Stuff You Should Know - How are college football rankings determined?

Episode Date: September 2, 2010

Established in 1998 as a way to determine college football rankings, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is a complex statistical system. In this episode, Josh and Chuck tackle the complex variables -- and math! -- behind the BCS rankings. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes the stuff you should know, the college football edition. Yes, our first sportscast ever. Let's think. We've never done it, dude. Really? Yeah, because I've always kind of wanted to,

but then I thought we'd be, you know, excluding anyone who's not a sports fan. But we get a lot of sports fans who say you should do this. We'll throw them a bone here. Seems like we need some sort of heraldry, like... I could keep going. I so wanted to sing Final Countdown. I was literally like stopping myself. Well, now we have to pay a royalty since you named that tune, buddy. Nah. Oh, but before we get started, let's plug fest our college tour. Yeah, we're going to do, it's not exactly a college tour, but it's just a trivia tour. It's a national tour. But there's colleges in these places where we're going. Yeah, we're going to do anywhere between five and seven cities, winding up in Austin, as far as I

know. And we're kicking it off October 13th, which is the Wednesday, in Atlanta, GA, which is just down the street. We're actually in it right now. Some would argue we kicked it off in New York. Yeah, you could definitely make that case. And New York brought the goods to Atlanta, so... I wonder if Atlanta will bring goods similar to New York. I hope so. And I'm talking to YouTube Birmingham and Chattanooga. Well, definitely. And what else is close? Charlotte's not too far off. Asheville's three hours. Asheville's got no excuse. And we're not coming to Asheville, so this is your chance. Well, that's the beauty about the Southeast. Just go to Atlanta and everybody drives. You just know you have to drive if you're

in the Southeast. Yeah, sure. Nobody from Florida is welcome, though. You'll be turned away at the door. So, yeah, that's going to be October 13th, which is a Wednesday. I'm almost positive it's going to be at Five Seasons Brewery Brewing Company on the west side. It's a cool scene there up on the roof. Yeah, we'll be throwing more details up on Twitter and our Facebook fan page, stuff you should know. And our Twitter feed is SYSKpodcast in case you want to follow us. And Chuck, I guess it's time we should get to football rankings, right? Yeah. This one, we should just go ahead and say that the article for this 100 website is a little out of date and college football and the BCS is ever-changing. So, I kind of expected that it wouldn't be really up to date. It's changed a lot

over the past six years. It's changed a lot over the past six minutes. Yeah, it has actually. We're going to do our best here. Not only that, if you thought the Quantum Suicide podcast was hard to follow, but get a pen and piece of paper out right now because there's going to be some detailed equations and afterward there will be a quiz. Chuck, I tend normally to lean more toward AP, the Associated Press, over USA Today for accuracy and reporting, right? Yeah. But I looked at the NCAA football rankings today preseason. Uh-huh. And I saw that USA Today has Georgia ranked 21, whereas AP has Georgia ranked 23. So, I'm leaning toward USA Today's reporting today. Yeah, they both have tech ranked higher, too. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Let tech get in the

number one spot and then come Thanksgiving. We'll knock them out of it. We'll see. It's one of the great joys in my life when we have a terrible season. But we may have a good season. It remains to be seen. I can't say anything. I don't even know who our starting quarterback's going to be. Is it Erin Murray? Yeah, it's Erin Murray. Ann Murray? Ann Murray. Erin Murray is like, try to catch me now. I wonder where she'd been. I think she's been in the same place for several years. Athens? No. No. Is she dead? I think so. Oh, jeez. We should probably look that up, too. Ann Murray, if you're not dead, we apologize. We have greatly exaggerated your, uh, lifeness. So, Chuck, before the BCS, right? Yeah. There was this great line

