Skynet Championship Series: Judgment Day in the Year 2011

Judgment Day is upon us... and Skynet is once again in disagreement with the humans as it demands to see a game of LSU vs. Oklahoma State!

In case anyone was curious, this is the 6th version of Skynet... Skynet has only agreed with the humans ONCE (last year - Auburn vs. Oregon).

Here are the other years, if anyone was curious:
2010: Skynet and Humans: Auburn vs. Oregon
2009: Skynet: Bama vs. Cincy (got destroyed by Florida in a different game); BCS: Bama vs. Texas (got smoked by Bama)
2008: Skynet: Oklahoma vs. Texas; BCS: Oklahoma vs. Florida (won champ, despite Skynet snub)
2007: Skynet: LSU vs. Va. Tech; BCS: LSU vs. Ohio State
2006: Skynet: Ohio St vs. Michigan; BCS: Ohio St vs. Florida (won champ, despite Skynet snub)

What is most interesting is the narrow difference this year in the actual BCS rankings. The difference between Bama and Ok State was a mere .08 points (in the actual BCS). In Skynet this year Ok State finished ahead by 0.64 points. How does that rank relative to past years? Take a look at this table:

2009 - Cincy over Texas by 0.6
2008 - Texas over Florida by 1.02
2007 - Va. Tech over Ohio State by 1.6 (and over LSU - but this year was all screwed up with upsets)
2006 - Michigan over Floriday by only 0.03
Conclusion: It's a fairly big margin, but not that big in comparison to the limited data we have

If people were curious what the margins were in each of the computer polls (in terms of normalized values, in Skynet) here is the table:

	Sagarin	Anderson	Matrix	Wolfe
Bama	1.394	2.648	3.126	1.659
Ok State	2.129	0.798	0.437	2.925

But if anyone was curious, the two other computer rankings that are "biased" because they use human rankings at the beginning of the season for the initial rankings and are tainted, had normalized values of: Massey - Ok State - 1.740, Bama 1.988; Billingsley - Ok State 2.511, Bama 3.411. Amazingly, even in those rankings, Ok State was better than Bama!

But the thing that concerns me most about the computer polls? How in the world did Sagarin and Wolfe not end up with a greater change from Ok State beating Oklahoma? This is a strange question. Because the way the BCS is calculated, the computers only take 4 of the 6 computer rankings - throwing out the highest and lowest values. However, while the BCS takes into account every single vote, it merely just averages the values for the computer rankings (i.e. if you are 2nd in Sagarin, you get 24 points; if you are 3rd you get 23 points - no matter how close or far away the two teams are). So, let's play a BCS hypothetical: what happens if the BCS is still worth 1/3 but it uses a methodology to take into account normalized values? For this hypothetical I'll consider all 6 computer rankings:

	Total	Harris	Coaches	Computers - normalized
Bama	0.94713	0.9471	0.9485	0.94579
Ok State	0.939373	0.9231	0.9268	0.96822

Thus, it puts Ok State 0.002 closer to Bama. Not by as much as I thought it would actually! The more interesting part is how it would take very few ballots to be switched for Ok State to have made the big game. Once again, we realize that Skynet is supreme, because it's the only system where we can be certain that no one is paid off to switch their vote or keep their vote a certain way! That's it for this year. Skynet will have to remain angry once again!


Most underrated by the humans: Ok St, K STate, Oklahoma, Baylor, Georgia (The Big 12 was easily the best conference this year, unanimous by all the computers; the Big 12 won like 90% of its games out of conference)
Most overrated by the humans: Stanford, Oregon, Boise St, Wisconsin, Va. Tech, Mich St (wow, how things have changed. Boise State ended up on the overrated chart!)

2011		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk	Harris	Coaches
1	LSU	0.10	1	14	1	1
2	Ok St	1.57	3	5	3	3
3	Bama	2.21	2	26	2	2
4	K St	6.32	8	13	10	10
5	Arkansas	6.99	6	34	7	7
6	Stanford	7.51	4	49	4	4
7	Oklahoma	8.36	14	2	19	19
8	Oregon	9.86	5	31	5	5
9	Baylor	9.99	12	7	16	16
10	Boise St	10.00	7	72	6	6
11	So. Car	10.82	9	33	9	9
12	Michigan	13.18	13	30	12	12
13	Georgia	13.45	16	22	18	18
14	Wisconsin	13.92	10	63	8	8
15	Va. Tech	14.18	11	52	11	11
16	Houston	15.64	19	100	17	17
17	Clemson	16.01	15	41	14	14
18	TCU	16.46	18	80	15	15
19	Nebraska	16.57	20	24	20	20
20	Mich St	17.65	17	61	13	13

Skynet Championship Series: Season Six

I can't believe it's the 6th season that I've been doing this...

