My Ranking (11/16/09)

by ejruiz on Nov 16, 2009 5:01 AM EST Comment 5 comments

I like to take as objective a look for rankings such as these and am often surprised by the results of my approach. I've taken a look at the accomplishments (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of every single team with three losses or less so far this season. I assigned numerical values to wins (one point fora victory over a three-loss team, two points for a two-loss team and three points for a one-loss team), losses (+4 for losing to an undefeated team, +3 for every one-loss team, +2 for every two-loss team and +1 for every three-loss team) and record (being undefeated means you "start" with nothing in the loss column, if you have one loss you start at -5, two losses at -10 and three loss at -15). Ties, which are fairly common, are broken by quality of wins first and then quality of average opponent second. I sometimes allow for some subjective distinctions, such as making sure the winner of a head-to-head match-up is ranked above the loser if their scores are within one point of each. I do this all by hand, so this is about as close as I can get to what I believe is fair and there's also the possibility of human error during tabulation. That's about it for methodology, so if you're still curious about the results, please follow me below the fold!

TCU
Alabama
Cincinnati
Florida
Texas
Boise State
Georgia Tech
Pittsburgh
Ohio State
Oregon
LSU
Iowa
Rutgers
Penn State
Oklahoma State
Utah
Virginia Tech
Wisconsin
Brigham Young
Clemson
Temple
Oregon State
Houston
Central Michigan
USC

Others Considered (in order): Arizona, Navy, Miami, Stanford, UNC, Cal, Troy, Boston College, Ole Miss, West Virginia, Northern Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, Nebraska, Nevada and Ohio.

I wanted to add a few notes as for my first impression of this list: don't fret about UF being #4, because the SEC Championship Game gives them enough potential to earn the #2 spot... the SEC is having a woefully down year, what with LSU receiving a reprieve only because it's two losses are to unbeaten teams and Ole Miss barely on the radar now... 35% of the teams mentioned above do not have a single victory over a team with three losses or fewer... the three teams with the most impressive win quality totals are Ohio State, Iowa and TCU... the five teams with the most impressive loss quality totals are Virginia Tech, LSU, Rutgers, Clemson and Navy...

Well, that's it for me. I hope you find these interesting and informative. I'd be happy to field any questions and/or comments below, so feel free to chime in. I just ask that you keep an open mind and remain civil. Oh, and one more thing: go Gators!

Please be kind and use good grammar.

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Comments

Too objective

So beating Troy (7-3 team) give us more points in your system than beating Arkansas (6-4). There are some weak teams out there with good records. No wonder teams like Cincy and TCU are ranked so high in your method. For what it’s worth, Arkansas rolled Troy this weekend.

by skigator93 on Nov 16, 2009 12:07 PM EST reply actions

Fair Point.

Until college football draws a true line between the haves and the have-nots, trimming the fat that are the forever weak conferences and their teams from the highest echelon of the sport at the amateur level, they must be accounted for in some way. I would love to be able to assess every team, but I simply don’t have the time or energy to do so; that would minimize the difference between teams like Troy and Arkansas. By the way, I would expect that those lesser teams will get worked out of the equation eventually.

I think TCU (wins at Clemson, at BYU and over Utah) and Cincinnati (at Rutgers, at Oregon State and over West Virginia) certainly have better quality wins than other lesser known contenders/pretenders. There’s also something to be said for beind undefeated, I think. They’re legit and belong in every top six.

"A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word 'I' when you're in a group makes things complicated." ~ Wanderley Luxemburgo, 1999

by ejruiz on Nov 16, 2009 12:38 PM EST up reply actions

Polls

Interesting? Yes. Informative?……..At this point polls amount to voodoo. It does give people something to tinker with on non game days but it is all subjective. Perspective is everything. To a worm, digging in hard dirt is a lot more fun than going fishing. There are just too many intangibles in college football to precisely rank them accurately. I guess I’ll just have to wait for them to play the games to find any peace in my tortured little mind. It’s a darn good thing that I can’t fast forward through the season because we would be done in about three days. Have fun but I think I’m going to have an aneurysm if I look at one more poll. It’s time for me to huddle in the corner with a bottle of Crown and remain in a nervous knot until it all shakes out.

Go Gators

by renegator on Nov 17, 2009 8:29 PM EST reply actions

Traitor!

Florida Is #1 not TCU and we’re just having bad luck that’s why we didn’t kill every one 60 to something that’s all Bama’s going down again against us