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Originally Posted by BRAVESaj25bd8
Nice list. Thanks for taking the time to create it for us to discuss here.
For the people perhaps upset that they are not up there: Even if the next 26 teams who got votes are mentioned, and your team doesn't make it, spot #52 is not contested. How do you know you would not have been voted in the next spot? #52 out of 1500 is nothing to gripe over. Also, it's just a list.
As far as making FIRST more like sports, I'm not so sure that's a great idea. My reasoning: go to an NFL game. What makes you want our events to be like that? The fans there have passion just as much as us but are crude and inconsiderate. I prefer FIRST to not be like sports personally.
-Begin Rant-
In regards to the accuracy of the list, my guess is that is regionally biased somehow unless the people voting were from many different parts of the world and truly had no preference. You see it in the AP and BCS polls all the time that people are regionally biased. Of course since I attend FLR every year, I'm going to say 340, 1126, 191, 365, and all the other great teams there are awesome. I get to see them every year. My suggestion... if you want to rank teams, get computer rankings. I know a lot of people will say "but that's what is wrong with college football!" Really? Is that what you think or what you've heard ESPN say 1000 times. We're in the fields of science and technology, there must be some people out there that would be able to trust a formula carried out by a computer. In fact, go look at some statistics about computer rankings in the BCS and how often they get proven correct at the end of the bowl season. It's staggering.
-End Rant-
But seriously, nice list.
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If you examine the attached excell doc. found in thread entry #37, you will see an effort to reduce subjectivity for ratinig purposes (a simple formula but one that offers correlational suggestion for ranking based on field and Chairman's success)...granted what one makes of the data is still a subjective experience since most of us agree that there is so much more to FIRST than winning. How one interprets the excell rating depends on how much weight they think winning competitions and Chairman honors should carry in their decision to list their "top" 25. Past performance (especially recent) can provide predictive opportunity-look at how bookmakers make lines on games and over the long run predict success of given teams with enough accuracy to make billions from less analytical bettors. It certainly moves the argument away from a "popularity" based ranking system though...and don't forget that performance based data lays the foundation for any great scouting program that so many teams use to help choose alliance partners.
When all is said and done, the originating top 25 list is simply a compilation of opinions and a great spring board for discussing what may constitute a "top" team. Every student in this great organization is already part of an elite group when one considers the hundreds of thousands of high school students not involved in this movement...