Preseason Polls Purportedly Possess Purpose

Apologies to everyone for the title, it seemed like a good idea at the time, I swear.

Any hoo, yesterday (August 21) the second major poll in college football was released for public consumption. Sure, there was nothing in the way of surprises (defending champion Alabama #1? Really? How daring!), but the release of these polls always creates some consternation among the college football community. Before I begin spouting inane bile, allow me to state that I see nothing egregiously wrong with the first AP poll. I agree with the positioning of just about every team in the poll, and any quibbles I have with the current AP rankings involve stuff like tweaking the team at #15 and moving them up a spot or two, moving #20 down a spot, bumping #24 to #23, etc. So...yeah, petty stuff.

No, the issue I have here is the existence of the preseason poll at all. First off, the AP Poll doesn't factor into the BCS system at all, which makes one wonder why it even exists as it matters quite literally as much as the opinions any given random blogger can espouse at any given second. So unless it exists as a form of subtle protest to the BCS system (in which case, applause to the AP), the AP Poll is the college football equivalent to the Queen of England.

Do not attempt to refute this point. Ever since the debacle in 2003-4 where the AP voted Southern California as the national champs, while the BCS (with the Coaches Poll attached) said that LSU had won the title, the AP poll has been excluded (at its members' behest) from the BCS equation. Yes, the AP still gives out its trophy, but that isn't the one that people focus on anymore. Unless the AP made a bold statement like naming Utah its 2008 national champion, there's no reason to care about the trophy given by pollsters who don't even decide who plays in the biggest 5 games of the postseason. And ever since 2004 the AP has given its national championship trophy to the same team the BCS has crowned champion, so basically any argument that the AP Poll is anything more than a barometer of sportswriters' opinions is fallacious.

Furthermore, preseason polls are often laughably inaccurate. Indeed, the only thing good about the BCS is that they don't release any polls until week 8, allowing time and games to sort out contenders from pretenders. Not so with the AP and Coaches polls, they try and predict the outcome of arguably the least predictable major sport before the season even starts. Allow me to make something clear: I DO NOT FAULT PRESEASON POLLS FOR BEING WRONG! That would be, for lack of a better term, stupid. The preseason AP Top 25 for 2009 had Oklahoma ranked 3rd. The AP could not have foreseen BYU's week 1 upset, nor the injury Sam Bradford suffered in said upset. Nor should they have been expected to. Just because someone is an "expert" does not mean that they can predict the injuries and upsets that make college football interesting. There are dozens of examples of ludicrously wrong preseason predictions, and not one of them deserves to be mocked, because predicting the outcome of any given season is an impossible task for anyone without a real, working crystal ball, and I imagine that particular band of gypsies has better things to do than predict the outcome of games.

"But Bones," you ask, "the Coaches Poll came out a few weeks ago, and it's a key component in determining the BCS champion." Yes, that is true, which brings us to an even more troubling point. While the preseason polls are frequently inaccurate, it's actually worse for college football fans when they're right. The fact of the matter is that preseason polls often determine the contents of a championship game months in advance of the actual game. Texas and Alabama were 2 of the 5 teams that went undefeated in college football last season, yet they made the national title game because they had the advantage of being #2 and #5 in the initial coaches poll instead of #16, #17, and unranked (TCU, Boise State, and Cincinnati respectively). Look, I'm aware of the fact that Texas and Alabama play in much tougher conferences than the other teams in question here, but a team must be given a chance to prove itself among the elite! Otherwise, college football is nothing more than an elitist club that won't allow teams to play in big games unless they were good in the 1960's and are still good today (or are mediocre today, but were good in the 1960's. I am looking at you, Notre Dame).

Let's use this coming season as an example: Given the way this season is scheduled, the following scenario is a reality: Alabama, Ohio State, Boise State, Texas, and TCU could all run the table. They're all in different conferences, and none of them play one another. So, keeping it simple, let's assume that just these 5 teams go undefeated. Who gets the chance to win the ugly crystal football? Alabama, obviously. They play in the murderous SEC. Who else do you send? Don't dwell on it too much. It doesn't matter, because 3 other teams which started the season in the Top 10 get screwed.

