12/22/24
October 15, 2005
A network-based ranking system for American college football: Some professors devise a better way than the AP Poll: "We introduce a one-parameter ranking method that satisfies all of these requirements and is based on a network representation of college football schedules.... Applying our method to the seven years during which the BCS ranking scheme has existed, we find excellent agreement between the method and the official rankings but with some deviations, particularly in well-known controversial cases. We believe that the combination of sound and believable results with a strong common-sense foundation makes our method an attractive ranking scheme for college football." [full PDF]
posted by billsaysthis to football at 11:41 PM - 3 comments
PLEASE GOD CAN WE HAVE A PLAYOFF!!!!! PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON TOP!!!!!
posted by fade2244 at 07:49 PM on October 16, 2005
No. Now, if we could just do something about redundant rhetorical questions...
posted by The_Black_Hand at 09:52 PM on October 16, 2005
Pretty cool. I agree that the basic idea is fairly intuitive, but this would suffer from the same problems as the current computer algorithms within the BCS -- it's too complicated for people to understand in a couple of sentences. Interesting work, though.