Skynet is back! A wise machine, Agent Smith, once said in the Matrix: “Never send a Human to do a machine’s job.” These inspiring words ring true with the BCS. The time has now come to achieve the BCS purpose – by providing OBJECTIVE rankings. I realize this may be counter to my rooting interests, but it is the only fair way to determine two teams.

So, to be clear, here’s how I devise the standings each week:
1) I take the top 20 of the BCS standings.
2) I input each of the top 20's computer standings from each of 4 computer rankings (Sagarin, Anderson, Colley-Matrix, Wolfe; the other two aren't included because they input human rankings to start and are therefore biased).
3) I let excel calculate the standard deviation for each computer ranking distribution of the top 20. Then, Excel normalizes the distribution, and fits EACH computer ranking onto a 1-20 scale.
4) Finally, the normalized-computer averages are determined (i.e. if Florida is ranked 5.76, 2.55, 2.21, 5.77 in 4 of the polls, which is an average of 4.07, which equals their SCS ranking. This means that according to the polls, they are approximately the 4th-best team in the country).

Most underrated by the humans: Ok St (wow! everyone hates them, but the computer love them.); Houston (undefeated and a ridiculous 12th in the computers, but just 22nd and 20th in the human polls); Va. Tech, Auburn, Kansas St

Most overrated by the humans: Wisconsin, Stanford, Nebraska, W. Va., Michigan St

Of course, there is a long time until the end of the season though. And remember, these are not my rankings, they are the rankings of the only objective entity in the universe... Skynet!

2011 Skynet Rankings - Week of 10/19

2011		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk	Harris	USA Today
1	OK St	1.07	4	8	6	6
2	Alabama	1.27	2	36	2	3
3	LSU	2.06	1	56	1	2
4	Oklahoma	2.75	3	20	3	1
5	Clemso	2.77	7	77	8	8
6	boise st	4.18	5	42	5	7
7	Kansas St	5.56	11	67	12	16
8	wisconsin	10.62	6	129	4	4
9	Arkansas	11.55	9	61	10	10
10	Stanford	11.61	8	112	7	5
11	Va tech	12.76	12	37	16	14
12	Houston	13.57	19	125	22	20
13	So. Car	13.86	14	59	13	12
14	Oregon	14.48	10	41	9	8
15	Nebraska	14.76	13	40	11	11
16	Auburn	15.24	20	24	21	23
17	Michigan	15.56	18	52	17	17
18	Texas A&M	16.10	17	2	19	18
19	W. Va.	17.32	15	78	14	14
20	Mich St.	18.18	16	88	15	13

NCAA conference realignments: A lesson in history, leading to a scary conclusion

I'm not as big into college football as other readers/writers on our blog. However, I've been extremely intrigued by the endless turmoil over the last 1.5 years.

