College Bowl Games

Today is January 1st. For the first time in what might be my lifetime, I didn't watch a single minute of college football. I actually watched hockey (the Winter Classic) and baseball (part of Don Larsen's perfect game on the new MLB Network) instead of New Year's Day Bowls.

Which gets to a post I've been kicking around for a few weeks but never typed out about college bowls.

Point 1: I've been really undecided what to think about Vanderbilt being in a bowl. On one hand it's nice that Vanderbilt no longer appears near the top of "longest bowl drought" lists. And a six-win season is the best Vanderbilt has had in a long time so this qualifies as a great year by Vanderbilt standards. On the other hand, it's not like Vanderbilt is actually any good. After starting 5-1, they finished the regular season 6-6 which isn't exactly something to be proud of. Their offense is horrible, their defense is OK. They basically win by not making mistakes and getting some breaks. They may not even be in the top 50 this year heading into bowl season. I'd like being excited that a C and D student got one B on her report card.

Having played the game, it was a lot of fun to watch them on National TV and pull off a big upset. While the line was only 3-4 points, Boston College was a top 25 team and I think 90% of ESPN viewers picked them to win. A guy I know was in a contest where he ranked the bowl games by likelihood of winners and made BC his #1 pick.

Point 2: On the BCS, I had a long talk with Glenn about the selection process and options and we came to a couple of interesting conclusions. There's no good way to decide a three-way tie for a conference or division title when each team has lost to one of the others. And it's a bit disconcerting that who plays for a national championship comes down to the arbitrary selection of which tie breaker rules the conference happens to have in place. I can't argue against the approach utilized by other conferences to "eliminate" the #3 team then look at head-to-head and that approach would likely have put Texas in the championship game. Not sure how the conference strength of victory would have determined a winner. What's really tough is a lot of the computer polls have Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech 1-2-3 so it's very close. I suspect some weird things can happen in the Pac Ten with USC being the dominant team but coming very close to NOT winning the conference title.

What Glenn and I found very interesting is that even though this is a year where there's a good argument that the best team in the nation isn't playing for the National Championship (Texas), the BCS does a better job of ensuring that the best team IS in the championship than a playoff. Let's declare best team to mean if the top 21 teams each played each other 50 times, the team with the best record is the best team. This year is pretty extreme, but even so there's only a 35% chance the best team isn't in the game. It's hard to argue Texas being so much better than Oklahoma and Florida that it wins more than 1/3 of the time. In general, I'd say the best team is left out of the BCS Championship 20% of the time. But if you switch to a 16-team playoff or even an 8-team playoff, the best team missed out of the championship game much, much more often.

Let's be optimistic and say the #1 team has a 100% chance of beating the #16 team, and then a 90% chance of beating the #8/9 team and a 70% chance of winning in the national semifinal against the #4 or 5 team. That would give the team a 37% chance of NOT making the championship. And really it's greater than that since those win % are inflated. Rank your top 8 teams and see if you think the top team would really beat #8 9 times in 10 or #4 70% of the time.

This is the dark side of the beauty of March Madness. While it's good entertainment to see upsets and close games and 64 teams in, it's also almost a crapshoot once you get to the final 16. I believe last year was the first time ever that all 4 #1 seed made it to the Final Four. Quite simply, the more teams you involve, the LESS likely it is that you crown the best team as champion assuming the selection process isn't arbitrary.

Net net, so while I firmly believe Texas got screwed even though I think Oklahoma is better, I much prefer the current system to a 16-team playoff. I would like a 6-team playoff, though it will never happen.