My Blog Poll System

OK, I have long struggled with trying to develop a system for the Blogpoll votes, and I wanted to quickly describe what I developed, though I have not really been able to deploy it fully yet.

Here's the idea....

The Blogpoll philosophy is to look at who has had the better season.

So, I decided to grade each result with the idea of coming up with a shorthand way of ranking teams. A team should be rewarded for winning against good teams, and for winning on the road. My draft system goes like this....

+3 Win over Top 5 team
+2 Win over Top 15 team
+1 Win over Top 30 team
0 Win over non-top 30 team
-1 Loss to Top 5 team
-2 Loss to top 15 team
-3 Loss to top 30 team
-4 Loss to non-top 30 team.

Then, a single point is added for a road win and deducted for a home loss.

Finally, it CAN be re-evaluated. Clearly, a win over East Carolina is not what it seemed like at one time. If a team that originally appears to be Top 15 shows itself not to be (hello Clemson) then I can go back and downgrade that win.

Some notes:

I think a Top 25 team should beat teams that are not in the Top 30 at home, so there are no points for it.

You can run into problems re-evaluating, say, Oregon's State's win over USC if you put the USC-Oregon State game in the mix while you do it. I only just re-evaluated now for the season so far.

I don't want to get into close losses, near losses, etc. A win is a win, and no team should get punished for winning a game (in my opinion). Plus, if the system is too complicated, it isn't worth it.

So far, for what it is worth, it is not working. (DOH!) The really good teams in the country don't get points because they open their season mostly with bad teams at home, so they just get zeroes.

A poor team with a couple road wins gets two points, and is ahead of that team.

Plus, maybe there are not enough categories. I ranked Top 30 and below because I figured that if you are going to be Top 25, you should beat #31 and #119.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. For now, here is the ranking.

I think it might work after the season, but for right now, its putting odd results out. (Like Bowling Green tied with Florida at this point).

Alabama 1
Vanderbilt 2
South Florida 2
Utah 4
LSU 4
Boise State 4
Ball State 7
Uconn 7
Northwestern 7
Oklahoma 7
BYU 11
TCU 11
Penn State 11
OK State 11
Texas 11
Texas Tech 11
Tulsa 11
Kentucky 11
Missouri 19
Georgia 19
Duke 19
Cincy 19
USC 23
Minnesota 23
Ohio State 23
Fresno State 23
Maryland 23
Wake Forest 28
Kansas 28
Air Force 28
Auburn 28
Va Tech 28
Western Michigan 28
Oregon 28
Nevada 28
Wisconsin 36
Ga Tech 36
Louisiana Tech 36
UNC 36
MSU 36
Oregon State 36
Mississippi 36
Illinois 36
California 36
Rice 36
Colorado 46
Troy 46
Boston College 46
Florida State 46
K-State 46
Central Michigan 46
Arizona 46
Notre Dame 46
Pitt 46
Nebraska 55
Florida 55
Arkansas 55
Bowling Green 55
Marshall 59
Miami 59
Southern Miss 59
South Carolina 59
Stanford 59
Navy 59
Tulane 59
Michigan 59
UNLV 67
Colorado State 67
Arizona State 67
NIU 67
San Jose State 67
Clemson 67
Purdue 73
New Mexico State 73
Arkansas State 73
Tennessee 73
Baylor 73
Iowa State 73
Florida International 73
East Carolina 80
Iowa 80
Louisville 80
Buffalo 80
WVU 80
Texas A&M 80
Virginia 86
Indiana 86
WKU 86
Florida Atlantic 86
La Monroe 86
NC State 91
Akron 91
Mississippi State 91
Utah State 91
UCLA 95
Wyoming 95
La Lafayette 95
UTEP 95
Houston 95
UT 95
Miami 95
New Mexico 95
Hawaii 104
Kent 104
San Diego State 104
Middle Tenn State 104
Rutgers 104
Washington 109
Memphis 109
SMU 111
Temple 111
North Texas 111
Ohio 111
Syracuse 115
UAB 115
Idaho 115
Eastern Michigan 118
Washington State 118
Army 120