Here are Atomic Football's estimates of who plays the most competitive schedules
in the country across all divisions. Not the toughest schedules, but the
schedules where the opponents are most well-matched (i.e., the most parity).
Another way to look at it is... which teams have the most unpredictable, and
perhaps most exciting, games on their schedules?

Not surprisingly, 12 of the 13 most competitive schedules in the FBS come out of
the MAC and ACC. Here are the top 6...

#1 Bowling Green
#2 Virginia
#3 Wake Forest
#4 Georgia Tech
#5 Toledo
#6 Ohio U.

The most competitive schedule outside the MAC and ACC? Purdue at #9 on the list.

Here's what we have on the other divisions. You'll note that the teams tend to
cluster into one or two conferences. After all, within a conference, parity for
one tends to mean parity for all...

FCS:
#1 Princeton
#2 Brown
#3 Columbia
#4 Tennessee State
#5 Cornell NY
#6 Austin Peay

D2:
#1 Ferris State
#2 Fairmont State
#3 West Virginia State
#4 Lane
#5 Charleston WV
#6 SE Oklahoma State

D3:
#1 Randolph Macon
#2 Lycoming
#3 Wilkes
#4 Bridgewater VA
#5 Gustavus Adolphus
#6 Franklin & Marshall

NAIA:
#1 Eastern Oregon
#2 Montana St-Northern
#3 Montana-Western
#4 Montana Tech
#5 Rocky Mountain
#6 Valley City State

If I get a chance, I'll try to add "least competitive schedules" to this post.

Here are the best Week 1 Matchups across all divisions. By "best" I mean that,
accounting for home field advantage, these should be the closest games. Of
course, college football is an unpredictable sport, and at least half of these
will probably finish with at least a 10 point margin of victory. One other note:
Some of these may be interdivisional games. Here goes...

FBS (starting 9/3):
  Oregon at Boise State
  South Carolina at North Carolina State
  Virginia Tech vs. Alabama

FCS (starting 8/27):
  Western Illinois at Sam Houston State
  Richmond at Duke
  Methodist at Campbell

D2 (starting 8/22):
  American Int'l at C. W. Post
  WV Wesleyan at St. Paul's
  Carson-Newman at Winona State

D3 (starting 9/3):
  Willamette at Concordia-Moorhead
  Juniata at Allegheny
  Lebanon Valley at Gettysburg

NAIA (starting 8/27):
  McKendree at Ottawa
  Marian IN at St. Francis IL
  Concord at Southern Virginia

Can't wait for the season to get started...

Something else a little different... Who is good enough, and whose schedule is
favorable enough, to go undefeated during the 2009 regular season? Here goes...

FBS: Expect one undefeated. Florida has about a 48% chance. Oklahoma about a 13%
chance. USC, Texas, Penn State, and Boise each have between a 5 and 7% chance.
TCU, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Iowa, Alabama, Cal, and Pitt fall in the range of 1
to 4% chance.

FCS: Odds are that no one in the FCS will go undefeated. The best chance goes to
Montana (6%) followed by Dayton (3%), Richmond (3%), and James Madison (3%). App
State and Harvard each have a 2% chance. A host of others are at 1%.

D2: Expect two undefeated teams. Chances are as follows: Minn-Duluth (43%), UNA
(22%), Abilene Christian (20%), NW Missouri State (16%), Grand Valley (15%),
Indiana PA (10%). About 20 others fall between 1 and 5%.

D3: Expect at least three undefeated teams... Mount Union (73%), UW-Whitewater
(38%), Mary Hardin-Baylor (27%), Monmouth IL (23%), Wash & Jeff (19%), Millsaps
(17%), Wabash (13%), Case Western (11%), and several others between 5 and 8%
(Wheaton, Franklin, Wesley, Redlands, Muhlenberg, Willamette, and Wartburg).

NAIA: Expect one and possibly two undefeated teams... Fort Wayne (31%), Sioux
City (21%), Helena (14%), Saint Charles (14%), Wichita (14%). The rest are all
less than 8%.

One caveat... beyond the FBS, I cannot account for returning starters for the
other divisions. So, for these divisions, the above is basically projecting last
year's teams into this year's schedules. The numbers I post to the team pages
(http://www.atomicfootball.com/af-team-links.html) from which these projections
come will be updated as the season progresses. Expect the biggest changes after
week one when this year's performance first begins to get factored in.

I don't do these kinds of predictions very often, and, when I do, they're a
little rougher than my game predictions. However, I thought it would be fun to
project out to the end of the season, accounting for schedules and home field
advantage, to make an educated "computer guess" as to who are likely winners of
their conferences. Keep in mind that computer predictions are less prone to
"speculate" on big year-to-year swings, so don't be surprised if things are not
substantially different from last year. One key factor to note: Home field
advantage makes its biggest difference against a well-matched opponent. It has
little affect on mismatches. So, teams contending for their conference
championship tend to be favored if they face their toughest challengers at home.
With that, here goes...

ACC: There is little doubt that the ACC is among the most consistent of the BCS
conferences. Maybe not a lot of top 10 teams, but LOTS of top 40 quality teams.
In the Atlantic, Florida State should edge out an improved Clemson team by a
win. Wake and BC are also contenders. In the Coastal, Virginia Tech should have
an even bigger advantage over North Carolina. Georgia Tech could also challenge.

Big 12: In the North, the edge goes to Missouri, but not by much. Kansas will
give them a run. I'll have to "wait and see" on Nebraska. In the much stronger
South, the schedules seem to favor Oklahoma over Texas. Oklahoma State and Texas
Tech will need to outperform to be in the running.

Big East: Pittsburgh looks to be the front-runner, with several teams on their
heels: West Virginia, Rutgers, USF, a fading Cincinnati, and Connecticut. Not
much I can add to this.

