 Econometric tests of American college football's conventional wisdomApplied Economics, 2011, vol. 43, issue 20, 2493-2518 Abstract: College football fans, coaches and observers have adopted a set of beliefs about how college football poll voters behave. I document three pieces of conventional wisdom in college football regarding the timing of wins and losses, the value of playing strong opponents and the value of winning by wide margins. Using a unique data set with 25 years of Associated Press (AP) poll results, I use a hedonic regression to test college football's conventional wisdom. In particular, I test (1) whether it is better to lose early or late in the season, (2) whether teams benefit from playing stronger opponents and (3) whether teams are rewarded for winning by large margins. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I find that (1) it is better to lose later in the season than earlier, (2) AP voters do not pay attention to the strength of a defeated opponent and (3) the benefit of winning by a large margin is negligible. I conclude by noting how these results inform debates about a potential playoff in college football. Date: 2011 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:43:y:2011:i:20:p:2493-2518 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/00036840903286331 Access Statistics for this article Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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