Further Proof that Sagarin is Idiotic

[HindSight]

I think you're missing the point of Gee's statements. He's saying they don't deserve to play for the title because they don't have to play anybody to get there. Despite Iowa and Miami losing, they're still A LOT better than the crap Boise usually plays.



The fact that a team can rise or fall based on their opponents winning or losing is beyond stupid. The fact that a bad team can be hidden in the SoS if they only play other bad teams is beyond stupid. The whole computer component of the BCS is beyond stupid.

[yourfavestoner]

Originally Posted by bustabinary

Some of the systems weigh SOS more heavily than others.

There's a reason that the highest/lowest are dropped, the rest are averaged, and it's only one component in the BCS.

I'm no expert on the math behind ELO (havn't really studied it), but I think you can only be ranked high if you beat other highly ranked teams or your losses are only against quality teams. You don't benefit at all from beating someone ranked lower than you. Because of that, the non-conference schedules are crucial in determining initial scores for teams in your conference.

Exaaaactly. The computers are infinitely less biased than, um, human voters and THE COACHES OF THE TEAMS.

I say get rid of the AP and coaches polls completely, since none of them watch games anyways. It ain't the computers that are broken. It's the human element of the rankings.

[LizardState]

Originally Posted by wonderbredd24

The team that went undefeated last year came back almost completely intact and was the #1 team in the country without question coming into this year and the games they've lost... they gave them away.

Uhh, Bama lost 3 starters from the #1 scoring defense last yr. to the 1st 2 rds of the last draft: McClain to the Raiders & Kareem Jackson to the Texans in the 1st rd, Cody to the Ravens later, then starting DE Brandon Deaderick to the Giants in Rd. 7.

So the Tide started 2 freshman corners, only 2 experienced D-linemen (although one was Dareus, suspended for the 1st 2 games) & LB was the only area of majority starter experience, you still can't underestimate the loss of 1st team AA McClain who they really missed in the middle, the best my team's had at the position since Derrick Thomas.

Granted the offense was experienced, but no team can lose that much talent & repeat as a NC, just doesnt happen. Even a terrific recruiter like Saban did the best he could with what he had, I don't blame him or DC Kirby Smart. Actually I was surprised they did as well as they did with their brutal SEC schedule, they only came from behind to beat Arkansas on the road in the late 4th qtr b/c Mallett got the panicky yips & started throwing INTs right & left. They beat a horribly overrated Florida team at home, & note that the normally formidable Gators lost a lot of talent to the NFL & graduation too.

Not to make excuses here, but if there was a fail consistently it was at QB where McElroy dicked up the LSU & Auburn games with red zone turnovers. The passing offense actually improved over the NC yr. with Julio Jones getting 199 yds vs #2 Auburn, & Maze leading in scoring, both of them will be playing on Sundays next season.

I'd still like to see Boise St. take on LSU in Baton Rouge, Auburn, SCAR in Columbia, Arkansas in Fayetteville, or even Mississippi St. or Ole Miss, Tennessee or Florida in down yrs, wonder what their W-L rcd would be....

[yourfavestoner]

Well, I have no doubt that Boise would beat the piss out of Florida this year. The Gators are absolutely awful in every facet of the game. Wayyy too much talent lost over the last two years.

I've never understood why cfb fans think you can just replace talent like that and keep on churning. Those Bama and Florida NC teams could stand toe to toe with just about any NC team ever. They were that good.

[JoeJoeBrown]

Originally Posted by yourfavestoner

Exaaaactly. The computers are infinitely less biased than, um, human voters and THE COACHES OF THE TEAMS.

I say get rid of the AP and coaches polls completely, since none of them watch games anyways. It ain't the computers that are broken. It's the human element of the rankings.

The computer systems have a ton of error AND human bias. And those computer algorithms are pretty much written by one or two people per "system".

I'll take the biases of a collective group of people across the country, across many different fan bases, with disparate wants and needs (nefarious or with good intent), and with widely different approaches to ranking teams. All of their biases tends to cancel each other out, a hell of a lot more than just a handful of geeks with their own biases.

I have no idea people can't see this. The computer systems simply do not have enough non-human biased info to form a reasonably accurate network of comparative rankings.

For example, ELO (which most of these algorithms borrow from), requires 20, yes 20, games for the rankings to even be accepted in the chess world. And every player in the chess world starts off with the same points (1200 pts).

Do these computer rankings start everyone off with the same points? I don't think so. Otherwise there would be no rankings at the beginning of the season. They use historical data and human data.

Get it through your heads that the computers are controlled by only a few people, and each has their own system with it's own flaws. Do not be fooled into thinking that this is all logic, it's not. It's actually a much worse way of doing things.

[JoeJoeBrown]

Originally Posted by yourfavestoner

Well, I have no doubt that Boise would beat the piss out of Florida this year. The Gators are absolutely awful in every facet of the game. Wayyy too much talent lost over the last two years.