in a John Travolta movie, and I can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth. Where? But why are you so weird? Is that it? That's my impression. No, the, um, that movie was Michael, I think it was, where he played like a kind of down-to-earth angel who liked drugs and boozing and womanizing. I saw that. You saw it. Okay. So it was like kind of a cute movie, but there was one thing that he said that I've always thought was very clever was that he told somebody in that movie that he invented lines. And before then, people were just standing around like bumping into each other and didn't know what to do. That's funny. So I kind of have the same impression of college football seasons and their end, pre-BCS. Everybody's kind of bumping into everybody

else. There was a distinct possibility that you had a number of teams claiming the number one spot and no way to resolve that. And, you know, we humans are very much into saying you are clearly number one. And the BCS, while it had a rocky start at first, has kind of fulfilled that spot, right? It's got a pretty good record the last six or 10 years, right? Well, according to the BCS. And ESPN. Yeah. Well, we might as well go ahead and say the BCS claims that in the 12 years, since it's been around, they are 12 for 12, according to their formulas. And they are 9 for 12, according to like coach's polls, as far as matching up the two best teams to play for the national title. Right. And previous to that, like you said,

for decades, teams played each other in ball games and then sportswriters voted on a national champion, which is made up. It's beyond ridiculous. If you think the BCS is ridiculous, that's even more ridiculous. Yeah. And well, let's talk about how the BCS is calculated, right? Well, what are the BCS? There's five games. Before, there were 25 ball games. Is that correct? There are 29 games aside from the BCS games. Before or now? Now there's 29 excluding the BCS games. Okay. But before, I understand that there were like 25 ball games. Okay. And they were all important. Right. Because there was no BCS. Well, important to varying degrees. Right. But it's almost like playing musical chairs with eight kids, but with nine

chairs, you know? Yeah. So the BCS comes in and says, hey, we're going to make sure that a clear winner is established. And we're going to do so by establishing that we're going to say these ball games are actually the important ones, right? And they are what? They are the sugar bowl, the rose bowl, the orange bowl and the fiesta bowl. And they all have different sponsors that kind of change year in and year out. And we're not paid by any of them. So we're not going to mention, huh? Well, three of the four of these in this article are wrong. That's how much they've changed. Wow. You know? Yeah. I think Tostitos is the only one that's still actively sponsoring the fiesta bowl. Right. And there's big money involved in these things, right? There's payouts

that go directly to the schools involved and then also to their conferences, right? Right. Yeah. Should we break that down? Let's do it. How that works. Yeah. Last year, the payout for the national title game was $17 million per team. So 30, what is that, four? 34 million bucks. But the team doesn't get all of that. It is split. You get a participation fee. And then after the participation fee is taken out, the rest of the money is split among all the teams in the conference. Right. So the SEC is loaded with talent. They send, let's say, eight teams to bowls. So that's a lot of money coming to schools like Vanderbilt in Kentucky that may not go to a bowl. So they love it. I think I probably already know the answer

to this, right? But are you one of those people who, when George is not in a game, you still root for the SEC? I root for all SEC teams except for Florida. Thank you. And boy, Tennessee is tough for me to get behind. I have trouble rooting for Tennessee as well. But if it was like Tennessee versus USC, I would certainly root for Tennessee. But I can never root for Florida no matter what happens. No, I can't either, Chuck. And I'm glad to hear you say that. I also have trouble rooting for tech. Some people are like, well, it's a Georgia team. So if George is not playing, then I root for tech. And I'm like, you're a communist. I don't root for tech. They're sort of neutral. Like I root for their basketball team because

I liked them back in the day, but not for football. Gotcha. And my brother works there. So I got to keep it on the, you know, up and up. That's very nice of you. Yeah. Keep it in the family. Yeah. So Chuck, what should we talk about next? Well, the BCS is not a body. It's an event which consisted of these football games and is managed by the bowl, the BCS, subdivision conferences. And these are the big boys. Right. But don't you get the, and I was surprised to hear this. There's an ESPN article that you sent me giving it background. Yeah. Background of the BCS. And it said like a 2010 or 2009 poll showed 73% of NCAA coaches favor keeping the BCS in place over a playoff, right? Yeah. That kind of flies in the face of information

