NCAA Swiss System Season 2007

[MJ4H]

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 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).

[MJ4H]

Week 1
LSU 9, Pitt 27
Ohio St 13, Vanderbilt 3
Oklahoma 44, East Carolina 7
Virginia Tech 43, Washington St 27
Missouri 38, Washington 23
West Virginia 55, Ball St 28
Kansas 25, Kansas St 31
Georgia 43, Bowling Green 35
Florida 31, C Michigan 15
USC 26, Iowa 9
Arizona St 41, NC State 18
S Florida 56, Fl Atlantic 17
Clemson 49, Houston 42
Boston Coll 35, Miami 13
Illinois 41, Northwestern 34
Cincinnati 46, Southern Miss 39
BYU 23, North Carolina 9
Hawaii 56, Stanford 34
Tennessee 45, Nevada 35
Oregon 45, LA Monroe 42
Texas 31, Wyoming 28
Auburn 47, Ole Miss 10
Oregon St 29, Notre Dame 10
Virginia 49, Memphis 16
Wisconsin 45, W Michigan 33
Connecticut 54, San Diego St 47
Arkansas 66, Middle Tenn St 10
Michigan 54, Miami OH 41
Penn St 42, Iowa St 7
Boise St 48, Ohio 27

next 30 games coming soon.

[MJ4H]

Week 1 (cont'd)


Wake Forest 34, San Jose St 17
Kentucky 39, Louisiana Tech 21
Texas Tech 73, Colorado St 0
Utah 34, Buffalo 24
Florida St 65, Toledo 30
UCF 28, W Kentucky 54
Air Force 17, Arkansas St 26
Michigan St 61, Syracuse 24
Texas A&M 20, Akron 34
South Carolina 27, Baylor 10
UCLA 43, E Michigan 17
Rutgers 70, Marshall 19
Georgia Tech 38, Duke 6
Mississippi St 18, UTEP 48
Oklahoma St 66, Minnesota 58
Maryland 28, UNLV 31
Troy 37, Temple 30
Alabama 37, Tulane 27
California 45, Army 14
Louisville 35, LA Lafayette 46
Purdue 44, Kent 27
Colorado 36, New Mexico St 16
TCU 7, Rice 20
Tulsa 41, Utah St 23
Fresno St 50, UAB 33
New Mexico 45, N Illinois 20
Arizona 49, SMU 6
Indiana 65, North Texas 17
Navy 66, Florida Intl 17
Nebraska 77, Idaho 44

Week 2 Schedule coming next.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

Week 1
LSU 9, Pitt 27
Oregon 45, LA Monroe 42
Texas 31, Wyoming 28

MJ4H I love where you are going with this, but with scores such as those above, I have a hard time lending any credibility to the outcome of games.

Pitt over LSU??? HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
by 18 HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Of course the other 2 shouldnt be close, but the first score in the entire dynasty is LSU 9 Pitt 27...

Please carry on and ignore me, not meaning to be a douchebag, but thats just funny.

[MJ4H]

Yeah, it was quite the upset right out of the gate. At least it was at Pitt.

[MJ4H]

Note that the away team is listed first in all games.

Week 2 Schedule
Ohio St - Texas Tech
Utah - Oklahoma
Virginia Tech - Florida State
Michigan St - Missouri
West Virginia - South Carolina
UCLA - Georgia
Florida - Rutgers
Georgia Tech - USC
Arizona St - Oklahoma St
Troy - S Florida
Clemson - Alabama
California - Boston College
Illinois - Purdue
Colorado - Cincinnati
BYU - Tulsa
Fresno St - Hawaii
Tennessee - New Mexico
Arizona - Oregon
Texas - Indiana
Navy - Auburn
Oregon St - Nebraska
Pitt - Virginia
Kansas St - Wisconsin
W Kentucky - Connecticut
Arkansas St - Arkansas
Akron - Michigan
UTEP - Penn State
UNLV - Boise State
LA Lafayette - Wake Forest
Rice - Kentucky
Memphis - LSU
W Michigan - Kansas
San Diego St - UCF
Middle Tenn St - Texas A&M
Miami OH - Mississippi St
Iowa St - Maryland
Ohio - Louisville
San Jose St - TCU
Louisiana Tech - Vanderbilt
East Carolina - Colorado St
Buffalo - Washington St
Washington - Toledo
Syracuse - Ball St
Air Force - Baylor
E Michigan - Bowling Green
C Michigan - Marshall
Duke - Iowa
NC State - Minnesota
Temple - Fl Atlantic
Houston - Tulane
Army - Miami
Northwestern - Kent
New Mexico St - Southern Miss
North Carolina - Utah St
UAB - Stanford
Nevada - N Illinois
SMU - LA Monroe
Wyoming - North Texas
Florida Intl - Ole Miss
Notre Dame - Idaho

[Pumpy Tudors]

For the record, I love the idea and can't wait to see how it turns out.

[MJ4H]

cool. I will be getting back to this before long. I have been so dang busy lately I haven't had time for anything I want to do.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

For the record, I love the idea and can't wait to see how it turns out.

I agree with Pumpy here. Kudos to you for taking over such a ridiculously complex undertaking though

[Huckleberry]

Great idea. I now have a project (writing an Excel macro to automate this process based on initial ratings).

[MJ4H]

Oh man, is it done? It would save me a lot of trouble doing this by hand!

I should be back on this tomorrow night or so.

[MJ4H]

Week 2 Results

Ohio St 41, Texas Tech 17
Utah 20, Oklahoma 41

[ntndeacon]

I am looking forward to seeing who is last!

[mrsimperless]

I love this thread Matt.

I do take some issue with the idea of this being perfect though. In order for us to come up with a perfect solution to this problem we cannot abandon the history of college football. Any perfect system would need to keep classic rivalries intact, which this does not. Perhaps we need to possibly precede this with, say, a 5 game mini-season or something to that effect. We could then keep our rivalry games and get some idea of seeding in the process as well.

A wonderful idea though and I will continue reading.

[MJ4H]

Oh what I mean by perfect is simply: the fairest way to give every team the same shot at winning the National Championship. I really don't think there is a better way to do it than this.

Incidentally, I haven't forgotten this thread. The trouble is my laptop mouse is dead and I need to buy a new one, and this process of simming games on whatifsports is a real tedious one, far far worse without a mouse. When I buy a new mouse, I will be picking this back up.