The six computers used in the BCS rankings cannot conduct an eyeball test. They cannot judge Boise State’s fast, physical play on defense, no matter who the Broncos are shoving around the field, Virginia Tech or Louisiana Tech. What’s more, the computer looks at a 70-3 score the same as it looks at a 7-3 score. How accurate is that?
Yet computers have a one-third vote in determining which teams will play for the national championship in college football. We asked Jerry Palm, an independent BCS analyst (collegebcs.com), and Pat Dye, legendary coach at Auburn and a voter in the weekly Legends poll (which is not part of the BCS standings), what they think about computers in the mix of college football.
Palm
Using computers, I think, it’s the only way to do it. The voters either don’t have time to do a good job or they don’t take the time to do a good job. For them, when you lose matters more than anything, and that’s a silly way to do things.
Now, the [six] BCS computers might not be the right way to do it. What information goes in is this: who played and who won. Some computers [in the BCS] care where the game was played, some don’t. Some computers care when the game was played, and some don’t. One takes conference strength into account. One is based entirely on where you were ranked and where your opponent was ranked on the day you played.
The only way to get a fair, objective measurement is to create one formula and apply it equally to everyone regardless of the name on the front of the uniform, and that’s what a computer will do much better than a voter. They need one computer that is open and accountable.
Computers only have one-third of the say in determining the teams that play for the national championship, so they are basically breaking ties.
Dye
Computers are just as good as the human polls. Actually, they are probably more honest than the human polls. The computers really take into consideration the strength of schedule moreso than the human polls.
Now, I don’t think they should put the margin of victory back in the computer programs. They took it out, and I’m glad they did because margin of victory forces people to run the score up and not play their young kids.
I like the computer poll. We won the national championship in 1983 with a computer poll (New York Times). It voted us No. 1, but the AP gave the national championship to Miami. It wasn’t right. We played the toughest schedule in the country that season and finished 11-1.
We were No. 3 and had beaten Michigan in the Sugar Bowl, and Texas, which was No. 2, lost its bowl game. Nebraska, which was No. 1, lost to Miami (31-30) in the Orange Bowl. Well, before that game, the television folks had decided they were going to promote No. 1 Nebraska vs. No. 5 Miami as the national championship game. When Miami won, they let them jump over us in the polls.
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