CollegeFootballPoll.com Message Board

billybud wrote:I agree re changing to suit BCS, Spence...even Sagarin states that his BCS rankings are not as predictive as his "Predicter" rankings.

The question isn't about the tests per se, it is about Norming. When you look at teams in any way that doesn't reflect the totality of their position within the 119 teams of IA, norming sneaks in.

I agree, but that is exactly what the rankings are trying to do. They aren't trying to norm the teams they are trying to create and unbiased service with info that isn't complete. That isn't the fault of the rankings systems. It is the fault of CFB for not creating a situation where all teams can be compared.

CFP Admin wrote:Here's my theory, to some degree.
...
The best you can do is take apples and oranges and try to make them apples and apples, or oranges and oranges.

In my opinion, this is the most revealing and academically honest statement of this whole discussion, in fact, in the whole "National Ranking Champion, How Can We Be So Humble When We Are So Great, Give Me All The Praise And Glory" effort.

I truly like the idea Mr. Congrove states this, but the truth is, apples are not oranges, and they will never be. So the results can only be looked at in this perspective.

The bigger question is, to me, Why do we need all of this. Conferences have the ability, not that they do it anymore, to "pit" oranges(that would be the South) against oranges and apples(that would be the Northwest) against apples. Then just let the rest be discussion and wishing...because that it all it really is now.

In my hypocrisy..I have no problem with baseball having a World Series.

CFP Admin wrote:

ktffan wrote:
Just what argument is that other than saying Ball State has no wins over non-MAC teams is pretty far off. They, in fact, have 249 such wins. I think saying they could beat a big team is fair at this point.

Isn't this all getting just a little silly?

No, it started silly when someone made what's pretty obviously a ridiculous claim:

Ball State does not have a single win against any team at any time outside the MAC...not one...

Not one? Doesn't that sound so out there that you really should check it? I responded by saying it wasn't true and he comes back with his 'day late and dollar short' comment clarifying what he meant and even his clarification wasn't true. Wins that happened in the 90s, 80s, and 70s or before should not impress, but saying they don't exist is silly.

I also don't agree with the way Navy was summarily dismissed. Navy wasn't a top quality team, but they weren't bad. Delaware was not a terrible team last year so a loss to them doesn't automatically make a team poor and 8 of the 13 teams that had 8 wins last year beat 4 or more teams with 4 losses or less. These are not outstanding parameters to dismiss a team. Oh the other hand, they were competative in most of their games. The win is at least notable enough for the conversation.

billybud wrote:Ding! Ding! NO THANK YOU

Is a 9-3 Ball State comparable to a 7-5 Alabama? That is the question. When we rank the totality of IA teams, we are ranking them against their "peers" and peers means all 120 or so teams.

How a team does against its peers (defined as the schedule) vs how another team does against its peers is not a measure that makes sense...not when you are purportedly providing some kind of way to measure that apple against that orange...and talk about "rewarding" for being a smaller program means affirmative action, that is, action not supported by performance (performance being a measure of strength vs total IA team strength).

Measuring how Ball State does against Akron, Buffalo, Kent State, et al.....has a much, much different meaning of strength than how Alabama does with Georgia, Clemson, Florida, Tennessee, LSU, and Auburn...that murderer's row of football.

A 7-5 Bama, playing maybe five or six end AP ranked teams, would be a stronger football team than a 9-3 Ball State whose season highlight may be playing Navy. There is no comparison that I can think of that makes sense based on how they do against their peers. Lincoln High School in Tallahassee will go 9-3 this year...how they do against their peers has no relevance to a 7-5 Bama team...and while Ball State isn't as far removed from Bama as Lincoln High School in degree of difference, the concept is the same.

We all know the better team when teams play each other. We bestow that title upon the winner, for that day, anyway. What ranking systems attempt, is to give us a way to compare teams that do not play each other. I look at it straight on...how would a team do in a game against a team. That is what I want a system to simulate.

It seems to me you are providing no difference between ranking teams based on their performance, and assigning power ratings. The purpose of Power ratings is to distinguish the difference between who should beat whom. If you want this to also be your basis for ranking teams, then, for the most part, you are taking all of the conferences outside the Big 6 and ranking them below vurtually every team in those conferences no matter how well they do against their schedule. With that line of thinking, Boise State would never have been a top 20 team and never will be unless it plays 5 or 6 top teams. That's irrational thinking because there's no way for them to even make out such a schedule.

