Under 50 days and counting....

This is always the toughest time of the year for sports fans.  After the Stanley Cup Final, NBA Finals and MLB Allstar Game (don't really care about MLB, but I had to put it in since there's no other team sports going on).  The good news is that the greatest sport, college football, is less than 50 days from starting.  Luckily, there are a bunch of preseason magazines to get us pumped and excited for the season to start.

I now have all of my preseason magazines so I'm starting to create my files for my 2015 rankings.  I'm also working on tweaking the formula to include strength of schedule (SOS).  I think this piece helps to prevent the issue last year with Marshall.  Nothing against Marshall, but if you look at their 2014 schedule, it was pretty bad.  The fact they went undefeated until the final week of the season, they remained in the top 4 in both of my polls.  If the SOS was included, there's no way Marshall would've been that high.  Even with that glitch, I thought it was pretty cool I came up with 3 of the 4 playoff teams in both of my polls.  I didn't have them in the same final order as the Selection Committee, but I did have Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State.  The only missing team was Florida State.  I'm curious to see how this season goes by adding SOS into the formula.

Final thoughts on my 2014 rankings

I find it interesting that I got 3 out of the 4 playoff teams correct, including Ohio St, in both of my polls.  The only team that didn't make it was Florida St (8th in Preseason Poll & 9th in Equal Poll), with Marshall taking their spot.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I need to devise a way to incorporate SOS in my weekly rankings for the 2015 season.  This is the reason Marshall remained at the top in both polls throughout the season because they kept winning.

Another curious thing is Florida St's weekly struggle to barely win each week cost them in points and therefore did not make it up to the final 4 in my polls.  Now, if SOS was a factor, they might have had enough points to make it up there.

So my final take is that without SOS being added in, my system works.  It makes sense since my rankings are solely based on results on the field without any voter bias.  With the playoff committee, I believe they are using the same criteria in their rankings.  I'm curious if Baylor and TCU played a Big 12 title game if either one of them would have made it to the top 4 in my polls.  Baylor finished at 6th in the Preseason Poll and 7th in the Equal Poll.  While TCU finished7th in the Preseason Poll and 5th in the Equal Poll.  I bet that extra victory would have put whoever the winner was right up there battling for the 4th spot and possibly Ohio St being left out.

Anyway, I can't wait for the 2015 season to start.  It's less than 60 days away.  I always know it is close when the conferences start having their media days (SEC started today 7/13) and ESPN starts their show College Football Live (which also started today).

2014 Week 15 Rankings

Here are the final rankings before the bowls and playoffs:

Preseason   Equal Ranking Team Record Points Prev   Ranking Team Record Points Prev 1 Oregon 12 - 1 374 1   1 Oregon 12 - 1 239 2 2 Alabama 12 - 1 338 4   2 Marshall 12 - 1 229 1 3 Ohio St. 12 - 1 335 5   3 Ohio St. 12 - 1 219 5 4 Marshall 12 - 1 325 2   4 Alabama 12 - 1 209 4 5 Michigan St. 10 - 2 317 3   5 TCU 11 - 1 198 6 6 Baylor 11 - 1 311 6   6 Mississippi St. 10 - 2 197 3 7 TCU 11 - 1 290 9   7 Baylor 11 - 1 191 6 8 Florida St. 13 - 0 279 7   8 Michigan St. 10 - 2 172 8 9 Mississippi St. 10 - 2 270 8   9 Florida St. 13 - 0 157 12 10 Georgia 9 - 3 269 9   10 Boise St. 11 - 2 154 14 11 Ole Miss 9 - 3 267 11   11 Wisconsin 10 - 3 152 9 12 Oklahoma 8 - 4 247 12   11 Ole Miss 9 - 3 152 10 13 Boise St. 11 - 2 238 17   11 Georgia 9 - 3 152 10 14 Nebraska 9 - 3 231 14   14 Georgia Tech 10 - 3 150 13 15 Georgia Tech 10 - 3 230 15   15 Memphis 9 - 3 139 14 16 Kansas St. 9 - 3 226 13   16 Ga. Southern 9 - 3 132 17 17 Arizona St. 9 - 3 225 16   17 Colorado St. 10 - 2 124 19 18 Auburn 8 - 4 214 19   18 Oklahoma 8 - 4 122 18 19 Clemson 9 - 3 211 20   18 Louisville 9 - 3 122 21 20 Missouri 10 - 3 207 18   18 UCF 10 - 2 122 25 21 Duke 9 - 3 206 21   21 Nebraska 9 - 3 119 22 22 LSU 8 - 4 192 23   22 Utah St. 9 - 4 118 23 23 Arizona 10 - 3 186 22   23 Kansas St. 9 - 3 116 19 24 Louisville 8 - 4 181 24   24 Arizona 10 - 3 115 16 25 Memphis 9 - 3 180 25   25 Arizona St. 9 - 3 113 26

2014 Week 14 Rankings

Preseason						Equal
Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev		Ranking	Team	Record	Points	Prev
1	Oregon	11 - 1	353	1		1	Marshall	11 - 1	225	1
2	Marshall	11 - 1	322	2		2	Oregon	11 - 1	212	3
3	Michigan St.	10 - 2	317	5		3	Mississippi St.	10 - 2	197	2
4	Alabama	11 - 1	316	3		4	Alabama	11 - 1	187	4
5	Ohio St.	11 - 1	315	4		5	Ohio St.	11 - 1	184	6
6	Baylor	10 - 1	296	6		6	Baylor	10 - 1	177	5
7	Florida St.	12 - 0	274	9		6	TCU	10 - 1	177	8
8	Mississippi St.	10 - 2	270	7		8	Michigan St.	10 - 2	172	10
9	Georgia	9 - 3	269	8		9	Wisconsin	10 - 2	162	9
10	TCU	10 - 1	269	19		10	Georgia	9 - 3	152	7
11	Ole Miss	9 - 3	267	12		10	Ole Miss	9 - 3	152	14
12	Oklahoma	8 - 3	251	11		12	Florida St.	12 - 0	151	11
13	Kansas St.	9 - 2	234	21		13	Georgia Tech	10 - 2	150	12
14	Nebraska	9 - 3	231	15		14	Memphis	9 - 3	139	20
15	Georgia Tech	10 - 2	228	18		14	Boise St.	10 - 2	139	22
16	Arizona St.	9 - 3	225	14		16	Arizona	10 - 2	135	17
17	Boise St.	10 - 2	224	22		17	Ga. Southern	9 - 3	132	17
18	Missouri	10 - 2	222	19		18	Oklahoma	8 - 3	126	16
19	Auburn	8 - 4	214	17		19	Colorado St.	10 - 2	124	15
20	Clemson	9 - 3	211	23		19	Kansas St.	9 - 2	124	27
21	Duke	9 - 3	206	29		21	Louisville	9 - 3	122	21
22	Arizona	10 - 2	201	27		22	Nebraska	9 - 3	119	23
23	LSU	8 - 4	192	30		23	Utah St.	9 - 4	118	13
24	Louisville	8 - 4	181	32		23	Missouri	10 - 2	118	24
25	Memphis	9 - 3	180	36		25	UCF	9 - 2	115	28