When ranking teams in college football there seems to be two schools of thought:
1) That teams with lower winning percentage can and sometimes should be ranked higher if their schedules are much more challenging than that of the team with a higher winning percentage. That a one loss season in say the SEC or Pac Ten is better than an undefeated season in the Big XII or Big Ten. This is what I try to quantify in The Pride and The Pageantry Index
2) That each team should be judged by how they have handled only the schedule in front of them. That the 12 game season is in essence a three month tournament. This is the view of my friend Paul. To hold him to this principle I will attempt to rank the top 25 teams in an order in which no team is ranked higher than a team with fewer losses at this point in the season. Each team with equal number of losses would be ranked upon the quality of that loss. No team would be ranked higher to a team they had beaten if both teams had equal amount of losses.
Here is how such a ranking would go:
1. Ohio State 10-0
2. Kansas 9-0
3. Hawaii 8-0
4. Oregon 8-1 (California)
5. Arizona State 8-1 (Oregon)
6. LSU 8-1 (Kentucky)
7. Oklahoma 7-1 (Colorado)
8. Missouri 7-1 (Oklahoma)
9. Connecticut 8-1 (Virginia)
10. West Virginia 7-1 (South Florida)
11. Boston College 8-1 (Florida State)
12. Boise State 8-1 (Washington)
13. Virginia Tech 7-2 (LSU, Boston College)
14. Georgia 7-2 (South Carolina, Tennessee)
15. Texas 8-2 (Kansas State, Oklahoma)
16. Clemson 7-2 (Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech)
17. Cincinnati 7-2 (Rutgers, Pittsburgh)
18. BYU 6-2 (UCLA, Tulsa)
19. Virginia 8-2 (Wyoming, NC State)
20. USC 7-2 (Stanford, Oregon)
21. Michigan 8-2 (Appalachian State, Oregon)
22. Illinois 7-3 (Missouri, Michigan, Iowa)
23. Penn State 7-3 (Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State)
24. Purdue 7-3 (Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State)
25. South Florida 7-3 (Rutgers, UConn, Cincinnati)
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2 comments:
I like it. I think Hawaii #3 is a little bit of a stretch since I'm pretty sure 20 of the teams behind them could also go undefeated against their schedule, but it does look pretty good. The Missouri-Oklahoma thing is interesting.
Is Oklahoma better because they beat Missouri, or is Missouri better because they're loss was to a better team?
I guess that's my point about Hawaii. They are either having the third best season which would deserve a #3 ranking (as they have here) or they've played nobody and would struggle against Notre Dame or Duke (which is what the TPTPI says). But no pollster can arbitrarily determine whether or not Hawaii would win or lose a game they haven't played which is what pollsters do every week. The truth probably lies in a combination of the two (tomorrow).
This got difficult when it came to the 3 loss teams in the SEC and Pac Ten (Florida, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, California) because some teams (Auburn, California) have wins over other 3 loss teams (Florida, Tennessee) but also losses to teams not even close to this list (Mississippi State, UCLA).
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