NCAA Automatic Qualifier III

The second criteria to establish a seventh automatic qualifier is:

"Average Conference Ranking, the final regular-season rankings of all conference teams in the computer rankings used by the BCS each year".

Frankly, when I saw this I thought that there was no way of figuring this out; but after a short search on that new fangled world wide web, I found the computer rankings for each team for the 2008 - 2011 season for each of the six computer models used in the BCS standings calculation at the end of the regular season.

Here are the rankings of the eleven BCS conferences over the 2008 - 2011 time period, and I have provided a step-by-step guide on how to calculate this.

Rank	Ave. Conf.	Conference
1	2	SEC
2	2.25	Big12
3	3.75	ACC
4	3.75	P12
5	4.5	Big10
6	5	BigEast
7	6.75	MountainWest
8	8.5	CUSA
9	8.75	WAC
11	9.75	MidAmerican
10	11	SunBelt

1.  To calculate the average conference ranking at the end of the regular season we need to get the rankings of all 120 teams for the six computer models for the four seasons.  I used the following webpages (2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011) and then found the six computer models labeled as SAG, AND, BIL, COL, MB and WOL.
2.  For the 2008 season, I averaged each of the computer models by conference.  For example the ACC in 2008 had an average of 36 for COL's computer model.  Repeat for each of the five remaining computer models and then repeat for the ten remaining NCAA BCS conferences.
3.  For each conference, average the six computer models and rank from highest to lowest. 
4.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons.
5.  At this point you should have all eleven conferences ranked for the four season.  I then averaged the rankings and ranked from highest to lowest to get the average conference ranking listed above.

NCAA Automatic Qualifier II

The first of the three criteria is that of the Average Ranking of Highest Ranked Team for the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 regular season.  The ranking takes place in the final BCS standings, which takes place during this time period on the first Monday in December.  Again the "... computations will be made according to the conference's membership on Dec. 4, 2011".

Here is the criteria for the average ranking of the highest ranked team (from link above):
"Average Ranking of Highest-Ranked Team, the ranking of the highest-ranked team in the final BCS Standings each year (if a conference does not place a team in the final BCS Standings, then its highest-ranked team is determined by the conference member that has the highest average ranking in the computer rankings used in the BCS Standings)".

Note that the calculation is based on the final BCS Standings, so here are the links to the final BCS standings for the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons that I will be drawing from to make this calculation.

If you have opened the .pdf files in the previous sentence, you will notice that not all of the eleven conferences are represented in each of the four seasons.  Thus as stated in the criteria, I have to calculate the highest average ranking in the computer rankings used in the BCS Standings for that time period.  Frankly, I thought that I would be unable to figure this out, but this data is available for the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons.  I will be using this data for the second criteria as well.

Here's the final results, and then below, I will sketch out how I calculated these results below.

Rank	Ave.	Conference
1	1.25	SEC
2	3.25	Big12
3	4.50	P12
4	5.75	MountainWest
5	7.75	Big10
6	13.00	ACC
7	15.00	BigEast
8	33.96	CUSA
9	37.42	MidAmerican
10	44.83	WAC
11	58.79	SunBelt

The calculation is rather straightforward.

1.  For each season find the conference member that has the highest ranking, and for conferences that are not ranked, then find the average of the six computer models and use the one that has the highest rank.  So in 2008, there were no CUSA teams ranked in the top 25, so I found all the teams and aveaged the rankings of the six computer models and found that East Carolina was the highest ranked with an average of 41.5.  Then for CUSA, I entered 41.5 for their rank in 2008.
2.  Repeat step 1 for each of the remaining three seasons.
3.  Average the ranking for each of the eleven conferences, and sort from highest rank (lowest number) of the eleven conferences.  That's it.

NCAA Football Automatic Qualifier I

Over the next few days I am going to go over the calculations for the three criteria for a possible 7th NCAA FBS automatic qualifier for one of the BCS bowls for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

Source for the three criteria:

(1) Average Ranking of Highest-Ranked Team, the ranking of the highest-ranked team in the final BCS Standings each year (if a conference does not place a team in the final BCS Standings, then its highest-ranked team is determined by the conference member that has the highest average ranking in the computer rankings used in the BCS Standings),

(2) Average Conference Ranking, the final regular-season rankings of all conference teams in the computer rankings used by the BCS each year, and

(3) Top 25 Performance Ranking, the number of teams in the top 25 of the final BCS Standings each year, with adjustments to account for differences in the number of members of each conference.

A conference will become the seventh automatic qualifier if it finishes among the top six conferences in both No. 1 and No. 2 and if its ranking in No. 3 is equal to or greater than 50 percent of the conference with the highest ranking in No. 3.

One thing to note at the outset is that according to the source listed above, "...the computations will be made according to the conference's membership on December 4, 2011".  Thus when I read this, I interpret this to mean that Nebraska's performance during the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons would still be counted as a Big Ten conference member, as they were a member of the Big Ten conference on 12/4/2011, but that West Virginia's performance during the 2008 - 2011 seasons would be counted in the Big East since they were still a member of the Big East Conference at that date, not the Big 12 Conference.

Note:  A conference can apply to the Presidential Oversight Committee for an exemption if:
a.)   the conference finishes among the top six in both (1) and (2) and its ranking in (3) is greater than or equal to 33.3% of the conference with the highest ranking in (3), or
b.)   the conference finishes among the top seven in either (1) or (2) and among the top five in the other and if the conferences ranking in (3) is greater than or equal to 33.3% of the conference with the highest ranking in (3).

New NCAA FBS Schools

This year four schools will be part of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). They are Massachusetts, South Alabama, Texas State and Texas-San Antonio.

New Mexico State University Football Moving to Independent in 2013

New Mexico State plans on playing as a NCAA FBS independent for the 2013 season.

Western Athletic Conference to Exit after this season

The commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference said that this will be the last season of the WAC for football.

What are Sports Economists Like?

Nice article on the recent Western Economic Association sports economics sessions.