2012 actual Schedule Topology

© Copyright 2012, Paul Kislanko

With only the championship game left for FCS and all the bowl matchups set, it's time to look at how the schedule topology actually measured for 2012. While FBS connectivity is still not what we'd like, we barely got more than half the field connected to more than half the field once the bowl games were set.

While the connectivity metrics indicate that FBS still does not need more than a 2-team playoff, if the trend towards larger conferences and fewer interconference FBS-FBS games by the time we have a four-team playoff it will. Though still not as much as the other divisions do.

FBS FCS D2 D3
#Pairs 7626 7381 11325 26335
OO+O%Pairs 50.38 29.67 21.49 15.81 % of total pairs that are connected by at least one common opponent
Connected at PL 4 5 7 7
APL 2.41 2.95 3.39 3.69
#Teams 124 122 151 230
OO+O#Teams 64 3 1 0 # of teams with half the field or better as Os or O-Os
OO+O%Teams 51.6 2.5 0.7 0.0 % of teams that are connected to half the field or better as Os or O-Os
%Pairs at
PL=1 9.55 8.17 6.64 4.31
PL=2 40.83 21.5 14.85 11.5
PL=3 48.37 41.44 31.05 28.13
PL=4 1.25 24.86 30.17 30.31
PL=5   4.02 15.1 18.99
PL=6     0.16 5.95
PL-7       0.81
Paths/pair 303.3 1607 14972.1 86156.5
The charts below give a feel for how many paths at each pathlength are used by the time each field is connected.

d3 connections at PL=7

d2 connections at PL=6

FCS connections at PL=5

FBS cpmmectopms at PL=4