BCS Madness

This past week's first installment of the BCS rankings certainly got people, namely Iowa fans, talking. Being put behind two teams with lesser resumes (Boise St and Cincinnati) doesn't sit well with Hawkeye fans, nor should it.

Judging by these inaugural standings for 2009, the Hawkeyes need to make up some ground in the minds of the voters, as it is there where the biggest travesty is taking place. The Harris poll has the Hawkeyes 7th, behind 1-loss USC, Boise St, and Cincinnati. The coaches poll makes even less sense, placing the Hawkeyes 8th trailing 1-loss USC, Boise State, Cincinnati, and Mountain West stalwart TCU. On the other hand, the computers, with their unbiased focus, actually place the Hawkeyes in 3rd place nationally behind Florida and Alabama. It should be noted that Texas, the BCS team-in-waiting, is ranked 6th in the initial computer rankings.

Here are the first BCS rankings, starting with the Harris %, the coaches %, the computer %, and the BCS average which actually determines ranking.
As you can see, Iowa is a very strong team in the eyes of the computers while getting screwed in the polls. On the opposite end of the spectrum, media darling USC is ranked 4th in both human polls, but only garners 11th in the computer polls (behind 3 teams not even listed here in LSU, Oregon, and Georgia Tech).

I mentioned earlier that Iowa needs to make up ground in the minds of the voters. This needs to be done in the form of IMPRESSIVE victories. Nobody respects the competition in the Big 10, so winning games in low-scoring, defensive affairs does well for the W/L record, but very little to move voters to give us a better seating in their top 25. A convincing win this week vs. Michigan State could go a long way towards propelling Iowa up the BCS rankings.

For example...if Iowa were to win this weekend by a score that allows us to jump up a spot in both human polls (let's keep the CPU rankings the same for simplicity), we'd be in the 6 spot in Harris and the 7 spot in the coaches. That one spot in both polls jumps our BCS average from .7870 to .8091, which moves us into 4th place in the BCS standings ahead of Boise State's .8080. Boise isn't going to move any higher unless there is a huge shakeup in the top 4 in both human polls (Florida, Bama, Texas, USC). They have hit their glass ceiling, so to speak.

This is all moot if Texas, Florida, USC, or any other team at or around the top 8 lose a game...if you want a second/third favorite team for only a few weeks, cheer for whoever is playing both Texas and USC. Cincinnati and Boise will not be able to keep up with Iowa's computer ranking, and the public perception of the B10 is the only thing that is currently keeping Iowa out of the NCG discussion. (Sidebar: If voters were fair and actually ranked Iowa #4 instead of behind some mid-majors, Cincinnati, and a 1 loss perennial power getting more attention because of past history than current year success, our BCS average would be .8729, right on the heels of the Longhorns)

Another thing that renders this entire entry moot is if the Hawks were to slip up somewhere. The closest thing to controlling our own destiny only exists if we continue to knock down the pins put in front of us.

Keep it going Hawks!