Legends vs. Computers: James breaks down upcoming games

Each week during the 2011 college football season, the LegendsChannel.com will interview one of its legendary coaches from the Scripps Legends Poll, along with Richard Billingsley of CFRC.com, one of the six official BCS computer pollsters.

This week’s “Legends vs. Computers” welcomes Washington Huskies’ Legend Don James to discuss the top teams in the Scripps Legends Top 25 and his individual Top 25 rankings with Richard Billingsley and his CFRC current computer rankings of college football teams.  In addition, we will discuss the upcoming big matchups for this weekend.

Moderator:  Welcome to the show, James and Richard.

James:  Thanks, good to be here.

Richard: Thanks for having me and look forward to discussing college football with James and all the other Legends during this college football season.

James:  My pleasure, Richard, look forward to learning more about how your computer rankings system works.

Moderator: Let’s start with James.  The Scripps Legends Poll this week has their top 5 teams as: 1) Oklahoma 2) Alabama 3) LSU 4) Wisconsin and 5) Boise State.  Based on the conference call this past Monday with the other coaching legends, what would you say are the primary reasons for that order of the Top 5 teams?

James: Well, we’ve all had an opportunity – the Top 5 teams have been on television and we’ve had a chance to see them.  In fact, in most cases, we’ve seen all their games with Hudl – the system we use to evaluate the teams.  All the coaches get the video clips, using Hudl’s online service, from the top teams’ games each week.  We know from our first three weeks of watching the games which teams are playing the best. I like the idea of our Poll in that we wait three weeks before we start our Top 25 rankings.

Moderator:  Coach, what was the order of your own Top 5 rankings?

James:  I picked Oklahoma, Louisiana State, Alabama, and I put LSU above Alabama, I’m not sure if they are better, but then I had Boise State and then I had Stanford.

Moderator:   One thing I want to point out, which I think is interesting, we know the relationship that you have with Coach Saban. You actually coached him as a player at Kent State and you gave him his start in coaching.  So, if anybody’s questioning your bias, you put Alabama third.  Looking at the overall vote of the coaches, Alabama got seven number 1 votes.

James:  You know, how many years have we done our poll?

Moderator:  This is your seventh year.

James:  Seven years.  And I’ve been impressed almost every week for the fact that Don Nehlen doesn’t just push for his old school, West Virginia or John Cooper doesn’t push for Ohio State and I’m as objective about Washington as anybody can be.  Of course, the Huskies haven’t played very good during those years.  I’ve noticed this, Pat Dye, his office is in the building with the Auburn coaches and he sees their games and I think he’s as objective as you can be – there’s no question who we’re all cheering for, but I don’t hear John Robinson pushing USC or Terry Donahue UCLA.

Richard:  Coach, I want to make a comment about one thing – just an observation.  I noticed as you were giving your own personal Top 5, you and I have in my computer program and in your personal poll – 4 out of the 5 same teams.  So, I find that very interesting.

Moderator:  Richard, what were the Top 5 teams in your computer rankings?

Richard:  This week my top 5 teams are: 1) LSU 2) Oklahoma 3) Oklahoma State 4) Stanford and 5) Boise State.

But I also want to make a comment about the Scripps Legends Poll and my computer rankings and how I feel about the two.  I’ve always felt like that I have a really good computer rankings system.  I’m really proud of it.  But I know in my own mind, my computer program is never going to be as good as a personal poll that I could create on my own because there are some things that a computer ranking cannot do.  For example, my computer does not know that Oklahoma State was playing at 3:00 on Sunday morning.  It doesn’t know about the fumbles, the turnovers and the penalties at certain points of the game.  Those are things that a computer cannot analyze, but a human can do that. I wanted to be able to create a ranking system that would be as good as what I felt the AP and the Coaches’ Poll. Because I think, for the most part, they’ve done a good job.

In my ranking system, I wanted to be able to take out any pre-season hype, I wanted to be able to insert more strength of schedule and I wanted to emphasize head-to-head competition more.  And when I ran across your poll several years ago I realized that I was looking at something special. The coaches that are on this panel, you of whom are one, the experience that you have. I knew that this was not a typical sportswriter or coaches’ poll.  Because there were actual evaluations going on of the games being played, and there was research and discussion amongst coaches about those games on a weekly basis. That is what makes the Scripps Legends Poll so unique and different.  The ingredients are here to compliment the things that my computer ranking system cannot do. I am excited to be a part of the “Legends vs. Computers” show because we can discuss and educate the fans about our rankings. That’s the way I feel about it.

James:  Well, like you say, I think our coaches, number one, we’re experienced and number two, we’re retired so we have more time to put into the process.  The thing of it is we know more about football than the writers and we put more into it than the current head coaches can.  And most of us have had little to do with computers over the years, so we don’t know enough about your computer poll.  By doing this show together it is helping us understand the computer polls gaining respect for that.  Like I say, I wouldn’t put the Scripps Legends Poll ahead of the Computer Polls, but I would sure take us over the USA Today Coaches Poll and the Harris Poll.

Moderator:  Richard, speaking of educating the fans, we wanted to ask you how in the world could you have Nevada ranked in your top 25 at No. 12 when they lost to Oregon 69-21 in their first game of the season and last week just barely beating a weak San Jose State team?

Richard:  You’re putting me on the hot seat in the very first show! Well, I’ll tell you, that’s a great observation and it’s a question that I’m really glad to have an opportunity to answer because it looks strange.

But that’s the big difference between a computer poll and a human poll.  My program rewards programs for consistency.  So, when you see a team like Alabama or Oklahoma or Southern California or Texas – teams that are continually ranked in the Top 25 when the season starts, that’s a reward for the consistency and the success of their program.  It’s very hard for teams to break into that category.  Boise State has done it.  Utah has done it.  But it was a struggle for them.  Now, in my rankings it’s different.  Once a team establishes themselves, that ranking carries over to the next year until a team proves that they’re not worthy of it.

So far, Nevada has lost one game and that was to Oregon and you can’t fault them for that.  Now, as they go through the season, upcoming they have Texas Tech, Boise State, they have the rest of their schedule.  If Nevada ends up the season 9 and 3 and loses only to Oregon, Texas Tech and Boise State, they’re going to be in everybody’s Top 25 and then I’ll look like a genius.  Right now, I look like I’m crazy.  But, I’ll take that.

James:  I understand Richard’s argument and that’s a good point to recognize teams where they finished last year, but we would like to see teams play for two or three weeks before we give them the ‘kudos’.  And we still get a lot of the same teams.  You know, normally you see Michigan up there and Ohio State and Notre Dame and in some cases they don’t even deserve to be in the Top 25.  But I just like the fact that we let them play a few weeks before we start our rankings and it appears as though Oklahoma, Alabama and LSU especially are solid football teams.  And Boise State has just proven that they’re as well coached as anybody with a great quarterback, but we also are sharp enough to look at their schedule down the road and they’re just not having to play those tough back-to-back-to-back games as the teams in the SEC or the Big 10 or the PAC 12.

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