Pythagorean Projection: Alabama Football

The Pythagorean Projection is an approximation of how many games a particular team should have won in a particular season that is determined solely by focusing on points scored and points allowed. First created by revolutionary baseball thinker Bill James, the Pythagorean Projection has been equated to many other sports, such as football and basketball.

The basic formula for the Pythagorean Projection is as follows:



For football, the basic formula remains relatively the same. However, Daryl Morey of STATS, Inc. found that for football, the best exponent is not 2, but 2.37, so the formula is slightly tweaked for football.

But what all does it mean? If a team wins fewer games than its projection said it should have, that team underachieved, and if a team wins more games than they should have, that team underachieved. But exactly what does that mean? Well, the Projection can mean different things to different people, but it is generally accepted that, more than anything else, Pythagorean Projections are mainly an indicator of lucks. Teams that overachieve are said to be "lucky" and teams that underachieve are said to be "unlucky." And truthfully, that's probably the foremost thing we should take from this. However, baseball researchers have found two other variables that have an impact besides luck: coaching decisions and bullpen depth. Obviously, there's no bullpen in football, but that could be construed as a measure of overall team depth, and obviously coaching decisions come into play.

So how has the Crimson Tide stacked up in terms of the Pythagorean Projection the past few years? Let's have a look-see.





To begin with, I should note that I only analyzed eight games in most seasons, and only seven in 1990 and 1991. Why only analyze seven or eight games when you play eleven or twelve regular season games? The reason I did so was because I found that when you look at all games played, the Pythagorean Projection seems to be a bit inflated, as teams never seem to win as many games as they should have. Something didn't seem right to me when I ran the numbers that way, and then it suddenly dawned on me that the reason it was happening because all of the weak opponents an SEC program will play in a season. For example, you play Division 1-AA Western Carolina, and you win 52-0, and suddenly your Pythagorean Projection shoots up dramatically. But why should you get credit for beating an East Popcorn State? In MLB, where the Pythagorean Projection has its roots, you don't have East Popcorn States because all MLB teams only play other MLB teams, where the talent levels are much closer, and as a result the Projections are much more accurate. Obviously, if you started counting results from when the Chicago White Sox play the Birmingham Barons, the projections would lose a good bit of their accuracy, and that is essentially what happens when a team like Alabama plays Western Carolina.

So, to get around all of that, I used solely regular season conference games. As a result, the Projections became much more accurate. And hence why there are only seven and eight conference games. Since 1992, the SEC has played eight regular season conference games, and seven were the norm before the expansion of the SEC in 1990 and 1991.

So what do we see about the Crimson Tide?

I noticed that some of the teams that I felt really underachieved were actually some of the ones that underachieved in the Pythagorean Projection. Just to name a few...

• 1990: You never hear it mentioned, but in actuality the 1990 defense allowed exactly as many points as the 1992 defense. The offense, though, really struggled with a tough schedule and injuries. Siran Stacey, the star of the offense, went out for the year with a torn ACL on the first play from scrimmage in the season opener against Southern Miss, and that really turned the Tide offense stagnant. As a result, the Tide lost narrow games against Georgia and Florida (Spurrier's first year) when the offense couldn't get it going.
  

• 2000: The 2000 team underachieved quite a bit, obviously. Some people think of that season as a pure disaster, and it was, but people often forget just how close we were to winning several games. We lost in Fayetteville to Arkansas when two very controversial penalties kept their game-winning drive alive, lost to Central Florida by two points, and lost to LSU in Baton Rouge by two points.
  

• 2004: The 2004 season was, in a lot of ways, a clone of the 1990 season. The torn ACL by Brodie Croyle basically ended the season, and we lost a ton of close games due to an impotent offense. In both years, atrocious offensive output spoiled great defensive efforts.
  

