BCS to be tweaked.

[Damaramu 0]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...s-formula_x.htm

 

Architects of the Bowl Championship Series are close to drawing up a simpler and, they say, more fail-safe formula for selecting two teams to play for college football's national title.

 

  Oklahoma's Bob Stoops would like his and other coaches' votes publicized. 

By Jerry Laizure, AP

 

The revisions won't be announced until next month. But Big East Conference Commissioner and outgoing BCS coordinator Mike Tranghese said Wednesday that they'll likely streamline a convoluted mathematical formula, essentially giving one-third weight to the Association Press media poll, one-third to the USA TODAY/ESPN Coaches' Poll and a final one-third to a composite computer rating.

 

It no longer would include a separate strength-of-schedule rating, an escalating penalty for losses and probably bonuses for "quality" wins. A final determination is awaiting analysis by an outside mathematician.

 

The modifications, Tranghese said, should avert a repeat of last year's messy split-championship outcome, which saw Southern California ranked No. 1 in the voting polls but left out of the BCS' championship game because of lower computer and strength-of-schedule ratings.

 

All three of the coaches involved in that controversy — USC's Pete Carroll, LSU's Nick Saban and Oklahoma's Bob Stoops — endorsed a change. "It was obvious after last year that a hard look was needed," Carroll said Wednesday.

 

Stoops, pointing to what would be an increased emphasis on the media and coaches' rankings, called for yet another change: publicizing ballots cast in both polls, something coaches in particular have balked at doing because of the potential for offending opponents.

 

"If you can't make it public, then you'd better throw the coaches' poll out," he said. "There needs to be more accountability. If there's not, then that isn't any better than what we've had."

 

Tranghese and the commissioners of the other five conferences that run the BCS met Wednesday in Chicago, along with those from the NCAA's five other major football-playing leagues. They're also weighing the BCS' long-term format, having largely committed to an additional, fifth BCS game and studying the feasibility of a new, stand-alone championship game matching the two highest-rated winners.

 

Couple of things.

 

Stoops is right. Let's make the coaches poll public. I mean what happens if Mack Brown decides he's tired of getting his ass whipped by OU and votes them #10 on his ballot out of a grudge? Not to mention the fact that there are coaches out there that just flat out can't stand one another.

 

And you want Coaches to factor strength of schedule on there own? That might not work......I mean come one. Does anyone think the night before he has a huge game against Georgia that Nick Saban is going to be able to sit down to fill out his ballot and view the schedule of every team and make an informed decision?

[lomasmoney 0]

If they would have had this back in 1997, we would have seen the assholes who voted Michigan 4th thus giving Nebraska the national title coughPhilFulmercough

[therealworldschampion 0]

You have to remember though that the SIDs usually fill out those coaches poll ballots since they have to be in early Sunday morning.

[Damaramu 0]

That's another problem. The coaches should fill them out. I mean it's not really a coaches poll if you're saying "Hey......water boy....fill this out!"

[teke184 0]

If SOS and Quality Win Points are being canned, LSU may be SOL this year.

 

 

LSU's schedule this year will be hellish, as Ole Miss, Alabama, and Oregon State will be coming to town and they'll have to travel to play Florida, Georgia, Auburn, AND Arkansas. (Talk about four road games from Hell).

 

Considering that LSU would also have to play in the SEC Title game if they win out (either facing Georgia or Florida again or Tennessee), the AP and Coach's poll are based on perception as well as who lost when rather than to who and how badly, and there's no guarantee that the computer polls will reflect reality coughNEWYORKTIMESPOLLcough, it just got that much harder for an SEC team to contend for the national championship.

[therealworldschampion 0]

I hate the fact that SOS is being taken out of the equation now. I know SC got screwed last year because of the schedule, but that wasn't really their fault, as Auburn completely flamed out and Notre Dame had a down year. That really hurts LSU and Georgia this year in the BCS poll.

[CanadianChris 0]

So, basically, you're taking the convoluted system you've had in place for the last seven or eight years, and almost completely scrapping it in favour of more or less what was in place before?

 

Fuck that shit. Let's see a playoff.

[Damaramu 0]

But.......this one has a computer ranking! That seems to base it on nothing!

 

Seriously though. The writers yes have time to look at SOS and all of that. The coaches however don't. That's what makes the coaches poll so frustrating. They're going to look at the Win-Loss record and pick. Without any thought.

[Bored 0]

Saw this a few days ago and thought of posting it's just the typical tweaking of the formula that accomplishes nothing. Dumping the New York Times rankings would have solved more problems than junking strength of schedule and losses.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

So essentially we're back to what we had before the "miracle" that was the BCS. Well at least I can look forward to voters pulling another Michigan/Nebraska in my lifetime.

[Damaramu 0]

So essentially we're back to what we had before the "miracle" that was the BCS. Well at least I can look forward to voters pulling another Michigan/Nebraska in my lifetime.

What exactly happened in that situation? Who even deserved the title?