Big Ten: It looks like a dead heat between Penn State and Ohio State. It seems
unlikely that both those teams would stumble and give an improving Iowa team an
opening.

C-USA: In the East, the Pirates of East Carolina should be favored to repeat,
but Southern Miss will make it tough on them. Look for the rest of the East to
finish at or below 0.500 in the conference. In the West, I'd also give Tulsa a
similar edge over Houston. Rice and UTEP will round out the top four.

MAC: Overall, the MAC could host the most exciting conference race in the
country, with pretty consistent performers top to bottom. The East will be very
tight with Temple, Buffalo, and Bowling Green leading the pack and Akron and
Ohio U. on their tails. In the West, Central Michigan is favored to knock off
reigning champ Ball State. Closely-matched Western Michigan, Northern Illinois,
and an improved Toledo will fill the next three slots behind the Chippewas and
Cards.

MWC: TCU's Horned Frogs should win at least 6 conference games to take the
title, but only if Utah and BYU let them. The rest of the group will watch from
the sidelines.

Pac-10: USC is almost a lock -- almost. Cal or Oregon will need to overachieve
to knock them off. Oregon State, Arizona, and Stanford should still finish at or
above 0.500 in the conference. It doesn't look good for the rest of the "Pac."

SEC: In the East, Florida should coast to victory over a fading Georgia. The
rest will do well to finish 0.500 in the conference. In the West, the scheduling
favors a surging Ole Miss team slightly over Alabama. If not for Florida busting
the curve, the West would easily be the stronger half of the conference.

Sun Belt: The Troy Trojans should have little trouble claiming the crown,
trailed in the distance by a tight pack consisting of Arkansas State, an
experience MTSU team, Floridas Int'l and Atlantic, and a sliding La-Lafayette.

WAC: Boise. Period. OK, not really. Nevada could make a run at the Broncos.

One last thing... I would love to do the other divisions, but #1, this is a
hobby, it doesn't pay the bills, and my time is limited. #2, finding easily
accessible info on returning starters, etc. is next to impossible for all but
the FBS and FCS. If you're interested, I can send you the data I have and tell
you how to crunch the numbers yourself. If you're savvy with Excel, it's not
hard. That's the best I can do.

OK, you have two top-ranked teams - the Cartersville Chipmunks and the Portstown
Possums. During the regular season, the two teams met head-to-head once in
additional to eleven other common opponents. The Possums won the head-to-head
matchup. Both finished 11-1. Which one deserves to play the undefeated
Artersburg Aardvarks for the national championship?

Easy problem, right? The Possums won the head-to-head matchup. Therefore,
they're the better team. Therefore, they should play in the championship. 'Nuff
said.

Hmmm. You know, as long as we don't look any closer, the problem appears to be
solved. Portstown and Cartersville play for the trophy. Everybody's happy.

But is "simple head-to-head" really so simple? Let's dig deeper...

Portstown won the head-to-head matchup but lost to someone else, in this case,
the Forcester Fleas. Since Cartersville and Portstown played identical schedules
and 11-1 Cartersville's only loss was to Portstown, then Cartersville must have
beaten Forcester.

So, that means Portstown lost to Forcester who lost to Cartersville who lost to
Portstown. Therefore, if "head-to-head" means that Portstown is better than
Cartersville, then Cartersville must be better that Forcester and Forcester is
better than Portstown. But if Cartersville is better than Forcester and
Forcester is better than Portstown, then either Cartersville is better than
Portstown or... since A better than B and B better than C doesn't mean A is
better than C, we must have no clue what "better" means. So, what does all this
complicated stuff mean?

It means many things?

#1 Ranking teams isn't as easy as ranking all winners ahead of losers. Sooner or
later you will arrive at a contradition.

#2 If we had to define "head-to-head," it is simply that we hate to see teams
ranked slightly behind teams they beat. If they're way behind in the rankings,
we comfortably ignore it, but if they're close, we seem to come unglued. This is
a very inconsistent position -- "big upsets" are tolerated while "little upsets"
drive us crazy.

#3 In the above case, if we favor the winner of the head-to-head, the while we
arguably have two teams whose "average" performance is identical, we're
basically favoring the MORE INCONSISTENT of the two teams -- the team whose
highs are higher but whose lows are lower.

But don't worry, it gets worse...

Let's assume that we somehow omniciently know that both teams are, on average,
identical. Therefore, they played equally difficult schedules (since the only
difference in their schedules is their head-to-head matchup) and they finished
with identical records against those schedules. If we don't ask exactly which
games were wins and which were losses, we would tend to say that they are
equally good. Now, let's assume that, instead, we omniciently know that
Portstown is the better team. Therefore, Cartersville played the tougher
schedule since the only schedule difference is the head-to-head matchup and
Cartersille's opponent (Portstown) is tougher than Portstown's opponent
(Cartersville). Therefore, Cartersville had the same record against a tougher
schedule. But a better record against a tougher schedule would imply that
Cartersville is the better team. But we have this conclusion as a direct result
of our assumption that Portstown is the better team...

Bottom line: There's no such thing as SIMPLE head-to-head.

I hate to ever criticize anything without being prepared to offer an
alternative. So, I'll let you know up front, I will offer an alternative (at the
end of this post).

But first, for those who might have no idea what "ranking violations" are, here
is a very brief tutorial...

Let's say John Doe has made his own football rankings. Is there an easy way to
see if they make sense? A popular approach is to calculate the frequency of
"ranking violations." A ranking violation occurs when a loser in a played game
is ranked higher than a winner. Now why, might you ask, would any rankings ever
do that? The answer is, once you're about halfway into the season, there's no
way around it. There is simply no way to rank teams such that winners are always
ranked above losers. Eventually, some 2-5 team beats a 5-2 team and making the
ranking violations go away becomes impossible. If you would like to see some
ranking violation stats in action, check out Ken Massey's College Football
Ranking Comparison page (scroll to the bottom of
http://www.mratings.com/cf/compare.htm).

