CBSSports.com BlogPoll Top 25: Final Preseason Edition
9 comments so far
August 24, 2009 by
After considering your arguments with my preliminary poll, I'm back with a few changes for the official CBSSports.com BlogPoll preseason ballot due today.
Once the season starts, we'll get on the usual Monday prelims, Wednesday final schedule. As for now, on to the poll:
 | ||
| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Texas | |
| 3 | Oklahoma | |
| 4 | Southern Cal | |
| 5 | Penn State | |
| 6 | Alabama | |
| 7 | California | |
| 8 | Boise State | |
| 9 | Virginia Tech | |
| 10 | Ohio State | |
| 11 | Oklahoma State | |
| 12 | Mississippi | |
| 13 | TCU | |
| 14 | LSU | |
| 15 | Georgia Tech | |
| 16 | Georgia | |
| 17 | Illinois | |
| 18 | Brigham Young | |
| 19 | Kansas | |
| 20 | Nebraska | |
| 21 | Clemson | |
| 22 | Iowa | |
| 23 | Pittsburgh | |
| 24 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 25 | West Virginia | |
The big change readers of this blog will notice is that I flipped Kansas and Nebraska. The Jayhawks were probably always the safer bet in the Big 12 North and the loss of Castille only served to highlight some of the questions surrounding the Huskers. I, like Steve, don't think the loss is catastrophic by any means but a solid running game was sort of the salve that was expected to ease a lot of the early season pain Nebraska was likely to endure with a new quarterback and set of receivers. That became a far less certain prospect last Saturday so, for now, I'll give KU the nod.
A couple of readers made compelling cases for Texas Tech and it's not that hard to see the Red Raiders in polls after taking a gander at the schedule. That said, if Tech is in it probably means only one Big 12 North team is also in so you can consider my leaving Leach and Co. off the preseason poll as defending our Northern turf.
Oregon? They probably belong here, but I just can't get excited about their prospects with only four returning starters on offense. I fully expect Boise to win a close one on the first Thursday night of the season and then the Ducks have another interesting match-up two weeks later with Utah, another team the AP liked but I didn't.
Finally, I had BYU a little too high. As reader Huskerfaithful1 pointed out, unless the Cougars play OU close in their season opener BYU is poised to drop early. I begrudgingly gave them the MWC edge over TCU, a team I like better, because the Frogs have to play in Provo but after reconsidering BYU's schedule TCU moves above them. Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia, Georgia Tech and Illinois all also got a bump up.
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scott Aug 24 09
you and everyone else when they do there preseason rankings for some reason rank the teams based on how you think they will do at the end of the year and based on whether they have a easy path or not(boise st 8th???) did you know boise returns just 11 starters?? same as Utah, yet Utah isnt even in your top 25 and boise is 8th??? and tcu who beat boise last year returns same number of starters yet tcu is 5 spots lower?? is this because tcu has to play at two acc schools and byu with also having utah at home??
You are supposed to rank teams based on how good you think they are to start the year! NOT based on the path of there schedule or projecting how many wins they will have by the end of the year... if you really think boise is the 8th best team in the nation then fine... but if thats the case you should have tcu,utah,and byu right there with them in the top 10 cause there virtually no differance between them except boise has an easy road and the other teams dont...
scott Aug 24 09
you and everyone else when they do there preseason rankings for some reason rank the teams based on how you think they will do at the end of the year and based on whether they have a easy path or not(boise st 8th???) did you know boise returns just 11 starters?? same as Utah, yet Utah isnt even in your top 25 and boise is 8th??? and tcu who beat boise last year returns same number of starters yet tcu is 5 spots lower?? is this because tcu has to play at two acc schools and byu with also having utah at home??
