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BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: BCS Ranks WWII Teams



Tuesday, December 09, 2008  

BCS Ranks WWII Teams


I've seen this on several blogs today; it's been circulating virally w/o any attributed author. Evidence would indicate that the author is a fan of the U of Texas, but since it's quite clever and fairly literate, that seems unlikely. At any rate, it made me eloel, here it is:
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work—including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule—our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories -- Japan and Germany . The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests—they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said "Yes, we lost to the US, but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented, "France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
The controversy here, if you've lucky enough not to follow college football, is that Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma are all in the Big 12 southern division. All went 11-1 this year, and their losses were a perfect rock/paper/scissors. Texas beat Oklahoma, Oklahoma beat Texas Tech, and Texas Tech beat Texas. The determination of which one "won" their division, and would play in the Big-12 title game, was made by the BCS computer rankings. And they picked Oklahoma, at least in part since that team has been running up the score in every game this season (they broke the all time scoring record), and margin of victory is one of the factors in the ratings. Oklahoma won the Big-12 title game easily, since the northern division of that conference is much weaker than the southern, and now they're ranked #1 and are playing #2 Florida for the national championship. (Which is a crock this year, as it is most years, since there's no playoff system and we've got two 1-loss teams playing for the title while 6 or 7 other major conference 1-loss teams and two mid-conference undefeated teams are on the outside looking in.)

Texas beat Oklahoma by 10 points, yet lost to Texas Tech on a miraculous last second touchdown. Texas would have been the division winner by the tie-breaker system in most other conferences. Hence the BCS hate from Texas, and the general hate for the non-playoff system by all college football fans who want to see a winner crowned on the field.

It's funny; every year I enjoy following college football (I'd say watching, but since I don't watch TV I've only seen highlights online and at the gym) all season, and then wish I hadn't come December when the season ends and the bowls are announced and once again there's a complete failure to determine an actual champion.

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Comments:

Margin of victory is not factored into the computer rankings. They were taken out several years ago at the insistence of the chest-thumping "a win is a win" coaches, even though they all do take it into account in their rankings.

The computer rankings, if messed up, are messed up because of humans insisting on unnecessary changes every year to get the results they want. You want head-to-head results to matter? Just put it back in! They, too, were taken out by the "a win is a win" chest-thumpers.

Just realize that the fact that you change it every year illustrates just how capricious the human voting is. Last week a caoch (a football coach!) tried to vote Penn State #2 because he thought they were still undefeated. http://timesfreepress.com/news/2008/dec/09/epps-always-coaches-poll-shows-biases/


 

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