Most college football fans are happy that the sport has adopted a 4-team playoff. The method of selecting those four teams, however, is another matter. This past offseason, McLaughlin & Associates asked self-described college football fans this question: “As you may know, college football will have a 4-team playoff starting next season. Would you rather have those 4 teams be selected by a committee of 13 people, or by the BCS selection process, which involves 167 poll voters and 6 computer rankings?” By the overwhelming tally of 60 to 23 percent, college football fans said they would rather entrust the BCS selection process than a committee.
Little about the committee’s performance in its first season is likely to change fans’ view. On the one hand, the committee did get the field of four teams right — both as measured by the Anderson & Hester Rankings (which Chris Hester and I co-created) and by the estimated BCS Standings. On the other hand, the committee ordered the teams badly, changed the matchups and game sites in the process, and stumbled its way to a final list in a way that would be hard for anyone to defend — especially anyone in Ft. Worth, Texas, home of the TCU Horned Frogs.
The College Football Playoff Selection Committee ranked the top-4 as follows:
1. Alabama (12-1)
2. Oregon (12-1)
3. Florida State (13-0)
4. Ohio State (12-1)
It ranked Baylor (11-1) #5, and TCU (11-1) #6.
In comparison, here is an estimate of what the BCS Standings would have been this week (see here for a further explanation of how these estimated BCS Standing were computed):
1. Florida State (13-0), .969
2. Alabama (12-1), .966
3. Oregon (12-1), .938
4. Ohio State (12-1), .861
5. TCU (11-1), .838
6. Baylor (11-1), .827
And here are this week’s Anderson & Hester Rankings:
1. Florida State (13-0), .825 (the Anderson & Hester scale is different than the BCS scale)
2. Oregon (12-1), .814
3. Alabama (12-1), .808
4. Ohio State (12-1), .789
5. TCU (11-1), .779
6. Baylor (11-1), .765
The difference in order between the committee’s rankings and the estimated BCS Standings is not a trivial matter. If the committee had ranked the teams in the same order that BCS likely would have, then Florida State would have gotten to play much closer to home — in the Sugar Bowl — rather than having to play on the West Coast (in the Rose Bowl) versus a Pac-12 team. Moreover, the Seminoles would have gotten to play #4 Ohio State, rather than #3 (according to the BCS, #2 according to the committee and Anderson & Hester) Oregon. Meanwhile, Alabama would have had to play in the Rose Bowl versus Oregon, rather than getting to play much closer to home (in the Sugar Bowl) versus #4 Ohio State.
But it’s not just where the committee ended up, but how it ended up there, that left much to be desired. The BCS always gave fans and teams a good sense of what to expect going forward. The BCS Standings were not only released each week (as are the committee’s), but the margins between the teams were published (not so with the committee), and the rankings didn’t range wildly. Last week’s estimated BCS Standings looked like this:
1. Florida State (12-0), .975
2. Alabama (11-1), .965
3. Oregon (11-1), .935
4. TCU (10-1), .858
5. Ohio State (11-1), .836
6. Baylor (10-1), .789.
The only change in order in this week’s estimated BCS Standings, then, would have been that Ohio State — fresh off of its 59-0 annihilation of Wisconsin the Big Ten Championship Game — would have moved up to #4, with TCU sliding to #5. (In the Anderson & Hester Rankings, the order of the top five teams didn’t change from last week to this one — Ohio State was #4 and TCU #5 in both weeks, although the gap between them widened.)
In stark contrast to such sensible and predictable movement in the BCS Standings, the committee’s rankings were about as steady as a drunken sailor. Last week, they were as follows: 1. Alabama; 2. Oregon; 3. TCU; 4. Florida State; 5. Ohio State; and 6. Baylor. Then the Horned Frogs beat hapless Iowa State 55-3 — and were dropped three spots (from #3 to #6) by the committee.
In other words, the committee seemed to be saying, Don’t pay attention to our penultimate rankings — or at least don’t have confidence in them — because they don’t really mean much. We’ll have some surprises in store for the last week.
This, of course, is what one gets from small, insular, subjective committees. The BCS combined art and science, polls and computers, subjectivity and objectivity. It was driven mostly by public opinion (with the polls having two-thirds of the weight), but the computers (the other third) helped “to refine and enlarge” that public opinion (to quote Mr. Madison). Now such a well-conceived blend of popular and objective measures had given way to the progressives’ favorite notion: “a body of experts.”
As Samuel Chi, managing editor of RealClearSports, put it to me last week, “I miss the BCS terribly. It’s just not the same. I describe it as going from a pseudo-democracy to a monarchy.”
That’s well said.
Jeff Anderson is co-creator of the Anderson & Hester Computer Rankings, which were part of the BCS throughout its 16-year run and are now published by the Dallas Morning News.
