My investigation into the secret bias of the BCS computers continues with something of a revelation this week. Â As the season winds down with this weekend’s conference championship games (as well as offerings from non-championship conferences), the BCS computers are grinding at full speed in their effort to boost the position of the Big 12 (and, to a lesser extent, the SEC, which doesn’t really need any help).
I linked this article in yesterday’s post for a different reason, but it’s worth pointing out Wetzel’s main complaint: that the computer formulas used to generate the standings are kept almost completely secret (only 1 of the 6 is even available to the BCS itself). Â He wonders (legitimately) why we should trust that there isn’t something shady at play, and I have to agree. Â It’s simple really: if there’s nothing to hide, why all the hiding?
Having compared the average ranking of each team in the human portion of the BCS standings to their ranking in the computer portion, I think I have an idea what might be up.  You might recall that the reason I started monitoring this in the first place was what I felt was an abnormally high ranking for Oklahoma State a few weeks ago.  As the digging continued, it became apparent that the entire Big 12 was being favored more heavily than any other conference in the computers.  This week, I noticed something else when examining the numbers, so I sorted them in order from most “overvalued” to most “undervalued.”  (These are generic terms to illustrate the difference in the rankings, they are not intended as an assessment of a team’s ability.)  Here are the seven most undervalued teams–the teams that receive significantly worse (at least 2 full spots) rankings in the computers than in the human polls:
Houston (-2)
Oregon (-3)
Southern Miss (-6)
Michigan State (-6)
Wisconsin (-6.5)
Virginia Tech (-6.5)
West Virginia (-8.5)
In this group, we have the probable Big East champion, the probable ACC champion, the Big Ten champion, the probable Pac-12 champion, and the Conference USA champion. Â Boise State and TCU, one of whom will win the Mountain West, are undervalued by one spot each.
Every champion (or probable champion) of every automatic-qualifying conference besides the Big 12 and SEC is undervalued by at least three spots.
The contenders for the SEC crown don’t fare that much better, Georgia is undervalued by one spot while LSU breaks even, ranking #1 in all polls by virtue of being undefeated. Â By comparison, probable Big 12 champ Oklahoma is overvalued by 5.5 spots, while possible champ Oklahoma State is overvalued by 2 spots.
Is the Big 12 really that much better than every other conference? Â Are the computers programmed to treat Big 12 teams more favorably? Â Are there even any computers at all?