1 Oklahoma
2 LSU
3 Auburn
4 Michigan State
5 TCU
6 Missouri
7 Boise State
8 Oregon
9 Oklahoma State
10 Stanford
11 Utah
12 Alabama
13 Florida State
14 Ohio State
15 Arizona
16 Wisconsin
17 Iowa
18 Texas
19 Kansas State
20 Nebraska
21 Mississippi State
Oregon at 8th? Missouri at 6th? What’s going on here?
Well, this is a perfectly legitimate poll that actually has substantial power in the BCS era. What is it?
It’s the average rankings of the six “computer” polls, and counts 1/3rd towards determining BCS rankings. And it’s VASTLY different than what the humans think.
Why?
The obvious answer is the “computers” aren’t subject to the bias and interia of human voters.
Take Oregon. In the computer polls, the Ducks gets 1 second place, 1 seventh place, 1 eighth place, 2 ninth place and one 11th place ranking. Throw out the 2nd and the 11th and your average is 8th. The reason I suspect their rankings are so relatively low is their present weak SOS (111th per the NCAA).
Or take Missouri. Ranked in the mid-teens in the 3 human polls, the computers place them 6th.
When we average the 3 human polls (AP, Harris, USA Today/Coaches) and compare them to the computer averages we find a great deal of disagreement. The following shows how much difference exists, by averaging ranking, from the computers to the human rankers by team (from under ranked by humans to over ranked)-
Preseason | ||
Team | DIFF | Rank |
10.67 | ||
6.67 | ||
6.00 | ||
LSU | 4.00 | 21 |
4.00 | ||
4.00 | 5 | |
3.67 | 20 | |
3.00 | ||
Stanford | 3.00 | |
2.33 | 7 | |
2.00 | ||
2.00 | 22 | |
TCU | -1.33 | 6 |
-2.00 | ||
-3.67 | 2 | |
-4.67 | 9 | |
-5.00 | 1 | |
-5.00 | 3 | |
-5.33 | 12 | |
-6.33 | 8 | |
-7.00 | 11 |
In looking at this list, it’s pretty obvious why the discrepancies exist. Of the 12 teams above under ranked by the humans relative to the computers, 7 were unranked to start the season. Of the teams that were ranked, 3 were 20 or higher (LSU, FSU and Auburn). Only two were top 10 teams (Texas and Oklahoma). Texas has lost twice, and Oklahoma, though undefeated, has only managed to move up to 3rd in the human polls (from 7th).
Of the teams over ranked by the humans to computers, only 1 of the 9 was not ranked to start the season (Utah). The other 8 were all ranked 12th or better.
What this shows is inertia – unreasonable inertia to me – on behalf of human voters. While the computers don’t care where they place a team, human voters clearly have a tendency to make minor adjustments based on preconceptions – the preconception in this case being the preseason rankings.
Thus the much maligned computers aren’t only more equitable here, they are indispensible. Had the season ended with 7 games, and were it up to strictly the human voters of the BCS, you’d be looking at a Boise State – Oregon BCS title game, with undefeated teams like Oklahoma, Auburn and LSU on the outside. This would be despite the fact that the Ducks and Broncos have played teams that have a cumulative 20-31 record. The computer’s influence on the BCS moves Oklahoma up to number 1 with Oregon 2nd, omitting (quite justifiably) Boise State.
There’s a lot of season left to be played, for sure, and it will be interesting to see how the teams over or under ranked by the computers do. But right now I know who’s rankings I prefer.
1 comment:
Mergz, I've been reading your stuff for years now, and this may be one of the better analysis pieces you've had. I'd love to see if the same can be said over the last few years, especially if by the end of the season this trend maintains (you would hope that the more body of evidence on the field, the less biased the human voters are).
As a side note, it is perfectly legitimate to completely leave out Richard Billingsley's rankings when calculating the computer average.
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