You are supposed to rank teams based on how good you think they are to start the year! NOT based on the path of there schedule or projecting how many wins they will have by the end of the year... if you really think boise is the 8th best team in the nation then fine... but if thats the case you should have tcu,utah,and byu right there with them in the top 10 cause there virtually no differance between them except boise has an easy road and the other teams dont...
scott Aug 24 09
you and everyone else when they do there preseason rankings for some reason rank the teams based on how you think they will do at the end of the year and based on whether they have a easy path or not(boise st 8th???) did you know boise returns just 11 starters?? same as Utah, yet Utah isnt even in your top 25 and boise is 8th??? and tcu who beat boise last year returns same number of starters yet tcu is 5 spots lower?? is this because tcu has to play at two acc schools and byu with also having utah at home??
You are supposed to rank teams based on how good you think they are to start the year! NOT based on the path of there schedule or projecting how many wins they will have by the end of the year... if you really think boise is the 8th best team in the nation then fine... but if thats the case you should have tcu,utah,and byu right there with them in the top 10 cause there virtually no differance between them except boise has an easy road and the other teams dont... You even admit this when you say"considering byu schedule tcu moves above them" HAHAH r u serious??? we wont to know who you think has the best teams to start the year without a game being played!! thats a preseason poll! NOT who has the easiest schedule and will win 11 games with that schedule, and then ranking off of that.. thats a joke.. your whole rankings are so flawed...
scott Aug 24 09
interesting enough, you have nebraska ranked 20th... so lets say nebraska finishes ranked 2nd last year.. they return 11 starters and alot of depht from that team.. you would have them ranked in the top 10 easy somewhere, probably top 5... UTAH is not even in your top 25!!! what a joke.. yet boise returns the same number of starters and they are 8th!!!??? terrible rankings.. terrible logic... wow
Brandon Aug 24 09
Scott,
I think the issue truly at hand here is what a preseason poll is "supposed" to be, in as much as it's supposed to be anything other than a conversation starter.
You think it should be a straight power poll. Others think it should be predictive of the final rankings and still others, once the season starts, like it as a pure resume ranking.
As I explained in my preliminary poll post on Thursday, without any games to go on, I tried to incorporate both power rankings and schedule analysis because that's what I find the most valuable.
If you disagree with that fundamentally then, yes, the rankings may seem terrible.
tom Aug 24 09
In my mind, when I look at the big National Polls, I consider the logic behind most of those a joke. It's based on the perception that many people have rather than any kind of logical analysis of the teams that should be considered top-25. I think your logic and reasoning is sound, but same as every year, who knows where anyone should sit until the first few games are out of the way.
scott Aug 24 09
i understand your reasoning brandon.. but my problem still is, your still incorporating a schedule against another.. just because boise has an easier schedule then say, byu tcu or utah should not mean that boise should be ranked ahead of them.. thats just wrong.. it should be.. who do i think would win straight up on a neutral field.. team A or team B.. A preseason poll should have nothing whatsoever to do with who a team plays.. Only how good do you think that team is compared to the rest.. otherwise your punishing a team for playing better quality opponets...
scott Aug 24 09
i understand your reasoning brandon.. but my problem still is, your still incorporating a schedule against another.. just because boise has an easier schedule then say, byu tcu or utah should not mean that boise should be ranked ahead of them.. thats just wrong.. it should be.. who do i think would win straight up on a neutral field.. team A or team B.. A preseason poll should have nothing whatsoever to do with who a team plays.. Only how good do you think that team is compared to the rest.. otherwise your punishing a team for playing better quality opponets...
HuskerFaithful1 Aug 25 09
Scott
Calm down man. This is just one person's idea of a preseason poll. That's all. It will not actually effect how the teams are ranked and how they will finish. If you want something more serious then go to the people that make money with their predictions. A team can start out in a preseason poll at 59th and end up in the top 10. The flaw that you point out is not fixable unless teams play in some sort of playoff system. That probably is not going to happen anytime soon. Polls are all pretty much useless until mid-season. All it does is push television ratings. Ask any coach out there and see if they really care what they start out being ranked. Let the Huskers start out at 117th, I don't care. It just looks better when they beat higher ranked teams. Win games and the respect will be shown in the final poll (the one that counts.) That being said, you sound like a real emotional fan and one that I would love to watch a game with. I keep foam bricks to save on the cost of television and drywall repair.
Go Big Red!!!!