How does bcs ranking work

Giving more weight to the polls and less to the computers was meant to avoid situations like the human media declaring one team the champ while machines arranged for two different teams to meet in the title game.

Again, that happened. But making the polls twice as powerful as the computers helped give Bama a rematch against LSU in The Tide made it by topping Oklahoma State, which ranked 2 in the computers. Everyone hated the all-SEC rematch, TV ratings tanked, and like five months later , the Playoff was officially announced. The computers tried to give us Oklahoma State! Bleep blorp! In , the Playoff works exactly the same as it did in a dozen or so people go into a room, spit out rankings to ESPN, and send one member forth to briefly not explain anything to Rece Davis.

Until the Playoff expands. Or gets sued for only including four or five conferences. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. After the initial release date, CFP rankings are updated each week throughout the season, until selection day, which occurs after the last conference championship game has been played.

Even though CFP rankings aren't released from the beginning of the season, every game, and even every play, are taken into consideration when determining rankings. Factors taken into consideration include "conference championships won, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, comparison of results against common opponents and other factors.

Rankings are determined by a randomly selected panel of head football coaches at the Football Bowl Subdivision FBS schools. Every week, panel members submit their recommendations for the top 25 teams in college football. The panel members don't just submit a list of team names. Instead, the votes they turn in specify which position they feel each team should be in based on performance-to-date in the season, taking any factors they feel are relevant into consideration.

A first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points and so on. A pre-season list of the top 25 teams is released prior to the beginning of the season, and new poll results are released each week throughout the season. AP rankings are determined by a panel of 60 sports reporters, each of whom has experience covering college football.

Both writers and broadcasters are included in the panel. As with the Coaches Poll, panel participants cast votes each week specifying which teams they feel are the 25 best in college football, in rank order.

Not long after Matthews began ranking teams, an elementary-school student named Jeff Sagarin got into the game. Sagarin had just graduated from MIT, and he loved sports. Crucially, he also had access to a computer. I would print them out on the mainframe computer at Indiana University, and then I would run to the post office and send them … by express mail. Starting in , several of those pollsters spent more than a decade at the center of the college football universe, the men behind the computers that accounted for one-third of the BCS rankings.

As their ranks shifted, so did attitudes toward them and the rules they faced. This is the story of the six computer polls—and the people behind them—who swayed the BCS countless times, for better and worse, and saw their rankings through to the bitter end.

BCS pollster from to Still earns his income through publication of his rankings. The original three likely earned their spots because they were published in major media outlets; the BCS could hang its hat on the credibility those newspapers lent the ratings. People in the press loved me. You guys called me almost every week.

They knew I would say something incendiary. Anderson and Chris Hester had first gotten their ratings published by crticizing another original BCS ranking system. In the early s, Anderson had been inspired by how bad he thought the New York Times rankings were, and he and Hester spent a year developing their own alternative.

They sold their finished product to the Seattle Times in If we could convince you that ours is more accurate, would you consider making a switch? We would have gladly paid them, so we were ecstatic. The computer polls were there to take the BCS rankings beyond just records, to help people see behind an undefeated team with a weak schedule and a two-loss team that had played a gauntlet.

The inaugural season of the new system was a wild one, and its final week provided the first major test. With three teams still undefeated on the morning of Dec. At No. It was one of the nuttiest ones ever. That night, Tennessee fell behind Mississippi State in the fourth quarter on an yard punt return touchdown—but the Volunteers struck back on their ensuing possession to retake the lead, pulled away for a 24—14 win and locked up a spot in the title game.

The identity of No. They had no idea. I faxed those rankings off at 2 a. ET to the SEC offices, got a confirmation they received them, and that was the end of a pretty incredible day and season. Jeff Anderson and Chris Hester take wins, losses, home field advantage, records vs. Top 25 teams, records vs. When a friend starts talking about strength of schedule three teams removed, they are using the Anderson and Hester approach to college football rankings.

He also takes into account location, wins, and losses. All computer results do not factor margin of victory in college football games per BCS rules. Margin of victory is thought to influence bias through computer results as found in human polls. Once the six computers have produced their Top 25, the top ranking and lowest ranking are removed for each team. If Oklahoma State received one first place ranking, four second place rankings, and one third place ranking, the first and third place votes would be removed leaving four second place finishes per the computer listings.

In this example OSU has received 96 points after four second place rankings 4 x The total, 96, is then divided by a perfect score of for a final total.