If you've been reading COAS for most of the season, you've seen me update how well I think teams are scheduling their games. But you may also remember I alluded to a couple other formulas I was going to use. Looking through standings, with a lot of the unbeatens now fallen, I actually have few enough that I should be able to get them all in, and still fulfill the requirements to set up the field of 16 for the Death to the BCS Playoffs! And it's much less complicated then last year! Maybe that has something to do with the fact that this time, I know what I'm doing ahead of time.
So if you've never read Death to the BCS (and really, you should; it exposes all the flaws of the bowl system that we're switching from next season), it proposes a 16 team field made up of the conference champions (though we're down a conference from years past) and at large berths fill the bracket. The idea here is that elitism rampant in the power conferences gets tempered somewhat for the benefit of giving every team a legitimate shot at a championship by deciding it on the field, not in biased polls or algorithms. In an ideal world, I'd have a selection committee do this, but I'll make do with myself and a wealth of information. I also want to take into account a couple of the computer formulas. Jeff Sagarin, who does one of the computer rankings for the BCS, does a more correct version that accounts for margin of victory. The late David Rothman had a formula that used to be incorporated into the BCS until they took it out under claims of "sportsmanship". His formula is in the public domain, and those rankings can be found here. These are here to serve as something of a guideline to help confirm what my numbers and the "eye test" are giving me.
There's no exact method by which I'm seeding everyone; it's more of a "Take all the information available, and try to make an educated decision." So without further ado, here's the first set of playoff seedings. As a clue for what the abbrevations are, PP stands for "Playoff Points"; "NCSS" is the "Non Conference Schedule Strength", a school's score that gets averaged into the conference rankings I've been doing the past few weeks; "SAG" is Jeff Sagarin's "ELO_SCORE" on his webpage linked above which incorporates scores of games and is likely a more perfect system than mine; and "FACT" uses David Rothman's old formula.
1. Alabama (7-0, SEC "Champion"- PP: 22; NCSS: 4; SAG: 1st; FACT: 3rd)
2. Florida State (6-0, ACC "Champion"- PP: 21; NCSS: 0; SAG: 2nd; FACT: 1st)
3. Oregon (7-0, Pac-12 "Champion"- PP: 18; NCSS: 4; SAG: 3rd, FACT: 2nd)
4. Ohio State (7-0, Big Ten "Champion"- PP: 22; NCSS: 4; SAG: 8th; FACT: 8th)
5. Missouri (7-0, At Large- PP: 22; NCSS: 4; SAG: 5th; FACT: 4th)
6. Texas Tech (7-0, Big 12 "Champion"- PP: 15; NCSS: 3; SAG: 16th; FACT: 20th)
7. Baylor (6-0, At Large- PP: 14; NCSS: 1; SAG: 4th, FACT: 5th)
8. Stanford (6-1, At Large- PP: 24; NCSS: 3; SAG: 9th; FACT: 9th)
9. Miami (FL) (6-0, At Large- PP: 13; NCSS: 6; SAG: 18th; FACT: 7th)
10. Auburn (6-1, At Large- PP: 19; NCSS: 2; SAG: 21st; FACT: 10th)
11. Central Florida (5-1, AAC "Champion"- PP: 14; NCSS: 8; SAG: 27th; FACT: 23rd)
12. Northern Illinois (7-0, At Large- PP: 13; NCSS: 7; SAG: 47th; FACT: 34th)
13. Fresno State (6-0, MWC "Champion"- PP: 14; NCSS: 3; SAG: 50th; FACT: 36th)
14. Ball State (7-1, MAC "Champion"- PP: 12; NCSS: 5; SAG: 67th; FACT: 56th)
15. Louisiana-Lafayette (4-2, Sun Belt "Champion"- PP: 10; NCSS: 7; SAG: 69th; FACT: 81st)
16. Rice (5-2, C-USA "Champion"- PP: 7; NCSS: 9; SAG: 73rd; FACT: 79th)
Obviously I'm not 100% satisfied with these rankings as it's a small sample size and there's a lot of football left to be played. But fans of the bigger schools will note that only one at large berth went to a non-"power conference" school, and that's NIU, who is unbeaten and by an unwritten rule is guaranteed a playoff berth (though this rule primarily applies to independents, since an unbeaten team in a conference will be its champion). I'm expecting this to change quite a bit over the next month or two as more games get played.
For those of you curious, the toughest omissions for playoff teams were Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Michigan State. Last year, I think my 5 at large teams included unbeaten Notre Dame, but then I had a pair of one-loss teams and a pair of two-loss teams as the others. Keep winning, and you'll end up in the field.
Tomorrow I'll try to have updated non-conference rankings sorted by conference since the week's slate starts early. Happy football!
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