BP Poll - Week Three

[BB73]

1. Ohio State
2. Alabama
3. Nebraska
4. Texas
5. Oregon
6. Oklahoma
7. Florida
8. Arkansas
9. Iowa
10. South Carolina
11. Miami (FL)
12. Texas Christian
13. Wisconsin
14. Arizona
15. Stanford
16. Boise State
17. Louisiana State
18. Pennsylvania State
19. Florida State
20. Auburn
21. West Virginia
22. Utah
23. Michigan State
24. Missouri
25. Oregon State

Do you care to elaborate on Iowa 9th and Arizona 14th?

 

[Bucklion]

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
4. Nebraska
5. Stanford
6. Oklahoma
7. Texas
8. Florida
9. Arkansas
10. Boise State
11. TCU
12. South Carolina
13. Wisconsin
14. Miami
15. Utah
16. Arizona
17. Iowa
18. Auburn
19. LSU
20. Penn State
21. West Virginia
22. Michigan State
23. Southern California
24. Texas A&M
25. Michigan

I ranked a Big East team. Still only Miami in the ACC. Still 6 Big 10 teams.

Texas A&M??? That 7 point come-from-behind win over Florida International impress you did it? :tongue2:

 

[WyoBuck]

Sure. I had Iowa as a pretty talented team ranked in the top 5, arguably a bit too high, and Arizona as a bit of an unproven commodity that was barely ranked, I think fairly. I watched the game and while Iowa looked pretty underwhelming in that game, at the end of the day the final score was pretty close and it is still only one game. I felt that as well as Arizona played, Iowa helped them a bit with some mistakes that I am not sure are necessarily characteristic, yet. As a result, I moved Arizona up twice as many spots as I dropped Iowa. I suspect that in the coming weeks, as we learn more about these 2 teams, hell, any of the teams, my selections will shake out more consistently and movement up and down will be less volatile. I also believe that, while fun, the rankings don't start to get accurate until about midway through the season. Lastly, I think that if I were buying into TCU and Boise St., I would have Iowa ranked lower, thereby making the spots where I place Iowa and Arizona a little closer together. I don't think that just because team A beats team B on a given night, that team A then deserves a higher ranking than team B. Using that logic I think that rankings would look even more convoluted than they already do and the swings in position would be much greater from week to week. In the end, I don't believe that is an accurate way to judge which teams deserve to be ranked where, by itself.

 

[BB73]

Fair enough, Wyo.

I also have very volatile rankings in the early weeks. But I try to rank teams almost from scratch each week. I don't do the 'so-and-so lost, so I'll drop them 8 to 10 spots' like some voters do. I drop them as far as is necessary to get all the deserving teams (as of my opinion of season-to-date results) above them.

And since teams beat each other, it's not possible to always rank a winner above the teams they've beaten, but I always try to have an undefeated team ahead of everybody they've defeated. Regardless of where they started out in the preseason polls. Otherwise, it seems to me that on the field results are being ignored.

 

[Bucklion]

Fair enough, Wyo.

I also have very volatile rankings in the early weeks. But I try to rank teams almost from scratch each week. I don't do the 'so-and-so lost, so I'll drop them 8 to 10 spots' like some voters do. I drop them as far as is necessary to get all the deserving teams (as of my opinion of season-to-date results) above them.

And since teams beat each other, it's not possible to always rank a winner above the teams they've beaten, but I always try to have an undefeated team ahead of everybody they've defeated. Regardless of where they started out in the preseason polls. Otherwise, it seems to me that on the field results are being ignored.

Some voters virtually ignore on-field results, which I really just don't get. I mean, if some jabroni Miami fan comes on here and says "Yeah, you won, but we're still the better team!!1!!1!1!1!eleventy-Porter1!111!!" they get mocked and run out of here or banned. I don't see how a team can say they are better if they lose to another team. Yes, I know the whole "let's play 10 times and we'll win 9" argument, but if you don't cash in, I don't see how a team can be better, myself, at least in terms of teams in the top 25. I mean is James Madison "better" than Virginia Tech? Probably not. But were we better than Iowa last year? Yeah, I think so, despite the fact they were ranked very high (and higher than us) for much of the season.

I'm not criticizing Wyo's poll, I'm just saying in general.

 

[WyoBuck]

Some voters virtually ignore on-field results, which I really just don't get. I mean, if some jabroni Miami fan comes on here and says "Yeah, you won, but we're still the better team!!1!!1!1!1!eleventy-Porter1!111!!" they get mocked and run out of here or banned. I don't see how a team can say they are better if they lose to another team. Yes, I know the whole "let's play 10 times and we'll win 9" argument, but if you don't cash in, I don't see how a team can be better, myself, at least in terms of teams in the top 25. I mean is James Madison "better" than Virginia Tech? Probably not. But were we better than Iowa last year? Yeah, I think so, despite the fact they were ranked very high (and higher than us) for much of the season.

