Somebody smart explain to me why Sagarin SoS isn't circular

[IrishinSyria]

Doesn't he factor in strength of schedule when rating teams? How can you do one before the other?

 

[ginman]

Somebody smart?

I'm sorry you have come to the wrong board

 

[wizards8507]

Doesn't he factor in strength of schedule when rating teams? How can you do one before the other?

Win-loss record is the independent variable. My schedule is strong if I beat an 8-1 team, even if that 8-1 team beat a bunch of 3-6 teams. At least, I think that's how it works. I don't think it goes to the level of your schedule's strength of schedule.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Win-loss record is the independent variable. My schedule is strong if I beat an 8-1 team, even if that 8-1 team beat a bunch of 3-6 teams. At least, I think that's how it works. I don't think it goes to the level of your schedule's strength of schedule.

So then the way to do it would be to load up on a bunch of FCS and non power-5 teams who will finish like 7-4 against crap competition. (paging SEC West.)

In other words, Sagarin is a joke.

 

[Circa]

and the beat goes on.. I feel as tho 20 years from now, we will be looking back at this 4 team playoff as an abomination. It may take many more seasons to show the malice, altho the ingredients have already been a bit salty. The history of cfb is now easy to read. 'We' just haven't wanted to read how jaded the sportswriter's have become.

 

[Cackalacky]

Sagarin, like the developers of many other sports rating systems, does not divulge the exact methodology behind his system. He offers two rating systems, each of which gives each team a certain number of points. One system, "Elo chess," is presumably based on the Elo rating system used internationally to rank chess players. This system uses only wins and losses with no reference to the victory margin. The other system, "Predictor," takes victory margin into account. For that system the difference in two teams' rating scores is meant to predict the margin of victory for the stronger team at a neutral venue. For both systems teams gain higher ratings within the Sagarin system by winning games against stronger opponents, factoring in such things as home-venue advantage. For the Predictor system, margin of victory (or defeat) factors in also, but a law of diminishing returns is applied. Therefore, a football team that wins a game by a margin of 7-6 is rewarded less than a team that defeats the same opponent under the same circumstances 21-7, but a team that wins a game by a margin of 35-0 receives similar ratings to a team that defeats the same opponent 70-0. This characteristic has the effect of recognizing "comfortable" victories, while limiting the reward for running up the score.

At the beginning of a season, when only a few games have been played, a Bayesian network weighted by starting rankings is used as long as there are whole groups of teams that have not played one another, but once the graph is well-connected, the weights are no longer needed. Sagarin claims that from that point, the rankings are unbiased. [1]

From Wikipedia. He uses a combo of the ELO chess ranking and the Predictor Model. So the Predictor model does weight wins/losses against higher/lower ranked teams so there is a SOS component with a decreased weight on running up the scores. So if Alabama beat East Valdosta State Girls college 110-0 if would be weighted similar to Ole Miss beating Presbyterian 48-20.

 

[Irish#1]

and the beat goes on.. I feel as tho 20 years from now, we will be looking back at this 4 team playoff as an abomination. It may take many more seasons to show the malice, altho the ingredients have already been a bit salty. The history of cfb is now easy to read. 'We' just haven't wanted to read how jaded the sportswriter's have become.

You'll see the playoff expanded to 8 teams in short order.

 

[T Town Tommy]

So then the way to do it would be to load up on a bunch of FCS and non power-5 teams who will finish like 7-4 against crap competition. (paging SEC West.)

In other words, Sagarin is a joke.

You do realize that as of today, right now, that ND would be an underdog to every team in the SEC West on a neutral site, except maybe Arkansas. May want to be careful there as there have been several projections for the Irish to meet an SEC team in a bowl game. Maybe they will come from the SEC East. But maybe... just maybe... they come from the SEC West.

But, for the record, I don't care for SOS ratings. Too often, I see teams with very high SOS ratings and have no business playing in whatever bowl game they are in.

