Football 101 - The BCS Polls

Landry Jones' trash stache has lead Oklahoma to the first #1 ranking in the BCS Poll

It's Tuesday! Know what that means?  Correct - buckets of beer are $5 off at Crunchy's.  Also, it's Football 101.  Today's topic is the BCS Poll, the magical printout of glory that determines the high-level bowls.  It can be equated to a Computer Jesus with too much free time on its hands....or hardware...or something.

The BCS system started in 1998.  Before that, the National Title game rotated between the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar bowls.  However, the Rose Bowl always had the top Big Ten and Pac-10 teams, so it was a giant clusterfuck and it was up to the media voters to sort it out when all the dust cleared.  AWESOME SYSTEM.  The BCS has 3 different components: The USA Today Coaches' Poll (comprised of selected Coaches around the country), the Harris Poll (former players, administrators, media members), and the BCS Computer ranking system.  The Computer ranking is actually a combination of 6 different computer rankings, all using a different equation to determine a team's "score."

The Computer Ranking is usually what causes the most frustration in the world of college football.  In all of the computer polls, the amount you win a game by does not matter - it's limited to your record and the record of those you've played.  WHY, YOU ASK? Basically, the BCS didn't want top teams running up the score as much as possible in order to get additional points in the BCS computers.  Computers can't tell if you're being a dick, but the human voters can (usually).  Although these equations have been tweaked and polished over the years, there are still some oddities that pop up because of the formula.  For example, in the Sagarin computer ranking, Oregon State (3-3) is ranked higher than Alabama (6-1), who only lost to a ranked team.

Bubbles is upset with the pollsters' love for Boise State

Okay, so there are 3 polls, each with an equal influence in a team's BCS ranking.  In the two polls done by people, normally a team won't be "leapfrogged" if they keep winning, regardless of who they play.  For example, Boise State won't play ANYONE tough for the rest of the season but they're not going to move down in the human polls if they win against them all.  The exception to this rule was shown earlier this year - Oregon was ranked just behind Boise State, but jumped them after the Ducks dismantled #9 Stanford.  Clearly, Oregon looked much better after that than BSU's awesome win over Toledo, so jumping is justified.

As the season goes on, there will be fewer "leapfrogs" in the human polls, the reason being that there just aren't many statement games left on the slate where a team can make a case for jumping someone above them.  Since conference play has started, teams will face one, maybe two, high-ranking opponents and must disembowel them to have a chance to jump.  The computer polls, however, are a different story.  As teams from the major conferences play more games, their strength of schedule goes higher.  For example, Iowa will play Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Ohio State (combined 19-2 record) in the next month.  Boise State's toughest opponents, on the other hand, are Nevada, Fresno State, and Hawaii.  Although Boise State's computer score will increase with each win, Iowa's will increase faster.

Remember, the wins of opponents (and sometimes your opponents' opponents) will affect a teams' ranking.  That's why you heard many sports conessieurs go nuts when Wisconsin took down Ohio State - it makes MSU's computer ranking go higher.  As the season goes on, the computer poll will change significantly - even if every team in the top ten wins, changes will still occur in the BCS standings due to strength of schedule.

That's a small taste of the BCS formula.  There's about a million and three rules for eligibility and bowl selection, but we'll come to that later in the year. Here's a link to the current BCS Standings.  Go Green!