MJ4H
12-24-2007, 10:49 AM
The Bowl Subdivision of NCAA Football currently contains 120 teams. The number of games that each team can play is severely limited due to injuries and recovery time. These two facts lead to the biggest problem with college football today: determining a champion in the fairest way possible while maintaining the integrity of the regular season.
My solution to the problem is possibly impractical due to travel expenses (though this is potentially solvable); however, the biggest hurdle in its way is the dissolving of major components of college football today, such as conferences and the bowl system (including the BCS).
Regardless, I believe that having an ideal in mind for the most correct way to play the season is a necessity when working to improve the current situation. Moving in the direction of the correct system would, in most cases, be an improvement, while moving away from it would be quite the opposite.
With that in mind, I present to you the 2007 season as replayed using the Swiss tournament pairing system. This system is designed to acheive a clear winner when there are a large number of entrants and a comparatively small number of games to be played. The system works as follows:
1) Teams are either seeded or drawn randomly for the first match.
2) The pool of teams is then divided in half, the top half consisting of the higher seeded teams, the bottom half consisting of the lower seeded teams.
3) The first matchup is between the 1st team in each half. For instance, for our season #1 will play #61 in the first week. #2 will play #62, and so on.
4) Home-field advantage will alternate as much as possible throughout the season.
5) In subsequent weeks, the pool is divided up according to number of wins. All teams with the same number of wins are grouped together. The matchups are then done the same way as in week 1 (the group is divided in half and the first team in each group play each other).
I am using the rankings from this page to seed:
http://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm
and I am using www.whatifsports.com (http://www.whatifsports.com) to simulate each game of the season.
It is important to note that this "swiss tournament" is the regular season. It is not a tournament at the end of a season, and it is not followed by a playoff at the end. The winner of the regular season is the national champion.
The pros of the system:
1) fairest way to determine a true champion
2) every season would be different, more variety in opponents
3) regular season games increase in importance and are not cheapened by a playoff at the end
The cons of the system:
1) rivalries cannot be maintained
2) existing league structures destroyed
3) travel difficulties (games are not as regional, schedule not known past one week into future)
It takes a long time to play each game on whatifsports.com. There will obviously be 60 of them per week. I will probably just post what I can do in one sitting to try to keep things moving. Comments, discussion, etc. are VERY MUCH encouraged. The main idea of this is to see what an ideal theoretical solution to the college football dillema would look like. I hope you enjoy it.
As far as the games with whatifsports.com, I don't feel 100% accuracy is that important in this replay; therefore, I am not fiddling with depth charts and game plans*.
*Except in the case of Arkansas, whose default gameplan is "balanced" which I will be changing to Favor Run. I do this because it seems to make Arkansas perform a LOT better in the sim, and this will increase my enjoyment of the project (meaning I'm more likely to stick with it).
My solution to the problem is possibly impractical due to travel expenses (though this is potentially solvable); however, the biggest hurdle in its way is the dissolving of major components of college football today, such as conferences and the bowl system (including the BCS).
Regardless, I believe that having an ideal in mind for the most correct way to play the season is a necessity when working to improve the current situation. Moving in the direction of the correct system would, in most cases, be an improvement, while moving away from it would be quite the opposite.
With that in mind, I present to you the 2007 season as replayed using the Swiss tournament pairing system. This system is designed to acheive a clear winner when there are a large number of entrants and a comparatively small number of games to be played. The system works as follows:
1) Teams are either seeded or drawn randomly for the first match.
2) The pool of teams is then divided in half, the top half consisting of the higher seeded teams, the bottom half consisting of the lower seeded teams.
3) The first matchup is between the 1st team in each half. For instance, for our season #1 will play #61 in the first week. #2 will play #62, and so on.
4) Home-field advantage will alternate as much as possible throughout the season.
5) In subsequent weeks, the pool is divided up according to number of wins. All teams with the same number of wins are grouped together. The matchups are then done the same way as in week 1 (the group is divided in half and the first team in each group play each other).
I am using the rankings from this page to seed:
http://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm
and I am using www.whatifsports.com (http://www.whatifsports.com) to simulate each game of the season.
It is important to note that this "swiss tournament" is the regular season. It is not a tournament at the end of a season, and it is not followed by a playoff at the end. The winner of the regular season is the national champion.
The pros of the system:
1) fairest way to determine a true champion
2) every season would be different, more variety in opponents
3) regular season games increase in importance and are not cheapened by a playoff at the end
The cons of the system:
1) rivalries cannot be maintained
2) existing league structures destroyed
3) travel difficulties (games are not as regional, schedule not known past one week into future)
It takes a long time to play each game on whatifsports.com. There will obviously be 60 of them per week. I will probably just post what I can do in one sitting to try to keep things moving. Comments, discussion, etc. are VERY MUCH encouraged. The main idea of this is to see what an ideal theoretical solution to the college football dillema would look like. I hope you enjoy it.
As far as the games with whatifsports.com, I don't feel 100% accuracy is that important in this replay; therefore, I am not fiddling with depth charts and game plans*.
*Except in the case of Arkansas, whose default gameplan is "balanced" which I will be changing to Favor Run. I do this because it seems to make Arkansas perform a LOT better in the sim, and this will increase my enjoyment of the project (meaning I'm more likely to stick with it).