First, hell yeah! Now, the head scratching.
First, hell yeah! Now, the head scratching.
One of the six computer polls used in the complicated and often exasperating Bowl Championship Series formula for determining the ranking of big-time college football teams - and which teams play for the national championship since the NCAA stupidly and greedily won't embrace a playoff system like the smaller colleges do - has the UL Ragin' Cajuns ranked 23rd in the nation, ahead of USC and Arizona. LSU, currently No. 1 on the Associated Press poll, is ranked No. 6 while Michigan holds the top spot.
The computer ranking so favorable to the Cajuns is called Colley's Bias Free Matrix Ranking, or the Colley Matrix, which uses complex calculations that favor a team's record over other factors such as strength of schedule. It was created by a Princeton-educated astrophysicist named Dr. Wesley N. Colley. He is a very smart man.
The Cajuns currently stand at 3-1 (1-0 in Sun Belt play) and are coming off a huge win over Florida International - probably the Cajun's biggest victory since a 31-28 win over the Houston Cougars in 2006. In week three, prior to its home game against the Cajuns, FIU beat the Louisville Cardinals of the Big East Conference, one of the major conferences that get an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game at season's end. The victory earned FIU a glancing mention on ESPN "Game Day" broadcast this past Saturday.
Do the Cajuns belong in the Top 25? Probably not. Definitely premature. But this brief register on the BCS radar could/should be evidence that head coach Mark Hudspeth has this team on the right trajectory.
Read more at The Advertiser, and if you're mathematically inclined, read Colley's lengthy explanation of his ranking matrix here.