CBS Sports Preseason BlogPoll
Preseason polls are useless, inaccurate and hopelessly biased. Other than that they are great.
There is a decent argument against preseason ranking at all, but as an honored member of the BlogPoll we do our duty and submit a poll. I try to take it as seriously as I can (I considered and abandoned the idea of ranking teams alphabetically preseason as a bit too cute, though I imagine Air Force would appreciate it). So in my effort to be serious I have used a recruiting based ranking system for two years now that has held up as well – if not better - than the traditional methods.
Using the same methods this season I have now submitted my preseason BlogPoll entry. (NOTE: I had previously posted what I thought would be my preseason poll, but discovered a crucial data error. The correct poll is below)
 | ||
| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Southern Cal | |
| 3 | Texas | |
| 4 | Ohio State | |
| 5 | Alabama | |
| 6 | Georgia | |
| 7 | Oklahoma | |
| 8 | LSU | |
| 9 | Notre Dame | |
| 10 | Florida State | |
| 11 | Penn State | |
| 12 | Clemson | |
| 13 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 14 | Nebraska | |
| 15 | Michigan | |
| 16 | California | |
| 17 | Oregon | |
| 18 | South Carolina | |
| 19 | Texas Tech | |
| 20 | Tennessee | |
| 21 | Pittsburgh | |
| 22 | North Carolina | |
| 23 | Mississippi | |
| 24 | Oklahoma State | |
| 25 | Auburn | |
As a resume voter my poll will look entirely different after week one. But since week 1 polls are irrelevant (there is no prize for being ranked 1st after the first week) whether my preseason poll is “accurate” will depend on how the final polls look.
As for my resume method I’ll be looking at the following games closely that first week –
Oregon at Boise State
Georgia at Oklahoma State
BYU at Oklahoma
Alabama vs Virginia Tech
My number one team after the first week will likely be the winner of either the UGA – Oklahoma State contest, or the Alabama – VT game, depending on relative impressiveness of victory.
Florida will fall hard and fast in my rankings for starting with such a soft opponent, regardless of margin of victory. And while I’m sure this will cause some of you chagrin, Florida will have the opportunity to rise if impressive victories mount. I just refuse to give a team credit for beating a lower division team at home as, in essence, we won’t know a thing about this Gator team after the first game (unless of course they lose or Charleston Southern keeps it close).
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
4 comments:
'We won't know a thing about this Gator team after the first game' Huh? What a contrarian you are.
We're the defending national champs with the first 22 back on D and talent to burn on O! Percy created the only gap and are still better then the rest w/o him.
Yes, but that awesomeness of ours happened months ago, who knows how the offseason went, or what new schemes we're trying to implement, or what the mentality of our team is going to be after everyone is telling them they're the best ever. So until we see awesomeness again, we don't know.
Also, anyone know when BlogPoll compilation and analysis will actually be up?
As a true resume ranker, you should have #1 the team that beats another FBS team by the largest margin. After all, every winner will have beaten an 0-1 team, so there is no strength of schedule difference (other than playing an FBS instead of an FCS team. It is an assumption that the FBS team is better than an FCS team, but a reasonable one).
SoS should be determined by the resume of the teams they beat, not some perceived value of UGA/OSU/VT/Bama.
I think what Urban did through Mickey Marotti this past summer has the player's minds right for the season.
These players are not taking any SEC team for granted. Most of them remember barely beating SC and losing to Auburn in 2006, getting beaten by LSU, and GA (among others) in 2007 and beaten by Ole Miss in 2008. They know there are no off weeks in the SEC.
Nope, there will be no let up in these guys.
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