BCS simplifies standings formula(college football returns to its figure skating roots)

The new BCS formula isn't quite as simple as advertised, but it is simpler, and for that the Division I-A commissioners should be congratulated.

The simplest solution would have been to use the ranking of the teams in each poll. Instead, the commissioners chose precision over simplicity. The percentage of votes that a team receives in each poll, and not simply its ranking, will be that team's score in the BCS standings.

Here's how it works: in The Associated Press media poll there are 1625 possible points. The percentage of that amount will be a team's AP score in the BCS standings. For example, if team X receives 1600 points in the AP poll, its would receive .985 points. The same formula applies to the ESPN-USA Today coaches poll, which has 1,525 possible points.

Six computer rankings will also be used. The highest and lowest will be tossed, and the other four, scored on a 100-point basis, will be averaged for the third part of the equation.

The AP, ESPN-USA Today and computer scores will be averaged to determine a team's BCS ranking.

"The actual voting point total for each poll will be used," said Weiberg, adding that those totals will provide "a better reflection of the national consensus of who should be participating in the national championship game. By relying on the human polls, we have taken an important step toward eliminating some of the controversy of recent years."

Using the new system, LSU and USC would have played for No. 1 last year, and Miami and Oregon would have played for the national championship in 2001. Though the polls ranked Miami ahead of Florida State in 2000, Weiberg said that the commissioners couldn't determine under the new ratings whether the Hurricanes would have replaced the Seminoles in the 2000 championship game against Oklahoma.

Gone are the strength of schedule component, the quality-win component and the team-loss component.

In fact, the word component will be gone from college football stories. So will quartile. That is a real and symbolic improvement over the algebraic confusion of the last several years.

The commissioners had some numbers run, and examined the computer rankings from one decimal point to the other. They learned, Weiberg said, that strength of schedule and "quality wins" are built into the computer ratings, and they assume that the voters take them into account. Having them in the formula gave them too much importance.

"We did get caught up in the early years in adding elements," Weiberg said. "That became part of the problem instead of part of the solution."

The reliance on the polls is not a fail-safe method of eliminating controversy. If the computers differ greatly from the polls, then there will be fireworks. And a significant portion of the public liked the BCS standings precisely because they did not depend on the polls, which are by no means perfect.

Weiberg said that the commissioners did look into the coaches' refusal to make their votes public. "The coaches have assured us that they have a system for monitoring their participation," Weiberg said. "Grant [Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association,] says he is personally involved. Transparency would be a benefit. But we understand their concern with publishing their votes."

There is no concern in publishing their votes that is more important than transparency. A skeptical public would like to know who voted for whom. Overall, however, the new formula is an improvement that the BCS sorely needed.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.

Basically it is back to the 'judgement' of the subjective polls, which the BCS was supposed to get away from and all their beauty contest pitfalls. So once again Miami and Florida State will be vastly overrated, as will Notre Dame until late in the season when its 5th loss finally forces the poll voters to admit that they are no longer viable for the championship game. Texas and OU will benefit, as the preseason hype-based ratings will be even more difficult to overcome based on actual performance. Fraud programs that follow the old Nebraska/V. Tech 'schedule 3 weak sisters to run it up on at home for non-conference' strategy will be rewarded as long as they can payoff a few notable writers to proclaim how they are "The real deal, don't let the schedule fool you."

Back to the same ol' bogus under the table subjective scam. Until there is a playoff, its still all just figure skating.

I hate this.

People complained last year, but the BCS did the right thing. Three major teams each had one loss (Miami of Ohio also had one loss, but no one seemed to care). Which two did the computer rankings (except for the horribly irrelevant NY Times Computer Poll) choose to go? Oklahoma and LSU. Why?

Of the three teams with one loss, USC played the weakest schedule (ranked 37th, LSU ranked 29th, Oklahoma ranked 11th). Also, of the three teams with one loss, USC lost to the weakest opponent (Cal).

Of the three teams' victories, LSU and Oklahoma could both claim at least two wins against teams stronger than USC's strongest win.

Why was USC #1 in both polls? Of the three teams with one loss, USC lost first. This is a common flaw of both human polls, which seem to care more about when a team lost instead of who they lost to, or for that matter, who they beat.

The goal of the BCS was to use strength of schedule and computer polls to remove the emotional, human element. The goal of the BCS was to take three one loss teams or three undefeated teams and choose the two who were most worthy, based on quality of opponents, important wins, etc.

Last year's formula was the best formula yet. Margin of Victory was not a big factor. Heck, a win is a win. By a field goal over your biggest rival in a hard fought game was just as good as running it up on Rutgers by 64 in August. And even better, quality win points were handed out. Beat a team in the top 10? You shall be rewarded for it.

Because people were so outraged that the formula ranked the human polls' flawed #1 pick as lowly #3 and locking them out of the national title game, the BCS has done the worst thing it can do. It gives more weight to the flawed human polls. It takes away quality win points, so teams are not rewarded for taking on or winning against the big boys.

Meanwile, one loss and no loss mid-majors like Miami of Ohio (who got respect from the computers last year, with an average ranking of 8.17, as opposed to the two human polls who ranked them 14th and 15th) will not be helped here, even with a weaker schedule. The AP and CNN/USA Today Polls will dump on the mid-majors and keep them out of the BCS.

This is the kind of decision which will make national championship contenders pull a "Nebraska" or a "Kansas State" and load up with teams like Army, SMU, and SUNY-Buffalo in their non-conference schedule, because it won't matter. Heck, USC played Auburn, BYU, and Hawaii last year, and won with a combined score of 119-50. And still rolled on to a "national championship."

Any math whiz or for that matter, any person with enough time to examine the details, will tell you that the real national championship was played in New Orleans last year, and that LSU is the national champion. By the numbers. Not because of the flawed, human polls.

The BCS is flushing itself down the can next season....my prediction is that several of the computer polls will attempt to make up for strength of schedule and quality wins being dropped, but it won't be enough to make up the difference. The only way the right teams get picked now is if the human polls disagree on who #1 is and effectively cancel each other out.

The only good news is that the BCS is dropping the very irrelevant NY Times Computer Poll. The results of that poll were consistently very wacky, and at times imitated the human poll anyway (making it also very redundant).

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