Lawrence Points...Made You Look!

Trying to follow a Twitter feed is like drinking from a fire hose for an old guy like me. So many interesting accounts to follow and social media is all about quantity over quality. Which, in a nutshell, is the exact problem: so many people with nothing truly interesting or meaningful to say. I mean, I follow a lot of CFB team feeds (shocker, I know) but they mostly just post cute graphics or rah-rah stuff designed to engage fans. Nothing at all wrong with that, it's a great way to stay immediate in the minds of their followers. It's just that there's no meat in the feed; it's all filler.

I'm still figuring out Twitter. It's very "right now!" and I'm definitely a "how about later" kind of guy. And though I've only been on the platform a very short while, I have discovered that if you sift enough sand you can find a gem or 2. That is how, by pure chance, I found Dyer Lawrence (@Lawrencepoints) and his ranking system called Lawrence Points (www.lawrencepoints.com).

Dyer's system is incredibly simple:

1. Team A beats Team B: Team A gets "Lawrence Points" (LP from here on out) equal to the number of wins Team B has. When LSU beat Arkansas, the Tigers received 2 points.
2. Team A loses to Team B: Team A loses LP equal to the number of losses Team B has. Oregon losing to ASU caused the Ducks to lose 5 LP.

That's it. I find it beautiful in its simplicity. The best part, to me, is how it captures the essence of CFB. When I work my way all the way through it, if find that it accounts very well for good teams losing to bad teams and such. 

• LSU beats Bama and earns 8 LP (now 10) for Bama's wins. Bama loses 0 LP because LSU hasn't lost. In other words, losing to a better team is a minimal penalty
• Minimal here is relative. 2 bad teams playing each other means the winner only gains a few LP while the loser gets creamed by losing a lot of LP.
• South Carolina is sitting around 83rd with a total of -6 LP (-ish, I didn't do all the math to deal with the FCS issue). If they had lost to UGA, they'd be at -16 LP (give back the 10 LP for the win, no lost LP due to UGA then being undefeated) and down around 100. 
• This would also change UGA's ranking, obviously. If the Dawgs are undefeated right now, they get 11 LP back.
• The real problem is if So. Carolina keeps losing, it just sucks more LP from Georgia. The sucking never stops. Moot point, UGA lost the game.

LP is a simple to understand system. Much simpler than mine, yet it still accounts for winning vs better, or losing against inferior competition. On average, my rankings are -3.48 away from Dyer's. That said, there are some pretty huge differences, even near the top. Here's a direct comparison:

Dyer tosses the FCS games completely where I treat them as a loss (actively penalizing schools that schedule them - I think I've mentioned that). Also, LP does not differentiate between Power 5 and Group of 5 schools while I'm still figuring out if the "average" P5 is only twice as good as the "average" G5. 

Having points subtracted for a loss is something I have toyed with a bit. My concern is that I'll have to figure out how to score a "good" loss, which will lead to figuring out a "bad" win. And honestly, once down that rabbit hole the whole idea of "objective" goes out the window. 

This is partly why I feel that LP is appealing. It can be easily implemented and it does account for losses in a more active manner.

What would I change? I think maybe I'd modify the LP in regards to P5 vs G5 schools, both for wins and losses.

Another really cool thing Dyer has is an archive of rankings going way, way back! Like, to 1969. I haven't delved deep enough yet to really explore that, but it should be fun. Also, he maintains a 16-team playoff bracket (an idea I am totally stealing). I bet that thing flips and flops all over the place early in the season!

It has been interesting exploring this new thing, and I just may have to find a way to incorporate some of  the concepts into my system for next season. Thanks for the input, Dyer!