The same goes for a few of the overachievers:

• 1991: Stallings' second squad went 11-1, but even I questioned how good we were during that time. In the second game of the season, we were annihilated 35-0 in Gainesville by Florida, in what is still the most dominating performance I've ever seen against an Alabama squad. From there, we had a ton of squeaker wins, such as a five point win over 9-3 Tennessee, a six point win over 7-5 Mississippi State (Danny Woodson's last game, I believe), a three point win over 5-6 Memphis, a seven point win over 5-6 Auburn, and a six point win over 8-3-1 Colorado. We were a good team that year, but you don't win that many close games without a good bit of luck on your side.

• 1994: Going into the 1994 SEC Championship Game, we were 11-0 and 3rd in the country. But we probably weren't that good, to be brutally honest. We looked sloppy in a 17-7 win over Vanderbilt, and Arkansas gave us trouble in Fayetteville, as we won only 13-6 over a 4-7 Danny Ford team. It took a career night from Jay Barker, at home, and luck from the Field Goals Gods on a Michael Proctor kick late in the first half for us to pull out a narrow 29-28 victory over a 6-4-1 Georgia team. We won two road games by a combined four points against solid Mississippi State and Tennessee teams. Finally, we held on to beat Auburn in the closing seconds after their furious comeback ended when Frank Sanders was stopped inches short on a 4th and 6. Again, you just don't do something like that without a good bit of luck on your side.
  

• 1999: The 2000 collapse shocked everyone, but should have really shocked no one. We had a projection of a mere five wins in 1999, yet went 7-1 in conference play and won the SEC. The 1999 season, all together, was full of close wins. After squeaking by Arkansas, the Gators had us beat in Florida until we got very lucky with a muffed Florida punt return with under two minutes to go and the Extra Point Gods decided to shine on us twice in overtime. A week later, it was another narrow win over a solid Ole Miss team, led by Deuce McAllister and Romero Miller. After a loss to Tennessee, we faced LSU, a team in the midst of a seven-game losing streak that had blown blown out by the likes of Kentucky, yet we needed a time-expiring Goal Line stand to beat the hapless Dinardo-led Bayou Bengals, in Bryant-Denny. Two weeks later, we trailed Auburn for three quarters, and pulled out a victory only after a dumb play call by Tommy Tuberville great play by Kindal Moorehead to sack Ben Leard for a safety after Auburn held on fourth and goal, and Shaun Alexander re-emerged for the first time in weeks to run wild on the Auburn defense in the last stanza. Long story short, it shouldn't have surprised many that we fell apart in 2000, it was a wonder all along that we won that many games in 1999.
  

A few other notes...

As noted earlier, bullpen depth seemingly changes the difference between actual and expected wins, so you would think overall team depth in football would do the same. So what about when we were on probation? In 1997-1999, the years most thought would be the worst from the probation era, we overachieved twice in three years. On the other hand, from 2004-2006, the years most thought would be the worst from the second probation era, we underachieved three straight years.

Also as mentioned earlier, the quality of coaching decisions can change the difference between actual and expected wins. Unfortunately for former coach Mike Shula, in his four seasons, we underachieved all four years. Maybe the baseball people have it right when it comes to coaching. After all, luck is probably a big part of the Pythagorean Projection, but I'm sure it's not the only variable.

The 2002 squad really was a great one. Although we lost to Georgia in a narrow game at Bryant-Denny (without our starting quarterback), we actually had more Pythagorean Wins than the Dawgs did in the 2002 season. It just reinforces the fact that we all missed out on a great SEC Championship game. And although it shows the 2002 team as underachieving (we had a projection of roughly seven wins, but won only six), I wouldn't look at them as underachievers. We had a projection of seven wins, and going into the Auburn game we had six wins, coming off of a 31-0 blowout of LSU in Tiger Stadium. Long story short, we were on pace to nail the projection... and then Dennis Franchione decided he was going to be an Aggie, and missed team meetings all week. The lack of preparation resulted in an Iron Bowl loss, and that caused us to underachieve. But did we really? Not in my book.