The first official Bowl Championship Series poll of the year was released this weekend, and it hasn't taken mathematically deficient sports gurus long to misunderstand it. Twice today -- once on Sporting News's website and once on cnnsi.com -- it's been stated that the four components of the BCS formula are weighed equally. Um, two problems with that. First, there are actually five components to the BCS formula this year, with the stupid "quality wins index" being added to the familiar set of computer poll average, human poll average, strength of schedule, and losses. (The "quality wins index" is stupid because it says that a win over a great team plus a loss to an okay team is better than a loss to a great team plus a win over an okay team. It rewards unpredictability over consistency.)
The bigger problem with saying that the four (original) components are weighed equally is that it isn't true. Let's look at the numbers for the top 15 BCS teams. The average BCS score for these 15 teams was a little over 19, which is -- on average -- divvied up the following way:
(The quality win index is subtracted from the score rather than added, which makes the numbers come out to 100 percent.)
As the season goes on, and more teams start losing, the losses part of the formula will go up a bit, probably all the way to 1.5 or 2 points or about 10 percent. Unless all the top teams in the nation start losing every remaining game, though, the polls are each going to be worth about four times either losses or SOS. Less: just because four (or five) elements are added together in a formula doesn't mean that each of the elements has as much power in the formula as every other.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
