Electoral College

The next major political election is just under a year away, but with the NCAA bowl season fast approaching, it’s time to take a look at the voting in the most recent polls. Now, some have said that this season has been nothing more than a Bernie Madoff-esque ponzi scheme to rip off millions of hopeful college football viewers (cough, Ivan Maisel, cough). We would contend that the contrary has happened. We are seeing some parity in college football and it makes for darn good TV. As of today, there are no fewer than six unbeaten teams out there, all of which have had their scares. We’ve seen some tradition-rich programs go down (and get embarrassed – see USC’s performances against Oregon on October 31st and against Stanford on November 14th). We’ve also seen some mid-majors creep into the top ten with nearly flawless seasons. All this makes the voting process that much more difficult for the AP and coaches (well, at least whoever is voting for them). With that, we dive deeper into a single race for a BCS bid as a sample of the many flaws with the current college voting process.

Many of the national pundits (namely from ESPN) have been way down on the Big Ten this year and have used the poor performance in bowl games last year as a prime example of why. They say the top programs are not that strong and that it’s really just Ohio State and Penn State that matter now, and that even those teams get beaten every year by teams in the PAC Ten and SEC. While we firmly believe that this is more a case of parity (good for football and evidence of a stronger conference, rather than a weaker one) and some really tough matchups (only one team beat Florida last year, but the Big Ten is down because OSU couldn’t do the trick?), we will save our propaganda for a later post. Here, we would like to focus on the race for a BCS bid between two top Big Ten teams: the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
With both teams having closed out their regular season, the sit with identical records. Both are 10-2 overall and 6-2 in conference play. So what’s a voter to do? Well, let’s take a peek at the schedules to kick things off. The Hawkeyes have the nation’s 27th ranked schedule (on the left), while the Nittany Lions’ schedule ranks 47th (on the right).

(courtesy of http://www.espn.com/)

A look here shows a few glaring differences. Proponents of Penn State would point to the big wins over Michigan State, Michigan, and Northwestern – all teams Iowa played close games with. Iowa even lost to Northwestern at home. The Hawkeye proponent would then point out the thumping Penn State took from Ohio State at home. When Iowa went to the Horseshoe, they took the Buckeyes to OT with a freshman quarterback getting his first start. Throw in the fact that the same freshman was thrown into the game against Northwestern (a game the Hawkeyes were in complete control of to this point) with a perfect season and a possible BCS National Title on the line, only to come up a touchdown short and you have a case for the Hawkeyes two losses not looking so bad. The Penn State fan comes back with, “yeah, but none of your wins were by a huge margin, we killed all those teams.” True, you did thump a few teams Iowa struggled with. Iowa had five games decided by less than a touchdown. Two of those were losses and the other three were victories for the Hawkeyes. Many of the games were closer than the score would indicate, and a few were not nearly as close as the score would indicate. The problem here is that most of the voters don’t get a chance to watch all the games, especially with most of the Big Ten kicking off at the same time. If a voter had caught all the games, they would have noticed the Nittany Lions may seem more consistent, and that consistency meant some blowout wins. However, that consistency also meant a blowout loss to OSU at home. The Hawkeyes, on the other hand, seem to be much more up and down. The key here is they play to the level of their competition. When UNI came to town way back in September, the Hawkeyes looked much like an FCS team. However, they also looked like deserving Big Ten champs when they went to the Horseshoe and took the Buckeyes to OT.

The roller coaster ride for the Hawkeyes appears to be very closely tied to the competition they are facing. That said, a voter should consider the body of work these two teams have created. The Nittany Lions have only faced two teams that will be ranked at the end of the year, losing both times by double digits at home. The Hawkeyes also only faced two teams which will be nationally ranked at the end of this season as well. However, they played both teams on the road. One came as an overtime loss by three at Ohio State. The other, an eleven-point victory over the Penn State Nittany Lions in Happy Valley. I can think of one coach that should probably be voting for PSU ahead of the Hawkeyes, but Joe Pa should probably be alone on this one. The current USA Today Coaches Poll puts Penn State at #11, a full 100 points ahead of the Hawkeyes, who sit at #13. The AP poll is slightly closer with PSU at #12 while Iowa is only seven points back at #13. The computers, however, have taken a look at the numbers and haven’t thought about tradition. The current BCS standings put the Hawkeyes at #11 with the Nittany Lions at #13. With #9 Pittsburgh still slated to play #5 Cincinnati on December 5th, it appears Iowa is destined for the top ten in the BCS. One can only hope the holiday vacations will give the AP and USA Today voters some time to take a look back over the season and the numbers. People don't forget.....