02 Week 5 Rankings

WEML wrote:Hahahahaaaaa.

Inspired wrote:Why Fort Worth FC over Sting Okeefe and Dynasty. Just look at there games head to head last season not favorable for FC and I am pretty sure they lost 2 pretty good players during the winter. Also Polaris is pretty high with respect to their arlington standings and the fact that they have not played any strong competition in Primetime yet. I believe Waco Blast could be higher some very strong players down there.

AP Pollster wrote:

WEML wrote:Hahahahaaaaa.

what is funny?

giggedy wrote:

AP Pollster wrote:

WEML wrote:Hahahahaaaaa.

what is funny?

You gave me a good chuckle. You said if they played today. How about if they have played in the last month? Do those wins count and factor into your opinion? Wait, don't answer, because by your ranking here, I have it.

AP Pollster wrote:redcard, relax man. I didn't even realize that solar had three in the top five. I'm just thinking about the teams. I guess I'm just not all "club sensitive".

WEML- I'm just trying to get some rankings going. I don't claim that they are perfect. I tried to give an objective "snap shot" of where I thought teams stand. Give me a bit of a break. I'm new to this, not claiming to be a seasoned vet.

What's your opinion? Where did I go wrong?

WEML wrote:Why are you starting a ranking like this when one was just started that is actually based on stats? If it is going to be opinion-based then every club is going to say they should be in the top 5 and rank above other teams that have beaten them. Rankings should solely be on who you have played and the outcome of that game/season. This list is not reflective of that approach.

DoubleDD wrote:

AP Pollster wrote:redcard, relax man. I didn't even realize that solar had three in the top five. I'm just thinking about the teams. I guess I'm just not all "club sensitive".

WEML- I'm just trying to get some rankings going. I don't claim that they are perfect. I tried to give an objective "snap shot" of where I thought teams stand. Give me a bit of a break. I'm new to this, not claiming to be a seasoned vet.

What's your opinion? Where did I go wrong?

Now those are some DoubleDDs. Good work!

AP Pollster wrote:

WEML wrote:Why are you starting a ranking like this when one was just started that is actually based on stats? If it is going to be opinion-based then every club is going to say they should be in the top 5 and rank above other teams that have beaten them. Rankings should solely be on who you have played and the outcome of that game/season. This list is not reflective of that approach.

Because if we want the BCS rankings like the 01's we have to have a few pollsters willing to do some rankings.

bwgophers please help me out here. Please explain to the 02's how your magic works.

bwgophers wrote:

AP Pollster wrote:

WEML wrote:Why are you starting a ranking like this when one was just started that is actually based on stats? If it is going to be opinion-based then every club is going to say they should be in the top 5 and rank above other teams that have beaten them. Rankings should solely be on who you have played and the outcome of that game/season. This list is not reflective of that approach.

Because if we want the BCS rankings like the 01's we have to have a few pollsters willing to do some rankings.

bwgophers please help me out here. Please explain to the 02's how your magic works.

Well, first of all, and most importantly, I'm not here to "push" anything onto the '02's. That's why I put a poll out there to see if the '02's wanted to even see FBR rankings. Got >80% positive response, so I'll post 'em. Beyond that, I am going to sit back and let you '02 parents dictate what you want to see.

The '01 parents are a particularly rabid bunch and during the U9 year, there was a lot of debate over ranking and ranking methods and which was "better" or more valid. Truth is, no ranking method is inherently "better". They are just different. Different points of emphasis, different strengths and weaknesses. The "BCS" was just a way to capture these different points of view and different emphasis and combine them into an average or consensus ranking. No magic beyond that.

I'll leave it up to the '02 parents to determine if they are as passionate (euphemism for "over the top") about rankings as the '01's are. If you decide to come up with another ranking system or systems, whether it's a human poll or another computer based system, and you want to combine them into an average "BCS Type" of ranking, I've offered to help as the FBR software makes it very easy to do.

But, if you are looking for someone to say that you "need to", or "should have", or "it would be better if you had", human polls and/or a BCS for the '02's... sorry, I'm not your guy. That's totally up to the '02 parents.

anothercrazysoccerdad wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

AP Pollster wrote:

WEML wrote:Why are you starting a ranking like this when one was just started that is actually based on stats? If it is going to be opinion-based then every club is going to say they should be in the top 5 and rank above other teams that have beaten them. Rankings should solely be on who you have played and the outcome of that game/season. This list is not reflective of that approach.

Because if we want the BCS rankings like the 01's we have to have a few pollsters willing to do some rankings.

bwgophers please help me out here. Please explain to the 02's how your magic works.

Well, first of all, and most importantly, I'm not here to "push" anything onto the '02's. That's why I put a poll out there to see if the '02's wanted to even see FBR rankings. Got >80% positive response, so I'll post 'em. Beyond that, I am going to sit back and let you '02 parents dictate what you want to see.

The '01 parents are a particularly rabid bunch and during the U9 year, there was a lot of debate over ranking and ranking methods and which was "better" or more valid. Truth is, no ranking method is inherently "better". They are just different. Different points of emphasis, different strengths and weaknesses. The "BCS" was just a way to capture these different points of view and different emphasis and combine them into an average or consensus ranking. No magic beyond that.

I'll leave it up to the '02 parents to determine if they are as passionate (euphemism for "over the top") about rankings as the '01's are. If you decide to come up with another ranking system or systems, whether it's a human poll or another computer based system, and you want to combine them into an average "BCS Type" of ranking, I've offered to help as the FBR software makes it very easy to do.

