Breaking the Rule

This is a continuation of something I had published in The Sporting News a couple of years ago.

What, you ask? Simple: College football preseason polls are a sham.

Everyone knows it: You do, I do, the voters do, and yet we still have them.

So today’s rule to break is this: Failing to act when you know something’s pointless. It’s like that first date you go on and you know it’s not going to end well, but you go through the motions anyway. Seriously? Get outta there and save yourself the trouble!

Back to the sham we call “polls” in college football. I present my facts to you now. Please note that I’m basing these numbers on the USA Today Top 25 poll, as it actually counts toward the BCS standings.

Fifty-three teams received at least one vote in the preseason poll. Talk about indecisive: In last year’s final USA Today poll before bowl games screw everything up, only 39 teams had the same consideration.

For teams in the top 25 who received votes, they were given a numerical ranking based on their overall spot. For instance, Arizona received the 29th-most votes in the preseason poll, so they were ranked 29th.

Texas has fallen 12 spots and Iowa’s right behind with eight ranks in just four weeks.

There are eight ranked teams who didn’t start that way. Heck, 11 teams are more than 10 ranks away from their original ranking.

Congratulations to the four just mentioned plus Oklahoma State, Missouri, South Carolina and Arizona.

Please note that both Stanford and Arizona are in the top 15 now. What happens if one of them goes undefeated? Do they get screwed over because they started the season lower in the polls than Alabama or Ohio State?

(Auburn fans everywhere are just waiting for someone to mention 2004…)

Not-fun fact: Three teams that began the 2009 season ranked in the top ten finished unranked (Oklahoma, USC and Mississippi), and one (Cincinnati) rose to fourth from beginning unranked.

Fact is, by examining a span of four weeks, we see plenty of turnover in the polls.

That’s unfair for teams that don’t have enough preseason hype and it severely reduces a “surprise” team’s chances of winning it all, because preseason prejudice never gave them a chance.

The Harris poll has it right: Wait to publish any sort of poll.

Leave it to the gamblers to figure things out first.

To see the rest of this column, head to GCSUnade.com and see why Caleb feels poll voters are another reason college football is so messed up.

Posted by Caleb Rule on Oct 1 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.