	3	0	1
SEC	4	1	2	0	0	0		3	0	0	0	2	0
CUSA	2	0	5	4	0	1	4		0	1	0	3	1
Ind	2	1	1	0	2	1	0	1		2	3	1	2
MAC	2	4	9	0	0	1	5	1	3		2	1	0
MW	0	0	2	3	0	4	0	2	2	0		0	6
SBC	3	0	1	2	0	1	10	5	1	0	1		0
WAC	2	0	2	0	0	1	3	4	4	2	3	1
non-FBS	13	9	8	9	0	9	15	6	3	11	9	7	9

An astonishing 23 of the 48 AQ-conference team vs AQ-conference team include an ACC team - 9 home games, 12 road games and two neutral-site games.

"Home" is overstated in the above table because there are 11 neutral site interconference games:

Date	Conf	Team	type	Conf	Team
8/30	WAC	Louisiana Tech	vs	SEC	Texas A&M	—	Shreveport LA
8/31	ACC	North Carolina State	vs	SEC	Tennessee	—	Atlanta GA
9/1	Ind	Navy	vs	ND	Notre Dame	—	Dublin Ireland
9/1	SEC	Alabama	vs	B10	Michigan	—	Arlington TX
9/1	SEC	Auburn	vs	ACC	Clemson	—	Atlanta GA
9/1	B10	Iowa	vs	MAC	Northern Illinois	—	Chicago IL
9/1	P12	Colorado	vs	MW	Colorado State	—	Denver CO
9/8	P12	Southern California	vs	BigE	Syracuse	—	East Rutherford NJ
9/8	SEC	Arkansas	vs	SBC	UL Monroe	—	Little Rock AR
9/29	BigE	Cincinnati	vs	ACC	Virginia Tech	—	Landover MD
10/6	ACC	Miami-Florida	vs	ND	Notre Dame	—	Chicago IL

So, for instance, the SEC teams play six home games against AQ-conference opponents, not seven.

There's not much to add to what I've said (ranted?) about this before. Those of us who depend upon a reasonable number of "connections" of top teams to find objective measurements of relative team position lament the "watering down" of the FBS schedule.

There are a few changes in the structure of the site for 2012. The conference standings page now includes all conferences, not just division 1. Consolidated conference and "division" schedules are linked from that page. Also, for the "consolidated" schedules, the affiliation of a team not in that category (division or conference) is included as a comment.