[Editor's note, Jan.,2005: This website was created in December of 2001. Updates were added in the summer of 2002 and, more notably, in Jan, 2005, as well as a playoff proposal that incorporates the bowl system. Other "editor's notes" appear in a couple places to reflect minor changes that have been made since Dec, 2001. The 2005 update shares the good news that almost all of the changes advocated in this website were finally implemented! Nevertheless, I have left the body of this website intact to serve as a "history" of the experience.
Craig Burroughs, who writes for Don Hansen's Football Gazette, urged his readers to study this site "if you want to know what's wrong with the BCS and why it's wrong". He added that this site provides a "very entertaining and easily understandable critique of the BCS". Dave Wilson, an engineer whose hobby is cataloging a vast array of sports articles, told me that he was placing this site at the top of his BCS list, inferring that if there were one site to visit, this would be it! And a retired math professor from a small college e-mailed to me a letter that he had sent to one of the BCS commissioners. In it he lauded this site for containing a "treasure trove of examples and analogies" that shed light on the BCS problems, adding that if he were to teach a course about the BCS, he would place this site on his required reading list. I hope you'll agree with their appraisal! What follows, then, is the presentation as written in 2001.]
Welcome! You have either stumbled upon, or more likely been directed to, what will hopefully prove to be the most insightful, eye-opening, and compelling presentation that you have yet encountered dealing with problems in college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS) process. (Hmm. Perhaps the most pretentious as well.) With the furor over the past year's BCS results driving interest and discussion to an all-time high level, there is no better time than now to present a very elementary analysis of the components currently being used in that process.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, I have watched various college football teams be either unfairly rewarded or unfairly punished because of certain unwarranted procedures in the BCS system. To be certain, there is no one correct way to discern the most deserving teams. Many of the aspects of the process are subject to reasonable debate. Yet there have been in place certain specific procedures which I would claim are unquestionably wrong. They are illogical and inaccurate, and hence unfair. And the distressing thing is that there exist logical and accurate alternatives staring us squarely in the face!
To both pique your curiosity and provide specific examples of what I'm referring to, I shall now give you a short quiz with three questions. Each question closely mirrors actual situations that have arisen in evaluating teams in the BCS process. Let's see if you have what it takes to be a candidate for the BCS "think tank"! (Hint: the answers to these questions may strike you as being so obvious that you suspect a trap. Just relax, go with what seems inherently reasonable, and you'll be OK.)
BCS "THINK TANK" ENTRANCE EXAM
Question 1: Three computers produce rankings for all Division 1A college football teams. Team A receives rankings of 2, 4, and 6, while team B is rated 3, 4, and 5 (in a different order). No one computer is to be valued more highly than any other. Which team should have the better computer average?
a) Team A
b) Team B
c) Teams A and B should have the same computer average.
Question 2: We seek to rank the strength of schedule (SOS) of each D-1A football team. We agree that our rankings will be based solely upon the won/loss records of our opponents and not upon the score or location or date of a particular game. Suppose that team A's record is 10-1, while team B's is 9-2. We, as outside observers, look at the list of opponents played by team A and by team B and discover that each team played the same set of opponents. Our conclusion about the SOS rankings for teams A and B should be that:
a) A played a more difficult schedule than B
b) B played a more difficult schedule than A
c) They each played the same set of opponents, so each should have the same SOS ranking.
Question 3: A golf club has a pitching contest in which each participant strokes two golf balls, one yellow and one blue, toward a flag 75 yards away. The players' initials are on each ball. An accurate measuring tape is available to measure the precise distance each ball is from the flag. In addition, distance markers have been placed on the ground at one-foot intervals from the flag. The shorter the total distance of a player's two balls from the target, the better. Once all contestants have hit their two balls, which of the following would seem the appropriate way to proceed with the judging?
a) Re-position the yellow balls as follows: move to the 1-foot marker the yellow ball which was closest to the flag, move the second-closest yellow ball to the 2-foot marker, and move the third closest yellow ball to the 3-foot marker. Proceed in like fashion with all remaining yellow balls. Leave the blue balls in their original locations. For each contestant, now add the current distance of each yellow and blue ball and reward the player with the lowest total.
b) Re-position the yellow balls as just done above. Then re-position the blue balls in the same manner. Now add the current distances and again reward the player(s) with the lowest total.
c) Why re-position the balls at all?! Simply add the exact distances that were originally established when the balls were struck and reward the low total.
All finished? Let's look at your results. Did you answer "c" to each of the questions above? If so, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that, from a logical standpoint, you answered the questions correctly. Congratulations! Oh, the bad news is that you flunked the exam! For to ace this exam, you had to miss every question! In fact, if you had wished to be "in step" with the "logical" procedures used in the original BCS process, you would have needed to answer each of the above questions with "a"!
If you're not somewhat startled or intrigued by what I have just told you, perhaps you should stop now. However, if you are, then please stay with me. I'll make everything very clear to you in the presentation which follows. For despite frequently repeated claims that the BCS algorithm is so complex that hardly anyone can understand it, virtually the opposite is true! My claim is that anyone who has mastered grade school mathematics can easily comprehend it. One need only devote a little time and effort. And upon doing so, the following conclusion will be inescapable: the BCS process has been littered with unsound computational practices, and to leave them in place is tantamount to ensuring future injustices.
The main purpose of this website, then, is not to weigh in on such subjective matters as the merits of playoffs versus the bowl setup. Rather, it is to objectively and logically address the many egregious shortcomings that have been present in the BCS implementation. Examples of such flaws, which will be more thoroughly discussed momentarily, include the following: