Interesting Ranking Info...

[Eric]

Does your system rank the quality of those wins or losses? I'm sure you can quantify a "good" loss and take into account how where the opponents rank, but I don't know if the actual BCS does this.

[Dossenator]

SEC West has 4 of it's 6 teams ranked in the top 12 in AP poll. It will work itself out inthe next few weeks...just saying Ark will be facing several teams in the coming weeks with perfect or near perfect records.

[Spence]

The problem with most computer rankings is just that they don't have enough info to make an informed decision. Whether are not the human polls are more or less correct depends on how you human's look at it - in other words bias. I think most of the time the polls and the rankings are reasonable.

Unless teams played the best three out of five series, you can't really say who is the best. I think 1-5 are fairly interchangable. 5-10 are even more so.

The only really, really solid team I have watched play so far is Alabama. They play old fashion smash mouth football and they wear teams out. They only way they are getting beat is for a team to score on them early a few times and get them out of their comfort zone. If you let them play their game, they are going to win every single time.

[billybud]

Purdue beat Ohio State. I didn't have Purdue ranked over Ohio State. Did you?

In the end..it is the body of work for a season. TCU played double the number of top 30 teams that Boise played...had one more loss.

In the bowl game they looked to be equal...it was TCU's misfortune to have three turnovers, one leading to Boise's winning TD.

I wouldn't have a problem with TCU being rated above Boise...but I wouldn't do it myself.

[donovan]

I agree with Mr. Billybud...it always hurts to do so....I do think when you have a head to head late in the season, you have to have compelling reasons to rank the loser over the winner.

[RazorHawk]

I also agree, however the difference in the rank prior to the upset must be close enough for the lower ranked team to be ranked above the higher ranked team. In other words, beating the number 1 team does not necessarily make you number 1, whether this is early or late in the season.

Rankings must consider the entire season, not just a given week. Had Arkansas upset #1 Alabama, my guess is that Arkansas would have jumped up to about 7 or 8, and Alabama would have dropped to around 5 or 6. Even being a Razorback fan, I would have agreed with that.

[WoVeU]

I also agree, however the difference in the rank prior to the upset must be close enough for the lower ranked team to be ranked above the higher ranked team. In other words, beating the number 1 team does not necessarily make you number 1, whether this is early or late in the season.

Rankings must consider the entire season, not just a given week. Had Arkansas upset #1 Alabama, my guess is that Arkansas would have jumped up to about 7 or 8, and Alabama would have dropped to around 5 or 6. Even being a Razorback fan, I would have agreed with that.

I agree they have to be close, but I'd add "somewhat". To me Arkansas beating Bama, I'd have put Ark at #1. 9 spots different ain't a whole lot especially early. To rank Bama above Ark, pretty much says that what happened on the field didn't mean too much (at a minimum.) Dropping Bama to 5th...most would do the same if they lost the 20th ranked team, moving Ark to 8th...they'd have done the same if Ark beat the 4th or 5th team!!! To me if a team is within 10-20 spots of the favorite (dep. on how deep into the season) and beats them I am (98% of the time) going to rank the winner higher. If the record of the team that lost makes this difficult, say after the game, the team that won is 5-3 and the team that lost is now 6-2...no problem the losing team takes a bit extra punishment for the loss if I feel I have pushed the winner up as far as I can. If that means dropping the loser 13 spots, then that is what is going to happen.

I am sick and tired of, team A - ranked 6th, get beat by team B - ranked 22nd, and the next pole has B at 17th and team A 13th. Generally A has 1 less loss. TO me it just screams, "let's not let reality get in the way of the developed perception I had all year long!" This just has Mushroomer and Streetcurb styling written all over it!

[Vileborg]

What I used to do for my poll was assign point numbers to regions of top 120 rankings. Top 10 opponents were worth 10 points, Top 20 worth 9 points, Anything over 100 or FCS was worth 1 point. I would then take that modifier and multiply it times a margin of victory capped at 40. If you beat a top ten team by 40 or more points you could get a maximum of 400 points. Then I would average their weekly totals to give me a strength rating. Worked well, the years I've run it I've had my best pick'em years and best bowl pick'em years. It also keyed me in to a few programs I didn't expect. It gave me an early indicator that Cincinnati was coming, they were spiking early. It was a lot of work. If I get some free time maybe I'll pull it out and try to automate it.