that I've had like anecdotally, you know? I mean, I don't, I've never asked Mark Rick, you know, on the spot, but I get the impression that there's a lot more people that want playoffs than don't. Well, fans for sure. Definitely. And that the BCS is something of an entity. Yeah. And it's not just, you know, this, this panel that's, you know, created by this democracy. Right. That it's more like an iron fist. And if you don't like it, though, you'll be crushed. Is that not the case? Well, they say they're not entity, but I bet they have an office. I'll bet they do, too. I bet people work there. And I'll bet there's desks. Iron desks. There are iron fists. I should know, though. I did say that the BCS conferences were who make

up this, this body. We also have to include Notre Dame in there because they actually get to vote. Although you don't include Notre Dame as much as you used to. No, I mean, they're still in there, though. They get their participation included as an independent. As does Army and Navy, which is interesting, too. Yeah. Notre Dame gets three votes and Army and Navy get one each, right? Well, that's votes for those are nominations for the Harris Interactive football poll. Okay. This is going to be all over the place. It is, but it's okay. We're making sense so far. I mean, the BCS came around in 98. It established that there's five bowls. We send the bowls, right?

Well, yeah. Four plus the national title game. Right. And it's not just like, okay, here's the rankings and then the season's over. So one versus two, you go play. Two versus three, you go play. Three versus four versus five. It doesn't happen like that, but that's kind of counterintuitive until you realize that the BCS algorithm is the most complex algorithm ever created by man. And it's actually composed of a number of different algorithms spitting out numbers, and then those numbers are factored in. Yeah. So I think, Chuck, we put it off long enough and we can't any longer. Let's talk mathematics and statistics, okay? Yes. You're going to have to explain some of this, but because math is not my strong suit. Well, talk about the subjective

polls. How about that? I was told there would be no math. I'll try to handle the math as best as possible, but it's going to be like that one kind of breathalyzer that I thought I understood. Well, things have changed, Josh, since 1998. It was originally the BCS was set up a certain way, and then in 2002 and 2004, a lot of changes took place. It used to be four factors that weighed into the BCS ranking, and now there are only three factors. The AP, I'm sorry, the USA Today coaches poll. Right. The AP poll was replaced before the 2004 season, I think, by the Harris Interactive poll. Right. And then the last third is a very complex computer ranking system. An average of six computer rankings are averaged, and that is the last 33 and a third percent.

Right. And these computer rankings are basically independent groups or people who say, yeah, we're following football and we have a pretty good algorithm, and here's our contribution. There used to be, I think, eight. Yeah. And now there's six. So you've got guys like Richard Billingsley, who's just a businessman. Yeah, I love it. And apparently likes to come up with college rankings in a spare time. They're statisticians and mathematicians, right? And businessmen. And businessmen. Yeah. So weird. It is weird. Maybe his business is accounting, but so they'll take into account, for example, the Billingsley report uses the strength of the opponent, final score, and the win-lose records of the teams before and after the game, right?

Yeah. Combine all these together and you create a numerical value. Right. Right. Some other people or some other computer rankings systems like, who else is there, Seattle Times, which is run by a guy named Jeff Anderson, who's a political science graduate student or was. Wow. Now I guess he's just a political scientist. Yeah. And Chris Hester, who's a sports writer. And these two get together and they take quality of opponent and strength of schedule. Right. The problem is, Chuck, is you can't just go, yeah, Boise State's doing pretty good. So we're going to give them a five for strength of schedule or strength of opponent or quality of opponent, that kind of thing. What they have to take into account are wide factors like, let's say you win.

