Indiana I agree with almost everything you are saying. I don't think the media conspires to do anything of the sort of stuuff they are being accused of. ESPN may have tried to influence voters, but the voters themselves do not vote for for teams because of the size of the media markets, that's pure BS. For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would think that the AP voters give a crap about the size of the media markets when they vote, it brings in no more money to their news outlets. I also agree they did not dislike LSU going to the BCS championship game, they would have been more likely to not want OU there. But the easiest way to win the debate on these issues would be tyo simply state that the coaches poll matched the AP poll in both 2003 and 2004, and so now anyone who believes that the media was voting in block for the largest media market teams must then put the same onus on the coaches. Just about the only thing I'm in somewhat disagreement on is the OOC/SOS stuff. And that is because I believe any attempt at trying to truely define SOS is severely flawed. Playing and beating a very good team at home is not nearly as advantageous as beating a mediocre team on the road in the SOS formula. They will never really figure out a way to come close to getting it correct, really giving credit for playing a superior conference schedule. OU got a lot of credit due to the Big 12 appearing to be strong during the season, but in both 2003 and 2004 the conference itself was weak. The bowl results point that out. I believe that in both years OU got a tremendous boast from this and that both USC and AU should have beat them out for the title game.
Don't forget, the quality win component ALMOST hurt LSU in '03. By beating UGA twice, we knocked them out of the top 10, there-by erasing the quality win.
:hihi: It couldn't hurt us, it just ended up not helping us. The quality win component should be counted IMO but the cutoff date for the ranking should have been the BCS ranking before the conference championships are played. Beating UGA twice, thereby knocking them out of the top 8 teams was an atrocity.
AP voters don't give a crap or begin to understand the "size" of media markets. What they believe is the "perception" that they are spoon-fed by a Media that has a vested economic interest in the outcome. (ABC hosted the BCS Championship .... ESPN is wholly controlled by ABC/Disney) Do the very simple math .... jeez, does it need to be spelled out?
If you were to really read my post you'd see that I did mention that ESPN may try to influence the voting, although I don't believe that all of the reporters on ESPN or on ABC would buy into that notion. And I don't think the AP writers are that easily influenced, as a matter of fact the writers tend to dislike the on air guys and vice versa.
I was just describing what was, not what I think it should be. I am in complete agreement that there is no way to get it "correct," because no one knows what correct is. What we could do is improve, but we should recognize that doing so pretty much requires trading objectivity for subjectivity. The beauty of the existing definition of SOS is it's simplicity and almost total objectivity. Only Ws and Ls of your opponents and opponents opponents are considered. The only subjective part is how much weight to give each. The weakness of the existing definition is that it ignores things that we know to be true. We know, as you point out, that home vs away matters. We know that average schedule strength does not accurately capture the risk assumed with that schedule. In other words, beating better good teams is way more impressive than beating better bad teams. Both of these things could be accounted for, but how and by how much is completely unknown, so more subjectivity must be used. At some point the subjectivity will overwhelm the objectivity and that's not a good thing. WRT conference strength, you can't just be a strutting peacock walking around saying "I'm bad, uh huh, I'm bad." You've got to prove it on the field. To prove it on the field, you must actually play someone worthy and beat them. In this regard, particularly in 2004, the SEC was absolutely pathetic. Objectively, the self-declared baddest ass in the valley more often than not comes across as the cowardly lion. Teams like LSU, AU and GA should schedule at least a single OOC team expected to be a top 20 contender especially in a 12 game season. If not, then I think others are fully justified to think that we do fear evil in the valley of death.
How many unbeaten and untied teams from major conferences have been left out since the BCS started in 1998?
One thing is certain: if LSU goes 12-0 with this schedule, they'll easily be in the top two, even if there are 3 or more undefeateds. Based on the preseason analysis, ULL is tops in the Sun Belt and should have an excellent SOS in their own right (they also play Tx A&M), Az should have their best squad in years (and their sched is pretty tough, as they hit all of the "good" PAC-10 teams this season), Tulane is more respectable than any Div I-AA squad as far as the voters and computers are concerned...and a road slate that includes AU, Fla, Ark, and Tenn will-by season's end-stand on its own merits.
