Suppose you’re looking to buy a book online. You heard about this new site binaryshop.com that lets you comparison shop. After submitting a book name and choosing any two online retailers, binaryshop.com tells you which has the lower price. However, it doesn’t tell you the actual price.
Clearly, this isn’t a very good e-commerce idea. The price of the book and the relative price between different sites makes a big difference in deciding where to buy. It’s kind of like ranking college football teams without using margin of victory. While winning is the ultimate goal whenever a team steps on the field, common sense says a 48 point win in which the starters only in the first half is vastly different from squeaking out a 1 point win on a last second 58 yard field goal. But the Bowl Championship Series cartel says no to common sense. All six computer rankings are restricted from using margin of victory in its calculations.
To see how this impacts college football, consider Oregon and Auburn, the top two teams in the cartel rankings. Oregon has blazed through the season with a string of impressive double digit wins. Their fast paced offense runs so many plays that a Stanford defender faked an injury so the defense could rest. The closest game this season for Oregon was an 11 point win at Arizona State, and the Ducks have 21 point wins over highly regarded Stanford and USC teams.
On the other hand, Auburn has taken quite a different route an undefeated 9-0 record. While they have big wins over Arkansas and Mississippi, the rest of their wins have been by a touchdown or less. That puts them within one bad bounce or one tipped Cam Newton pass returned for a touchdown from losing these games. The Power Rank has Oregon first and Auburn 11th. Peter Billingsly, the creator of one of the cartel computer polls and a staunch defender of not using margin of victory, has Auburn first and Oregon third.
The cartel banned margin of victory in the name of sportsmanship. A big boy from the Big Ten shouldn’t run up the score on its little neighbor in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). But sportsmanship is a funny thing. Should the smartest kid in the class purposely do worse on a final to make his or her classmates feel better? Should Intel purposely sells less computer chips to raise the self-esteem of rival AMD’s CEO?
Use of the term cartel to describe the people who run the Bowl Championship Series comes from the new book Death to the BCS. Still making my way through this fine read.
1. Oregon, 8-0, 43.90
2. TCU, 9-0, 37.03
3. Boise State, 7-0, 32.93
4. Stanford, 7-1, 28.20
5. Utah, 8-0, 26.70
6. Nebraska, 7-1, 26.61
7. Ohio State, 8-1, 26.16
8. Oregon State, 4-3, 26.06
9. Virginia Tech, 6-2, 25.99
10. Iowa, 6-2, 25.63
11. Auburn, 9-0, 25.36
12. Alabama, 7-1, 25.15
13. USC, 5-3, 24.67
14. Arizona, 7-1, 24.62
15. Oklahoma, 7-1, 24.58
16. Missouri, 7-1, 24.47
17. Arizona State, 4-4, 24.44
18. Nevada, 7-1, 24.34
19. Wisconsin, 7-1, 24.03
20. South Carolina, 6-2, 23.37
21. Florida State, 6-2, 22.74
22. Miami (FL), 5-3, 22.03
23. Pittsburgh, 5-3, 21.19
24. LSU, 7-1, 20.81
25. California, 4-4, 20.78