Ranking is one thing. Power rating (picking winners) is another. The CCR accomplish both.

billybud wrote:If you are just ranking teams with the primary focus on how they do with their schedule, than SOS is a minor player.

And..LOL...CCR..I have FSU at 7-5 this year...I would be thrilled with an 8-4. Getting Virginia Tech from the other Division this year makes for a little tougher schedule...VT, Colorado, Wake Forest, Florida, Clemson, BC, and Miami will all play the Noles tough.

To the contrary, if you are ranking teams based on how they do with their schedule, SOS is a MAJOR player. That's the piece of the puzzle used to decipher where to stick one 9-3 team vs. a different 9-3 team, or even a weak 8-4 team vs. the stronger-conference 4-8 team. I'm not seeking a way to unfairly raise the accomplishment of the "disadvanatged" teams and the CCR certainly doesn't give them an embellished power rating, wish would be counter-productive to the goal of picking winners and margins. You may disagree with the order presented by the CCR methodology, but the accuracy in picking winners, spreads and national title contenders points back to it being largely correct.

And hopefully you know I was just jibing you on the "Noles thing.

If you want this to also be your basis for ranking teams, then, for the most part, you are taking all of the conferences outside the Big 6 and ranking them below vurtually every team in those conferences no matter how well they do against their schedule.

Not every team...but maybe the top half of the BCSonferences!

And just how do the non BCS conference teams do in whole against BCS conference teams? We had a whole gazillion page thread about this...older data from KTFfan (22005)

There's little to suggest that even the best mid-majors can compete with teams from the major conferences. While some mid-majors run through a weak schedule undefeated, they generally get left out of the BCS and justifiably so. Here are a few facts to indicate this:

Since the BCS started in 1998, mid-majors have won less then 20% of the games they've played overall when playing major conference teams.

Even at home, these mid-majors have one less then 1 in three of games played against major teams, but on the road have won less than 1 in 7.

Even the better mid-majors, ones with a winning conference record don't win a majority of the games in which the play the weaker majors, ones with a losing conference record and teams that have won mid-major championships win barely 1 in 3 games in which they play major teams.

Mid-majors that finished undefeated in their conference lost a majority of the games they played against major conference teams. These teams, in fact, lost over 1 in 3 games they played against major conference teams that finished with a .333 or less conference record.

Mid-majors that have finished ranked in the AP poll have even lost over 1/3 of their games against major teams that finished unranked or lower ranked then them. Also, mid-majors that finished ranked have only won 1 in 3 games they played against majors that finished ranked, indicating that mid-majors tend to have to do less to get ranked.




Is it not just as irrational to rank teams who beat nobody over teams who had wins over top twenty five teams? To assume that if you win a lot of games on a weak schedule that you ought to be ranked?

Wins must have a strong quality component. An SEC team playing a brutal schedule should not penalized for having a couple of losses when being comapared to a team with an extremely weak schedule who goes undefeated or has one loss. If you were the Koi in the goldfish pond (Hawaii) you clean up...just don't throw the Koi into the shark tank.

Shoot! You can win a lot by judiciously scheduling. Be a Koi in the local goldfish pond and don't schedule any sharks in OOC games...home free.

Sure, some teams don't have the schedule to allow them to play and beat good teams...but why penalize teams that do play a tough schedule?

A 9-4 Michigan would have been a much better game for Georgia, I'll bet, than Hawaii. Put Hawaii on Michigan's schedule or Florida's schedule, or FSU's schedule, and see if they have such a gaudy win total. Nope..they wouldn't have. Their wins were a function of their weak schedule.

Sooooo...Do we give a bonus to teams for playing weak schedules? Do we penalize teams that have a couple of losses but play a top 10 SOS?

I think that polls count wins vs losses to such an extent that it makes no sense for an AD to schedule a tough team in OOC. The chance of a loss is more powerful than what you might lose by scheduling a patsy. So your SOS drops some? Not a big deal compared to the dire consequences of a loss.

