Sorta quasi OT - the BCS Computer pollsters

NoNC4Tubs · Jul 13, 2018

RedWave said:
And honestly, we don't know what kind of multipliers or algorithms is going on behind the scenes to get to those numbers. They could arrange the formulas in any number of ways in order to favor one side versus the other. Ask any financial analyst to run a projection and he can give you different any number of answers based on what he thinks you want the answer to be (ask me how I know). The same could be done with the BCS formula.

To be fair, nobody ever argued with the final selections...

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

selmaborntidefan said:
The BCS botched year six when Oklahoma wound up playing for a national championship they absolutely did not deserve to play for.

As my analysis of each year showed, the BCS was FAR BETTER than the hype-fest against it (including my own pre-2012 harangues).
And the BCS did not function materially different than the committee in that they didn't get overly bogged down in head to head results
to the exclusion of everything else. But what's really INSANE about that 2003 game is not the fact Oklahoma played in it - it's the fact they
lost their last game by TWENTY-EIGHT points.....while ranked number one.....and stayed number one. What a lot of people forget is that
it damn near was LSU that got hosed in that whole deal. LSU was sitting helplessly by when two other games - Boise State beating
Hawaii and Syracuse crushing Notre Dame - put LSU into the national championship game.

And given where Nick Saban now sits, we're talking about changing history in truly bizarre fashion.

To be fair to the BCS, that was the only insanely egregious decision they made and - more to the point - they changed the formula enough the next year to resolve that particular issue.

And I would point out that entire debacle wasn't caused by the human polls, it was caused by the computers. In fact, had just one of the computers flipped USC and LSU, the title game would have been OU vs USC. It's not that OU didn't win their conference, it's that they got blown out by a three-loss team by 28 points, and they didn't even look like the game was as close as that margin.

I realize no one READS my posts, and that's ok - I don't post them to please anyone besides myself

- but I noted this already.

Actually, the BCS made at least TWO pretty significant BLUNDERS, IMO - and to their credit, they took steps to correct the problems EACH time they "Missed".

2001 - Taking Knebraska (rather than a better Oregon team) - (Oregon lost one game, in October, to a 9-3 Stanford team)
and
2003 - Taking OU (Rather than a better USCw team) (this was the "Straw that broke the camel's back" for the AP poll! They named USCw the AP champ and withdrew from the BCS).

BOTH '01 Knebraksa AND '03 OU were coming off absolute BUTT WHIPPINGS in the B-12 Conference Champ game - yet both INEXPLICABLY still made the cut - largely due to their strength in the computer polls. The resulting changes, Rwmoving MOV from the computer polls after 2001, then reducing the weight given of the computers after 2003, resulted in no further errors the rest of the way for the BCS.

"IMO."

Which is why it would have made SO much SENSE to keep the proven BCS formula, and just expand the bracket to 4 teams - honestly, this SHOULD have been a "no brainer".... but the people that control the money made sure that TV ratings would be given AT LEAST as much consideration in the voting as actual MERIT.

And for all the arguments about objectivity of the current system - there's a SIMPLE TEST for that. Simply switch our 2017 season with aubarn's. Let aub race out to an 11-0 record and a #1 rating, then LOSE to Alabama, who in turn loses in ATL. Does anyone think for a MINUTE that aub (or LSu, or UGa, or UF, or UT, or Ark, etc.) would have gotten the same Benefit of the Doubt that WE got???

That would be LAUGHABLE....

NoNC4Tubs · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
True, the actual formulas (except for Colley) were never made public. BUT - Respectfully, the result of EVERY Computer Poll was published EVERY WEEK. And the METHODOLOGY for arriving at the consensus of the computers (which was NEVER a simple "average" or "majority rule") was likewise published.
We always knew, and we could cross check to see if the final numbers were correctly calculated.

Do we know how any individual member of the "Double Secret Committee" has voted, at any point during the past 4 years?
Do we know which members voted UA #4 and which voted us #5 last December? (we know for the AP poll each week, and we know for the final "Coaches Poll" and we knew for the final Harris poll as well).
Do we know what Criteria (if any) MUST be considered by the committee?
Do we know the committee arives at it's results? What kinds of numbers are generated? or who they are tabulated?
Do the members vote by ordinals? or do they assign numerical scores?
Is the final poll a Simple average? Weighted average? Mean? Median?

