"...(but) 3 and 4 get complicated"

[businesslawyer]

Dan - they're going to try to do that, but they won't be able to. The wheels are in motion, they won't be able to stop it. The invitation bowl system, most certainly ahs a ton of value. THe way to make Delaney shut up is to propose that the Rose Bowl be designated as the annual site of the national championship game for the duration of whatever playoff system contract for broadcasting is designed.

THe key - is those six names I put up before. A ranking system needs to be set up, using the power of computers, such that the top 4 teams are the top 4 teams, and everybody knows how it was determined, and agrees that the way it was determined is valid.

Any human interaction in this ranking system is a big problem. I'm not sure it will be able to be kept out, as the human polls sell tons of papers and magazines, but the accuracy and precision of those rankings, is essential.

I"m willing to bet that the majority of voters in the room come summertime when ti comes to these discussions, are going to agree with that.

It's not that simple. If you turn it over entirely to computers, conferences will lobby for inclusion or exclusion of certain formulae by how it effects them. For example, if you're the SEC you want to (i) devalue extra emphasis on road wins, since your teams rarely play OOC road games, and (ii) emphasizes strength of schedule, where SEC teams have an advantage because of the strength of its conference, as opposed to winning percentage (too easy for an ACC team or Big East team to go undefeated). We are well beyond the point where Slive or Delaney is just going to accept what computers say without knowing how they get to that point and whether the formulae benefit them or not.

 

[Carl Spackler]

It's not that simple. If you turn it over entirely to computers, conferences will lobby for inclusion or exclusion of certain formulae by how it effects them. For example, if you're the SEC you want to (i) devalue extra emphasis on road wins, since your teams rarely play OOC road games, and (ii) emphasizes strength of schedule, where SEC teams have an advantage because of the strength of its conference, as opposed to winning percentage (too easy for an ACC team or Big East team to go undefeated). We are well beyond the point where Slive or Delaney is just going to accept what computers say without knowing how they get to that point and whether the formulae benefit them or not.

That's exactly right. I'm not computer guy, but somebody around here had a great idea. You find a group of computer programmers, like jury selection I suppose, that have absolutely no attachment to anything related to college football - lay out the problem - and then have them go into their computer labs and come out with an algorithm/program for data entry that ranks all 121 programs from 1-121, starting in week 1.

I don't know if there is a way to overcome the sample size problem. But I do know that by week 13 of the regular season, there are only a couple of undefeated teams left, if any - out of all 121, so by then, the sample size should be pretty clear.

 

[husky10]

Yep BL no chance they leave it up to the computers entirely they tried it with the BCS and they didnt like it. I really hope they leave the coaches poll out of the equation when they create the playoff. Coaches only really watch the games of their opponents because their job takes up their entire life during football season. The media on the other hands job is to watch every team play. I dont like the media bais but that is something we have to live with. Coaches ranking Oklahoma St. #25 to get Alabama into the title game is not.

 

[freescooter]

Without going through the whole thread, this isn't complicated.

The reason why the system is good at figuring out 1 & 2 and not as good as figuring out 3&4 is because the system was supposed to identify 1&2.

The "correct" solution was an answer of #1 and #2 and everyone else is the remainder of the solution. The BCS system wasn't designed to differentiate #3 from #9.

If a ranking system is needed to identify #1-#4, it can be done. There's plenty of historical data to make the system work for those that is supposed to work.

The system isn't really all that good at figuring ourt #1 and #2. It is incredibly biases already. I mean we had coaches voting their own conference members higher than even they knew those teams deserved and other ocnferences lower simply to insure that SEC teams were ranked #2 or whatever. Hell, one of the conference commissioners even said it, and Urban Meyer publicly complained about someone NOT voting for the SEC teams one season. Adn there isn't universal agreement on who should be #2 or even #1. Oklahoma, USC and LSU have both been included when people disagreed (USC was awarded the AP national Championship in 2003 despite not playing in the game).