01 January 2009

Why are you bashing the computers?....and me bashing the media again

Here I go again with another post about college football. Although I would consider myself a stathead in determining my "who-would-beat-who," it seems like national analysts (I'm looking at you Lee Corso) are completely throwing out why the 6 computer rankings are in place in the first place.

As I'm sure you are all aware, the formula to determine the two teams to play for the BCS National Championship includes two human elements, the Harris Interactive and Coaches polls, and a 6-computer average (throwing out the high and low computer scores). Two-thirds of the formula come from people who are selected as "experts" in who is determining the top teams. The computer component....AHEM....is there to get rid of all the subjectivity (such as pollsters being homers to teams in a certain conference) and look at every team on a level playing field.

This explains (and keep in mind that as an Illini fan I'm anti-Pac-10) why the Pac-10 sent 5 teams to bowls, all but USC unranked, and came out 5-0. Most of the voters in the human polls are based in the Central or Eastern Time Zones, and with a particularly large number of games broadcast in primetime locally, meaning a lot of these pollsters don't have the time to watch all these games. So they believe the ESPNs of the world that say the Pac-10 is down this year save USC.

This brings up two issues:

The Pac-10 doesn't get the respect it deserves. Let's recap the Pac-10's bowl games this season:
  • Las Vegas Bowl; Arizona 31, #17 BYU 21. BYU came in 10-2 with their only losses coming to 10-1 TCU and 12-0 Utah. Arizona QB Willie Tuitama comes in and goes 24-for-35 for 325 yards and 2 TDs, and rushed for another. Yahoo! Sports Recap
  • Emerald Bowl; Cal 24, Miami 17. I'll give you that the 8-4 Golden Bears were 10-point favorites against the 7-5 Hurricanes, and that they were playing in Cal's backyard in San Francisco. But I watched this game, and the score doesn't indicate how much Cal and their running back Jahvid Best (20 for 186 yds, 2 TDs) controlled this game. Yahoo! Sports Recap
  • Holiday Bowl; Oregon 42, #13 Oklahoma St 31. This is probably the one I watched the least (because I was subbing in a Tuesday night bowling league), but I had a lot of respect for Okey St coming in, and this was one of the (few) games I picked incorrectly. This Cowboy team's only losses were to the then-#1 Texas, then-#2 Texas Tech, and then-#3 Oklahoma. They also took down the then-#3 Mizzou Tigers who were previously defeated. Yahoo! Sports Recap
  • Sun Bowl; Oregon St 3, #18 Pitt 0. Oy. 3-0? Seriously? You'd think it was a Beaver-Panther baseball game. Another bowl I kind of missed watching because I was watching the Armed Forces Bowl (Houston 34, Air Force 28). But I did have respect because Oregon St was the only team to take down the Fighting Pete Carroll Goliaths USC. The Beavers DID make it to #24 in the AP poll, and I did end up picking this one correctly with 11 (out of 34) confidence points. Yahoo! Sports Recap
  • Rose Bowl; #5 USC 38, #8 Penn State 24. Reminiscent of the Rose Bowl game from last year where the Trojans ran my Illini up and down the field to a 49-17 shelacking, where the Fighting JoePa's kept it close for the first 1 1/2 quarters then USC passes it extremely well and it's clear who is the better football team by the end of the night. USC for the last few years (Oregon St and UCLA in 2006, Stanford and Oregon in 2007, and Oregon St again this year) has a brainfart and has that 1 bad loss that keeps them out of the national championship, then blows away their Big Ten opponent in the Rose Bowl. Yet another reason for there to be a playoff. Yahoo! Sports Recap
The second reason: The Pac-10 needs to schedule its games so that the nation can watch. This is definitely the lesser of the two reasons, but still warrants an argument. BCS coaches not in the Pac-10 aren't going to stay up til past midnight to watch all the games in the Pac-10 after a most likely grueling day of coaching their own teams that Saturday afternoon. Same goes with Harris Interactive. From their website, The Harris Interactive Poll "is comprised of former players, coaches, administrators and current and former media who have committed to submitting rankings for the top 25." So you have old players and coaches who just watched a full plate of games for the day, and media members who have stories to write and deadlines to meet.

Ok, so classic case of a stream of consciousness, but I'll take it.

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