Sagarin Ratings: Coherent or Craptacular? | Utah Jazz Blog - The FanHouse

Like Mergz at , I have been suspicious of for some time now.

In the 2006 season alone, it became increasingly obvious that a) Sagarin gave far too much weight to Pac-10 wins and b) it seemed to rank teams based on some fantasy logic that no one could understand. In a direct corollary, c) Sagarin won't reveal exactly how his system works.

Remember, Sagarin is one of 6 'computer' systems used by the BCS in ranking college football teams. So this isn't like questionable AP voting or somesuch; it matters in the grand scheme.

, which is, for our money, the best Gator blog out there:

Sagarin, like most of the computer rankers, keeps his actual methodology secret.

(The , also used in the BCS, is a welcome exception, as Wesley Colley gives makes his formula publicly available.)

I have long been suspicious of the methodology, and utility, of the Sagarin rankings. Often his rankings seem to defy logic.

From what Sagarin is willing to reveal, his rankings take into account strength of schedule and margin of victory, among other factors. The BCS requested Sagarin create a new formula that does not take victory margin into account for its purposes, and Sagarin calls this method the "ELO_CHESS". The BCS friendly "ELO_CHESS" ranks the top 5 as follows-

1.

Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4.

USC
5. LSU

Sagarin however feels that this BCS requested "ELO_CHESS" is "less accurate" than his regular methodology. In his regular formula, his current rankings are ndash;

1.

Ohio State
2. USC
3. Michigan
4.

LSU
5. Louisville
6. Florida
7.

California
8. West Virginia
9. Boise State
10.

Tennessee

I'm not going to waste print space analyzing this top ten, other than to point out the mysteries of LSU being 2 spots above a team it lost to by 13 points, or that a USC team that lost two times to unranked teams is listed second.

Or, think of it this way - if Jeff Sagarin was picking the BCS title game, it would be Ohio State against USC.

Sagarin states that his method is accurate for making "predictions" for games (he even calls it the "Predictor").

In the predictor, you take the number assigned to the team ndash; like the 98.25 rating for Ohio State, and compare it to another team, to see what the winning margin is predicted to be. OSU's 98.

25 to Florida's 87.02 "predicts" that the Buckeye's will win 11 points.

Well, let us put Mr.

Sagarin to the test this bowl season. ( )

Welcome back. Sound off: is Sagarin doped up on C++ books and cough drops?

Is the BCS and its combination of computer and human polls hopelessly flawed? Use the comment box below..

. now.