Week 9 BCS Rankings

Submitted by turtleboy on

Michigan comes in at #22  between 1 loss Boise St and 2 loss Texas.

Odd ranking is Oregon falling to #4. To me Oregon is clearly the #2 team in the nation. They run up the score 45-0 in the first half of just about every game and then put the backups in. Maybe they should play the starters for a full 3 quarters and run up the score a little more so the computers can be convinced.

Eventual Link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings

mgoecon

October 21st, 2012 at 8:41 PM ^

How Michigan is behind WVU is beyond me. We lost to Alabama in week one and to ND in a game that we practically gave away. More importantly we have an defense. Anyways... the rankings don't matter too much for us. We're after one goal and one goal only: B1G Champs all the way to Pasadena.

IronDMK

October 22nd, 2012 at 1:42 PM ^

is the biggest mystery to me.  I thought for sure they'd get dropped out of the rankings this week.  Both Texas and WVU got their asses handed to them in both losses.  The Big Ten rep is the reason for Michigan being ranked where they are... but I do NOT think those two teams should be ranked ahead of UM.  Just annoying.

ak47

October 22nd, 2012 at 1:27 AM ^

We also have beaten one team above .500.  We beat air force, and they are ok and a wierd offense, and we beat umass who is awful, and we beat purdue who has proven in the last couple weeks to be pretty bad, and illinois who is trash, and just got by state who is 4-4 with a home loss to an iowa team that has a loss to central and hasn't beaten anyone outside the big 10 either.  The big is trash this year and it is hurting us because nobody considers any of our wins impressive and honestly they aren't.  You can only win the games you play, I know that and if we win out we will be in the top 10 and playing for the roses but we haven't done anything impressive yet either so i'm not sure why people think we deserve to be higher than any other two loss teams because our losses happened to be against slightly better teams.

joeyb

October 22nd, 2012 at 8:02 AM ^

They are 0-3 in the Big Ten. They got blown out at home by us. They got blown out at home by Wisconsin. They gave up an 8-point lead to OSU and lost in OT. Not that any of that matters to computers because computers only use W/L. So, I'll go back to my original point: they are 0-3 in the Big Ten.

ak47

October 22nd, 2012 at 2:01 PM ^

Towson hung around with lsu for a while in baton rouge, lsu is a top 10 team, is towson a good football team?  I also think ohio st is overrated and pretty much every team they have played has hung around, its not like purdue was special in that regard, do you think cal is a good team? What about Indiana I heard they are awesome at football to because they almost beat ohio st

hopkinsdrums

October 21st, 2012 at 8:41 PM ^

Oregon will be fine once they play someone.

 

Cope

October 21st, 2012 at 8:55 PM ^

Oregon will have to beat USC away and Stanford at home. Florida will have to beat FSU away and Alabama in the SEC championship. And Kansas St. will have to beat Texas at home (but have impressed against Oklahoma). The top four will have to separate themselves against tough competition, as you indicated.

M-Dog

October 21st, 2012 at 9:45 PM ^

There will be enough games against common opponents among the top four that it will sort itself out for the NC game:

- SEC:  Alabama and Florida play each other, so only one will survive.  There will NOT be another NC game any time soon with 2 teams from the same conference who already played each other.  That was a disaster.

- Pac 12:  It's Oregon or nobody.

- Big 12:  It's KSU or nobody

- Independent:  If ND goes undefeated, they will not automatically be in, despite the media's wishes.  They will have common opponents with KSU (Oklahoma) and Oregon (USC, Stanford) to help determine if they really deserve it.  

The real issue will be if Alabama, KSU, and Oregon are all undefeated.  Alabama will be in because they will stay #1 and Ess Eee See and all that.  Who gets to go between Oregon and KSU?  There are no common opponent tiebreakers.  That will be ugly.

