catgrad97
10-18-2010, 05:38 PM
Your daily chuckle. I gave him a hit so y'all don't have to.
Since he's an ESPN columnist, you probably don't even have to click this thread to guess which conferences he has ranked 1 and 2--even though the computers have the former in third place and the AP has the latter in fourth:
Ranking the BCS conferences after seven weeks of the 2010 college football season:
1. SEC
Six SEC teams were included in the Top 25 of the initial BCS standings -- No. 4 Auburn, No. 6 LSU, No. 8 Alabama, No. 21 South Carolina, No. 23 Arkansas and No. 24 Mississippi State.
Auburn walloped the Razorbacks 65-43 at home, setting up an SEC West showdown against LSU at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday. Defending BCS national champion Alabama rebounded to beat Ole Miss 23-10 at home, and Kentucky upset South Carolina 31-28. Florida has lost three consecutive regular-season games for the first time since 1988, after falling to Mississippi State 10-7 at home.
2. Big 12
The Big 12 also had six teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings -- No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 11 Missouri, No. 14 Oklahoma State, No. 16 Nebraska, No. 19 Texas and No. 22 Kansas State.
The Sooners hammered Iowa State 52-0 at home, and undefeated Missouri and Oklahoma State picked up impressive road victories. The Tigers won 30-9 at Texas A&M; the Pokes won 34-17 at Texas Tech. Missouri hosts the Sooners on Saturday, and the Pokes host the Cornhuskers, who are coming off a 20-13 loss to Texas.
3. Big Ten
There are four Big Ten teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings -- No. 7 Michigan State, No. 10 Ohio State, No. 13 Wisconsin and No. 15 Iowa -- and it looks to be a four-team race in the conference.
Wisconsin upset then-No. 1 Ohio State 31-18 on Saturday, leaving Michigan State as the last unbeaten team in the Big Ten. The Spartans are a half-game ahead of Iowa and Purdue in the league standings. The Hawkeyes host Wisconsin on Saturday in a game that might go a long way in helping determine the Big Ten race.
4. Pac-10
The Pac-10 continues to take its lumps with only three teams -- No. 2 Oregon, No. 12 Stanford and No. 18 Arizona -- ranked in the initial BCS standings.
The Ducks are No. 1 in the human polls and host UCLA on Thursday night. Washington upset Oregon State 35-34 on Saturday night, knocking the Beavers out of the national rankings. The Huskies play at Arizona on Saturday.
5. ACC
No. 17 Florida State and No. 25 Virginia Tech are the only ACC teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings, and those teams have also taken control of their respective divisions.
The Hokies, who opened the season by losing two games in six days, have won five straight contests. Virginia Tech routed Wake Forest 52-21 on Saturday to move to 5-2, 3-0 in the Coastal Division. The Hokies are one game ahead of Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina in the loss column.
The Seminoles' only loss was on the road at Oklahoma, and they are 6-1, 4-0 in the Atlantic Division. The Seminoles beat Boston College 24-19 on Saturday and play at NC State on Oct. 28.
6. Big East
No. 20 West Virginia is the only Big East team in the BCS Top 25, after the Mountaineers beat South Florida 20-6 at home on Thursday night.
At least defending Big East champion Cincinnati and preseason favorite Pittsburgh are showing signs of life. The Bearcats beat Louisville 35-27 on Friday night, and the Panthers routed Syracuse 45-14 on the road on Saturday.
Here's how, supposedly, the rankings are calculated: http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/8330/conference-power-rankings-week-5
We created this system to grade conferences based equally on two key components, the quality of the upper tier schools AND the depth of the conference. The AP (or Coaches) poll is a good proxy for the strength of the top schools in each conference. On any given week there are roughly 35-45 schools given a positive voting number, that is, at least one 25th place vote. This means about two-thirds of FBS schools are treated equally and given zero AP points. So, only conferences with these elite schools will get any points at all and only the elite of the elite will receive the major points given out if you can make the top ten.
The second aspect of this system is designed to proxy the depth of the conference. Computer ratings are great for this purpose as they always will rate at least all FBS schools. Thus if you are a very top heavy conference with bad schools near the bottom of your standings, computer ratings will heavily penalize you.
A simple statistical process called "normalization" is then used to put the AP poll and the computer rating averages on the same scale with their 50/50 weights.
