dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaRandom Walker Ranking for NCAA Division I-A Football
| Authors | Thomas Callaghan, Peter J. Mucha, Mason A. Porter |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0310148 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0310148 |
| Journal | American Mathematical Monthly 114, 761-777 (2007) |
Abstract
Each December, college football fans and pundits across America debate which two teams should meet in the NCAA Division I-A National Championship game. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings employed to select the teams invited to this game are intended to provide an unequivocal #1 v. #2 game for the championship; however, this selection process has itself been highly controversial in recent years. The computer algorithms that constitute one part of the BCS standings often act as lightning rods for the controversy, in part because they are inadequately explained to the public. We present an alternative algorithm that is simply explained yet remains effective at ranking the best teams. We define a ranking in terms of biased random walkers on the graph formed by the schedule of games played, with two teams (vertices) connected by an edge if they played each other. Each random walker moves from team to team by selecting a game and "voting" for its winner with probability p, tracing out a never-ending path motivated by the "my team beat your team" argument. We study the statistical properties of a collection of such walkers, relate the rankings to the community structure of the underlying network, and demonstrate the results for recent NCAA Division I-A seasons. We also discuss the algorithm's asymptotic behavior, illustrated with some analytically tractable cases for round-robin tournaments, and discuss possible generalizations.
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"abstract": "Each December, college football fans and pundits across America debate which\ntwo teams should meet in the NCAA Division I-A National Championship game. The\nBowl Championship Series (BCS) standings employed to select the teams invited\nto this game are intended to provide an unequivocal #1 v. #2 game for the\nchampionship; however, this selection process has itself been highly\ncontroversial in recent years. The computer algorithms that constitute one part\nof the BCS standings often act as lightning rods for the controversy, in part\nbecause they are inadequately explained to the public. We present an\nalternative algorithm that is simply explained yet remains effective at ranking\nthe best teams. We define a ranking in terms of biased random walkers on the\ngraph formed by the schedule of games played, with two teams (vertices)\nconnected by an edge if they played each other. Each random walker moves from\nteam to team by selecting a game and \"voting\" for its winner with probability\np, tracing out a never-ending path motivated by the \"my team beat your team\"\nargument. We study the statistical properties of a collection of such walkers,\nrelate the rankings to the community structure of the underlying network, and\ndemonstrate the results for recent NCAA Division I-A seasons. We also discuss\nthe algorithm\u0027s asymptotic behavior, illustrated with some analytically\ntractable cases for round-robin tournaments, and discuss possible\ngeneralizations.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0310148",
"authors": [
"Thomas Callaghan",
"Peter J. Mucha",
"Mason A. Porter"
],
"categories": [
"physics.pop-ph",
"cond-mat.stat-mech",
"physics.data-an"
],
"journal_ref": "American Mathematical Monthly 114, 761-777 (2007)",
"title": "Random Walker Ranking for NCAA Division I-A Football",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0310148"
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