Starting up my (hopefully weekly) forum post taking a look at what the BCS would do if they still existed.
For the uninitiated, the BCS used a combination of polls and computer rankings to decide the top 2 teams in the country, which would then play in the BCS championship game, from 1998 until 2013 when it was replaced by the 4 team CFP. It's worth noting that "BCS Holdings, LLC" owns the CFP, so although the BCS rankings no longer exist, the institution that commissioned them does and runs the playoff system.
The formula changed over the years, but eventually settled on the following -- take the USA Today Coaches poll, the Harris Poll (created specifically for the BCS when the AP poll opted out), and the Computer average, weighting these 3 equally, to decide on the rankings. The computer average was derived from 6 computer rankings: Anderson and Hester; the Colley Matrix, Billingsley, Sagarin, Massey, and Wolfe. Each computer ranking would rank their top 25 and you would receive 1 point for being 25 and 25 points for being 1, etc. Outside the top 25 yields 0 points. You would then remove the top ranking and bottom ranking for each team for a maximum of 100 points. Divide by 100 to get the computer average for each team.
For the past several years I have made the effort to reproduce these rankings. Since the Harris Poll no longer exists, I have replaced it with the AP Poll which at one point was part of the rankings, and have otherwise preserved the formula.
This week, I have rankings for 5 of the 6 computers (Anderson and Hester hasn't published a ranking yet) so I am modifying the formula to remove the top and bottom score and then divide the remaining 3 by 75 instead. I will then take these rankings and mock up what a playoff might look like, under the assumption that the top ranked team from each conference gets the bye and/or automatic bid.
| Team | Record | BCS Rank | BCS Average | AP Poll | AP Avg | Coaches | Coaches Avg | Computer | Computer Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon | 9-0 | 1 | 0.9909 | 1 | 1.0000 | 1 | 0.9993 | 1 | 0.9733 |
| Ohio St | 7-1 | 2 | 0.9153 | 3 | 0.9303 | 3 | 0.9222 | 2 | 0.8933 |
| Georgia | 7-1 | 3 | 0.9045 | 2 | 0.9348 | 2 | 0.9385 | 4 | 0.8400 |
| Miami (FL) | 9-0 | 4 | 0.8780 | 4 | 0.8697 | 4 | 0.8844 | 3 | 0.8800 |
| Texas | 7-1 | 5 | 0.8294 | 5 | 0.8452 | 5 | 0.8430 | 5 | 0.8000 |
| Indiana | 9-0 | 6 | 0.7166 | 8 | 0.7245 | 10 | 0.6785 | 6 | 0.7467 |
| Penn St | 7-1 | 7 | 0.7093 | 6 | 0.7471 | 7 | 0.7274 | 10 | 0.6533 |
| Tennessee | 7-1 | 8 | 0.6950 | 7 | 0.7419 | 6 | 0.7696 | 11 | 0.5733 |
| BYU | 8-0 | 9 | 0.6820 | 9 | 0.6994 | 9 | 0.6800 | 8 | 0.6667 |
| Notre Dame | 7-1 | 10 | 0.6488 | 10 | 0.6877 | 8 | 0.7119 | 12 | 0.5467 |
| Alabama | 6-2 | 11 | 0.6215 | 11 | 0.5594 | 11 | 0.5719 | 7 | 0.7333 |
| SMU | 8-1 | 12 | 0.5328 | 13 | 0.4852 | 15 | 0.4467 | 8 | 0.6667 |
| Boise St | 7-1 | 13 | 0.4908 | 12 | 0.5503 | 14 | 0.4556 | 13 | 0.4667 |
| LSU | 6-2 | 14 | 0.4644 | 14 | 0.4561 | 13 | 0.4837 | 15 | 0.4533 |
| Mississippi | 7-2 | 15 | 0.4582 | 16 | 0.4213 | 12 | 0.4867 | 13 | 0.4667 |
| Texas A&M | 7-2 | 16 | 0.4169 | 15 | 0.4271 | 16 | 0.3837 | 16 | 0.4400 |
| Iowa St | 7-1 | 17 | 0.3957 | 17 | 0.3819 | 18 | 0.3785 | 17 | 0.4267 |
| Clemson | 6-2 | 18 | 0.2850 | 19 | 0.2884 | 17 | 0.3800 | 22 | 0.1867 |
| Washington St | 7-1 | 19 | 0.2212 | 20 | 0.2265 | 20 | 0.2104 | 21 | 0.2267 |
| Army | 8-0 | 20 | 0.2093 | 18 | 0.3019 | 19 | 0.2993 | NR | 0.0267 |
| Kansas St | 7-2 | 21 | 0.2051 | 22 | 0.1465 | 21 | 0.1489 | 18 | 0.3200 |
| Pittsburgh | 7-1 | 22 | 0.1898 | 23 | 0.1310 | 23 | 0.1319 | 19 | 0.3067 |
| Colorado | 6-2 | 23 | 0.1076 | 21 | 0.1510 | 24 | 0.0919 | 25 | 0.0800 |
| South Carolina | 5-3 | 24 | 0.1006 | NR | 0.0374 | NR | 0.0244 | 20 | 0.2400 |
| Louisville | 6-3 | 25 | 0.0830 | 25 | 0.0742 | NR | 0.0281 | 23 | 0.1467 |
CFP Seedings:
1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Miami (FL)
4. BYU
5. Ohio State
6. Texas
7. Indiana
8. Penn State
9. Tennessee
10. Notre Dame
11. Alabama
12. Boise State
This creates some interesting matchups.
- Ohio State would get Boise State and then BYU back to back. I like our chances there (the coveted 5th spot, after all).
- Texas gets to play Alabama with the winner facing Georgia, nothing wrong with a little SEC playoff cannibalism there.
- Then we have Indiana vs Notre Dame with some in-state intrigue going on, with the winner playing Miami (Indiana with a very good chance at the semifinals there).
- And Penn State with the chance to knock out Tennessee in the "not quite elite but wish that we were" matchup, the winner then playing Oregon.
Obviously there are many games ahead where some of these teams will play each other, so the final shakeup will probably not look exactly like this. If Miami or BYU falter in there conference championships (or lose before then) it definitely makes things more interesting (and easier for the 5/6 seeds).
Looking at the rankings themselves (as opposed to the seedings), I do like Ohio State at 2 over Georgia. I actually thought the polls might move us up to 2 after beating PSU and the 1 point loss being to the unanimous #1, but apparently beating Texas and losing to Alabama (2 losses) is a better resume? It's probably a wash and how close the two teams are in the polls (not a lot of distance between 2 and 3 there) shows that. For seeding it doesn't matter as we drop to 5 either way.
The computers like Indiana more than the Polls do, and these formulas generally do not include margin of victory in their calculations (I am using the BCS version of Massey that is compliant in this way, for example), but even if they did Indiana has been beating teams by double digits (albeit with a weaker SOS). We'll see if they are for real in 3 weeks, unless they stumble before then. I don't know why the polls think 1 loss PSU is better than Indiana given that neither had played a particularly tough slate until PSU played us (and lost).
The first CFP rankings come out tomorrow, very curious to see how their rankings line up with the BCS computers. And whether or not they release full rankings or just seedings, elevating the automatic qualifiers/potential conference champions to the top 4.
