Numbers have been a part of sports for as long as scores have been being kept but their use in recent decades has only grown. Advanced metrics swept across baseball and other sports have followed suit.
Some of those numbers have improved team’s performances or helped to better educate fans while others simply have not.
One that hasn’t is the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI). Like the computers that were used during the BCS days this is entirely done from a formula and not from the opinion of humans.
Here’s the thing though, this formula sucks as it was smart enough rank Alabama No. 1 this week but seemed to mess up the majority of things soon after.
Here are five reasons this week’s FPI rankings suck.