BLOGPOLL FINAL BALLOT, WEEK (?)

From the looks of your poll, the Big East is on a collision course for some good matchups in the coming weeks. WVa, L’ville, Pitt & Rutgers will all be slugging it out with one another for the one coveted BCS spot.

It is a solid ballot — except perhaps for Louisville in the Top Ten (its only “quality” win was over a then 17 ranked Miami) and whether Arkansas should perhaps be higher.

There are 3 issues, at least, that need to be addressed by any decent ballot:
1) how do you evaluate presumably decent teams that have no quality wins (e.g., W.Va., L, etc.), which in turn requires one to decide the relative importance of strength of schedule
2) how do you evaluate the mass of presumably good one loss teams, particularly this SEC chain of Arkansas beating Auburn beating Florida beating Tennessee beating Cal (that may beat USC that beat Arkansas)
3) should a team drop despite a win if a key player is injured and out for the season (e.g., OU)?

OS/SM, what do you think?

Much better— but really, Arkansas is simply holding at where it was last week in this poll, not moving up 4 slots. That’s only in comparison to your unsightly error on Monday

You know, everyone needs to stop bitchign about this. college FB is simple, win all your games, and your’e all set. there’s a good chance of multiple undefeateds this year, so everyone with one loss is meaningless to the discussion until there are no undefeated teams left.

LSU will rise again… just watch

Wooderson:

I totally disagree. Even if West Virginia goes undefeated, and everyone else has one loss, I would still not put them in the final bs-BCS game. Same for Screwyville, even if they beat West VA. Scheduling weak teams should not be rewarded.

Futbawl Fan:

LSU will rise? When?

When they get an offense?

When they get a real coach?

When they get better looking cheerleaders?

Seriously, if WV goes undefeated and everyone else has one loss will they be in the Nat’l Championship game?

WHY ISN’T THERE A PLAYOFF??? I’VE NEVER HEARD AN ARGUMENT FOR THE BCS…EVEN THE MONEY SEEMS MORE IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM.

This will be the year the BCS Sh*t hits the proverbial fan……

Cardiaco Kid & Wooderson;

Although I dislike Notre Dame, I would rank a one loss ND team ahead of an undefeated West VA or Screwyville team.

you guys need to get better about correcting your errors – especially the ones that are just plain wrong, like misattributed quotes and incorrect scores. its bringing the quality of your site down.

Learned Hand, you’re a judge not an enforcement officer (grammar police).

Sorry, bad joke.

But seriously, Keibler, I agree…you say ND, but what about a one-loss Auburn or Florida? Would you rank them above undefeated WV or Louisville? One-loss Ohio St. or Michigan?

Learned Hand, nevermind REALLY bad joke. You said, “misattributed quotes and incorrect scores.” Sorry, I agree.

A 1-loss ND team above WV and Louisville? hahahaha. their 1 loss was hideous and they barely beat a shitty Michigan St team after that. Let’s get real.

Wasn’t WVU supposed to get killed by UGA in the Sugar? Of course they were. But they didn’t. It was because of the BCS that WVU even got placed in a game of that magnitude. The critics said they’re soft schedule should preclude WVU (read: Big East) from the BCS bowls. Instead, they beat the SEC champ. All I’m saying is, like it or not, the Big East is a BCS conference and will continue to be so. If there are only 2 undefeated teams at the end of the year and one of them is a Big East team, should the Big East team play for the title. Probably not. A one loss SEC or Pac 10 team should. However, if at the end of the year there is only one unbeaten and that team is a Big East team, they deserve to play.

One Loss Dept.:

At the end of the season, perhaps even now, I would rank ND and any other one loss team from the SEC, Pac 10, and Big 10 ahead of an undefeated WVA or Screwyville team.

- – -

Learned Hand: Your grammar and logic is worse than mine!

The only reason that the Big East ever became a BCS conference was because they had Miami at the time. They should strip that spot and make it an at large berth that would go to the best team from the mid-majors (including the Big East).

If WVU played ND’s schedule, what would they be? My guess is 3-3, with losses to Georgia Tech, Penn State, and Michigan. I just don’t think they could successfully run the ball on those teams.

OC Phil— Don’t forget about BC and Va Tech contributing to the Big East being part of the BCS. Miami wasn’t thee only defector.

oc phil – The reason the Big East is included in the BCS is television markets. Its the whole reason the ACC raided the conference.

