Re: Theoretical team ranking question

Chris Bellomy wrote:
Randolph M. Jones wrote, On 1/10/09 1:27 AM:
Randolph M. Jones wrote:
Let's say that during the 2008 college football season, there were two hypothetical teams, A and B, who both played identical schedules consisting of 10 mediocre 6-6 teams, Washington, and Florida.

Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida.

Team B beats all the mediocre teams, beats Florida, and loses to Washington.

Would you rank Team A higher than Team B? Or Team B higher than Team A? Why?


People keep asking various qualifying questions.

Well, you're talking about a game played by people, and people
have narratives. The team that goes undefeated with a win over
a very good team, but then loses to a putrid team, *has* to have
some sort of story attached to the loss, because those sorts of
losses are so extremely rare in college ball. 7-3 teams sometimes
lose to 1-9 teams, but 10-0 teams don't. Just the very existence
of such a loss raises red flags.

cb

I agree with you. But perhaps I should tell you the context in which this question came to mind. I'm thinking in terms of computer ranking systems, which in general are probably not going to be very good at quantifying the types of narratives you are talking about in any kind of objective way. So what I'm really asking is "How should a computer ranking algorithm try to rank these two teams?"...if you have a good way to codify the extra contextual knowledge that you think would be appropriate to factor in, I'd love to hear it.
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Theoretical team ranking question
    ... hypothetical teams, A and B, who both played identical schedules ... Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Theoretical team ranking question
    ... Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida. ... the pole voters rank based on WHEN IN THE SEASON the loss ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Theoretical team ranking question
    ... Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida. ... of such a loss raises red flags. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Theoretical team ranking question
    ... Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida. ... People keep asking various qualifying questions. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Theoretical team ranking question
    ... Team A beats all the mediocre teams, beats Washington, and loses to Florida. ... the pole voters rank based on WHEN IN THE SEASON the loss ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)