For a laugh, check out the early-season BCS rankings

[clevfan]

From the Los Angeles Times
CHRIS DUFRESNE / ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL

For a laugh, check out the early-season BCS rankings
A few more games are required before the formulas figure themselves out.

September 23, 2008

If the season ended today -- and don't you think Rutgers' fans wish it were over? -- Utah and Wisconsin would be playing in Wes Colley's national championship.

Wes who?

Colley operates one of the six computers used in the Bowl Championship Series standings formula that helps determine the participants for college football's big prize.

Relax, though, because there's a reason the first BCS standings won't be released until Oct. 19.

If they released them today, it would set off a sitcom laugh track.

BCS operator Kenneth Massey has USC and Boise State as his top two teams this week, Oklahoma at No. 32 and Duke at No. 39, one spot ahead of football up-and-comer Florida.

Massey's rankings even come with an owners' manual disclaimer: "Early season ratings will fluctuate significantly until a sufficient number of games have been played."

He might have also added: "Kids, don't try this at home!"

Colley touts his rankings as "bias free," but they might not be buying that at Heritage Hall in Los Angeles, where USC is checking in at No. 14 this week.

Gee, and some people thought the Trojans were actually good.

Colley also has Texas at No. 23 and Oklahoma at No. 25.

Think of the polls vs. BCS computers in terms of spring training in baseball, where pitchers usually start out ahead of the hitters.

The Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls, misguided as they often are, probably have a tighter grasp on reality at this point.

Things are so fluid that two BCS indexes, Peter Wolfe and Anderson & Hester, haven't even started posting weekly standings.

Wolfe's first rankings will coincide with the first BCS standings release.

Meanwhile, Anderson & Hester is just about ready to crank up operations.

"We post them after the fifth full week of games, which this season is this coming weekend." Jeff Anderson said in an e-mail statement Monday. "So we'll have our first release up by early next week."

The four BCS systems currently posting are fluctuating like last week's stock market.

Richard Billingsley and Jeff Sagarin this week both have USC and Louisiana State at the top of their tickets -- who wouldn't want to see that?

Sagarin, though, also throws us for this early loop: he has Fresno State ranked No. 52 this week and UCLA at No. 37.

Billingsley has UCLA at No. 41 and Fresno State at 42.

Excuse me, but have these computers seen UCLA's offense?

Thankfully, Fresno State and UCLA get to settle this on the field Saturday when the schools meet at the Rose Bowl.