PLayoff Selection Committee....

[Spence]

I think you have to consider schedule strength. I also think you have to consider the looks test. To date, Oregon looks like the best team to me. Past that I am not sure. I would give Alabama the benefit of the doubt based on their recent past. Then I think there are several teams you could put 3-4-5 and not be wrong.

[Duke1632]

I think you have to consider schedule strength. I also think you have to consider the looks test. To date, Oregon looks like the best team to me. Past that I am not sure. I would give Alabama the benefit of the doubt based on their recent past. Then I think there are several teams you could put 3-4-5 and not be wrong.

Oregon looks like the best team in the country to me as well, but the thesis of the argument above is that this "looks test" you mention is invalid. It is applicable to a power ranking for sure, but not a legitimate poll to determine NC contenders. And while the focus here has been on current rankings of undefeated teams, it also greatly affects what happens when a team loses. If a favored team that "looks good" loses, they drop very little, but when a disfavored team loses (or in some cases even wins!), they drop a much more. Teams that look awesome or dominant or whatever must be just as responsible for their on-field shortcomings as everyone else. That's how it used to be. In fact, precisely because they are so good, playing well should be easier to do anyway and they ought to have fewer or less catastrophic on-field shortcomings. Even if the "looks test" is used, given it is the ultimate in subjective conjecture, it should be a factor with relatively small weight, not the greatest weight (which must be the objective W-L). For example, there is really no valid excuse to rank 4-2 Georgia above 6-0 Texas Tech, unless we are talking about power rankings. Yet, there it is. Rankings today are exactly that: power rankings that rely nearly exclusively on this "looks test".

[Spence]

Right. A poll voter figures in a "power ranking" when ranking his teams. I think if you can find a group that can leave negitive bias out of the vote, you can have a good group. You can't get the positive bias out of a poll. I am an Ohio State fan, I would probably rank my team a little higher than someone else. That doesn't hurt the poll. I don't care much for Notre Dame, but if I use a negitive bias and rank them lots lower it will hurt the integrity of the poll because the negitive bias against teams is more wide spread.


The whole problem is the selection committee, though, not who is on it. If you are going to do it right, make it a tournament of champions and take the each conference champ. Will that give you the 10 best teams? No. but it will give you a group that earned their spot on the field of play. It gives every team a fair shot of winning their conference and moving forward.

[Derek]

This is SUCH a bad idea.

I want the BCS of 1997-2003, or I want the old ways back.

This is gonna end badly IMO.

[Spence]

It can't end any other way. The college presidents and conference heads have no backbone, that is what got us here.

[Derek]

So the big irony is that today the NC is decided based on the opinion of so-called experts more than ever before, which undermines the very purpose of why the BCS was instituted in the first place. The ensuing years will make this problem even worse, but few seem to notice, since rankings are so subjective these days--and it did not used to be like that.

I could not have said this better myself.

You're gonna do well here Duke!