The RTT computer BlogPoll ballot: raw numbers, week thirteen

by Joel Hollingsworth on Nov 23, 2008 7:51 AM EST 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 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 maneuver.
Current spreadsheet here.

All right, then. The Top 35, according to the computer:

Rank	Team	WL	SOS	PED	RD	3DO	TD	PEO	EXP	OPPG	TO	3DD	AVG R	W AVG
1	Alabama	1	23	7	3	36	3	60	95	6	58	2	26.73	66.69
2	Florida	6	6	6	13	12	9	5	116	3	18	18	19.27	71.33
3	Oklahoma	6	4	32	12	16	56	2	59	54	3	4	22.55	74.19
4	Texas	6	1	55	4	3	53	3	116	26	8	39	28.55	87.74
5	Texas Tech	6	5	69	38	4	74	8	68	69	4	42	35.18	98.17
6	Penn St.	5	55	5	8	6	4	18	38	4	15	14	15.64	111.37
7	Ohio St.	11	30	12	23	32	10	27	59	7	82	35	29.82	121.01
8	Southern California	10	53	1	6	25	2	9	72	1	16	6	18.27	136.15
9	Georgia	14	2	58	15	43	23	16	90	56	24	52	35.73	144.52
10	Utah	1	80	23	17	23	17	17	14	14	32	12	22.73	148.94
11	Oklahoma St.	14	18	68	26	20	76	4	45	56	7	45	34.45	152.07
12	Missouri	14	15	74	37	5	89	7	32	52	5	77	37.00	155.23
13	TCU	11	72	3	1	7	1	50	26	2	26	5	18.55	166.71
14	Cincinnati	14	39	37	18	105	37	23	59	30	49	10	38.27	167.04
15	Boise St.	1	92	2	20	29	16	12	114	5	14	13	28.91	174.50
16	Florida St.	22	33	20	21	18	7	76	53	19	45	1	28.64	214.26
17	BYU	11	97	57	64	2	55	13	49	34	17	98	45.18	216.51
18	Oregon St.	22	42	31	22	51	13	29	12	36	29	7	26.73	219.43
19	Ball St.	1	118	29	69	9	57	6	53	9	12	79	40.18	225.02
20	Michigan St.	20	47	33	74	91	61	79	68	41	66	81	60.09	225.10
21	Northwestern	20	65	35	42	22	50	85	59	24	65	29	45.09	227.73
22	Georgia Tech	22	48	26	29	57	19	62	109	12	53	54	44.64	228.98
23	Boston College	22	49	4	7	75	5	104	68	15	95	19	42.09	231.13
24	Oregon	22	64	51	32	70	73	83	38	73	11	72	53.55	247.89
25	Western Mich.	14	110	54	52	34	85	15	14	40	22	65	45.91	249.88
26	Central Mich.	22	76	104	61	10	99	19	95	83	28	73	60.91	270.39
27	Tulsa	14	119	109	28	1	95	1	49	85	1	82	53.09	273.82
28	West Virginia	29	58	16	41	53	33	28	53	11	61	71	41.27	289.58
29	Pittsburgh	29	40	86	24	65	36	73	77	64	56	70	56.36	290.65
30	Connecticut	29	61	8	27	99	14	110	109	20	60	16	50.27	300.80
31	Rice	22	105	90	105	13	111	11	32	107	10	105	64.64	304.20
32	Iowa	32	51	9	10	60	12	47	53	8	51	28	32.82	309.45
33	Mississippi	34	8	59	9	39	30	31	26	25	39	15	28.64	315.27
34	South Carolina	34	14	18	35	72	11	80	26	23	96	23	39.27	317.72
35	LSU	34	9	40	15	74	32	88	77	66	47	25	46.09	319.85

Candidates for human override (those that are around five spots or more off from the major polls):

Possibly out of order

Any of the Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech rock, paper, scissors scenario, although I think it's fine.
Alabama and Florida

Possibly too high

Florida State

Possibly too low

Southern Cal
Utah

Any others that you see?

Current draft ballot, without any interventions yet:

Rank	Team	Delta

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

Dropped Out: Pittsburgh (#19), LSU (#21), North Carolina (#23).

We'll use up to two vetoes of the computer rankings. Now soliciting suggestions.

