BCS rewards not losing, how about rewarding winning?

[Jon]

The BCS system weights losses much greater than wins, hence why we see this craziness. At one point the system was indifferent to whether a team lost early or late and everyone hated that because it took the momentum of the season out of play. Instead what we have now is a system where you don't want to be the last team to lose.

Get to #1 and then cancel the rest of your games !

One way to turn all of that around would be to rank teams only on their wins, such that you can only gain in the standings by winning, but wouldn't lose your position by losing.

So if OSU is at #1 and loses to Illinois, they probably wouldn't lose their #1 position just because the #2 team was able to stomp a lousy team; but they might lose it if the #2 team beats a worthy opponent in a conference championship.

Of course OSU might never make it to #1 if they never beat anyone of note.

 

[James]

:head explodes:

 

[Style]

So Jon, why are the Rainbow Warriors not #1 again? They didn't lose to anyone. Could it be that they didn't beat anyone either?

There are many flaws in the system, sure, but to say that only losses matter is simply not true. Look at last year, UM was #2 and their season was over. They didn't have to cancel it, it was over. But quality wins by Florida pushed them past the Wolverines and into the title game.

 

[PIP]

:thisguy: at the name "Rainbow Warriors"

Although, as someone who has visited Hawaii a few times, I can only imagine how incredible it would be to attend that university...

 

[Jon]

So Jon, why are the Rainbow Warriors not #1 again? They didn't lose to anyone. Could it be that they didn't beat anyone either?

I'm not suggesting they would stop considering strength of schedule. Hawaii's record would mean even less under what I'm proposing because teams wouldn't be penalized for their losses, only credited for their wins. It would actually add an incentive for playing a strong schedule. Going 5-5 with 5 quality wins would mean more than 10-0 with 2 quality wins.

 

[Style]

Jon, my point is that the current system does not weigh losses greater than wins, and more importantly that ignoring losses entirely is very flawed. It's like trying to tell you're wife not to divorce you b/c you're an awesome husband when you're not cheating on her.

 

[Jon]

The whole concept of playing an unbalanced unequal schedule is flawed. Would you try to use Newtonian physics in a non-Newtonian universe?!?

And why do you say losses aren't weighed greater than wins?

Why else was Ohio State knocked so far out of 1st place?

How else did Ohio State end up back in 1st place?

The current system is a case of he who loses last loses worst. Wasn't Missouri blown completely out of the BCS Bowl system? That's pretty darn extreme.

So no, it's not like telling your wife to ignore your cheating, unless everyone you know (that lives outside Hawaii) cheats on their wives. Bad analogy. It's just a contrivance to deal with another contrivance, to deal with the fact you don't want to reward teams for playing soft schedules in order to avoid losing.

 

[James]

So Jon, why are the Rainbow Warriors not #1 again? They didn't lose to anyone. Could it be that they didn't beat anyone either?

they beat Washington, the same Washington you said was a quality non-confrence win for osu....