As most of the regular readers here know, I'm an advanced stats guy. Pat Fitzgerald and I have often had light-hearted spats about this, to the point where I made the site's motto "stats are for winners."
There is a lot more that goes into a football game than meets the eye, and thanks to a budding group of intrepid statistical analysts — SB Nation's Bill Connelly, Football Outsiders, etc. — we know a lot more about what goes on in football games other than wins and losses.
Right now, the advanced stats aren't as high on Northwestern as the polls are, in part because the polls simply look at your record and who you beat.