Yep, it's that time of year. In a lot of ways, I am grateful the NFL is back. However, I was starting to prepare and study college football a bit more, if nothing else because the offseason in the other sports was so dead as a doornail (and baseball inspires a sleepier, marriage-like devotion). In any case, with media days passed, the Coaches Poll first released and the hootin and hollerin about 18-21 year olds from alums, we're here.
During the season I hope to bring you a weekly view of the football landscape, using a pairwise ranking formula similar to that which the NCAA uses to seed college hockey teams.
The formula involves math Excel can do and a nerdy explanation, but basically it will examine every team vs every other on a list of criteria.
Of course the data needed to put a formula together for a preseason poll doesn't exist - so what can I do for a season preview? We looked at the various preseason publications, the coaches poll and a couple of the BCS computers that DOES have a preseason ranking and cobbled together a mini-BCS if you will. 1/3 is the coaches poll, 1/3 is the aggregate of preseason publications (your Harris poll proxy) and the rest are an average of the Sagarin and Massey starting rankings.
As we know, Oklahoma is starting the coaches poll at #1 and thus be called preseason #1 by ESPN. But once the entire poll aggregation cake is assembled, what does the Top 25 look like?
1. Alabama (#2 coaches, #1 pubs, #2 computer)
2. Oregon (#3 coaches, #3 pubs, #1 computer)
3. Oklahoma (#1 coaches, #2 pubs, #8 computer)
4. LSU (#4, #4, #9)
5. Boise State (#7, #5, #5)
6. Stanford (#6, #8, #6)
7. Florida State (#5, #6, #14)
8. Virginia Tech (#13, #7, #9)
9. Ohio State (#16, #13, #3)
10. TCU (#15, #15, #4)
11. Arkansas (#14, #13, #11)
12. Oklahoma State (#8, #12, #15)
13. Nebraska (#11, #9, #17)
14. Wisconsin (#10, #18, #15)
15. Texas A&M (#9, #10, #22)
16. South Carolina (#12, #9, #17)
17. Auburn (#19, #29, #7)
18. Notre Dame (#18, #10, #20)
19. Florida (#23, #21, #12)
20. USC (UR, #24, #13)
21. Georgia (#22, #16, #23)
22. Missouri (#21, #22, #18)
23. Michigan State (#17, #19, #23)
24. Mississippi State (#20, #23, #23)
25. West Virginia (#27, #20, #23)
Obviously this will change as results are added. What is interesting to note is the disparity between the computers and the coaches poll. The most striking is Ohio State - though I suspect the computers might not know about the suspensions when the algorithms are churning. But clearly Alabama is better than Brown - I have proof!