How I would rank College Football

[Utah]

This is long, but here are my rules. I may modify the at will, but I've had these thoughts over the last couple of weeks.

Rule #1 - You have to play at least four BCS teams to qualify. This means no rankings until at least the fourth week of the season. This means that non-BCS have to play four BCS teams in non-conference. This eliminates the Hawaii's and Houston's from taking a bowl game they don't deserve.


Rule #2 - After week 4, rankings begin. Every team that has played four BCS teams qualifies. This means that if no SEC team has played four BCS teams, then no SEC team is ranked. You take all teams that qualify, and put them in order by record. Then, you take each team with each record (4-0, 3-1, 2-2, 1-3 and 0-3) and rank them by how difficult their opponent was. So, yes, you may have an 0-4 team ranked week 4.


Rule #3 - Every week, when a team becomes "eligible", they enter the rankings where their record would put them. This means that when Alabama plays four BCS teams, they are eligible to be ranked. If they are 5-0, they are put at the bottom of the list of all the undefeated teams.


Rule #4 - If you lose, you drop down to the next lowest group.


This is where it gets tricky. Where does the formerly unbeaten belong?


Rule #5 - They will placed in the group with one loss. You now look at each team with one loss and rank them according to their loss. So, if Alabama loses to #5 LSU and Stanford loses to unranked Utah, Alabama is ahead of Stanford. Also, if two teams have the same record, but one team beat the other, the winning team is ranked higher.

#6 - When a team enters the top 25, they enter into their group of losses, but at the bottom.

#7 - If two teams enter a loss group at the same time, the team with more wins is ranked higher.

#8 - If two teams have the same record in a loss group, the one with more ranked losses is ranked higher.


At the end of the year, #'s 1-4 are put in the playoff. The rest of the teams go according to traditional bowl rules.


These rules do two things:


1 - they encourage teams to play early BCS games and force non-BCS teams to play tough OOC. This is huge, because you want to play 4 BCS teams the first 4 weeks of the season to be ranked. If Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Baylor and Oregon are 5-0, but Alabama has only played 3 BCS teams, then Baylor, Texas, Ohio State and Oregon are ranked 1-4. If all 5 teams win out Alabama is left out.


Also, you might think that all the SEC will do is play all their BCS games early and then play their cream puffs late in the year...Not so fast. TV contracts won't allow them to do so. Maybe a game or two here or there, but TV wants conference games in October and November. This will force BCS teams to play other BCS teams in their non-conference so they will be eligible to be ranked first.


What if Alabama is the best team out there, but they don't play enough BCS teams until later, and are left out? Too bad. This is where the week in, week out comes into play. It isn't fair if Oregon or Ohio State plays 11 BCS teams and Alabama only plays 8. They had to deal with bigger, faster teams all year and came out on top. They risked injury where Alabama didn't. Those three extra games are huge. Look at Utah this year. Wilson was a beast when healthy. Utah could play with ANYONE with a healthy Wilson. Wilson gets hurt and Utah sucks.

OK. I'm going to go do a crazy, stupid, time wasting amount of research to see how it all pans out.

[Utah]

OK, after week 5, here is how teams would be ranked:
Rank - Team - Record (BCS record) - losses

#1 - Notre Dame - 3-2 (2-2) - Michigan, Oklahoma

That's it. Only ND is eligible to be ranked at this point.

[Utah]

After week 6, here is how teams would be ranked:
Rank - Team - Record (BCS record) - losses

#1 - Oregon - 5-0 (4-0)
#1 - Clemson - 5-0 (4-0)
#3 - Georgia - 4-1 (3-1) - Clemson
#4 - LSU - 5-1 (3-1) - Georgia
#5 - Auburn - 4-1 (3-1) - LSU
#6 - Florida - 4-1 (3-1) - Miami
#7 - South Carolina - 4-1 (3-1) - Georgia
#8 - Notre Dame - 4-2 (3-2) - Michigan, Oklahoma
#9 - Ole Miss - 3-2 (2-2) - Alabama, Auburn
#10 - ASU - 3-2 (2-2) - Stanford, ND
#11 - GT - 3-2 (2-2) - VT, Miami

[Utah]

After week 7, here is how teams would be ranked:
Rank - Team - Record (BCS record) - losses

#1 - Oregon - 6-0 (5-0)
#1 - Clemson - 6-0 (5-0)
#3 - Alabama - 6-0 (4-0)
#4 - VT - 6-1 (3-1) - Alabama
#5 - LSU - 6-1 (4-1) - Georgia
#6 - Auburn - 5-1 (4-1) - LSU
#7 - Stanford - 5-1 (3-1) - Utah
#8 - Georgia - 4-2 (3-2) - Clemson, Missouri
#9 - Florida - 4-2 (3-2) - Miami, LSU
#10 - South Carolina - 5-1 (4-1) - Georgia
#11 - ASU - 4-2 (3-2) - Stanford, ND
#12 - Notre Dame - 4-2 (3-2) - Michigan, Oklahoma
#13 - Washington - 4-2 (2-2) - Stanford, Oregon
#14 - USC - 4-2 (2-2) - WSU, ASU
#14 - Wisconsin - 4-2 (2-2) - ASU, Ohio St
#16 - Pitt - 3-2 (2-2) - FSU, VT
#17 - BYU - 3-2 (2-2) - Virginia, Utah
#18 - Ole Miss - 3-3 (2-3) - Alabama, Auburn, A&M
#19 - Boston College - 2-3 (1-3) - USC, FSU, Clemson
#20 - GT - 3-3 (2-2) - VT, Miami, BYU

[Utah]

What is interesting is how many "great" teams haven't played anybody of note so far. At this point, there are only 20 teams worthy of being ranked...and 12 have more than 2 losses.

This is starting to show how you can easily schedule yourself into the top 25.

How many teams from each conference:

PAC-12 - 5 teams
ACC - 5 teams, but no FSU
SEC - 7 teams. I guess their schedules aren't as cream puff as we may think. I am definitely guilty of this.
Independent - 2 teams
Big 10 - 1 team. Wowza. That is pathetic
Big 12 - ZERO teams. Take every single Big 12 team with a grain of salt at this point. They haven't played ANYONE. They are the true SEC. I thought that the SEC would be down here. Shocked at how pathetic their schedules are this year.

Props to the SEC for playing each other early. They also are playing other BCS teams. Also, props to PAC-12, ACC and BYU and ND.

Big 10 and Big 12 should be embarrassed. Pathetic OOC scheduling.

"Ranked" teams left out so far:

Ohio St
Missouri
FSU
Miami
Michigan St
Baylor
Texas Tech
UCLA
Oregon St
Nebraska
Michigan
Oklahoma St
Texas A&M

There are a lot of heavy hitters listed there that have played a weak ass schedule 7 weeks in. This is what I would hope would go away from this formula. I might be crazy here, but wouldn't it be more fun if those teams above dropped some FCS teams and played each other instead?

I'll continue this later.

[GarthUte]

According to your rules, Utah would never have played in a BCS bowl.

[Utah]

According to your rules, Utah would never have played in a BCS bowl.

No. They wouldn't have played for a championship.

[GarthUte]

No. They wouldn't have played for a championship.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. What kind of bowl game do Hawaii and Houston not deserve to play in?

[Utah]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. What kind of bowl game do Hawaii and Houston not deserve to play in?

I would say they didn't deserve a BCS game. Anyways, it's funny doing this. The more I do it, the more I realize how hard it is. I keep wanting to change things up. Then I wonder if I'm changing things to get what I want out of it, or if I'm trying to make it right. lol.