A Comparison of Potential Playoff Systems for NCAA I-A Football

This article discusses the properties of various knockout tournament designs and presents theoretical results. Potential playoff schemes for Division I-A football are examined via simulation studies. Several metrics are used to assess the relative merits of playoff scenarios, which differ in number,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American statistician Vol. 60; no. 2; pp. 151 - 157
Main Authors Annis, David H, Wu, Samuel S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Alexandria, VA Taylor & Francis 01.05.2006
American Statistical Association
Subjects
Approximation
Basketball
College athletics
College football
Exact sciences and technology
Experimental design
Favoritism
Football
Games
General topics
Mathematics
Modeling
Paired comparisons
Parametric models
Polls
Probabilities
Probability and statistics
Sciences and techniques of general use
Seeding
Simulation
Statistics
Tournament
Tournaments & championships
Paired comparisons
Paired comparison
Statistical simulation
Experimental design
Tournament
Seeding
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Summary:This article discusses the properties of various knockout tournament designs and presents theoretical results. Potential playoff schemes for Division I-A football are examined via simulation studies. Several metrics are used to assess the relative merits of playoff scenarios, which differ in number, selection, and seeding of playoff teams. Most suggest that college football would benefit from a limited playoff system. Interestingly, for the class of playoff systems examined, the number of teams influences the performance far more than does the seeding procedure.
ISSN:0003-1305
1537-2731
DOI:10.1198/000313006X107577