re: Official BCS Discussion Thread

It isn't exactly clear how Sagarin's ratings are done and to make it worse he has a few different polls which makes it harder to decipher. I have always hated the Sagarin poll, partly because he won't explain his algorithm and partly just because it always sucks the most.

What is clear that is that 1) he has a home/away component unlike many polls and 2) he gives more weight to SOS than other polls. Also, that Strength of Schedule really snowballs in his poll and it happens every year.

The Big 12 was 27-3 in OOC games which makes them the best conference (every computer poll believes this). With this as starting point, Big 12 teams play big 12 teams and their SOS's just keep going up. To make it worse, each Big 12 team plays 9 conference games. In A&M's case they played Arkansas too so Sagarin's poll thinks they played an NFL schedule and 6-6 looks pretty darn good.

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.how much weight do the Sagarin ratings have on the BCS rankings?

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The 6 computers are averaged and together count 1/3 of the BCS rating. High and low scores are thrown out though, so really 4 computers averaged.

matt - I posted the scenario below a few times but with no response....I appreciate your insight on this

Even if both VT and Okie St. win, if there is a significant enough anti-rematch movement, why wouldn't the voters move Okie St. over both VT and Stanford as Okie St. would have beat the 10th ranked BCS team whereas VT beat the 20th ranked BCS team and Stanford is idle and not even a conference champion? Plus, isn't the Big 12 viewed as a stronger conference this year than the ACC?

A&M is 17th in sagarins bcs rankings. Not 12th.

Thanks tigermikear and LSUMatt for the answers...I'm glad that I'm not the only one that doesn't understand all of the Big12 love.

And I do understand the anti-Bama sentiment, have gone through this in '96 when FSU beat UF in the regular season and then got pounded by UF in the NatChamp game and didn't share the title.

Do I think that Bama deserves to be in it over OSU? Yes, but I'm biased and freely admit it. Do I think that OSU deserves a chance? Yes, but do I think their resume is greater than Bama's resume? Nope, not at all, about even no matter what the rankings say. I'd love a +1 at the bare minimum to be honest.

well first off, right now most voters have Va Tech and Stanford above Ok State and behind Bama. That isn't a good sign. The hope is that voters will come to their senses, but we are asking a lot.

But look at it another way. We are operating under the assumption that Bama gets about 75% of voters and Ok State gets the other 25% (if Ok State gets less they are done, if Ok State gets more than 50% they are in). So Bama has 3 times as many voters that could use Stanford/Va Tech as a wedge as Ok State does. It is silly to think all the Bama voters will put OSU right behind them, but then all the OSU voters, drop Bama like a rock. That right there is your problem.

Thanks.....Go Tigers! Go Clemson! Go Okie St.!

I don't really know. I think it's some sort of average between his elo -chess and his predictor rating.

But even at 17 it's kinda ridiculous.

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Only the low is thrown out, not the high and low.

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wait...what?

Are the bcs rankings still not out? When will they be available?