The Anderson & Hester computer poll is the only poll in the BCS formula that doesn't have LSU as #1. They give that honor to South Florida...as you may know. But, as i understand it, this is the poll that puts the most enphasis on quality wins and strenght of conference. I know that South Florida has a few good wins....but better than LSU's???? ...and conference? I know it prob wont matter in the grand scheme of things (only amount to a few 100ths of a point) ...just curious for an explanation. (sorry if was already discussed)
I read about that yesterday, but I haven't been able to find the poll published anywhere. Just remember that out of the 6 computer polls, the lowest and the highest rankings are dropped and the four remaining are averaged. So as long as we are below number 1 in only one of the computer polls, it won't matter, we will still have a 1.0 average. We need to keep winning and have some strongs games so that we keep as many number one votes in the human polls as possible b/c the total amount of votes in those polls count.
I, like Mindy, have not found any published rankings for them, only discussion about them. If anyone knows where the published poll is, I'd like to see it so I can add it to my simulation. Thanks.
Same here, not so much for us, but I can't stand seeing USC getting 18 points from Billingsley so I hope they are lower in A&H and Wolfe so that 18 gets thrown out. Hopefully these last two polls will look more like the other 3 with 1, 2, and a big fat 0 for USC!
Though I can't imagine how South Florida could be ahead of us, I'd have to believe after we dust Auburn, it will offset us a lot since we'll both have that "W" and we'll end up with more "Quality" wins than South Florida. Just a guess though, I'm no polls/numbers person.
Those computer polls that are out started the year with a "weighted" formula. In other words they estimated how good each team would be and used their formulae using those estimations. its not until the sixth or seventh week that there's enough interaction amongst teams to allow for the formula used by each poll to work on an "unweighted' basis. Anderson does not use any weighting and therefore waits until this week to issue its first poll. Concerning South Florida, my guess is at least two of its wins (Auburn and West Virginia ) were against teams that were ranked high by the various poll designers to begin the season. It will be interesting to see how it comes out after this week.
It's their prerogative, but I don't see why they need to wait. Colley Matrix is unweighted the whole season as well, and they don't wait to post. I personally like seeing how the polls change week to week in the early season.
I am certainly NOT an expert in this area, but I don't see how anyone can start off the season without weighting the teams. Otherwise how would the poll "know" that LSU's win over VT was more significant than Ohio's win over ULL. I believe that all computer polls released before the sixth or seventh week begin with a weighting. The value of the pre-season "weighting" diminishes over the first several weeks until it is no longer relevant. Could be wrong but that is my understanding.
I always weighted my rankings probably for the first month or more. They didn't make any real sense to start the season. I'm not sure how S Florida can be justified at #1, but maybe that set of rankings makes sense by the end of the season. I know that some of the computer rankings that the BCS uses are a joke (as is the coaches' poll).
