Problems with pre season polls

[cornhuskers4ever]

I understand the belief of the polls being fixed. I wonder if the pre-season polls have any effect on the BCS polls? Although the BCS rankings come out during the season, the early games and the "strength of schedule" could have something to do with it.

[huskernumerouno]

The Preseason USA Today Coaches' Poll has been released. Considering that none of the coaches could name the starting quarterbacks for half the teams they voted for, the poll has to be taken with some grain of skepticism. Unfortunately, the poll means everything, since the BCS rankings, for all the pops and whistles coming from the computers, really comes down to the two polls (the Harris being the other). So here's what it all means ...

 

Top Five Overrated Teams (remembering that the idea is to ranks teams on how good they are going into the season and not where they will end up): Virginia Tech (No. 15, should be around the 20s), Auburn (No. 11, should be around the 20s), Arizona State (No. 16, should be around 25), Florida State (No. 29, should be around 40), and Virginia (No. 38, should be around 50).

 

Top Five Underrated Teams: Penn State (No. 22, should be top 15), Boston College (No. 31, should be top 20), Michigan State (No. 40, should be 25-ish), South Carolina (No. 27, should be top 20), Ohio State (No. 3, based on how good the team is coming into the season, it should at least be No. 2).

 

Basically, four teams are in the driver's seat: Georgia (1), USC (2), Ohio State (3), and Florida (5). The winner of the Ohio State-USC game on Sept. 13 will play for the national title if it wins out, and the winner of the Florida-Georgia showdown in Jacksonville on Nov. 1 will be playing in Miami on Jan. 8 if it wins out.

 

Oklahoma is at a nice starting point at No. 5, but no matter what it does, it'll be leap-frogged by Florida or LSU (6) if either the Tigers or the Gators go unbeaten.

 

Uh, Pac-10, where are you? The league should be down/rebuilding, but be prepared for the usual East Coast Bias whining after USC was ranked No. 2, Arizona State No. 16, and Oregon No. 20. With Cal checking in at No. 32, Oregon State No. 35, UCLA at No. 48 and Arizona at No. 52, the league needs to do something splashy early for respect.

 

Here's my biggest issue. If you want to rank Georgia 1, fine. I don't agree, but no problems here. I want all the coaches who voted USC over Ohio State as the better team RIGHT NOW to explain how and in what way the Trojans are better. The receiving corps has done jack-squat, the O-line is a major question mark, Mark Sanchez is fine, but he hasn't been Matt Leinart yet, and the D-line needs retooling. The Ohio State running backs are better, the defensive back seven might be a wee bit worse than USC's, but not by much, and the special teams are better. So tell me, coaches, how is USC better than Ohio State (or Georgia or Oklahoma or Florida)?

 

Virginia Tech at No. 15 is probably getting by on reputation, while Boston College, a team with far fewer question marks than the Hokies, is ranked 31st. If the preseason rankings are supposed to be based on how good the teams are, this is one of the biggest gaffes.

Michigan at No. 24 is a good starting point considering all the concerns. However, Utah, the season-opener for the Wolverines, is at No. 28. The Aug. 30 matchup in the Big House might be the game of Week 1.

 

Michigan gets into the top 25 mostly on name recognition, while Nebraska doesn't get the same respect, checking in at No. 36.

Colorado and Oklahoma State each got one vote at No. 25. That's probably right, but there's no way these two teams should be significantly lower than UCF, Notre Dame, Kentucky and North Carolina.

Wake Forest is ranked 23rd to start the year ... and that might be too low. Even so, Demon Deacon fans have to still be pinching themselves a little bit to see their team get the preseason respect of being ranked ahead of Alabama, Florida State, Boston College, and Cal.

 

Obviously, it's still prove-it time for Illinois. Ranked 19th to start the year behind Arizona State (16), Kansas (13) and Virginia Tech (15) is a slap in the face considering what the Illini did throughout last year.

 

Max Hall and his BYU squad begin the season in a good spot to make a BCS-bowl berth a reality for the Cougars.

 

 

BYU's ranking of 17 puts it in a position for a BCS spot. All it has to do is finish 16th in the final BCS rankings and it's in. This is a decent starting point, but it's probably not as high as Cougar fans might have hoped.

 

Texas Tech at 14. Everyone is starting to buy in early.

 

Fresno State is ranked 25th. The coaches actually did a little preseason reading and are trying to get ahead of the curve here. Watch out for the Sept. 13 showdown with Wisconsin (12) in Fresno.

 

Fresno at No. 25 and Rutgers at No. 30. I'll be shocked if the Bulldogs are favored over the Scarlet Knights on Sept. 1.

