This Proves Polls are Silly

Nashville Jacket said:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt09.htm

After beating Clemson, GT is ranked two spots behind them. I suppose if we beat Miami, then we'll still behind them as ell. Makes sense to me :laugher:
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Well, if I'm reading this right, we're two spots behind them based on the average of both Sagarin polls. If you use the BCS, non-margin poll, we're 13 spots ahead of Clemson. It's the margin of defeat poll where we're sucking wind.

I don't think these polls are even close to accurate without a larger sample set though.
 
I think Sagarin puts a very heavy emphasis on SoS to go with the other polls. So Middle Tennessee and GT is > Clemson and JSU.
 
unforgiven108 said:
I think Sagarin puts a very heavy emphasis on SoS to go with the other polls. So Middle Tennessee and GT is > Clemson and JSU.
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But is beating Clemson and beating JSU < losing to Ga Tech and beating MTSU??? It seems that this would require circular reasoning, to wit:

Clemson is better than Georgia Tech because losing close to Georgia Tech is more impressive than beating Clemson, because Clemson is .... uhhh... not as good as Tech?

Wait, that reasoning doesn't even make a circle. It's just ****ed up all the way around...
 
I hate to defend an aspect of the BCS, but these polls are useless until week 8.

I still hate the BCS and think it is the product of a bunch of greedy bastards who don't care who is the best team in the country.
 
GiveEmHellJackets said:
But is beating Clemson and beating JSU < losing to Ga Tech and beating MTSU??? It seems that this would require circular reasoning, to wit:

Clemson is better than Georgia Tech because losing close to Georgia Tech is more impressive than beating Clemson, because Clemson is .... uhhh... not as good as Tech?

Wait, that reasoning doesn't even make a circle. It's just ****ed up all the way around...
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Look closely, it's all about margin of victory. When you take that out of the equation, we're #18, Clemson is #30.
 
unforgiven108 said:
I think Sagarin puts a very heavy emphasis on SoS to go with the other polls. So Middle Tennessee and GT is > Clemson and JSU.
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Yes, but it also adjust SOS as data is available.

It is worthless until the data is "connected". Also, it accounts for home field advantage. So, a close loss by Clemson at GT is pretty much the same as a tie in power ranking.
 
C'mon, if USA Today put something that was accurate in their sports section it would be jarringly inconsistent with the crap in their other sections.
 
Sagarin's formula doesn't actually work until week 4, IIRC, it relies on some data from last year up until then. Notice the home field advantage margin, 2.91. So Clemson's 3 point loss on the road is a tie to the rankings.
 
The poll using the margin of victory is a more accurate predictor of future games. And it's impossible for any poll to always rank teams ahead of teams they lost to. Should Houston be ranked ahead of Ok. St.?

That said, these polls are pretty worthless after two weeks.
 
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