It's preseason rankings like these that give the Broncos' schedule a bad rap

Strength Of Schedule(SOS), especially preseason SOS is a blatant way to pump up power conferences and downplay mid majors. It is a ridiculously subjective stat. How do they come up with it and who formulates the opinions results? Generally, to my knowledge, pre-season rankings are based on previous record from the year before, starters returning, game experience, etc. Is there any real quantifiable way to determine how these teams will measure up? Of course not, hence the preposterouseness of these rankings. Again, its an obvious advantage for teams like Notre Dame and Michigan (3-9 last year) who need a good pre-season ranking to bolster them. The benefit for them is it also downplays the strength of teams like Boise State.

  things things way off. Idaho should be last.

I think you missed my point.

How accurate can a pre-season ranking be when there are new incoming players yet to be seen? Old players leaving? New opponents in games that haven’t been played? Injuries that haven’t occured yet? Players dismissed or suspended in mid-season?

The point being, with so many unknown variables that are sure to affect the outcome of a season, there is no reasonable way to predict where teams are beforehand. Its posturing. Exaggerated expected outcomes based on nostalgia more than educated reasoning. There are emotions involved, which further dilute the process. Forget professional objectivity, this is a chance for Joe Journalist to rep his alma mater. For proof see Michigan or Fresno State from last year. Notre Dame for last decade. Teams like Cal, Tennessee, Georgia last year, Clemson any year, South Carolina, the list goes on. All huge pre-season prospects to dominate the respective conferences and be in title contention come January. Only to fall (early more times than not) to teams with lesser predetermined expectations. Its a guess, nothing more nothing less. Buy a lottery ticket, its the same thing.

SO its Boise State’s fault that the teams they play lose all the time? In a sense then, I guess, Boise State is partly to blame for beating them…? Uhmm…..?…

Scheduling tough OOC opponents is only half of the equation (see Fresno State)
Bleymaier has generally (until recently) stayed away from one-and-done games with BCS teams opting for the home-and home series. You act as though Boise State can go out and shedule whomever they please whenever they please.

Our SoS stinks because of the poor performance of the AD who has resisted scheduling tougher OOC programs.

Boise State’s SOS stinks because the teams on it stink. Schedules aren’t bad because you don’t like the scheduler, they’re bad because the opponents on it represent little to no challenge.

All of this is beside the point in my opinion, because the business of pre-season ranking and SOS is all guess work. If you don’t like teams like Boise State you can easily say their schedule is weak and, as a result, vote them down in a pre-season poll. Making their road that much tougher to the post-season. Not necessarily because the Broncos are a bad team, but because they handily beat their opponents. Since when is it customary to penalize a team for winning?

SO its Boise State’s fault that the teams they play lose all the time?

If the argument regarding SOS is revolving around how it impacts BSU in the voter polls, then yes it is BSU’s (Gene’s) fault. They can’t do anything about their WAC schedule and would be much better off if the rest of the conference improved their performance. As Kevan mentioned, with schedules completed years in advance, you can’t always predict the quality of a team on the schedule – Miami (OH) was a quality MAC team a few years ago. But if a higher poll ranking is the objective, beating a team with a reputation far outweighs beating a quality opponent. A win over Utah or BYU, even in their down years, will do more for BSU’s perceived SOS than a win over a quality Tulsa team.

Gene understands the BCS system and realizes the pressure put on the pollsters and the BCS when a team finishes undefeated. Because of this, he has scheduled with the intent of going undefeated, not with the intent of gaining national respect. This strategy works when only one non-AQ team finishes with 0 in the loss column – see Hawaii 2007, with their schedule they should not have been in the top 20. The rub comes when two teams finish undefeated and the BCS game is awarded to the higher ranked team. Preseason ranking is the determining factor in this situation and BSU will be in the driver’s seat this year despite their strength of schedule.