“how do you evaluate presumably decent teams that have no quality wins (e.g., W.Va., L, etc.)”

“how do you evaluate the mass of presumably good one loss teams, particularly this SEC chain of Arkansas beating Auburn beating Florida beating Tennessee beating Cal (that may beat USC that beat Arkansas)”

Allaha, There are no easy answers, but at this point I’d START with the following basic scheme and then MOVE teams based on quality wins:

Tier I. PAC 10/Big 11 undefeateds (tOSU, USC, Michigan)

Tier II. one loss Pac10/SEC/Big 11 teams & one loss teams that lost to the PAC 10/Big 11 undefeateds (Cal, Oregon, Auburn, Florida, Tenessee, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Texas, ND)

Tier III. zero loss Big East teams (Louisville, WVU, Rutger)

Since the Big East teams have no quality wins all 3 would end up roughly where Orson has WVU.

I’d move the winner of GT/Clemson game into Tier II and also any Big East teams that survive the Lousville/WVU & Lousiville/Rutgers games.

I still have a tough time arguing that an undefeated team will not play in the Nat. Championship. If these awful-conference teams will never compete for the NC, what is the point of them even having a program?

Canuck: I obviously do not have the answers, but I agree completely with your analysis. That is as good a short explanation of ranking methodology as I have seen, and it is far better than most.

Cardiac Kids: I think the problem with that argument is it entirely ignores strength of schedule. If you are in a historically weak conference or an independent, then it should be incumbent upon you to schedule quality out of conference opponents. (I do not like Notre Dame, but they deserve credit for scheduling traditional powerhouses such as Michigan and USC every year.) Otherwise, teams should — and will — line up a series of terrible teams and then cry they desere a shot at the MNC over one loss teams that have more quality wins.

cardiac kid,

If you’re in a poor conference schedule at least decent OOC games. Louisville should get consideration for scheduling Miami and K-State even if they both disappointed this year.

Remind why we’re even talking about WVU? Something they did last year?

“I do not like Notre Dame, but they deserve credit for scheduling traditional powerhouses such as Michigan and USC every year”

When tOSU schedules tough OOC games what’s the excuse for WVU’s OOC schedule?

tOSU will get lots of credit for USC and Michigan being on their schedule next year, but ND does that EVERY YEAR. I’m fine with ND’s traditonal Navy game and one other academy per year as long as the 3rd best and 4th best opponents are the Big 11’s 3rd and 4th or equivalent.

Now if we could just get tOSU to drop the I-AA game, ND to drop Kevin/Ty’s San Diego State game, and MSU to redact [NAME ALSO REDACTED].

BC should be in the mix, they are one Hail Mary from 6-0

I concur about the Big East – you can’t help the conference you’re in, but you can do something about your non-conf spots, and scheduling a lot of cupcakes is not the way to get taken seriously. I’m not thrilled with Vandy going out of conference against Temple and Tennessee State, but when the rest of the schedule includes Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Michigan, I think we’re entitled to a breather. But simply saying “they’re undefeated so they deserve to be there” means that we’re going to see a steady diet of games against the Louisiana-Monroes and Eastern Michigans of the world.

This is where the BSC screwed up in giving everything back to the human voters just because they thought a one-loss Trojan team got done wrong in favor of a one-loss Oklahoma or LSU. Too much of the formula is composed of human polling by a bunch of dilettantes who are more likely to react to “11-0” than “9-2, but they played seven ranked teams and lost one on a last-second field goal”. (Not to mention the preposterous voting that coaches do in their poll.)

Long story short – the BCS rankings don’t mean anything until the final poll, and watching them get there is going to be a show. I’m sure the AP and BCS will converge as they approach December, like a bad calculus problem, but I wonder how much of the AP voting will be influence from seeing those BCS scores.

And of course it goes without saying that I’d rather see the formula as the basis for a 4-team playoff. Notre Dame ‘77 notwithstanding (and Bama fans are still sore about it I assure you), I don’t think anybody ranked #5 has a beef that they were left out of the national title picture.

You know…its not all the Big East’s fault. When Rutgers scheduled Illinois for this two game series they were actually good. Same with UNC. And how was Louisville to know that their signature win against Miami would look worse and worse as the year wore on?