COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 15

I'm not going to say panic mode has set in at COAS Headquarters... but panic is setting in at COAS Headquarters.

That gap between myself and Adam that had been pretty comfortable for a month or two is narrowing... a lot. With three weeks to go, Adam is easily in shouting distance, and Grabbing the Bull Horns blogger Geoffrey Clark added to his overall lead.

Adam has figured out some of the NFL's nuances, leading to his taking six of the seven disputed games from last week. I need to turn things around fast. Of course, I've been saying that for a few weeks now. Now it's crunch time.

Before we get to the Week 15 picks, I'd like to take a moment to plug some college football stuff. The 2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs begin on December 20th. You can view the official bracket here, and one of the features BracketMaker.com allows is a prediction system for created tournaments. An account here is free, and you can visit this page to submit a prediction for how the 15 games of the tournament go.

Shameless plug is over. In NFL ranks, Adam and I disagree on eight of the 16 games this week. I'm scared. Let's see how this goes.

2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Official Bracket

It all started with an idea. Three sportswriters hated the Bowl Championship Series and all the corruption it stood for, so they set out to write a book. That book, pictured to the left, inspired a poor North Central College graduate who spent three of his four years in college watching his school's football team make a true playoff to action. After starting a small sports blog using the free system Google provides, a playoff system based on that book came to life. 2011 saw the first Death to the BCS Playoffs come to fruition. In the time since, that blogger found full time employment, got married, and made tweaks to the system, running playoffs in 2012 and 2013. This year, he's at it again.

Okay, I wanted to tell a dramatic third-person story about myself. Sue me. Either way, the book co-written by Wetzel, Peter and Passan left a mark. They never left instruction as to how the teams in the field would be selected and seeded, so I took that responsibility upon myself. Overall, I think I'm happy with how the process took shape this year.

I've spent the last 15 weeks looking at schedules, then looking at results, inputting data into a Google doc, then consulting some computer rankings in an effort to not be totally biased on my own rankings. For the past nine, I've been making some mock brackets. Several teams have fallen from those mocks over the past couple months. If you want to refer back to the entire season's worth of data, you can find it all on the COAS Tournaments page. It also contains posts and brackets from the last two years of playoffs for historical purposes.

So this time, I put everything together for real. The system for it remains the same, however. Sixteen teams make the field: all ten conference champions, plus six at-large teams. These teams are then seeded with the help of a lot of data. The following metrics are all considered, and will be included with the playoff teams:

• Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS): A metric that determines how strong each team's non-conference slate was. Teams are rewarded for playing Power conference foes and/or playing on the road, while being penalized for playing down a division.
• First Degree/Second Degree Playoff Points (PP1/PP2): A metric that determines how good each team really is. Win totals of defeated teams are added together to determine First Degree Playoff Points, and the average PP1 of each team's vanquished foes is calculated to determine Second Degree Playoff Points.
• David Rothman Computer Rankings (ROTH): The late David Rothman created a computer ranking during the BCS days, but wasn't allowed to use it because of the fact that margin of victory was a part of his formula. He made his formula public domain, and a staff member at UCLA calculates the rankings weekly.
• Jeff Sagarin Computer Rankings (SAG): Jeff Sagarin had a computer formula in use for the BCS, but had to change the formula he submitted to take out margin of victory. He still calculated that, however, and released that with his BCS rankings. The margin of victory-included rankings are used here.

With the help of these sets of numbers, I will try to seed this playoff as fairly as I can. If possible, I will try to avoid any rematches throughout the tournament, though this is more important in the early rounds. The other fun factor about the Death to the BCS Playoffs the authors of the book came up with: give home field advantage to the higher seeds through the first three rounds. This puts importance on non-conference scheduling, and makes margin of victory important to a point.

So, enough talk. It's time to unveil the 2014 Death to the BCS Playoff Field.

2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 15

If you're reading this, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee has already made their choices for the inaugural playoff. But what about the better system? You know, the one where if you win your conference you're automatically in, and games are played on campuses for three rounds? We're going to find out soon.

