CFN Daily Roundtables
 May
20
The Preseason
Polls - When Should They Come Out?
-
May 18
No BCS, No Weis?
- May 19
Does 2008 Utah have a beef?
Over the next several weeks, as part of the CFN 2009 Preview, we'll
examine some of the key questions going into the year with a
daily discussion of the big topics.
Pete
Fiutak,
CFN
Q: Do you have a problem with the preseason polls, and when do
you think they should come out?
A: Preseason polls don't kill college football teams;
people kill college football teams.
I have absolutely no problem
with the polls coming out before the season. Heck, have them come out
five minutes after the previous season ends. Timing isn't the issue.
Florida is going to be the No. 1 team in the one preseason poll that
matters, the Coaches' Poll. Texas will almost certainly be No. 2. Fine,
no big deal. When the time comes, the Harris Poll will fall in line and
mirror whatever the Coaches' Poll is doing. The problem isn't that the
polls create the expectations and set the tone for the season, the
problem is that 1) the people voting in the polls don't watch enough or
know enough about the entire college football landscape to make an
informed decision, and 2) the voters don't stray from their initial
beliefs and they only go by what they see.
For example, Oklahoma,
along with Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State, were so amazing, the
the Big 12 South became the weekly story as last year went on. Everyone
saw the Sooner offense get hot and get rolling at a historic level, and
because of it, Sam Bradford won the Heisman and the voters went with OU
over Texas. The pollsters stopped paying attention to the Longhorns, and
how they dominated every bit as much as Oklahoma did late in the year,
but they saw the loss to Texas Tech. They also saw how the Sooners
drilled the Red Raiders.
But I digress. My problem is that if
Florida and Texas go unbeaten (assuming they really are one and two to
start the season), they will play for the national title no matter what
happens. Let's say, for example Michigan State wipes up everyone by
three touchdowns. There won't be any chance for the Spartans to break
through the top two because no one will vote down the Gators and
Longhorns as long as they keep winning. A better example might be USC,
who could beat Ohio State by two scores, roll through the Pac 10, and
not have any chance of playing for the national title if the preseason
top two teams go unscathed.
I'm going to beat a dead horse here,
but the answer to the poll problem continues to be simple. Put the six
BCS league winners in an eight-team playoff and you take the debate out
of the hands of the pollsters. They'd still have some say with the
highest ranked non-BCS champion getting in along with the highest ranked
team still remaining.
Since that's not going to happen, then do
something easier and more practical and make the voters in the Coaches'
and Harris polls prove they know something by forcing them to write why
they voted the way they did and make it public. Also make them show they
at least know who the starting quarterback is for each team they vote
for.
Richard
Cirminiello,
CFN
Q: Do you have a problem with the preseason polls, and when do
you think they should come out?
A: I generally have no issues with preseason polls because I recognize that
they’re basically for entertainment purposes only. Nothing more. Nothing
less. Most are standard fare, rarely deviating from the obvious and
always putting too much emphasis on what happened the year before. If
you want accuracy, you’re in the wrong place. Last year, for instance,
11 teams ranked in the AP preseason poll were outside the Top 25 when
the season ended.
Now, I do have a beef with the coaches’ poll
coming out before the season begins because it’s a component of the BCS
rankings, and there’s an inherent advantage to starting No. 3 compared
to, say, being No. 23. It’s a perception thing, forcing that 23rd
ranked program to go above and beyond before being allowed to climb into
the upper echelon of the poll. Of course, it’s possible but why should
anyone be forced to play catch up when
everyone begins the season
0-0? Oh, and the coaches are awful evaluators of the national landscape
during the season, let alone before any games have been played. Does
anyone really believe that Pete Carroll has a clue—or cares—how the
quarterback situation at Clemson is unfolding?
The coaches’ poll
ought to take a page out of the Harris Poll playbook and digest three or
four weeks of action before even casting votes. In the name of fair play
and equity, it just makes good common sense.
Matthew
Zemek, CFN
Q: Do you have a problem with the preseason polls, and when do
you think they should come out?
