Sagarin Rankings

[The Big Meowski]

These are a joke.

Don’t get me wrong, appreciate you posting! But this specific ranking has been ridiculous all year.

All year. Consistently ridiculous. I don’t know much about algorithms, but if there’s good and bad ones, then this is a bad one.

I’ve been saying that for years. The only reason people hang on to Sagarin is because of the name recognition for being first.

It's not just fans who use it, it's one of the tie breakers for conference champion.

Well then they need to fix the damn algorithm. When a team beats the b-jesus out of another team and is still ranked below you got a math problem. Sounds to me like the Saragrin folks got a math degree from dUMb.

I agree it has problems, just saying that it's not some worthless metric nobody uses. It does get used, and for important things.

Which makes it a worthless metric somebody uses. It therefore gets misused for important things...and, after all it should, that's the American way!

Sagarin has got nothing on the George Michael Sports Machine!!

[cats2506]

Several years ago I was in a group where we picked the winners of each NFL game each week. One year I decided to use Sagarin Rankings to make all my picks. I knew going in that early in the season that it would be less accurate, but expected it to be pretty accurate late in the season. I finished in the bottom 1/3 of the group that year. I think I would have done better writing a program to make random selections.

[91catAlum]

Interesting discussion. Personally I think the Sagarin ratings look pretty darn accurate when we take into account the results from the entire season and don't get hung up in the rabbit hole of trying to rank based on results of individual games. MSU beat UM, who beat Weber, who beat Sac State, who beat MSU...so how do you rank those four based just on that infinite loop of head-to-head results? I'll take a computer ranking any day, even a flawed one, over the Coaches poll voted on by coaches who can't possibly have the time to pay close enough attention to the entire FCS to vote accurately.

UM, Weber, and MSU being ranked as the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best teams in the FCS is pretty much what their playoff seeding was. UM is ranked highest presumably because they had a better FBS opponent (Oregon instead of Texas Tech) and played all four possible Big Sky opponents who finished either 7-1 or 6-2, while MSU didn't play EWU or Weber. So be it - they had a great season and easily could've been playing next weekend too if things had gone their way. Fortunately the real champion will be decided on the field and not on the internet, and it'll be exciting to see if MSU can go out there and change the polls in their favor!

For FCS (and FBS for that matter) teams they may as well stop rating them after the playoffs start. They're rendered meaningless after the tournament selection is completed. The FCS selection committee only uses them to break a tie/argument, so I doubt they get used very often anyway. As far as computer rankings go, the season is over, so turn them off.

It's also one of the tie breakers for the Big Sky conference autobid. I think it's about 4th or 5th down the list, but still it's on the list.

[TomCat88]

Interesting discussion. Personally I think the Sagarin ratings look pretty darn accurate when we take into account the results from the entire season and don't get hung up in the rabbit hole of trying to rank based on results of individual games. MSU beat UM, who beat Weber, who beat Sac State, who beat MSU...so how do you rank those four based just on that infinite loop of head-to-head results? I'll take a computer ranking any day, even a flawed one, over the Coaches poll voted on by coaches who can't possibly have the time to pay close enough attention to the entire FCS to vote accurately.

UM, Weber, and MSU being ranked as the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best teams in the FCS is pretty much what their playoff seeding was. UM is ranked highest presumably because they had a better FBS opponent (Oregon instead of Texas Tech) and played all four possible Big Sky opponents who finished either 7-1 or 6-2, while MSU didn't play EWU or Weber. So be it - they had a great season and easily could've been playing next weekend too if things had gone their way. Fortunately the real champion will be decided on the field and not on the internet, and it'll be exciting to see if MSU can go out there and change the polls in their favor!

For FCS (and FBS for that matter) teams they may as well stop rating them after the playoffs start. They're rendered meaningless after the tournament selection is completed. The FCS selection committee only uses them to break a tie/argument, so I doubt they get used very often anyway. As far as computer rankings go, the season is over, so turn them off.