The bottom line is this, the existence of preseason polls is really not good for anyone. It's not good for writers or coaches who get lampooned when their predictions are wrong, it's not good for schools whose fates are often decided before the first snap of the season, and it's not good for fans of teams outside the Top 25, who know that they don't have a chance at getting a national title barring about 25 separate miracles occurring in a 12 week span. The only groups that this current poll benefits are people attached to Alabama and Ohio State, because no one else controls their own destiny. If you disagree with that statement, find yourself a Boise State, TCU, or Cincinnati fan and ask them. Yet, within our grasp, their lies a solution to this problem: it's called a playoff. If you're a member of the BCS Committee, look it up.

Mike Leach thinks people can't read, have amnesia

Perhaps you're wondering how I drew the rather brash and accusatory conclusion present in the title. Well, here's a link: these words right here. Let's analyze, shall we?

For those of you who missed it, Mike Leach lost his job near the end of last season when it was revealed that he might have locked a kid with a concussion in a closet. He's denied doing anything wrong, but he got fired anyway, probably because basically every piece of evidence seems to point to him doing something wrong. Yeah, the timing was convenient for Texas Tech, but I highly doubt that the school was trying to avoid an $800,000 payout to Leach when you consider that this is the same school that signed Tommy Tuberville to a contract paying $1.5 million a year for 5 years. Plus, these accusations were leveled against Coach Leach during a semi-successful season, which adds to their validity because the people who did so didn't wait for Texas Tech to have a 2-10 season unlike some fans I could mention.

Yes, I'm aware of the whole "innocent until proven guilty" bit, but in the same regard that you don't let someone accused of a DUI run a bar, you don't let a guy accused of player abuse coach a team. Well, you shouldn't, but if a school gets desperate enough, they'll do it. Still, assuming that the whole "locking someone in a closet despite having no medical training, nor any authority to do so" stays in the sport's collective memory for a bit, Leach's comments are kinda funny.

First off, note that the first line that somehow draws a loose association between Leach and Hemingway. Sure, Leach didn't write that line, but if he sued Texas Tech for "defamatory statements" then he should sue the AP for comparing him to one of the craziest guys in literary history.

Let me also make it clear that Mike Leach is pretty clearly already insane. The guy's got a rather unhealthy obsession with pirate memorabilia, a rather unhealthy obsession with passing, and a rather unhealthy disdain for defense. But, rather than force you to read a massive pile of words, let's just establish the sheer ludicrousness of the CBS College Sports Network manager Steve Herbst saying "We are going to insist that [Leach] be himself. There are no limitations on what Mike can or cannot talk about." Mr. Herbst, on the off chance that you read this blog: WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! The guy who once told his players that they were too concerned with their "fat little girlfriends" is not someone to whom you give a license to say whatever he wants. That's just not a good idea!

Perhaps I'm making too much of a deal about this. I mean, in the interest of full disclosure, this article does also make it clear that Leach is going to be doing mostly Conference USA games, meaning that if he does say something egregious (look it up!) then he'll only be heard by relatively few people until SI, ESPN, or Yahoo gets ahold of the tape, at least.

In conclusion, Mike Leach probably shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a microphone, or even near a stadium. A guy with a history of verbal abuse who has also been accused of physical abuse is not the kind of individual I'd want near college kids, even as an announcer. If that sounds harsh, keep in mind that I'd have sung a very different song had Leach apologized for any of the wrongs mentioned above. Being repentant and wanting a second chance is one thing; being unrepentant and expecting to be handed a second chance is quite another. Everyone deserves a shot to clear their name, but they have to admit that they were wrong first, something that Mike Leach is either incapable or unwilling to do at this juncture.