Respectfully, the answer to ALL those questions, is "NO". We just don't know. It's all a SECRET. NOTHING can be "checked" or "verified".

All we know is the final result.

Well, RESPECTFULLY - yes and no. It's true that when we run "Proxy" BCS calculations, we almost always get the same result, but there are some problems there.

First and foremost - 1/3 of the BCS formula - the Harris Interactive Poll, no longer exists. So there's no way to guess how that Poll would have operated week to week - the Harris Poll DIDN'T always agree with the "Coaches" or the "Computers".

Second is the problem of cross-contamination, due to the "sheep" mentality of most of the Sportswriters (and many of the SID's and other functionaries who actually vote the "Coaches" poll). - NONE of them want to be singled out for being "Wrong" - at least not at the end. So once the first "Double Secret Committee" poll comes out - the AP and Coaches polls ALWAYS fall into line within a couple weeks. This is due to the FEAR of most sportswriters of someone asking them in January why they voted for the "Wrong" team.

So what happens is, by the time the final Four teams are selected, the AP and Coaches polls have each become nearly UNANIMOUS in Mirroring the Committee Poll, again, out of "fear" of being called out for being "wrong".

Here's just ONE example - last year, week 11 the first Committee poll is released, and 9-0 Wisconsin is ranked #8. The same week, the Coaches poll had Wisconsin at #3.
The next week Wisconsin wins again and goes to 10-0. And they didn't "Just" win - they beat a RANKED team, On the Road, by 24 points. But the Coaches moved them DOWN to #4???
Why?
Well, we all KNOW why, don't we? Because no one wants to be put on the spot by the media and asked why they voted differently than the "All Powerful OZ Committee".

So what you have is a classic "Self Fulfilling Prophecy". Happens every year.

The point being, this kind of "Cross contamination" really invalidates any serious attempt to divine what the ACTUAL BCS might have done.

Obviously, not as much effort is put into the first poll (which doesn't matter anyways) as the final poll. I still think they use the BCS formula to make their final votes with a right to adjust if they see an aberration...

NoNC4Tubs · Jul 13, 2018

Great thread, RTR!!

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

selmaborntidefan said:
My hunch? The committee is designed to keep out the Boise States of the world.

Agree 100%. Schools like Boise, (or TCU or Baylor) don't draw the TV ratings of schools like Alabama, Ohio $tate, Clempson, OU, etc.

THAT's why we have a "Secret Committee" instead of a (relatively) transparent system like the BCS.

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

B1GTide said:
Those games are not meaningless. It is just more difficult to see the value. But ask any Buckeye fan how meaningless their games were last year. A poorly played game cost us a shot at the title. But well played games against everyone except Auburn kept Alabama in the hunt. Flip any win to a loss from the top 4 teams and they are out of the playoff. So every game mattered last year, even if it is more difficult to see it.

Yea, BUT..... Yea, every game mattered, esp. for O$U.

BUT - Here's the THING - in the P_ayoff era, EVERY major program gets (at least) ONE MULLIGAN.

We got a Mulligan with aubarn (but ONLY because aub already had two losses THEN lost to UGa). In Almost any year of ANY prior era, that late loss puts us OUT of the NC equation - (barring a string of similar late losses by all the other top ranked teams - see 2007).

AND - O$U Totally got a Mulligan for losing early to OU - get past Iowa and Alabama fans are TOTALLY watching the P_ayoffs on TV. I think we would ALL agree with this.
But here's the thing - and in our HEARTS we ALL KNOW THIS. Had O$U beaten OU, EVEN WITH THE UGLY LOSS to Iowa, they STILL get One Mulligan - and STILL make the Bracket and leave Alabama at home.
Laugh all you want, but you KNOW It's true.

So if every "Major" team gets at least one Mulligan, DOES the regular season Really mean as much as it did before 2014??

