Numbers crunch time
Top bowl game to be chosen by polls, computers, formulas
Posted: Tuesday June 09, 1998 07:32 PM
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Under the new system, Brian Griese (left) and the Wolverines likely would have played Scott Frost and the 'Huskers for the championship last season (Jonathan Daniel, Brian Bahr/Allsport) |
ATLANTA (CNN/SI) -- There is still no playoff system to determine a college football
champion, but at least now there is the Bowl Championship Series -- and with it a formula to determine which schools will meet for
the title.
This season's winner will be decided on the field at Sun Devil
Stadium in Tempe, Arizona on January 4 in the Fiesta Bowl.
There is a system to determine which teams will be there, and it
is based on the old-fashioned subjective polls of the media and
coaches, the ratings of the respective computers of Jeff Sagarin, the Seattle Times and The New York Times, an index to determine
strength of schedule, and, of course, win-loss record.
The announcement of the four-tiered system was made Tuesday by BCS
coordinator Roy Kramer.
The BCS standings will determine which teams will participate in
the national championship and the other schools eligible for the
Bowl Championship Series games.
The poll component is determined on the simple average ranking
between the USA Today/ESPN coaches' poll and the Associated
Press media poll. The average ranking is the number of points
awarded in the BCS.
The computer ratings will be averaged to make the second
component of the formula, though there is a built-in safety net
should a team be ranked considerably lower by one of the
machines. The adjusted number is the one taken into account in
the BCS formula.
Strength of schedule takes into account the win-loss record of a
team's opponents and the marks of the opposition's opponents.
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