The myth of early season top ten wins and moronic journalists who are blind to this obvious...

[maelfan]

flaw in reporting.

Drew Sharp being the latest but far from the only one. His line in the paper today praises Wisconsin for two top ten wins.

Well, one of those top ten wins (similar to UMs in 2008 vs. Wisconsin who finished the year 5-7) is extremely flawed. LSU stinks. Maybe they will finish 7-5. Maybe 8-4, maybe worse.

But LSU was not a top ten win. LSU is unranked. If I'm not mistaken, Colorado is ranked higher than LSU in one or both polls.

MSU certainly could end up being a big win as they could presumably finish anywhere from 5th to 30thh or worse by the end of the year. Who knows. Regardless, MSU is barely in the top 20, not in the top ten. Their last two games vs. teams with a pulse (N. Dame has no pulse), they have been outscored 68-6. Their win vs. N.Dame, who really stinks is completely invalidated at this point thus also making Wisconsin's win vs. them while impressive, not a gigantic win.

The Wisconsin, LSU, MSU, Notre Dame circle is far from the only example but it is unreal how sports journalists who do this for a living have such a simplistic view of this topic.

 

[kybuckeye2]

IMO, there should be no preseason or week-1 polls. They should wait until the first of October before creating any polls.

 

[michnittlion]

Yeah, you can't really use a team's ranking at the time of game.

But people do this all the time if it supports their particular argument. Michigan fans will argue that the 1997 U-M team had more wins over Top Ten teams than the 1997 Nebraska team (4-2). But that's only if one uses their ranking at the time of the game. Look at the year end Top 10 rankings and it's an edge for Nebraska (2-1).

 

[Reality Man]

That is somewhat flawed. You can beat a team late in the season and push them out of the top 10 or have a game against a team from a tough conference (Big Ten East) and they just beat each other up.

I think the OP hit the nail on the head. Is LSU or ND really deserving of their ranking? Maybe they should have the poll start after the games on October 1 and retroact to the beginning of the season and thus teams would find out if they had a top 10 win, etc.

That would make things more entertaining. As I have mentioned before...I watched that Texas vs. ND game and my eyes told me that both teams weren't that great but you would have thought Charlie Strong had one of the great wins in college football. Looked like both teams were 8-4 level but Texas had a good qb (new kid).

I get the media...it's job is to sell/hype it's product/games no different than Rivals selling 'commitments'. More 'big' games mean more money. More 'decommitments' mean more entertainment.



RM

 

[michnittlion]

IMO, there should be no preseason or week-1 polls. They should wait until the first of October before creating any polls.

If the AP and Coaches did that ...... There would just be 240 OTHER September polls out there that people would point to and reference. Knowing ESPN, they would do one themselves.

No preseason polls sounds great in theory but would never play out actually.

 

[GoBlue_since1985]

One of the big things being reported on this week is that there will be 3 top 10 match ups this weekend and how there hasnt been a weekend like this since 1960 something.

 

[kybuckeye2]

If the AP and Coaches did that ...... There would just be 240 OTHER September polls out there that people would point to and reference. Knowing ESPN, they would do one themselves.

No preseason polls sounds great in theory but would never play out actually.

I'm sure there would be others... just as there already are. But AP and Coaches are the big 2, and they carry the most weight. If the CFP poll doesn't start until November, I don't see why those two can't start in October. But I'm not holding my breath.