From: gt6390a@prism.gatech.EDU (BERNSTEIN,AVRON P)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: ECMB
Keywords: ECMB, NYT rankings
Date: 1 Sep 92 23:11:13 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology


About the boasting about who is "most East coast," maybe the inhabitants of 
West Quoddy Head, Maine should be the voters in the polls.  But seriously,
are you sure that the ECMB isn't really just selective for the, oh 15 or so
teams, from the Eastern US, that get the best rankings?  For example, if the
ECMB was so all-encompassing, why wasn't East Carolina ranked pre-season
top 10 this year.  I'm not trying to say that there is no ECMB, but just that
it might not be so extreme.  I'm sure students at their own schools in the
East can think of examples where, at least they feel, their school got screwed
by the pollsters and mediots.  As opposed to ECMB, I would propose that there
is a combination ND/Big10/Miami MB.  I know I'll get flamed for that, but the
reason I put the Big 10 in there is that we keep hearing year after year after
year about how tough the Big 10 is, and how they are the best/strongest conf.
Well it seems to me that the last time a Big 10 won the NC was OSU in 1968.
Hmmm, 24 years ago, which means that none of the current players in the NCAA
at least most of them, had even been born the last time a Big 10 team won
the NC.  Oh, I know that the reason for the time lapse is that the Big 10
is "so solid and strong form top-to-bottom" that no one team can finish ranked
high enough and undefeated at the end of the season because of the stiff
competition in conference and so on.  Yeah, whatever.  Mostly, the Pac-10 beats
the Big 10's best team in the Rose Bowl, and ends that argument right away.
Just look at how many televised games each year include Big10/ND/Miami.  Well,
heck ND has their own TV network, so that answers that question.  To Miami's
credit, they do have alot of games against good teams, and those games SHOULD
be on tv.  But I include them in the MB anyway because those of us who aren't
from Coral Gables know too well that Miami needs 3 losses just to fall out
of the top ten :).  Someone mentioned the NYT poll.  Computer polls are 
absolutely NOT unbiased.  The reason is that somebody (a programmer) has to put
in the formula by which the computer generates the rankings.  In that formula,
the weights associated with the various quantities will be inevitably biased
for somebody and against someone else.  Lets say they make, oh I don't know,
75% win-loss record, 20% schedule strength, and 5% victory margin.  I just
made these #'s up, so don't flame me for being really far off with them.
Well, some team might benefit from the schedule being 20% more than others.
If Miami is 9-1, but some other team is 10-0 with an easy schedule, Miami could
get screwed by the schedule strength not being high enough.  Computer rankings
of ANYTHING, football teams, tennis players, NFL QB's, are simply trying to
quantify things that are unquantifiable.  The only answer is for a human to
make a completely subjective judgement on who is "better."
-- 
BERNSTEIN,AVRON P
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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