Yay. It's not just good enough that you're going to win. Right. Who exactly did you beat? And how do you quantify who you beat? Well, you say. And where'd you play? Right. So we have to look at your, not only your opponent's schedule. Right. But your opponent's opponent's schedule. Yeah. And then you put numerical values onto those. Right. Right. The win loss. Yeah. And then you calculate that and you come up with another numerical value. That's called strength of schedule. Right. And to get down to the nitty gritty, the strength of schedule is calculated like this. You've got your opponent's schedule. Yeah. So Chuck, you play Boise State. Boise State's been doing pretty good. I'm not playing there, dude. So you won't catch me on a blue football field? Well,

they came and visited you. Okay. But you beat them. As I would. Between the hedges. So you've got two times SO. And SO is your opponent's schedule. Boise State's schedule. Yeah. You've got two times that. Plus, Boise State's opponent's schedules. All of them. Right. Calculated to wins and losses. Right. So it's two times your opponent's schedule. Plus, Boise State's opponent's schedules equals strength of schedule. Okay. That's just one component in some computer rankings. Yeah. And strength of schedule, I think, used to be a standalone component, but now it's just factored in with the rest. And they also threw out the margin of victory. That used to be a factor as well. But they, you know, remember that was a big deal when coaches were running up the score.

Florida would try and put like 60 points on a team, you know, against like Louisiana Lafayette. And they were like, you know what? That's not really too cool. That really shouldn't factor in. So that was thrown out. Right. The Scripps Howard poll, which I don't think is used any longer, used to have a penalty actually for running up the score before it was thrown out. Yeah. Part of their computer ranking was if you ran up the score, you were penalized. Which is good. Because guys like Steve Spurger used to need to be held in check. Now he's holding himself in check. Look at you. That's good. So is that all for the computer ranking third? Or you still got something on that? No, I think I'm good. Okay. Then you have, like I said, one third is the USA Today

coaches poll. And that is literally coaches voting. Not all of them always vote. I think there's 114 potential votes, but there may be 106 people vote one week. I remember Steve Spurger got some criticism at one point because like he failed to vote and like some really important week a couple of years back or something like that. And he explained that he did and his assistant lost the vote or something like that. I can't remember what it was. But that is factored in as well. They still don't divide by the same number, you know, they'll factor it down. By the number of votes, not the number of possible votes. Yes. Okay. To make it more accurate. I've also heard accusations that in coaches polls,

specifically, they have their kids vote sometimes like they just can't be bothered to vote. So they'll just be like, fill this out for me. Will you? Because they know their kid watch some games or whatever. And that that's why human polls are so fallible that a lot of coaches don't vote and the coaches that appear to a vote haven't necessarily voted themselves. And even if they have, they're not completely informed because the TCU horned frogs. I like frogs. And that's how it ends up. Yes. Well, that's how TCU ended up in the top 25 ever. I guess so because of Ralph Wickham. And then you have the Harris interactive poll and that, like I said, replaced the AP poll and they ranked them each week from late September to the end of the season. And I'm sorry, that has

114 participants. That was the 114 I was thinking of. Yeah. And sorry, I didn't correct you. Right. And they're not just coaches. They're former coaches, student athletes, administrators, some media. And that is where Notre Dame gets to say, because you get to nominate who is on this committee to vote for the interactive poll. And each conference, see, this is where Notre Dame gets away with something in my opinion, each conference gets 10 nominations and Notre Dame gets three. Army gets one and Navy gets one. Yeah. So like the big 12, 12 teams get 10 nominations. Notre Dame gets three all by themselves. Right. And Notre Dame has always gotten some sort of weird free ride for some reason. Boy, we're going to hear about it. Yeah,

but it's still, I mean, it's true. There's a lot of favoritism toward that team and I dare anybody to prove otherwise. Well, they haven't been great recently, but they are. So are they still, they're still favored. One of the most legendary teams. I guess. Just because Ronald Reagan played for you doesn't mean you're a great team in 2010, you know. Hey, you're preaching the choir, my friend. So Chuck, when you take these things together, the Harris interactive poll, the coaches poll and the computer rankings numbers that you crunch together and created one number, that's a third, a third and third. Yeah. Right. The most you can get is one, correct? Yeah. A 1.0, actually a 1.000. The lowest score, you're looking for a low score here, right? Low

