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11/3/08
AP Top 25 College Football Rankings Week 10: Picking On The Pollsters
That Crazy Jon Wilner... He's At It Again. Not Sure What He Does On Saturdays, But Watching Football Isn't It
Our weekly college football feature where we take a look at each of the Associated Press ballots. Our mission is to hold these "experts" accountable, in hopes of improving the AP Poll in some small way. We'll be calling out all those writers who show far too much homerism to the team they cover. We'll point out those we don't think watched a single game, and those ballots that simply don't make any sense. And, occasionally we might even give someone a pat on the back when credit is due.

As CF said a couple weeks ago, it matters less, now that the BCS polls are out, but FanIQ was invented with the idea of taking on the experts, and calling them out on their "expertise," or lack thereof.

Check out all of the results here, in case you're curious and want to check it out for yourself.

The rankings are starting to become clearer by the week, so there aren't a ton of glaring discrepancies, like we saw earlier in the year with ridiculous overreactions to single games, but there are a few that stand out.

Jon Wilner - This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, but the SEC's biggest fan has  Florida ranked #1. While I'm not doubting the idea that Florida might be the best team in the country, the fact remains that they have lost a game. That alone removes them from #1 contention, when there are 3 other big-time schools with an unblemished record. Wilner also has Texas at #2 and Texas Tech at #5, despite the fact that Tech is still undefeated, and JUST beat the Longhorns. Again, Texas MIGHT be a better team, but isn't it really about what happens on the field, as well? One thing I commend him on, however, is his placement of Penn State all the way down at #6. I'm still not sold on the Nittany Lions, and their one tough win (at Ohio State) was against a team that was overrated from the beginning.

It's also a bit curious to see how many voters allowed Oklahoma to jump over Texas this week, by virtue of Texas' loss to Texas Tech. Didn't the Sooners lose to Texas only a few short weeks ago? I understand letting them make the jump if they beat Texas Tech, but right now is too soon. You're on notice, Jon Johnson, Ray Ratto, Robbie Andreu, Ferd Lewis, et al. Far more voters did this than I would have thought.

The ever-questionable Maurice Patton has quite the interesting rankings. He has Alabama at #1, which is reasonable enough. But in the  #2 slot is Oklahoma. Not Texas, who beat the Sooners a few weeks ago, or Texas Tech, who beat Texas and still are undefeated. Can someone please name a big team that Oklahoma has beaten, whom Texas hasn't? He also still has Missouri all the way up at #10, even though they've looked terrible ever since their loss to Oklahoma State.

CBS' Tom Hart has Utah all the way up at #7, higher than all other pollsters. Even Jason Franchuk, who writes for the Provost Daily Herald (that's in Utah) doesn't have them that high. Seriously... Utah above Oklahoma State and USC? I'm not sure how anyone can reasonably justify that, when a teams best win is a 3-point squeaker against Oregon State.

Next week's matchups will eliminate some more teams from the mess. The Texas Tech-Oklahoma State game will mix up the top 10 a little bit no matter who wins, and TCU-Utah will get rid of one of the non-BCS conference pretenders. Alabama will also receive their first big test in a while, when they play at LSU. The season is heading into the home stretch, and there are still a ton of great games, especially in the Big 12 and the SEC.
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245 days ago
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I have no idea how these guys do this and keep getting away with it. How Wilner can rank Texas ahead of Tech seriously makes you wonder if he watches these games. I guess not.

Somehow, i picture most of these guys half-drunk filling their picks out on Saturday night.
 
245 days ago
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Most of these guys don't even watch 3/4 of the games.  The look at the final scores and some stats and thats about it. 
They see that OU smoked a weak NEB team by scoring the most ever.  That still shouldn't vault the Sooners over the Longhorns.
PSU as usual gets the shaft because of the stigma left by OSU for the last 2 seasons.  They did beat OSU at the HorseShoe, which has only been done 3 times in the last 7 years.  Everyone wants to talk about strength of schedule, PSU is #68, yet Bama is #58.  Not much difference there.
Overall I still think TX is a better football team.  I can imagine it is hard to maintain the same intensity week after week after week.  No one in the nation plays a harder schedule.
FLA is proving that they are a great team, but they have a loss to an unranked oppenent.  Sorry but that is going to be hard to get over, no matter how much they run up the score.
 
245 days ago
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fscrig75 wrote:
Most of these guys don't even watch 3/4 of the games.  The look at the final scores and some stats and thats about it. 
They see that OU smoked a weak NEB team by scoring the most ever.  That still shouldn't vault the Sooners over the Longhorns.
PSU as usual gets the shaft because of the stigma left by OSU for the last 2 seasons.  They did beat OSU at the HorseShoe, which has only been done 3 times in the last 7 years.  Everyone wants to talk about strength of schedule, PSU is #68, yet Bama is #58.  Not much difference there.
Overall I still think TX is a better football team.  I can imagine it is hard to maintain the same intensity week after week after week.  No one in the nation plays a harder schedule.
FLA is proving that they are a great team, but they have a loss to an unranked oppenent.  Sorry but that is going to be hard to get over, no matter how much they run up the score.
Have you seen the guys on the Harris poll? Man, what a joke. At least the AP doesn't determine anything in the BCS, but the Harris poll does. It's a total nightmare.
 
245 days ago
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(Edited 11/03/08 1:50PM by jeopardytempest)
Sorry, but polls, and college football in general, is about figuring out who the best team is... not who won which games.

I tend to agree undefeated teams go above 1 loss teams, and do also kind of agree that if one team beats another with the same record, they should be rated higher (though their surrounding schedules obviously matter too).
But if some people think that Florida or Texas could beat Penn State or Alabama or Texas Tech more times than not on a neutral field, then they are entitled to that opinion.

Teams are more than wins and losses, stats and numbers.  Some teams just look better than others.
That is, after all, why we have human polls, isn't it?

The outliers of strange rankings have no real impact and will work out over time...
 
 
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