10-24-2010, 09:26 PM
I\'m still pretty unhappy about how Stanford is getting jobbed in the BCS.
In what is a clear indicator of how preseason rankings bias later results, Stanford is behind teams like Alabama, Ohio St., Wisconsin, Oklahoma, LSU who either had very lofty preseason rankings, or who were buoyed by victories over those overrated teams *cough cough* Ohio St. Stanford only has one loss to the current number one team in the country, with several very good wins.
Stanford is also hurt by the fact that BCS computers are not allowed to use scoring margin in their calculations, something that hurts Oregon as well and thus doubly affecting Stanford by lowering our SOS. For example, Stanford is 7 in Sagarin\'s predictor ranking and only 10 in the ELO-Chess ranking. Oregon is 1 in the Predictor and 6 in ELO-Chess.
It\'s too early to really get worked up about it, and hopefully things will settle out in the coming weeks, but if teams like Mizzou and Michigan St. stay ahead of us with a loss then I\'ll be truly upset. Stanford needs all the help we can get for a BCS invite, and a really high ranking is important to offset our poor travel record.
In what is a clear indicator of how preseason rankings bias later results, Stanford is behind teams like Alabama, Ohio St., Wisconsin, Oklahoma, LSU who either had very lofty preseason rankings, or who were buoyed by victories over those overrated teams *cough cough* Ohio St. Stanford only has one loss to the current number one team in the country, with several very good wins.
Stanford is also hurt by the fact that BCS computers are not allowed to use scoring margin in their calculations, something that hurts Oregon as well and thus doubly affecting Stanford by lowering our SOS. For example, Stanford is 7 in Sagarin\'s predictor ranking and only 10 in the ELO-Chess ranking. Oregon is 1 in the Predictor and 6 in ELO-Chess.
It\'s too early to really get worked up about it, and hopefully things will settle out in the coming weeks, but if teams like Mizzou and Michigan St. stay ahead of us with a loss then I\'ll be truly upset. Stanford needs all the help we can get for a BCS invite, and a really high ranking is important to offset our poor travel record.