The Dangers of Ignoring Details

I don’t know that any of you follow the Sporting News. I occasionally make that mistake, if only to remind myself that ESPN became the Worldwide Leader in Schlock because it’s the least of all the evils in sports journalism (usually). Anyway, the Sporting News has been doing a rundown of each individual conference’s nonconference schedule, and this exercise reached its peak sometime a while back when this analysis of the Pac-10 was released.

Now, before I begin tearing into intrepid writer Matt Hayes’ fluff, let’s all be clear on a few things. First off, almost every Division 1-A school (I refuse to use the term “FBS”) has a nonconference schedule that is best described as a joke. Aside from regional rivalry games (Florida State vs. Florida, Georgia Tech vs. Georgia, etc.) and the occasional nationally televised matchup (Virginia Tech vs. Boise State, LSU vs. UNC) nonconference schedules consist of big schools crushing a pathetic Directional Tech in the name of “warming up.” Western Carolina University (my alma mater) has, in the last 4 seasons, played Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Florida State, and Vanderbilt. The Catamounts have been outscored 273-22 in those 5 games, none of which would have provided any of the teams involved with anything even resembling a “realistic” opponent. Heck, Vandy beat Western by 45. All of the other schools in D-1AA have similar stories. Nonconference schedules have become incredibly anemic for most schools in the country, largely to remove threats from outside the conference, which would hurt a team’s chance of going undefeated, which, in turn, would kill a team’s chance at winning a national title.

To continue pummeling this already deceased horse, I will point out that Virginia Tech’s shot at a national title died on September 5 last season. Sure, no one knew it at the time, but even if the Hokies had gone undefeated for the remainder of the season (they didn’t, but this is my fantasy world, dang it!) they would have still been excluded from the title game due to their loss on the third night of the season, because only 2 teams get to have a shot at the national title under the current system! If only there were a way to determine what two teams should play one another via a competitive bracket of the best teams in college football. Oh, wait, THERE IS.

The second point I’d like to make in this little bit of pre-analysis (yeah, this is the prelude, sorry.) is that the writer of this article is Matt Hayes. Matt Hayes is a Pac-10 apologist. He is the Saint Augustine of the Pac-10. (Look it up!) Hayes wrote an article back in 2007 saying that was the year Southern Cal should have made the championship game. If you didn’t know, that was the year they lost to Stanford 24-23. Hayes’ argument? That Southern Cal was playing the best football in the country “at the time of the national championship game.” Yeah, because THAT’S the criterion for making the national title game. Not winning all your games, no. Playing the best football in November and December, that’s the ticket. Never mind losing in September or October. Now, let’s rip the article…(Handy link, just in case you didn’t keep that one open)

In the opening lines, you may notice this quote: “…we praise the Pac-10 for competing and wonder why everyone else can’t keep up.” Unfortunately for himself, at the end of the article Mr. Hayes has posted summaries of the nonconference schedules for each conference. Yes, the Pac-10 has the highest number of games against BCS foes and the fewest number of games against non-BCS foes, but let’s not kid ourselves here. I shall now include a list of the teams the Pac-10 schools will be playing from other BCS conferences (including, for no good reason, Notre Dame):

Louisville, Kansas State, Texas, Syracuse, Nebraska, Virginia, Minnesota, Notre Dame (2 schools), Iowa, Oklahoma State, Wake Forest, Tennessee, Colorado, Wisconsin

So there you have it. Of those 14 teams, 3 might be considered boot-shaking-fear worthy (Texas, Nebraska, and a very charitable nod to Iowa). Heck, half of the teams on that list didn’t make bowls last year (exactly half, 7 of 14)! My point? Is beating up on bottom feeders in a BCS conference any better than crushing schools from non-BCS conferences? The answer is a resounding “NO!” Heck, the two best teams on Oregon State’s nonconference schedule are non-BCS teams!

