I've seen a lot of bitching and moaning about LSU's weak out of conference schedule and how it is killing us in the BCS computers so I thought I'd spend a couple minutes and see for myself. I picked the Colley Matrix (could have picked any of the computer polls) to illustrate an absurd example. LSU is currently ranked #7 in the CM and has a SOS ranking of 68. I thought it would be interesting to see where we'd rank if we had played a more difficult OOC schedule. Just what if LSU had not played Az State, N Texas, and Ap State and instead played the #1-3 teams in the country (per CM) USC, Texas, and Penn St? Well guess what, LSU would improve from #68 (avg ranking played = 61) to #18 (avg ranking played = 42.5). So what the numbers suggest is that if we had played our SEC schedule and the number 1, 2, and 3 team in the country we'd have a SOS #18 right in between Kansas (#17) and Baylor's (#19) SOS. Hard to imagine isn't it. That is just absolutely insane. You can't tell me that this hypothetical schedule is only the #18 most difficult in the country: Texas Penn St Tennessee Miss St Vandy Florida Auburn USC Alabama Ole Miss Arkansas Well guess what? It is. I hope this illustrates for everybody the inherent flaw in the SOS since it is a simple average. While LSU has played a soft OOC schedule this year, what truly has killed us is the weakness or perceived weakness of the SEC. Playing Tenn (54), Vandy(75), Ark(77), Miss St(102), and Ole Miss (103) is the main reason that LSU's SOS is so bad. Thoughts?
It is bulls@it and they know it. the system is set up to protect their sweet little darling teams. the sec LOOKS weak on paper due to win/lose-es agaisnt each other. If they went by conference standings, you'd get a better representation of the actual top teams
