FanNation - The Republic of Sport

It's obviously not too early to start whining about how unfair the ranking system is for Division I football teams. Everyone else is doing it, but I have a plan, so here goes nothing.

How can any ranking system, whether human or computer, work well when the data used to create the rankings is woefully inadequate? How can voters in human polls, who unabashedly proclaim that they only follow a handful of teams each year, possibly rank any team they do not closely scrutinize every week? How can a computer ranking be considered accurate if the BCS keeps its computer gurus from using blow-out wins as a factor in their rankings? Answers: They can't; they can't; and they can't. Period.

A common sense solution to the insufficient data, and one that I have, for years, been preaching to any lug who happens to be seated next to me at the local watering hole, is simple: improve the data that goes into the rankings.

How accurate do you think the rankings would be if all Division I teams played legitimate interconference games each season? Not an entire fall schedule of such games, mind you, but just two each year.

Let's see how it might help. Say the BCS, or some other such entity, mandated that two weeks in the middle of each season would be set aside for scheduled interconference games. The BCS could schedule these games based on the previous season's final rankings. The top Big Ten team might play the # 2 team from one conference, and the #3 team from another; the #2 team in the Big Ten might play the #1 team in yet another conference, and the # 4 team from still another; etc. The schedule could also be altered so we don't get a matchup of, say, Big Ten champ against SEC #2 every year, too.

Such a mandated schedule would include all Division IA teams. A few other provisos might include: independent teams being put on the schedule based on their overall ranking from the previous year; each team getting one home and one away game; no team playing an interconference game against a team already on their schedule; and (as is the case this year) if there's an odd number of teams, the two lowest ranked teams each getting a "bye" week. See, I've thought of everything.

Think of how this system might help create some legitimate data to be dumped into the ranking systems. Top teams from each conference playing top teams from other conferences in the middle of a season. Don't you think this might help curtail those arguments about which conference is the best? Don't you think this would keep some "top" teams from breezing through a lackluster schedule? Don't you think we'll get some quality matchups in the middle of the season?

See any drawbacks? Neither do I. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if you're saying to yourself, "That's all well and good, but it ain't gonna happen." I get that every week from some guy on a barstool next to me.