LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Some University of Southern California professors who specialize in statistics are crying foul over the computerized ranking system that left the Trojans out of the national championship game. Started in 1998, the Bowl Championship Series uses computer calculations of game statistics and outcomes to pick two teams to play for the national title each year. James R. Beniger, an associate professor at USC's Annenberg School of Communications, said it's better to decide which team is the best on the field -- not through the statistics. "As a statistician, I could find statistics to prove that USC is the best team in the country, and I could just as easily find some to show that another team is," said Beniger, who holds a master's degree in statistics from California. Beniger said statistics provide good data on the past performances of teams, but added: "When you want to know the outcome of one team beating another team, statistics really don't help." USC finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press writers poll and USA Today/ESPN coaches poll, which are decided by human voters. But the Trojans didn't get the nod from BCS computers, which placed the team third behind Oklahoma and LSU. USC will play Michigan in the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena on New Year's Day while Oklahoma faces LSU in the Sugar Bowl three days later. USC, Oklahoma and LSU finished the season with one loss each. The Trojans could still claim a share of the national championship by finishing atop the final AP poll. Seven BCS computers make their selections based on the same set of game statistics but give differing priorities to pieces of data. Fans know little about how these computers make their decisions or who programs them. As it turns out, the computers are, for the most part, run by a handful of math whizzes who happen to be sports fans. One is Peter Wolfe, a Harvard-educated infectious disease specialist in Los Angeles. He received an earful from colleagues who are USC alumni but stands by his system. "The ratings are right," he said. "USC played a weaker schedule and lost to a worse team than LSU and Oklahoma. I understand people's emotions about it, but that doesn't change what the ratings are." USC lost to California, Oklahoma was beaten by Kansas State and LSU fell to Florida. Wolfe, whose system uses a "maximum likelihood estimate" of performance, said he checks his scores with two other BCS computer operators and would allow any credible, independent person to review his numbers. Geert Ridder, a USC professor of economics who has studied statistics in sports, takes issue with the "maximum likelihood estimate." Although the system is a good tool, computer operators can't validate their models without a playoff of the best teams, Ridder said. "If the men who make these computer models take themselves seriously they should be pressing the BCS to have a playoff," Ridder said. "Only by confronting predictions with outcomes can we hope to weed out the bad models and rankings." Ridder says he's not a big USC football fan. A native of the Netherlands, he prefers soccer. "My perspective of the BCS and the computer ranking is not clouded by a fog of anger, as seems to be the case for many of my colleagues," he said.
How much credibility do you need to say that championships are best decided on the field? Let's not become so defensive about our spot in the Sugar Bowl that we actually embrace the BCS as a good system. It's a horrible system.
Dont they realize the reason why we installed a computer system was to balance the bias of a human poll. I have seen it admitted over and over that poll voters don't move a team down unless they lose. So the team losing earlier in the season holds the advantage. The reason why OU is #3 is because they lost in Decemeber. If you switch the dates of USC's and OU's loss the positions would be switched.
IMO the BCS has and does work. Does it need tweeking, hell yeah. Did they see the problems in advance, I don't think they foresaw having to play the same team twice and not giving quality points for beating a ranked opponent both times, which needs to be addressed. While USC is floundering in the AP sunlight it just goes to show that the human polls are indeed faulty in a teams true accounting of their play. In my estimation the human polls need more tweeking than the BCS does.
I think for the most part I agree with Tigahbait. I think they should put the margin of victory criterium back in along with some others.
I agree. They could use the Sagarin differential as a benchmark. If Sagarin, for instance has LSU 28 points better than ULM, then they would have to win by 28 or get no credit for the win. If they beat the spread then it's no less of a win than one over an equally strong opponent. There are a lot of flaws in this proposal but you got to start somewhere.
Somebody is going to complain no matter what the system. Whether there would be a 4 team, 8 team or 16 team playoff system a BCS type system could be used to determine the participants. If there had been a 4 team playoff this year Texas, as the #5 BCS rated team might be screaming injustice but so what. They were clobbered 65-13 by the #1 rated BCS team. That makes the regular season game between OU and Texas pretty important. Teams that don't make the playoffs could still have their bowl games. Neither Memphis nor North Texas State would have qualified for the playoffs under any system but they could have still had their New Orleans Bowl game. In 2001 LSU had 3 losses at the mid season mark of the regular season. The put it all together and by the time of the SECCG and the Sugar Bowl they were playing as well as anybody. If there had been a playoff system in 2001 and if LSU had ended up in the National Championship game would you have bitched that it "ruined the meaning of the regular season?"
Of course we do. Good lord do you REALLY think that has escaped playoff advocates but hasn't escaped you? The extent to which the existence of "bubble teams" diminishes the legitimacy of a playoff is inversely proportional to the number of teams invited. And you don't have to extend the bubble out very far to satisfy fans of the sport. Rutgers may get pissed off whenever it doesn't make the basketball bracket but no one will ever suggest that the outcome of the championship is tarnished for their lack of participation. That's why no one pays attention to the NFL until January. An 8 team playoff that uses existing bowls would require that two teams out of 117 have their schedule extended by two weeks. Another 2 teams would have their schedules extended by 1 week. 113 teams would play the exact same number of games. Believe it or not, there are advocates of a playoff system that are way ahead of you on this.
