Wednesday, September 17, 2008

INTERESTING BCS FACT

I found this today from Stewart Mandel on SI.com

It seems with the BCS, you learn something new every year -- and it just so happens that this past weekend in L.A., I found out about a complex, secret formula the BCS uses to determine this very thing. The most recent evaluation was based on a four-year period (2004-07) and consisted of the following three components:
• Average BCS ranking of each conference's highest ranked team.
• Average BCS ranking of each team in the conference.
• Number of teams from each conference in the BCS top 25.
I'm not privy to the actual data, but if the Mountain West or any other league had finished ahead of the Big East (the most obvious suspect for demotion), it would have gained an automatic berth for this season and next (the last two of the current cycle). Obviously, that didn't happen, and based on the data we do have, you can see why. Over the past four years, the Big East champion's average ranking was 11.75, while the Mountain West's was 14.25. The Big East placed 10 teams in the Top 25, the Mountain West four.
That doesn't mean this couldn't change in the future. The way things are shaping up this season, it's conceivable the Mountain West could finish with two or three Top 25 teams to the Big East's one, and it's possible a BYU or Utah will finish higher than any Big East team. But again, the league would need to demonstrate this over a longer period of time. According to the BCS' media guide, "It is anticipated that before the spring of 2009, the conferences will devise standards for automatic conference qualifications for after the 2010 regular season." I take this to mean they will run another four-year evaluation at some point and, if anything changes, it will go into effect when the new contract begins in two years.

I thought that was interesting- Dunaway Out

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