the tindog coffeehouse

According to economists Michael Davis and Ewing Marion, the BCS is statistically fairer than a college football playoff system would be.

No, really.

They’ve invented a metric called the “Fairness Index”, which “measures the average ratio of the champion’s regular season record to its team with the best regular season record.”  By their calculations, the much-maligned Bowl Championship Series, with its convoluted system of computer rankings, human polls, and exclusionary provisions, has a fairness index of 97.2%, while the NFL’s playoff system comes in at a mere 91.6%.

Their argument is this: With a playoff system you allow a certain number of teams into the brackets, which sounds fair on the surface but can result in a team with a lesser regular-season record winning out against a more deserving team.  As an example, they point to the fact that the Arizona Cardinals, which had a regular-season record of 9-7, reached last year’s Super Bowl and almost beat the 12-4 Pittsburgh Steelers.  According to Davis and Marion, had the Cardinals won, that outcome would’ve been less fair.  Plus, they say, the more teams you allow into the playoffs, the more unfair the end results tend to be.

But I think these guys are missing the point.  Most of the complaints with the BCS are not with the computers or the polls.  Much of the problem lies with the exclusionary nature of the system.  Some conferences (the six BCS conferences, such as the Big 12 and SEC) are given preferential treatment over others (the non-BCS conferences, such as the Mountain West), often resulting in a higher ranked non-BCS team with a better record getting shut out of the process while a lower-ranked BCS team with a worse record gets an automatic invitation.  Or a high-ranked BCS team getting shut out to make room for a lower-ranked team from another conference.  It’s like the football equivalent of No Child Left Behind.

True, the eventual national champion is typically the most deserving team, but that’s because the No. 1 and 2 teams automatically play in the National Championship game.  In that case, you would expect the “Fairness Index” to be extremely high because it only looks at the ultimate winner.  But if you look at who plays in the other BCS bowls (the Orange, Rose, Fiesta, and Sugar Bowls), it’s hardly fair at all.

Previously:
Yes, the BCS is flawed. What’s your point?
The BCS: ‘Communistic’ or not?
The problem with fairness