[College Football] Preseason Coaches Poll Released

Y'all don't realize the implications of Boise State being ranked so high so early. If they beat Oregon its clear sailing into a BCS game they won't deserve.

 

Florida stands no chance against Vanderbilt this year...

 

WHERE IS UH? THIS LIST IS BULLCRAP

 

I still can't believe College Football Live analyst Andre Ware picked OU to lose 4 games this season, including the opener against BYU.

He also predicted Texas to lose 3 games.

Is he stepping out on a limb simply to receive attention, or is he just that dumb?

 

After Boise State and Utah's performances the last few years, you'd think people would stop with this.

There are *10* BCS spots, with a limit of 2 per conference. You can almost guarantee two Big12 and two SEC teams will deserve it. Outside of that, we tend to get some mediocre teams in there - there's no reason an undefeated Boise or Utah wouldn't deserve it over them.

 

Except by the end of the season - when the polls matter - the preseason polls are pretty irrelevant. Alabama went from unranked to #1 pretty quickly. As did OU in 2000, for example. Can you name a team recently that has been penalized or rewarded due to their preseason position?

 

So, I hope it's going to be UT vs. Florida for the championship. :]]

 

You must have conveniently forgotten to follow the news about Florida's offseason, and you've also "mistakingly" omitted the the OJ Mayo/ Reggie Bush investigations, as well as the Justin Chiasson situation at OU after the whole Rhett Bomar fake job situation. It's okay....I'm sure you were going to bring that up after some big shot meeting you had to attend today....

And your worthless opinion somehow took even a bigger hit when you came out and said that USC was "stacked" this season. I agree they are talented, but you OBVIOUSLY know they lost somewhere around 7 starters on defense, including their entire LB corp, right? And as others mentioned, you do realize that Matt Sanchez isn't there anymore?

Damn, bigtexxx, please stop wearing your r****dedness like a badge of courage....

 

It's amazing that Florida has their entire defensive unit returning two deep. I don't see them losing a game. I think UT will be right there with them but its hard to not pick Florida to win it all this year.

 

Oops, I mean October 3!

Usually we (Cal) have had to play USC at the end of the Pac-10 schedule when they're running on all cylinders. To get them so early after the conference games start might be helpful.

Or I could just be grasping at straws.

 

the undefeated auburn team would probably be the best example. while one can argue whether the 3 undefeated teams were ranked correctly (or that someone had to be left out), auburn was almost certainly 3rd because they were ranked somewhere around 20th when the season started and weren't going to be moved above the other 2 undefeateds.

 

And where are the god damn Aggies?! We get no respect from the national media.

 

The truth certainly stings, and brings out the worst in you. Sorry. Yep, other schools do it to, to a certain extent. Doesn't make it right.

 

Utah Utes and Texas were penalized. OU went to the championship game by virtue of their preseason ranking. I am not implying that OU was not a worthy opponent for the championship. However, when they lost to UT, OU fell a few spots from #1. So by virtue of early polling, OU came out ahead of a team who they lost to head to head who also the same record, and they are ahead of an undefeated team in the Utes. Also, Ohio State's preseason rank had a lot to do with their Sugarbowl bid validation. If Ohio State did not have such a cushion in ranking from the get go, they would not have been in an BCS bowl. These are only a couple of samples. College football is the only sport that I can think of which has this carry over effect from the previous season.

 

No they weren't. They ended up in 3rd because once everyone was looking at the 3 teams at the end of the season, Auburn was least impressive. In the final week of the season, OU obliterated their opponent in the B12 championship, while Auburn struggled to beat a Tennessee team playing its 3rd string QB. The whole latter part of the season, OU looked more dominant. Auburn had its chances to move up but didn't deliver towards the end.

Not true - at the end of the season, everyone reevaluated Texas and OU, flipping them multiple times. In the end, the voters put Texas ahead - it was the computers that put OU in the title game because they faced a more difficult schedule. The computers are not influenced at all by pre-season rankings.

Utah also was not denied by preseason rankings. They were denied by schedule strength and their conference. Had their been no preseason rankings, they still wouldn't have been in the top two. They ended up ranked right around where the computers ranked them.

Who would have gone instead of Ohio State? You already had the max B12 and SEC teams. Would you have put in the second best team from the Pac10, Big East, or ACC over Ohio State? Your choices over 10-2 Ohio State (with both losses being to top 10 teams) would have been 9-3 Georgia Tech, 9-3 Oregon, or 9-3 Michigan State. The computer rankings - unbiased by preseason rankings - put Ohio State above any of those teams. And Ohio State was benefitted by a much bigger fan base and TV interest. Remember, those BCS games are picked due to those kinds of things rather than rankings.

None of these examples would have changed without preseason polls.

 

Back to the argument at hand tho, why do you opine that PREseason polls are irrelevant? Wouldn't you be able to phantom that to give value, or position, if you will, to an unplayed season from nil, is oxymoronic? Guessing is one thing, it's another to actually rank the guessing instead of actual performance.

And I argue that preseason polls are not irrelevant. Take this hypothetical case for example:

There are 2 teams. Team A and Team B. Team A beats team C by a margin of 14. Team B beats Team C by a margin of 24. How would you rank the teams? Well, with a preseason poll, either one of them could be ranked above the other. If Team A was named OU and Team B was named Fresno State, I'm sure you can figure out the effects of a preseason polls from the outset. But whatever.

 

My ranking of teams would be based mostly on the other 33 or so games played by teams A, B, and C as opposed to just those 2 games.

I'm assuming you're arguing that people would give OU the benefit of the doubt over Fresno State because of who they are. Do you think, if there was no preseason poll, polls wouldn't give them that same benefit of the doubt 6 or 8 or 10 weeks later?

 

No? I think it's pretty much worthless, but that has nothing to do with whether it's an oxymoron. Based on past performance and recruiting, you can come up with educated guesses on how a team will perform. The only time that polls matter is the end of the season, and at that point, there's enough data that the preseason ranks don't matter anymore.

Except all rankings are educated guesses in college football because not everyone plays each other. Ranking Florida over OU and Texas after 12 games was still a guess because Florida hadn't played with of the other teams. You had more data, as opposed to 0-0, but all those teams went 11-1, so it was still guesswork.

 

God there are some grade A tool bags on this board.