Upset at the recent CFP rankings? You'd be incensed at the BCS
During an extended rant Tuesday night aimed at the College Football Playoff selection committee, ESPN analyst Greg McElroy couldn’t figure out why Texas was ranked one spot behind No. 6 Oregon in the most recent CFP top 25. Good thing he didn’t see the projected Bowl Championship Series rankings.
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Data accumulated by BCSKnowHow.com revealed that if something like the BCS were still around and published weekly rankings, the Longhorns would still be No. 7 in the Week 11 release. The difference between the simulated BCS and the CFP rankings is instead of Oregon at No. 6, the Alabama Crimson Tide would be the top-ranked one-loss team in the BCS at the current juncture and one spot ahead of the Longhorns.
Yes, the same Alabama Crimson Tide that Texas defeated 34-24 in Tuscaloosa, Ala. on September 9.
Oregon would have been ranked No. 8 in the projected BCS, a detail that offers little consolation.
What BCSKnowHow.com publishes isn’t exactly what the BCS would have released were it still around today. The original BCS created a ranking based off two human polls and one aggregation of six computer rankings. The two human polls were the USA Today Coaches Poll and the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, each determining one-third of the BCS rankings.
Since the Harris Poll isn’t around, BCSKnowHow.com uses the Associated Press poll, which ironically opted out of factoring into the original BCS in 2005.
The computer polls are listed in the second tweet below, with the highest ranking and lowest ranking for each team tossed out before the four-computer result was plugged into the BCS equation.
Top 10
- 1New
Isaiah Bond
Texas WR set to play vs. Georgia
- 2Hot
Herbstreit picks Vols
Kirk Herbstreit predicts Third Saturday
- 3
Travis Hunter
Colorado star expected to return vs. Arizona
- 4Trending
Oregon Mascot
Oregon mascot takes spill, loses head
- 5
Duke trolls FSU
Historic win leads to massive troll
College football did away with the BCS after the 2013 season and implemented the College Football Playoff for 2014. The CFP was created in large part to bring about a four-team playoff to crown a national champion instead of the No. 1 versus No. 2 system that often brought about controversy.
It was also made in order to control for a number of factors the BCS couldn’t, including human bias from the media or coaches (or with regards to the latter, sports information directors). The selection committee was designed to be above politicking as best as possible thanks to insulated viewpoints from former coaches, athletic directors, and others involved with intercollegiate athletics.
The process isn’t always pretty. There was an uproar from McElroy and Texas supporters on Tuesday when Oregon’s arguably weaker resume received the nod over the Longhorns. That’s happened often in recent years, with all different teams acting as beneficiaries and victims.
Of course, there are more games and rankings to go.
But at least the CFP selection committee had Texas ahead of Alabama. In the BCS world the on-field result would have, at least for the Week 11 rankings, been ignored.