OK, enough on what ranking violations are. If you're still unclear, google it.
Next...

Now, if we can't make ranking violations go away, then it would seem to make
sense that we rank teams to keep them at a minimum, right? That way, we don't
have to listen to folks invoke the "head to head" argument. I think I preached
on that in another post, so I won't go down that road here. The short answer to
should we minimize ranking violations is... "No."

So, I've made the beginnings of an argument in support of minimizing ranking
violations and now I'm suggesting it's a bad idea. Why? The reason is that it's
almost, but not quite, the best metric. The problem is a little complicated, so
bear with me.

Let's take a sample problem. It's not terribly realistic, but it's been designed
to make a point. We have three teams in a conference -- A, B, and C. Teams A and
B play each other ten times during the regular season and A wins every time. I
know this wouldn't happen in the real world, I'm only making the point that A is
clearly better than B. If you have a problem with this, then the alternative is
that A and B play a common set of opponents. Team A wins all of their games and
B loses all of theirs. Better? OK, now introduce team C. C plays two games,
beating team A and losing to team B.

Now time to rank the teams. Obviously, we rank A ahead of B. But what about C.
We can minimize the ranking violations by ranking them above A (first in the
conference) or below C (last in the conference). Strange, our minimum ranking
violations approach has clearly shown us that team A is probably either the best
or the worst in their conference, but probably not in the middle. If this makes
sense, then quit now. Otherwise, read on...

OK, it would seem reasonable (both subjectively and from a "maximum likelihood"
viewpoint -- we won't dive into the math on that here), that team C probably
belongs between A and B, but how can we express that mathematically. The
solution I propose is an alternative to ranking violations that I've dubbed
"record violations" (I have also referred to it as schedule violations). It goes
like this...

Team C's record is 1-1. By ranking them between A and B, one opponent is ranked
higher (what I'll call the "higher") and one is ranked lower (the "lower").
Thus, their lower/higher is 1-1. Because their W/L (win-loss) matches their L/H
(lower/higher), they have zero record violations.* You can check out our L/H
numbers on our Atomic Football ranking page.

I first proposed this metric to Ken Massey in late 2006, and I'm hopeful he will
find the time to add it to his comparison page. Here is the text from my
original message:

-------------

Ken,

I wanted to suggest a variant on the ranking violation metric.

Consider a team that has beaten #13, #15, #17, and #19 and lost to #1, #3, #5,
and #6**. In addition the team has beaten #9 and #11. Being 5-5 against teams of
average rank #10, 1-4 against teams ranked #1-#9 and 4-1 against teams ranked
#11-#20, it would seem reasonable to rank this team #10.

However, doing so yields two ranking violations. One of the violations could be
alleviated by moving the team up to #8 or down to #12. This is obviously a
counterintuitive situation (and one I discussed in my recent paper). Now
consider an alternative metric.

If we retain the #10 ranking, then this hypothetical team is 5-5 against 5 teams
that are ranked higher and 5 teams that are ranked lower.

Thus if Wins-Losses is the same as Lower-Higher (lower being the number of
teams*** ranked lower and higher being the number ranked higher), then we would
say that we we have zero "Record Violations" (if you have an alternative name,
please let me know). In other words, with this metric we will allow a ranking
violation corresponding to a win against a higher ranked team to cancel a
ranking violation corresponding to a loss against a lower ranked team. Thus, for
this team we find:

Rank RankingViolations RecordViolations
#2......4......4
#4......3......3
#6......2......2
#8......1......1
#10.....2......0
#12.....1......1
#14.....2......2
#16.....3......3
#18.....4......4

As you can see, ranking violations have two local optima, whereas record
violations do not.

To put things on the same percentage scale as our traditional ranking violation
[sic], we will continue to normalize by the number of games since the maximum
number of record violations for a given team is equal to the number of games
played by that team.

Obviously, record violations will always number [sic] equal to or less than
ranking violations since we begin with the rankings [sic] violations but allow
some to cancel out others. The purpose of this metric is to prevent the
obviously nonsensical situation mentioned above in my opening example. For this
reason, I think it is a slightly superior metric. I would certainly love to see
the results of it on your comparison page by year's end. If you do choose to
employ this metric, I would also appreciate a reference. Lastly, I did not get a
reply from you on my previous message. I know this is a busy time for you, so I
understand...

Thanks for all your hard work in this most important field of endeavor (I say
this tongue in cheek, of course).

Jim

----------

*For those who might run with the math, yes, if you consider the record
violations for all three teams, you get a minimum of two violations for any of
these orderings -- ABC, ACB, or CAB. The point is, record violations, unlike
ranking violations, don't force you to one of the extremes.
**This was supposed to say #7.
***Opponents.

From a recent email, and posted with permission...

Jim, I appreciate getting this from you, and I'm replying to you via e-mail
because I'm not sure how to get on the message board.  And I tried "replying to
all", but most were not deliverable.  Can you give me directions for getting on
this message board?   If you can easily add my message below to the board,
please feel free to do so.

I like the creativity and logic of some of the ideas I've seen here.

Current overtime (in college) eliminates many aspects of the normal game, as one
poster already mentioned.  Coaching strategy, certain skill position and special
team play, are either eliminated, or drastically reduced:  No kickoffs, no
punts, no continuation after turnovers, no time element, no chance for a
"redemption" after a bad play (ie. turnover), etc.