The Committee released its final rankings earlier today, and they may or may not agree with what my final decision for the Death to the BCS Playoffs are going to be. First though, we need to run through the results from the weekend one final time.

I think last week I made decent decisions with the mock bracket, and amazingly, we didn't have any upsets in any conference title games. That will make my process for tomorrow's unveiling of the bracket that much easier.

As for Playoff Points, there aren't going to be many changes this week. Every game was in conference, and like I mentioned in looking at Playoff Points last week, conference championship games will not factor into Playoff Points, out of fairness to the American Athletic, Big XII, and Sun Belt conferences. It creates a more level playing field for when I decide seedings.

So for one final time this season, let's crunch some numbers. In case you need one last refresher on how this system works, you can refer back to my Week 1 Playoff Points post.

COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 14

The coalition returns with another batch of NFL picks against the spread!

I'm starting to worry about my lead. I'm up to four straight subpar weeks, with this last one being the worst. Adam ended up taking five of our seven disputed games last week, so my lead is down to ten games with four weeks to go. I need a spark. Desperately. I'm no longer in first place among our group; that honor belongs to Grabbing the Bull Horns blogger Geoffrey Clark. I'm only four back of him though, so things could change! I must believe!

This week, Adam and I disagree on seven of the 16 games on the slate. Let's try to right this ship. I need it for my lead to remain safe.

2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 15

The final week of the regular season is upon us!

Only fourteen games separate us from the end of the supposed "most sacred" regular season in sports. I've refuted it enough times on here that I won't do so again. Instead, I'm going to shift the focus to the games on the field.

At this point, all non-conference games are complete. Army and Navy still have to play their game in a couple weeks, but the two teams have a combined ten wins, so neither is a threat to make the Death to the BCS Playoffs. Most of the 28 teams who are playing between Thursday and Saturday however, are. Some need this win to get in. Others are likely safe without, if this week's mock bracket has any indication.

Since there are no non-conference games left, I'll copy my NCSS rankings list from last week. These are the official numbers and are used with the assumption that I didn't mess something up somewhere. Listed with each conference today are the remaining games in conference that have an impact on the conference championship. To follow, I'll make some final comments about NCSS.

2014 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 14 Edition

I get to do one last practice bracket before I have to put together the real thing. Good thing, too.

The College Football Playoff Selection Committee has had some disagreements, which are to be expected, but they've done a decent job so far this year, including last week, even if it disagreed with my last bracket. Looking back, I feel like I may have goofed on that one. Fortunately, it was just a mock.

In case you aren't familiar with how Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan set up their playoff formula, it was a sixteen-team field. All of the conference champions make the playoff, and the rest of the bracket is filled in with at-large teams. The higher seeds get home field advantage through the first three rounds, which incentivizes the regular season rather than cheapen it. They found their own way to determine the field, but never officially published it. I have my own setup using metrics both of my design and designed by others.

We start by loosely looking at Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS) to determine how well each team scheduled games it could control, albeit years in advance. It rewards going on the road and/or facing teams from Power conferences, and punishes facing lower level competition. To a larger degree, I use First Degree and Second Degree Playoff Points (PP1 and PP2, respectively) to see how good each team was and how good the teams they beat were. From there, I add in other opinions in the form of computer rankings that take margin of victory into account. These formulas were written by the late David Rothman (ROTH) and Jeff Sagarin (SAG). Combining these factors, I try to build a fair playoff bracket that culminates in a trip to Arlington, Texas, the site of the national championship game.

So for one final time... let's build a mock bracket.

2014 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 14

There was a little chaos... but not enough for my taste.

I'm back on my normal schedule for college football now after taking the last couple of Mondays off due to birthdays and Blackhawk games. And with the season about to wrap up, it's good to do so.

The Committee largely kept things intact, while I made some changes out of protest to the SEC's weak out of conference scheduling, and it made for a weird mock bracket last week. This week saw much improvement in the scheduling, and with it some key number changes that need to be addressed.

If you need a reminder of how this stuff works, you can go back to my explanation of Playoff Points from my Week 1 post. Let's take a look at the damage.