 

Three first place votes for LSU?! Will someone tell those three coaches who voted the Tigers No. 1 that this isn't boxing; you're not the champion until someone knocks you off. LSU is the 2007 national champion, but it's right where it should be at No. 6 (that doesn't mean LSU won't or can't win the national title; it just means it's not the best team coming into the season).

 

Where's the one vote for Duke? Every year, as a thank you for his time there as a head coach, Steve Spurrier puts the Blue Devils 25th in his preseason poll. This either means 1) Spurrier doesn't actually fill out his ballot anymore or 2) the novelty has worn off. I'm guessing it's the first part.

 

Notre Dame is ranked 44th. Talk about having to earn your way back into everyone's good graces.

 

Alabama is 26th. Considering the way last year ended, that's a lot of respect. And it might be warranted. The Tide will get its chance to make a huge statement against Clemson (9) in Atlanta on Aug. 30.

 

Auburn (11) and Penn State (22) are sort of in the same boat with roughly the same running quarterback (Kodi Burns for Auburn and Daryll Clark for Penn State) in position battles, but Clark is the better passer. Penn State is even with the Tigers on defense and better on offense. Going into the season, this is the SEC's biggest respect ranking. The two teams should probably be flip-flopped.

 

 

copyrights anyone?

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/8402220...aches'-Poll

I never said I wrote that, I copied it from an email I received.

[General Blackshirt]

Ah, subjectivity. Make polls 100% computer generated and completely objective, and we'll be just fine. But now, this sucks.

[walksalone]

If you didn't have preseason polls, half the ding dongs at ESPN would be out of a job and we wouldn't even see Kiper or Beano till the beginning of October....

[huKSer]

If you didn't have preseason polls, half the ding dongs at ESPN would be out of a job and we wouldn't even see Kiper or Beano till the beginning of October....

Beano just rated Oatmeal as the #5 team in the country.

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

Beano just rated Oatmeal as the #5 team in the country.

 

[admo]

If you didn't have preseason polls, half the ding dongs at ESPN would be out of a job and we wouldn't even see Kiper or Beano till the beginning of October....

Beano just rated Oatmeal as the #5 team in the country.

h i l a r i o u s

[Ohio Pete]

At least one Big 12 coach agrees:

Bob boycotts coaches' poll

If you checked the fine print when USA Today released the rankings last week, you probably noticed that Stoops wasn't listed among the 61 men casting ballots in the 2008 poll. A voter for eight consecutive seasons, Stoops decided he no longer wants to be part of a process that helps select the two teams that will play for Bowl Championship Series national title next January.

 

"I have my reasons," Stoops said of his decision to drop out of the voting process.

....

Although OU won the Big 12 Conference title by defeating Missouri for a second time in 2007, several coaches still ranked the Tigers ahead of the Sooners.

 

We also discovered that the Bowden family apparently harbors some sort of grudge against Stoops or OU. Bobby Bowden voted OU 10 and Mizzou sixth. His son, Tommy Bowden, had the Sooners No. 7 and the Tigers No. 5. Both Bowdens also ranked Kansas ahead of OU, even though the Sooners became the first Big 12 school to win consecutive league titles.

 

Remember, those final votes were before OU's loss in the Fiesta Bowl.

 

And the Bowden's weren't alone; several coaches' votes made little sense to a number of schools.

 

"The biggest reason (for not voting) is that I think all the polls come out too early," Stoops said. "And they (BCS officials) have diminished the strength of schedule.

 

"There are other reasons, but I choose not to elaborate on them."

 

Some votes last season were so ridiculous and without logic that many have called for the BCS to drop the coaches' poll as one of the components used to select the title contenders.

 

If that happens, Stoops could turn out to be a coach ahead of his time.

[DCHusker]

I wonder if the pre-season polls have any effect on the BCS polls?

 

I don't think there's any doubt they do have an impact on the human components of the BCS rankings. Most coaches and writers who participate in the polls likely use the preseason polls as a starting point and move teams around accordingly week to week. Because the starting point is not based at all on performance, preseason expectation biases carry through the season. But, I think by the end of the season, most of those biases have disappeared and voters have incorporated the body of work over the course of the year as the evidence on which they're casting their ballot.

 

As far as the computer compontents of the BCS go, strength of schedule is determined by record. It has nothing to do with any of the pre-season polls, which is why the BCS rankings don't come out immediately. It takes several weeks before all the teams have a large enough record for the computer calculations to be objective with a high degree of statistical significance.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that the statistical measurements that comprise the BCS rankings are the most objective and far more accurate than human polls.