‘Death to the BCS:’ Nonsense rules

Seems to me the BCS is working great today as is.

 

So what you are saying is that unless cfb can keep the tradition, rivalries, and current atmosphere it should not be tampered with? Thats actually a good argument.

 

I would go a step further and say that I want a guarantee that all that is great about college football remains intact.

We have a great game. Our inability to be satisfied is going to ultimately destroy this game, as I see it. In other words, we need to keep our desires in check. It's a form of self-control.

 

The controversy around every final BCS poll before the bowls is actually one of the things that makes it so fun to watch and keeps other teams' games more interesting. And it really is a good compromise between the old system where 1 and 2 weren't guaranteed to play in a bowl and a playoff.

If there really was to be a plus 1 or a 4 team mini-playoff I think it could still be fun, but I fear Leroy is correct that it would just keep getting bigger and bigger everytime someone barely misses the playoffs this whole crap would start again demanding more.

Personally, I think a lot of the rage against the BCS could be avoided if the sports reporters on TV would do more explaining about how it works. They insist on explaining other well known rules every FVCKING game, but they just gloss over this and kinda disrespect the computers regularly with eyerolls and the like. If they'd instead actually go over the computer average, talk about the subtle differences between say, Sagarin and the Colley formulas, and how and why these rankings are sometimes so different from the humans.

Tonight on the BCS show I was really disappointed that they didn't go further into the subject of human v. computer differences. Thye did a decent job of explaining how the humans need to pay attention to what actually went on in games to counter the fact that the computers don't "watch" the games, but they didn't mention how there's a very good side effect of this. The humans and computers counterbalance each other in a near perfect way, removing emotion from the computers and "don't know what really went downedness" of the computers.

To get a great overview of the BCS and an even broader and better overview of how all the computers work in an easy to follow read, try http://www.bcsknowhow.com/

Of course you can get more detailed and complicated information with some web research, but at a minimum a person following the polls, bitching about the BCS, complaining that team A should be higher or lower, or who just wants to understand how the system works for the game we love should AT LEAST know all the stuff on that site.

 

my biggest gripe on the BCS is that they don't release the formulas for the computers

 

I know at least some of them do. Here's one for example: http://www.colleyrankings.com/matrate.pdf

 

That's a pretty interesting formula. I have my own idea, but I'm not sure many would understand it. But if I'm right it would beat anything currently available. (I'm probably wrong. )

 

Yeah only Colley makes his equation available; and just last week there was an article where one of the computer dudes said he could potentially accept $1,000,000 to rig it....too lazy to find the link.

 

yeah, i think 4/6 do. i meant all of them

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/sports/ncaafootball/17score.html?_r=2&ref=sports

 

Wasn't this already posted? In fact, I thought it was in the original post.

 

It's very well known that Billingsley's methodology is terrible and something else needs to replace it. Basically, in his rankings, teams are rated based on opponent's record when they beat them. So, in his ratings, when OU beat Florida State, Billingsley saw that they beat a 1-0 team. His ratings for OU don't care what FSU did after they got beat. So, if OU beats Mizzou this weekend, his ratings will count the win only that week and only as beating a 6-0 team, regardless of what Mizzou does the rest of the season. It's awful methodology that doesn't take the entire body of work into account.

 

The BCS should probably just issue a request for computer algorithm proposals. Then have a group of mathematicians select four that meet reasonable criteria.

That problem is relatively easy to solve.

 

Dunno why we keep having this conversation.

If you don't like how it is, quit watching.

Until you do, it won't change.

Period.

Colleges are selling out games and filling up ever-larger stadiums. And you *honestly* expect them to upset the apple cart? Are you nuts?

 

as a sooner fan i love the BCS...