October 30, 2003
How Well Can Monkeys Rank Football Teams?
That is the question that Professors Mucha, Porter and undergraduate Thomas
Callaghan ask. And they find that the Monkeys do a pretty repsectable job.
This article was featured on ESPN's magazine called "The Spin."
This investigation has a short intro here,
but you really want to check out the graphics in the full article.
The inspiration comes from the odd end of season rankings that come out of the complicated
mechanism used to rank College Football, at the time of the end of season College Football
Bowl games. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that a full season of football consists of
about 11 games, with some of those games deliberately played against weaker teams. That leaves relatively few head to head games between top teams.
But does the complicated mechanisms compensate for this? Callaghan, Mucha and Porter look into it by designing a simple random mechanism to select the end of year rankings, and compare their results to the actual decisions, concentrating on a few especially interesting years.
Fun reading. Highly recommended. This might be making it's way to ESPN soon!
Posted by duke at October 30, 2003 12:25 PM