Question by NCAAF Fan: Has the USA today poll (Coaches) lost its mind?
Boise State still doesn’t have a 1st place vote (while they have had between 1 and 8 in the AP since the beginning fo the year) , yes I realize it is not a popular pick but when you have 59 people voting SOMEBODY has to think they are the best team…. The voters are to afraid to state their real opinions.
NC State is still not ranked and has a pretty impressive record, yes I realize the roster is not good on paper but they have beat Cincinnati worse than Oklahoma has and they followed that up with a win at Georgia Tech.
All in all the rankings are not ridiculous but they need to start reflecting how the teams are doing and not how recognizable the teams name is.
Here is the one thing that shows they are not paying attention, Houston received votes. Houston has lost both their Heisman candidate QB and their back up QB. Houston has no wins against a BCS conference team and yet some of the voters still have them ranked in the top 25 because they recognize the name. In preseason scouting (when they had time to analyze other teams more) they had a promising year ahead of them and some of the voters just pencil that in.
Long story short, I realize it is just a poll but if it counts in the BCS formula at least have the people voting pay attention. Also if they don’t have the time to pay attention (a legitimate issue with a FBS head coach) they shouldn’t be voting for something so important.
Just for note this is not just about Boise State not getting a first place vote. If you put 59 coaches in a room and you asked them off the record who is the best team, you probably would get 5 or 6 answers. Oregon, TCU, Boise State, Alabama, Ohio State, Nebraska would probably have somebody mention their name while Florida, LSU and Wisconsin might even have a coach on their side as a hunch. The polls should be opinion polls NOT political don’t stick your neck out polls.
Jimi- He was referring to the Georgia/LSU controversy that year in which LSU leap frogged Georgia in the final week of the poll due to a win over a weak opponent in the SEC championship game. Georgia’s body of work was better and they finished the season on fire after starting the season off slowly. Essentially everybody knew Georgia was the better team but LSU launched a huge media campaign and swayed southern voters to jump them from 7th in the BCS to 2nd on the last week of the BCS Poll. The season ended with the Sugar bowl massacre in which Georgia demonstrated it could/should have been in the finals and won as well.
Best answer:
Answer by Moosey Flathead
It’s a shame that the polls aren’t fair. But they are neither fair or accurate and exist mainly to sell sports magazines.
It seems that college sports refuses to admit that it is statically impossible to fairly rank teams. So, if you think you know better than the polls, you are probably right.
And if you think the polls aren’t fair, just think about what the BCS (Bogus Championship Series) has come up with in the past. That system is not a championship series at all. It is not about being fair but getting TV bucks.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
I would love to see Boise State win the national championship just to screw everything up, but truth is at this point Ohio State and Alabama are better and deserve all the votes.
There are teams with much better resumes than Boise who aren’t getting first-place votes either. Really, if you want to make that case you could bring up a half-dozen teams, at least, who could have an argument for first-place votes. I’m surprised Boise isn’t getting any though considering how many people want to kiss their @$ $ and put them in the national championship game no matter what.
I don’t know what to say about NC State or Houston. I know nothing about NC State this year and nothing about Houston past Case Keenum.
The AP and coaches poll both show the humans are idiots just like the computers. Certain teams get more votes than others. That’s the way it’s always worked. This is why Miami was ranked so high to start this season, why LSU is pretty much guaranteed to be in the preseason top 10 no matter what kind of team they really have or how they finished the season before (yeah, this year was an exception), the same is true for Florida in the top 5, why Notre Dame can go from unranked to the top 10 if they go 2-0 to start the season and no one else can, etc. I could go on with the oddities but I think the point is made.
