NCAA Football Toxic Differential - Week 12

Most of us like to look back at previous predictions and see how accurate we were. Let's take a look back at last weeks Toxic Differential predictions and see what this next week has in store for the Big 12.

Just a reminder: Toxic Differential is a measure of a teams big play offense and defense combined into a single number. The end result should describe just how explosive the team is on offense AND defense. Efficiency isn't important here - it's those big play Sports Center highlights we are looking for.

Toxic Differential = (Plays Gaining 20+ Yards - Plays Allowing 20+ Yards) + (TO Gain - TO Lost)

Last Weeks Picks

Oregon (67) vs Utah (-5) - Pick: Oregon. Winner: Oregon
Florida State (59) - Mississippi State (2) - Pick: FSU, Winner: FSU
Baylor (57) - Texas Tech (4) - Picked: Baylor, Winner: Baylor
Oklahoma State (33) vs Texas (19) - Pick: OSU, Winner: OSU
OU (1) vs. ISU (-22) - Pick: OU, Winner: OU
KU (-10) vs WVU (-9) - Pick: WVU, Winner: KU
TCU (-5) vs. K-State (18) - Pick KSU: Winner KSU, but just barely.

The better Toxic Differential was the winner in each of the mach-ups except for KU - which was basically a toss up anyway. That's promising! If you are like me you are asking yourself "If it was that good in this small dataset, is there any correlation between Toxic Differential and wins?"

Well yes, there is.

I plotted Toxic Diff and it's two factors 20+ Yard play margin and Turn Over Margin. I knew the correlation would not be perfect - and it's not - but there is definitely a connection between wins and Toxic Diff. After looking at the numbers for a little while I realized that there is something wrong with the graph: The lines are pretty and everything but they don't mean anything in relation to one another because they are on different scales. We'll fix that soon.

There are a few interesting tidbits here though:

• There are multiple teams with a negative turnover margin or 20+ Margin yet they still have over 80% wins. That's an 8 win season! Kudos to any team (Cincinnati) with a negative turnover margin but is still able to crank out 8 wins. That's resiliency. The negative 20+ Margin teams with 8 wins are Louisiana-Lafayette and Minnesota.
• Every line says the same story: If you are on the positive side, you should have over 50% wins. If you are on the negative side, you should have less that 50% wins.
• All perfect teams (100% Win) have positive Toxic Diff. All teams with < 40% wins have negative Toxic Diff.

This actually helps prove the usefulness of Toxic Differential. Take a look at the blue line, Toxic Diff, and notice how it is the most vertical. This shows that an increase of Toxic Diff (of say 1) has a higher impact on Win percentage than a 1 increase of TO Margin or 20+ margin.

TL;DR: Toxic Diff has a higher correlation to win percentage than just TO Margin alone.

This weeks Big 12 Picks

OSU (38) vs Baylor (59) - If you give me a few more hours, I could probably throw in some strength of schedule and garbage time calculations to make OSU look better... For now, the numbers are in Baylor's favor.

OU (6) vs KSU (19) - This should be a fun game. Two good but not great teams slugging it out for bowl position. Straight up Toxic Diff comparison says KSU gets the win.

KU (-10) vs ISU (-27) - Battle for the bottom. Looks like KU could grab another win!