Manipulating the Computers

College Football has become a game about not losing rather than who you beat. It used to be that teams got credit for beating other good teams. Nowadays, once the calender hits November all the voters worry about is your record. How does this relate to the recent Top 25 poll that was released you ask? Simple, the teams that start out higher have a inherent advantage over the teams that start out lower. Even though no one has played a game, decisions have already been made on which teams are better. We had to hear all last season and already this season that the SEC and Big 12 are by far the best 2 conferences this year.

Let's look at how many teams are ranked in each conference again. SEC (5), PAC-10 (4), Big 12 (4), ACC (4), Big Ten (3), MWC (3), WAC (1), IND (1), Big East (0). Now you would think that the conferences that have more ranked teams would play more ranked opponents. Common sense would presume that if the SEC has 5 ranked teams, then those 5 teams should play more ranked opponents during the season than teams in conferences that don't have as many ranked teams. Lets look at on average, how many ranked opponents that each conferences plays (only the ranked teams are used).

PAC-10 has 4 ranked teams that play 16 games vs Top 25 (4.0 avg).
ACC has 4 ranked teams that play 15 games vs Top 25 (3.75 avg).
SEC has 5 ranked teams that play 16 games vs Top 25 (3.2 avg).
MWC has 3 ranked teams that play 9 games vs Top 25 (3.0 avg).
Big 12 has 4 ranked teams that play 11 games vs Top 25 (2.75 avg).
Big 10 has 3 ranked teams that play 7 games vs Top 25 (2.33 avg).
WAC has 1 ranked team that plays 1 game vs Top 25 (1.0 avg).
Ind. has 1 ranked team that plays 1 game vs Top 25 (1.0 avg).
Big East has 0 ranked teams.

What this tells me is that the PAC-10 and ACC are being punished for playing better competition than the SEC and Big 12. The better competition you play, the more likely you are to stumble. Teams that avoid playing ranked opponents or on the road or quality non-conference teams are being rewarded by this stupid computer system. Watch towards the end of the season when the SEC and Big 12 have higher ranked teams and once again are touted as the best conferences. They should be with the way they schedule. The voters only care about the bottom line, not about how a team got there. It's stupid and just plain uneducated. Of course, if we had a playoff we wouldn't have this problem!