Mock BCS Rankings: Texas and Alabama Heading to Miami

The official BCS rankings will be revealed in two days on Oct. 19, 2008.  They will reflect the results of games this weekend.  Until then, here is the formula I used to rank the teams.  I used the formula from this web site and modified it accordingly.

The formula used is divided into three parts.

1) Divide each team's points in the Harris Interactive Poll by 2,850.  This is the total number of points a team may receive to be ranked number one.  For example, Texas has 2,805 points.  Therefore, 2,805 divided by 2,850 equals 0.984210526.

2) Divide each team's points in the USA Today Coaches' Poll by 1,500.  This is the total number of points a team may receive to be ranked number one assuming there are 60 voters.  For example, Texas has 1,505 points.  Therefore, 1,505 divided by 1,500 equals 1.003333333.  There must be more than 60 voters in this poll.

3) Average each team's ranking in the six computer polls (Wolf, Colley, Sagarin, Seattle Times, Billingsley, and Massey).  The Wolf poll has not been released yet.  Normally, you throw out each team's highest and lowest rankings.  You then add the remaining four rankings and divide them by four to get an average.

Since there are only five polls currently, I threw out the high and low rankings and divided the remaining three by three to get an average ranking.  For example, the three remaining rankings for Texas are all 1.0—therefore their average would also be 1.0.

Finally, you add the three parts together to get each team's final BCS rating.  You then rank them from lowest rating to the highest.  For example, Texas would be 0.984210526 + 1.003333333 + 1.0, which equals 2.9875.  That is the lowest ranking, thus making Texas the top ranked team in the BCS poll.

Here is my mock BCS ranking.  Notice LSU is unranked because of poor computer rankings.  Their average ranks them 30th.

I did not take into account BYU's loss last night.

BCS Top 25

Rank	Team	Average
1.	Texas	2.9875
2.	Alabama	3.9336
3.	Penn State	6.5236
4.	USC	7.0686
5.	Oklahoma State	7.9107
6.	Utah	8.5770
7.	Boise State	9.5308
8.	Ohio State	10.4819
9.	Oklahoma	11.2804
10.	Texas Tech	11.7371
11.	Michigan State	12.5706
12.	Georgia	13.8272
13.	Florida	15.0749
14.	Virginia Tech	16.3065
15.	BYU	16.2191
16.	Missouri	16.3952
17.	Wake Forest	17.4373
18.	North Carolina	17.8647
19.	Ball State	20.4386
20.	Georgia Tech	23.7690
21.	South Florida	24.3123
22.	TCU	24.7433
23.	California	24.6266
24.	Connecticut	25.8152
25.	Vanderbilt	26.8049

Just Outside: Northwestern, Minnesota, Kansas, Florida State, LSU