QB Ratings Project
Fundamental questions involved in this project:
What are quarterback ratings in college and professional football?
How are they calculated?
What do they mean?
Why are college and professional quarterback rating systems
different? (You will learn how to calculate both quarterback
ratings using two different mathematical formulas.)
Are these ratings meaningful? That is, do they convey the
differences between players abilities?
Your job: You will need to interpret
these ratings and see how they rank quarterbacks in their
respective leagues.
Thus, you must form your own opinions about these rating systems and
draw your own conclusions. Use your data as a part of your argument.
The project workings:
This project will be conducted in teams (2 or 3 persons) selected
in class. You will be given two weeks to conduct your research and
write your report based on your own analysis. Using actual
statistics from both the National Football League
(NFL)
and National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) division one (I-A)
quarterbacks, you will:
Determine the equations used to compute these ratings and
write the formula for each.
Calculate QB ratings for 10 quarterbacks (your choice of who)
from the NFL and 10 from the
NCAA using the appropriate formulas and data from one full
year on each QB. (Note: they can come from different years),
You will prepare a spreadsheet presenting the statistics
and computations.
Write a persuasive argument about the
strengths
and weaknesses of each formula,
using the information you researched as data. You will also
prepare facts and information to use in a class discussion/debate
about these formulas, what they measure
and how good a guide they actually are. Thus, you
should try to answer the questions from the beginning section.
You can obtain the necessary information from a number of
sources. It might come from books of sports statistics, or from
any website of your choice that supplies such statistics. However,
you must reference the source or sources of your statistics.
Part 2 of the assignment: Create a rating formula for one of the
following:
Major league baseball hitters
Major league baseball pitchers
NBA players
Test your formula on 10 players, using one year of statistics
for each player. State the strengths and weaknesses of your formula.
Possible resources for the project:
Some possible websites are shown below.
- NCAA and NFL Passing Efficiency Computation
- This site provides the formula for the NCAA passer rating. It
also has a NFL and NCAA passer rating calculator, which calculates
passer rating when the relevant statistics are placed in it. This
is a good site to check if your calculations are correct.
- The Original Quarterback Rating Calculator
- This is another site that has a passer rating calculator in it.
It asks for statistics and produces the passer rating for either
the NFL or NCAA. This is also a good site to check if your
calculations are correct.
Other Search Engines
available to find more information:
Important Points to Remember
Use the correct formulas and apply them correctly!
Your conclusions are opinions and they need reasons, so think
about what these formulas calculate and ask yourself is this a good
way to measure things.
This is a project, so make it look professional and be
neatly organized and easy to read.
Be sure you have colllected all the required data and done all
the required steps.
As a team - be prepared to explain what you have done and why
and be prepared to defend your opinions. To do this you need to
get together and decide on how to make your presentation.
-Have facts and information organized to use in the discussion.
-Have each team member play a significant role in presenting your
data and defending your conclusions.