# College Football Bowl Season, Bowl Pool? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 10, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733 "2009-12-10T15:52:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/21 "2009-12-10T22:35:42Z")
I’ll be in, and thankful for not having to set it up. FTR, I was going to avoid the Marshall - Ohio matchup because of the apparent lack of interest. Whatever, I am just glad someone picked up the ball after I fumbled. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/22 "2009-12-10T22:58:36Z")
I’m in on the pick 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/23 "2009-12-11T05:36:16Z")
I’m in. Whatever y’all decide to do about setting point values is fine with me. Looking forward to the SEC going 10-0 as payback for the silly motto. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/24 "2009-12-11T07:24:00Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I’m going to give a day or two for people to offer their thoughts on this before deciding anything. I think I’d lean towards this myself too, but I want to gauge how comfortable people are with this before making a statement on it. I’m in on whatever weighting you want to do, if I make it back to a computer with flash in time. I’d suggest that people who want to opt in put an asterisk in front of their names to make the standings easily reflect who’s in which group. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/25 "2009-12-11T16:49:54Z")
I made my picks, I left the confidence levels on the default, I didn’t want to think about confidence levels until it is decided if there will be any restrictions. FTR, I don’t care about the restrictions, but chances are that I would not make a BCS game as my biggest “lock”. LOL @ the desperate attempt at putting down the SEC. hmmm 10 out of 12 teams are bowl eligible. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/26 "2009-12-11T18:30:30Z")
Bowl eligibility is a pretty low bar to get over… 3 OOC wins + 4 wins in conference = cha-ching! Let’s go bowling! And going undefeated OOC isn’t hard if you’re not fussy about scheduling body-bag games. As I have for the past 2 years (becoming a holiday tradition) I’ve put together a conference scoring model for bowl games, assigning points to each conference based on the bowl results. I’ll keep y’all posted. (Last year the SEC edged out the Pac-10). ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/27 "2009-12-11T19:00:24Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Bowl eligibility is a pretty low bar to get over… 3 OOC wins + 4 wins in conference = cha-ching! Let’s go bowling! And going undefeated OOC isn’t hard if you’re not fussy about scheduling body-bag games. I keep hearing that argument, and if it is a valid point, why don’t all the conferences do it? The facts are that the SEC had two undefeated teams in the conference, in other words 16 forced losses on the other ten conference teams. And despite this, they still got 10 teams into bowl games. And none of the ten “eeked by” with a 6-6 record, all ten teams were 7-5 or better. 83% of SEC teams were able to get bowl eligible. Only 58% of the ACC teams jumped that hurdle, 70% of the PAC teams, 75% of the Big XII, 75% of the Big East, and 64% of the Big 10. Yes, the PAC-10’s hurdle is a little higher by playing the round robin (9 conference games), but one of those games in an automatic win (Wash St) and their parity should have helped teams get to six wins. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/28 "2009-12-11T19:17:50Z")
I’ll wait until after the Heisman presentation and the Army-Navy game to make a final call on the additional scoring rules. Expect a decision on Sunday during the NFL games. Everyone please remember to check back after Sunday. This gives everyone 2 more days to offer an opinion or objection. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/29 "2009-12-11T22:05:57Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > I keep hearing that argument, and if it is a valid point, why don’t all the conferences do it? > > The facts are that the SEC had two undefeated teams in the conference, in other words 16 forced losses on the other ten conference teams. And despite this, they still got 10 teams into bowl games. And none of the ten “eeked by” with a 6-6 record, all ten teams were 7-5 or better. > > 83% of SEC teams were able to get bowl eligible. Only 58% of the ACC teams jumped that hurdle, 70% of the PAC teams, 75% of the Big XII, 75% of the Big East, and 64% of the Big 10. > > Yes, the PAC-10’s hurdle is a little higher by playing the round robin (9 conference games), but one of those games in an automatic win (Wash St) and their parity should have helped teams get to six wins. Let’s compare schedule strength: Pac 10 1 Washington State 2 Washington 4 Oregon 9 Arizona 10 UCLA 12 USC 17 California 19 Stanford 21 Oregon State 24 Arizona State SEC 5 Georgia 7 South Carolina 8 Mississippi State 13 Arkansas 14 Auburn 16 LSU 20 Alabama 22 Vanderbilt 26 Tennessee 27 Florida 37 kentucky 40 Mississippi ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/30 "2009-12-11T22:11:23Z")