score means high ranking. This is where it gets a little hinky. Is it? Sorry to steal your word, but in the article explicitly says that you want the lowest score, right? Yes. But in this other material that we've gotten from the BCS site, it looks like the higher the score, the closer to a 1.0, the higher you're ranked. Here's why I say that, Chuck. In the coaches poll, right, coaches vote from 1 to 25 and assign each team ranking in reverse order. So if you're number one, you get 25 points. If you're in 25th place, you get one point, right? Right. So you would want more points, correct? Yeah, but here's where I think it gets worked out. If I'm correct and understanding this, what happens is, let's take the Harris poll, for instance. Okay. You take the

total score of all your votes and you divide that by 2,850, which is the maximum number that anyone can receive if all 114 voting members rank that same team number one. So let's say everybody ranks Alabama number one, all 114. That they get 2,850 total points. They divide that by 2,850 and so they end up getting a one. Does that make sense? Okay. So if you got, if you divided, I guess, what, one? If you had a one and you divided that by 2,850, I see, it'd be much lower. Right. And the coaches poll is the same thing. They just divide it by 1475 because that's the maximum number. Okay. So at least I'm right in saying that the best you could possibly get from the BCS formula is a 1.0. I believe so. That's awkward. And it kind of follows that

same thing. Like you have a one and anything less would be like a 0.920 or 0.873, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah, that's exactly right. A plus B plus C divided by 3 would be 0.973. Right. Okay. All right. See, this is really confusing. It's like giving birth to a watermelon except with your head. A square Japanese watermelon, which would be even worse. Yeah. Especially if the edges were sharp. So ladies, when you're like, you know, if you're not into this, I'm not saying that not all ladies are into it, but whoever's not into college football and you poo poo it, think about how complex the system is that they've worked out. It's not just a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer, smashing each other's heads in. It's very complex. Right.

But I mean to the guys who are sitting around smashing each other's heads in with beer being drunk around them. Yeah. It's still like I'm ranked 23rd. Yeah. True. You know. Okay. So Chuck, sounds like we made it through the math part. Yeah. What else is left? Well, that's sort of it. I mean, at the end of the year, the math determines your ranking. And we should point out that the BCS ranking, which determines who plays in these BCS bowls in national title game, that doesn't start getting ranked. They don't do like preseason rankings or even early season. That starts in mid-October. Right. The preseason rankings are AP and USC today. Yeah. Right. And all sorts of other rankings. You know, there's all kinds of people that

rank. Yeah. The BCS can't conceivably start because the computer rankings have to take in like strength of schedule. Yeah. And you can't, you can't determine that until somebody has a win or a loss against them, right? Unless you're ranking by last year. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So mid-October is when the BCS rankings start to come out. And that's about halfway through the football season. So they have enough data at that point. I think that's why they wait. Gotcha. So Chuck, it used to be the NCAA Football League, the conference, the whole thing was called Division 1A. And now it's called the Football Bowl Subdivision Programs, whether you like it or not. Yeah. Exactly. Do you feel like we should have a playoff? Oh boy. I think that they should work

a playoff system into the existing system somehow. And a lot of people think that. I agree. I don't think that there should be like wild cards or anything like that, although I think you need them mathematically. But I think that you have to still place an emphasis on the regular season. And it's possible to do that with a playoff system as well. Yeah. That's one of the arguments against a playoff is that some people say that it'll render the regular season. And BCS supporters say it'll render the regular season not as important. And I don't understand that logic because you still have to play those games to get ranked high to get in the tournament. Right. Because it's not like the basketball. They're not going to include 64 football teams. Right. I mean, I've heard

different proposals from like 16 teams to like the final eight teams battle it out. Final eight teams would be fine with me. Anything. Yeah. Anything where you determine it on the football field would be fine with me because it's the only sport that it's not determined by a bracket of some sort. And one of the reasons why we may never see a playoff is that the revenue associated with bowl games has increased by like 2000% since BCS was instituted. So. Well, I think you can still work within that system. I mean, you can still call them bowl games and everything. You could just put it in the form of a bracket. Right. It would add games, which would add more money. Another reason against it, they argue is like risk of injury in their student athletes. So

