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An Unbiased View of the BCS

From SPortsline

South Carolina's Steve Spurrier, who coached the Gators to the '96 national championship, moved Florida past Michigan in the coaches' poll.
His reasoning?
"Heck, I'm a Gator," he said. "I went there. So I had a lot of reason to vote for them right there. It just appeared they're 12-1, the other team is 11-1, I guess that's about it."
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UF Fin Kat said:
as i said before, the human element is what people complained about the most before because it was missing. USC gets left out of the championship game despite being #1 in both polls. people complained that the polls should have more of a factor. so they changed it. it's still a combination of the computers and polls.
besides, the computers figure out all of their calculations and stuff each week, too.
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Agree completely. The system has constantly been tweaked when a flaw has been found. Years ago, when USC got snubbed, they added the human element to make sure it wouldnt happen. This year, all the talk is about the human element.... why, because:
Timmy54 said:
the computers also had them tied, it is not like UM can say it was just the voters.
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Exactly. The computers had the two teams TIED and it was the human element which decided who played. Based on HOW the human element voted over the past weeks, its obvious that the human element is the flaw in this system.

The human element is based on timing, who has momentum, and allows the pollsters to decide who they want. It completely ignores anything mathematical and allows non-pertinent related occurances to influence decisions. The human vote takes into account matchups and ratings and financial measures, all of which arent fueling the computer rankings. Michigan can spank Notre Dame early in the season and lose to the #1 team in the nation by 3. USC can lose to unranked Oregon State but they beat Notre Dame, the same Notre Dame that Michigan spanks and yet the pollsters decide that USC should jump Michigan? Makes absolutely no sense.

UF Fin Kat said:
well, michigan fans know that they'd get owned again in the championship. :lol:

also, are there any michigan fans here?
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There is one guy I know of..... Brad(something) Last year I predicted Penn State, based on their freshman class, would win the Big10 over OSU and Michigan before the season started and he gave me crap all year saying PSU sucked and Michigan would win the Big10...... then he shut up when PSU won the Big10 and the Orange Bowl.
 
Philter25 said:
Exactly. The computers had the two teams TIED and it was the human element which decided who played. Based on HOW the human element voted over the past weeks, its obvious that the human element is the flaw in this system.
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You know they were behind Michigan in the computers before the final rankings, right? So the computers punished Michigan for not having a game too.

Philter, you definitely make a valid point. But the human polls have been this way since their inception. Teams get jumped that don't play when a team behind them gets a quality win. Happens nearly every week of the season.

I personally just don't understand the outcry that's happening right now. Where were all these people (not you obviously, you aren't a media member) every other time in college football history that this happened?
 
Stitches said:
All the more reason to not have pre-season rankings, and to wait until like week 5 or so, because you are basing things on unfinished and untested schedules.
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Right on. Wait until about 1/2 way through the season, because a high pre-season rank is a major advantage late in the year for some reason.
 
Crowder52 said:
Philter, you definitely make a valid point. But the human polls have been this way since their inception. Teams get jumped that don't play when a team behind them gets a quality win. Happens nearly every week of the season.
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This is correct. The human polls have been unchanged and exactly like this since they started. However as we know with the BCS, its a constantly changing and evolving system. Teams do get jumped every single week, the difference with this scenario is how and when they got jumped.

This isnt like #13 jumps #12 to #11, no one cares about that. When a jump happens like this that changes the picture of the NC game, it gets attention and people talk about it. When its a mediocre team jumping a few teams in the 20s, people dont care because in the grand scheme of things, it has no impact whatsoever.

A team is being punished because of how it scheduled games. Say for example Michigan had a bye week earlier in the season and the Big10 pushed back one of its earlier games until later in the season........ say Wisconsin for example. If Michigan beat Wisconsin the same week that USC beat Notre Dame, do you think the pollsters would have voted the same? I dont. A simple scheduling change in a conference would change its idle week and therefore could change the bowl lineup. True?

Its just another flaw in the BCS system. WHEN you play a team and WHEN you are idle can determine your position in the top 25.
 
Analogy:

Let's say you go to a "battle of the bands" concert. Each band gets to play 3 songs. Band #1 finishes playing, but Band #2 still has one more song to play. Do you think the people at the concert have to make up their minds right then and there about who was the better band? Why can't they change their mind after seeing Band #2 finish their body of work?
 
Crowder52 said:
Right on. Wait until about 1/2 way through the season, because a high pre-season rank is a major advantage late in the year for some reason.
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Agree completely with everyone on the preseason rankings. I said the same thing last year. A top preseason ranking basically guarantees you the #1 spot unless you lose.

How do the computers calculate strength of schedule for teams?
 
Philter25 said:
Its just another flaw in the BCS system. WHEN you play a team and WHEN you are idle can determine your position in the top 25.
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Very true Philter. But this phenomenon is not unique to BCS voters. In psychology, it's called recency bias. We tend to associate more importance to recent events than we do to less recent events. It's human nature.
 
Crowder52 said:
Analogy:

Let's say you go to a "battle of the bands" concert. Each band gets to play 3 songs. Band #1 finishes playing, but Band #2 still has one more song to play. Do you think the people at the concert have to make up their minds right then and there about who was the better band? Why can't they change their mind after seeing Band #2 finish their body of work?
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Big difference.

Band #1 and Band #2 are not competing to play Band A in the finals and Band #1 and Band A come from the same hometown and ratings would decline and it wouldnt be as big of a financial pull to have Band #1 and Band A play.

People should be able to vote once they see the entire performance. I completely agree. However the vote shouldnt change if Band #1 and Band #2 were to finish performing at the same time rather than different times.
 
Crowder52 said:
Very true Philter. But this phenomenon is not unique to BCS voters. In psychology, it's called recency bias. We tend to associate more importance to recent events than we do to less recent events. It's human nature.
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Agreed. And the exact flaw with this year's BCS is the human element. Michigan, who hasnt played in weeks, and their best win, again Notre Dame, was months ago whereas their loss, to Ohio State, was the most recent. Florida, who's loss was months ago and best win occured recently, held an advantage in the human polls.

Just one of the many problems we have where a championship game is decided by polls, computers, and voters and not on the field.

This ties into exactly what I was talking about the scheduling...... unfortunately for teams, you can only beat who is on your schedule and when they are scheduled. However voters take that into account and that can hurt you or help you.

Good post.
 
Philter25 said:
Agreed. And the exact flaw with this year's BCS is the human element. Michigan, who hasnt played in weeks, and their best win, again Notre Dame, was months ago whereas their loss, to Ohio State, was the most recent. Florida, who's loss was months ago and best win occured recently, held an advantage in the human polls.

Just one of the many problems we have where a championship game is decided by polls, computers, and voters and not on the field.

This ties into exactly what I was talking about the scheduling...... unfortunately for teams, you can only beat who is on your schedule and when they are scheduled. However voters take that into account and that can hurt you or help you.

Good post.
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I still think LSU, and Tennessee were better wins, but your point is well taken.

I really don't think that part of the equation will ever change. The only way to do it w/o this human aspect is to have a playoff. Which even then, there has to be a way to pick the teams that get into the playoff... :(
 
Philter25 said:
This ties into exactly what I was talking about the scheduling...... unfortunately for teams, you can only beat who is on your schedule and when they are scheduled. However voters take that into account and that can hurt you or help you.
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And the fact that we all know losing earlier in the year is preffered by the voters to losing later in the year supports what you are saying too.

i.e. If Michigan played Ohio St. first game of the year and lost, then won out, they very well could be in the title game right now.
 
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