That also depends on who the Zips play this week!:rofl:[/QUOTE] Aww, Hell...Akron is playing Ball State this week...There goes our chance to move up
With a panel composed of people like Dinardo, Bradshaw and Holtz I guess a lot of stuff is taken into consideration. As for the coaches, we know how much they watch other games on a Saturday...IF they even fill it out themselves.
just an opinion. i may be completely wrong on this one. just seems like human nature. if 2 teams have similar resumes, the team that is better traditionally seems to get the higher ranking in the human polls. Look at Virginia Tech and Mississippi St. in the human polls. Both teams have 2 losses Mississippi St. has 1 more win than Va Tech does. both teams got most of their wins against teams with losing records. each has a 3 point loss to a team currently in top 5 of the BCS. Va Tech other loss was at home to a 1AA team that is currently 4-4 Mississippi St's other loss was to a 7-1 team currently in the BCS top 10 yet somehow Virginia Tech is ranked higher than Miss St in both human polls (actually all 3, but am only counting the ones who are part of the bcs). Other than name brand, what has Va Tech done to get ranked above Miss St? The Hokies are 10 spots lower than Miss St. in the computers.
That is interesting and very telling. If not the "traditional" element something emotional is effecting the human polls for there to be such a difference.
I think reputation is a huge part of the voting. If we somehow were to beat Bama this weekend, the reputation voters would go into a nuclear meltdown. Bama was getting tons of love on that BCS show last night, whereas LSU was described as "vastly overrated" and one reason that AU was able to drop (because AU only beat us by 7 points at home.) If we had an offense, we'd be better thought of--and that's even without a defense. Yet, our defense is what keeps us in games. Of course, LSU is ranked considerably higher in the computers than Bama, right?
which just goes to show the reputation (or traditionally better, as nootch put it) voter is going by emotion instead of the games being played, and not even looking at things like strength of schedule, and actual wins/losses. i wonder what kind of meltdown the human voters would have at the suggestion of doing away with human polls all together, and going strictly computer?
They had a meltdown after 2003 when USC ended up #3 in the BCS. The AP abdicated and the computers went from half the vote to one-third. It's like they were actually trying to introduce bias into the system. On the other hand, since the computer formulas are mostly secret, how do we know that they weigh the factors properly. Does Boise get the same credit for winning the Lame West Conference as the champion of the SEC? Does the computer understand intangibles at all. How do computers take into account that a team's key player may have been injured early in the season, but is playing All-American football late? What if a win came on a clearly bad call? I liked the old half-and-half formula.
