These rankings would be considered rank in Westwood
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According to ratings guru Jeff Sagarin, a 1970 MIT mathematics graduate, USC is the No.1 team this week in college football and UCLA is the No. 2 team all-time in college basketball.
Well, of course, who needs a computer to figure that out ... what?
Based on his ratings, you might suspect Sagarin graduated from Kentucky with a law degree from USC.
Sagarin is an important man in numbers-crunching circles. His ratings, published weekly in USA Today, are one of six used in the Bowl Championship Series standings formula to determine the top two teams in college football.
Sagarin was recently commissioned by ESPN to rate the top college basketball programs of all time and this is the top 10 his computer gurgled out:
Kentucky, UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois (Illinois??), Duke, Purdue, Ohio State, Iowa.
That’s right, UCLA is No. 2 and five of the top 10 schools are from the Big Ten.
Sporting News national basketball writer Mike DeCourcy sums up his problems with Sagarin in this post.
One that jumps out: Sagarin has Northwestern at No. 77 (out of 330) even though the school has never qualified for the NCAA Tournament. I guess you pick up power points losing all those years to Indiana?
Sagarin’s football ratings this week are equally strange, as he has USC at No.1 despite the Trojans’ loss to unranked Washington.
Sagarin actually keeps two sets of ratings. He had to drop the margin of victory component to remain in the BCS formula, so his BCS top five this week is different. In those ratings, LSU is No.1, USC is No. 4, Florida is No. 10 and Texas is No. 16.
See, it all makes perfect sense.
-- Chris Dufresne