So the idea of continuation of REGULAR play after regulation time is one I like,
especially the idea of maintaining the current possession and field location. 
But the "first to score" sudden death I don't care for.  I'd rather the opponent
(team B) get one more chance, especially if the team A scores on their first
possession.

Then, of course, the game could go on forever.  Not good.

Here's an OT plan I've touted to those who would listen (and as one poster
stated, most aren't interested, but this group sounds as though they are
thoughtful enough to listen and make positive critique).

The overtime starts with a kickoff, and each team gets exactly 2 possessions. 
The hooker is, no team is allowed to attempt a score that would result in a tie.
If neither team scores after 2 possessions, the game is officially a tie (or
awarded to the visiting team, an idea with merit).

If team A scores a field goal on their 1st possession, team B would not be
allowed to try for a field goal, but must then go for the TD.  Maybe harsh, but
at least they get 4th down to go for a new 1st down or the TD.  Or maybe they
punt, planning to hold team A on four downs, or at least out of the end zone (no
advantage for team A to score a 2nd filed goal, since team B already needs a TD
to win), and get the ball back to score the TD on their 2nd possession.

Now punts, fumbles, interceptions, field position, etal are in play, since teams
can "redeem" themselves on their 2nd possession after a mistake.

If team A scores a TD on their 1st possession, and kicks the extra point, team B
would be allowed to go for a TD, but would then only be allowed to go for a 2
point conversion.  If they miss, they still have a 2nd possession to get more
points for the win, or if they make it, team A still has a chance for
"redemption" on their 2nd possession.

But hold on.  Team B may decide to go for a field goal on their 1st possession,
after team A has scored a TD, knowing that they could win the game outright with
a TD on their 2nd possession (assuming they hold team A scoreless on their 2nd
possession).  So many choices for the coach!!  (They'd hate it!!)

But I like the idea of continuing the game from where it ended in regulation
time, so team A's 1st possession would start from that point, rather than a new
kickoff.

There's still no time element, and though I don't like the idea, I suppose you
could limit a team's possession to 2 or 3 or 4 minutes.  If time expires and
they still have possession, the ball is turned over.  So the time limit would in
effect force them to punt, or go for a field goal (if legal).

Now a slightly more radical idea would be to eliminate OT altogether.  Just add
the rule that a team on offense would not be allowed to attempt a score that
would tie the score ANYTIME DURING THE GAME.

There are still some tie score possibilities, but they would be the exception. 
For example, team A may be behind 7-3, and score a TD to go ahead 9-7.  Then
team B blocks the extra point attempt, and returns it for a 2 point conversion
of their own, resulting in a 9-9 tie score.  Apply the visiting team wins, in
this case?

Another variation to break ties, either in the proposed system or even in the
current system, would be this rule:  If time expires and the score is tied, the
team that scored LAST, LOSES.  This puts an emphasis on scoring first, and
staying ahead.  A "come from behind tie"  would then be a loss.

Here's the response to one of my replies to a "nastygram" -- actually pretty
positive (see below).  I like to think that I'm enlightening one fan at a time. 
I've got a long way to go, though.

I have found that not being hostile in my replies (even thought it's SOOOOO
tempting) goes a long way.

To follow the "thread," read it from the bottom up, of course.

-----------------------------------

From: #####
Date: January 31, 2009 9:09:47 PM CST
To: Jim Ashburn <####>
Subject: Re: FCS Ratings

Thanks so much for the thoughtful and logical reply.  I see exactly where you
are coming from.  The two losses WERE very bad losses...especially the one to
Presbyterian.

<Signed>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Jim Ashburn <####> wrote:
Mr. ####,

I only wish that ranking football teams were as easy as putting the winners
ahead of the losers.  Sometimes that is possible up until 4-5 weeks into the
season, but after that upsets become an undeniable reality.  Assuming Liberty
University (a school for which I have a great deal of respect) is the school for
which you root, please note that I ranked your 10-2 team ahead of 11 of its
opponents, meaning that while they were ranked 7 slots behind Elon, whom they
beat handily, they were also ranked 17 slots ahead of Lafayette (who won at
Liberty by two touchdowns) and 63 slots ahead of 4-8 Presbyterian to whom they
also lost.

I receive several emails every year invoking the "head-to-head" argument. 
Unfortunately, those arguments only seem to make sense when you consider only a
single game in isolation.  But if the argument is good for one game, then why
not all the others?  Applying it to one game over another seems unfair to me.

Ken Massey used to have a link (http://www.masseyratings.com/rate/path.php --
it's not working at the moment) that could create an "upset path" between any
two teams with at least one win and one loss.  From it, I generated this after
the 2006 season...

            Team              Score    Team             Score
2006-10-14   Florida                 17  @ Auburn                  27
2006-10-07 @ Auburn                  10    Arkansas                27
2006-09-02 @ Arkansas                14    USC                     50
2006-12-02   USC                      9  @ UCLA                    13
2006-12-27   UCLA                    27    Florida St              44
2006-10-05   Florida St              20  @ NC State                24
2006-09-09 @ NC State                17    Akron                   20
2006-11-16   Akron                    7  @ Ohio                    17
2006-09-30 @ Ohio                     9    Bowling Green           21
2006-10-28   Bowling Green           14  @ Temple                  28

Based upon the head to head argument, 1-11 Temple was clearly superior to
Florida.  Even though they didn't play each other head-to-head, by H2H, Temple
is better than Bowling Green, and Bowling Green is better than Ohio, which would
seem to suggest that Temple is better than Ohio.  Obviously, you can continue
with this until you conclude that Temple is better than Florida.  The only way
around this is to assume that just because A is better than B and B is better
than C, that A is not necessarily better than C, but this kind of blows the
whole idea of rankings out of the water.