I understand and agree with what Mikrino is saying. You can only play the teams on you schedule and shouldn’t be penalized for winning – just because you play against weak competition, doesn’t mean your team is not great. Unfortunately, without any head-to-head reference on the schedule, pollsters go by history and reputation. Losing 4 of 5 bowl games and one all-time road BCS win is not going to help BSU in the voters’ eyes.

 As long as BSU is in the WAC they will always have a bad reputation for their schedule and the bias of the preseason polls will continue to hurt the Broncos. I am not saying Gene needs to ‘overschedule’ like Fresno State does, but having a both a quality MWC team and a team from the PAC-10 or Big-12 would do wonders for BSU’s strength of schedule.

Kevan, I was going mention the advance scheduling too, but I found myself rambling onto other things.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Bleymaier’s scheduling strategy, You can’t blame Boise State football for Idaho going 2-10 or Utah State and New Mexico State for going 3-9.

Boise State’s SOS is weak because of WAC teams are weak. Gene’s OOC scheduling no weaker than several BCS teams.

Florida (last year’s national champ) for example. Here’s the OOC schedule for 2009;

Charleston Southern (DIAA)
Troy (Sun Belt)
Florida International (Sun Belt)
Florida State (ACC)

These are all homes games. If anything Boise State OOC schedule is tougher since they play Tulsa and Bowling Green on the road. Aside from that I’d say their OOC schedule is virtually identical in terms of overall strength. Why is Florida’s schedule more difficult overall…their conference.

So should Kustra and Bleymaier starting calling out their conference counterparts for being doormats?

Boise State has done, and is doing, exactly what is needed….win every game, leave it on the field.

• Although our SOS is not totally our fault… say: 66% of it (WAC games)… the other 33% is definitely our scheduling problems.

• Scheduling in advance isnt the problem. Not one of the teams we usually play are EVER good, with the exception of the (usually) 1 big game (normal for many schools) that makes or breaks our season. We have to earn the respect. When we start scheduling Pac-10 schools—- then they turn out to be bad, That isnt our fault. UC Davis, Miami OH, and Tulsa do Not fall into this “they were good when we scheduled them” category.

• Comparing our OOC schedule to Florida’s is ridiculous. They earn all the respect they need if they win their conference, we dont. They need some easy weeks to recover in betweeen their hellish SEC schedule. We need some competition in between our Conf. schedule so we dont fall asleep.

• I get it, to build a program you have to win. I resect that and part of me says lets play the 25 worst teams in the country and never lose… hopefully. But dont complain about people not giving us SOS respect until we earn it. We’re starting to get the big time players, its about time we go get some big time games.

• Not marking us down for playing bad teams is like not giving florida any benefits for playing the good ones. SOS does matter, and it should. Does that mean we cant beat the big boys and dont deserve respect? No. it does mean we have to earn the respect we are given tho.

But dont complain about people not giving us SOS respect until we earn it.

I never said anything about “earning” SOS “respect”. My ENTIRE POINT is that SOS, especially preseason rankings, are a joke becuase they are an unknown. A fallacy. A charade. A fabrication that benefits teams like, uhm…Florida.

Florida’s OOC schedule is the norm for SEC teams. Out of a possible 48 OOC games, SEC teams play a total of nine (9) games on the road. Florida hasn’t played an OOC game outside the state of Florida in over 10 years.
Florida doesn’t need a tough OOC schedule to gain respect. Yes, much of their preseason respect is unwarranted and based on tradition, but top to bottom their overall schedule strength outweighs BSU’s schedule. They may have the respect, but at some point that game against the Citadel or Wofford is going to hurt their SOS and keep them out of the BCS title game.

We both agree that preseason rankings are pointless because there is so much change from one year to the next. Unfortunately the early rankings are not going away because they sell pre-season magazines, provide fodder for talk radio (and blogs) and keep the buzz of college football going year-round. The real issue is that the preseason poll carries too much weight because most voters base their subsequent polls on there rankings from the prior week. Rather than reassessing the season each week, they continue to let the same preseason bias perpetuate throughout the entire season.

