Grading the Rankers, The Quad

One of the more followed preseason previews has been Paul Myerberg's "The Quad Countdown" Hosted by the New York Times. I have seen updates relating to this list on just about every MAC team board I spend any time reading. They are in depth, lengthy and in general a fun read. They just placed Western Michigan at 56 and this, through process of elimination, lets me look at their 2009 rankings compared to Mac Smack, and the Sporting News.

The Quad Countdown

	Correlation	2008 Grade
East	83	40
West	100	79
Overall	92	60

As with Sporting news I will start by looking at the correlation between The Quads predictions for the Mid American Conference and those posted on MAC Smack

The Quad Countdown (2009)

West	East
Central Michigan	Temple
Western Michigan	Buffalo
Northern Illinois	Ohio
Ball State	Bowling Green
Toledo	Akron
Eastern Michigan	Miami
	Kent

Mac Smack (2009)

West	East
Central Michigan	Temple
Western Michigan	Buffalo
Northern Illinois	Bowling Green
Ball State	Akron
Toledo	Ohio
Eastern Michigan	Miami
	Kent

The West seems to be an easier pick this year teams breaking in new quarterbacks never do too well in preseason predictions so Ball State is going to drop (in the previews who knows what happens when the game is played). NIU losing so much of its defense drops them down along with the Cardinals leaving WMU and CMU to contend. Right off the bat most publications are going to have the same 1-2, and 3-4 pairings this means the same 5-6 pairing and in those EMU will more often than not be on the bottom.

In the east the high correlation score is due to parity more than anything else. While I disagree with three of the seven teams we are, most one or two off on these instance, this keeps the score high. When the season is played the difference between first and fourth (or even fifth) could be one division loss and some tie breakers.

Paul Myerberg had a very difficult time picking the east last year. He Picked last place Miami first (as did most publications) and third placed Temple to finish last.

The Quad Countdown 2008

West	East
Central Michigan	Miami
Ball State	Ohio
Western Michigan	Bowling Green
Toledo	Buffalo
Eastern Michigan	Kent
Northern Illinois	Akron
	Temple

Mid American Conference 2008

West	East
Ball State	Buffalo
Central Michigan	Bowling Green
Western Michigan	Temple
Northern Illinois	Akron
Toledo	Ohio
Eastern Michigan	Kent
	Miami

So far here are the polls I have seen for their east and their scores:

	Sporting News	The Quad
2008 Grade East	61	40
2008 Grade West	96	79
Correlation East	75	83
Correlation West	89	100

I altered the scoring guidelines as the east has more teams than the west. Obvious I know but I neglected to consider that thus creating a maximum score of 113 in the east division. I went back and fixed the Sporting News post from yesterday. the new guidelines are:

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The Criteria for grades is as follows: Correspondence Score:

• Penalty Points: For every spot off a team is between predictions a single point is taken off (Example: SN picked Central to win the West, I picked them second so that's minus one per team, or I picked Temple to win the East and SN pick them to finish third that would be minus two).
• Total Points: The total points is the maximum number of penalty points for a division, for the 6 team west that is 18 points and for the 7 team east that is 24 points.
  
• Score: The penalty points are taken from the total points (18 for the west, 24 for the east) and then a simple percentage is calculated. For the west there were two penalty points (one for CMU and one for WMU) so that's 16 points out of a possible 18 or 88.5%

Mac-Smack Prediction Grade:

• Predict the Conference Champ: 10 points, if your predicted champ finishes second, 5 points.
• Predict the Worst Team in the conference 6 points, if your predicted worst finisher places second to last, 3 points.
• For each team in the west if you predict correctly their place 14 points, if you are one place off 12 points, two places off 9 points, three places off 5 points, four places off 1 point.
  
• For each team in the east correctly predicting correctly will get you 12, one place off 11, two places off 8 three places off 5, four places off 2, five places off 1.