For more than a decade, computer rankings were a major, major part of college football thanks to the BCS formula. The College Football Playoff committee has made those computer rankings obsolete. And this week presented a good example of why.
Computer rankings were always a controversial part of the Bowl Championship Series system because they couldn’t take into account anything beyond the numbers. Sometimes the computers even forced teams into the national championship game that humans didn’t vote for.
The Colley Matrix was one of the computer rankings used in the BCS formula along with five others. Those computer rankings were averaged out and combined with the Coaches Poll and the Harris Poll to come up with the final standings. This week’s Colley Matrix has what some might consider to be a flaw in the system.
After Week 4, it has Wake Forest ranked ahead of Alabama and Ohio State.
You can understand those top eight teams being ranked highly in some particular order, even though #1 Tennessee is kind of a head scratcher as well considering their wins are over Florida, Ohio, App State, and Virginia Tech. However, their 3 Top 50 wins put them at the top of the poll.
But Wake Forest over Alabama and Ohio State? Clearly the computers don’t take too much stock in either program’s victories over two-loss Ole Miss and two-loss Oklahoma, in spite of how highly regarded they are by the human world. Similarly, USC’s fall from grace hasn’t done wonders for the Tide’s non-conference slate this year… but still, it’s Alabama!
So now I’m sure you’re asking, “well who has Wake Forest defeated so far this season?”
Drumroll please….
Tulane, Duke, Delaware, Indiana.
If you compare these rankings to the most famous computer rankings, the Sagarin database, they have Ohio State and Alabama 1-2 with Wake Forest sitting at #62, 12 spots behind North Dakota State of the FCS.
Wake Forest is off to a 4-0 start this season, yes, but they have seven consecutive losing seasons. In fact, their four wins this season already matches their highest win total in a season since 2013! It’d take a brave soul to place any kind of wager on Wake Forest finishing the season even in the same zipcode as the Top 10 of any human poll.
If the Demon Deacons played Alabama or Ohio State on a neutral field, they would probably be 3-4 touchdown underdogs. But thanks to a walk down memory lane with a BCS computer ranking, at least we could say there was one week in one poll where they were ahead of the elite powers of college football.*
* And now by writing this post, we can all look forward to Wake Forest’s Cinderella run to the 2016 College Football Playoff.
H/T SEC Country
