Ranking patterns in college football's BCS selection system: How conference ties, conference tiers, and the design of BCS payouts affect voter decisions

Affiliation matrices are used to analyze ranking patterns in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 USA Today College Football Coaches’ Polls. Results evidence that votes received disproportionately stem from within conference. As a whole, coaches that share a conference give their own teams between 10.61% and 27.83% more of their votes than other coaches. Also, conferences that receive automatic bids to BCS bowls appear to band together in hopes of minimizing the BCS chances of teams from non-automatic-bid conferences. Non-automatic-bid conferences, however, do not band together to rally around non-automatic-bid teams vying for a BCS bid. Lastly, ranking discrepancies are greatest when teams are only marginally qualified for BCS bids. Implications for revisions to the BCS selection system are discussed.

► A disproportionate share of votes for football teams in the coaches’ poll originate from within conference.
► Automatic-bid conferences band together in hopes of minimizing the presence of teams from non-automatic-bid conferences in BCS bowls.
► Non-automatic-bid conferences do not band together to improve the BCS chances of their teams.
► Discrepancies are greater when conferences’ second best teams are only marginally qualified for at large bids.