justingoblue

October 5th, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^

LSU at three isn't that much of a surprise, IMO. Alabama has been ridiculously good and could make a case for number one. Clemson at two is a big surprise though, they haven't done more than Oklahoma.

jcgold

October 5th, 2011 at 3:47 PM ^

Clemson:  surprising from a human perspective?  Yes.  surprising considering this is a computer, and they've already played 3 BCS opponents already?  Not so much.

You can't count anything the computers do until they have enough data.  5 weeks of football isn't enough because the schedules are so unbalanced depending on conference.  That's why we don't see BCS rankings until week 8 or so.

coastal blue

October 5th, 2011 at 4:39 PM ^

In order of best wins

Oklahoma (4-0): Florida State, Missouri, Tulsa, Ball State

Clemson (5-0): Florida State, Auburn, Virginia Tech, Troy, Wofford

The only reason that Oklahoma is ahead of Clemson in the human polls is because one is called Oklahoma and one is called Clemson.

 

justingoblue

October 5th, 2011 at 5:03 PM ^

Beating FSU by ten on the road was more impressive than taking them down by less at home the next week. You can call Auburn or VT/Missouri a wash, so I guess Clemson has one more BCS win, but Clemson also gave up 27 to Woffard at home. Oklahoma has won every game in a dominating fashion, they haven't had a final score closer than ten so far. It's more than the name brand.

Skunkeye

October 5th, 2011 at 9:30 PM ^

Well some years back all the BCS computers were forced to remove score as a consideration so it is no surprise that they have a hard time identifiying the best teams when there are still many unbeaten teams.  The teams still try and roll up big scores to impress the humans so I'm not sure what was accomplished by crippling all the good computer algorithms.

 

UMaD

October 5th, 2011 at 3:46 PM ^

The only thing Wisconsin's done is beat Nebraska at home.  Nebraska sounds impressive, but has only beaten Washington.  Meanwhile Michigan beat Notre Dame (who beat Michigan State) and WMU (win over Uconn and game vs Ill) and SDSU (wins over Army and Wash St) have winning records too.

If your criteria is resume rank w/o margin of victory (as the computers are tasked with doing) it makes great sense.

If your criteria is subjective opinion well....

 

BlockM

October 5th, 2011 at 3:55 PM ^

Probably because Wisconsin hasn't played anyone yet except for Nebraska. I'm not saying we have outside of ND, but Wisconsin not being in there isn't a total shocker IME.

notYOURmom

October 5th, 2011 at 3:58 PM ^

...but our actual rank is 9. 

 

What does that mean do you suppose?  I could understand it if it were the result of a poll (this would happen if teams ranked higher than us had a few serious haters), but I don't understand what it means coming out of a computer algorithm.

notYOURmom

October 5th, 2011 at 4:04 PM ^

I can't find this info corroborated anywhere on-line:  BCS not until Week 8, thus sayeth ESPN.

Unless we know what the BCS algorithm is, and someone is trying to simulate it??

Where did this guy's chart come from, anyway?

Blue Lurker

October 5th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^

Though he doesn't "know" the exact algorithm he is pretty good at predicting what the results are week to week.  I would guess if the BCS results came out this week they would be pretty close to what he shows.

Alton

October 5th, 2011 at 4:29 PM ^

There is no BCS algorithm per se, the BCS just uses 6 different "computer" ratings that are published every week, and compiles them.  There is no need to devise any secret formulae; all 6 of these "computer" ratings are available on the internet (or in USA Today) for anybody who wants to look at them.

 

ChiCityWolverine

October 5th, 2011 at 4:10 PM ^

The Badgers OOC schedule may haunt them if they remain in the BCS hunt all year. With LSU/Bama a lock if undefeated, Wisconsin may have trouble getting into the #2 spot over another undefeated BCS school.

Picktown GoBlue

October 5th, 2011 at 4:30 PM ^

the BCS computer ratings are defined in 2010 as:

Six computer rankings will be used: Jeff Sagarin, Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey and Dr. Peter Wolfe. Points will be assigned in inverse order of ranking from 1-25. A team's highest and lowest computer ranking will be discarded in calculating its computer rankings average. The four remaining computer scores will be averaged and the total will be calculated as a percentage of 100.

That is, unless BCS and/or ESPN and/or one of the computer program screws up the calculation.

Seth9

October 5th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^

Small sample sizes for statistical methods of ranking teams = Very weird rankings that shouldn't be taken remotely seriously especially when said rankings cannot even consider margin of victory

UMaD

October 5th, 2011 at 4:47 PM ^

are these really that "weird", I mean, any moreso than the coaches poll?

If the biggest problem is Wisconsin ranked 12 instead of 5 and Michigan 9 instead of 11 based on slightly different critera - I think that's OK.

maquih

October 5th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^

They lost to USC by less than a field goal on the road...



So Minnesota is bad, definitely.  But we played our best game of the year against them, and when was the last time we shutout anyone by 58 points?  



My point is that we have improved every week, and had notre dame been against this past weekend we would have blown them out of the water too.



This Michigan team is for real, Greg Mattinson is a freaking genius and we will be a better team than Wisconsin by the time we get to the conference championship.

Medic

October 5th, 2011 at 5:59 PM ^

It would be absolutely delicious if they run the table and get left out because of SOS. Serves them right for perpetually scheduling bobdybag state.

aiglick

October 5th, 2011 at 6:54 PM ^

As others have said these next two weeks are crucial. I do think that whatever happens they will be competitive games which is satisfying on one level.

Wolverine Pride

October 5th, 2011 at 7:48 PM ^

Imagine if there were no human polls until week 5.  Would it be a surprise that Clemson is ranked #2?  Maybe, but not too much considering who they have beat so far.  Their #2 seems shocking since they weren't ranked high to start the year by the coaches.    This is the only aspect I like about computers being involved...they don't have a bias based on the previous weeks ranking.   Other than that why are computers having input in who are the best 2 teams?

BlueHills

October 5th, 2011 at 9:36 PM ^

It's clearly too high a ranking. Computers lack eyeballs. We've all seen the difference between Michigan and LSU or Alabama. And Wiscy.

There's quite a gap. We're not a top ten team, and maybe not even a top 20 team. But we're improving, and that's the good part.

Still, I expect when all is said and done this season, that Michigan will be ranked no higher than 15, and even that will be a stretch. There are simply too many difficult games ahead.