Yeah, God knows I don't know anything about major sports events, living in the South. Except for the fact that I went into cardiac arrest/nearly cried at the beginning of the Bama-UF and Bama-UT games. But then, I'm guessing if I lived in Delaware I'd totally know what big games were all about.
There's more drama here than inside a Banana Joe's bathroom. That being said, it's just nerdy bloggers, so what can you expect.
p.s - Dick Harmon, I can't believe you get to pick our national champion matchup, you freaking dumbarse.
I think the real problem is that there aren't 25 teams worth ranking. It's hard to apply order after 15 or 20 given all of the upsets and mediocrity. Why is Rutgers ahead of Michigan on my ballot? Well, I don't think either should be ranked, but I know more about Michigan being non-ranking worthy than Rutgers.
P.S. Maybe next season's blog poll can just be a top twenty.
I would love to see one ballot in the poll be automatic. Baised on record. With a rule that NO team can be ranked above a team that beat it. My guess is it would look ridiculous, but I think it would be interesting to see the results.
This is pathological. Either you think that A) Rutger's season to date is more impressive than Michigan or B) that Rutgers would beat Michigan should they face each other. Both are clearly insane. I repeat: Rutgers lost to Illinois. Illinois is by far the worst team in the Big Ten and may in fact be the worst team in any BCS conference not including the Big East.
I realize that you hate Lloyd Carr but let's try to be somewhat objective when voting, okay? Michigan has had a fairly brutal schedule so far and has picked itself up from 3-3 to reach 6-3 with one major regular season hurdle left. It's a top 20 team that deserves to be ranked.
marcsumus:
That's what the computer rankings, for the most part, do.
I think in the offseason I'm going to write a computer program to rank Big Ten teams automatically as well. It'll only work after about Week 3 of the Big Ten season, but after that, it'll rank them in that order.
There's also a technique called "unambiguous beatpaths" (www.beatpaths.com) for the NFL which is very similar to what you're talking about, although the ranking is "no team can be above another team that they've unambiguously beaten".
As an example, in the Big Ten, even though Penn State beat Michigan, Penn State also beat Wisconsin, who beat Michigan. So there would be a "beatloop" - UM->PSU->WIS->UM. So none of those victories would be considered, because those victories don't tell you anything (they're contradictory). So Michigan didn't "unambiguously" beat Penn State, because they lost to Wisconsin, whom Penn State beat.
Then, once those are all removed, you get a tree structure, which gives you "tiers" of rankings. It's pretty interesting. Not flawless, of course, as it's automated, but still kinda cool.
This beatpath stuff is not cool at all. It is TEH 7@m3. If you use this system, cross out every result with "ambiguity," and Iowa beats Wisconsin this week, Michigan's season will have three legit results: 2 wins over MAC teams and whatever they do against Indiana. The PSU and Wisconsin games cancel each other out; so do the MSU and Notre Dame games. Wisconsin's NW loss cancels out Michigan's NW win, and PSU's Minn. win cancels out Michigan's Minn. loss. The Ohio State game will have no meaning either way for Michigan, because OSU beat Minnesota and lost to Penn State. This technique is worthless.
I would add that it doesn't help much with Penn State's schedule either, since by this standard PSU cannot be judged unambiguously better than Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern (NW>Wisc>Michigan>PSU)or Michigan State (MSU>ND>Michigan). Penn State's remaining quality win, vs. OSU, will get canceled out if OSU beats Michigan.
mayday:
Yah, if Iowa beats Wisconsin this week, Michigan would lose its win over Iowa, and would be "stranded" - that is, you can't really say anything about them.
But your second point is wrong: Penn State's got a win over Northwestern because there's a shorter "ambiguous" loop available. NW->WIS->MICH->NW, which you eliminate first. That leaves the PSU->NW win intact.
Check out my webpage for the beatpath graph for Week 8. It does, in fact, rely on Wisconsin beating Iowa to stay sane, but really, if Iowa does beat Wisconsin - doesn't that really confuse the heck out of what we think of the Big Ten anyway?
Oh, and that graph is pure Big Ten. I didn't include any of the non-Big Ten graphs because then uh, I'd have to do all of college football. Just easier to stay in the conference.
So if michigan doesn't deserve to be in the top 25, does Penn State deserve to be ranked #3 after losing to a team that isn't even ranked? I can't remember the last time a team was ranked so high after losing to a non-ranked opponent. Maybe this has happened before, anyone know of this?
No objections when I put Texas #5 last week, but say that you think Notre Dame would capitalize on their poor turnover ratio, and start a blog war!
Uh, LSU lost to Tennessee, and is usually ranked higher than Penn State in a lot of polls.
Which I think is ridiculous, but hey, what can I say, 50YL is a nutter.
I've never voted in a poll but I've always assumed a rankings system would imply that if the two teams met in the next game on neutral turf, which one would win? Obviously there are some exceptions but isn't that the general rule of thumb?
Am I way off base here?
Anthony,
Not for me. For example, I think that if the 1998 OSU team were to face the 1998 Tennessee team, I'd pick the OSU team to win, but Tennessee was undefeated and earned #1.
It gets a bit messier down the line, but there are upsets, and they may not change your opinion of who would win next week or how those teams would do against other teams, but they have to affect your ranking.
I'm more concerned that King continues to get paid to write about his daughter's lacrosse team. If I ran SI I would dock Peter King for every word he babbles on that topic.
No one has responded to the Amaker stuff, but I think that the jury is still out. The NIT win showed something (even if it was the NIT). The better NIT teams -- Rutgers, Oregon from that year -- are mid-level teams from good conferences, and to win 5 straight games against those teams is meaningful. If we don't make the NCAA this year, though, I'll change my tune.
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