The 2011 Schedule

© Copyright 2011, Paul Kislanko

Is it really 2011 already? Seems just yesterday that we were talking about how Cam Newton would take Auburn to its first MNC since 1957 and how good that red field at Eastern Washington would look on TV. OK, we were talking about those things, just not that way...

With the conference affiliation changes for 2011 the interconference matchups have a slightly different shape than we're used to.

Interconference Game Counts

ACC BigE B10 B12 ND P12 SEC CUSA Ind MAC MW SBC WAC BSky BigS CAAF 1AAInd GWest Ivy MEAC MVC NE OVC Pat Pio SoCon SLC SWAC
ACC   6 3 3 3 1 5 6   2   5 1   3 5 1     1           3    
BigE 6   1 1 2 2 4 4 2 9   1       2       3     2 1        
B10 3 1   1 3 5 1 2 1 11 3 5 2         1   1 4   3     1    
B12 3 1 1     3 1 5 1 4 2 1 2       1       2   1       2  
ND 3 2 3     2     1   1                                  
P12 1 2 5 3 2   1 1 2   3 1 6 5 1     1     1              
SEC 5 4 1 1   1   4 3 3 2 7 5 1 1           2   2     5 1  
CUSA 6 4 2 5   1 4   5 1 3 7 4   2   1           1       3  
Ind   2 1 1 1 2 3 5   4 4 2 6 1   1               1        
MAC 2 9 11 4     3 1 4   2 2 2   3 2 1 1   3             1 1
MW     3 2 1 3 2 3 4 2   1 10 3     1 3         1       1  
SBC 5 1 5 1   1 7 7 2 2 1                   1           2 1
WAC 1   2 2   6 5 4 6 2 10     1       3                 1  
BSky           5 1   1   3   1         9                    
BigS 3         1 1 2   3           3     1 3   1   2 1 7    
CAAF 5 2             1 2         3   1   2 3   6   5 1      
1AAInd 1     1       1   1 1         1   3   1     3   1   11 2
GWest     1     1       1 3   3 9     3       4       2      
Ivy                             1 2       1   4   16        
MEAC 1 3 1             3         3 3 1   1     1   1   3 1 3
MVC     4 2   1 2         1           4       2 4 1 4   2  
NE                             1 6     4 1 2     5 5      
OVC   2 3 1     2 1     1           3       4         2   3
Pat   1             1           2 5     16 1 1 5     3      
Pio                             1 1 1 2     4 5   3   1    
SoCon 3   1       5               7         3     2   1      
SLC       2     1 3   1 1 2 1       11     1 2              
SWAC                   1   1         2     3     3          

Most BCS AQ interconference matchups: 6, ACC↔Big East
Most D1 interconference matchups: 16, Ivy↔Patriot
Most FBS interconference matchups: 11, Big 10↔MAC
This is actually fewer than usual. Meanwhile, there are 9 Big East↔MAC contests.
FBS vs FCS: ACC (13), SEC, MAC (12), B10 (10), MW (9), BigE, P12 (8), CUSA (7), B12 (6), WAC (5), CUSA, SBC (4)

To the great surprise of no one, no FBS team plays a road or neutral-site game against an FCS team.

Interconference Schedules
(Neutral site games in parentheses)

FBS v FBS ACC BigE B10 B12 ND P12 SEC CUSA Ind MAC MW SBC WAC
↓Home Road→ 13 12 10 8 5 12 8 27 16 26 15 21 24
21 ACC   3 2 3 1 1 3 2 0 2 0 3 1
19 BigE 3   0 1 1 1 1 3 1 7 0 1 0
26 B10 1 1   0 2 4 1 1 0 8 2 4 2
15 B12 0 0 1   0 1 0 4 1 4 1 1 2
6 ND 1 (+1) 1 1 0   1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
13 P12 0 1 1 2 1   0 0 1 0 1 1 5
22 SEC 2 3 0 0 (+1) 0 0 (+1)   1 3 3 0 6 4
14 CUSA 4 1 1 1 0 1 2 (+1)   1 0 1 1 1
13 Ind 0 0 (+1) 1 0 0 1 0 4   0 2 1 4
12 MAC 0 2 1 (+2) 0 0 0 0 1 4   2 2 0
12 MW 0 0 1 1 0 1 (+1) 0 (+2) 2 1 (+1) 0   1 5
10 SBC 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 (+1) 6 1 0 0   0
14 WAC 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 2 2 5 0

FCS @ FBS BSky BigS CAAF 1AAInd GWest Ivy MEAC MVC NE OVC Pat Pio SoCon SLC SWAC
↓Home Road→ 11 10 10 5 9 0 8 10 0 10 2 0 9 11 2
13 ACC 0 3 5 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0
8 BigE 0 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0
10 B10 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 4 0 3 0 0 1 0 0
6 B12 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 2 0
0 ND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 P12 5 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
12 SEC 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 5 1 0
7 CUSA 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 0
3 Ind 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
12 MAC 0 3 2 1 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
9 MW 3 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
4 SBC 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 1
5 WAC 1 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