 

[irishtrain]

You do realize that as of today, right now, that ND would be an underdog to every team in the SEC West on a neutral site, except maybe Arkansas. May want to be careful there as there have been several projections for the Irish to meet an SEC team in a bowl game. Maybe they will come from the SEC East. But maybe... just maybe... they come from the SEC West.

But, for the record, I don't care for SOS ratings. Too often, I see teams with very high SOS ratings and have no business playing in whatever bowl game they are in.

Hey guy do me a favor and drop the 'you may want to be careful line'. This team has been ravaged by personnel loss like not many have experienced this season. I'll take my chances as you like to say with the team that rolled into Tallahassee week 7. Get off your high horse we all know this team at this point in the season is just a shell of what it should have been. We just gave up 40 plus points to Northwestern ( we get it ) but we also (with most of the guys intact) played FSU to a standstill. Be careful, you may have to play FSU-they're pretty %$#@ good.

 

[BGIF]

You do realize that as of today, right now, that ND would be an underdog to every team in the SEC West on a neutral site, except maybe Arkansas. May want to be careful there as there have been several projections for the Irish to meet an SEC team in a bowl game. Maybe they will come from the SEC East. But maybe... just maybe... they come from the SEC West.

But, for the record, I don't care for SOS ratings. Too often, I see teams with very high SOS ratings and have no business playing in whatever bowl game they are in.

Who are we trying to kid here, Tommy. The bowl's since they were started selected teams to fill hotels and seats in the stadium to fill the Chambers of Commerce.

SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer was the champion of exclusionary bowl/conference contracts and Conference Championship Games to sneak in a post season boost in the polls to eliminate the Notre Dames and BYUs from being selected to major bowls and winning #1 on January 1st. He succeeded. Strength of Schedule had little to do with it.

 

[wizards8507]

You'll see the playoff expanded to 8 teams in short order.

It's sad that "ESPN guy" (me) is one of the only people who calls the playoff like it is: profit grabbing from the NCAA, conferences, and networks that has nothing to do with "deciding things on the field." For the kids, you know.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Hey guy do me a favor and drop the 'you may want to be careful line'. This team has been ravaged by personnel loss like not many have experienced this season. I'll take my chances as you like to say with the team that rolled into Tallahassee week 7. Get off your high horse we all know this team at this point in the season is just a shell of what it should have been. We just gave up 40 plus points to Northwestern ( we get it ) but we also (with most of the guys intact) played FSU to a standstill. Be careful, you may have to play FSU-they're pretty %$#@ good.

And other teams haven't been hurt by injury? Even my team has had to live with significant injuries this season. As far as FSU... I would love to see them in the playoff. I - as I like to say - love our chances against them.... even with our personnel losses.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Who are we trying to kid here, Tommy. The bowl's since they were started selected teams to fill hotels and seats in the stadium to fill the Chambers of Commerce.

SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer was the champion of exclusionary bowl/conference contracts and Conference Championship Games to sneak in a post season boost in the polls to eliminate the Notre Dames and BYUs from being selected to major bowls and winning #1 on January 1st. He succeeded. Strength of Schedule had little to do with it.

Kramer could have cared less about ND and BYU. Wasn't the Rose Bowl arrangement what really started the exclusionary bowl contracts? To be honest, I don't know as much about that topic as I probably should. Kramer was - whether people agree with him or not - a visionary when it came to CCGs. At that point in 1992 when the SEC played the first one - he and the SEC had way more to lose than to gain.

As far as ND and BYU... if they are steadfast at remaining independent, then they can't complain about the possibilities of something like a CCG hurting their chances of making a playoff. Furthermore, nobody had a better arrangement under the BCS setup than Notre Dame. Nobody. The fact that ND didn't take advantage of the arrangement is not Kramer's fault. Even with the current playoff setup, ND has a better arrangement than every conference other than the Big 12 who has no CCG. Bottom line is you can't pray for rain BGIF, and then complain about the mud.