Texas in #1 in BCS
 

Does Virginia Tech have a chance of catching either of them assuming they all win out?

No.

Sure there's a chance. Not a good one, though.

If Texas has a couple of stinkers between now and then against crap teams, enough voters could drop them below VT to make the difference. This is as good as it gets for Texas in the computers.

Probably.

If WVU wins out, that's a win against a top 10 team
If Miami's only losses are to us and FSU, they'll likely finish as a top 10 team
If FSU win out until the ACC championship game, they'll likely finish as a top 10 team
If BC wins out after Thursday's game, they have a good chance at finishing as a top 10 team

I find it extremely hard to believe that a team with four possible top 10 wins doesn't have a chance.

That's a lot of ifs. :)

I believe you might be right, particularly if some of the Pac 10 teams come back to Earth a bit. It would be very interesting if the top 3 remain undefeated and USC is the team that is left out.

Sure, but it's a reasonable expectation when you look at see what the schedule is like for those teams. In all those games that are if's, the four teams I listed should be favored. It's a lot of games, but it's not impossible to think that they'll all win out.

And the end result would look pretty good to the computers.

That would be effin' GREAT. Actually, I can't think of a scenario that would make me happier.

Texas

True enough. But while we're throwing ifs around, Texas could finish with two Top 10 wins as well in Ohio State and Texas Tech. And a win over a Top 15 team in the Big 12 Championship Game. The computers still like Colorado a lot. If they win out and then lose to Texas, they will finish close to the Top 15 with losses to Texas twice and to Miami. And USC could finish with three Top 10 wins in Notre Dame, UCLA, and Oregon. Although Notre Dame isn't as liked as OSU by the computers and Oregon just lost their QB. So call it two possibilities overall.

I haven't counted exactly, but it seems like we now have 15-18 teams who will be in the top ten.

:)


All that means is that it's still wide open. The Hokies are down right now, but if we win out, I like our chances.

Yeah, that's all you can ask for.

I'll pull for Ga. Tech to win out to be the 19th top ten team, as well.

I'm glad you caught that before he deleted it :D

D'oh.

Oh shi.. the evidence is evaporating!!

I can't say this really bothers me. Based on the season so far, Texas almost certainly deserve to be #1. Although it's ironic that a win over a very overrated team has put them there finally.

If VPI's predictions come true, then VT have a shot for sure. I can't see the voters leaving USC out though.

Is anyone else finding that the fact that it's fox news on msn.com strange?

If USC goes undefeated there is no way they get left out. That would be an effin' Travesty.

Even if those things happen, it still wouldn't be enough. The new BCS formula is designed to get the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the human polls in the championship games. The computer polls are primarily there for show. If you look down the list, the top 10 teams are are largely in rank where they are in the human polls. It took Texas being ranked No. 1 in five computer polls and No. 2 in the sixth to overtake USC -- and if they were No. 2 in a second poll I think USC would have remained No. 1. Virginia Tech would have to be ranked ahead of Texas on probably every computer poll to get the No. 2 spot, and the No. 1 spot in the new BCS is impossible without being No. 1 or No. 2 in the human polls.

Virginia Tech's best hope at not getting screwed over repeatedly is to finish undefeated and hope the SEC winner comes out undefeated and we have four perfect teams with USC and Texas. Then the NCAA and the BCS will get a nice big shitburger to eat and maybe we can finally get a playoff.

There. The playoff begging had to be said by somebody.

Yeah, I meant to say "or Texas". I think it's going to be hard for the voters to get over the mentality of USC and Texas being the primetime teams, and that being a national championship matchup. Kinda like Auburn being left out in favour of of an Oklahoma who were coming off a bad loss last year. Is that a fair point?

If SC finishes the year undefeated and is left out of the NC game, I'm sure that would kill the BCS for good. The streak would have reached the 30's in that case.

Amen to that. Texas beat Texas Tech, a team that EVERYONE knew was overrated. Oh and they finally beat OU. Woo Hoo

Unbelievable... on ESPN they're already up in arms about Texas passing USC in the standings. :rolleyes:

I see you're from California. How did it go the last time a Pac-10 team took on that overrated Texas Tech squad?

