A Statistician's (Spot-On) Critique of the BCS
by Florida Danny on Jan 8, 2009 3:30 PM PST
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Hey everyone...Saw this while perusing through Football Outsiders. It isn't 49er-related, but I figured that, because the BCS Championship game is tonight, it'd be interesting for some people to read what statisticians think about the BCS. The article is written by Bill James, who, as some of you probably know, is the father of Sabermetrics.
He makes some really good points, but what I like most about the article is his overarching idea that the BCS itself is to blame when the computers get it wrong. If the BCS doesn't allow the statisticians to come up with a unified, conceptually based measure of team strength, and instead imposes numerous methodological constraints on the process that preclude a good measure, it's no wonder that they get such crap for rankings. Basically, garbage in, garbage out.
Anyway, feel free to comment, but this is just more of an FYI thing from me to you.
GO GATORS!!!
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.
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Interesting article
The line I found most interesting:
The BCS is a result not of the greed of the big schools but the self-righteous avarice of the smaller and less-committed schools that form the bulk of the NCAA.
I’ve always been confused by who is being greedy. If there was a playoff that did not involve payouts to not-competing schools, wouldn’t there be more money in the pot? I’d imagine ratings would go up for the quarterfinal and semifinal bowl games, which means more money.
by Fooch on Jan 8, 2009 3:48 PM PST reply actions 0 recs
i've been a proponent of a playoff for a looooong time...
…basically because of what James says the sentence after what you quoted:
It is inherent in the nature of sports to seek a clear resolution of the competition.
it’s a total disgrace that the NCAA has a sport in which the champion is not undisputedly determined on the field. i mean, at the end of an NFL season, there’s no debate along the lines of, “(team x) would have beaten (Super Bowl champ) if they only had gotten a shot!” this is basically the reason why i don’t even watch college football outside of UF and UM games. the season is basically a meaningless exercise, rather than a series of competitions to determine a champion. and don’t even get me started about the joke of schedule strength (or lack thereof) in college football.
in re your point though, i think the whole $$$ thing is a red herring. no one can seriously argue that a playoff wouldn’t bring an unbelievable amount of new money into the system. like the saying goes, when there aren’t enough slices of the pie to go around, you make a bigger pie. rather than wasting time bitching about who gets what cut of the billions, create a playoff that would bring more billions.
by Florida Danny on Jan 8, 2009 4:10 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
The only thing I’ll say about a playoffs is that if you do it you have to eliminate or somehow modify the early-season non-conference games so that the regular season itself is shorter. Extending college seasons 2-4 games past their current length for the sake of a sated audience would be a dangerous game to play, in my opinion.
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jan 8, 2009 4:24 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
I know it’s more than just the audience at play. But, I mean, short of paying these players for playoff appearances, you just can’t ask non-professionals to risk their futures by playing in extra games when they’re already tired from the season just for a BCS alternative.
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jan 8, 2009 4:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t think many college football fans would complain about shortening the non-conference season in exchange for a true playoff. More often that not you would be eliminating a game along the lines of Florida vs. The Citadel or Oklahoma vs. Chattanooga (both actual games from this season). The other thing you could do is eliminate the stupid conference championship games.
by FluLikeSymptoms on Jan 8, 2009 5:16 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
I agree the fans wouldn’t complain at all. I have the feeling that the schools would, though. The big programs might not want to knock off an easy win, and the small programs wouldn’t want to lose the publicity. Still, the extra games is my only sticking point on a playoff. The playoff would be absolutely fantastic as long as the system could manage to keep the seasons from getting longer.
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jan 8, 2009 5:56 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Why?
As is, a team like Florida / Oklahoma plays in 12 season, 1 Conference Championship, and 1 BCS game(s). 14 games.
Division 1-AA (I refuse to call it FCS) has a playoff. Montana ended up playing in 16 games by making it to the title game.
The difference is 2 games, meaning you could have an 8-team playoff (3 games played by any one team max) instead of the Bowl game and still would end up no different than a D1AA team. And I’m not saying I would be opposed to reverting back to the old 11 game regular season, because I would prefer it. Just pointing out that even if Oklahoma and Florida had participated in an 8 team playoff this year, they would have been playing in no more games than a smaller Division 1 school. Just some food for thought.
by lacrosse_cat on Jan 10, 2009 9:23 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs
I don’t necessarily like the idea of any college team playing in more than maybe 13 games. I think the more you force them to play a professional schedule, the more you should just be paying them for the commitment and the risk. I could say more, but I think everything that I would touch on would pretty much just reach back to that one basic premise.
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jan 10, 2009 10:18 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs
let's not be naive...
