Is Wisconsin Football Overrated?

Data blog FiveThirtyEight crunches some numbers to discover which college football teams are typically overrated in preseason polling.

FiveThirtyEight is a data-driven playground.  Therefore, the site covers sports, politics, economics, culture, and science.

In addition, the site includes a section on college football.  Those posts try to analyze college football from a unique angle.

On Wednesday, contributor Greg Guglielmo looked at overrated college football teams.  As a result, he sorted teams by measuring the difference in its preseason to postseason rankings.

Related Story: Wisconsin Football Ranks High in AP Poll

Who are the likely lions of August and overrated lambs of January?

"I compared teams’ preseason AP rankings to their final AP rankings from 1997 through 2016. To cast a wider net, I included all instances in which a team received votes in a given poll, even if they ranked outside the top 25. I assigned the team with the next-most vote points outside the top 25 a rank of 26, and so on, through every team that received at least one point."

Here is a look at where the Wisconsin Badgers rank:

• Average preseason ranking: 19.1
• Final ranking better: 55 percent
• Final ranking worse: 45 percent

So in summation, Wisconsin is slightly underrated every preseason.  However, it looks like pollsters are reasonably accurate when ranking the Badgers.

Among the teams surveyed, Wisconsin is tied for 2nd with Utah at 55 percent for outperforming preseason ranks.  Oregon earned the best mark, at 60 percent.  The Badgers are even with Michigan State at failing to meet preseason rankings 45 percent of the time.

Interestingly, Nebraska has an identical average preseason mark (19.1).  Yet, the Huskers sport a disappointing 35-65 split from preseason to postseason rankings.

However, there is not an original source chart available for every team.  Not every variation should be considered identical.  A preseason #5 finishing the year #6 is overrated by this metric.  The inverse is true too.

Typically we see unranked teams climb the final rankings.  For example, the 2016 Wisconsin Badgers.  UW finished #9 in the final AP Poll of the season after starting the year outside the polls.  That’s a far more impressive leap then moving up one spot from your preseason perch.  Yet both instances are treated equally for overrated/underrated purposes.

Notre Dame, Texas, and Florida State boast the biggest disparity.  That trio is  most overrated.  But as the article notes, they have historically been strong programs.  Thus, they have little space to climb the rankings.  They can really only fall.

In addition, pollsters can’t forecast significant injuries to key players which could ruin a promising team’s season.

Next: Wisconsin UCLA Set Future Home-And-Home Series

So how to answer the original teasing headline?

No Wisconsin is not overrated.  The Badgers usually eclipse its preseason ranking.  But this year, Wisconsin ranks 9th in the AP Poll and 10th in the Coaches Poll.  Therefore, Wisconsin will have to win the Big Ten West and a high profile bowl game to meet the preseason polling standard.