Another fake numbers problem on a topic Americans (and NYT) care about even more than world hunger

In the wake of Aid Watch's posts on made up world hunger numbers, the NYT revealed today another scandalous made up numbers problem in another area:

{The methodology} is vilified by professional mathematicians .... {which} turned {the numbers' creators} into the laughingstock of the numbers community.

It is bad enough that one analytical mathematician, the U.C. Irvine professor Hal S. Stern, has called for the statistical community to boycott participation...

{another expert said} “This isn’t a sincere effort to use math to find the answer at all. It’s clearly an effort to use math as a cover for whatever you want to do. ...It’s just nonsense math.”

{Outside evaluators} cannot {fully check the numbers}...because of lack of transparency...Three of the {numbers creators} said the {reporting agency} did not verify the numbers they turned in.

All this fury is directed at a number that Americans DO passionately care about --

college football rankings.

See the full article in the Sports section of the NYT. To my knowledge the NYT  has not run a story on the equally dubious methodology in numbers the NYT reports about areas that we readers apparently care about much less: worldwide maternal mortality, world hunger, and global poverty.