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Simplifying the Complicated

The college football season culminates in December and January with the bowl games. In Division 1A, the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, provides for five of the most closely watched games in college football; The Rose Bowl, The Orange Bowl, The Sugar Bowl and The Fiesta Bowl, along with the National Championship Game.

Team BCS Standings and BCS rules govern the selection of the teams that play in these games. The four bowl games are not playoff or championship games, rather, they are competitive games between teams of interest in their respective television markets. The National Championship Game is played between the two highest ranked Division 1A teams.

Some believe that the BCS standings are so complicated, even highly paid sports casters for the networks don't fully understand them. This is untrue. The BCS ranking methods and associated standings have been a source of controversy since the inception of their roots in 1992. As the college football season progresses, speculation on each teams final ranking grows with the anticipation of the bowl games and the championship game.

The Raw Data of the Rankings

There are three sources of data. The USA Today Coaches Poll, The Harris Interactive College Football Poll and The Computer Rankings. Each source compiles a ranking for each team they select. The BCS takes each team's ranking from each source and averages it. The sorted results provide the BCS standings.

Factors that determine the ranking by each source include the team's win-loss record, schedule difficulty, conference strength, opponent strength, injuries and other factors. It makes sense that if a team beats a very strong opponent at the opponent's home field, they deserve a higher ranking than if they beat a weak opponent at home.

The Computer Rankings apply these factors numerically. They determine strengths and weaknesses based on raw performance. This balances the subjectivity of the human participants who apply similar factors.

The Easy Math

In the end, it all comes down to the math; simple even for a highly paid sports caster.

This year, The Harris Poll has 113 panelists made up of former players, coaches, administrators and media who rank the teams each week. Each panelist assigns a rank of 1-25 for each team they wish to vote. The ranks are totaled and each team's rank total is divided by 2825 (113 x 25) to assign the Harris Poll ranking.

The Coaches Poll has 61 coaches this year, all from Division 1-A schools. Like the Harris Poll, each coach assigns a 1-25 rank to each team they vote for. The ranks are totaled and the sums divided by 1525 (61 x 25) to give each teams ranking.

Six different computer-ranking systems make up the Computer Rankings. Each ranking system assigns a 1-25 rank to each team it selects. After discarding the highest and lowest rank for each team, averaging the four remaining scores gives each team their Computer Ranking.

By averaging the Poll and Computer Rankings together, each team's place in the BCS standings is determined. The final BCS Standings issued in December determines which teams play in The National Championship Game and the four BCS Bowl Games.

What could be easier?

Learn more about this author, MJ Logan.
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