The Joe Rankings Explained

The idea for The Joe Rankings first came to me after the 2004 college football season. The University of Utah had just crashed the BCS by winning each of their games with relative ease—including a Fiesta Bowl blowout victory over Big East champion Pittsburgh—en route to an undefeated 12-0 season.

Even as a fan of Utah’s archenemy, I must humbly admit that this team was pretty darn good. Their narrowest victory was over Air Force by 14 points. They beat their fiercest rival BYU by 23 points. They produced the #1 draft pick in Alex Smith. They had a dominant offense and a tough defense that rarely comes around together on the same season.

Even though I probably wasn’t able to swallow my pride and admit it at the time, I can now concede that I believe that the 2004 Ute squad would have legitimately challenged anyone for the national championship.

The problem is that they never got the opportunity to play for that national crown. Under the current system of BCS rule, teams from the MWC and WAC (among other conferences) essentially begin the season with a zero percent chance of winning the national championship. I don’t know of any other sport in the world where this phenomenon occurs.

To be honest, I do not have a solution to find a true champion for college football. There are too many factors in play—many of which I am sure I am unaware of. However, I believe there are better ways to rank the teams and determine which teams are worthy of participating in advanced games. The BCS is very heavily weighted towards the opinions of the media and coaches. It is impossible for these people—even in today’s era of mass communication and light-speed technology—to watch each game and decide which teams are truly the best. So they must resort to popular opinion, past history, rankings from the previous week, and opinions garnered over watching maybe two or three games each week before listening to Lou Holtz’s opinion later in the evening.

I have attempted to create a formula that would accurately portray the accomplishments of a team on the actual field of play. Take away media hype, conference affiliation, perceived superiority, coastal bias, public relations departments, award winners, et al. Let the games and the results speak for themselves.

The formula is not an attempt to reflect which teams are the best. They are not predictive in nature. It is simply an effort to show what teams have accomplished in actual games.

The Rankings takes into effect a myriad of variables. Obviously wins and losses are weighted the most. It also takes into account the home/away/neutral factor; winning & losing streaks; and strength of schedule.

I acknowledge that no numerical formula will ever be perfect. It is impossible to weigh each game against any set standard because each game is different. Weather takes effect. Motivations may change from game to game. Each game has different officials. Games may increase or decrease in intensity and importance as the year forges on. Traveling patterns and distances can take a toll. Injuries occur and players miss games. The variables are endless. But The Joe Rankings attempts to come as close as possible to reflecting which teams have actually accomplished the most on the field of play.

To put it basically, it attempts to show where teams deserve to be ranked. Remember, the numbers don’t lie nearly as often as humans do.