[NU Sports] Big Ten image ...

[Mike Nolan]

> 3. I'm not surprised Gupta doesn't like other computer rankings; pretty much everyone who has a computer system will tell you that every other one is dreadfully wrong. Not sure it means much beyond that. For the record, Oklahoma State is currently #3 in my system and I'm not at all surprised that the computers like them.

I didn't say he didn't like the other computer rankings, he had great
respect for several of them, even if he chose to use different factors.
His contempt was more for the BCS's placing limitations upon the
factors that the computer rankings could use.  (As I recall, he was
under consideration to become one of the BCS polls, but would not
accept their limitations.)  

That's like telling the pollsters that the're free to go ahead and
predict the 2012 Presidential race, but they can't use data from
Florida.

It is worth noting that at least one of the computer rankings used 
by the BCS has a separate ranking that uses factors other than the 
ones permitted by the BCS.

I've spent a lot of time over the years developing computer models,
though I've never had the inclination to apply that to college football,
for the same reasons that Isaac Asimov's mathematicians cautioned 
against using psychohistory to predict the responses of individuals.  :-)
--
Mike Nolan