New Hampshire Is Better Than Florida. It's Science.

"I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science." - Ron Burgandy

If Ron Burgandy says it, it must be true. Right?

Equally as absurd as the statement above is the position held by many that argue if a team beat another head-to-head, then they should automatically be ranked ahead of the team they beat. This complete disregard for the rest of a team's resume is extremely simple minded, and yet the so-called "experts" lean on this argument far too frequently.

Let's forget that you end up in a circular argument very fast (e.g. Oklahoma-Texas-Texas Tech this season). Without much effort, you can demonstrate how this logic leads to the bottom feeders of college football being able to claim they are better than the crowned national champions.

To illustrate just how ridiculous that point of view is, we can use it to make the following declaration: The University of New Hampshire, a school from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly I-AA), should be the 2008 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly I-A) National Champions! We could say the same about another FCS school, Cal Poly. Additionally, 115 FBS programs other than Florida could make the claim this year. Notre Dame, for example, could make the case under this flawed logic as they beat Navy, who beat Wake Forest, who beat Ole Miss, who beat Florida.

In 2007, LSU was crowned the BCS National Champions. The head-to-head logic opens a case for 127 teams, including 9 from the FCS, to usurp LSU. In 2006, Florida won their first BCS title. That season, 116 teams from the FBS and 6 from the FCS could make the case they were better than Florida. In 2003, when LSU first won the BCS title, 111 teams from the FBS and 9 from the FCS could make the argument they were better than LSU.

For those that argue that head-to-head match-ups offer the empirical evidence needed to determine the national champion, why don't you just chop that crystal football into 120 pieces and give it out to every pariticpating member of the Football Bowl Subdivision. Those that cling to this philosophy are incapable of processing the complex mosaic that is the college football season.

There are two philosophies that exist with regards to ranking teams. One is to rank them based on what they've earned. Another is to rank them based on how good you think they are. If the data presented above does nothing else, it should go a long way to convince you that any team could beat any other team on any given day. Thus, ranking teams by how good you think they are really is an effort in futility.

Remember how Boise State couldn't possibly beat Oklahoma in the 2006 season's Fiesta Bowl and Utah couldn't possibly beat Alabama in this year's Sugar Bowl? Both of those teams (Boise and Utah) were undefeated and yet came in to those games as underdogs because the "experts" thought Oklahoma and Alabama were better. Yet, both Boise State and Utah went on to win their respective games.

Still, neither team was given the chance to compete for the national title due to the flawed approach people use to rank teams. Ranking teams based on what they've earned is the only feasible approach.