 

 

PB-J Time

October 21st, 2012 at 10:38 PM ^

Thats a very interesting question and I am not sure how that would turn out...but I'd doubt that we'll see it. As good as Oregon is they have tough regular season and then would have to slug out a PAC12 champ game to get their and although KSU doesn't have a champ game it is tough to get through a decent conference like that undefeated (see OkSt '11)

ghost

October 22nd, 2012 at 8:42 AM ^

The only teams on their schedule that have a winning record are Navy, Stanford, USC, OK and us. Looking at Stanford's remaining schedule they could easily end up 7-5.  If Oregon runs the table USC would be a 4 loss team.  And the rest of those BCS teams are Pitt, WF, and BC.  That is not that impressive.  Oregon if they won out would have beaten USC twice, a highly ranked Oregon State team and the Arizona schools and Washington, all probably bowl teams.  That's pretty comparable and they have been alot more impressive than ND.  K-State would have the same win over OK, 5 conference road wins all over at least decent opposition.    ND plays 4 road games all season, one of which is BC.  The bump they could get in the computers from possibly beating OK and USC would be diminished by adding in WF, Pitt ,and BC.

PepperHicks

October 21st, 2012 at 8:59 PM ^

The ranking doesn't really matter at this point in the season if you're out of the national championship hunt.  If UM takes care of it's schedule it can expect to make the Rose Bowl trip in the top ten.  A Rose Bowl victory will assure a top five or six finish, I would think.  

LSAClassOf2000

October 21st, 2012 at 9:20 PM ^

Recent history tends to agree with that estimation when it comes to rankings anyway. With respect to the BCS rankings, in the 2010 Rose Bowl, the 7th and 8th ranked teams played, and the winner was 5th in the final standings. In the 2011 Rose Bowl, we had the 3rd and 5th ranked teams, with the winner finishing 3rd. This January, the 5th and 10th ranked teams played, and the winner was 4th in the final rankings. If you went back to 2008, the 5th and 8th ranked BCS teams played in the Rose Bowl, with the winner being 3rd in the final rankings. One of the interesting things is that in no case here was the Big Ten team the higher ranked team going into the game itself.

turtleboy

October 21st, 2012 at 9:11 PM ^

I don't get how the BCS ranks teams. I usually agree with the AP and USA Today polls, and they usually agree with each other, and the BCS poll usually disagrees vastly with both of them. More improtantly the BCS poll usually disagrees with me! What are they thinking? I thought a hybrid poll aimed at getting the best ranking would do better than we have in the past, but it feels like the BCS poll is routinely, and significantly worse than what we already had.

I don't understand how Georgia is #10, 2 loss South Carolina is #13, and Clemson is #18. Their only loss was a close game @ #4 Florida State. How is Florida State ranked under Georgia when FSU beat a top 10 team, but lost a close game on the road, when Georgia was absolutely dismantled by a now 2 loss South Carolina. Or how a team that's 5-1 is ranked well above a team that's 7-1 with similar wins and losses. They've had 2 more chances to lose. Ect, ect, ect.

 

Logan88

October 21st, 2012 at 10:14 PM ^

It's them d*mn computers, I tells ya!

Seriously, though, the mysterious computer portion of the BCS formula (which is non-transparent and is, thus, bullsh*t) is the kicker that usually causes the strange results in the BCS poll. I have noticed a distinct bias for SEC (duh) and Big 12 teams (less duh) in the computer portion of the poll over the past few years.

Personally, I cannot wait until the BCS dies its well deserved death. The proposed playoff system won't be perfect, either, but it will still be an improvement over what we've got now.

mGrowOld

October 21st, 2012 at 9:13 PM ^

How about this?  Every game we win increases the chances for an Alabama-Notre Dame National Championship game.  Our winning increases both school's strength of schedule calculations and improves the odds for this matchup to occur.

While we help Alabama with every win let's face it - if (when?) they win out and take the SEC they will definitely get one of the two slots. The Irish, however, need some additional love from the BCS computers and are probably our biggest fans right now.

 

mGrowOld

October 21st, 2012 at 9:44 PM ^

"Screw the Irish"

Um....that's sort-of my point here.  A team that virtually none of us like, that just told us to go F ourselves schedule-wise, that we literally handed a game to on a silver platter a few games ago, is the biggest beneficiary if we keep winning and moving up the polls.

