OFFICIAL BCS THREAD - 09/21

I finally got over my hangover from the Pitt/West Virginia game. What happened in the BCS NC? Did we beat Ohio State?

I'll try to post these weekly here on out as long as LSU has a shot of at least a BCS bowl. I suggest we keep all BCS discussions in one thread, but I will leave that up to clucker. This week I wanted to mostly give a summary of how the BCS works, even though most of us probably up to speed by now.

The BCS has 3 equal components; Coaches Poll(1/3), Harris Poll (1/3), and Computer Average (1/3) and the formula is actually quite simple: in the human polls, you subscore is #votes/(25*#voters). Their are 6 computer scores, they are averaged (after dropping the high and low score) and then its (26-avg rating)/25. So your highest possible score is 1.0. Here is an example for LSU from the last week of last year.

Harris = 2630/(25*114) = 0.9228
Coaches = 1418/(25*60) = 0.9453
Computers = (26-2)/25 = 0.950
Total = (0.9228+0.9450+0.950)/3=0.9394

Its obviously pretty easy to calculate those scores with a pencil and calculator. I am more interested in thinking about what will happen if..somewhere down the line. Particularly how the computers will shake out and affect the BCS. I will give an in depth summary of how the computers
work next week. Last year I managed to replicate an old version of Colley Matrix poll, but he started including IAA teams in a funny way. I think I almost have it all worked out now. The neat thing is we should be able simulate the rest of the season and look at a "predicted" final Colley Matrix poll. Since the computers agree well by seasons end, we should be able to tell how LSU would compare to other schools

Here are some things about the BCS and computer polls that many people have misconceptions about:

1. You absolutely DO NOT have win your conference to play for the BCS NC. However, voters aren't very kind to teams that don't and they'll probably try and keep them out (see 2007 UGA). Even in 2003, voters put OU behind all the teams with 1-loss.

2. The BCS does not include a separate "Strength of Schedule" component anymore like it did in 2003. However, every computer has its own way of measuring SOS and its basically how it differentiates teams of like records. Of course, the human polls supposedly do.

3. With few minor exceptions, the computer polls do not include history, tradition, last years' ranking, or conference in the formula. Basically if USC and TCU played the same schedule and had the same record, they would be ranked the same. This is why most polls look crazy the first few weeks. (The lone exception being Billingsly which
I call the "common sense" poll; but it is almost always thrown out as a high or low).

4. If you are ranked #1 in both human polls, you can still be left out. It would be hard, but first of all, its # votes, not ranking. So you might be #1, but barely above #2 and#3. Also, you could be very low in the computers making them effectively "worth more" than just 1/3. (This is why OU and USC never stood a chance last year even if they jumped LSU in the polls).

Computer Poll Links:

Colley Rankings
Billingsly
Sagarin
Wolfe
Massey
Anderson