Take a look at http://www.mratings.com/cf/compare1aa.htm.  It lists a number of
FCS rankings.  At the bottom is a row called Ranking Violation %.  For my
win-loss rankings (ABC), it shows 14.8%.  That percentage is the fraction of
games where the winner of that game is actually ranked below the loser of that
game (that is, where H2H was violated).  If you will look across that row, you
will notice that the numbers runs from about 13% to 20%.  However, they are
never even close to zero.  If you'll look at the same numbers on the FBS page
(http://www.mratings.com/cf/compare.htm), you'll see a ranking system called
Coleman MinV.  His ranking system cares about nothing but head-to-head and his
ranking violation percentage is still 9.6%.  Keep in mind that there are
literally millions of ways to rank teams that yield the same minimum number of
violations.  What is strange, though, is that if you average them together, you
actually get more violations.  In other words, these algorithms will conclude
that a team might be #14 and it might be #10, but it's definitely not #12.  This
is one example of problems with ranking teams this way.

In short, if you believe ranking a winner of a game below a loser of a game
makes a ranking flawed, then all rankings are flawed.  And if "flawed" means it
must be rejected, then all rankings must be rejected.  I'll gladly concede that
my algorithm is "flawed," but you'll have to concede that this "flaw" is
impossible to fix.  Keep in mind that fixing this flaw would require changing
the rules of the game to minimize upsets.  In my opinion, frequent upsets are
part of what makes the game so great.

I have written a fair amount on my blog on the topic of head-to-head, including
one article dedicated to it
(http://atomicfootball.blogspot.com/2008/06/simple-head-to-head.html).  There is
a follow-up in draft form that is also in the works.  Keep in mind that this
entry was written last June -- it's not aimed at you -- but it does address many
of the criticisms I receive on a regular basis.  Please feel free to comment on
it.

Best of luck to your Flames.  They had a great year.

Sincerely,

Jim Ashburn
Atomic Football

On Jan 24, 2009, at 6:18 PM, Paul Colvert wrote:

Another comment from the website.

Begin forwarded message:

From: #####
Date: January 24, 2009 3:17:27 PM CST
To: coach@...
Subject: FCS Ratings

I guess H2H does not mean much with your FCS rankings.  Liberty University
absolutely SCHOOLS Elon yet you have the Flames 7 slots below the Phoenix?  You
obviously have a flaw in your algorithm.

I'm always astounded when people send me hate mail, because I always respond
with "how the heck did you find me?!" It's usually just questioning why my
ranking has a BCS team ranked lower than some other team.

It's always very funny, but I suppose these folks have nothing else to do.

Here are a few good lines I've received...

(This one I won over with some logical arguments.)

I guess H2H does not mean much with your FCS rankings.  Liberty University
absolutely
SCHOOLS Elon yet you have the Flames 7 slots below the Phoenix?  You obviously
have a
flaw in your algorithm.

(This next one actually ended well, too.  This fellow was upset with the fact
that, at the
time, I was still using the terms I-A and I-AA.)

Your site is very out of date and should be updated.  I have included this link
because it
might explain how things have changed. I know its pretty complex.

(His second email was this.  Believe it or not, this exchange ended on a
positive note.)

What you are telling me is that most fans are too ignorant to read and
understand that
what they are reading was a change.  What I have noticed is the FBS fans are
mostly the
ones who like and purposely use the old terminology for their benefit.  Would
you consider
yourself one of those fans?  If you were truly a fan you would realize that many
of the web
sites have updated their websites as they should.  I believe that if you are a
journalist
publishing information it is your duty as that journalist to print the facts as
they are.
Would you still write the USSR instead of the Russia or Ukraine?  Everyone knows
it as the
USSR why would we change?  The fact of the matter is that it IS no longer USSR. 
All the
journalists in the world that want to write it in correctly will make it the
USSR again.

If you would have gone to college to learn about writing you might have learned
about
irony.  My irony to you is that the NCAA maybe a bit to complex for you to
understand.
Obviously I was correct.

One last thing I would like you to recall for your thinking.  Stubborn and
backward thinking has gotten many of big corporations or ".coms" run right
out of business because they could not embrace the changes and keep up...

Writing a fact is really not an option; ask any Professional Journalist!

(Even after explaining that I never claimed to be a "journalist" and that my
site generates
no revenue, he continued to insist that I hire someone to "fix" my web site. 
Most of the
nasty-grams have been based upon the "proverbial head-to-head"
argument.  What I despite about the head-to-head argument is that it essentially
contends that given two teams with similar records against similar schedules,
the team
with the most INCONSISTENT performance should be ranked higher.)

This one guy just wrote: "Your ranking is laughable".
You may not think that qualifies as "hate mail"... but I really hated
that email.
Seriously, the most common complain (how hateful it is depends on the
tone) is how A can be ranked higher than B, when B beat A fair and
square. Of course the reasons are some of the other thousands of games
from hundreds of teams we also compute in.

Interesting.  Obviously there are many competing objectives here -- fairness,
excitement,
keeping the game duration in check, keeping strategy interesting.  Our
priorities
overlap in some ways and not in others.  Ideally, we would want something that
has all of
these -- on top of the fact that you would prefer that the game not end in a
tie, since that
would defeat the purpose of OT altogether.  I prefer a sudden death approach,
but as you
point out, that removes the clock element from the game.

The main purpose of my approach is to minimize the number of games that have to
go
into overtime in the first place by giving the team looking to score late the
incentive to go
ahead rather than play for a tie.  Once you have tie at the end of regulation,
there are
basically two approaches to ending the game in a timely manner.  One is a system
with
lots of scoring (the current system).  Unfortunately, you can have a potentially
endless
series of overtimes -- although the forced two-point conversion helps keep it
somewhat
in check.  The other approach is sudden death, but then you lack the clock
element.  Some
kind of hybrid like yours might work, but it's not clear if a game clock for
each drive would
cause the game to end sooner or drag on longer.  Of course, as you say, you can
eventually just call it a tie, but I'm not sure most folks would be satisfied
with that.