FCS BSky BigS CAAF 1AAInd GWest Ivy MEAC MVC NE OVC Pat Pio SoCon SLC SWAC
↓Home Road→ 3 9 8 10 10 10 8 6 15 5 19 15 4 5 3
6 BSky   0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 BigS 0   2 0 0 1 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 0
13 CAAF 0 1   0 0 0 3 0 5 0 3 1 0 0 0
12 1AAInd 0 0 1   1 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 5 2
8 GWest 3 0 0 2   0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0
14 Ivy 0 0 2 0 0   0 0 3 0 9 0 0 0 0
6 MEAC 0 1 0 1 0 1   0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0
11 MVC 0 0 0 0 3 0 0   2 1 1 4 0 0 0
9 NE 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0   0 3 4 0 0 0
6 OVC 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 0   0 0 1 0 1
14 Pat 0 1 2 0 0 7 0 0 2 0   2 0 0 0
3 Pio 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1   0 0 0
9 SoCon 0 5 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 1   0 0
9 SLC 0 0 0 6 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0   0
0 SWAC 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (+3) 0 0 1 (+1) 0 0 0 0  

Here's a list of all the interconference matchups ordered by how the opponents finished 2010.

The annual schedule topology analysis:
Div Conn% APL Team PL=1 PL=2 PL=3 PL=4 PL=5 PL=6 PL=7 PL=8
1-FBS 47.04 2.46 %Pairs: 9.44 37.61 50.76 2.20      
1-FCS 23.92 3.35 %Pairs: 7.59 16.33 30.53 27.70 15.21 2.57 0.08
2 18.30 3.53 %Pairs: 6.18 12.12 24.50 25.86 20.16 7.01 0.33
3 13.61 4.04 %Pairs: 4.19 9.41 22.35 27.06 21.12 12.00 3.27 0.60

There's nothing much to see here since the results are pretty much the same every year. 1-FCS is slightly less connected than usual, but that's probably just an artifact of the increased size of the field - the newbies don't play a full schedule and there are a lot of them this year.

I'll just point out again that the non-FBS divisions have a playoff because they need one to resolve the lack of inter-regional play. That is much less true for FBS, where the schedules are (barely) connected enough to have the entire season be a playoff. It's worth looking at how the connectivity data for the FBS changes based upon games played each week.
Date Games δ APL PL= _1 _2 _3 _4 _5 _6 _7 _8 _9 _10 _11 _12 _13 _14 _15 _16 _17 _18 _19 _20 _21 _22 _23 _24
7-Sep 40 ∞ ∞   0.56                                            
14-Sep 85 ∞ ∞   1.19 0.76 0.45 0.25 0.14 0.06 0.01                                
21-Sep 133 24 9.48   1.86 2.55 3.33 4.34 5.55 6.82 7.90 9.02 9.59 9.45 8.63 7.58 6.78 5.21 3.78 2.82 1.96 1.16 0.71 0.42 0.28 0.18 0.06 0.01
28-Sep 180 10 4.94   2.52 5.28 10.14 18.01 25.49 23.40 11.33 3.17 0.63 0.03                          
5-Oct 233 7 3.77   3.26 9.43 23.32 37.93 23.29 2.65 0.13                                
12-Oct 285 6 3.30   3.99 14.15 36.62 38.81 6.39 0.04                                  
19-Oct 336 5 3.05   4.71 18.49 45.04 30.55 1.22                                    
26-Oct 387 5 2.89   5.42 22.84 49.36 22.24 0.14                                    
2-Nov 440 5 2.78   6.16 25.88 51.88 16.06 0.01                                    
9-Nov 493 4 2.68   6.90 29.15 53.40 10.55                                      
16-Nov 550 4 2.60   7.70 31.99 53.32 6.99                                      
23-Nov 604 4 2.54   8.46 34.20 52.46 4.87                                      
30-Nov 657 4 2.47   9.20 37.02 51.23 2.55                                      
7-Dec 673 4 2.46   9.43 37.49 50.87 2.21                                      
14-Dec 674 4 2.46   9.44 37.61 50.76 2.20                                      
Legend
δThe schedule graph diameter. It is only meaningful when all the teams are connected by an A plays B plays C plays ... chain.
APLThe Average Path Length, the average number of "plays" required to connect each of the 7140 team-pairs.
PL=The percentage of all 7140 team-pairs that are connected by paths of length 1 (played each other), 2 (have a common opponent), 3, 4, etc.

It's worth looking at this pattern because it shows once again how much of a problem it is that FBS teams are allowed to count games against FCS teams every year for bow-eligibility. The FBS field was more "connected" when that could be done only once every four years, and even once every other year would be an improvement over the current situation.