I'm just looking at some of the teams ahead of #6 WVU in the Sagarins: Boston College, Georgia, Missouri, Arizona St, NORTHERN IOWA. These are used in the BCS standings. Unbelievable. This is how pathetic college football is because they won't have a playoff. They are using BS computer rankings which have I-AA Northern Iowa in the Top 10. According to the Sagarin's....I-AA Northern Iowa is better than all but 9 Division I-A teams. How pathetic is that?

I was talking about the part used by the BCS. It's what matters.

As far as WVU's schedule, we easily beat Miss St (wins against Auburn, at Kentucky) rolling out to a 28-0 first quarter lead. Also, the road win against Rutgers 31-3 is impressive. The offense is outstanding, the defense has gotten good and the whole team is finally clicking. Who has Ohio St played?? Or Kansas??? We should be just as much in the mix as anyone else.

The problem is not with Sagarin, it's with the BCS who takes ONE of Sagarin's formulas (ELO-CHESS) for their ranking.

Actually if you look at Sagarins poll in total, you will see three rankings. Sagarins OVERALL ranking of WV is #7, ahead of BC, Mizz, Georgia and even N. Iowa.

His PREDICTOR ranking which takes past results and makes an assumption of wins versus future opponents ranks which teams has the best chance of winning out their remaining schedule (Oregon is #1 in this ranking, WVU is #4).

Again, the BCS chooses to use the ELO-Chess ranking which Sagarin states in his explanation, "is less accurate in its predictions for upcoming games". In ELO-Chess only winning or losing matters, not the score margin.

I agree they need a playoff of some sort. Unfortunately WVU is not in a great conference so their strength of schedule suffers. And every loss the USF has hurts them. Ariz. St. lost to #2 Oregon so that loss doesn't hurt as much. Sagarin's has N. Iowa at #30. So I'm not sure which one you're talking about.

I just saw the rankings for this week and didn't see NORTHERN IOWA. I did see West Virginia at number 7....Would comment more if it were true!!!

here are the Sagarin's Rankings through games played yesterday:

1 Ohio State
2 Kansas
3 Oregon
4 LSU
5 Oklahoma
6 Arizona State
7 West Virginia
8 Missouri
9 Florida
10 Boston College

Edit: OHHHH I see what you are talking about now. Northern Iowa is actually ranked 30th in the Sagarin's Rankings, but in that EOL-chess ranking, they are 10 and WVU is 12.
Yea, computers suck!!!

Well the BCS formula is a joke I agree with you there. Every other level of college football has as many games as D1 鈥揂, and they still have a playoff system. Then again, in a country that still uses the Electoral College to elect a president, how can you expect anything else?

As for West Virginia, come on. Seriously? Who have they beaten, or played for that matter? They lost to South Florida who were FINALLY shown to be the team that they are. Who have the beat?

W. Michigan (3 鈥?6)
Marshall (1 鈥?8)
Maryland (4 鈥?5)
E. Carolina (6 鈥?4)
Syracuse (2 鈥?7)
Miss St. (5 鈥?4)
Rutgers (5 鈥?4)

Combined record of 26 鈥?38, and as of this morning not one team that they have beat, or played is even in the top 25 AP or USA Today. Don鈥檛 worry though. WV will probably make a BCS Bowl after playing no one all year again. Seriously I am not trying to flame you but, take an honest look at that lineup and ask yourself if that is reasonable of a national champion caliber team鈥?that鈥檚 all I am saying.

Kansas has won @ Texas A&M, @ Colorado, and @ Kansas St.

Ohio St has won @ Penn State and @ Purdue.

Those wins are all more impressive than WVU's best win (@ Rutgers). Rutgers just lost to UConn.
Add in the fact that Kansas and Ohio St have no losses, and there you go. Also look at Oregon and the SEC teams and you will see that it gets pretty crowded.

Remember, the BCS forced the algorithm engineers to disregard margin of victory, so your mention of particular scores falls on deaf ears. I also really don't like the use of the phrase "computer rankings" when it really is someone's formula, that could actually be determined without the use of a computer. There are probably plenty of voters out there who also use some sort of algorithm to rank their teams.