As I know some deranged westerners will accuse me of “East Coast bias,” I went ahead and looked up the ACC’s nonconference schedule. In a somewhat ironic twist, they play more nonconference games per-team because they have a larger conference. The results? Well, the ACC only plays 19 of its 48 nonconference games against BCS foes, but there are far more real threats on the schedule. Compare the Pac-10′s paltry 3 good nonconference foes to the ACC’s 7 (Oklahoma, Florida, LSU, Ohio State, Alabama, Southern Cal, and admittedly charitable nods to Cincinnati and West Virginia) and Mr. Hayes’ argument starts to fall apart. Factor in the fact that an ACC team also plays Boise State, another goes on a road trip to Auburn, and a third plays the mighty Catamounts of Western Carolina (I kid!) and it seems downright silly to praise the Pac-10 for theoretically tough scheduling.

This is getting long, so I’ll gloss over a few more points. Hayes also put the number of 1-AA foes that the conferences are playing. In the same article on how the Pac-10 has a tough schedule, he points out that they play the second highest proportion of 1-AA teams! Just because you play a tough team doesn’t give you the right to schedule a cupcake! To prove I’m not a hypocrite, I will harp on my own team: Virginia Tech shouldn’t play James Madison just because they have the guts to play Boise the week before! It doesn’t work that way! Well, actually it does. See, the lack of a playoff encourages garbage like this. It’s sad, really.

Finally (I promise), Hayes includes a list of the Top 5 nonconference games at the very end of his article on the Pac-10. Now, I may be way off here on the east coast, but am I the only one who isn’t exactly psyched for, well, ANY of those games? Nebraska vs. Washington? Really? Once again, might be an East Coast thing, but has everyone west of the Mississippi drunk the Jake Locker Kool-Aid? The guys 9-20. Gah, I can’t wait for the season to start…

Florida Closes Practice, Opens Name-Calling

So I was tooling around on the Internet today and I found this little gem.

So Pope Urban (so named due to his once-close proximity to St. Timmy of Gainesville) closed off the Florida Swap Lizards' practices, eh? According to this ESPN article, the Gators closed their practice to protect the team from "internet people" and "scumbags." As an Internet person and a scumbag, I take offense to this. Florida football players don't need protection from me. If it's anything like high school, then it should be the other way around.


OK, OK, OK. I know what Urban meant. He was trying to "protect" his players from people who grab autographs solely to sell them. Noble, I guess, but it's not like they can control kids' lives 24/7. Mind you, according to Urban, they're doing their darndest: "'We can't live the players' lives, but we can certainly do the best we can,' he told the newspaper. 'You should have the right as a player to walk from here to there without being bothered.'"


*Sigh* Urban, do you really think that in today's sports-addicted world, that it's possible for a college student at a big-name school to go anywhere without some sort of harassment? I'm not saying it's right, I'm merely saying that protecting college students from publicity hounds is something of a lost cause. Oh, and Urban apparently thinks that he's protecting these guys from unscrupulous agents and their runners. See, the problem with that theory is this: Do you think that agents give their "clients" wads of illicit cash at practice? If so, please, please inform these people that they are the worst illegal agents in the world. One of Florida's former players, Maurkice Pouncey, is currently facing charges that he accepted somewhere around $100,000 in illegal funds. So maybe Urban's less concerned with the "internet people" carousing around and more concerned with covering his own backside.


Why the cynical outlook, you ask? Well, you see, children, with St. Timmy gone, it's time for Urban to close ranks and do his best to keep the news coming out of Florida positive. Tim Tebow is a stand-up individual. I have absolutely no desire to decry and denounce him, nor do I have some weird desire to see him crumble and fall at the professional level. He did, however, provide the Florida felons with a super-convenient front. You see, under Urban Meyer, 22 Florida football players have been arrested for various crimes. Now, as far as I'm concerned, if the violations at Southern Cal were worthy of a 2 year postseason ban (they were), then having 22 of your players (some of them quite high brow) arrested for actual crimes against other people is grounds for a firing. In short, without the golden boy of college football to keep the press cameras pointed away from the swampy underbelly of the Gators, look for Florida to be one heck of a lot more closed off from the national media. Oh, well. At least the season starts soon and the general public can go back to ignoring crimes committed by players and back to focusing on the gridiron. Not that that's acceptable, but let's save the cultural commentary for later, shall we?