BCS Declares Germany to be the Winner of WWII
This is pretty funny if you're cognizant of the BCS at all (copied from Volokh, since it's a chain letter):
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants, the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
I happen to think that in the peculiar environment of college football, the BCS or a similar process is better than the traditional coach's poll for determining team quality. The key problem is that few of the top teams play each other, which makes determining their relative strength difficult. A computer model can approximate it, which is what the BCS does. The question remains, of course, how well the BCS system approximates team strength. Since (as far as I know) their algorithm is closed I cannot answer that.
UPDATE: Since I realize that I wasn't completely clear:
What I really mean is that a properly built calculation will be better than the coach's and sportswriters intuition. Most of the objections to the BCS amount to the fact that a computer is making the decision rather than a rational critique of how the computer program weights things.
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants, the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
I happen to think that in the peculiar environment of college football, the BCS or a similar process is better than the traditional coach's poll for determining team quality. The key problem is that few of the top teams play each other, which makes determining their relative strength difficult. A computer model can approximate it, which is what the BCS does. The question remains, of course, how well the BCS system approximates team strength. Since (as far as I know) their algorithm is closed I cannot answer that.
UPDATE: Since I realize that I wasn't completely clear:
What I really mean is that a properly built calculation will be better than the coach's and sportswriters intuition. Most of the objections to the BCS amount to the fact that a computer is making the decision rather than a rational critique of how the computer program weights things.