I've never understood why cfb fans think you can just replace talent like that and keep on churning. Those Bama and Florida NC teams could stand toe to toe with just about any NC team ever. They were that good.

I do think Florida would beat BSU this year (see, that's easy).

[bustabinary]

Everything is going to have a bias, no matter what. Period. This includes any algorithm or any human opinion even if hundreds of games were played.

The real question is whether there is a motive behind these biases (whether or not they're trying to use this bias to push an agenda), and I think the only culprit here is the BCS. The biggest problem I think is that only one of the methods is open (Colley), so there is no way the algorithms can be publicly analyzed.

There are a lot of computer methods that don't require human polls or previous results, some in the BCS do for some god unknown reason. Sagarin's are phased out as the season goes on until they aren't used anymore at all (the results only actually matter at the end of the season anyways). Billingsley's ratings by design were meant to emulate human polls (total crap).

I think you're making the computer ratings out to be a lot more evil than they actually are. The vast majority of them give pretty good ratings based on how well they played against their schedule, and that's all that any computer do. Isn't that what ranks are supposed to be? Humans just provide speculation, emotion, and homerism.

Also, I don't think most of the ratings borrow ELO, see: Colley matrix. Also, the BCS can use more than 'just a handful of geeks', http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

[JoeJoeBrown]

Originally Posted by bustabinary

Everything is going to have a bias, no matter what. Period. This includes any algorithm or any human opinion even if hundreds of games were played.

The real question is whether there is a motive behind these biases (whether or not they're trying to use this bias to push an agenda), and I think the only culprit here is the BCS. The biggest problem I think is that only one of the methods is open (Colley), so there is no way the algorithms can be publicly analyzed.

There are a lot of computer methods that don't require human polls or previous results, some in the BCS do for some god unknown reason. Sagarin's are phased out as the season goes on until they aren't used anymore at all (the results only actually matter at the end of the season anyways). Billingsley's ratings by design were meant to emulate human polls (total crap).

I think you're making the computer ratings out to be a lot more evil than they actually are. The vast majority of them give pretty good ratings based on how well they played against their schedule, and that's all that any computer do. Isn't that what ranks are supposed to be? Humans just provide speculation, emotion, and homerism.

Also, I don't think most of the ratings borrow ELO, see: Colley matrix. Also, the BCS can use more than 'just a handful of geeks', http://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

This is great discussion. A fellow nerd!

Sagarin says his rankings have the data disappear after several games (think it's 7, but I'm not sure). Regardless, I suspect (but can't prove) that it's hogwash. There isn't enough info for the preseason rankings to dissipate. If they wiped out, then they shouldn't be used in the first place and every team should be equal on day one.

I see nothing inherently wrong in computer algorithms. I just want diversity in opinion. I want hundreds of different algorithms. I also want some human voting influence as well in the hundreds. Right now they only use 6 algorithms. The BCS is biased way too much in the favor of 6 human beings or small math teams.

I don't think any of them have ulterior motives, but even if you look at complex network theory, I just don't believe that there is enough data to come up with a decent ranking system via formula. The season is too short and the teams are too many.

Colley's rankings are interesting because they are bias free. They are as "honest" as you could get.

Here is a nice breakdown of the rankings by a BSU blog post.

So in summary, diversity in opinion trumps all. Give me a few hundred more computer algorithms to balance this stuff out.

[bustabinary]

That's a good article.

I agree about the lack of diversity, and it's even worse with the BCS algorithms because 5 of them are black boxes. There are plenty of different methods out there that can be used and people can understand, but the BCS chooses to use the ones that nobody knows the details of and only 6.

I think the only reason Sagarin starts out using the previous season's results is so that he can publish something early that isn't completely whacked out (I mean, after one week, you could say Troy and Alabama are tied for #1 and nobody wants to read that) -- it's his job to publish these for USA Today. The actual results don't matter until all the games are played anyways. But like you say, we don't actually know this, it's just what Sagarin says.

I think a 12 game schedule is enough data to make a decent ranking for CFB. One game can make all the difference between a good and bad rank, plus it gives an incentive to schedule good teams. Convergence is no fun, I like my insanity.

[descendency]

Originally Posted by HindSight

The fact that a team can rise or fall based on their opponents winning or losing is beyond stupid.

TCU completely agrees. You shouldn't look at opponents at all.

[HindSight]

Originally Posted by descendency

TCU completely agrees. You shouldn't look at opponents at all.

Nice reading comprehension.

[descendency]

Originally Posted by HindSight

Nice reading comprehension.

Nice trying to have your cake and eat it to.

The reason why TCU's SOS is so poor is they play teams that lose a lot traditionally.

So, playing teams that lose weakens your SOS. What's so hard to understand about that?

And he (OSU's president) said that weaker SOS's don't belong in the National Championship. So, that's exactly why this metric did. It dropped OSU for their SOS getting weaker.