Wolverines, I’m not a voter in the polls. I have no reason to watch Houston, NC State, or Boise for that matter. In fact, had Boise not played on Monday night to start the season, I wouldn’t know anything about them either beyond what I hear. I find it interesting you bring up Fresno in your post though, my team, who I have been reminded more than a few times on here is clearly the worst football team of all time, probably should have knocked Fresno off by 5 touchdowns yesterday, and didn’t really play a good game doing it either. So I don’t really care to watch any of these teams if I don’t feel like it. When they hand me a credential that says I can vote for one of these polls, I’ll start paying more attention to them. Until then, I’ll just say I don’t know anything about them rather than make a fool of myself saying something stupid about them.
Well, the last paragraph you wrote is why I actually favor the computers vs human votes. The polls lack objectivity. I don’t know if you have listened to some of the interviews with different coaches regarding how they feel about Boise State getting to play for a national title, but the one thing I’ve noticed in the several interviews I’ve heard is…wrapped somewhere in all the PC praises of Boise State is a lack of desire to see them play for a national title simply because nearly ALL of the coaches asked seem to think teams in their conference are superior because they play in AQ conferences. THAT is the real reason why none of these coaches vote Boise #1. The SEC coaches are the worst about it. Off the top of my head, Saban and Chizik expressed that “it’s harder to get through the SEC” sentiment. Unfortunately, the AP voters tend to think similarly to the coaches. So, they’re not afraid to say their opinion at all.
And like I’ve mentioned to you several times before, and you might not like it–the past really reflects voting in the present. This is why people vote for Houston. Houston beat a top 10 AQ team last season; people will think of them as a good team until they clearly demonstrate they aren’t one just because of those two Big 12 wins. The funny thing I’ve seen is some people HERE wanting to actually give props to Cincy for playing OU close JUST because it was OU, failing to understand that OU has got some issues this season. But they won’t give credit to Fresno State or NCSU for beating Cincy *decisively*. Why? Again, people–including coaches–don’t watch Fresno State or NCSU unless they are playing big-name teams, and they will watch OU and give OU credit because of OU’s name and history. People just now want to admit, “Okay, Texas is not that good.” Schitt, that’s been clear most of this season, before they got blown out by UCLA. Let me repeat–people, including coaches, watch Texas and OU and keep up with what they do. They DON’T watch or pay attention to Fresno State, Nevada, NCSU and Cincinnati unless they are playing big-name teams. It makes it harder for them to be 4-0 and get respect. That’s why the coaches poll is like it is.
Personally, I don’t view NCSU’s wins as impressive…but having watched them play, I think Russell Wilson is impressive and, obviously, the receivers are making the catches. The defense still needs work, which was their downfall last season. But having seen the ACC screw up for about 3-4 weeks now, I think they can finally do well enough in the ACC to go to a bowl game, at the *very* least. So, yeah, I would rank them, and, for me, they’d be ahead of some other teams like Michigan State and Penn State…would rank Nevada ahead of them. Would not have OK State or Mizzou ranked, period. About 3 out of 4 of those AQ teams are ranked off of playing nobody.
To be honest, pollsters are, at least partially, responsible for the past, what, 5 national title games being complete crap. LSU and OSU had no business playing for the title in 2007. Texas should have gone ahead of OU in 2008, but these people didn’t seem to care that OU lost to Texas. You really could argue about who should have played for the title in 2006…actually, people did argue about it a LOT. A lot of people weren’t that impressed with Texas in 2009. This is where the pollsters demonstrate fear–they are afraid to look at games week by week and say, “Hmm, okay, NOW Oregon looks like they might be better than Ohio State and Boise State…let’s move them to #2 and drop the others down a spot.” They would totally drop #2 down in favor of Oregon if it were Boise State or TCU, and I’m sure we will see Oregon jump Boise eventually if they keep winning.
Edit: Colonel Reb makes my point about teams like NCSU and Houston in his response.
Wolverine is another bitter Michigan fans who think they should vote on emotion instead of the games being played. If Ohiol State and LSU had no business being in that game who should have been in there, Michigan who Ohio State beat a few weeks before?
its all a beauty contest. boise st is gonna be screwed out of another national championship because we aren’t the popular choice.