USC is now #10 in the Associated Press!!!! They are not even in the top 25 of the BCS or USA Today poll. http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings
Michigan State is #11 in the AP even thought they were blown out by an unranked Notre Dame team (yeah, 3 loss ND has squeaked back up to 22, but were not ranked when they trounced Michigan State)
They computers are not perfect, but they do a lot better job than the bias North East, Mid-West and West coast sports writers who don't know anything about modern college football. i.e. the South East!
YES!!!! A voting sportswriter's or broadcaster's bias (if it exists) is based on what they see on an actual football field and informed by years of work experience observing and reporting on football. Quite often, the sportswriter and (especially) the broadcaster is a former football player.
The computer geeks' bias is based on a bogus spreadheet and algorhythm and any other special secret sauce they throw into their formulae. The geeks do not watch any actual games and do not report on the play on the field, but instead input only the data they feel is statistically significant to their rankings. These geeks never, ever played tackle football. And probably not 2-hand touch or flag football. But I bet they are wizards at Madden 2011!
Bias obviously exists, but please note that the AP poll is not used in the computation of the BCS rankings. The sportswriters pulled their participation in 2004 after the University of Texas lobbied Big XII coaches to manipulate their votes to pull ahead of Cal-Berkley in BCS polling. Prior to the pre-bowl vote, some computer geek Texas supporter calculated that just 8 voting coaches needed to flip-flop Cal & Texas in the polls to give Texas & the Big XII (and not Cal) a big BCS bowl payout.
The Harris Poll replaced the AP poll in BCS computations in 2005. Harris Interactive is a marketing research firm who annually assembles a market based regionally-balanced slate of 115 voters comprised of former players, coaches, administrators and media.
Both the Harris Poll and the AP Poll enjoy the superiority of direct observation and actual game knowledge over the computer geeks. Beyond that, the biases of any one Harris voter (115 total votes) or any one AP voter (60 votes) are mitigated by the votes of other voters spread across the entire country. The 115 Harris voters combine for 33% of the BCS composite. But there are just 6 computer geeks who participate in the computer polls 33% share of the BCS composite. In addition, each team's high and low computer geek score is thrown out. Therefore, the bias of any computer geek is 29 TIMES WORSE than any Harris voter and 15 TIMES WORSE than that of any one sportswriter!
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USC is now #10 in the Associated Press!!!!
And that's probably where they would be ranked in the other polls if those polls did not exclude teams that are on NCAA probation. The AP poll has no such restriction.
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Michigan State is #11 in the AP even thought [sic] they were blown out by an unranked Notre Dame team (yeah, 3 loss ND has squeaked back up to 22, but were not ranked when they trounced Michigan State).
I actually think Michigan State should be ranked higher than #11. While I share in your disdain for Notre Dame, the fact is that Michigan State has lost just 2 games (both at difficult away stadiums) - to then #14 Nebraska & to bitter rival Notre Dame, who you grudgingly acknowledge is again ranked.
Contrast AP's #11 Michigan St. with AP's #12 Oklahoma. Oklahoma lost on the road to #25 Baylor (who had never previously beaten a ranked opponent) and lost at HOME to 5-6 Texas Tech - a game that had been a blow out until a late Sooner rally. Yet, the computer geeks still rank Oklahoma at #6 & Michigan St. at #17.
There is no real justification for Oklahoma's high computer ranking. They have just one win versus a currently ranked opponent (at home vs. Kansas St.). AP, Harris & USA Today (Coaches) all now recognize that Florida St. and Texas actually have mediocre teams and reflect those unimpressive Oklahoma victories in their polling. However, the computer geeks all build Florida State's and Texas' early season residual value into their half-baked formulae.
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They computers are not perfect, but they do a lot better job than the bias North East, Mid-West and West coast sports writers who don't know anything about modern college football. i.e. the South East!
OK, this is getting too easy. In addition to the facts and logic listed above that utterly destroy your belief that the computer rankings hold ANY validity, I will simply point out that the writers and coaches do not view ACC or SEC football with any less value than the computer geeks.
Every single BCS ranked team in the SEC and ACC have Harris & USA Today rankings that are within one or 2 places of the average computer geek ranking. The AP poll (including bowl-banned Southern Cal which moves some teams back a spot) gives a little less love, especially to ACC teams.
I personally think that SEC teams are slightly overrated (especially Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina & Auburn), but that opinion is not shared nor reflected in ANY of the polls - AP, Harris, Coaches, computer geek or BCS. If anything, an examination of the CURRENT computer geek and BCS rankings reveal a slight bias FOR the ACC, a slight bias FOR non-AQ schools like Boise St. & Houston, a huge bias FOR Big XII teams and a gargantuan bias AGAINST B1G teams.
The funniest thing I see in all of this is:
The Big Least is nowhere to be found in any of the rankings. The BCS should be embarrassed that this pretend football conference is guaranteed a BCS bowl berth.