Early rankings in college sports

[Will74]

Im not trying to be a downer ,buts lets be real can we all agree rankings in all sports especially football dont need to come out to later in the season maybe week 6 ..As i watch this weekend im seeing alot teams that have no reason to be in top 10 .One of them is the previous champs.guess since the signs stealing gig got exposed they normal again ..Just curious what others think about worthless opening week rankings

 

[ALLVOL 4LIFE]

One of the announcers in the Mizz game said the same thing.

I personally think it should be week 3 or 4 before actual rankings come out. As of right now it’s a popularity ranking…and we know how loved we are

 

[Vol49er]

I don’t see why people are bothered by it. The rankings that matter do come out later in the season. Who cares if the AP poll comes out earlier?

 

[Behr]

I don’t see why people are bothered by it. The rankings that matter do come out later in the season. Who cares if the AP poll comes out earlier?

It all works out. I'm not sure I'd enjoy watching some of the games today as much without the rankings.

 

[volKano]

It all works out. I'm not sure I'd enjoy watching some of the games today as much without the rankings.

Good point. A top 25 team can’t lose unless there is a ranking. We watch it for entertainment anyway

 

[Christian Lowe]

Even if there weren’t any official polls, there would be unofficial ones everywhere. Humans like hierarchy, so we will rank things in our head whether we want to or not. I don’t really think the polls matter like they used to. Committee doesn’t release their poll until week 8.

 

[Oldvoldad]

I don’t see why people are bothered by it. The rankings that matter do come out later in the season. Who cares if the AP poll comes out earlier?

Agree. I don’t understand why it bothers anyone.

 

[Knox-a-rue]

Im not trying to be a downer ,buts lets be real can we all agree rankings in all sports especially football dont need to come out to later in the season maybe week 6 ..As i watch this weekend im seeing alot teams that have no reason to be in top 10 .One of them is the previous champs.guess since the signs stealing gig got exposed they normal again ..Just curious what others think about worthless opening week rankings

I think its fine. Sports-writers gotta make a living, same as grave-diggers.

But you're right about the value of pre-season rankings. They mean very little.

 

[WillisWG]

I don't mind the rankings, in fact this morning the first thing I looked at were the conference stats followed by ESPN's FPI, which now has us at #7 with project W-L 9.2-3.

 

[njvols]

It all works out. I'm not sure I'd enjoy watching some of the games today as much without the rankings.

Agree. Pre season polls mean nothing but fun to talk about. ND for example looked like they may belong in top 10 w their D and rushing game. TaM has issues on offense. FSU got exposed last week. Miami exposed UF in a bad way (though they weren’t ranked), and showed UF preseason optimism feels like UT optimism during our dark decade. LSU/USC game will be interesting…I just don’t know if LSU solves all their D issues in one off season, and doesn’t have Daniels to cover all their sins.

 

[Behr]

Agree. Pre season polls mean nothing but fun to talk about. ND for example looked like they may belong in top 10 w their D and rushing game. TaM has issues on offense. FSU got exposed last week. Miami exposed UF in a bad way (though they weren’t ranked), and showed UF preseason optimism feels like UT optimism during our dark decade. LSU/USC game will be interesting…I just don’t know if LSU solves all their D issues in one off season, and doesn’t have Daniels to cover all their sins.

Yeah and I'm not sure if after waiting 3-4 weeks for the 1st poll would show a significant difference in this one 3-4 weeks from now.

 

[Vol737]

Im not trying to be a downer ,buts lets be real can we all agree rankings in all sports especially football dont need to come out to later in the season maybe week 6 ..As i watch this weekend im seeing alot teams that have no reason to be in top 10 .One of them is the previous champs.guess since the signs stealing gig got exposed they normal again ..Just curious what others think about worthless opening week rankings

Yes. Totally agree, but they do it so they’ll have something to talk about. You really don’t know anything about a team till around week 3-4 since most play cupcakes to start the season. Even then….????

 

[MEDVOL]

One of the announcers in the Mizz game said the same thing.

I personally think it should be week 3 or 4 before actual rankings come out. As of right now it’s a popularity ranking…and we know how loved we are

Probably why the playoff rankings wait til mid-season.

 

[CincinnatiVols]

Idk i have mixed feelings about this. On one hand you are kind of correct that we do find out more about teams as the season goes on. On the other hand this is college sports so you only get a real true hierarchy to form within each individual conference, and then have people judging based on schedule strength and a bunch of other crap. One example of this would be a mid major undefeated Cincinnati getting into the 4 team playoff, when they would easily have 2-5 losses if they had played an SEC schedule that year.

Honestly i think ranking by composite talent or blue-chip level and then making adjustments from what you see on the field like we do currently is about the best way to get a true ranking. If you eliminate that initial talent rankings of the preseason you may end up with cupcake schedules being more heavily weighted.