I was reading an article on Yahoo which led me to an amazing, well-researched, historical piece on the Atlantic.com , chronicling all of the insanity of the NCAA. Some of my favorite moments:
1) in 1939, freshman players at Pitt went on strike because they were getting paid less than their upperclassman teammates. "Embarrassed, the NCAA in 1948 enacted a “Sanity Code,” which was supposed to prohibit all concealed and indirect benefits for college athletes", but the 'Sanity code' was repelaed within a few years
2) In 1951, the NCAA hired Walter Byers as executive director. Then: " he lobbied a University of Kentucky dean—A. D. Kirwan, a former football coach and future university president—not to contest the NCAA’s dubious legal position (the association had no actual authority to penalize the university), pleading that college sports must do something to restore public support. His gambit succeeded when Kirwan reluctantly accepted a landmark precedent: the Kentucky basketball team would be suspended for the entire 1952–53 season. Its legendary coach, Adolph Rupp, fumed for a year in limbo."
3) At the 1951 NCAA convention, there was a vote of "161–7 to outlaw televised games except for a specific few licensed by the NCAA staff." At this time, they were more concerned that people would stay at home and not attend games (and di not realize how much moeny could be made from advertising on the broadcasts).
4) Then... "On June 6, 1952, NBC signed a one-year deal to pay the NCAA $1.14 million for a carefully restricted football package. Byers routed all contractual proceeds through his office. He floated the idea that, to fund an NCAA infrastructure, his organization should take a 60 percent cut; he accepted 12 percent that season. (For later contracts, as the size of television revenues grew exponentially, he backed down to 5 percent.) Proceeds from the first NBC contract were enough to rent an NCAA headquarters, in Kansas City. "
5) In 1961, Byers "negotiated the NCAA’s television package up to $3.1 million per football season—which was higher than the NFL’s figure in those early years."
6) "In 1981 a rogue consortium of 61 major football schools threatened to sign an independent contract with NBC for $180 million over four years. With a huge chunk of the NCAA’s treasury walking out the door, Byers threatened sanctions." However, Georgia and Oklahoma responded with an antitrust suit, which led to a landmark 1984 case. " NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the NCAA’s latest football contracts with television—and any future ones—as an illegal restraint of trade that harmed colleges and viewers. Overnight, the NCAA’s control of the television market for football vanished." This decision allowed the schools to each sell any games they wanted to... and perhaps more relevant to today's happenings, there was no requirement to share revenues with smaller schools.
7) Interestingly though, basketball revenue from the NCAA tourney COVERED the losses of the football revenue (because the NCAA was just taking a % cut of the football, as opposed to who knows what amount of the revenues from the NCAA tourney). "During the 1980s, income from the March Madness college basketball tournament, paid directly by the television networks to the NCAA, grew tenfold. The windfall covered—and then far exceeded—what the organization had lost from football. "
8) The Atlantic.com touches on a lot of different topics, including the NCAA's "amateurism," and how it never has been accomplished, the fact that NFL players association gets paid $35 million per year for use of their likenesses by EA sports but college athletes themselves get paid nothing, as well as the Ed O'Bannon case, which is trying to get money paid to college athletes for use of their likenesses on jerseys, video games, etc.... but the article all culminates with one theory... the NCAA receives 95% of its revenues from the men's baksetball tournament. ... which leads to some chilling truths:
a_ "if the big sports colleges don’t need the NCAA to administer a national playoff in football, then they don’t need it to do so in basketball. In which case, they could cut out the middleman in March Madness and run the tournament themselves. Which would deprive the NCAA of close to $1 billion a year, more than 95 percent of its revenue."
b) "To alienate member colleges would be to jeopardize its own existence. Long gone are television bans and the “death penalty” sentences (commanding season-long shutdowns of offending teams) once meted out to Kentucky (1952), Southwestern Louisiana (1973), and Southern Methodist University (1987). Institutions receive mostly symbolic slaps nowadays. Real punishments fall heavily on players and on scapegoats like literacy tutors."

Which leads me to one frightening conclusion... what is stopping the 4 super conferences (I'm assuming Big East and Big 12 case to exist, or no longer get a spot at the BCS table) from breaking away from the NCAA... AND ALSO forming their own basketball tournament? Suddenly, there are millions more (or whatever it is that the NCAA keeps from that $771 million contract) for the 4 super conferences to split for themselves (ACC, Big10, Pac16, SEC16). I suppose the alternative to this scenario is that the NCAA makes a deal with the Big 4 to save itself... and continue to let the Big 4 do whatever it wants in football. What would be stopping the Big 4 from making a grab for the basketball money too? Not that I want them too, but the Big 4 could even spin it as a way for ALL of the schools to get paid MORE (with of course paying out more money to schools that go farther which, most of the time other than Butler time, is going to be a school from the Super-4).

Skynet Championship Series: Season Five

I can't believe it's the 5th season that I've been doing this...

Skynet is back! A wise machine, Agent Smith, once said in the Matrix: “Never send a Human to do a machine’s job.” These inspiring words ring true with the BCS. The time has now come to achieve the BCS purpose – by providing OBJECTIVE rankings. I realize this may be counter to my rooting interests, but it is the only fair way to determine two teams.