FWIW, my office pool weighs the bowls as: non-BCS are 1 point, BCS ones are 2 and the championship is 4. Early years we picked straight up, against the spread, and over/under, last year we just picked spread and over/under. We don’t do every game, the manager cuts out some of the more obscure ones (such as ones featuring two non-BCS teams most people wouldn’t’ve seen). Usually works pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/31 "2009-12-11T22:23:58Z")
**RaftPeople** , SOS according to who? It is objective rating based on subjective assumptions. I have seen about 10 different SOS calculations in various sites. IME, the more wins a team has, the worse their strength of schedule gets because the teams that they play have more losses. I figure that is the reason why Washington State is ranked #1 in your list. Because the teams they played have more wins. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/32 "2009-12-11T22:29:50Z")
> [@magnusblitz](#): > > FWIW, my office pool weighs the bowls as: non-BCS are 1 point, BCS ones are 2 and the championship is 4. Early years we picked straight up, against the spread, and over/under, last year we just picked spread and over/under. We don’t do every game, the manager cuts out some of the more obscure ones (such as ones featuring two non-BCS teams most people wouldn’t’ve seen). Usually works pretty well. Unfortunately we’re going to be limited to working within the Yahoo framework. I’m not going to bother running a pen and paper league here and I doubt we’d be able to get many dopers to sign up for some unknown website that allows complex custom pools. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/33 "2009-12-11T23:10:24Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > IME, the more wins a team has, the worse their strength of schedule gets because the teams that they play have more losses. I should probably just wait for RaftPeople to respond with a cite, but I just wanted to point out that your theory doesn’t explain why Oregon (10 wins) comes it at #4 and Florida (12 wins) at #27. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/34 "2009-12-11T23:25:54Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I should probably just wait for RaftPeople to respond with a cite, but I just wanted to point out that your theory doesn’t explain why Oregon (10 wins) comes it at #4 and Florida (12 wins) at #27. Exceptions that prove the rule. :p:D ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/35 "2009-12-11T23:27:18Z")
Well, played, sir. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/36 "2009-12-12T01:20:57Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > **RaftPeople** , SOS according to who? It is objective rating based on subjective assumptions. I have seen about 10 different SOS calculations in various sites. > > IME, the more wins a team has, the worse their strength of schedule gets because the teams that they play have more losses. I figure that is the reason why Washington State is ranked #1 in your list. Because the teams they played have more wins. It was Sagarin as of games played through Sat December 5. I take the SOS, Rankings, Polls, who got into a Bowl, who won a Bowl, etc. all with a grain of salt. I think your argument about SEC teams getting into bowl games is about as good as my argument about SOS. Both are trying to compare 2 conferences by looking at the won-loss record which is 80% in conference. Doesn’t make any sense. I also think that the “which conference won the most bowl games” metric is fairly weak because most bowl games are not matching up similarly ranked opponents. I think the polls are generally correct ± 10 positions, approximately. If your team is 15 or 20 positions better than another, you are probably better. If only 10 positions better then it’s getting questionable which one is better. Within 5, who knows. The answer: 8 team playoff. It won’t prove who is the best team, but that is less important than having a championship determined on the field instead of the way it is today. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/37 "2009-12-12T02:52:18Z")
