DaddyBigBucks;969080; said:
You know I like you Steve. I hate having to take issue with anything you write...
But those who "scrutinize" the computer models have to be 10X as smart as those who write them to truly hold them accountable.
Have you ever noticed that the computer models based on the west coast consistently rate the PAC-10 teams higher than the other models - sometimes to a ridiculous extreme?
The bias comes from the assumptions that you make about what is important. For example: If you want to pimp the buckeyes, place a high value on efficiency and rushing defense (the Buckeyes are almost always good at both under Tressel).
And here I was repping you in another thread!
Seriously, thanks for the comment and starting this conversation. You have a much better grasp of many of the football stats than most of us, so this should be fun.
I just looked at the rankings and I just don't see a pattern of conference bias? We all have our blind spots, am I missing something? Which of the rankings of the BCS do you find to be pro-PAC10?
Here is what I see. Oregon, USC and Cal are the only two PAC10 schools of any consequence in the current rankings. The models do differ in what they weight, no doubt about that, but I don't see a conference bias in the rankings of the ratings. I suppose the PAC 10 guys see a Big Ten bias in Billingsley's computer model?
Oregon has fairly uniform computer rankings, when compared to the variance in other teams' rankings. USC and Cal show much more variation, but both receive their highest rankings in different computer rankings. Moreover, all BCS computers rank them well below the human pollsters.
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/7359592_37_1.pdf
Remember, DBB, we're talking only the BCS computer models impact on a team's BCS rank, as that was the focus of the other poster's comments. The BCS also reduces the computer scores to ranks and discards the best and worst computer ranking.
So, I return to my earlier position and a wider conversation with the board, DBB.
I see no evidence that the BCS computers are biased against the Big Ten and I think its time people stopped crying about supposed bias towards us. In fact, I don't see it anywhere across the rankings
College Football Ranking Comparison.
The rankings, without exception, show that the Big Ten is going through a rare period of weakness. These things go in cycles and the Big Ten seems to have bottomed out much worse than any of us thought.
Do we really need computers to tell us that, after what we have witnessed this year? Who among us would have bet hard cash on the stunning losses by Minny and TSUN to 1AA teams? MSU struggled to get past Pittsburgh. UNLV gave Wisky all it wanted. Minny lost to Florida Atlantic, too.
That is why the computers think the Big Ten is weak.
I bleed Ohio State and Big Ten football and I am not arguing that it is the weakest conference.
However, it is bloody time to put a stop to this constant whinging on BP about a world out to get us. When did we lose our ability to recognize that other teams also excel sometimes? Where did the values that drives Buckeyes like Tressel, and drove Buckeyes like Woody, Nicklaus, and others, go? Is there "home cooking"? Ask Louisville about the fair catch signal at UConn. Do teams cheat? Exactly how did South Florida become so polished at the fake fumble forwards on until someone is open for a touchdown? Yeah, its out there. But it always has been.
If we cannot recognize some greatness in our opponents, then what value is there in our excelling above them? Why even play the miserable bastards? Why worry about what some computer model says about their relative competitiveness?
There was a time when Ohio State-Michigan was the national championship game, no matter what anyone else said, and every fan of every other team knows this was so. It will not be the case this year because Ohio State is alone in a class of one, a couple others are in a second class and the rest are not much distinguished from the bottom order in the ACC, Big 12, or PAC 10.
But you know what? I don't care. The Game will be the biggest game I see this year. We beat those guys and it will feel pretty darn good to me.
Our team needs to realize that it needs to do more than win games. It needs to win them all well and compete against a harder standard than the Big Ten teams it is facing. The computer ratings are just part of the complexity that teams must master to win a NC these days. So, our team has to compete against its potential. Whinging about bias in computer rankings (I don't mean DBB) doesn't help us realize that our goal of a NC requires a lot more than just beating the teams we will face between now and January.