A:
I have a huge problem with them. Coaches shouldn't have a poll, for
starters--they can never watch everyone (or even half of everyone, or
even a quarter of everyone) play. As for writers, how can beat writers
assigned to individual teams or conferences survey enough national
action to merit a ballot... and be monitored during the season? They
can't. It's not their fault, but the point is that any poll voter must
watch the full 14-16 (including the late game at Hawaii, if applicable)
hours of games on every Saturday of every season, in addition to all the
weeknight games. If any individual isn't watching the full assortment of
games in all regions at all hours, that writer--no matter how wise or
accomplished--is not seeing the whole picture. Even those of us who are
generalists, not specialists, and who do take in the full range of
action every week, are not seeing every snap of every game. The people
who are best equipped to vote are not just the ones taking in the full
scope of every Saturday; they're the ones who have the resources, the
job-based mandate, the credentials, and the willpower needed to watch a
lot of film and taped feeds on Sunday and Monday, which enables them to
unfailingly see close to 100 percent of the top 20-30 teams every week.
Until polls have only those kinds of voters, the system will be flawed.
Now, to fully address the question: If any poll is held, the
rankings should not be released, in an ideal world, until after the
first college football Saturday of November. Not until a season goes
deep into the calendar--and at least the eighth or ninth game of a
schedule--can teams be evaluated somewhat fairly... and even then, there
can be problems. Texas Tech, for instance, didn't begin to play the
heavyweights on its 2008 slate until the Nov. 1 classic against Texas.
One could make the argument that poll rankings should be released even
later than the first weekend of November, but in order to give teams a
sense of what they might need to accomplish down the stretch, it appears
necessary to give them some time to digest the initial rankings, and map
a path to prominence over the final full month of the season.
Kevin Carden,
Publisher, SCPlaybook.com
Q: Do you have a problem with the preseason polls, and
when do you think they should come out?
A: While I appreciate the reason for having preseason
polls as far as the marketing aspect of it and driving fan interest, my
problem is that while they are nothing more than a projection of how
good the media thinks a given team could be on paper, they can and do
have a real impact on a team’s season.
In a preseason poll, teams are being rewarded because someone thinks
they are going to be good when they haven’t actually shown that to be
the case.
If you waited until the fourth week of the college football season to
release the polls they would be based on what a team has actually
achieved between the lines, instead of how good they were perceived to
be heading into the season. We regularly see a team that enters the
season in the Top 10 only to lose two of their first three or four
games, and stay in the Top 25, while an “unknown” team goes 4-0 against
quality opponents and is still on the outside looking in.
For a team that starts outside of the Top 25, it’s much more difficult
to work your way up the polls and could cost a school the chance at a
BCS bowl berth, which shouldn’t be the case.
The attraction of sports is you usually get to go head-to-head on the
field to determine the best team and a preseason poll is just another
example of college football judging teams like beauty contestants.
Jon Miller,
Publisher, HawkeyeNation.com
Q: Do you have a problem with the preseason polls, and when do
you think they should come out?
A:
One of my jobs is hosting a daily sports talk radio show in a state
without professional sports, so I LIVE for the preseason magazines and
polls. Give me a Fox Sports Intern's Top 25 poll in May, and I will
give you two hours of talk and phone calls. That being said, I am
beginning to believe the first poll of the year should come out in
mid-October, as far as the components of the BCS are concerned. That
would be the Coaches Poll and the computer polls. The Harris
Interactive Poll, another component of the BCS, already waits weeks into
the season before releasing its first rankings. That gives people a
chance to actually see the teams on the field versus guessing what they
are made of on paper before slotting them into a ranking. That can have
a great deal of impact on who winds up not only in the BCS bowls, but in
the title game. Teams that are ranked near the top of the poll in the
preseason can afford to have an early loss; we've seen several examples
of that. Give everyone a chance to play at least four games, ideally
six, before releasing a poll. The first four games can still be mostly
against non-conference patsies, but we will at least have an eye test to
judge. The Associated Press will not wait, so there is no way to get
this accomplished, but a man can dream, right?
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