Sagarin says

[thebootfitter]

I know BisonAudit typically makes this post, but I was looking at the numbers today and figured I'd post them.


NDSU's 84.55 would rank:

2nd in the American Athletic (behind Louisville)
3rd in the ACC (behind FL State and Clemson)
4th in the Big Ten (behind MI State, WI, and OH State)
4th in the Big 12 (behind Baylor, OK State, and OK)
1st in Conference USA
1st in the MAC
1st in the MWC
8th in the PAC 12
6th in the SEC
1st in the Sun Belt

[missingnumber7]

I know BisonAudit typically makes this post, but I was looking at the numbers today and figured I'd post them.


NDSU's 84.55 would rank:


8th in the PAC 12

This one made me scratch my head.

[bisonaudit]

This one made me scratch my head.

East Coast bias.

[thebootfitter]

This one made me scratch my head.

Why is that? The fact that we are so low in the Pac 12? The Pac 12 was a very highly rated conference with some solid teams this year.

Oregon 95.73
Stanford 92.86
Washington 90.51
UCLA 89.98
Arizona State 87.75
Southern California 86.30
Arizona 84.96

[missingnumber7]

Why is that? The fact that we are so low in the Pac 12? The Pac 12 was a very highly rated conference with some solid teams this year.

Oregon 95.73
Stanford 92.86
Washington 90.51
UCLA 89.98
Arizona State 87.75
Southern California 86.30
Arizona 84.96

I dunno, just odd that the way the numbers went that there were that many pac 12 schools that were that high. I was probably just as shocked that NDSU ended up as high as they did in AAC and ACC more so than 8th in PAC 12. Was the bottom of the PAC as bad as the top was good? The thing that makes the MVFC so good is that the middle is friggen good vs the BSC where there are 3 or 4 good teams and the bottom sucks.

[BisonCity]

Why is that? The fact that we are so low in the Pac 12? The Pac 12 was a very highly rated conference with some solid teams this year.

Oregon 95.73
Stanford 92.86
Washington 90.51
UCLA 89.98
Arizona State 87.75
Southern California 86.30
Arizona 84.96

This data is from the wrong week or year. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/

NDSU would 17th in the country. Not 9th in the PAC 12.

[bisonaudit]

This data is from the wrong week or year. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/

NDSU would 17th in the country. Not 9th in the PAC 12.

We use the Predictor here not the mash-up that is the published order. Though as of mid-year 2013 the published order is now a mash-up of the Dimin_Curve and Predictor rather than the Predictor and ELO (BCS B***S***). So it's theoretically better than it was before when it willfully included a clearly inferior method of evaluating teams.

[Hammersmith]

We use the Predictor here not the mash-up that is the published order. Though as of mid-year 2013 the published order is now a mash-up of the Dimin_Curve and Predictor rather than the Predictor and ELO (BCS B***S***). So it's theoretically better than it was before when it willfully included a clearly inferior method of evaluating teams.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind opening a debate on which column to use next year. It was an easy choice back in the days of PREDICTOR, ELO_CHESS, and RATING, but now there could be an argument for the new column or even RATING(which would actually make things way easier on you and I). I didn't bring it up mid-season because I wanted to keep it internally consistent.

The rest of you feel free to chime in as well.

[bisonaudit]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind opening a debate on which column to use next year. It was an easy choice back in the days of PREDICTOR, ELO_CHESS, and RATING, but now there could be an argument for the new column or even RATING(which would actually make things way easier on you and I). I didn't bring it up mid-season because I wanted to keep it internally consistent.

The rest of you feel free to chime in as well.

I agree completely.

I want to hear what others think, too.

It wasn't a close call before but now, in theory, the Dimin_Curve method has some actual merit whereas the ELO method employed for BCS purposes was clearly flawed.

Also, theoretically, you could get a better prediction, under the right conditions, by combining the results of two different but valid approaches to the problem, which would be an argument for the new RATING.

[thebootfitter]

It wasn't a close call before but now, in theory, the Dimin_Curve method has some actual merit whereas the ELO method employed for BCS purposes was clearly flawed.

Also, theoretically, you could get a better prediction, under the right conditions, by combining the results of two different but valid approaches to the problem, which would be an argument for the new RATING.

Has Sagarin published, or do we know, any of the details of what goes into the new Dimin_Curve method other than what is posted on his page with the rankings? (See below.) I did find an interesting hypothesis for what the Dimin_Curve method represents (see farther below), but I don't know whether it is valid.

Superficially, based on the little that I know of the two methods, I would vote for using the RATING synthesis of the Predictor and Dimin_Curve. I would like to know more about what goes into each, but I suspect Sagarin keeps that pretty confidential. I wonder if Gumby has any insight from his work with his rating system??

Sagarin Page
In PURE_ELO, only winning and losing matters; the score margin is of no consequence,
which makes it very good at retro-fitting the W-L results. The PURE_ELO will be used by the BCS. However it is
less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games than is the PURE POINTS, in which the
score margin is the only thing that matters. PURE POINTS is also known as PREDICTOR,
BALLANTINE, RHEINGOLD, WHITE OWL and is a very good PREDICTOR of future games.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIMIN_CURVE applies ELO principles to the actual SCORES of the games and so it is now SCORE BASED
and thus should be a good match for the PURE POINTS in terms of predictive accuracy for upcoming games.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The overall RATING is a synthesis of the two somewhat different SCORE BASED methods,
DIMIN_CURVE and PURE POINTS (PREDICTOR), and thus should be a good predictor in its own right.

Link
"I'm guessing DIMIN_CURVE = diminishing curve, something I've considered myself but with the limited amount of games it didn't seem to be a very good idea. Basically, what it means is that the most recent games are weighted higher than the games to start the season."