Notre Dame is still No. 1, according to one BCS computer

Even Notre Dame's leprechaun mascot is scratching his head over the Fighting Irish's first-place finish in the Colley Matrix, one of six computer polls used in the BCS rankings. (Photo: Brian Spurlock, USA TODAY Sports)

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  • University of Notre Dame
  • Nick Saban
  • BCS National Championship Game
  • University of Alabama

    Alabama is the best team in college football, and proved this fact with a 42-14 whipping of Notre Dame during Monday's national championship game. In this case, the 28-point margin does not do Alabama's victory justice. If Notre Dame is the second-best team in the FBS, the gap between the Irish and the Tide is so large as to truly discuss moving Nick Saban's bunch up to, say, the AFC West.

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    Alabama is No. 1. On this we can all agree, right? I mean, we all watched the game on Monday, right?

    It's unanimous… except for one outlier: The Colley Matrix, one of the six computers that tabulate the BCS rankings,had Notre Dame No. 1 in its final standings, ahead of No. 2 Alabama. The standings that came out after Monday. After the game which the Irish lost by 28 points. To Alabama.

    The final rankings had Notre Dame at No. 1 with a score of .973997, ahead of No. 2 Alabama, which came in at .961139.

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    What is the Colley Matrix thinking? The ranking system, which has been part of the BCS standings since 2001, was created and is compiled by Dr. Wesley N. Colley, a senior research scientist at the Center for Modeling, Simulation and Analysis at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. (He is a very bright guy.)

    Per the Colley Matrix's abstract, the system follows seven guidelines:

    "1. has no bias toward conference, tradition, history, etc., (and, hence, has no pre-season poll)
    2. is reproducible,
    3. uses a minimum of assumptions,
    4. uses no ad hoc adjustments,
    5. nonetheless adjusts for strength of schedule,
    6. ignores runaway scores, and
    7. produces common sense results."

    The Colley Matrix seems to have stumbled on that seventh step, no?

    With the FBS moving to a four-team playoff in 2014, we only have to make it through one more year of the BCS computers. (AsCollege Football Talk puts it, "2014 can't get here fast enough. Then we'll get to complain about the selection committee.") We're almost out of the woods.

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    This reminds me of a snippet fromDeath to the BCS, a book co-authored by Yahoo! Sports writers and columnists Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan.The trio quote Richard Billingsley, a non-mathematician whose poll is also used by the BCS. Said Billingsley:

    "I'm not even a highly educated man, to tell you the truth. I don't even have a degree. I have a high school education. I never had calculus. I don't even remember much about algebra. I think everyone questions everything I do. Why is he doing that? Does he know what he's doing, a crazy kook in Oklahoma? I had a guy tell me in an e-mail once that I'm a crazy Oklahoma hillbilly. Well, it's true, but it has nothing to do with my crazy rankings skills."

    One more year. One more year. We'll make it.
    Source : http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/01/11/bcs-computers-rank-notre-dame-ahead-of-alabama/1826755/