The Best Team Wins the Championship? What Kind of Communist Notion is That?

It’s too bad that this article resides behind ESPN’s paywall and is full of untrustworthy notions like “computer rankings,” because Brian Fremeau makes a very good, basic point about college football’s structure: it is more likely to crown the most deserving team.  Fremeau notes that according to the Massey Rating composite, the BCS has consistently crowned the team that the computer consensus has placed as the best team in the country (or at least the team with the best resume, if those two concepts are distinct).  In fact, the Massey composite goes back to 1996 and reflects that the BCS (and the Bowl Alliance before it) is a perfect 15 for 15 in awarding the national title to the most deserving team.  The BCS is not as good at matching the best team against the second-best, but as Fremeau notes, playoff systems don’t really achieve that aim, either: According to the Football Outsiders' DVOA ratings, the Green Bay Packers were only the third-best team in the ...