Harris and Coaches Polls Soil the BCS in Battle of Man Vs. Machine

kris topher by Correspondent Written on December 09, 2008
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The BCS Championship is set, Oklahoma Sooners vs. Florida Gators, and there are more than a few questions.

PLEASE USE THIS AS AN APPENDIX WITH ALL OF THE POLL NUMBERS COMPILED IN A READABLE - NON-PDF FORM. (I'm not going to type out all the votes, so referencing that will come in handy, just open it up in a tab)

The interesting part of this article resides on page two, so just click that if you add. I'll show you with quick maths, how the BCS Championship game should have been OU vs. Texas.

First Question: Why bother with the computers?

Computers are 1/3rd of the vote, and in all but one computer Texas was above Florida. The highest and lowest computer rankings are dropped, and a team is allotted a point value starting at 25 and going down depending on where they finish.

My problem with the computers is that the voters in the Harris Poll and Coaches Poll know what the results will be, prior to casting their vote.

Voters, undoubtedly casted their votes strategically. If you want a Florida vs. Oklahoma BCS Championshipyou vote Florida as the number one team in the country, and vote Texas as low as you can.

Conclusion: Computer Rankings should be secret until the human votes are cast. Odds are, the voters can deduce what the computer rankings are via simple math, but it can't hurt.

Second Question: Are The Voters voting for the best team right now, or the best team all season?

When you look at the entire season, and we'll keep it simple by just looking at the majors, there are a couple teams with just one loss.

Oklahoma lost to Texas, Florida lost to Ole Miss, Texas lost to Texas Tech, Texas Tech lost to Oklahoma, USC lost to Oregon State, Alabama lost to Florida and Penn State lost to Iowa.

Obviously you cannot consider all of these losses equal, but some are better than others. Florida lost to a mediocre team, but by one point. Oklahoma lost to a very good team by two scores. Texas lost to a top 10 team by one score. Alabama lost to a top ten team by two scores.

There is no way I can look at this and pick Florida as the best team throughout the entire season considering they had a loss that was worse than Texas, OU, TTU, or Alabama.  They beat Alabama, and TTU got blown  out, so they're both out of the running.

Right now, Florida is a top two team. Over the course of the entire season, however, Florida is not a top two team. Their loss is worse than Texas' and their wins are less important than Texas'. 

Conclusion: Harris Poll Voters and Coaches are forgetful people, and there is no way in hell they could watch all of the games. They obviously place an incredibly large amount of value on recent games.

 

Most Important Question: What happens when you put the first two questions together?

Voters vote Florida as the No. 1 in the country.  There is no justifiable argument for Florida being No. 1  They may be the best team in the country, but they haven't displayed enough to be ranked number one.

Utah and Boise State are dismissed because they haven't played anyone, but Florida gets a pass because the voters "know" they are the best team in America. How does that work?

If they haven't shown themselves to be No. 1 you cannot just assume they are No. 1 because they pass the eyeball test.

What voters did, and you can either thank them or hate them, is the following:

They ranked Florida No. 1 in order to get their dream match up.  If they were to have ranked Florida No. 3, which they technically deserve when you look at strength of schedule, wins, losses, etc.

Florida isn't in the national Title Game.

The National Title Game is OU vs. Texas.

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written on December 09, 2008 Opinion

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