they don't want to drag it on into their academic year. But come on. I mean, it's all about the dough. Yeah. It's just college athletics, but everyone knows it's about the money. Yeah. I did read a, um, I read a few arguments today, like foreign against and one writer, uh, I think he was from Slate. He calculated from his calculations. Um, he, he thinks only 17% of NCAA, uh, Division 1A teams even have a shot to compete for the national title by his calculation each year. How? Well, if you're not a BCS school, then you're kind of out the door to begin with. Okay. Like Boise State may have a chance that they run the table this year, but that's a rarity. So that takes you down to 43%. And then he says, uh, if you don't start the season ranked number 20

or higher, then you're almost mathematically eliminated. So that takes you down to 17% can even compete for the national title. Gotcha. But I also say, I mean, there's both sides to the coin there. I also say if you're, you know, uh, I'm not going to pick on Boise State because they are a good football team, but let's say you're like Colorado tech. Appalachian state who beat Michigan that what, two years ago? Remember that season opener? That was awesome. They in Michigan paid them like a million dollars to come to Michigan. They're like Michigan pound on them and that's a tough check. But teams like that, I mean, I kind of don't want to hear their argument that they should be competing because they're not big boys. They're not playing in the SEC. They're not playing

in the big 10 or the big 12. Yeah. But if you're not, then you'll never attract talent. You can never get there. It's a self-defeating system. Yeah. So I mean, it's very exclusive and elitist really. Well, the schools with the most money are the ones that get to be in it and can perpetuate that, that good program, the winning program through more and more money. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I did see another guy that said that he thought they should do like, um, I think it was a 16 team pool and the top 12 BCS schools. Like you get your automatic, if you win the SEC, you're in. If you win the big 10, you win. If you win the big 12, you're in. So after all your automatic bids, make the rest of like the last four or whatever at large bids so you can still

have the Cinderella teams in there with the possibility and, you know, I answered on the football field. If you can beat them, great. Cause Boise State beat Oklahoma a few years ago. Remember in that bowl game? Sure. Of course I remember. The, uh, the Statue of Liberty play was crazy. They pulled out of play from like the 1940s. It was beautiful. And one that was, um, I think, was it two, three years ago? It was like the greatest football season of all time. It was just all over the place. Remember, um, Missouri was like number one for a little while. There was like 20 different teams that were number one. Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting. It was like three years ago, right? Yeah. It's not very exciting. Like when you start the season,

number one, you run the table unless you go to that school. Yeah. Uh, we should mention too, though, there was one change about, um, geez, just about a month ago. Uh, the BCS announced that teams that are ineligible for postseason play are removed from the computer rankings and all six of the formulas. So basically this is like the USC rule. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause USC is on probation now. They can't, uh, play in a bowl game for the next like two years or something. And so they said, well, we can't factor them in if they're the number eight ranked team, if they can't even play in the postseason. Right. But not only that, if you're not eligible, I got the impression like once you've reached, once it's statistically impossible for you to be eligible through your

losses, right? They start taking you out of the rankings and everybody below you goes up one rank. No, I think if you, I think that means if you're ineligible from like crime, yeah, from, from being a band from postseason play, pretty sure. And as far as the coat, the, the human polls go, uh, they said earlier this summer that the polls will not include teams that are prohibited, uh, from the NCA. So they, they went the same route. Right. Well, but by USC. And there is the BCS. We could rerecord this in probably 20, 30 minutes and, um, it would be entirely different. Yeah. Um, if you want to know more about the BCS, you should probably go to BCS.com. There's a handy search bar there, I'm sure. And just give us a little while to get this article up to snuff. Okay. Yeah, we