If you reverse engineered the the formula it would even give you what the spread should be if they both played at their expected levels.

[Cane from the Bend]

Here is a post from the past I did; pertaining to an evaluation overview system I developed to ascertain a team's chances of competing for an up coming season.

I did not have a chance to do this preseason this year; due to lack of time. However, it could just as easily be applied during an up and running season.


Below, I was responding to a post & reply by Derek and Spence.

Spence was trying to get an idea of where to rank LSU in his preseason poll, though, mentioned after reading this he was hoping to get a little insight from those in SEC country...

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by Cane from the Bend on Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:04 pm


Or maybe it's just that Dawgy Dawg feeling.

I've noticed it happen to myself. I'll proclaim, said team isn't going to be as good as everyone thinks. Chances are, I could make a sound reasonable suggestion as to why, maybe even convince a few others that I'm right. Yet, my real motivation is denial. I simple wish a poor season on that team.

Let's face it.

LSU underachieved last year.

It most likely had to due with lack of fundemental experience.

This season, I did a personal analysis over the Tigers schedule.

Assuming I know my stuff (or at least have a relative idea of things), I'll now post my figures.

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I have a new grade system I'm working with, so bear with me on this.

W signifies a 95% chance of the team evaluated winning, or 5% chance of a loss.

W? signifies a 80% chance of the team evaluated winning, or 20% chance of a loss.

?W signifies a 65% chance of the team evaluated winning, or 35% chance of a loss.

? signifies a 50% chance of the team evaluated winning/losing.

?L signifies a 65% chance of the team evaluated losing, or 35% chance of a win.

L? signifies a 80% chance of the team evaluated losing, or 20% chance of a win.

L signifies a 95% chance of the team evaluated losing, or 5% chance of a win.

==================

Evaluation of LSU Tigers 2006 schedule:

Sept. 2 - Louisiana Lafayette - W

Sept. 9 - Arizona - W

Sept. 16 - @ Auburn - ?

Sept. 23 - Tulane - W

Sept. 30 - Missippi State - W

Oct. 7 - @ Florida - ?W

Oct. 14 - Kentucky - W

Oct 21 - Fresno State - W?

Oct. 28 - off week

Nov. 4 - @ Tennessee - W?

Nov. 11 - Alabama - ?W

Nov. 18 - Missippi - W

Nov. 24 @ (Ltl' Rck) Arkansas - W?

==================

Ofcourse, this is just my assessment, but, Spence, if I were you, I would go ahead and put LSU high on my preseason picks.

I think the Tigers are going to make a run at the "Big One" this year.

Cane...


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In retrospect; that year, LSU finished 10-2 in the regular season, with a massive 41-14 win over notre dame in the Sugar Bowl, to end with an 11-2 overall record.

Their two losses on the year, were against:

#3 Auburn @ Jordan-Hare Stadium ~ 3-7 I had given LSU a 50% chance of winning
#5 florida @ Ben Hill Griffin Stadium ~ 10-23 I had given LSU a 65% chance of winning



Now, I'm not saying you can use this method, alone, to fill your current rankings... though, a simple adjustment & fair preview analysis could help add more depth to an already existing rating algorithm.

Also, I would say that from all present observation, one could make an otherwise educated guess as to how many potential win/loss expectancies will likely, or unlikely occur. ( so long as you're being honest went doing your evaluation, and not applying a loss to a team you simply want to see lose ) ( words of advise I could take for myself when choosing my weekly picks )

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[billybud]

The schedule does have influence.

In their 1993 National Championship season, FSU obliterated their opponents 228-14 in the first five games. But it wasn't until their sixth game where the Noles beat
Miami 28-10, that voters knew that it would be a special season for FSU. Miami finished the season ranked #15.