A Return to Normalcy and the Death to the BCS Playoffs

For several months I've lain dormant. Yes, sports have come back, I've gone to a couple baseball games this summer, including getting to the new park in Arlington. A new NBA champion was crowned, and will be a great addition to a returning feature coming next summer that I kind of can't wait for. 

But now that we're well into August and football is on the horizon, I've got a couple usual features that will be returning. The first is the annual Pigskin Pick 'Em contest that will feature most of the usual faces, and possibly a new one or two. But the second, and thus the topic of this post, is the return of the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

With the chaos of last year and most conferences playing internally, I cancelled the 2020 Death to the BCS Playoffs. I didn't feel that only playing within conferences would have given a fair playoff picture. Now that schedules are more or less what we normally see, we can get back to the usual features.

So for those of you unfamiliar with this, about a decade ago I really enjoyed reading the book you see at the header of this post. Wetzel, Peter, and Passan really tore into the old powers that be in college football and, while the current system is better than the corrupt BCS, that's an awfully low bar. I'm more into a model similar to what Division III uses: access to championships across all conferences, and that's exactly the model the authors proposed in their book. A 16 team tournament with automatic bids going to conference champions, and filled out with at large teams works. What makes this model even better is that instead of half-full bowl games with schools getting fleeced, they get to make more money by playing the first three rounds of the tournament on campus, with the title game at the Grandaddy of them All.

So how do we decide this field? Over the past few years I've developed and refined a few different metrics that will assist with data gathering and ultimately, field selection. You will be seeing the following:

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  Advance warning of November's "Nick Saban Is A Coward" Week
  Photo by Rogelio V. Solis (AP)

  
  Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS): On a weekly basis, I look at the schedule and assign teams a number for their game.
• Point System
• -1 point for hosting an FCS opponent
• 0 points for a bye or playing a conference opponent
• 1 point for playing a Group of Five team at home or a neutral site
• 2 points for playing a Group of Five team on the road, or for playing a Power Five team at home or a neutral site
• 3 points for playing a Group of Five team on the road
• Obviously, higher numbers means a "tougher" schedule on paper. Usually the Group of Five teams will end up with significantly higher numbers here
• This is more of a secondary metric; its primary purpose to confirm that no team plays multiple FCS schools in a single season. Playing more than one, except in circumstances of game cancellations forcing a last-minute add, will result in disqualification from the Death to the BCS Playoffs
• Playoff Points: I borrowed and adjusted this metric from the Illinois High School Association's football playoff qualifying system. This metric comes in multiple forms
• First Degree Playoff Points (PP1): Basically a "Who did you beat?" question. You receive points equal to the number of wins of each team you beat, and is cumulative for the whole year.
• In 2019, the top team in this metric was Ohio State with 84 points, and the national average for the season was about 28 points, and among playoff teams the average was 58 points. Note that wins over FCS opponents award no points.
• Second Degree Playoff Points (PP2): Expands on the first question by adding in context of "How good were the teams you beat, really?" Teams are awarded the number of First Degree Playoff Points the teams they beat have earned, and those totals are averaged per win (e.g. a 10-2 team gets PP1 from all ten teams they beat, and that sum is divided by 10; a 1-11 team's PP2 equals the PP1 of the team they beat.)
• In 2019, Ohio State led this metric as well with over 32 PP2. The national average was just shy of 16, and among playoff teams the average was close to 24. Again, wins over FCS opponents award no points, which means a zero is included in the calculation of the average for those teams.
• Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP): Exactly the same as PP1, but taking losses into account. A team that loses has the number of losses by the team that beat them subtracted from their score. Basically something of a "How bad was/were your loss(es)?" question. Obviously, undefeated teams lose no points, and as an added wrinkle, losses to FCS teams count as double (e.g. in 2019, Georgia Tech lost to The Citadel, who went 6-6; Georgia Tech lost 12 aPP from this game.)
• In 2019, Ohio State obviously led this category as well with 84 points as an undefeated regular season team. To illustrate a better example, take a pair of 10-2 teams in Penn State and Notre Dame. Penn State had 55 PP1 and Notre Dame had 61. Penn State's two losses were to 10-2 Minnesota and 13-0 Ohio State, giving them 53 aPP. Notre Dame's two losses were to 11-2 Georgia and 9-3 Michigan, giving them 56 aPP.
• Computer Rankings: This comes in later in the season when I start building out brackets. I use three formulas compiled online. These formulas all take margin of victory into account.
• Jeff Sagarin (He had a formula that was used for the BCS back in the day, but his BCS formula didn't account for margin of victory. The one used for this ranking does.)
• David Rothman (The late statistician also used to have his ranking incorporated into the BCS until they dumped the margin of victory component was to no longer be considered, and he dropped out of the BCS. His formula is open-source and calculations are compiled by a faculty/staff member at UCLA.)
• All My Sports Teams Suck (I wanted an additional source and added this ranking later.)
• Record vs Playoff Teams: This factor was a more recent addition, influenced by regional rankings used in Division III sports. This can be misleading; losses to playoff teams are not a dealbreaker and in fact will often be used to bolster a team's case. All other factors being relatively equal, a 10-2 team whose two losses came to playoff teams may get the edge over a team that went 0-1 or even 1-1 against playoff teams.

Over the next few months, I'm going to try to go back to old patterns of posting once or twice a week, looking over NCSS and Playoff Point scores, comparing by conference every week and linking to the sheet where I tally all of these. As we get closer to playoff time, I may even do some mock brackets again. But following conference championship weekend, I'll go into the lab, look over all this data, and build out the bracket. I may even do some guest assistance with this; we'll see.

This is, however, also the part where I need to make a couple disclaimers. Ohio State was briefly serving an at large suspension due to actions by one of their assistant coaches; that suspension has been served and is thus lifted, so they are fully eligible for the playoffs. However, two schools are not, and if you've been a COAS reader from the beginning, you know who they are. Baylor, due to its coverup of sexual assault by players under Art Briles some time back, is permanently banned from the playoffs despite having made prior appearances. But the other, who has never appeared in the playoff, and never will, is the cult at Penn State. I've said it for years, and I'll say it again: Joe and the administration knew, and when you're a cult that prioritizes football over the well being of children, you don't deserve a football program. Penn State should have gotten the death penalty, and their football stadium and all football-related facilities should be burned to the ground and the earth salted where those places stood.

The season kicks off with a random Big Ten game in about a week for something of a Week Zero, then Week 1 kicks off in full next week. Next week is probably when I'll start with my first NCSS post, and we'll pick it up as the season goes along. Good luck to your teams this season, and I look forward to kicking the Death to the BCS Playoffs back off!