 

mGrowOld

October 21st, 2012 at 10:03 PM ^

Given the reaction to my posts and your comment it is apparent I have NOT made my point very clear here.  I am not espousing we start losing in an effort to hurt ND's chances in the BCS - rather I was attempting to show the irony in both Alabama's & ND's benefiting from our success.

phork

October 21st, 2012 at 9:53 PM ^

While you are correct in that you guys winning helps us in the end, ND needs Florida to lose.  If Florida loses ND will automatically claim #1 by most, if not all the computers.  Sadly this won't come until the SEC championship game which means unless Bama craps the bed against the Mad Hatter, one of those 2 will be in the NCG.  Best case is LSU beats Bama and then beats Florida in the SEC Championship.

Or Georgia or FSU can pull the shocker and LSU beats Bama.  Looking at KStates schedule, I can't see anyone that can beat them now that they have beaten OU.  Oregon has a harder road with games against USC, Stanford and in Corvalis.  Culminating in probably playing USC again in the Pac12 Championship.  If they win out, they deserve their spot.

GoBlueGB

October 21st, 2012 at 9:13 PM ^

Question for BCS experts.  Michigan is 20 in the Harris Poll, 20 in the USA Today Poll, and 19 in the average computer rankings, so how do they end up at 22?

BlackMethod

October 21st, 2012 at 9:41 PM ^

Because the computer rankings really get screwy outside of the top eight or so.  For example, Mississippi State is ranked #8 in one computer poll, but #20 in another.  Ohio (YTO) is #13 in one poll, but unranked in three others.  Similar for Boise State.  Michigan just happens to be one of few teams where the average of their computer rankings is actually similar to that of the human polls, but so many others see a significant difference between the humans and the computers that this sort of thing happens.

Yeoman

October 21st, 2012 at 10:18 PM ^

Most of BCS gets a zero--you have to be in the top 25 of one of the systems to score. 90-95 teams aren't.

FSU's one of the biggest victims of the BCS requirement that the computers ignore all information other than wins and losses. In Massey's actual ratings, for example, they're 23rd, but they're 42nd in his BCS rating. Western Kentucky is 22nd in his BCS rating but 35th in his actual ratings. Is there anyone, even in Kentucky, that thinks WKU is the stronger team? Massey thinks FSU is ten points better despite between 20 spots lower in his BCS system.

No one, and especially not their creators, thinks these BCS computer systems are worth anything as an evaluation of team strength. They're hamstrung.

Yeoman

October 21st, 2012 at 9:55 PM ^

The BCS formula doesn't use the placement in the human polls; it uses the polling points received. In both polls Michigan's very close to the teams behind them but there's a gap to the team ahead. Here's the Harris:

16. South Carolina 1109

17. Texas Tech 1074

18. Stanford 929

19. Boise St. 762

20. Michigan 490

21. Texas A&M 465

22. West Virginia 363

 

They don't get much for being ahead of A&M and WVU in the human polls, but they get the full detriment of their places behind them in the computers.

 

Picktown GoBlue

October 22nd, 2012 at 2:03 PM ^

not the ordering of the teams.  Michigan's computer numbers are 0.22 (after dropping the high and low and averaging the remaining 4 in a reverse ordering).  0.22 is equivalent to 20.5th place for the computers (as noted on CBS Sports' BCS table).  To go from the 0.22 to the "place" ranking, multiply by 25 and then subract from 26.

Do that same calculation for Harris and our polling vote total puts us in 21.74th place; Coaches poll puts us in 21.525th place.  So the two human polls essentially have us at 22nd, and the other 1/3 vote for 21st place is not enough to pull it up.  Teams are not evenly spaced along the continuum from 1st place to 25th place (or out to 35th place with folks also getting votes), due to the mix of voting.

Yeoman

October 21st, 2012 at 9:45 PM ^

 

Maybe they should play the starters for a full 3 quarters and run up the score a little more so the computers can be convinced.

 

The computer algorithms used for the BCS are prohibited from using final scores as an input--they're restricted to wins/losses only.