First of all, everyone here knows I think the AP and Coaches polls are complete bullshit, and they are. They are the literal definition of a popularity contest with no standards whatsoever and no consistency. Total...Complete...Utter...Bullshit...
I do however believe in ranking systems that use standard defined criteria and which are the exact same for every team. I tend to follow Sagarin because his ranking system has shown to be a very good predictor of wins/losses, and his SOS rankings have a very small standard deviation throughout the year compared to final results.
What I like best about any ranking system is that there's zero subjectivity. However it's constructed, and however the rules are applied, they're applied to everyone the same. You can argue about the construct of the ranking system (and you should), but you can't argue that opinion has anything to do with the results.
So if one person likes Sagarin, and one person likes the AP poll, and one person likes KenPom, and another likes PRI, what do you do? You look at the Massey composite.
Massey's composite is an average ranking made up of over 100 different ranking systems. The vast majority are mathematical systems, but in the interest of being thorough there are a few popularity contests included like the AP and Coaches. The only thing I don't like is that each index is given equal weight, i.e., the AP poll (total bullshit) is given equal weight in the average to Sagarin (which is the most analyzed ranking out there for NCAA football). But, you can't always have your cake and eat it too.
Anyway, with such a huge sample size of rankings, it's definitely the best one we have. The noise gets smoothed out in a hurry. The website does a great job listing all the rankings for each team, gives the average, as well as the SDev which is huge because it indicates how much consensus there is among the rankings for any given team. For example, Iowa's SDev after this week is 3.87, which indicates that most polls/rankings have Iowa in about the same spot, which increases confidence in that average ranking being "real." Michigan, however, has an SDev of 8.72 which shows you that the ranking systems think UM is either fake news or the best in the country...not confidence inspiring. Either way, with the sample size being over 100, any bad apples are smoothed out easily.
Side note for all you dorks out there who think recruiting rankings mean anything more than diddly shit...If you look at Massey's composite (by far the largest data set), you'll see that the SDev skyrockets after about 10th place and levels out at that high level almost immediately. This alone tells you that any rankings are fairly reliable for most teams up to about 8-10 spots, and after that they become complete horseshit guesses. Just like recruiting rankings, but I digress.
Anyway,
here's the link to the Massey composite for any of you who might not have heard about it before, make sure to check out the
About page for explanation.
Oh and last thing...and because I really want to stir shit up bad...Iowa is ranked #4 in the nation when averaged over 100 ranking systems and Michigan is ranked #3.