So, to be clear, here’s how I devise the standings each week:
1) I take the top 20 of the BCS standings.
2) I input each of the top 20's computer standings from each of 4 computer rankings (Sagarin, Anderson, Colley-Matrix, Wolfe; the other two aren't included because they input human rankings to start and are therefore biased).
3) I let excel calculate the standard deviation for each computer ranking distribution of the top 20. Then, Excel normalizes the distribution, and fits EACH computer ranking onto a 1-20 scale.
4) Finally, the normalized-computer averages are determined (i.e. if Florida is ranked 5.76, 2.55, 2.21, 5.77 in 4 of the polls, which is an average of 4.07, which equals their SCS ranking. This means that according to the polls, they are approximately the 4th-best team in the country).

Most underrated by the humans: Michigan St., Missouri (because they are undefeated?), Ok State (because they are undefeated?)

Most overrated by the humans: Oregon, Boise, Alabama, Ohio St, Iowa!

NOTE: things are a bit wacky in the computers due to the plethora of undefeated teams... but will probably even out once more games are played.

Of course, there is a long time until the end of the season though. And remember, these are not my rankings, they are the rankings of the only objective entity in the universe... Skynet!

2010 Skynet Rankings - Week of 10/18

2010		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk	Harris	Coaches
1	oklahoma	1.18	1	13	4	3
2	auburn	2.23	4	33	5	5
3	Mich St	2.50	7	53	8	8
4	LSU	2.73	6	28	6	6
5	TCU	4.78	5	77	3	4
6	Missouri	4.87	11	44	16	16
7	boise st	5.01	3	73	2	2
8	oregon	7.62	2	113	1	1
9	Ok St	9.51	14	89	15	15
10	Stanford	9.63	12	29	13	14
11	Utah	11.40	9	126	9	9
12	Alabama	13.74	8	58	7	7
13	Fla St	13.75	17	79	17	17
14	wisconsin	13.89	13	92	11	11
15	Ohio St	14.89	10	75	10	10
16	Arizona	15.14	18	66	18	18
17	Iowa	15.92	15	78	12	12
18	texas	16.86	19	18	22	22
19	Nebraska	16.89	16	97	14	13
20	W. Va.	18.82	20	95	19	19

Skynet Championship Series: Week 7 in the Year 2009

Most underrated by the humans: Cincy, Georgia Tech, USC, Miami (FL)

Most overrated by the humans: Texas, Ohio St, Penn St, BYU

2009		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk	Harris	Coaches
1	Florida	0.65	1	42	1	1
2	alabama	0.72	2	41	3	3
3	Cincy	1.71	5	76	5	5
4	Texas	2.21	3	54	2	2
5	TCU	3.17	4	95	4	4
6	Boise St	5.34	6	98	6	6
7	Oregon	7.07	7	6	8	8
8	Geo Tech	11.69	10	47	11	12
9	LSU	11.94	13	26	14	14
10	Iowa	12.42	9	51	10	10
11	Ohio St	13.41	8	46	7	7
12	USC	14.17	18	15	19	19
13	Va. Tech	14.22	12	9	12	11
14	Miami (FL)	14.92	17	30	17	17
15	Pitt	15.47	15	62	15	15
16	Ore St	15.82	16	33	16	16
17	Penn St	16.02	11	69	9	9
18	BYU	16.10	14	87	13	13
19	Cal	16.11	19	38	21	22
20	Ok St	16.98	20	36	20	21

Skynet Championship Series: Week 5 in the Year 2009

Most underrated by the humans: Cincy, Oregon, USC (this is strange, but the computers don't take score into account, so the the thrashings by Oregon and Stanford just look like they are losing to good teams)

