An Economist Challenges Bowl Championship Series

Stacey Brook, an economist at the University of Iowa, has developed productivity rankings for college football teams (for both offenses and defenses) that he believes do a better job of ranking teams than does the much-debated methodology used to place teams in the Bowl Championship Series. The economist's formula uses 17 statistics, including yards gained, number of first downs, touchdown scoring percent, number of offensive plays, missed and made field goals, and turnovers. Information about the system may be found here and current rankings using this system (which differ considerably from the official rankings) may be found here.