After last week's "Separation Saturday", in which five of the nation's top 10 programs lost to unranked opponents, and this past weekend's monumental upset of #2 USC by 41 point underdog Stanford, this has been the most exciting first month of a college football season in my lifetime. I am not taking away anything from Stanford's massive victory, but was USC really the second best team in the country this season? They barely beat the University of Washington, a .500 team, last week, and beat a vastly overrated Nebraska (who was manhandled by Missouri this past Saturday) by two touchdowns. Now I know that USC has clearly been the best team in college football over the past 5 years, but it is obvious that their dynasty has come to an abrupt end with this past weekend's monumental collapse.USC is my prime example as to why preseason polls and national "experts" opinions are absolutely irrelevant until the 7th week of the season. As my favorite college football columnist, Stewart Mandel, talks about in his weekly Saturday observations, for USC, the #2 team in the country, to lose as a 41 point favorite at home against a team that has a 1-3 record and only drop to #10 in the rankings is absolutely absurd. Just 5 weeks ago, then ranked #5 Michigan lost at home to a 1-AA and completely dropped out of the poll. How can any voter justify dropping Michigan over 20 spots when they lost to the defending 1-AA champions and have USC fall 8 spots when they lost to a team that went 1-11 last year and had its backup quarterback starting the game?!?
Now I know that the BCS no longer uses the AP poll as criteria for voting, but these preseason polls leave such a bias in everyone's mind that it always gives teams that were ranked in the preseason top 25 a chance to climb back in. There are only 15 teams currently ranked in the AP 25 that started the season there, and that includes schools like Texas (who started #4 and is now #23) and Wisconsin (who started #7 and is now #18). Does a team like Tennessee, who finally came back into the top 25 after beating a "ranked" Georgia team who already lost this year? I know that I am talking about the bottom of the polls and no real team that has any national championship expectations after losing 2 games already, but what about if/when college football institutes a playoff bracket featuring let's say 16 teams? Since the current BCS formula only accounts for the USA Today poll, does a team like Cincinnati, currently ranked 17th and is currently undefeated having beaten 2 ranked teams, not make the tournament because the defending national champion Florida Gators, who already have 2 loses, are ranked 14th? I know that many people would argue the SEC is much stronger than the Big East, or if Florida played Cincinnati they would win by 5 touchdowns, but what I've learned from this season so far is that any team can beat any other team on any given Saturday, AND teams off to a great start should not be penalized because they were not ranked before ever playing a game
3 comments:
I agree that pre-season polls may not always be the most accurate polls, but theres a reason for that. No one has played yet and therefore we are simply looking at what the top analysts think about the upcoming season. As for USC still being ranked 10th, I agree, that is absolutely ridiculous. They do not, however, deserve to drop out of the top 25 (though I agree Michigan didnt deserve to either). I would like to ask who you would put in the top 25 instead? There are very few teams left undefeated and therefore it makes sense for many of the teams in there to be in there. Tennessee for example, had a rough start to their season, but are turning it around and I dont know who I would put at the 25 spot instead.
When someone starts talking about the BCS the first word that comes to everyone is corruption. It is ridiculous how the preseason polls work because a committee estimates what they believe are the teams that are going to be good, like Michigan, USC, Texas, Florida, and Louisville. The problem with those teams is that only USC is still in the top 10, but they were rank number first in the nation and now they are rank tenth. The preseason polls ridiculous only because they make it impossible for those teams that are undefeated, but they are not a power football school so they cannot climb the polls. Examples of this are Cincinnati, Arizona State, and Missouri, which all three are still undefeated, but known of them are rank in the top 10 because they were not rank in the top 25 in the preseason polls. Other problems in the past include when USC was not in the national championship, but LSU and Oklahoma were, and also Auburn was not in the championship one year after going undefeated, in the SEC no less. I believe that if it ever switched to a playoff system the teams got in to the playoffs would be based on who won their conference and not the ranking in the polls, but maybe two teams would get in that did not win their conference as the wild card, so there would be little emphasis on the polls.
I agree that the polls were a complete waste this year. However, this year's polls week to week have been out of whack since the beginning of the season. For the most part, these polls can give a fairly accurate picture of who will be the hot teams throughout the season. This year is definitely an exception but normally the top five preseason picks will more than likely finish within the top ten at the end of the season. The BCS polls have their flaws but I'm not sure the preseason is where the focus needs to be.
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