But, if you are looking for someone to say that you "need to", or "should have", or "it would be better if you had", human polls and/or a BCS for the '02's... sorry, I'm not your guy. That's totally up to the '02 parents.

Gophers - I thought your software rankings would incorporate a couple of human polls to get the combined BCS style rankings? If so, then you need a couple of weekly published human polls to mix in to your software? Is this correct? Roid Rage has been publishing his poll each week, and then AP Pollster could be incorporated as well? I don't know exactly how it works for the 01's.

AP Pollster wrote:This is my attempt to rank the top 30. I will rank them according to who I think would win if they played a game against each other today. This has nothing to do with the actually quality of soccer that is played by each team. If I ranked them that way than many of the top teams would make a drastic fall to the bottom of the polls (it is very sad, but true)

1. SRSA Webb
2. FCD Grubb
3. Rowdies
4. Solar Stav
5. Solar Dynamo Stark
6. DT Glotz
7. Fever FC Penn
8. DT South Adames
9. DT North Rangel
10. D'Feeters Searls
11. Solar East Barnes
12. TFC Elite Wells
13. Solar Tarrant Claros
14. Andromeda Patterson
15. DT Academy Vigil
16. FC Dallas Renfro
17. Waco Lady Blast Perez
18. Polaris Finger
19. TFC Angell
20. GSSC Thunder Wichman
21. FC Dallas West Kim
22. TFC Wells
23. Fort Worth FC Potts
24. Sting West O'Keefe
25. Dynasty SC Krzeminski

Please let me know if I made any obvious errors

redcard99 wrote:bwgophers please dont add any human polls to your computer rankings. I hear these people say we need BCS style rankings. No we dont. If they want to do human polls on the side then so be it. If you 50/50 them with yours(not good) Hell you have AP Pollster wanting to add his human ranking on what would happen if they played today not what has happened this season. That might just be the dumbest thing I have heard all year. Imagine if College Football did that. "Well we think USC would beat CAL if they played today, so we will rank USC higher even though CAL crushed them in Nov." That is a man with an agenda clearly. So please keep your poll seperate. Just the way I see it.

redcard99 wrote:bwgophers please dont add any human polls to your computer rankings. I hear these people say we need BCS style rankings. No we dont. If they want to do human polls on the side then so be it. If you 50/50 them with yours(not good) Hell you have AP Pollster wanting to add his human ranking on what would happen if they played today not what has happened this season. That might just be the dumbest thing I have heard all year. Imagine if College Football did that. "Well we think USC would beat CAL if they played today, so we will rank USC higher even though CAL crushed them in Nov." That is a man with an agenda clearly. So please keep your poll seperate. Just the way I see it.

OrangeBlooded wrote:

redcard99 wrote:bwgophers please dont add any human polls to your computer rankings. I hear these people say we need BCS style rankings. No we dont. If they want to do human polls on the side then so be it. If you 50/50 them with yours(not good) Hell you have AP Pollster wanting to add his human ranking on what would happen if they played today not what has happened this season. That might just be the dumbest thing I have heard all year. Imagine if College Football did that. "Well we think USC would beat CAL if they played today, so we will rank USC higher even though CAL crushed them in Nov." That is a man with an agenda clearly. So please keep your poll seperate. Just the way I see it.

Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. With CFB, the team roster is basically set for the entire year and if a team stinks at the beginning of the season, they will likely stink by the end. With Academy soccer, rosters can change on a monthly, if not weekly, basis and player development is at a much faster rate the a CFB player. Players move, teams develop, coaches change, etc. both during the season and in the off season. So yeah - what happened 1-2 months ago could very well be different from what would happen today. And that will continue to be the case until your girls reach U11 select.

Gophers and hobbit have done an EXCELLENT job with establishing and polishing their ranking systems. One of the biggest problems the computer rankings have run in to is how far back to go when using data. When the Spring season starts, the rankings are based on data from Fall season and tournaments played (FBR, not Power rankings which are league specific). Most teams have changed (either roster or development) since then and it takes time for those results to be weeded out - so as the season goes on the computer rankings are less "muddied" and by end of the season, the computer rankings look much more clear. Remember - they may be calculated by computers, but the "human" that sets it up determines the data to be used for the results - see earlier example that FBR uses nearly all games played regardless of league or tournament while Power Rankings only use results from a few specific leagues - call it limited subjectivity I guess.

All that being said, subjectivity in human rankings is going to bring out homerism - no doubt (and I define homerism as having favor in your DD's team, club you are affiliated with, a specific coach you like, your DD's best friends team, etc. - not just your DD's team). Human ranking are going to react more to the changes and to the more recent results - our memories are short. You could review just about every '01 ranking used for the BCS calculation and point this out - that's why 01's average all the polls submitted to help try and limit the effect of homeristic rankings - and I think you might be surprised how close this average can get to computer rankings at times. The key is that several pollsters provide commentary to support their rankings and the forum calls out the pollster when they feel something is out of whack. If someone continually comes in with an obvious agenda, they get weeded out and eventually will stop providing rankings.

gophers/mslater and hobbit do a good job of "fairly" determining criteria for their computer rankings, are open to suggestions when things look skewed, and have made "tweeks" to adjust and provide a more realisitc view. Those that have provided rankings for the "human polls" can usually own up to what they post and when all rankings are consolidated in BCS format, it's very difficult to argue with the output of where teams end up ranked.

Like gophers said though, 02's can do it any way they want - if they even care to. I'm just throwing in my .02 from how things have worked for the 01's. Best of luck to you guys and remember it's all in good fun and friendly banter.

AP Pollster wrote:OB, very well said. Thanks for making things clearer.