LOL...I don't know if I object to the CCR order or not...

I am still absorbing a ranking order methodology that admittedly isn't based on straight power rankings...that has more powerful teams ranked behind less powerful teams. The methodology had me confused early on.

billybud wrote:I agree re changing to suit BCS, Spence...even Sagarin states that his BCS rankings are not as predictive as his "Predicter" rankings.

The question isn't about the tests per se, it is about Norming. When you look at teams in any way that doesn't reflect the totality of their position within the 119 teams of IA, norming sneaks in.

Spence's point - at least I hope it is, because I agree with it - you can't get too caught up in the rankings aspect. As I admitted in earlier post - there is no way to achieve a perfect ranking. And two people in the same room will rarely agree, especially when you're looking at 120 teams. Power ratings have less room for argument because the predictor element is either close or way off. Either way, the power element can be judged and corrected on real data. Rankings are supposition, to a degree, whether a human is doing it or a computer is doing it.

The only benefit, as I see it, to computer rankings over human rankings (and I have stated this several times before) is simply removing the distrust of human manipulation. Even then, the majority of the focus is on the top two teams.

billybud wrote:Is it not just as irrational to rank teams who beat nobody over teams who had wins over top twenty five teams? To assume that if you win a lot of games on a weak schedule that you ought to be ranked?

Wins must have a strong quality component. An SEC team playing a brutal schedule should not penalized for having a couple of losses when being comapared to a team with an extremely weak schedule who goes undefeated or has one loss. If you were the Koi in the goldfish pond (Hawaii) you clean up...just don't throw the Koi into the shark tank.

Shoot! You can win a lot by judiciously scheduling. Be a Koi in the local goldfish pond and don't schedule any sharks in OOC games...home free.

Sure, some teams don't have the schedule to allow them to play and beat good teams...but why penalize teams that do play a tough schedule?

A 9-4 Michigan would have been a much better game for Georgia, I'll bet, than Hawaii. Put Hawaii on Michigan's schedule or Florida's schedule, or FSU's schedule, and see if they have such a gaudy win total. Nope..they wouldn't have. Their wins were a function of their weak schedule.

Sooooo...Do we give a bonus to teams for playing weak schedules? Do we penalize teams that have a couple of losses but play a top 10 SOS?

I think that polls count wins vs losses to such an extent that it makes no sense for an AD to schedule a tough team in OOC. The chance of a loss is more powerful than what you might lose by scheduling a patsy. So your SOS drops some? Not a big deal compared to the dire consequences of a loss.

The power rankings are set up to offset that, they give credit for the tougher schedules. If LSU last year would have played Hawaii's schedule- the exact schedule - they would still have had the players to win the national championship. Under your way a thinking, they could not even play in a BCS bowl game. That doesn't make sense either. These rankings systems are trying to include all teams in CFB. They use power rankings to boost teams that play a stronger schedule. In your opinion, maybe not enough, but unless you have a system that includes the totality of CFB in this division it isn't fair to all the teams. It isn't the system of ranking teams that is askew it is that teams are not diverse enough in their scheduling to rank them accurately. That should be the argument. Not that this team played a bunch of team that aren't as good as some teams from another conference.

If LSU had played Hawaii's schedule...how would you know that they had the players to win an NC? You wouldn't. Any more than you knew whether Hawaii had the players (they didn't).

You are in the position of guessing whether a gaudy record against weak teams means anything other than you are a Koi....I guess you could have a real shark in the goldfish pond, but it would be a rare event. Like the rare Manatee that wanders into New York harbor.

The truth is...that the 119 teams in the Bowl Championship division may be divergent enough to warrant two divisions...

I edited a post above to include data through 2005 that KTFfan posted a couple of years ago...

There's little to suggest that even the best mid-majors can compete with teams from the major conferences. While some mid-majors run through a weak schedule undefeated, they generally get left out of the BCS and justifiably so. Here are a few facts to indicate this:

Since the BCS started in 1998, mid-majors have won less then 20% of the games they've played overall when playing major conference teams.

Even at home, these mid-majors have one less then 1 in three of games played against major teams, but on the road have won less than 1 in 7.