I'm not criticizing Wyo's poll, I'm just saying in general.

I guess I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree entirely, but then again I don't feel that I am completely diregarding the on field result. Say Arizona comes out and just dominates Iowa for the whole game and the end result is a physcal beating, a scoring bonanza on Arizona's part, or both, I probably drop Iowa further and raise Arizona higher. I think that what inangible things that you see during the game is as important as the end result and I just can't bring myself to use the final score as my only criteria. It is much more complicated than that. I was actually going to use the James Madison example, but it doesn't apply as well as I think last years Purdue game. They were absolutely terrible, and beat OSU. Do we rank them above OSU then? Do we drop OSU out of the rankings entirely because we got beat by a shitty team? Everyone knows that we played an uncharacteristically bad game against an inferior team. Do we rank Purdue in the top 25 simply because they beat a highly ranked team? That is the hard part about the ranking, what criteria do you use? What do you disregard? I mean, there is no definite system to decide who "deserves" to be where, and I think that changes every week too. Hell sometimes you just see what you see and use a little intuition, or an educated guess.

 

[Bucks910]

1.) Bama
2.) OSU
3.) Boise St
4.) Nebraska
5.) TCU
6.) Oregon
7.) Texas
8.) Oklahoma
9.) Florida
10.) Wisconsin
11.) Arkansas
12.) Utah
13.) South Carolina
14.) Auburn
15.) Arizona
16.) LSU
17.) Miami
18.) Iowa
19.) Stanford
20.) Penn St
21.) Michigan
22.) WVU
23.) Michigan St
24.) Missouri
25.) Florida St

 

[Diego-Bucks]

Rank Team Conference
1 Ohio State Big Ten
2 Alabama SEC
3 Nebraska Big-12
4 Oregon Pac-10
5 Oklahoma Big-12
6 Boise State WAC
7 Texas Christian MWC
8 Florida SEC
9 Texas Big-12
10 Arizona Pac-10
11 Utah MWC
12 Arkansas SEC
13 Wisconsin Big Ten
14 Louisiana State SEC
15 Stanford Pac-10
16 South Carolina SEC
17 Michigan State Big Ten
18 Auburn SEC
19 West Virginia Big East
20 Michigan Big Ten
21 Nevada WAC
22 North Carolina State ACC
23 Northwestern Big Ten
24 Kansas State Big-12
25 Temple MAC

Again, I am still refusing to rank teams that are defeated. Benefit of the doubt to those that remain undefeated and have played a decent opponent or two. However, this is probably the last week that this can remain so for me. Seeing as the ranks in the first few weeks are (in general) not very indicative of the final season rankings, I feel like those that haven't lost should get a fair shake at the polls.

 

[BB73]

I guess I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree entirely, but then again I don't feel that I am completely diregarding the on field result. Say Arizona comes out and just dominates Iowa for the whole game and the end result is a physcal beating, a scoring bonanza on Arizona's part, or both, I probably drop Iowa further and raise Arizona higher. I think that what inangible things that you see during the game is as important as the end result and I just can't bring myself to use the final score as my only criteria. It is much more complicated than that. I was actually going to use the James Madison example, but it doesn't apply as well as I think last years Purdue game. They were absolutely terrible, and beat OSU. Do we rank them above OSU then? Do we drop OSU out of the rankings entirely because we got beat by a shitty team? Everyone knows that we played an uncharacteristically bad game against an inferior team. Do we rank Purdue in the top 25 simply because they beat a highly ranked team? That is the hard part about the ranking, what criteria do you use? What do you disregard? I mean, there is no definite system to decide who "deserves" to be where, and I think that changes every week too. Hell sometimes you just see what you see and use a little intuition, or an educated guess.

Comparing where to rank a 2-5 Purdue team that beat a 5-2 tOSU team is quite different than comparing an undefeated Arizona team that beat Iowa. It's easy to justify ranking a 2-loss team above a 5-loss team, even though the 5-loss team just won a head-to-head. But when two undefeated teams play, I believe the winner should be ranked ahead of the loser (unless the result was because of a blown call at the end of the game, then it becomes a personal choice).

Personally, I look at each team's body of work for the season-to-date. I think that takes more effort than what most of the actual poll voters do, which is just move down losing teams several spots, and make slight adjustments due to blowout wins and unimpressive wins.

In the Va Tech-JMU example, I didn't rank either one of them. To me ranking Va Tech without ranking JMU ahead of them would have been inappropriate, since JMU was still undefeated.

 

[Jake]

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
4. Texas
5. Florida
6. Nebraska
7. Boise State
8. TCU
9. Oklahoma
10. LSU
11. Arkansas
12. Stanford
13. Wisconsin
14. Auburn
15. Arizona
16. South Carolina
17. Iowa
18. Penn State
19. Miami
20. Michigan
21. Michigan State
22. Clemson
23. West Virginia
24. Oklahoma State
25. Air Force