Introducing football PAR to our Huskies and Cougars

By Kshell

Last week the Washington Huskies were destroyed by the Stanford Cardinal 65-21. As usual after a loss I called up my friend Brian Alfi to talk about the game. He is usually the calm one while I'm into firing anyone who has a shaved head and resembles Nick Holt at that point. So that is when we created a system called football PAR. It is points above replacement level as a way to try to judge if our defense is doing poorly or not. The system is pretty simple as you go by how many points you allowed on defense vs that team and compare it to what they average per game on offense. Then I took it one step further and applied this offense to see how many points the offense scored against our opponents defense vs what our opponents defense normally gives up. For a key explanation let's say the Huskies are playing UCLA and the Bruins allow 28 points per game while scoring 25 a game. If the Huskies beat the Bruins 40-35 their offense would get a +12 while the defense would receive a negative 10. What this basically does is takes away strength of schedule and it is set up like a golf handicap. So for now I'll go over the Washington Huskies offensive PAR and defensive PAR while also going over the Washington State Cougars offensive PAR and defensive PAR. Then on friday I'll rank the PAR's for every team in the conference then the following Monday morning I'll release the updated PAR's for the conference each week.

First I'll start off with the offense and put the PAR numbers down after each opponent.

vs EWU- Points scored:30, EWU points allowed: 29.6. PAR= +0.4

vs Hawaii- Points scored: 40, Hawaii points allowed: 26.6. PAR= + 13.4

@ Nebraska- Points scored: 38, Nebraska points allowed: 22.5. PAR= +15.5

vs Cal- Points scored: 31, Cal points allowed: 26.4. PAR= +4.6

@ Utah- Points scored: 31, Utah points allowed: 20.6. PAR= + 10.4

vs Coloraado- Points scored: 52, Colorado points allowed: 38.3. PAR= + 13.7

@ Stanford- Points scored: 21, Stanford points allowed: 17. PAR= +4.0

vs Arizona- Points scored: 42, Arizona points allowed: 34.9. PAR= +7.1

Total: Huskies are +82.1 for the season which is an average of 10.3 per game. The Huskies offense is scoring 10 more points a game against what their opponents normally allow on defense. The Huskies offense this season has yet to have a negative PAR rating which is pretty impressive.

Now I'll shift my focus to the defense which is how this whole thing was created. You'll find some things coming up on the defense after this study.

vs EWU- points allowed: 27, EWU average: 28.7, PAR = +1.7

vs Hawaii- points allowed: 32, Hawaii average: 34.3. PAR= +2.3

@ Nebraska- points allowed: 51, Nebraska average: 35.9. PAR= - 15.1

vs Cal- points allowed: 23, Cal average: 28.8. PAR= +5.8

@ Utah- points allowed: 14, Utah average: 23.3. PAR= +9.3

vs Colorado- points allowed: 24, Colorado average: 18.8. PAR= - 5.2

@ Stanford- points allowed: 65, Stanford average: 49.5. PAR= -15.5

vs Arizona- points allowed: 31, Arizona average: 30.4. PAR= -0.6

Total: Huskies defense is negative 17.3 on the year which translates to negative 2.2 points per game. The numbers that stand out to me are against the teams with equal talent or below talent the Huskies are positive 13.3(plus 2.2 a game). Against superior opponents the Huskies are at negative 30.6(15.3 points per game). So against the teams the Huskies should beat their defense holds their opponents on average to two less points than they average. Against the elite teams(like Oregon who we are playing) the defense gives up 15 points above what they average.

I now turn my attention to our rivals on the east the Washington State Cougars. We'll see how Paul Wulff's offense and defense grades out with this system.

vs Idaho State- points scored: 64, Idaho State allows: 37.2. PAR= + 26.8

vs UNLV- points scored: 59, UNLV allows: 40.6. PAR= + 18.4

@ San Diego State- points scored: 24, SDSU allows: 25.3. PAR= -1.3

@ Colorado- points scored: 31, Colorado allows: 38.3. PAR= -7.3

@ UCLA- points scored: 25, UCLA allows: 31.9. PAR= - 6.9

vs Stanford- points scored: 14, Stanford allows: 17. PAR- -3.0

vs Oregon State- points scored: 21, Oregon State allows: 29.9. PAR= - 8.9

@ Oregon- points scored: 28, Oregon allows: 21.3.  PAR= +6.7

Totals: The Cougars are +24.5(3.1 per game) but the bulk of that was built in the first two games. Since the first two games the offense is at -20.7(-3.5) which isn't good. The Cougars offense was supposed to be the strength of the team and they have only scored more points than their opponents allow three times and only against Oregon in confererence play.

Now we'll see how the Cougars defense is doing now that we know the Cougars offense is actually underachieving.

vs Idaho State- points allowed: 21, Idaho State average: 20.1. PAR= + 0.9

vs UNLV- points allowed: 7, UNLV average: 18.9. PAR= + 11.9

@ SDSU- points allowed: 42, SDSU average: 29.0. PAR= -13.0

@ Colorado- points allowed: 27, Colorado average: 18.7. PAR= - 8.3

@ UCLA- points allowed: 28, UCLA average: 24.8. PAR= -3.2

vs Stanford- points allowed: 44, Stanford average: 49.5. PAR= +5.5

vs Oregon State- points allowed: 44, Oregon State average: 23.0. PAR= -21.0

@ Oregon- points allowed 43, Oregon averages: 47.5. PAR= +4.5

Totals: Cougs are at negative 22.7(-2.8 per game) and if you take away the first two games the Cougars defense is at -35.5(-5.9). So whatever an opponent averages when they face the Cougars you can tack on 5.9 points to that average. This also goes with the eye test as the Cougars defense grades out well in four games the two blowouts and in conference play just two games. The two games were against Stanford and Oregon which the eye test tells you they played well defensively.

In conclusion, this is a little stat I figured is a fair way to judge teams. I mean allowing 35 points to Stanford is a "win" as their offense is so good while allowing  24 to a Colorado is "bad" as they aren't very good. For the season Steve Sarkisian and his Huskies are at a positive 8.1 points per game meaning if their opponent on average isn't beating their  opponent by more than eight points a game the Huskies will win that game. While Paul Wulff and his Cougars are only at positive 0.3 and if you take away the first two games he is at a negative 9.4 for the season. Meaning unless the Cougars opponent on average is losing by more than 10 points a game the Cougars won't win. Based on this the Huskies should finish the season 9-3 with a narrow win over USC by two points. While the Cougars based on this won't win another game the rest of the season finishing at 3-9 if you take away the first two games. If you don't the Cougars take away the first two games the Cougars still finish at 3-9 as they dropped their winnable games already. Like I said from here on out I'll keep updating these rankings only I won't go through each game like I just did. Just wanted to show you my formula is all and I'm curious what the rest of the conference looks like!