I say no.

RedWave · Jul 13, 2018

NoNC4Tubs said:
To be fair, nobody ever argued with the final selections...

LSU fans say hi. The complaints from them about having to play us again in '11 were some of the worst I have ever heard. I constantly heard them say "you guys don't deserve to play us again." My reply was "well, if you think we don't deserve it, then you must mean we aren't good enough, in which case you should have no trouble beating us again." Even after we won, I still had to hear how we didn't deserve to be in that game. My thought was that our winning proved that we did.

I am pretty sure that, almost without exception, someone complains about the selections every year.

RedWave · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Agree 100%. Schools like Boise, (or TCU or Baylor) don't draw the TV ratings of schools like Alabama, Ohio $tate, Clempson, OU, etc.

THAT's why we have a "Secret Committee" instead of a (relatively) transparent system like the BCS.

I always play devil's advocate to statements like "The committee has gotten it right every time" and such, but you really do have a tin foil hat on, don't you?

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

B1GTide said:
I agree - for me, 6 would be perfect. IMO, it would be even better than 4 for a few reasons:

* Every game would mean even more because getting the #1 or #2 seed gets you a bye in the tournament. It gets back to the BCS era with respect the importance of the games
* It would allow for every P5 conference champion to make it if they all deserved it.
* It allows more room for a second team from the same P5 conference when deserved.

* AND OSU gets in Almost Every Single Year.

Lets be honest about it, ok?

Frankly, I'm not sure I can remember a year when the #6 team "Deserved" ANYTHING beyond a decent bowl invite. If someone has an example, lets see it. I'm happy to admit my mistake if I'm wrong.....

Reality is - you could expand the P_ayoff _racket to 68 teams, and there would STILL be SOMEONE CRYING that they got "Screwed". This has Happened EVERY March for as long as I can remember..........

Just in the past year, these stories have been published:
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/20104342/worth-discussing-expanding-ncaa-tournament-field-72-teams
It's time again to think about expanding the NCAA tournament field

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/23531225/acc-propose-expanding-ncaa-tournament-four-teams-72
ACC to propose expanding NCAA tournament by four teams to 72

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

selmaborntidefan said:
Krazy and most of the fans here realize what Brando doesn't seem to realize: the increase of teams in the post-season NECESSARILY dilutes the regular season. I recall years ago when the dude who used to fill in for him on his CBS Sports Radio show (I never did learn the guy's name even though I was on the show as a caller once) said that CFB has the best regular season of any sport, but the most wretched post-season in providing a satisfying conclusion. He didn't seem to think through that any sort of expansion BY DEFINITION was going to dilute the regular season.

I think FOUR is absolutely perfect. Four does what it is supposed to do: it gives the regular season substantial meaning but ensures we never have anything occur like 1966 Alabama, the 1983 bowl game train wreck, the 1984 national champion BYU winning it without playing a single decent team, or 2004 Auburn. And to me that's really ALL it was supposed to do. Never again will have the 2000 debacle of three one-loss teams and the head-to-head results meaning LITERALLY nothing. Krazy is correct - the entire argument was ALWAYS about the THIRD team, never the FOURTH team.

Brando's suggestion of an eight-team playoff chosen by a Blue Ribbon panel (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) will reduce the meaning of the season.

Let's go back to 2011. I choose that year because it seems to be the fulcrum of all discussion of the changeover. The whole stink centered on "why Alabama over Okie State, Alabama 'had their chance.'" But what I think is amusingly LOST in the whole argument is that the very same people who at the time were saying "four-team playoff" were ripping Alabama for "not winning their conference." Yet #4 Stanford was ranked ahead of Oregon.....who blew them to shreds, 53-30.

Nobody pointed out, "Hey, if we DID have a four-team playoff then your whole conference championship whine is meaningless."

No, the whole thing was REALLY about Okie State. But even during the BCS era, their problems weren't above causing other problems contradicting what they claimed they wanted to solve.

And why would we have needed an eight-team playoff in 2011?

