Brian Spurlock – USA TODAY Sports
The BCS system has come under constant criticism during its existence for its confusing, illogical and often incorrect decisions in ranking the top college football teams. With just one more year to go in this frustrating system before a playoff finally happens, the BCS gets one more embarrassing black eye: one of its computers still ranks the Notre Dame Fighting Irish No. 1.
The Colley Matrix, the self-proclaimed “bias free college football rankings,” takes into account things like strength of schedule when forming its ranking system, but ignores margin of victory. It is one of the computer models used by the BCS in determining its rankings, which it may want to rethink for its final year after the Colley system kept Notre Dame on top even after getting dominated by the Alabama Crimson Tide (No. 2 in the Colley Matrix).
Anyone who watched any of the Discover BCS National Championship game could tell you who was the better team on the field. Alabama physically manhandled the Irish and imposed their will on them from start to finish. There was no possible argument after that game as to why Notre Dame should still be considered the superior team.
Except in Colley system, which had Notre Dame No. 1 by a margin of .01 over Alabama. According to Wesley N. Colley, the creator of this computer model, Notre Dame ranked No. 8 in strength of schedule with three wins against top 25 teams in the Colley Matrix and six wins against top 50 teams, with their best win coming against the Stanford Cardinal (No. 6).
Alabama, meanwhile, had four wins against the top 25 and six against the top 50 with their best win coming against the team in front of them, Notre Dame. However, their overall strength of schedule (despite one more top 25 win than ND) was ranked No. 21, 13 spots lower than the Irish, which was enough to drop the Tide down to No. 2.
Sound confusing, convoluted and like complete nonsense to you? Yeah, you’re not alone. The good news: just one more year of this system. The bad news: we still have one more year with this system.
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