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The computers are a joke...I can see UF 1 or 2, but 4th and 5th? It was closer than it should have been between UF and UT.

the computers should be 50% of the formula, not 33%, so the can weed out the human bias and poll rigging that goes on now to "create matchups" and rig the polls, which is not the function of the polls

The BCS is a beauty pageant that gridiron warriors are forced to be a part of. If I have to hear another analysis of a team's "style points" again I am just going to puke. Settle it on the field!!!

QUOTE(#2):

Originally posted 12:06 AM ET  12.09 by Stuntman Mike

the computers should be 50% of the formula, not 33%, so the can weed out the human bias and poll rigging that goes on now to "create matchups" and rig the polls, which is not the function of the polls

I agree computers should be given a greater weightage for being unbiased. Humans are too prone to rigging.

The computers have 'rigging' problems too, because they have to start with a baseline somewhere. Plus, they are following rules created by humans, which obviously introduces some bias, otherwise we'd only need one computer to do the rankings, not a blend of 5.

Polls are a joke. The BCS is a joke... a sick joke.

People are no better than the computers, use GT vs UGA as an example. 15 voters across the 3 major human polls voted UGA higher than GT after they JUST played and GT won ON THE ROAD.
Coaches: Gary Patterson, Joe Glenn, Rich Rodriguez, Jim Tressel
Harris Voters: Scott Johnson, Corky Simpson, JJ Joe, Jim Copeland, Paul Schneider, Sammy Batten, Boots Donnelly, George Wine, Earle Bruce
AP Voters: Maurice Patton, Kevin Pearson
Kevin Pearson from the Riverside Press-Enterprise in California voted UGA a whopping 12 spots higher than GT (13 vs 25)!

The whole thing is getting ridiculous. Penn State is obviously better than Florida, played a more difficult schedule than Florida, play in a stronger conference and has better wins and a much better loss. Penn State is simply more deserving.

INCSOC - Penn State plays in stronger conference than Florida - what planet are you from. You better ask Ohio St about which conference is stronger.

Get a playoff system like every other football division has.

QUOTE(#9):

Originally posted 09:12 AM ET  12.09 by rsecman

INCSOC - Penn State plays in stronger conference than Florida - what planet are you from. You better ask Ohio St about which conference is stronger.

Have you actually watched the SEC this year? The conference stinks. Florida is a great team. Alabama is a good team. Georgia is solid. Ole Miss is mediocre at very best. LSU, South Carolina, Vandy and Kentucky are below average and the rest is just flat out stink. Compare that to the Big Ten where Penn State is great and better than any team in the SEC. Ohio State is better than eleven of twelve SEC schools. Michigan State and Iowa are better than ten of twelve. Wisconsin, Northwestern and Minnesota are on par with South Carolina and company and the the bottom just flat out stinks, just like the SEC. The Big Ten has a clear edge at the top of the league and all four teams have played at least one respectable out of conference opponent. The same can't be said for the fourth best conference in America as not one of their four (which are inferior to the Big Ten's top four) have played a respectable out of conference opponent, again.

QUOTE(#2):

Originally posted 12:06 AM ET  12.09 by Stuntman Mike

the computers should be 50% of the formula, not 33%, so the can weed out the human bias and poll rigging that goes on now to "create matchups" and rig the polls, which is not the function of the polls

They should weed out the computers entirely. The computers would be fine if the objective data on which they base rankings was capable of evaluating the relative strength of teams that play different schedules in different conferences. The problem is that there are far too many variables that computers cannot evaluate and this overwhelms the limited objective data available for accurately comparing teams that play in different conferences. To use an analogy from another field there is far too much noise and far too little signal.

Under these circumstances, polls work better than computers because the best estimates that people have about the relative strength of teams, whatever subjective bias people may have, is often better than the so-called objectivity built into computers. If we eliminated the computers and told pollsters to rank teams based on their best estimates about who is best, we might avoid ridiculous situations such as occurred in the BCS title game last year where the BCS ranks Ohio State #1, but most people pick Florida to beat them in the championship game, and then Ohio State ends the season ranked 4th even though they lost to the #2 team in the nation. Similarly, we wouldn???t have Alabama ranked #1 with most people favoring Florida to beat them in the BCS championship game. The other point about the objectivity of computers is they are only as objective as the algorithm that human beings have built into them.

The facts are that the bowls included in the BCS system were actually more competitive before the BCS system was in place than they are now. The margin of victory in the BCS bowls has been greater since they started the system than it was before they started the system. For all the claims made that the BCS system would me college football more competitive, the truth is it has made it less competitive. My personal preference would be to abandon the idea of a college football championship, including one based purely on polls, until such time as it is possible to have a playoff among all worthy contenders.

Now, Stuntman Mike, you have accused me and others of fabricating data and, as you put it, throwing it out without being able to back it up. Show me one comment I have made concerning a matter of fact that is in any way inaccurate or which cannot be substantiated. In the absence of that you owe me an apology.

Correction. My comments in my previous post on last years BCS title game refer to LSU and not Florida.

QUOTE(#11):

Originally posted 10:14 AM ET  12.09 by INCSOC

Have you actually watched the SEC this year? The conference stinks. Florida is a great team. Alabama is a good team. Georgia is solid. Ole Miss is mediocre at very best. LSU, South Carolina, Vandy and Kentucky are below average and the rest is just flat out stink. Compare that to the Big Ten where Penn State is great and better than any team in the SEC. Ohio State is better than eleven of twelve SEC schools. Michigan State and Iowa are better than ten of twelve. Wisconsin, Northwestern and Minnesota are on par with South Carolina and company and the the bottom just flat out stinks, just like the SEC.