Anyway, here's something:

Using Sagarin's predictor ratings and his homefield advantage, I simulated the rest of the season for wins and losses. I manually added the conference championship games and simmed those as well. If the season were to progress in perfect agreement according to those ratings, here is the final Colley Matrix after the conference championship games:


Thought I'd post it. I disagree with Sagarin's ratings on several games, but just used them for this exercise.

edit - Fixed for the Florida/Georgia mixup in the SEC Championship Game.

Yeah, the biggest concern is with his (Sagarin's) rankings of Georgia and Alabama. Here is how the top 5 in SEC shape up in his Predictor standings.

Auburn, #7, 87.27
LSU, #8, 86.98
Florida, #19, 82.92
Georgia, #24, 81.88
Alabama, #29, 78.64

Thus, Auburn and LSU should beat any of the other three on the road. Remember, Alabama pasted Florida. How the hell did Auburn get such a high predictor score? They haven't beaten anyone decent, and lost to one very good team and one OK team.

I'll probably post some Crappy (TM) BCS analysis later, but I think the biggest controversy would occur if USC or Texas lost, Va Tech won out, and Georgia and Alabama ran the table leading up to the SEC title game.

I don't understand how Georgia could fall from 4th to 21st in this...please explain!

Oliegirl, in this scenario, Georgia loses to Florida and Auburn, and then loses to LSU in the SEC title game. Although, Huckleberry, in this case, wouldn't Florida go to the SEC title game instead of Georgia?

Yup. Basically there is no way USC wins out and isn't still ranked #1 in the human polls. That's enough to get them in. Then VT would have to jump an undefeated Texas team, which is not going to happen in the human polls.

If it set up where VT is #1 in all of the computer polls it still wouldn't be enough to jump Texas or USC unless at least half the voters switched VT to #2. Which won't happen.

Go playoffs.

Good point. I'll re-run it.

Fixed it above

They haven't even played a Pac-10 team this year.

This is actually not true, and it brings up a good point that some people may be missing.

The human poll components are based on the percentage of total points that each team receives. The actual place (#1, 2, etc) means nothing. So, theoretically, you could have teams that are similarly ranked 1, 2, 3 in both polls, but only be a very small fraction apart. In that case, the computers could make the difference, and could bump the #3 team in the human polls to #1 overall.

Looking at West Virginia's schedule, who do you have them losing to? UConn?

According to Sagarin's Predictor, South Florida would win at home versus West Virginia.

Hmmmm...

I didn't say this year's Tech team.

Exactly what tells you they're overrated this year but weren't last year when they put a beatdown on the Pac-10's #2 team?

In keeping with a ritual that has been established the past two years, this now needs to be repeated ad nausem through the Big XII Championship:

"This Texas team looks like it could be the best team of all-time. Nobody will be able to stop them this year." ;)

Overall, I'd give Virginia Tech the schedule edge, and I think that will bear out in my rankings in the end (though I have SoCal #1, VTech #2, Georgia #3 and Texas #7).

The Big XII is down this year, and while Texas looked impossible to beat with a 12-0 record early on, it's not so invincible now. Voters are less flexible, however, and that huge win by Texas at Ohio State essentially means they'll keep gaining as long as they look good.

And no matter what USC does, the voters will never allow them not to play to for the title as long as they remain undefeated. They could play a Louisville schedule and still be #1.

I wonder, however, what happens if UCLA runs the table and beats USC. So far, they look like pretenders with a very, very favorable schedule (I think Stanford could well beat them this coming weekend). Do they essentially replace USC? I could see Virginia Tech getting left out in any number of scenarios, since there still could be four unbeatens at the end with legitimate title claims.

Yes. A sweet, sweet travesty. A beautiful, wonderfull travesty. A magicial "how do you like the BcS now" travesty.

Though it'd DEFINITELY have to be coupled with an AP poll declaring USC #1.