probably got something wrong here and there too. I was hoping we talked fast enough that we're no one noticed. I have them in my head. Uh, my friend Scott Galvin, um, with his arms crossed, just like shaking his head. He's in the sound booth right behind you. I could feel it actually. All right. Well, uh, thanks for listening to me and Chuck talk about college football. Um, for whatever reason you want to, you should go to howstuffworks.com. There's a handy search bar there. Make something up and type it in and it will take you to a beautiful new place. Just spell it correctly or else it won't take you anywhere. Right. Yeah. Um, that brings us then, I guess, to listener mail. Yes, Josh, this is going to be a two parter because it's long. We

heard from a prisoner, uh, about our prison email and he gave us lots of good stuff and I told him I was going to read it. It's anonymous because he is a straight shooter now. He's on the level doing very good in his, uh, profession. He's square. A square and nobody in his profession knows that he was arrested for dealing math. And so, uh, he wants to keep it that way. Does he work here? Yes, he does. It's Jonathan Strickland. Uh, guys, I was arrested in the mid nineties for selling an ounce of meth to an undercover narc in Nevada. I was set up by a friend who had gotten arrested on a similar charge, decided that he would snitch, rollover, and, uh, some, uh, some people so they would get probation. Unfortunately, under Nevada zero tolerance policy, I, uh, had no

priors. I was 22 and I was looking at 25 to life for my first offense. Did he include, uh, in there or was that you? That was me. Okay. To make it long story short, I jumped Bale, ran to Oregon and lived on the land for three years. This dude is the real deal. This sounds like hippie rob. It is not hippie rob. Uh, he got tired of living life on the land, obviously, hired a lawyer, turned himself in like a good guy and managed to get the, the charges dropped to level two trafficking, entered a plea deal and the long, uh, long story short, he was in for, I think three years. Uh, and I just have a couple of prison tidbits on this end and then we'll do the next part in the next podcast. Okay. He was not in a new prison that had the courage to keep track of commissary accounts.

They were given paper slips sort of like at a sushi restaurant and we would turn them in once or twice a week. We would pick up our order in the next day or so. Items available were, uh, personal hygiene items, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo. If you could not buy your own, you could get the state issued stuff, but that stuff was absolute garbage. And I should mention too, we got another email from someone that said that Bob Barker's company just looking that up makes prison soap. Yeah. Is that true? I'm looking it up as well. Hopefully at the end of this, you'll know because that would be really weird. Get your pets fated and neutered and I will make your prison soap for you. Uh, cigarettes were available, both packs of cigarettes like Camel and Marlboro,

as well as loose tobacco and rolling papers. Packs of cigarettes were called tailors, short for tailor made. They're expensive and out of reach for most inmates, uh, financially. Having tailors was a status symbol and their rarity made them great bargaining chips. Interestingly, most gray market trading, he reserves a term black market for contraband, were items purchased out of the commissary. Uh, things you could get with purchased commissary items for trade were limited only by the creativity of the inmates. For example, a pack of cigarettes a week, you could pay somebody to iron your clothing for you. So you would always look as nice as possible for visits. If you wanted to write somebody a letter, you could

pay one of several talented artists to custom decorate your envelope with roses or balloons or whatever else you could imagine. Basically, it was like on demand, customary stationery and it was actually a high service demand in prison. Huh. So that is the end of part one. Josh, we're going to leave him hanging for part two. Okay. So check, do you want the answer about Bob Barker? Gravely. There is a guy named Bob Barker who makes prison toiletries. But he's not. Not Bob Barker of Price is Right. According to Snopes at least. Oh, okay. So, uh, thank you very much, Chuck, for part one. I myself am very excited about part two and I'm glad I don't have to wait until next Thursday to hear it. I get to hear it in about 30, 40 minutes.

Exactly. Uh, if you want to send us an email about Bob Barker, your favorite college football team, or your mom's home cooking, we want to hear about it. Send it to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Want more how stuff works? Check out our blogs on the howstuffworks.com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jackmove or being

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