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What is the best way to calculate who is the best team?

Bama Lee

Bama Lee

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I have been arguing with USCe fans about how to calculate who is better candidate. What should be used?
1- overall record
2- head to head
3- strength of schedule
4- top 25 wins
5- calculating bad losses
what say you?

also, how do you calculate top 25 wins. Do you still give credit to a team if they beat a top 25, but that team drops out of top 25 later? I say it should only count if team is still ranked at end of season. Many USCe fans think it should count if the team was ranked previously but not now.
what say you part 2?
 
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KrAzY3

KrAzY3

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Things like top 25 wins are incredibly arbitrary. It helps to have a point of reference to kind of visualize SoS, but the idea that they need to be top 25 teams, like #26 is meaningless is so asinine.

It's part of the issue, the trick is to calculate every single win and loss in such a way that they are all meaningful. By meaningful I don't mean they are very positive or negative even, think about it like this.

When Alabama beat Wisconsin let's say that's +50 points in some imaginary calculation. Beating Georgia might be +250. Beating USF? That's might be +25.

So once you start to rank the wins and losses you see for instance that South Carolina has more lower point wins than Alabama. You rank the losses in reverse, but the key is they would be cancelled out because the values are essentially reversed. For instance, losing to Georgia would only be -25 and losing to Oklahoma might be -100

In South Carolina's case, the issue is Alabama beat LSU +100, they beat Georgia, they beat South Carolina (since it's head to head let's give it a relative 2X modifier, so +300). So even if you try saying yeah but losing to Vandy and Oklahoma is sooo bad, yeah but it doesn't erase the wins that are sooo good.

Simple minded people just want to reduce the season to a few games though and it doesn't work like that. It's the entire body of work.

Edit: Actual computers do this for us though. Sagarin has Alabama at 5 and South Carolina at 13. FPI has Alabama at 4 and South Carolina at 14. So if South Carolina fans are just cherry picking criteria then why indulge them?
 
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BhamToTexas

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Bama Lee said:
What about the part 2 question?
Click to expand...
I would lean toward if they are ranked at the end of the year, then it counts. Too many undeserving teams are ranked at the beginning of the year that shouldn't be. But you also have what happened to Texas this past weekend. TAMU was ranked, but they beat them in the last game so now they are not. Seems like a top 25 win in that case.
 
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CrimsonTitles

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Bama Lee said:
I have been arguing with USCe fans about how to calculate who is better candidate. What should be used?
1- overall record
2- head to head
3- strength of schedule
4- top 25 wins
5- calculating bad losses
what say you?

also, how do you calculate top 25 wins. Do you still give credit to a team if they beat a top 25, but that team drops out of top 25 later? I say it should only count if team is still ranked at end of season. Many USCe fans think it should count if the team was ranked previously but not now.
what say you part 2?
Click to expand...
In this case, where all the teams have the same record, then the first thing you look at is H2H. South Carolina lost to both Ole Miss and Alabama. That should be the end of it. Case closed. Book shut. Game over. South Carolina goes home.

You compare the other stuff when it's Alabama v Miami v Ole Miss.
 
Bama Lee

Bama Lee

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CrimsonTitles said:
In this case, where all the teams have the same record, then the first thing you look at is H2H. South Carolina lost to both Ole Miss and Alabama. That should be the end of it. Case closed. Book shut. Game over. South Carolina goes home.

You compare the other stuff when it's Alabama v Miami v Ole Miss.
Click to expand...
Who would say wins the argument of Bama v Miami vs da Land Sharks
 
I

Isaiah 63:1

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Some combination of Strength of Schedule and Strength of Record. Overall record in isolation from those considerations is practically fetishized among the nattering nabobs.

For instance, USCe has the 12th highest Strength of Schedule, and the 5th best Strength of Record. Alabama is 11th / 2nd, and Ole Miss is 27th / 7th. By comparison, SMU is 77th / 49th, and yet if they beat Clemson (57th / 27th) they will get a first round bye, and people seem to think that a loss to Clemson likely keeps SMU in while dooming all SEC teams other than UGa (1st / 1st), Tennessee (22nd / 11th), and Texas (36th / 9th). While teams in conferences have very little control over whom they play (and none in-conference), that doesn't mean a weak conference in the current setup should get multiple spots at the expense of objectively better teams who have lesser W-L marks after playing significantly tougher schedules.

A final note: Vanderbilt was scheduled to play SMU in Nashville September 14. Vanderbilt opted out in favor of a game in Atlanta at Ga. State (which they inexplicably lost). Could SMU have beaten Vanderbilt the third week of the season, before anyone knew what VU had this year? Color me skeptical. SMU owes VU a thank you note...

ETA: SMU replaced VU with BYU, who beat them on their home field.
 
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CrimsonTitles

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Bama Lee said:
Who would say wins the argument of Bama v Miami vs da Land Sharks
Click to expand...
For Miami, I think the committee should go back and look at what they did with BYU (19) and Arizona St (18) last week, two teams with comparable SOS. BYu actually has a higher SOS than Miami. BYU also has more ranked wins.

Needless to say, I think Miami should be out, so then it becomes Alabama vs Ole Miss.

Ranked Wins
Alabama- 3
Ole Miss- 2

Record against common opponents
Alabama: 3-1
Ole Miss: 3-1

SOR
Bama: 10
Ole Miss: 18

It's close, but it's clear to see Bama has a slight edge. I think it will be Bama.
 
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Valley View

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This has been a problem going on since before we got robbed in 1966. Imperfect men trying to answer an almost impossible question. Trying to solve this, plus giving in to players demands for money and transfers, have tarnished the product to the point it is becoming hard to watch.
 
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