Video: Pate on the CFP committee being a disaster

[PacadermaTideUs]

I went to the same church as Colley of the Colley matricx. He was a UGA grad, but pretty solid in being nonpartisan with his matrix (the matrix was formula based, but fails occasionally in reality). He had started it as a mathematical hobby project (doctoral math/engineering guy) and he said out of the blue the BCS called and asked to use his model. Lots of site traffic at the time.

I started developing my own model around 1992 during Bama’s championship season, inspired by what Sagarin was doing and thinking I could do it better. And I did - in my opinion, Sagarin’s ratings are some of the worst algorithm-derived rankings out there. While the whole nation, including Sagarin, was saying Bama didn’t stand a chance against Miami, my system was saying Bama held a slight edge. We all know the outcome (Roll Tide!).

At that time, I was hand-crunching all the numbers for what was then around 120 division 1A teams, with pencil and paper and a calculator every week. This was incredibly time-consuming, but also very gratifying. During the 90s, I continued fine-tuning my algorithm and eventually, with the maturation of home computing technology, migrated everything over to excel spreadsheet. But it still required manual data-entry on a weekly basis and was still a full-time hobby. Around 2002, I developed my own website and contacted Kenneth Massey, who published (and still does) a compilation of all the well-known computer rankings, including his own at masseyratings.com. For awhile he included my rankings in that compilation.

Mind you, that decade of development and publication (1992-2002) coincided with a decade of relative free time for me. Then came marital engagement, a family, a son, and well, life. I just couldn’t keep up with the time required for the hobby anymore. What I needed to continue modeling was to develop a way to automate the data ingestion and move my model from excel to something else - a true databasing platform, so that there would be little to no manual time necessary from me to keep it going. But I didn’t really have the time or know how to make that happen.

One of the last triumphs of my model before I quit doing it altogether was in using it to win one of the early Tidefans pickem contests in the late 2000s. Who knows - had I been able to automate everything properly on a databasing program, maybe mine might’ve eventually been included as one of the BCS models.

 

[BigGunn9595]

I believe there is a flaw in this comparison though, because some of the computer models and polls that the BCS used no longer exist, so they can’t be input into the “bcs” calculation. We therefore can’t actually know what the BCS system would have ranked teams this season because somebody is just creating a simulacrum of the old inputs by using different polls, different models, or just not applying those inputs. Somebody correct me if I am wrong though.

Well the weekly rankings during the season would have been much different and some of these "top 10" would definitely been so.

 

[BigGunn9595]

The playoff system began, in my memory, to appease the whiners. It goes back to the USC bunch choosing to go with the AP instead of the coaches poll. There became a top 60 coaches group stating that they would go with the coaches poll, the ap chose usc and they bolted from a 60 coaches agreement and go play in the Orange bowl as the championship and causing a rift in the agreed upon arrangement. The whiners group got louder and louder until they chose a many team playoff and eliminated the BCS.

 

[RammerJammer14]

The playoff system began, in my memory, to appease the whiners. It goes back to the USC bunch choosing to go with the AP instead of the coaches poll. There became a top 60 coaches group stating that they would go with the coaches poll, the ap chose usc and they bolted from a 60 coaches agreement and go play in the Orange bowl as the championship and causing a rift in the agreed upon arrangement. The whiners group got louder and louder until they chose a many team playoff and eliminated the BCS.

It was also pushed hard by ESPN through all of their anchors and shows. I can’t imagine why.

 

[bamaga]

Or Ohio State, but Alabama will be battle tested assuming we make the Playoffs.

Or mentally and physically fatigued.

 

[bamaga]

I’m thinking either way would be doomsday for the CFP committee. If Bama loses, and misses the playoffs , all hell would break loose. Better hope TT wins the Big 12. . But, if Bama loses and Makes the playoffs with 3 losses, a lot of two loss teams will cry foul . Also, if Bama wins, does the SEC champ not get a bye, especially since they beat Georgia on their home field. If bama wins the SEC, they will jump ahead of Notre Dame. notre Dame would be the last team in, ahead of the first team out, Miami who beat ND already. Pretty clear schedule and head to head wins mean nothing to the committee.

 

[arthurdawg]

I’m thinking either way would be doomsday for the CFP committee. If Bama loses, and misses the playoffs , all hell would break loose. Better hope TT wins the Big 12. . But, if Bama loses and Makes the playoffs with 3 losses, a lot of two loss teams will cry foul . Also, if Bama wins, does the SEC champ not get a bye, especially since they beat Georgia on their home field. If bama wins the SEC, they will jump ahead of Notre Dame. notre Dame would be the last team in, ahead of the first team out, Miami who beat ND already. Pretty clear schedule and head to head wins mean nothing to the committee.

I think win / loss records and a dislike for the SEC are the primary driving forces here...

 

[CoolBreeze]

Or Ohio State, but Alabama will be battle tested assuming we make the Playoffs.

There is battle tested and there is battle bruised. The season wears on a team, physically and mentally, and I am not sure a deep playoff run is even possible for us after the brutal regular season.

 

[dtgreg]

I started developing my own model around 1992 during Bama’s championship season, inspired by what Sagarin was doing and thinking I could do it better. And I did - in my opinion, Sagarin’s ratings are some of the worst algorithm-derived rankings out there. While the whole nation, including Sagarin, was saying Bama didn’t stand a chance against Miami, my system was saying Bama held a slight edge. We all know the outcome (Roll Tide!).

At that time, I was hand-crunching all the numbers for what was then around 120 division 1A teams, with pencil and paper and a calculator every week. This was incredibly time-consuming, but also very gratifying. During the 90s, I continued fine-tuning my algorithm and eventually, with the maturation of home computing technology, migrated everything over to excel spreadsheet. But it still required manual data-entry on a weekly basis and was still a full-time hobby. Around 2002, I developed my own website and contacted Kenneth Massey, who published (and still does) a compilation of all the well-known computer rankings, including his own at masseyratings.com. For awhile he included my rankings in that compilation.

Mind you, that decade of development and publication (1992-2002) coincided with a decade of relative free time for me. Then came marital engagement, a family, a son, and well, life. I just couldn’t keep up with the time required for the hobby anymore. What I needed to continue modeling was to develop a way to automate the data ingestion and move my model from excel to something else - a true databasing platform, so that there would be little to no manual time necessary from me to keep it going. But I didn’t really have the time or know how to make that happen.

One of the last triumphs of my model before I quit doing it altogether was in using it to win one of the early Tidefans pickem contests in the late 2000s. Who knows - had I been able to automate everything properly on a databasing program, maybe mine might’ve eventually been included as one of the BCS models.

Let AI do this for you. We'll appreciate it here, and elsewhere, who knows?

 

[CoolBreeze]

Why is it that every time the committee does/says something really stupid, Alabama always seems to bear the brunt of the nonsense?

We have the best, most storied program that everyone loves to hate.

 

[arthurdawg]

There is battle tested and there is battle bruised. The season wears on a team, physically and mentally, and I am not sure a deep playoff run is even possible for us after the brutal regular season.

Agreed. We look tired and our bag of tricks on offense has run out. I do hope that last week allowed players to rest a bit and we have one more complete game left in us.

 

[CoolBreeze]

Agreed. We look tired and our bag of tricks on offense has run out. I do hope that last week allowed players to rest a bit and we have one more complete game left in us.

Yep, gonna need some new contributors as well.

 

[PacadermaTideUs]

Let AI do this for you. We'll appreciate it here, and elsewhere, who knows?

That’s not a bad idea, and one I hadn’t thought of. I might might tinker around with that and see what I can come up with.