IMO the 8 team playoff format is just as flawed as the current two team format. This year, there are 5 BCS teams with two losses: Oregon, Ohio St, Ga Tech, Penn St, and Iowa. This year, 2 of those 5 teams get into the 8 team playoff (Oregon, OhSU) and three are left out, according to the BCS Standings. Specifically, lets look at Ohio State and Ga Tech. Teams 8 and 9 in the BCS. Why is Ohio St in and Ga Tech out? Ohio St is ranked higher in the human polls, and Tech is ranked higher in the computer polls. Human polls count 2/3 of the equation. Ohio St has subjective Poll Power, while Ga Tech doesn’t. Ohio State is ranked #23 in the Sagarin rankings while Tech is no lower than 10th in any of the computer polls. Ga Tech won 10 against BCS teams, Ohio State won 7 games against BCS teams. So I ask again, why would Ohio State be in the BCS playoff and Ga Tech out? ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/38 "2009-12-12T06:02:44Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > IMO the 8 team playoff format is just as flawed as the current two team format. This year, there are 5 BCS teams with two losses: Oregon, Ohio St, Ga Tech, Penn St, and Iowa. This year, 2 of those 5 teams get into the 8 team playoff (Oregon, OhSU) and three are left out, according to the BCS Standings. Screw losses. You win your BCS conference, you’re in. You win a non-BCS conference with an undefeated record, you’re in, otherwise it’s an at-large bid\*. GTech, Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, Boise State & TCU. You didn’t make the dance, well you should have won your damn conference. \*Wouldn’t be opposed to tweaking this, maybe requiring quality wins or something. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/39 "2009-12-12T06:45:20Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > I keep hearing that argument, and if it is a valid point, why don’t all the conferences do it? Usually need to pay the cupcake team lots of money (usually a million or so), and need to find a team willing to travel, etc. FWIW, I did a quick look at the OOC schedules for the SEC and the Pac-10, breaking down opponents into three categories: BCS conference school (or similar quality), non-AQ conference, and Div-1AA conference. (For “similar quality”, I’d say that Boise State, Utah, TCU, Notre Dame count. I counted Houston. Didn’t count Hawaii). Here’s what I ended up with: Conference:…BCS…Non-AQ…Div 1-AA Pac 10…57%…30%…13% SEC…31%…46%…23% ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733/40 "2009-12-12T08:19:07Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > IMO the 8 team playoff format is just as flawed as the current two team format. This year, there are 5 BCS teams with two losses: Oregon, Ohio St, Ga Tech, Penn St, and Iowa. This year, 2 of those 5 teams get into the 8 team playoff (Oregon, OhSU) and three are left out, according to the BCS Standings. > > Specifically, lets look at Ohio State and Ga Tech. Teams 8 and 9 in the BCS. > > Why is Ohio St in and Ga Tech out? Ohio St is ranked higher in the human polls, and Tech is ranked higher in the computer polls. Human polls count 2/3 of the equation. Ohio St has subjective Poll Power, while Ga Tech doesn’t. Ohio State is ranked #23 in the Sagarin rankings while Tech is no lower than 10th in any of the computer polls. Ga Tech won 10 against BCS teams, Ohio State won 7 games against BCS teams. > > So I ask again, why would Ohio State be in the BCS playoff and Ga Tech out? You think a playoff that includes 8 teams is just as flawed as one that include 2 teams? I see your point that 8 teams still arbitrarily cuts out teams that are possibly as deserving as some that are included, but you can’t say it’s not an improvement. 8 teams is better than 2 because it includes more deserving teams in the process. Sure Ga Tech gets left out in the cold, but the goal is to make sure all of the truly deserving teams are in there, which are typically 0 and 1 loss teams. By going out to 8 teams we have a much better chance of including all of the 0 loss teams and most of the 1 loss teams. I think **Cyberhwk’s** system sounds good. These are the additional changes I would make: 1. If you play a 1AA team in the regular season then you are not eligible to go to the playoffs. Period. 2. Switch all conferences to 12 teams with championship game. I like this setup, it’s fun, it is actually a worse way to determine conference winner compared to round-robin, but because it’s fun and creates excitement with the champ game then might as well do it. 3. Each team should play 1 warm up OOC, then 2 normal OOC games, 8 conference games, champ game is 12th, then up to 3 games for playoffs or a bowl game for non-playoff teams. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-bowl-season-bowl-pool/520733.md?page=3)