Besides playing “big boy football” -- which apparently is entirely plausible -- the one thing Boise State needs to do now to maintain any relevance in the BCS rankings is beat the living daylights out of their opponents.
Unfortunately for the Broncos, style points from human eyes only cover a portion of the overall BCS formula. It doesn’t take Stephen A. Smith to realize that, in terms of strength of schedule, the WAC and the SEC are not the same conference and banking on the continued success of one team (Virginia Tech) can only go so far. Case in point, the latest set of BCS standings, in which Boise found itself on the wrong end of college football leapfrog with TCU.
In the AP Poll and USA Today, Boise is ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, but the question now is how long will that last? Boise, for one reason or another, has begun to take a reputation hit that has put them in the same category as Pacman Jones and Judas. Call it skepticism. Call it Tebow fatigue. The bottom line is that Boise is suffering.
But what if there was a way to make style points count more?
That’s a question Rob Oller of buckeyextra.com asked BCS mathematician Jeff Sagarin, whose program is included in the BCS formula.
“The (BCS) rating is the politically correct rating, which ignores scores. It’s not the best way, but it’s the way the BCS wants to do it,” said Sagarin, who indicated that a “style points cap” would not make a difference in how a team’s win is viewed to the computers.
If there weren’t already 100 reasons to loathe the BCS computers, Sagarin’s words might give you one. Computers can’t watch games and they can’t account for all the factors that go into a win.
It would seem, though, that for all the time that goes into calculating the BCS formula, the programmers could sure as hell try.
It is possible, after all. Margin of victory was a factor in BCS calculations prior to 2004. So, what’s preventing programmers and mathematicians, who really have no place in college football anyway, from developing ways to take style points into account?
Until a national champion is decided on the field, there should be no reason why the current system can’t be tweaked and adjusted to create the best possible outcome.
