SHUFELT Computer Poll; Week 8

Computer Poll Top 25 Resumes

Dropped out: NC State, Texas 

Boise State remains in the top spot after they beat their BYE week. It isn't really a bye week, as they play Tuesday night, but I'm factoring in Tuesday night towards next week's schedule as all polls, including mine, are done before they play.

Flavor of the Week Award

Nebraska finds their mojo by beating an undefeated Oklahoma State. I have a feeling that as Okay State continues their schedule, this win won't look as impressive, but it gets the award this week. Meanwhile a couple of big blowouts rounds out a week of some impressive wins.

Bitter Sweet Award

Lots of net losses this week for teams that earned a W. Toledo pulls of a 1 score squeaker against one of the worst teams in the country. Meanwhile, WSU continues to destroy the resumes of the Pac-10 programs. I'm half way tempted to rename this category the Wazzu Award.

No Shame in Losing Award

Three of the five games here were listed in the "Games to Look Forward to Watching" last week, and they were entertaining games. Four of the teams here earned Net Wins. WSU fans have to be encouraged with their increasing competitiveness.

Face Palm Award

Bad week to schedule a team with "Western" in their name. The funniest one on this list is probably Bowling Green's loss to Kent State. Though Akron, who I have ranked 120th in the country, made themselves look even worse.

Conference Rankings

Not much change here. The SEC went down a little bit, the Big-12, Pac-10 moved up a little bit. The Big Ten jumped the Independents. About the biggest move was that the Mountain West took a .200 hit in their VoW Avg. How bad is the MAC and Sun Belt?  They are significantly worse than 10th Ranked C-USA.

Pac-10 Standings

Stanford's 10 point win over WSU set their VoW back .300, as they slide down to 4th place in the conference. WSU gains some ground and ASU losses some. Could Arizona State end up with the worse resume in the conference? If WSU continues their competitive streak, and if they can pull off a Pac-10 win, I would not be surprised.

Top 10 Toughest Schedules

UCLA's schedule got a nice boost with playing Oregon, and BYU's slides down as they hosted Wyoming. North Carolina replaces Florida as the only team in the top 10 SoS with a winning record.

Bottom 10 Toughest Schedules

Syracuse beat West Virgina this week, which was a more impressive team than Tulane. So UTEP gets the honor of having the easiest schedule of the year. Looking at their schedule, I would expect them to stay there for a few weeks until they get a good Arkansas team on their resume.

Games to Look Forward to Watching

Last week, Missouri was rated to have the top game of the week,  and they make it two weeks in a row after they brought down Oklahoma last week. Nebraska also had a showing here last week in the No. 2 game of the week. There are really only 3 really exciting games projected this week, with 2 other games that should also be competitive.

Games to Watch During a Root Canal

I had Boise Sate vs. Louisiana Tech last week, but I didn't realize that they were playing on a Tuesday. So they make an appearance here again. 

Shout Outs/My Observations

Wasn't that a fun weekend of college football? There's been so much talk regarding big hits, and injuries and making the game safer, but when the ball was being thrown on the gridiron this last Saturday, it just wasn't that important anymore. It was about Cam Newton fighting against a rather tenacious LSU, another #1 team going down in smoke, and Iowa State gave a big "thank you" to Texas, for keeping the Big-12 together. 

About the Poll

• It has a memory. It will remember what happened in Week 1. Team A may look bad Week 1, but in Week 6, they don't look so bad. 
  •  That means the values are dynamic. To take an example from this year, Boise State squeaked by a highly ranked Virginia Tech team. The next week, Virginia Tech lost to James Madison. Boise State's close call to Virginia Tech does not look NEARLY as impressive now. Week 1 scores will actually change dynamically based upon results, not just Week 1, but every week of college football.
• Style points matter. This includes the margin of victory. Nobody is impressed when you pull of a 1 point squeaker to Saint Mary’s school of the blind. But everyone would be impressed when Alabama is beaten 35-0. MOV matters, but it has diminishing returns. The point difference between winning by 50 and winning by 70 is practically infinitesimal. 
• There is no pride in playing an FCS team.
• Location has a small influence on the scoring. A slight penalty for the home team, and a slight bonus for the visiting team. Neutral fields cancel each other out.
• There are bonus points for winning, and penalties for losing. This isn't a significant part of the formula, but it is factored.
• There are three main values. (There are several formulas that make up these values, but I am going to try and simplify it). A score of 0 is neither good nor bad. 
  • Team Avg (Team Average); This is simply your team’s performance in a game based upon a formula I’ve made up.
  • Opp Avg (Opponent Average); This is an aggregated value of your opponent's Team Average. 
  • VoW Avg (Value of Win Average.); This is the resume score. Good team vs. Good team will = Great ; Bad team vs. bad team = Awful
    • I’ll also be putting up a number next to each extra curricular awards. This is the VoW, (Value of Win). It is a score that factors in the Team's performance vs. their Opponent's resume. A team with a large win vs. a great team will result in a great VoW.
  • I can make the numbers simple for you to understand. Negative is bad, positive is good. The further the number is from 0, the more extreme it is. -5 is bad, +5 is good. 0 represents neither good nor bad. This is applicable to all the scores you'll see.
• You get points for playing well against good teams, win or lose. You'll get more for beating good teams, but there is no shame for losing to a good team - as long as it is actually a good team. If you're 4-0, but it's all against FCS teams and the New Mexicos, you'll probably have a decent Team Avg, but your Opp Avg is going to make an embarrassment out of your team.
• Prior to week 1, ALL FBS teams are equal. Previous years have no influence on the poll.
• There are no bonus or penalty points for being in or absent in a BCS conference.
• A team's opponent's opponent's opponent's opponent's (potentiality infinite) score has influence on a team's perception. Meaning: Texas Tech's (Who played New Mexico, who played Oregon) score will influence Oregon's score.
• The purpose of the poll is NOT to rank who is better or who is worse, but to rank who has done the most on the field. So just because a team is ranked 7th, doesn't mean they are the 7th best team in the country.
• You now already know more about my computer poll than the ones that actually influence the BCS.