College Football By The Numbers

It's almost college football time again and never really too early to start thinking about how the season is going to go.

As announced recently, the BCS is going away along with its magical poll-oriented formula for determining the champions, to be replaced by a committee to determine the finalists in the two semifinal bowl games going forward (though not yet this year).  To that end, though, I still fall on the side of computer rankings in some regards to take the subjectivity out of it completely - using stats, not polls, as input.  Anyway, I've got my nifty-difty database that I use to determine rankings, and I've actually found a way to modify it to make predictions (with some confidence metrics that I had to add given some of the initial outputs) for the outcomes of games.  So, using either 2010 or 2011 as input, I can predict what would be the outcome of any two teams going up against one another (and determine whether or not that prediction is any good).

Trying to figure out how and if I can utilize this predictor throughout the year (and see if it is any good from accuracy's sake).  While I figure that out - for your enjoyment, here are the top 25 teams the past 2 years as calculated statistically from postseason results using my magic formula and not really caring who won the BCS National Championship (and the final AP place for that team in parentheses):

2010:

1. Auburn (1)
2. TCU (2)
3. Oregon (3)
4. Boise St. (9)
5. Ohio St. (5)
6. Stanford (4)
7. Oklahoma (6)
8. Oklahoma St. (13)
9. Arkansas (12)
10. Nevada (11)
11. Alabama (10)
12. Virginia Tech (16)
13. Wisconsin (7)
14. LSU (8)
15. Texas A&M (19)
16. Missouri (18)
17. Michigan St. (14)
18. Northern Ill. (29)
19. Florida St. (17)
20. Utah (26)
21. UCF (21)
22. Nebraska (20)
23. Tulsa (24) 
24. Mississippi St. (15)
25. South Carolina (22)

2011:

1. LSU (2)
2. Alabama (1)
3. Oklahoma St. (3)
4. Boise St. (8)
5. Houston (18)
6. Oregon (4)
7. Wisconsin (10)
8. Michigan (12)
9. Stanford (7)
10. Oklahoma (16)
11. TCU (14)
12. South Carolina (9)
13. Arkansas (5)
14. Southern California (6)
15. Southern Miss. (20)
16. Michigan St. (11)
17. Baylor (13)
18. Kansas St. (15)
19. West Virginia (17)
20. Georgia (19)
21. Clemson (22)
22. Virginia Tech (21)
23. Cincinnati (25)
24. Toledo (NR)
25. Arkansas St. (NR)

So look, it's not 100% in line with the polls, but it is directionally there (and some may say less susceptible to bias).  Now, how in the world to do pre-season rankings or predictions.  Hmmmm.  Guess we'll leave that to the subjective.

Though I might try to see what the results of week 1 might be based on 2011 team results...