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College Football Rankings: Do the Computers Know Best?

Author

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  • Joseph Martinich

    (College of Business Administration, University of Missouri–St. Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St. Louis, Missouri 63121)

Abstract

The bowl-championship-series (BCS) committee uses 10 ranking schemes, including eight computer rankings, to select college football teams for bowl-championship-series bowl games, including the national championship game. The large financial benefits of participating in BCS bowl games make it imperative that the selection process accurately select the best teams. I evaluated the performance of the 10 ranking schemes the BCS committee used during the 1999 and 2000 seasons to select bowl teams. I found that almost all are equally accurate, but the Seattle Times scheme clearly underperforms the others. In addition, two proposed changes to the BCS selection formula, (1) to prohibit computer ranking schemes from considering the margin of victory in their rankings, and (2) to include explicitly the outcomes of head-to-head games among teams being considered for BCS bowls, could do more harm than good and could decrease the likelihood of the committee selecting the best teams for the BCS bowls.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Martinich, 2002. "College Football Rankings: Do the Computers Know Best?," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 85-94, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:32:y:2002:i:5:p:85-94
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.32.5.85.33
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rick L. Wilson, 1995. "Ranking College Football Teams: A Neural Network Approach," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 44-59, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastián Cea & Guillermo Durán & Mario Guajardo & Denis Sauré & Joaquín Siebert & Gonzalo Zamorano, 2020. "An analytics approach to the FIFA ranking procedure and the World Cup final draw," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 286(1), pages 119-146, March.
    2. B. Jay Coleman, 2005. "Minimizing Game Score Violations in College Football Rankings," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 483-496, December.
    3. Jarrod Olson & Daniel F. Stone, 2014. "Suspense-Optimal College Football Play-Offs," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(5), pages 519-540, October.
    4. C. Richard Cassady & Lisa M. Maillart & Sinan Salman, 2005. "Ranking Sports Teams: A Customizable Quadratic Assignment Approach," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 497-510, December.
    5. Buchman Susan & Kadane Joseph B., 2008. "Reweighting the Bowl Championship Series," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 1-13, July.
    6. B. Jay Coleman, 2014. "Minimum violations and predictive meta‐rankings for college football," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(1), pages 17-33, February.

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