…i lived in gainesville for 10 yrs going to UF for undergrad and grad school…just moved back to miami in november…
saw the football (and basketball) players around campus all the time. to say they were not living the life of a poor college student would be an understatement. i’m sure it’s not just UF, but every school pushes the envelope in terms of what they provide to the players. i mean, they get high-end scooters in the name of “transportation.” they get put up in the poshest of student housing complexes. they get consultation, advisement, and advocacy that the regular students can only dream of. basically, they give them assistance in every way possible that doesn’t show up on a W-2.
now, with that said…should they get paid? of course. the much more important question is…how much? the problem with paying them is that once you start down that road, you’ll end up having a situation similar to the NFL where advocates for the players are negotiating the share of NCAA revenue that goes to the players, and that share is going to increase with time simply due to the nature of labor negotations. in no time, you could easily have a situation where college students are making $100,000/yr playing D-1 football. that situation kind of blurs the line between college and the pros no? it also destroys the concept of a football scholarship. the other students on campus (and the board of regents) would go ape if millions of dollars are being spent to pay the tuition of students who are already being paid $100,000/yr by the university.
not to mention the caste system that would develop based on the amount of $$ each university is willing to pay their athletes. private universities all of a sudden have a huge advantage because they don’t have to worry about what those pesky taxpayers think in re the cost. the easy solution to such a problem would be “pass a rule that says all players are paid the same.” problem with that is, such a rule’s passage would be dependent on negotiation, and why the hell would the private universities negotiate away that huge of an advantage?
i guess my overall point here is that the debate over paying vs. not paying college athletes inevitably descends into an oversimplification of the issue. you can’t just wave a magic wand and start paying the athletes because the athletes aren’t the only ones that “paying athletes” would affect. a lot of unintended consequences would be felt down the line, and a system that serves all interests seems nearly impossible. morally, it is obviously right to pay them. pragmatically, it’s opening up pandora’s box.
by Florida Danny on Jan 10, 2009 1:00 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest that many of the athlete’s aren’t well-benefited under the current system, nor did I mean to suggest that paying them wouldn’t open a ridiculous can of worms. I think my point mainly is that if the more you expect them to play professional schedules the more you should pay them as professionals, then that should be all the more reason not to push toward simulating the professional experience at the college level.
I guess, to vastly oversimplify myself, I’m saying “don’t even do the crap that will open that can of worms, and you won’t have to deal with it.”
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jan 10, 2009 1:52 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Aside...
… from what HTS has already pointed out in the comment above and below, there’s also the issue that some players would be risking millions of dollars in every additional game they play. If you extend the schedule, it’s very possible that you get players who look to be coming out of the top of the draft class (which will also be the top of their team) tone down their game a little when it matters most (i.e. the playoffs) because they don’t want to get hurt.
I know it’s a crappy way to see things, but given the amount of (monetary) motivation, I don’t think it’s unlikely or anything like that.
by sfgfan on Jan 12, 2009 10:00 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Even though I am a huge college football fan, I have never really cared much for debating the merits of the BCS. In my opinion, anything short of a playoff is pretty much equally illegitimate. If you are not going to have teams play to decide the champion, I think the BCS is just as good a system, and just as bad a system as any other. When people talk about wanting to improve the BCS I always tune out because that legitimizes the farcical system, so I think Bill James is correct to just call for a pure boycott, rather than trying to improve it.
I will watch the game tonight because I think it is an intriguing matchup of two great teams, not because I view it as anything akin to a “national championship game.” Just like last year I didn’t view the Ohio State LSU game as anything akin to a national championship game, and I refuse to even use those words to describe it.
by FluLikeSymptoms on Jan 8, 2009 4:14 PM PST reply actions 0 recs
as long as the gators aren't in the "national championship" game...
i say amen to that!
by Florida Danny on Jan 8, 2009 4:20 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
here's my suggestion for a playoff system...hasn't changed in 15 years
there are 6 BCS conferences 3 BCS bowls, and the rose bowl, so…
you take the 6 conference champs, plus 2 at-large teams (one of which must be a non-BCS conference champion) to make an 8-tm playoff…
first round games are played in 3 of the non-BCS bowls (let them bid for it) and the rose bowl. this solves two problems…making the rose bowl a 1st round game preserves the mandatory Big Ten Champ vs. Pac 10 Champ matchup…having only 3 of the 29 non-BCS bowls included sets up a serious bidding war that will bring a shit-ton of $$$ into the system, which appeases the NCAA and the college presidents.
semis and final are played in the 3 BCS bowls, with the final rotating like it does now.
seedings are based on BCS ratings. except for the rose bowl, matchups are based on seedings.