Tweet Comment 10 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Poll

All of these numbers….Why would you jump Oklahoma over Texas? Didn’t Texas beat Oklahoma? Head-to head match-up doesn’t mean anything?

by mmmjtx on Nov 23, 2008 9:13 AM EST reply actions

RPS

The trio of Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma all beat one-another, round-robin style. UT beat OU; TT beat UT; and OU beat TT. So yes, UT did beat OU head-to-head, but UT lost to TT who, in turn, got spanked by OU. In this case, the head-to-head meetings don’t really mean squat.

by Aerobab on Nov 23, 2008 10:15 AM EST up reply actions

Agreed

Head-to-head normally would mean something, but in the case of the 3-way tie, you have to look at the “style points”. I mean, if you use the head-to-head argument, shouldn’t Tech still be ranked above Texas? It’s a crapshoot, and quite honestly, with the way Oklahoma and Florida are both firing on all cylinders right now, that would be the absolute best National Championship game I could imagine for this season, and we should all pray for that.

At least we still have Eric Berry

by Volorado on Nov 23, 2008 11:18 AM EST up reply actions

I would not.

Oklahoma’s seasonal body of work is better than Texas’s. If OU and UT win their final games, OU’s main metrics will only improve – especially SoS, and the argument in favor of Oklahoma will only strengthen.

Texas’s only real hope is for both OU and TTech to lose their final game.

by David Hooper on Nov 23, 2008 3:57 PM EST up reply actions

anybody else

think that southern cal should be ahead of osu? Thats my only beef.

At least he's better than Esteban Yan.

by jacksonian on Nov 23, 2008 11:51 AM EST reply actions

USC is insistent on screwing up polls.

Because the PAC-10 does not have a championship game, USC plays their final regular season game against UCLA during championship weekend. They also have their Notre Dame game to play during Thanksgiving weekend, so they’ve only played 10 games. Meanwhile, OSU and Penn State have both finished out their entire regular seasons and have 12 games played.

So the win/loss metric (the most heavily weighted one, at that) is comparing a team that has played its entire regular season to one that has 2 games left to go. USC does have the better percentage record (which is what’s being compared), but the 9-1 percentage is not as good as it will be if they win their next two games (11-1). If that happens, the improvement in W/L will guarantee that USC finishes ahead of OSU. But if they lose one or both of those games, they’ll fall behind. That really sounds about right, since USC has been just as flaky as OSU this year (and perhaps more so).

Another way of looking at it is this: USC is not yet rewarded for the assumption of winning those last two games. They’ll get that reward after it actually happens.

I’m in favor of “penalizing” USC right now. They whine how the lack of a champ game makes it harder to get to the MNC, yet they’re very happy to use the extra time to buy themselves more bye weeks, more rest for their players, more time to prepare for their games, etc. They’re playing both sides of the argument, so let them earn the accolades before they get them.

by David Hooper on Nov 23, 2008 3:39 PM EST up reply actions

Well said

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Nov 23, 2008 5:54 PM EST up reply actions

I should say, though,

that if USC had played even 1 more game by now, I’d be quite happy having them ahead of OSU. Even if it was a 2-point victory against Little Sisters of the Poor Junior Varsity.

by David Hooper on Nov 23, 2008 6:45 PM EST up reply actions

Utah

Boy, that Michigan game looked so much more impressive at the beginning of the season, didn’t it?

I kind of feel bad for them. Utah is in the strongest mid-major conference and beat both BYU and TCU. They also scheduled the “all-time winningest active 1-A team” that beat Florida in their bowl game last year. Given that the game was schedule a long time ago, they couldn’t have seen this coming.

It wouldn’t take much improvement in SoS for Utah to be ranked somewhere around 6-7 in Joel’s computer right now. The only real hope for Utah is for their opponents and opponents’ opponents to win out in common games (especially Notre Dame v. USC and UCLA v. USC). They could gain a few ticks, but it’d be too little, too late.

This year’s Utah really goes to show that a mid-major has no practical shot at the MNC. Only Alabama is undefeated out of the major conferences, yet neither Utah nor BSU has a chance, despite having both been in BCS games in the recent past – and having won them. It’s not like either team is a 1-and-done kind of team.

I just don’t know what else it would take for them.

by David Hooper on Nov 23, 2008 3:51 PM EST reply actions