Even the better mid-majors, ones with a winning conference record don't win a majority of the games in which the play the weaker majors, ones with a losing conference record and teams that have won mid-major championships win barely 1 in 3 games in which they play major teams.

Mid-majors that finished undefeated in their conference lost a majority of the games they played against major conference teams. These teams, in fact, lost over 1 in 3 games they played against major conference teams that finished with a .333 or less conference record.

Mid-majors that have finished ranked in the AP poll have even lost over 1/3 of their games against major teams that finished unranked or lower ranked then them. Also, mid-majors that finished ranked have only won 1 in 3 games they played against majors that finished ranked, indicating that mid-majors tend to have to do less to get ranked.

Of the mid-majors that finished undefeated since 1998, only Utah gave any indication they could beat the better major conference teams, and they deservedly got a BCS bid.ktffan


Boise, since this post, has been an outlier.

billybud wrote:

If you want this to also be your basis for ranking teams, then, for the most part, you are taking all of the conferences outside the Big 6 and ranking them below vurtually every team in those conferences no matter how well they do against their schedule.

Not every team...but maybe the top half of the BCSonferences!

billybud, I understand where you're coming from. What it boils down to is you have 120 teams recognized as being FBS teams. As long as they are there, you have to provide a manner by which they can at least have a shot at ascending the ranks. OR - you achieve the utopian idea of putting 40 or so schools in a FBS-Class B division and eliminating a good deal of the hand-wringing over the issue.

Meanwhile, back to the quoted part of your post - the CCR pretty much delivers what you are suggesting.
If you look at the current rankings http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/current_congrove_rankings.html,
the top CUSA team is 35, the top MAC team is 59, the top MWC team is 21, the top Sun Belt team is an unusally high 38, the top WAC team is 27.

I understand you can disagree with some of that, BUT
9 of the 12 CUSA teams are ranked 63 or below.
11 of the 13 MAC teams are ranked 61 or below.
5 of the 9 MWC teams are ranked 72 or below.
7 of the 9 Sun Belt teams (incl. WKU) are ranked 77 or below.
6 of the 9 WAC teams are ranked 69 or below.
That's 38 of 52 teams (73%) ranked in the bottom half of the top 120.

Have no problems with CCR power rankings..they shake themselves out during season...and I wouldn't have major differences with CCR power ranking except on a few teams..but that's my grey matter computer working its built in human bias...

Sometimes I marvel at how dense I am. See if I have this correct.

Numerical Rankings ...who is the best 1 to 119 Based on criteria that is not all that verifiable...human more so than computer but even then some issues... computer will give you consistency if data is not changed.

Power Rankings...Who is going to beat whom at a given game. Data reasonably verifiable and results can be quantified.

If this is right....then like most disciplines, understand how the terms are define make all the difference.

So...a the most lay observer of all of this.....My conclusion.
Hard to Numerical Rank 119 teams and have it fair and make much sense. CCR recognizes this and make a subjective effort to be consistent give it its best shot. In the end...the discussion makes message board material. Even if we had a super division...1. It would not stop the discussion and 2. it would not affect the power rankings.

Power Rankings.....Verifiable and if you are so inclined....take it to the Bank.

Maybe I still do not get it...but here is where I am....

donovan wrote:Sometimes I marvel at how dense I am. See if I have this correct.

Numerical Rankings ...who is the best 1 to 119 Based on criteria that is not all that verifiable...human more so than computer but even then some issues... computer will give you consistency if data is not changed.

Power Rankings...Who is going to beat whom at a given game. Data reasonably verifiable and results can be quantified.

If this is right....then like most disciplines, understand how the terms are define make all the difference.

So...a the most lay observer of all of this.....My conclusion.
Hard to Numerical Rank 119 teams and have it fair and make much sense. CCR recognizes this and make a subjective effort to be consistent give it its best shot. In the end...the discussion makes message board material. Even if we had a super division...1. It would not stop the discussion and 2. it would not affect the power rankings.

Power Rankings.....Verifiable and if you are so inclined....take it to the Bank.

Maybe I still do not get it...but here is where I am....

Donovan - you are 100% correct in your understanding. And you are also 100% correct that fewer teams wouldn't change the argument, it would just reduce the number of teams to argue about.