so this season, you would have had the following:
1 — oklahoma (Big 12 Champ, BCS#1)
2 — florida (SEC Champ, BCS#2)
3 — usc (Pac 10 Champ, BCS#5)
4 — penn state (Big 10 Champ, BCS#8)
5 — cincinnati (Big East Champ, BCS#12)
6 — virginia tech (ACC Champ, BCS#19)
7 — texas (Big 12 at-large, BCS#3)
8 — utah (Mountain West Champ, BCS#6)
first round:
game 1 (bowl x) — (1) oklahoma vs. (8) utah
game 2 (bowl y) — (2) florida vs. (7) texas
game 3 (rose bowl) — (3) usc vs. (4) penn state
game 4 (bowl z) — (5) cincinatti vs. (6) virginia tech
semis:
sugar bowl — winner of game 1 vs. winner of game 4
fiesta bowl — winner of game 2 vs. winner of game 3
final:
orange bowl — winner of sugar bowl vs. winner of fiesta bowl
funny enough, we actually got 2 of the first-round matchups this season.
the rose bowl being a first-round game could be negotiated so that it was in the championship rotation, with the 3 BCS bowls rotating to the first round every 4 years due to a rose bowl championship game.
my view about the alabamas and texas techs of the world is that if you didn’t win your conference championship, you shouldn’t be able to win the national championship. nevertheless, having 1 at-large from a BCS conference allows the most-jobbed team to at least have a shot (albeit having to face a higher seed in every round).
your thoughts?
by Florida Danny on Jan 10, 2009 2:03 PM PST reply actions 0 recs
hmmm
Seeing as we’ve blown past the traditional Big 10/Pac 10 Rose Bowl in the past already, I say make that first round BCS game rotate between the 4 like they do with the title game.
Personally, I’d rather go with the top 8 according to the BCS ratings, regardless of conference champion status. This gives you a more likely group of the 8 best teams playing for the national title. Of course I realize the BCS conferences would demand it be the 6 BCS conference champs since in a season like this year the Big East and ACC would be left out. But we’re talking about a dream anyways.
by Fooch on Jan 10, 2009 2:23 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Top 8
The top 8 heading into the postseason this year were:
1. Oklahoma 12-1
2. Florida 12-1
3. Texas 11-1
4. Alabama 12-1
5. USC 11-1
6. Utah 12-0
7. Texas Tech 11-1
8. Penn State 11-1
Boise State got jobbed as they were 9th, but no system is perfect obviously. That gives you:
- OU vs. #8 PSU
- Florida vs. #7 TT
- Texas vs. #6 Utah
- Alabama vs. #5 USC
Now that would be one heck of a playoff, don’t you think?
by Fooch on Jan 10, 2009 2:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
yeah, it would...
except there’s just no way the Big East and ACC would approve a system that gives them no entrants in the tourney. i’m trying to come up with a system that is most likely to pass…not necessarily one that is ideal from a fan perspective.
by Florida Danny on Jan 10, 2009 2:31 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
using the BCS ratings would be ok...
if they were actually a half-descent measure. if the goal is to choose the “most likely group of the best 8 teams,” i think the BCS ratings have proven to be a joke. also, don’t forget this.
by Florida Danny on Jan 10, 2009 2:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs
I prefer a format similiar to this as well
by Brendan Scolari on Jan 12, 2009 1:24 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs
Well
8 teams and 3 rounds would be cool, but too many. Maybe you could get the season extended 1 game (past the 1 bowl-game), but no way 2. Besides, having 8 seeds in there is just going to give you the NCAA equivalent of a 9-7 team hosting the NFCC game!
The other problem of cutting the regular season is that those non-conf games are $$$$$ for both teams… and only 2 teams are going to get an extra game.
OK, so say we go with a 4 team playoff, 2 games. How do you pick the 4 teams? I don’t think the coaches are going to give up their “right” to poll – and the computer models (as James describes) have been totally tainted by fudging them to look like the polls. So, basically, we are going to have a top 20 ranking and 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3, winners play in Championship. It would be nice, however, to use a computer model to reflect a teams strength of schedule, so that the big conf teams are forced to schedule competitive games. Or else, no count the non-conf games at all. One big difference between the polls and “computer rankings” is that a pollster will take a 11-0 team over a 10-1 team from ~similar conferences 99% of the time. Even if the 11-0 team scheduled non-conference patsies, and beat them all by 1 point, ant the 10-1 team beat everyone 30-0 except for 1 game they lost 24-23 on a fluke windblown kick…
FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?
by zenbitz on Jan 12, 2009 10:15 AM PST reply actions 0 recs
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