Here's another "wild idea."  In the event of a tie, award a win to the visiting
team.  In the
official score, grant them an extra point -- but only if the game ends in a tie
in
regulation.  After all, the visiting team is already at a 3 to 4 point
disadvantage.  In this
approach, the home team won't play for a tie late since it equates to a loss. 
If they're eight
points down, there's not much advantage in going for two.  Of course, the
visiting team
will play for the tie late, since it equates to a win.  OK, it's a little weird,
but it basically
eliminates any possibility of a tie and any need for OT to begin with.

Lastly, I may send around one more blanket email to drum up some more
participation in
this group.  So far, there are 5 members, but none of the others have posted
yet.

--- In rankingsandpredictions@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Kislanko" <jpkislanko@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In rankingsandpredictions@yahoogroups.com, "jashburn"
> <jashburn@> wrote:
> >
> > Before I start... a warning.  Your first reaction to this suggestion
> will probably not be a
> > good one.  Let me suggest you chew on it a little before rejecting
> it outright.  Here goes...
>
> OK, I chewed on it for a few weeks and I still don't like its taste.
>
> What I don't like about the current overtime rules is that they take
> too many aspects of the game out. First one is "turn off the clock",
> and this one does that, too, so I won't ever like it. The clock
> matters, because it affects the dynamics of play-calling.
>
> I don't have a problem with "starting over" in OT - teams play "for a
> win a regulation" or "tie and force overtime" in regulation. That
> dynamic makes the end of regulation challenging for the coaches and
> fun for us fans, so we keep the coin-toss to start OT.
>
> But now as to how OT is conducted. "Give the offense the ball within
> field goal range" is just wrong. There's nothing to like about it.
>
> My OT suggestion is have the defending team free kick from their own
> 20, like after a safety. That puts special teams into the OT mix and
> makes the starting position for the offense a bit more random.
>
> Then I want a game clock. Say 3 minutes, although a case for 2 or more
> than 3 could be made. If the team on offense doesn't score within the
> alloted time or turns the ball over on downs, the defensive team gets
> the option to take the ball at that point with whatever time is left
> or have the opponent do a free kick from their 20 with a new clock.
>
> I think that would make OT more like the real game instead of the
> video-game joke it is now.
>
> Oh, and if 1 possession per team in OT didn't decide the game, call it
> a tie and go home.
>

--- In rankingsandpredictions@yahoogroups.com, "jashburn"
<jashburn@...> wrote:
>
> Before I start... a warning.  Your first reaction to this suggestion
will probably not be a
> good one.  Let me suggest you chew on it a little before rejecting
it outright.  Here goes...

OK, I chewed on it for a few weeks and I still don't like its taste.

What I don't like about the current overtime rules is that they take
too many aspects of the game out. First one is "turn off the clock",
and this one does that, too, so I won't ever like it. The clock
matters, because it affects the dynamics of play-calling.

I don't have a problem with "starting over" in OT - teams play "for a
win a regulation" or "tie and force overtime" in regulation. That
dynamic makes the end of regulation challenging for the coaches and
fun for us fans, so we keep the coin-toss to start OT.

But now as to how OT is conducted. "Give the offense the ball within
field goal range" is just wrong. There's nothing to like about it.

My OT suggestion is have the defending team free kick from their own
20, like after a safety. That puts special teams into the OT mix and
makes the starting position for the offense a bit more random.

Then I want a game clock. Say 3 minutes, although a case for 2 or more
than 3 could be made. If the team on offense doesn't score within the
alloted time or turns the ball over on downs, the defensive team gets
the option to take the ball at that point with whatever time is left
or have the opponent do a free kick from their 20 with a new clock.

I think that would make OT more like the real game instead of the
video-game joke it is now.

Oh, and if 1 possession per team in OT didn't decide the game, call it
a tie and go home.

An irate fan calls into the local sports talk radio station Monday evening so
angry he can
barely get the words out. Between the coughing, gagging, and spitting, he
manages to
say: "This is ridiculous. It's nonsense. How can they rank the Cartersville
Skunks #5 ahead
of my Waynesboro Lemmings. The Lemmings beat the skunks 17-14 the third week of
the
season. The rankings are stupid. It's simple head-to-head. Simple head-to-head.
I've got
nothing more to say." Click.

Amazingly, there are more than a few fans who think they've got it all figured
out. The
problem is, they've never taken a pencil and tried to do what they insist makes
so much
sense – just rank the teams so that the winners in each game are ranked higher
than the
losers.

Funny thing is, early in the season this is still possible, and yet fans fuss at
the rankings
because they don't want to believe that the few games played are actually
representative
of how good (or bad) their team is. However, by midseason, this kind of ranking
is no
longer possible. Sooner or later, team A beats team B who beats team C who beat
team A.
Or some team beats a 10-1 team and loses to a 1-10 team.

As geeks who do computer rankings, we do understand the frustration. In fact, in
the
"ranking community," we even have a lingo to describe all this stuff –
"retrodiction,"
"ranking violations," "ranking by pairwise comparison," and the like.

Before you're tempted to call your local sports talk radio program, let me offer
up a
slightly different way to assess a set of rankings. Suppose a team is 12-0 at
the end of the
season. It would be reasonable for them to be ranked somewhere above all twelve
of their
opponents. Another team goes 0-12. It would seem reasonable for them to be
ranked
somewhere below all twelve of their opponents. Consider another team that goes
6-6.
Would it not seem reasonable for them to be ranked above six of their opponents
and
below six others? Here's the catch. Would this not seem reasonable even if this
team
actually beat one or two of their higher ranked opponents while losing to one or
two of
their lower ranked opponents? After all, teams have good days and bad days.
Upsets are
what makes football exciting, right?