The solution is to remove the human polls from the BCS formula, require oversight and transparency on the computer polls and let a committee select the at-large teams for BCS games.

Until then, BSU can stay the course and hope an undefeated season is enough, or they can build a tough OOC schedule and boost the program’s reputation which will improve their starting point in each season’s preseason poll.

It isn’t a fake statistic, and as used by the BCS computers isn’t "subjective."

The various BCS computers quite properly give a fair amount of weight to SOS in calculating their rankings.

At the risk of sounding like Graham Watson and flipping positions, I have to respond to these claims.
Loque’s reply late last night succinctly frames my opinion on the topic of SOS. As a fan, I want to play a tougher schedule. Hey if Wyoming can get Texas to come to Laramie, why won’t they come play on The Blue. But, with the business of college football, Gene is scheduling responsibly attempting to navigate the biases inherent in the human and computer polls and the best way to do so is have a 0 in the loss column.

The computer polls may be subjective (formulaic) but they definitely have built in biases and don’t always correctly weight a team’s SOS. Keep in mind that each of the computer polls have a propriety formula that is only known to each of the respective computer polls. Even the BCS committee does not know the inner workings of the formulas.

Subjectively, a team’s SOS should only be credited for the wins on their schedule. If a team plays the hardest schedule in the country but goes 0-12, then their SOS should not be a factor of their computer ranking. While a win over Oregon should be weighted differently than a win over Idaho – a team should not get credit for a “quality loss.”

Take a look at the BCS standings from Nov. 2 and Nov. 9 of last year. The Peter Wolfe rankings (PW) display what is wrong with how the computers view SOS. In the game between these two rankings, Boise St beat Utah St and as expected the Aggies weakened BSU’s SOS and the PW computer dropped Boise State four (4) positions. Seems fair, until you look at Oklahoma St, who the same week lost to Texas Tech but was ranked two (2) slots higher on the subsequent week’s ranking. Their “quality” loss carried much more weight than BSU’s win. The human voters responded correctly and with humans resonsible for two-thirds of the overall BCS formula, the Broncos improved their BCS standing. This is where Gene gets it right by scheduling to go undefeated while maintaining a modest SOS.

Gene is scheduling responsibly attempting to navigate the biases inherent in the human and computer polls and the best way to do so is have a 0 in the loss column.

I’m not really saying one way or another about Bleymeier. On the one hand, I’d much prefer a Pac-10+other BCS+BYU/Utah+pushover over our apparent current scheduling strategy for more entertaining games/better national respect/better experience for our bowl games. But then what do I know.

Subjectively, a team’s SOS should only be credited for the wins on their schedule. If a team plays the hardest schedule in the country but goes 0-12, then their SOS should not be a factor of their computer ranking. While a win over Oregon should be weighted differently than a win over Idaho – a team should not get credit for a "quality loss."

Definitely disagree. Again, unless two teams have played each other, the ONLY thing you have to go on in comparing them is their strength of schedule. There simply isn’t any other option. The “0-12” thing is a red herring. If you are going to compare two 0-12 teams, of course you’d pick the one with the better S0S. The point is when you have two teams with a similar record that haven’t played each other, the only good way of comparing them is via SOS.

Take a look at the BCS standings from Nov. 2 and Nov. 9 of last year.

I did, and they don’t reveal anything like what you said they did, which makes me think you are being a little dishonest. The computer rankings from the 2nd have BSU 8th and OkSt 11th. The computer rankings from the 9th have BSU 9th and OkSt 11th. BSU dropped one spot after playing a creampuff, and OkSt didn’t drop after losing to a very good team. One specific computer ranking (the peter wolf one) may have done what you said, but that is hardly a reason to discount SOS in comparing two different teams, just a reason why one specific way of accounting for that is flawed.

Really, until you come up with a better way of comparing teams who haven’t played each other (the vast majority) who have similar records, SOS is the only way to go.

SOS is definitely taken into account in the Sagarin rankings, and I’d bet you dollars to donuts all the computer rankings take it into account as well.