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Bad math!MustangStealth wrote:It's called math.
Head to head, Bama demolished ND. They are better by a mile.MustangStealth wrote:It's a published formula. http://www.colleyrankings.com/matrate.pdf
It ranked 2 teams with similar records, and the one with a higher overall schedule strength came out slightly ahead.
It still makes more sense than declaring the 14-6 Giants champions over the 18-1 Patriots (who beat the Giants in their own stadium).
If you want to determine the "best" team, playoffs aren't the answer.
And by the same argument, A&M is better than Alabama, etc.. You have to look at the whole season. I'm not saying that ND is better than Alabama, because they aren't, but this is a computer ranking with no margin of victory component. Each team lost one game, and ND's loss was "better" than Alabama's.Digetydog wrote:Head to head, Bama demolished ND. They are better by a mile.MustangStealth wrote:It's a published formula. http://www.colleyrankings.com/matrate.pdf
It ranked 2 teams with similar records, and the one with a higher overall schedule strength came out slightly ahead.
It still makes more sense than declaring the 14-6 Giants champions over the 18-1 Patriots (who beat the Giants in their own stadium).
If you want to determine the "best" team, playoffs aren't the answer.
That's another flaw in the playoff system. Championships should be about the best teams. So who was the "best" team in the Big 10 this year, the one who would be playing in the playoffs? 8-5 Wisconsin. That type of system is far less legitimate than just going back to letting the voters pick a champion.Topper wrote:I hate computers and polls. Football should have a championship earned on the field. Only conference champions should be eligible for consideration for anything.
If an 8-5 Wisconsin can make it to the title game and then win it, where is the flaw? If in reality an 8-5 team is not a good team, then they should have hardly any chance of making it to the title game much less winning it. Voters are subject to bias and plain stupidity at times. Win your game on the field and there is little doubt who is better.MustangStealth wrote:That's another flaw in the playoff system. Championships should be about the best teams. So who was the "best" team in the Big 10 this year, the one who would be playing in the playoffs? 8-5 Wisconsin. That type of system is far less legitimate than just going back to letting the voters pick a champion.Topper wrote:I hate computers and polls. Football should have a championship earned on the field. Only conference champions should be eligible for consideration for anything.
The flaw is that the whole season should be what matters, not the fact that they won the one game that mattered against Nebraska after lucking into the conference championship game. This is another case where Nebraska had already beaten them during the season, but the single game elimination format tosses that fact out. I happen to think that championships should go to the team that played the best ALL season, not in the last couple weeks.PK wrote:If an 8-5 Wisconsin can make it to the title game and then win it, where is the flaw? If in reality an 8-5 team is not a good team, then they should have hardly any chance of making it to the title game much less winning it. Voters are subject to bias and plain stupidity at times. Win your game on the field and there is little doubt who is better.
Almost all the conference champions are determined in a championship game. Everyone in the conference has played every one else...for the most part . In other words their records within the conference determine the two teams that have the best overall records and play for the conference championship. So since these records include all the conference games it does not matter that the winner was better at the end of the season than at the beginning...they had the best in conference records when it was all said and done. So now when you get to the playoffs for the "national championship", the best of each conference is playing for the championship. Conference championships don't count the patsies played for out of conference games and therefore the sometimes inflated "won-loss" records. Therefore, if a team is the best of a weak conference the chances of winning the national championship are slim unless that team was a giant among midgets and might very well be the best team out there. Again, voters are often not totally objective in their votes and therefore it comes down to opinions and not actual head to head competion.MustangStealth wrote:Furthermore, statistically speaking, playoffs are EXTREMELY biased. The bias is date based, i.e. game A matters more than game B because game A happened at a later date. This bias is inherent in any playoff system, including the BCS, which is a de facto 2 team playoff. The most complete picture comes from looking at the most complete data set. In the upcoming 4 team playoff, 3 games out of roughly 800 FBS games played will determine the championship.