For what it's worth, any decent ranking method will approximately do just this?
Why not
exactly this, you might ask? Well, consider this one example of why it can't
always be
done. Suppose no one goes undefeated. Someone must still be ranked #1. Since
they have
one loss, they are ranked above a team to whom they lost.

There is another problem with this scheme. If a team goes 12-0 against a
schedule that
includes no top 25 opponents, exactly how high should they be ranked? Somewhere
between #1 and their best opponent, but where?

The bottom line is that ranking football teams is a really hard problem.
Probably harder
than any other sport because the teams play so few games.

Back to the irate caller. He's got it all figured out. We just move the Lemmings
up to #4. Of
course, the Lemmings lost to the 4-6 Hedgehogs, so we'll have to move the
Hedgehogs
up to #3. But the Hedgehogs lost to six other teams, and we don't have enough
slots for
them, so we'll have to move the Hedgehogs, Lemmings, and Skunks down to make
room.
Wait, one of those teams was the Skunks. I thought this was SIMPLE head-to-head.

Before I start... a warning.  Your first reaction to this suggestion will
probably not be a
good one.  Let me suggest you chew on it a little before rejecting it outright. 
Here goes...

If the clock runs out in regulation with the score tied, turn the clock off,
continue playing
(i.e., no coin toss and kickoff), and play to sudden death (first to score
wins).  There, I told
you that you wouldn't like it.  Now let's kick it around a bit.

Situation A:  One minute left.  Team A has the ball, is trailing by 3 points,
and chooses to
play for a tie.  If they tie the game (in regulation), their opponent will NOT
have to work
against the clock -- they can take as long as they like to try to make the
go-ahead score.
Once the clock runs out, first to score wins.

Situation B:  One minute left.  Team A has the ball, is trailing by 3 points,
and chooses to
play for the win.  If they take the lead (in regulation), their opponent must
tie or go ahead
before the clock runs out.

What are the advantages?  First of all, by removing the coin toss to start
overtime, you
remove a random and arguably unfair element of the game.  In regulation, each
team got
to receive once -- fair enough.  Winning the coin toss gives such an advantage,
why not
just use the coin toss alone to decide the winner?  Second, you have new
elements of
strategy to consider (see above).  Third, in a tie, the team with the ball at
the end of
regulation gets to keep it -- why not reward them for having possession at that
point?

Feedback is welcome, but be sure to mull it over a bit first.

How often do we hear fans complaining because the "best" team(s) didn't get to
play in the
conference championship, or the "best" team wasn't ranked number one, or the
"best"team
didn't make a BCS bowl.  Hmmm.  What does it mean to be the "best?"  The problem
is, if
you don't think about it too much, it seems pretty easy.  It's obvious.  The
"best" is the
"best," right?  How hard can it be?

If you're content to have "best" be simple and obvious, skip the rest of this. 
Otherwise,
read on...

Is the "best" the team that on average did better than any other over the entire
season?  Is
an opening loss as bad as losing the last game of the season?  What if your team
has
Heisman contenders at QB and RB and they both get injured in the waning seconds
as your
team wins the final game of the regular season?  Better yet, what if they went
undefeated
against the toughest schedule in the country?  Are they still the "best" team --
right now,
that is?  Have they earned the right to play for the national championship
anyway, even if
their star players will be watching from the sidelines?  And what about
consistency?  Team
A plays a very tough schedule and beats every opponent by less than a touchdown.
Team
B plays the same schedule, whips every opponent by four touchdowns except one
who
beats them by a field goal in overtime.  Which one is best, A or B?  If scoring
matters, then
can you make up for a loss one week by running up the score next week?  If it
doesn't
matter, then why do we invoke it so often when trying to prove our case about
who is
better?  Why do we appeal to is as a "tiebreaker" when W/L and SoS aren't
enough?  Lots of
questions.  How about some answers...

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that there should be a standard.  Otherwise,
you have
something like this...

You're taking a class at school.  Your teacher informs you that in the upcoming
test,
problem #1 will count 90% of your grade.  On test day, you skip #1 and work all
the other
problems.  When the graded test comes back, you have a 10% grade -- you aced all
of the
problems you worked.  Now you complain -- "but I got ALL BUT ONE of the problems
right."  "Doesn't matter," the teacher says, "the standard is what it is."  So
would it be
better to have no standard?  You have no idea what the teacher wants.  He might
only give
credit from spelling your name right, or maybe you'll get points for turning in
a blank test
so that he can reuse it next year.  You really have no idea what it is you're
supposed to do.

At least when there's a standard, it is at least fair, and no one really has a
right to
complain.  To strive to achieve in areas the standard does not emphasize is
simply to fail.

Let's look at it another way...  In each football game, we have a standard --
the team with
the most points wins.  There are no points for yards, takeaways, completed
passes, fewest
penalties, etc.  The standard is clear -- most points wins.  To do anything else
and then
complain about it is ridiculous.

Before I take the next step, let me state this clearly -- the BCS has been a
huge step in the
right direction.  "Yeah, but wouldn't a playoff be better?" you ask.  Well, the
BCS IS A
PLAYOFF.  Think about it.  Playoffs are when you select (by whatever standard)
some
number of the "best" teams and let them "play-off" until only one remains. 
Before the
BCS, that number was ZERO.  With the BCS, it is now TWO.  That's a step in the
right
direction, right?  Would four be better?  I think so.  Eight?  Maybe.  The top
ten where six
get a bye?  I'd consider it.