It's also one of the tie breakers for the Big Sky conference autobid. I think it's about 4th or 5th down the list, but still it's on the list.

It's pretty important. It ranks ahead of "coin toss." Congrats Mr. Sagarin guy! Or do they only go to Sagarin if the coin lands on it's edge and stays balanced? Could happen.

[TomCat88]

These are a joke.

Don’t get me wrong, appreciate you posting! But this specific ranking has been ridiculous all year.

All year. Consistently ridiculous. I don’t know much about algorithms, but if there’s good and bad ones, then this is a bad one.

I’ve been saying that for years. The only reason people hang on to Sagarin is because of the name recognition for being first.

It's not just fans who use it, it's one of the tie breakers for conference champion.

Well then they need to fix the damn algorithm. When a team beats the b-jesus out of another team and is still ranked below you got a math problem. Sounds to me like the Saragrin folks got a math degree from dUMb.

I agree it has problems, just saying that it's not some worthless metric nobody uses. It does get used, and for important things.

Which makes it a worthless metric somebody uses. It therefore gets misused for important things...and, after all it should, that's the American way!

Sagarin has got nothing on the George Michael Sports Machine!!

Haha. Ol' George. He looks like he's in that pillar thing on Land of the Lost that had all the glowing marbles. Or Tony Orlando and Dawn's recording studio.

[AFCAT]

These are a joke.

Don’t get me wrong, appreciate you posting! But this specific ranking has been ridiculous all year.

All year. Consistently ridiculous. I don’t know much about algorithms, but if there’s good and bad ones, then this is a bad one.

I’ve been saying that for years. The only reason people hang on to Sagarin is because of the name recognition for being first.

It's not just fans who use it, it's one of the tie breakers for conference champion.

Well then they need to fix the damn algorithm. When a team beats the b-jesus out of another team and is still ranked below you got a math problem. Sounds to me like the Saragrin folks got a math degree from dUMb.

I agree it has problems, just saying that it's not some worthless metric nobody uses. It does get used, and for important things.

Which makes it a worthless metric somebody uses. It therefore gets misused for important things...and, after all it should, that's the American way!

Sagarin has got nothing on the George Michael Sports Machine!!

He was pretty good in Wham and better in his solo career.

[91catAlum]

Interesting discussion. Personally I think the Sagarin ratings look pretty darn accurate when we take into account the results from the entire season and don't get hung up in the rabbit hole of trying to rank based on results of individual games. MSU beat UM, who beat Weber, who beat Sac State, who beat MSU...so how do you rank those four based just on that infinite loop of head-to-head results? I'll take a computer ranking any day, even a flawed one, over the Coaches poll voted on by coaches who can't possibly have the time to pay close enough attention to the entire FCS to vote accurately.

UM, Weber, and MSU being ranked as the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best teams in the FCS is pretty much what their playoff seeding was. UM is ranked highest presumably because they had a better FBS opponent (Oregon instead of Texas Tech) and played all four possible Big Sky opponents who finished either 7-1 or 6-2, while MSU didn't play EWU or Weber. So be it - they had a great season and easily could've been playing next weekend too if things had gone their way. Fortunately the real champion will be decided on the field and not on the internet, and it'll be exciting to see if MSU can go out there and change the polls in their favor!

For FCS (and FBS for that matter) teams they may as well stop rating them after the playoffs start. They're rendered meaningless after the tournament selection is completed. The FCS selection committee only uses them to break a tie/argument, so I doubt they get used very often anyway. As far as computer rankings go, the season is over, so turn them off.

It's also one of the tie breakers for the Big Sky conference autobid. I think it's about 4th or 5th down the list, but still it's on the list.

It's pretty important. It ranks ahead of "coin toss." Congrats Mr. Sagarin guy! Or do they only go to Sagarin if the coin lands on it's edge and stays balanced? Could happen.