1) LSU - nobody argued this
2) Alabama - very few argued this
3) OK State - or this (the only beef was 2 vs 3 in all honesty)
4) Stanford - but they already lost to Oregon - BADLY - so why did they deserve consideration? At least OK St lost in overtime on the road...
5) Oregon - they'd already lost to LSU - decisively (in fact, by about the same margin at they beat Stanford) - so why did we need another game?
6) Arkansas - again, they'd already lost to BOTH 1 AND 2 by 24 points each time....so why?
7) Boise St - the bizarre part is that if they hit the field goal vs TCU, their schedule is still just as awful and yet media smoke blowers would actually argue THEY should be one of the top four teams......
8) Kansas St - they lost consecutive games to OU and Okie State......why would we need a playoff for them, either?

And the irony? If they had some sort of conference champions argument, Wisconsin would be in the mix. Two-loss Wisconsin. Wisky won the Big 10.

HOW did they win the Big 10? In a (wait for it) rematch with Michigan State........and would have been touted by the very same people angry over an Alabama-LSU.....rematch.....

Four is plenty, and I hope it never expands. Indeed, the committee? Excellent job. Every year.

SOLID.

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

NoNC4Tubs said:
Isn't their a place somewhere on the web that still maintains the formula? It seems to me that the Committee secretly uses the old BCS formula to make their final decisions anyways...

The BCS computer polls were run independently - and the makeup of the panel of polls CHANGED a couple times during the BCS.

SOME of the Pollsters were and are completely transparent about their formula's, most are not.

BUT - and this is the KEY POINT - the BCS was Always Totally Transparent about HOW THE POLLS WERE HANDLED. That is to say, we ALWAYS knew the results of EACH BCS Poll - we knew this for Every Single Week!
AND, we Always knew HOW the BCS tabulated the polls, and Exactly HOW the BCS Calculated the combined Poll result that became part of the BCS Formula - a Formula that ITSELF was always disclosed and known.

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

B1GTide said:
Wait, so the BCS would have picked the same teams, but the committee is doing this for TV ratings, not because they were the best teams?

Respectfully, As discussed at length in a prior post, we can't possibly know WHAT the Actual BCS results would have been. Rather than repeat it all, I simply refer you to the prior post. (#10 in this thread).

81usaf92 · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
* AND OSU gets in Almost Every Single Year.

Lets be honest about it, ok?

Frankly, I'm not sure I can remember a year when the #6 team "Deserved" ANYTHING beyond a decent bowl invite. If someone has an example, lets see it. I'm happy to admit my mistake if I'm wrong.....

Reality is - you could expand the P_ayoff _racket to 68 teams, and there would STILL be SOMEONE CRYING that they got "Screwed". This has Happened EVERY March for as long as I can remember..........

Just in the past year, these stories have been published:
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/20104342/worth-discussing-expanding-ncaa-tournament-field-72-teams
It's time again to think about expanding the NCAA tournament field

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/23531225/acc-propose-expanding-ncaa-tournament-four-teams-72
ACC to propose expanding NCAA tournament by four teams to 72

If you do 5 then you have to do 6. UGA was better than every team ahead of them at #5 in 2007 and had the exact same number of losses as 3/4 of the teams ahead of them to include the NC LSU. What kept them out was 1 bad game vs Tennessee or else they would’ve wiped the field vs LSU in Atlanta. TOSU got in without playing 1 top 15 team while losing to Illinois late in the season at home. Granted 2007 was by far the craziest football season ever but there was little separation from 1 to 6 if any.

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

RedWave said:
I always play devil's advocate to statements like "The committee has gotten it right every time" and such, but you really do have a tin foil hat on, don't you?

If by "tin foil hat" you mean, "has yet to hear a logical argument that effectively refutes my position", then yes - I have a tin foil hat on!!!!

LOL!!!!!

(as an aside, here's an interesting read from that noted radical "Tin foil hat" publication ...... Readers Digest!!!

https://www.rd.com/culture/conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true/.

colbysullivan · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
I realize no one READS my posts

There’s a reason for that...

