There is a little bit of math on this page, but it is not that bad.

Usually, when you see the BCS rankings, whether on TV or on a website they are listed something like this:

1. Team A (.9761)
2. Team B (.9534)
3. Team C (.9032)
4. Team D (.8996)

And so on and so on.

So what do those numbers mean after the team name? Those numbers are actually an average of the three components of the Bowl Championship Series rankings. They could be read as a percentage.

What it really means is that out of all the components that go into a BCS ranking – Team A got 97.61% of the total possible points. Team B got 95.35% and so on. The same as if you were taking a test and their were 25 questsions on it and you got 24 right. 24/25 = .96. That would be your BCS ranking. Or you could also say you got a 96% percent. The BCS is essentially a “grade” that the team receives based on how they have performed.

If the BCS is a grade, then who are the graders? The graders are the three separate components of the BCS. Each grader accounts for 1/3 of the final grade a team receives. There are two types of graders. Human graders and computer graders. (It is the same way in school).

The Human Components

Two of the three components that go into a BCS ranking, or grade, are human components. They are both polls that are taken by a large number of people that have been chosen based on having some kind of correlation to college football. In other words, they are “experts in the field”. These should be people that have an excellent grasp of what it means to excel at the game of football. They should also have some amount of integrity, so as not to show favoritism or biased opinion.

The USA Today Coaches Poll

The coaches poll is conducted by USA Today and is made up of current college football coaches. Each year the coaches that participate rotates on an agreed upon schedule. There are 61 coaches in the poll. That is just over half of the coaches currently coaching in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

A team is rewarded 25 points for each #1 ranking they receive. 24 for #2, 23 for #3 and so on. The maximum points in the coaches poll is 1525 (61 x 25). In order to received a 100% from the coaches, each and every coach in the poll would have to rank the team #1 on their personal poll, in other words the team would need the maximum 1525 points.

The Harris Poll

The Harris poll is conducted by Harris Interactive. Instead of current coaches, this poll is made up of former players, coaches, administrators, and current and former media members. There are 114 participants in the Harris Poll, but since their final rankings have the same amount of weight in the BCS, the larger number of participants does not give a larger meaning to this poll than the 61 member coaches poll.

The points are configured exactly the same as the coaches poll. But, it is much harder to earn 100% in the Harris because there are almost double the pollsters. The maximum points from the Harris Poll is 2850 (114 x 25). So in order to get 100% a team would need all 2850 of those points.

The Computer Component

If we go back to the test analogy, it is not difficult to understand why the computer component is involved. With every season there are both objective components and subjective components to a teams performance. The objective components are what the computers are testing against. The subjective components come through the human polls. It is the the same difference between multiple choice questions ( that a computer can grade)  and essay questions (that a human has to read and comprehend in order to evaluate). Both types of questions are important. It just so happens that in college football, essay questions are worth 2/3 of your grade and multiple choice questions are worth 1/3 of your grade.

Computers gauge things that are quantifiable. Thinks like win-loss record, strength of schedule, home or away, etc. All the numbers that are involved in the sport. Computers can run formulas on those numbers and create a final number. Teams are ranked by that number. Then points are assigned in the same manner as the human polls. 25 points for a #1 ranking, 24 points for #2 and so on.

There are six computer ranking systems that have been chosen by the Bowl Championship Series based on past reliability. The six systems are Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey, Jeff Sagarin and Peter Wolfe.

Out of the six rankings the highest and lowest ranking for each team is thrown out and the remaining four are added together to make up their final percentage.

For example, if the six rankings for Team A were:

#1, #1, #2, #4, #6, and #8,

then we would remove one of the #1 rankings and the #8 ranking. We would be left with:

#1, #2, #4, and #6.

Then we give out the points based on the ranking. The points would be:

25 for #1,
24 for #2,
22 for #4,
20 for #6.

Add up those points and we have 91. That would be the computer grade for Team A: 91% or 0.91.

In reality, we are just totaling the points and dividing by the total possible, the same as with the human polls. Since the total possible is 100 (25 x 4) then the point total just happens to be the same as the percentage.

The Final Score

In order to get the final score you simply add up all three of the components and divide by three to get the average. If Team A’s scores were:

Coaches: .9439
Harris: .9633
Computers: .92

Then the final BCS score is (.9439 + .9633 + .92) / 3 or .9424.

Now that you hopefully understand where the numbers come from, check out what the BCS rankings mean, as far as BCS bowl eligibility and BCS selection process.