Standings v. Rankings

What exactly are you suggesting?

between the NFL and college football are:

1.  Number of teams

2.  Number of games

Because the NFL has less teams and more games, you can more sure about who makes it to the postseason and who the champion should be. 

Choosing a national champion among 130-something teams, when each team only plays 12-14 games, is almost always going to involve some form of uncertainty about who's being crowned the champion.  You can marginally increase your confidence level by tinkering with the format, but simply changing the format (e.g. changing to a pure win-loss system as you mention, using a playoff system) will never get you to NFL-type levels of confidence in the result.

Sorry, I didn't read the whole thing...afternoon ADHD. But - I do agree that this year's rankings are really screwed up.

The perceptions of the SEC and Big 12 are really bothering me. South Carolina and Georgia are both ahead of every Big Ten team? Ha...SEC East might as well be the Big East this year.

I think this is where Brady Hoke has the right idea of playing for the Big Ten championship.  That is something the team can control.  Win your games and you win the Big Ten.  I find myself caring less and less about this BCS stuff since it is so biased.  Look back at what was said 2, 3, 4 weeks ago by all the media.  After last weekend it is meaningless.  I root for Michigan to win.  Everything else is all just for entertainment purposes.  I guess if we finish a regular season undefeated and get left out of an NC game then I would start complaining.  Bottom line there needs to be a playoff to settle it on the field.

The level of importance for winning games will not go away if a playoff is created. What's wrong with 6 AQ conference champions and 2 at large schools to cover circumstance like Alabama from the SEC this year and other Non AQ schools? Lengthen conference schedule (say 9-10 games) and play the rest out as is. Sure #9 team will gripe, but #69 team in NCAA bball gripes. Somebody needs to be ousted.

wrestled total control, they have used the bigten's way down perception and the same with the pac12, why usc isn't usc and oregon keeps getting beat by every good defense they play.  The big12 imploded and has no credibility so they hang on the sec's coat tails and votes with the sec and the sec lets them so they can put another big12 team in the bcs title game they want to ensure the sec gets the win.  Follow all that.... great, its corrupt in every way and the bigten has a part in it just right now the sec is the dominant player. 

Consider this...

Alabama loses and drops 3 spots, Oklahoma lost earlier this yr and drops 4 spots, wisconsin lost to a 1 loss team and dropped 10 spots.  Stanford loses and drops 5 spots, Oregon lost to lsu and dropped 8 spots, Michigan lost and dropped 10 spots, Michigan wins and climbs 3 while Oklahoma loses a second game and barely drops, okie st loses to an unranked opponent and barely drops.

Point is, I don't care who arkansas, alabama, oklahoma and okie st lost to they deserved to drop major spots in the polls and everyone else move up in their place.  That's how it works but for the sec and big12 teams riding their coat tails that isn't how it's working...........Vatech should be top 4, likely #3 right now in the country, and if they win the acc should vault any sec team.  Any one loss champion or 2 loss champion for that matter should jump a team that cannot win it's own conference.  Until we get a playoff, which in my opionion should only include conference champions and maybe an at large or two, then should we consider this, and at that an at large birth better come from a team in the top 3 that didn't win it's division or conference..........  and imho, voting should be removed by conferences who vote up their teams and down other conference teams.....

Michigan is playing much better team, passing ball.  Memphis is too sloppy with all these hoopers playing for themselves only.  Really like how Belein has shaped this team.

Just beat the buckeyes!

Wow. A lot going on here.

One, you don't see people arguing whether a 10-2 team is better than a 8-4 team. Look at the rankings. Pretty much all the 1 loss teams are ahead of the 2 loss teams who are ahead of the 3 loss teams. I think overall strength of schedule and quality wins/bad losses aren't taken into account well enough.

And I don't see how your third point fits in well with your previous two. Do you want OkSt to drop like a rock, or do you want their position reflect the fact so few teams have managed zero or one losses in a BCS conference?

The computer polls are the way they are because they've been completely neutered. Every time we think there might be a problem with the BCS, the computers take a large share of the blame, and get forced to change to fit our preconcieved notions.

I'm not seeing where the media is driving something that is patently untrue. Like, are you trying to suggest that the three SEC teams at the top don't deserve to be there? It's not perfect, but its not awful, and we'll see how things shake out after all the games are played.

Why can't we have playoffs AND a bcs?!

BCS pros - provides a lot of revenue during bowl season.  Tons of bowl games = tons of cash!  Teams like houston aren't playing for the national championship.

BCS cons - potentially Miami, LSU, and U of M are all undefeated.  Who gets left out for the national championship?

Playoff pros - we get to definitively decide who is number 1

Playoff cons - we wouldn't get bowl season, and it would take up too much of the athletes time during december - january.

I would propose to keep the BCS, and have an 8 team playoff.  That way we could have the definitive champion, and still keep bowl season.

"8 team playoff, how would that work?!"

There would be the championship game weekend, where we are left with our champions of the B1G, ACC, SEC, Pac12, Big12, and big East (althought let's be honest, the big east doesn't deserve a bid most years) and then we could have two at large bids with teams who are either undefeated in terrible conferences (Houston, usually Boise, etc.)  or an at large bid (Like Alabama this year).  Then we're left with 8 teams, that would only take 3 rounds to decide a winner.

At no point have we heard any news coming down from the Big Ten Atheletic Offices that One team with a worse win loss record should get a berth to the B1G Championship because their schedule was harder.

Let's suppose MSU loses this weekend and Michigan wins.  The B1G advances a 9-3 team to the BTCG over a 10-2 team.  So while the B1G doesn't argue that a team with a worse win/loss record should get a berth because their schedule was harder, they do argue (implicitly) that a team with a worse won/loss record should advance because some of their games shouldn't count.  Instead of making a black/white decision on which games count/don't count, the BCS makes a grayer decision on how much a team's particular win/loss should count.

Wrt to the NFL not worrying about strength of schedule.  I would argue that the variability in schedule strength is probably a lot lower in the NFL than in the NCAA.  Further, teams in the NFL can't pick who they are going to play whereas that is not true in college OOC.  Also, in the NFL the majority of the teams that get into the playoffs (the non-wildcard playoff participants) are choosen amongst teams in the same division that play very comparable schedules.  For example, the only difference between the schedules for the Lions and the Packers is the Lions play Dallas and San Fransico whereas the Packers play St Louis and NY Giants.

Here is a suggestion. Change the voters. Right now most of the poll voters are south of the M-D line. Just like American Idol (where 9 out of the last 10 winners has been south of the M-D line), there is regional voting that is highly biased. You want fair voting change the criteria. Do not expect people south of the M-D line to vote for B10 teams. For most of the voters in the south, their college team is the most important thing in their lives. 

This is sort of tied into this discussion, but I don't like the idea that the conference championship games seem to hurt more teams than they help. The perfect example of this is if Michigan State happens to lose in the conference championship and thus end up going to a worse bowl than Michigan. It justs offers teams another chance to lose and push them back in the rankings despite having won their half of the conference. Granted this could be changed by having the loser of the championship game be locked into the number two bowl game of that conference (in this case the capital one game for the Big 10). This may be the case but I have heard that State could be pushed into a much smaller bowl if they lose in the championship and that's pretty stupid. Granted, its MSU and so pretty funny, but I have a feeling Michigan will find themselves in that situation soon enough and don't want them to be penalized for making the championship game but losing.

You're concerned that there wasn't a bigger bump for the Nebraska win? If you want more volatility just go back and amplify the effects of ND, MSU, Iowa, and Nebraska and we end up in the same place. Same thing happens for Oklahoma State.