Traditional Polling Doesn’t Work

At least when it comes to deciding who’s “best”

Every comment thread in response to my resume ranking for the BlogPoll contains some comment along the lines of “How can you rank so-and-so ahead of such-and-such. Such-and-such is BETTER”.

To which I say -Bullshit.

You don’t know whose better, and you make an ass of yourself pretending you do.

Let’s go to the record. For our purposes here we will use Week 2 of the USA Today Poll from this season, so we can avoid the total situation of uncertainty that is a preseason poll.
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The Week 2 Coaches Poll –

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This was the consensus of the razor-sharp minds of the voters after week 2 (not altogether different than the BlogPoll at that point).

Let’s take each in turn –

1. USC – Were they “better” than Oregon State (unranked), who they would be dominated by 3 weeks later?
2. Georgia – “Better” than Alabama (ranked 16th), who they would get destroyed by a month later?
3. Oklahoma – Looking good for now.
4. Florida – “Better” than Ole Miss (unranked), who they (we) would lose to at home?
5. Ohio State – Well, they were ranked worse than USC. But is 4 slots 32 points worse?
6. Missouri – Continues to look good.
7. LSU – Ditto.
8. Texas – Still hasn’t played anybody, but unbeaten.
9. Auburn – They were ranked lower than LSU, who proved “better”, but not Vanderbilt, who was in the “Others Receiving Votes” category at this point.
10. Wisconsin – A month later, 2 losses, including to Michigan (unranked).
11. Kansas – Not “better” than USF, ranked 18th here.
12. Texas Tech – Another Big 12 team hanging on.
13. Arizona State – Dropped 3 since this poll, to UNLV (unranked), Georgia and Cal (25th).
14. Oregon – Dropped two since this poll, to “better” team USC and Boise State, which was unranked.
15. BYU – Still going strong.
16. Alabama – Vastly under-ranked here, if ranking is to predict who is “better”
17. Penn State – Under-ranked
18. South Florida – Lost to Pitt, who is unranked here.
19. Wake Forest – Were they “better” than Navy (unranked)?
20. East Carolina – Not “better” than either unranked NC State and Houston…
21. Fresno State – “Better” than unranked Hawaii?
22. Utah – Still rolling
23. Clemson – Not “better” than unranked Maryland.
24. West Virginia – Proved not to be “better” than Colorado (of Others Getting Votes here).
25. Cal – Were they better than “Maryland” (unranked), who they would lose to a week after this poll?

If we look at the Week 2 poll from a standpoint of teams that have lost to teams they were supposedly “better” than (teams that were lower ranked), the poll was WRONG for 15 of the 25 teams, or 17 total times (accounting for the two losses of lower ranked teams of Arizona State and East Carolina). 15 or 25 teams, or 60% of the rankings, were wrong from a prediction standpoint. And remember, this was only 4 weeks ago!

The strength of resume voting is you can’t be wrong in the sense you predicted one team was better than another, because that isn’t the point. You are merely evaluating the teams based on what has already happened. You are a grader, not a predictor.

Now you can argue with my grades, and I welcome that. But for the last time, don’t tell me so-and-so is better.