Oklahoma football: ESPN analytics underestimates Sooners, Big 12

Though he isn’t as vocal about it as predecessor Bob Stoops , Oklahoma football head coach Lincoln Riley has never shied away from defending his team or conference in the eyes of what he deems unfair criticism from the national media.

We believe Riley has a point. ESPN often uses the fast-paced, high-scoring style of the Big 12 as an excuse to make the conference its punching bag, perpetuating a narrative that the conference plays an inferior brand of football.

ESPN’s latest “College Football Playoff Predictor” is yet another example of the network overlooking the Big 12. One of the subheads reads “the Big 12 is in big trouble.” And if the new predictor is to believed, that statement is very true.

The conference as a whole only has a 29 percent chance of reaching the playoff, by far the worst of the Power 5 schools. The SEC stands first with 87 percent, followed by the Big Ten (75 percent), ACC (73 percent) and Pac 12 (49 percent). What’s more is the SEC has almost as good a chance (26 percent) of getting two teams into the playoffs as the Big 12 does one.

The analytic goes on to give the Big 12 a five percent chance of winning the National Championship behind the SEC (31 percent), ACC (25 percent), Big Ten (17 percent), Pac 12 (12 percent) and even Notre Dame (10 percent).

Yes. According to ESPN, Notre Dame, which hasn’t won a national title since the great Lou Holtz led them there in 1988, is twice as likely to win it all this year than the entire Big 12 conference.

The ESPN system uses strength of record, Football Power Index, number of losses, conference championships and independent status as its factors, but one can’t help but wonder if ESPN isn’t conflating hard statistics for the network’s own editorial bias.

The Big 12 is coming off a solid bowl showing. The middle tier teams fared well in Iowa State’s 21-20 win over Memphis, Kansas State’s 35-17 win over UCLA and Texas’ 33-16 drubbing of Missouri. The upper mid-tier also held its own in Oklahoma State’s 30-21 victory over Virginia Tech and TCU’s 39-37 triumph over Stanford.

Of course, panelists are quick to point to Oklahoma’s 54-48 double overtime loss to Georgia, but Big 12 defenders can also say there were 102 points scored in that game and 48 of them were allowed by an SEC defense.

The Big 12 went 5-3 in bowl games compared to the SEC’s 5-6, the ACC’s 4-6 and the Pac 12’s 1-8. The only conference with a better bowl game winning percentage was the Big Ten at 7-1.

How much should last season’s bowl record factor into ranking conferences and teams for the upcoming season. As Texas head coach Tom Herman might say after a pregnant pause, “some”.

But at least it is based on physical, tangible on-the-field results.