The RTT computer BlogPoll ballot: raw numbers, week nine

by Joel Hollingsworth on Oct 26, 2008 10:25 PM EDT in College Football

This here's the RTT Ready, Fire, Aim BlogPoll computer ballot. For a complete refresher on what we're doing, go here, here, here, and here. You can also hit the "blogpoll" tag below the post for a list of all of the related stories.

Prior tweaks to the system: (1) added experience ratings; (2) adjusted the weighting with a "square root of the sum of the squares." Why? I'll you why: I don't know. (3) revised the way tied teams were ranked; (4) began sorting the win/loss category based on losing percentage to hopefully alleviate the penalty to teams with early byes; (5) (a) adjusted the weighting of the win/loss factor and (b) adjusted the strength of schedule factor by subjecting the NCAA past opposition figures to a strength of conference rating. Conferences were divided into two categories: BCS and non-BCS; and (6) modified the Conference Ratings so that there were three categories instead of just BCS and non-BCS. The new categories are (a) the SEC and the Big12, (b) the other BCS conferences, and (c) the non-BCS conferences.

Tweaks for this week:

None. The initial results triggered the need for investigation of certain teams, but did not reveal, to me anyway, any systemic problems. Anyone else see anything bizarre that might necessitate a system tweak this week?
The categories again: Win/Loss, Strength of Schedule, Pass Efficiency Defense, Rush Defense, 3rd Down Offense, Total Defense, Pass Efficiency Offense, Experience, Opponents Points Per Game, Total Offense, and 3rd Down Defense. The AVG R column is Average Ranking, and the last column is Weighted Average.
The current weighting of the categories: 100, 15, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then tweaked by the square root of the sum of the squares manuever.
Current spreadsheet here.

All right, then. The Top 31 (so you can see where some of the teams in the traditional polls ended up in the computer rankings), according to the computer:

Rank	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	EXP	OPPG	TO	3DD	AVG R	W AVG
1	Texas	1	3	70	3	3	43	2	116	28	9	47	29.55	76.23
2	Alabama	1	31	18	2	48	5	47	95	10	60	3	29.09	78.71
3	Texas Tech	1	30	46	14	4	58	6	68	39	2	22	26.36	79.51
4	Oklahoma	10	6	33	20	29	54	3	59	50	4	6	24.91	105.74
5	Penn St.	1	59	3	13	9	8	21	38	3	12	10	16.09	109.66
6	Georgia	10	2	57	6	33	21	22	90	36	25	37	30.82	111.10
7	Oklahoma St.	10	10	50	37	22	64	4	45	42	8	46	30.73	113.27
8	Florida	15	16	9	15	28	13	11	116	6	31	21	25.55	147.73
9	Boise St.	1	76	2	42	31	19	9	114	4	29	7	30.36	149.58
10	Southern California	15	40	1	10	18	1	8	72	1	13	4	16.64	157.40
11	Minnesota	10	57	47	43	76	69	30	112	20	70	28	51.09	165.11
12	Florida St.	15	52	23	7	13	3	73	53	18	38	1	26.91	171.84
13	Ohio St.	18	19	8	18	41	9	52	59	8	95	53	34.55	173.88
14	TCU	9	88	7	1	5	2	58	26	2	34	13	22.27	182.11
15	Utah	1	100	43	9	38	6	23	14	30	35	5	27.64	187.77
16	North Carolina	20	28	29	32	30	50	35	72	35	86	63	43.64	197.91
17	Michigan St.	18	45	24	64	77	56	60	68	37	64	70	53.00	202.46
18	Missouri	20	4	85	30	7	87	5	32	53	5	86	37.64	202.75
19	Georgia Tech	20	53	14	19	60	12	36	109	7	72	68	42.73	214.99
20	Connecticut	20	44	19	26	80	24	109	109	20	49	26	47.82	216.70
21	South Fla.	20	62	27	8	26	11	20	66	28	28	12	28.00	217.58
22	Ball St.	1	113	21	79	7	60	10	53	12	14	64	39.45	217.77
23	BYU	10	110	44	53	2	46	12	49	14	24	109	43.00	228.38
24	Northwestern	20	69	41	34	15	44	91	59	26	52	14	42.27	231.33
25	Maryland	20	68	65	61	45	72	56	22	34	63	52	50.73	237.60
26	Tulsa	1	115	107	60	1	99	1	49	77	1	83	54.00	238.96
27	Air Force	20	86	36	66	24	29	19	7	30	58	75	40.91	247.93
28	Oregon	20	82	58	17	71	73	79	38	63	10	59	51.82	251.25
29	Western Mich.	20	92	75	65	50	81	18	14	62	21	97	54.09	265.47
30	Central Mich.	20	97	109	46	20	96	26	95	78	39	100	66.00	279.39
31	LSU	31	15	61	27	54	35	45	77	68	30	24	42.45	293.54

So what human overrides are called for this week? Candidates (those that are around five spots or more off from the major polls):

Possibly too high

Minnesota
Utah
North Carolina
Georgia Tech
Connecticut
Northwestern

Possibly too low

Southern Cal
Ball State
BYU
Maryland
Tulsa
Oregon
LSU

Possibly out of order

Oklahoma and Penn State

Current draft ballot, without any interventions yet:

Rank	Team	Delta

1	Texas	--
2	Alabama	--
3	Texas Tech	1
4	Oklahoma	2
5	Penn State	--
6	Georgia	4
7	Oklahoma State	4
8	Florida	1
9	Boise State	2
10	Southern Cal	3
11	Minnesota	10
12	Florida State	10
13	Ohio State	5
14	TCU	--
15	Utah	2
16	North Carolina	10
17	Michigan State	9
18	Missouri	5
19	Georgia Tech	3
20	Connecticut	6
21	South Florida	9
22	Ball State	3
23	Brigham Young	1
24	Northwestern	4
25	Maryland	1

Dropped Out: LSU (#15), Pittsburgh (#17), Boston College (#18), Kansas (#25).

Up to five vetoes of the computer rankings. Go.

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Comments

Utah's not too high.

They’re undefeated, which should place them above almost all 2-loss teams. It hasn’t been a strong schedule (thanks, Michigan!), but it’s not like they tried to find creampuffs (or maybe they did).

LSU is odd, but they just haven’t played like previous years either. Perhaps the poll is doing a better job of working past our preconceptions than we are.

Overall though, you’re beginning to see the W/L take less importance and the SoS take more importance as the numbers in the W/L column become more evenly distributed. That’ll probably be the biggest thing to watch as the season draws to an end. The proper weight ratio between those two at the end of the season will probably make the beginning of the season wacky, and vice versa.

by David Hooper on Oct 26, 2008 11:52 PM EDT reply actions