You back this up with nothing. I could just reverse the names and I would be as right as you:

Have you actually watched the Big 10 this year (or the two before)? This conference stinks. Penn State is a great team (overstatement). Ohio state is a good team. Michigan State is solid. Iowa is mediocre at very best. Wisconsin Minnisota and Northwestern are below average, and the rest just flat out stink, just like the Big 10.

See how that works? Sorry that Penn State didn't make the big dance, we can't all be champions. See ya.

QUOTE(#12):

Originally posted 11:27 AM ET  12.09 by SteveLD

They should weed out the computers entirely. The computers would be fine if the objective data on which they base rankings was capable of evaluating the relative strength of teams that play different schedules in different conferences. The problem is that there are far too many variables that computers cannot evaluate and this overwhelms the limited objective data available for accurately comparing teams that play in different conferences. To use an analogy from another field there is far too much noise and far too little signal.Under these circumstances, polls work better than computers because the best estimates that people have about the relative strength of teams, whatever subjective bias people may have, is often better than the so-called objectivity built into computers. If we eliminated the computers and told pollsters to rank teams based on their best estimates about who is best, we might avoid ridiculous situations such as occurred in the BCS title game last year where the BCS ranks Ohio State #1, but most people pick Florida to beat them in the championship game, and then Ohio State ends the season ranked 4th even though they lost to the #2 team in the nation. Similarly, we wouldn???t have Alabama ranked #1 with most people favoring Florida to beat them in the BCS championship game. The other point about the objectivity of computers is they are only as objective as the algorithm that human beings have built into them. The facts are that the bowls included in the BCS system were actually more competitive before the BCS system was in place than they are now. The margin of victory in the BCS bowls has been greater since they started the system than it was before they started the system. For all the claims made that the BCS system would me college football more competitive, the truth is it has made it less competitive. My personal preference would be to abandon the idea of a college football championship, including one based purely on polls, until such time as it is possible to have a playoff among all worthy contenders.Now, Stuntman Mike, you have accused me and others of fabricating data and, as you put it, throwing it out without being able to back it up. Show me one comment I have made concerning a matter of fact that is in any way inaccurate or which cannot be substantiated. In the absence of that you owe me an apology.

you are contradicting yourself. On the one hand you denigrate the BCS system for the bowl matchups, state they are less competitive (still without proof), and state that the human pollsters don't know what they are doing. Yet you then turn around and state that they should eliminate computers altogether.

The problem is that human pollsters DON'T rank the teams on who did best on the field. They have built in biases and prejudices. They start with preconcieved notions left over from last year (Which is why I am for NO polls that are included in the BCS formula to do ANY ranking before the 4th week of the season). THey don't have time to look at schedules and strength of schedule. They don't watch all the games. THe coache's poll is a joke, since coach's only really see teams they played and teams they are going to play the next week. Most media people get most of their knowledge of what happened by watching College Gamedays highlight show.

To counter that you NEED an objective system of measurement that won't be subject to gerryrigging the polls and trying to CREATE matchups in the BCS which is now what the polls are being used for. So, while the computers are not perfect and always need to be tweaked, if you use multiple computer formulas, the average of those should be pretty accurate. The computers this year accurately showed that Texas and Oklahoma played very tough schedules, while Alabama and USC did not. That kind of factor needs more emphasis and needs to counter balance human bias. Alabama got a huge bump up simply from beating an overranked (by the media) Clemson team and rode that false sense of a quality win to the number one ranking all year. The computers were drown out by the subjective biased media, which weren't able to filter out the false bump of the Clemson victory, as just one example.

So you are completely off the mark and contradictory at the same time in your assessment of the value of the computers in the formula.

Penn State is more of a champion that Florida ever will be. At least they didn't lose at home to a bad Ole Miss team. For a team that has never even had so much as one undefeated season, the Gator nation (read freaking idiots) sure are loud.

QUOTE(#5):

Originally posted 03:35 AM ET  12.09 by sincro

The computers have 'rigging' problems too, because they have to start with a baseline somewhere. Plus, they are following rules created by humans, which obviously introduces some bias, otherwise we'd only need one computer to do the rankings, not a blend of 5.

which is why you do a blend of 6, and drop the highest and lowest. That is true with any computer model done anywhere for anything.

QUOTE(#16):

Originally posted 02:05 PM ET  12.09 by INCSOC

Penn State is more of a champion that Florida ever will be. At least they didn't lose at home to a bad Ole Miss team. For a team that has never even had so much as one undefeated season, the Gator nation (read freaking idiots) sure are loud.

Florida is more of a champion than Penn State will ever be. At least they didn't lose to a laughable unranked Iowa team (while Ole Miss is ranked in all polls). For a team that has been irrelevant for over a month now, Penn State fans sure are noisy.

Care to make it 0 for 3?

"For example, Sagarin ranks Florida 4th in its ELO_CHESS rankings, which are used by the BCS and mandated not to use margin of victory as a factor. However, the Gators are ranked 2nd in Sagarin's standard ratings, which do account for margin of victory."

Actually, Florida is #1 and USC #2 in Sagarin's "Predictor," which is the part of the ranking that takes into account margin of victory. The reason it is called predictor is it is the most accurate predictor of a teams performance. It is the one that oddsmakers use (along with a few other stats and observations)

Forget all the hype of SEC v. B12, the rankings, etcetera, ask any professional, and USC and Florida, in that order, are currently the considered the two best teams in the country.

To beachgator: awesome.
To INCSOC: comparing Florida to Penn State? Is someone from the Big 10 actually talking? Go tell Ohio State they owe us royalties and rent money. Big10toolbag.