Yes. That would be too sweet. On top of the fact the MNC game will be played in the Rose Bowl. A undefeated Pac-10 team not playing in the Rose Bowl would just be too sweet. It would only be better if there was an undefeated Big 10 team that was shut out as well.

As long as this is just a scenario and doesn't occur in real life I'll be OK...otherwise - there might be a FOFC funeral after I kill myself over Ga falling to 21st after the great season they have had so far!

Only the voters know that... as far as the computer rankings are concerned, the streak is at six (or is it seven?).

The "problem" with the computer rankings is that they're unbiased -- they apply whichever metrics have been judged to be important without preconceptions, and when the results run afoul of the preconceptions, "the computers" get blamed, instead of people thinking critically about it.

The predictor takes scoring into account, and is not used for the BCS. 'Bama is getting killed for barely beating Ole Miss, I think. In contrast, the predictor loves ND because the Irish score a lot of points against anybody not named Michigan and both losses are close and to good teams.

I do know that Jeff Tedford is going to rank Texas 117th in the final BCS Poll. :D

Let's hope Jim, Let's hope :D

The thing I wonder about is why bother having the computers if the human polls mean so much? Why not go back to the old way of doing things with just one human poll? Rather than have this 1 v 2 with 3 being left in the cold, bring back the old bowl tie ins.

I used to love watching all the bowls with 1 v 4. 2 v 3, and 5 v whoever. If #1 lost, #2 or 3 had to hope they dominated to wind up #1, otherwise #4 would move up. Then there was the one year where nearly everyone in the top 5 lost and the #5 team moved up to #1. Geez, I miss those days....

Just some numbers for people to chew on. Sorry if the formatting doesn't turn out well. The numbers in parentheses in the previous opponent column are the losses for strength of schedule purposes, as the SOS calculations generally don't include the games each corresponding team played in. Since each team is 7-0, you can subtract 7 losses from their opponents' combined record. Obviously, these numbers do not reflect the future performance of past or future opponents, which will still affect the SOS.

The last six columns are the actual computer numbers, with rankings in parentheses. Remember, the computers are treated like a 4-person human poll, after throwing out the high and low rankings for each team. In essence, a one position rise/fall in one computer poll makes a .01 difference in the overall computer rating, and a .0033 difference in the overall BCS rating, assuming that computer poll is not a team's high or low ranking. This is equivalent to 28.5 points in the Harris poll and 15.5 points in the USA Today coaches poll. For example, if USC was actually 3rd in the Ken Massey ratings instead of 4th, their BCS rating would go up to .9789, and would jump ahead of Texas.

I may post some of my thoughts on these numbers later, but I figured I'd throw everything on the table for people to see and form their own opinions.

Team	BCS	Record	Prev Opp	Fut Opp	Harris %	USA %	Comp %	A&H	RB	CM	KM	JS	RW
Texas	0.9763	7-0	27-22(15)	15-13(+ CC?)	0.9657	0.9632	1.000	.850 (1)	310.747 (1)	.941233 (1)	2.808 (1)	100.21 (2)	8.702 (1)
USC	0.9756	7-0	22-28(21)	25-9	0.9933	0.9935	0.940	.841 (2)	308.528 (2)	.881628 (5)	2.519 (4)	100.42 (1)	8.517 (2)
Va Tech	0.9164	7-0	23-25(18)	18-8(+CC?)	0.9179	0.9213	0.910	.831 (3)	298.124 (4)	.884038 (4)	2.529 (3)	97.00 (3)	8.293 (3)
Georgia	0.8679	7-0	23-26(19)	15-11(+CC?)	0.8683	0.8755	0.860	.810 (5)	303.257 (3)	.888420 (3)	2.466 (5)	93.88 (5)	7.819 (5)
Alabama	0.8513	7-0	23-23(16)	14-12(+CC?)	0.8301	0.8239	0.900	.813 (4)	271.973 (8)	.902929 (2)	2.587 (2)	94.75 (4)	7.949 (4)
UCLA	0.7384	7-0	21-29(22)	15-12	0.7423	0.7329	0.740	.804 (6)	274.039 (7)	.853609 (7)	2.375 (7)	89.49 (9)	7.300 (9)