Since he's an ESPN columnist, you probably don't even have to click this thread to guess which conferences he has ranked 1 and 2--even though the computers have the former in third place and the AP has the latter in fourth:
Ranking the BCS conferences after seven weeks of the 2010 college football season:
1. SEC
Six SEC teams were included in the Top 25 of the initial BCS standings -- No. 4 Auburn, No. 6 LSU, No. 8 Alabama, No. 21 South Carolina, No. 23 Arkansas and No. 24 Mississippi State.
Auburn walloped the Razorbacks 65-43 at home, setting up an SEC West showdown against LSU at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday. Defending BCS national champion Alabama rebounded to beat Ole Miss 23-10 at home, and Kentucky upset South Carolina 31-28. Florida has lost three consecutive regular-season games for the first time since 1988, after falling to Mississippi State 10-7 at home.
2. Big 12
The Big 12 also had six teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings -- No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 11 Missouri, No. 14 Oklahoma State, No. 16 Nebraska, No. 19 Texas and No. 22 Kansas State.
The Sooners hammered Iowa State 52-0 at home, and undefeated Missouri and Oklahoma State picked up impressive road victories. The Tigers won 30-9 at Texas A&M; the Pokes won 34-17 at Texas Tech. Missouri hosts the Sooners on Saturday, and the Pokes host the Cornhuskers, who are coming off a 20-13 loss to Texas.
3. Big Ten
There are four Big Ten teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings -- No. 7 Michigan State, No. 10 Ohio State, No. 13 Wisconsin and No. 15 Iowa -- and it looks to be a four-team race in the conference.
Wisconsin upset then-No. 1 Ohio State 31-18 on Saturday, leaving Michigan State as the last unbeaten team in the Big Ten. The Spartans are a half-game ahead of Iowa and Purdue in the league standings. The Hawkeyes host Wisconsin on Saturday in a game that might go a long way in helping determine the Big Ten race.
4. Pac-10
The Pac-10 continues to take its lumps with only three teams -- No. 2 Oregon, No. 12 Stanford and No. 18 Arizona -- ranked in the initial BCS standings.
The Ducks are No. 1 in the human polls and host UCLA on Thursday night. Washington upset Oregon State 35-34 on Saturday night, knocking the Beavers out of the national rankings. The Huskies play at Arizona on Saturday.
5. ACC
No. 17 Florida State and No. 25 Virginia Tech are the only ACC teams in the Top 25 of the BCS standings, and those teams have also taken control of their respective divisions.
The Hokies, who opened the season by losing two games in six days, have won five straight contests. Virginia Tech routed Wake Forest 52-21 on Saturday to move to 5-2, 3-0 in the Coastal Division. The Hokies are one game ahead of Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina in the loss column.
The Seminoles' only loss was on the road at Oklahoma, and they are 6-1, 4-0 in the Atlantic Division. The Seminoles beat Boston College 24-19 on Saturday and play at NC State on Oct. 28.
6. Big East
No. 20 West Virginia is the only Big East team in the BCS Top 25, after the Mountaineers beat South Florida 20-6 at home on Thursday night.
At least defending Big East champion Cincinnati and preseason favorite Pittsburgh are showing signs of life. The Bearcats beat Louisville 35-27 on Friday night, and the Panthers routed Syracuse 45-14 on the road on Saturday.
Here's how, supposedly, the rankings are calculated: http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/8330/conference-power-rankings-week-5
We created this system to grade conferences based equally on two key components, the quality of the upper tier schools AND the depth of the conference. The AP (or Coaches) poll is a good proxy for the strength of the top schools in each conference. On any given week there are roughly 35-45 schools given a positive voting number, that is, at least one 25th place vote. This means about two-thirds of FBS schools are treated equally and given zero AP points. So, only conferences with these elite schools will get any points at all and only the elite of the elite will receive the major points given out if you can make the top ten.
The second aspect of this system is designed to proxy the depth of the conference. Computer ratings are great for this purpose as they always will rate at least all FBS schools. Thus if you are a very top heavy conference with bad schools near the bottom of your standings, computer ratings will heavily penalize you.
A simple statistical process called "normalization" is then used to put the AP poll and the computer rating averages on the same scale with their 50/50 weights.