Now back to the standard.  We're talking about COLLEGE football, right? 
Colleges.  Places
where there are supposed to be a lot of smart people, right?  Couldn't all of
those smart
people figure out some absolute standard they could all agree to. One that's
full and open.
Granted, it wouldn't be quite as simple as what we have in an individual game
(most points
wins), but if we had a "formula," if you will, that everyone agreed to, then
there would be
no questions about what needed to be done.  The college CS departments could run
what-
if scenarios and know ahead of time who needed to beat whom to achieve a certain
rank,
or make the playoffs, or make the championship game. I could go on, but I'll
resist the
temptation and stop here.

OK, it's not perfect.  But remember the days before the BCS.  That's when we had
a "zero
team playoff."  Now, with the BCS, we have a "two team playoff."  I think that's
a big step in
the right direction.

Of course, once you pull in a few more teams (4, 8, 10, 16?), folks stop
bickering as much
about whether or not the deserving teams got in.  When it's 2 teams, #3 might
have a
legitimate beef.  When it's 16, it's hard for #17 to complain too much.

Here's my list:

Rankings:

Score-based uses scores and venue (home/away).  Win/Loss-based uses W/L and
venue
(home/away).  The team data used includes city lat/long (for travel distance in
home field).

Predictions:

Scores (including previous two years) without regard for W/L, game dates, venue.
Team
data
includes city lat/long for travel distance, count of returning starters, and
indicator for
returning quarterback.

I've tinkered with turf data, but the new turfs appear to be too much like
grass.  In about
5% of the games, it might amount to a point... maybe.  The biggest problem is
that you
have to analyze 10 years of more of data to begin to get any statistically
significant results.

Injuries can count for more, especially a Heisman quality quarterback, but
unlike turf, you
have to track it week to week.  So far, it hasn't been worth the trouble.

How 'bout the rest of you?

As a ranker of football teams, no doubt you get some good hate mail.  My best
was a guy
who was beside himself because I hadn't yet updated IA and IAA to FBS and FCS. 
I was
honestly going to do it at the end of the season -- and I did -- but he was
convinced that I
was part of some vast FBS conspiracy.  Any good stories?

Of course, I put "best" in quotes for a reason.  As you point out, there is no
"universal"
measure.  But part of my point is that 1) it's not clear if there is any good
measure at all
and 2) this doesn't mean we can't come up with one.

Ranking violations have serious problems.  Algorithms that specifically try to
minimize
them may conclude that a team is #14 or #10, but not #12.  This occurs when a
team
beats a better team and loses to a worse one, in which case a ranking violation
can
sometimes be eliminated by moving the team either up or down.  Be sure to read
my blog
entry on ranking violations.  In it I propose a metric that at least avoids this
problem.
Basically, a team that goes 11-2 would be expected to be ranked above 11
opponents and
below 2.  I would not suggest an algorithm specifically seek to minimize the
difference
(what I call what I call "record violations"), but as far as I can tell, it's as
good a measure of
the quality of a set of "retrodictive" rankings as any.

The other popular metric is consensus correlation, but too many tune their
algorithms to
match the consensus.  Thus the dog begins to chase it's tail.

Predictive systems are a little easier.  The better the accuracy, the better the
predictions.
The problem here is that no one seems to be able to consistently beat the
betting line, so
many "improve" their predictions by mixing/average/combining/limiting them with
the
betting line.  The problem is that the performance of most of these can be
replicated by
simply adding noise to the betting line.

My point in all this is that the commonly used metrics have serious flaws, but
(as I suggest
with my record violations) there may be room for improvement.  In the case of
predictions,
I have some simple means of determining if a set of predictions is likely mixing
in the
betting line.  Or put a better way, it helps measure the "independent
information" in a set
of predictions.  If you're interested in the details, let me know.

I'm actually not all that competitive - my predictive ratings are
fairly simple, and aren't optimized for anything except being better
than a coin toss (or my personal picks, which tend to be slightly
worse than a coin toss...)

I am more interested in using specific measurements (most easily found
in rating systems' inputs) to compare different sports at the same
level (for instance FBS football/D1 basketball/D1 baseball) to
quantify the differences and measuring the effectiveness of ratings
for specific sports (for instance, the RPI isn't horrible for
basketball, is laughable for football, and inappropriate for baseball).

The ratings and measurements I calculate are designed more to analyze
the behavior of rating systems than to actually rank teams. By
correlating different rankings to known "retrodictive" systems and
known "predictive" systems, I can classify a ranking for which the
system hasn't been specifically identified.

With regard to the subject of the thread, it has been well documented
that there is no universal "best" ranking since there's no universal
definition of "best." One must use a different metric to compare
retrodictive systems (and there are equally-valid choices for the
metric) than for predictive systems (and there's more than one way to
skin that cat, too).

I look forward to discussions on the subject.

If you do college football rankings or predictions, you're probably a
competitive type. Many of you probably participate on Ken Massey's College
Football Ranking Comparison page or Todd Beck's Prediction Tracker. Both
those sites have done much work to allow us to compete in various ways.
Unfortunately, as we seek to create the best standard for rankings or
predictions, there are still no good means to determine how good is good.

Ken Massey's page uses a correlation metric to compare rankings.
Unfortunately, many tune their algorithms to match his consensus -- a
dog chasing it's own tail. Other metrics on his page include ranking
violations, but they too have problems (see
http://atomicfootball.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-ranking-violations-are-bad-
metric.html).

Todd Beck's page includes a number of metrics. Those that do discrete
counts (straight up wins, wins against the line) are too noisy to mean
very much in one season. The more accurate indicators (MSE and MAE) also
have a weakness. Unless someone can consistently "beat the line," there
is always the temptation to "merge" the line into one's own predictions --
an almost surefire way to finish second.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, scathing remarks?