Should the Pac-10 keep the round robin?

by Nashville on Aug 29, 2009 10:28 AM PDT Comment 3 comments

Bumped to the front page. Everyone should definitely follow the link below and check out Nashville's post on CGB. --jake

Hey all. I wanted to alert you guys to a Fan Post I just wrote for CGB focusing on what the Pac-10 as a whole gains, and loses, as a result of the round robin. As you guys are our brothers in arms, thought you might want to check it out. There was a lot of talk about the round robin earlier this summer, but with football season practically upon us, I figured it was a good time to actually look through some of the numbers.

Thanks!

LINK

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or the Building the Dam staff. FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable Oregon State fans.

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Thanks for the link!

Great, detailed piece of work.

Hopefully, you will be able to capture the comments here (not all of the readers of BTD are CGB members, and won’t be able to post there).

The one scenario where I would say the round robin should end would be if the conference does expand to 12 teams. At that point, some geographical divisional arrangement (not an illogical mish-mash like the ACC has), with round robin retained in your division, and a 4 year rotation thru the other division, like the SEC & BIG XI do.

Taking the concept a little further, I think the round-robin helps with RPI or Strength of Schedule, should the BCS move more toward what basketball does in selecting at large teams, rather than just listening to whining by coaches at Texas, Ohio St., and Notre Dame in picking their at large teams. Your statistics that bear out the fact that having to prepare for at least 9 good opponents results in stronger teams that have better records even though, and more than offsetting the fact, that they face tougher schedules.

Andy Wooldridge
Go Beavs!

by AndyPanda on Aug 26, 2009 5:03 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

A RR would certainly be much less practical given a 12 team conference. In addition to the cannibalization that would occur, it strikes me as totally unfeasible to have every team playing at least 11 BCS opponents every year (although some end up on this course, see USC in 2006 and 2008). An interesting study would be to compare and contrast the operating results of the three conferences that have adopted the CCG and see what about it has worked and what has failed. Two, the Big XII and the ACC, share geographic profiles similar to that of the Pac-10, but neither of those two conferences have had the same unequivocal success the SEC has had, with its much more compact footprint. Finding suitable candidates for the next two teams is also an issue. Out of curiosity, is that something you support?

Regarding your second comment, at one point in time I attempted to track how many AQ opponents (including conference) the Pac-10 played on average compared to the SEC. It was a project I should have followed through on (and may yet still…) because I remember the early results indicated a serious divergence between the two. In fact, you’ve given me a good idea for a follow-up post.

In some ways it is too bad that the RPI does not play a heavier role in determining the BCS rankings. Algorithms are capable of processing much more information than are humans.

by Nashville on Aug 26, 2009 8:48 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs