User Created Stats Database
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by user Mcberry
One of the problems with the combination of my computer engineering degree and my love for college football is that I have some strange fascination with computer ranking systems. For years now I have been toying around with creating my own algorithms to see how they stack up against the human polls, as well as other computer polls.
The main issue I run into, however, is lack of good data to test my algorithms against. As of this writing, I have been unable to find a free database of college football statistics readily available to me in a simple to use, XML format. Ultimately, this means my sample sizes are small as I don't have the time to hand enter data, nor the inclination to parse the data from espn, sportsline, and the like.
Although Armchair GM isn't exactly set up for this, I propose some pages be made with a common format, easily accessible and free of charge. A set of necessary statistics should be compiled and data can be entered by affiliates of various teams out there.
I envision a poll made based on the computer generated polls of algorithmists across the country. Unfortunately there isn't huge crossover between computer engineers, like myself, and sports fans. There are others out there, though, and given easy, free access of data there is no reason why we can't come up with computer rankings better than those currently used today.