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

81usaf92 said:
If you do 5 then you have to do 6. UGA was better than every team ahead of them at #5 in 2007 and had the exact same number of losses as 3/4 of the teams ahead of them to include the NC LSU. What kept them out was 1 bad game vs Tennessee or else they would’ve wiped the field vs LSU in Atlanta. TOSU got in without playing 1 top 15 team while losing to Illinois late in the season at home. Granted 2007 was by far the craziest football season ever but there was little separation from 1 to 6 if any.

Well, just to "keep it real" - actually you don't.

There's no reason in the world that a 5 team bracket can't work, any more than a 3 or 7 or 65 team bracket can't work. Didn't the Men's BB tournament have a "Play in game" for years? where #64 and 65 would play for that last seed?

Why couldn't #4 and #5 play for the shot to take on #1? I'm pretty sure Ohio $tate would have JUMPED at that opportunity last January!!!

And just FWIW, and RESPECTFULLY - using THE #1 most oddball FLUKE of a season in perhaps the past 50+ years as the justification for ANYTHING is pretty bad reasoning. Just sayin'......

TomFromBama · Jul 13, 2018

colbysullivan said:
There’s a reason for that...

I know.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/just-listen/201206/being-wrong-why-people-cant-stand-it

:biggrin2:

81usaf92 · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Well, just to "keep it real" - actually you don't.

There's no reason in the world that a 5 team bracket can't work, any more than a 3 or 7 or 65 team bracket can't work. Didn't the Men's BB tournament have a "Play in game" for years? where #64 and 65 would play for that last seed?

Why couldn't #4 and #5 play for the shot to take on #1? I'm pretty sure Ohio $tate would have JUMPED at that opportunity last January!!!

And just FWIW, and RESPECTFULLY - using THE #1 most oddball FLUKE of a season in perhaps the past 50+ years as the justification for ANYTHING is pretty bad reasoning. Just sayin'......

Then every year in the playoffs we should’ve had a 5 team playoff because there was legitimate controversy between 4-5

But if you really want a season where 6 teams were deserving then 2014 is the one. Baylor and TCU both had better SOS than tOSU going into selection Sunday.

UntouchableCrew · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Frankly, I'm not sure I can remember a year when the #6 team "Deserved" ANYTHING beyond a decent bowl invite. If someone has an example, lets see it. I'm happy to admit my mistake if I'm wrong.....

TCU in 2014 was a really good team (that completely undressed and humiliated Ole Miss in their Bowl Game) that ended up 6. I don't know if they "deserved" the playoff, but they certainly would have been a dangerous team had they made it. Frankly I think they were way better than Florida State that year.

RollTide_HTTR · Jul 13, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Reality is - you could expand the P_ayoff _racket to 68 teams, and there would STILL be SOMEONE CRYING that they got "Screwed".

That's simply not true. I get that people could cry for more teams after 6 or even after 8 but no one is going to call for a 68 team football playoff at least not and be taken seriously. Idk what the upper limit would be but it wouldn't get anywhere close to that. I get this is likely hyperbole but I just wanted to point that out.

TomFromBama said:
Frankly, I'm not sure I can remember a year when the #6 team "Deserved" ANYTHING beyond a decent bowl invite. If someone has an example, lets see it. I'm happy to admit my mistake if I'm wrong.....

I mean, this is entirely subjective. I'm sure people could argue that last year is a perfect example of 6 teams "deserving" as shot. The 4 playoff teams plus UCF and Ohio State.

Apart from the risk of playing too many games and injury I don't really understand the argument against a 6 team playoff The one prevailing argument seems to be essentially a slippery slope argument but that in itself isn't a reason why 6 teams would be bad but why it could lead to something that could be bad.

This is from a previous post of yours but I don't really agree that a team with a loss or 2 getting in is a "mulligan." Those losses still matter they just aren't part of the entire story of a season.

I get people don't like change and I know some really don't want to expand but as a football fan I think a 6 team playoff would be fun. And as Big pointed out being a 1 or 2 seed would be a big advantage with a bye week so that would help keep the "importance" of each game.

Sorta quasi OT - the BCS Computer pollsters

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