Most overrated by the humans: Texas, Ok State, Penn State

2009		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk	Harris	Coaches
1	Florida	0.85	1	39	1	1
2	Alabma	1.00	2	27	3	3
3	Cincy	1.53	5	66	5	5
4	TCU	2.26	4	68	4	4
5	Texas	2.77	3	54	2	2
6	Georgia Tech	6.59	7	48	7	7
7	Boise St	7.10	6	113	6	6
8	Oregon	9.48	11	8	11	11
9	LSU	9.73	8	32	10	10
10	Pitt	11.58	9	74	9	9
11	Ohio St	12.92	10	29	8	8
12	Iowa	13.08	13	43	14	15
13	Va. Tech	14.95	15	3	16	16
14	USC	15.05	18	9	20	21
15	Ok St	15.55	12	44	13	13
16	Ore St	15.83	19	18	22	20
17	Wisconsin	16.09	16	50	15	14
18	Miami (FL)	16.66	20	10	24	24
19	Penn St	17.18	14	71	12	12
20	Stanford	17.20	17	36	17	17

Skynet Championship Series: Week 3 in the Year 2009

Cincy has overtaken Alabama!!! I can't believe it! Skynet has no bias, and reports out of the south indicate that the SEC fans are trembling in fear!

Actually, Cincy, Alabama, Texas, and Oregon are in a virtual deadlock in spots three through six. Also of note is that despite the head-to-head victory by Boise State over Oregon, the computers all have Oregon considerably ahead of Boise, thus showing us that the overall body of work of Oregon is indeed objectively better.

Most underrated by the humans: Iowa, Cincy, Oregon, Arizona (same as last week)

Most overrated by the humans: Texas, Pitt, Ohio State

2009		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk
1	Florida	1.02	1	22
2	Iowa	1.31	4	42
3	Cincinnati	3.31	5	85
4	Alabama	3.65	3	46
5	texas	3.82	2	45
6	Oregon	3.94	8	8
7	TCU	4.34	6	82
8	Boise St	7.21	7	116
9	LSU	7.76	9	36
10	Geo Tech	9.35	10	40
11	USC	10.75	12	7
12	Penn St	13.05	11	61
13	Utah	15.32	14	92
14	Arizona	15.74	18	16
15	Pitt	15.78	13	96
16	Houston	16.07	15	89
17	Miami (FL)	16.39	17	17
18	California	16.49	20	51
19	Ohio St	18.10	16	49
20	Okl St	18.41	19	50

Skynet Championship Series: Season Four

I can't believe it's the 4th season that I've been doing this...

Skynet is back! A wise machine, Agent Smith, once said in the Matrix: “Never send a Human to do a machine’s job.” These inspiring words ring true with the BCS. The time has now come to achieve the BCS purpose – by providing OBJECTIVE rankings. I realize this may be counter to my rooting interests, but it is the only fair way to determine two teams.

So, to be clear, here’s how I devise the standings each week:
1) I take the top 20 of the BCS standings.
2) I input each of the top 20's computer standings from each computer ranking.
3) I let excel calculate the standard deviation for each computer ranking distribution of the top 20. Then, Excel normalizes the distribution, and fits EACH computer ranking onto a 1-20 scale.
4) Finally, the normalized-computer averages are determined (i.e. Florida is ranked 5.76, 2.55, 2.21, 5.77 in 4 of the polls, which is an average of 4.07, which equals their SCS ranking. This means that according to the polls, they are approximately the 4th-best team in the country).

I know it took a couple of days, but the latest Skynet rankings shook me to the core...

Iowa is #2 (because Penn State, Wisconsin, and Arizona are all in the top-20 in the computer rankings)
Ohio State is awful (actually, that wasn't that shocking)
USC is #13 (the computers are punishing them severely for that Washington loss)

Of course, there is a long time until the end of the season though. And remember, these are not my rankings, they are the rankings of the only objective entity in the universe... Skynet!

2009 Skynet Rankings - Week of 10/19

2009		SCS	BCS	Sched Rnk
1	florida	1.11	1	33
2	iowa	1.34	6	13
3	alabama	1.61	2	45
4	cincy	3.62	5	83
5	boise st	4.91	4	90
6	texas	6.62	3	52
7	lsu	7.02	9	22
8	tcu	7.44	8	92
9	oregon	8.13	11	23
10	geo tech	8.50	12	32
11	va. Tech	10.20	14	2
12	miami (fl)	10.63	10	34
13	usc	11.27	7	40
14	utah	15.78	18	111
15	pitt	15.92	20	69
16	houston	16.22	17	75
17	penn st	16.83	13	91
18	ok st	17.73	15	86
19	byu	18.05	16	123
20	ohio st	18.30	19	43