[Vern Gagne 0]

Readers digest

 

Michigan was number 1. in both polls headed into the bowls. They beat Washington St. Nebraska number 2, looked like the runners up until Tom Osborne announced he was retiring. The coaches than decided they'd vote for Nebraska if they beat Tennessee.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

I have sort of an off topic question, but what the hey: How much longer will the Big East have an automatic BCS bid now without Virginia Tech or Miami? We might be seeing a team like West Virginia or Boston College in a BCS game this year.

[teke184 0]

I have sort of an off topic question, but what the hey: How much longer will the Big East have an automatic BCS bid now without Virginia Tech or Miami? We might be seeing a team like West Virginia or Boston College in a BCS game this year.

It's only guaranteed for this year. There's a clause in the BCS contract that pretty much states that a league whose champion gets a bid despite being below #15 in the BCS standings is in danger of losing their automatic bid.

 

 

Considering that the Big (L)East is losing Miami and Virginia Tech from the schedule this year and Boston College next year, it'll be hard to get someone, even semi-powers Syracuse and West Virginia, to reach that ranking by replacing them with mid-major power Louisville and two low-end mid major teams like Cincinnati and South Florida.

 

At that point, I'd say that the BCS should take back the automatic bid and, instead, give out a 3rd at-large bid, with preference being given to teams from a conference outside of the ACC, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 10, and SEC.

[Guest Cerebus]

Who cares? You still need a BS in Mathematics to actually understand the forumla for the BCS.

[teke184 0]

Who cares? You still need a BS in Mathematics to actually understand the forumla for the BCS.

For the proposed formula? Only to figure out what the computer rankings used to determine the last 1/3 do. 2/3 of the BCS numbers will be based on the AP and Coaches' Poll numbers, which don't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out. (LARRY Holmes could figure out THAT particular chunk of the formula)

 

If the computer scripts are written properly, they'll all return the same teams in generally the same order, with some movement here or there.

 

 

 

The problem is that the New York Times computer seems to be in a time warp, as their rankings are usually the outlying numbers that are thrown out for each team. The numbers, once examined, are heavily skewed towards members of the Big 12 as compared to the SEC, Big 10, Big East, ACC, and mid-major conferences.

 

Every mid-major that appears on the list has the NYT as their lowest number by a WIDE margin (12 spaces for Miami of Ohio, 13 for Boise State, 17 for TCU, 14 for Utah, 6 for Bowling Green). Except Oklahoma, every Big 12 team listed has their lowest number from the NYT poll. The only reason Oklahoma was so low here was that this was right after K-State humiliated them in the Big 12 Championship.

 

 

Out of the top 25 BCS teams on December 7, 2003, the NYT number was thrown out for 10 of those teams. That's by FAR the highest number of any poll thrown out, as the average computer poll was thrown out 4-5 times, although some like the Colley Matrix were thrown out only twice.

 

On top of that, many of the thrown out ratings for every poll BUT the NYT were cases in which two or more polls agreed on a ranking. The only times where the NYT agreed with any other poll as the high number was in ranking LSU, which has 6 rankings of 2 and 1 ranking of 1, and Georgia, which had two #12 rankings coming off of an SEC Title Game loss to LSU.

[Damaramu 0]

Was the NYT computer the one that had OU ranked below Texas.....a team they embarassed?

[2GOLD 0]

Saw the tweaking, it's really quite more different than they make it out to be. It still has no chance in hell of working and it's even more of a screw job to the smaller conference schools.

 

This isn't going to solve a damn thing cause it doesn't address the "3 teams that deserve a shot" situation at all. Even with this new system, the title game would have had Oklahoma.

 

It's just a BCS smoke screen to distract from the fact that it doesn't work...at all.

[teke184 0]

Was the NYT computer the one that had OU ranked below Texas.....a team they embarassed?

Yep, that's the one which had USC at 1, LSU at 2, Texas at 4, and Oklahoma at 5 for the final week's results.

 

I think it also had Texas at #1 or #2 a few weeks prior.

[Damaramu 0]

You know what Teke? They were complaining on the radio about what you were complaining about on the radio today.

They basically said that the Big XII and SEC are always up there b/c they have the highest SOS out of everyone and it's very possible that a 1-loss SEC or Big XII team is better than an undefeated Pac-10 team but now that won't be taken into account. You are right in your anger though.

The only problem with this is how the writer's will view things.

Think of this. USC, LSU, and OU will all be favored in every game they play this season. It's a gurantee that there will be no game save a bowl game(which is also highly unlikely) that they won't be favored in.

Hell OU was mopped all over the field by KSU and they were still favored in the Sugar Bowl.

Now what's going to happen with that is that the writer's are going to see that these teams are favored in every game and if they lose one game then the writers are going to plummet there ranking because of that fact even if they lost to a much better team than the line shows.

Just a thought.

[Guest BobbyWhioux]

Who cares? You still need a BS in Mathematics to actually understand the forumla for the BCS.

Haw. It's a pun.