Pre-Season CBS Sports Blogpoll
by Bud Elliott on Aug 20, 2009 11:14 AM EDT
in FSU Football
58 comments
Welcome to the first edition of the 2009-2010 CBS Sports Blogpoll. This is Tomahawk Nation's third year in the poll. I happen to think pre-season polls are quite dumb, but I don't want to lose my vote, so I acquiesced.
This is not a power poll. I don't attempt to rank teams based on how good I think they are. I only rank teams based on their resume. What have they done? Not how talented are their payers or how other polls project them to do, but what have they done?The poll is designed to be dynamic. I try to start from scratch every week. I do attempt to reward teams for "quality losses", while punishing them for bad performances. I do not give excessive credit for stomping horrible teams. I reward quality play, win or lose. I am not bumping team A 10 spots and docking team B 10 spots when team A beats team B by a field goal in what was essentially an equally played game. I like to reward playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punish losing to poor teams more harshly than I reward defeating poor teams.
I Reward Grinders. I reward those who play difficult schedules. Teams that play a tough team every week don't get to spend extra time preparing for their tough games, and they also don't face the attrition other teams face because they are able to pull their starters in blowouts. Fewer plays for important players reduces the chance those players will get injured.
So, how did I manage to balance my resume ranking with the fact that no games have been played yet? I'll show you.
Also, I want your input on this every week. The debates this inspires can be quite fun.
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||
| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | |
| 2 | Mississippi State | |
| 3 | Florida State | |
| 4 | South Carolina | |
| 5 | Arkansas | |
| 6 | Vanderbilt | |
| 7 | Kentucky | |
| 8 | Tennessee | |
| 9 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 10 | Georgia Tech | |
| 11 | LSU | |
| 12 | Maryland | |
| 13 | Virginia | |
| 14 | Washington | |
| 15 | North Carolina State | |
| 16 | Auburn | |
| 17 | North Carolina | |
| 18 | Alabama | |
| 19 | Oklahoma State | |
| 20 | Boston College | |
| 21 | Arizona State | |
| 22 | Stanford | |
| 23 | Florida | |
| 24 | Wake Forest | |
| 25 | Clemson | |
I elected to rank the teams based on their projected schedule strength. Basically, how good were each team's opponents last year, who did those teams lose, and what is their schedule strength. I elicited the help of FootballOutsiders.com, one of the most advanced football websites out there and winner of multiple awards.
You may notice some themes:
11 SEC teams. Seems like a lot, but that's the best conference and most of the teams have scheduled at least one good non-conference team. Alabama has Virginia Tech. Auburn has West Virginia. LSU doesn't have one, but they do draw Georgia and Florida from the east. The only team that doesn't make the list is 'OIe Miss, which fortouitiously dodges Florida and Georgia from the East (each team must play three games against the other division).
10 ACC teams. The ACC gets rewarded for having a bunch of "very good" teams. I'm not so sure any are top 5 good, but each ACC team will play a quality opponent most every week, and the ACC schedules very aggressively in the non-conference. Clemson grabs TCU and South Carolina. Wake Forest has Stanford and Baylor, which isn't amazing, but those are two projected bowl teams from BCS conferences. Maryland travels west to face Cal, while North Carolina State faces South Carolina and Pittsburgh
3 Pac-10 teams, but no USC. What keeps out USC but lets in three other Pac-10 teams? The other three teams get a bump from playing USC, but USC obviously cannot play themselves.
1 Big-12 team. The problem with the Big12 is that there are just a lot of below average teams, and their non-conference schedules are pathetic. Teams like Kansas would probably not be bowl eligible in the SEC or ACC. Take a look at Texas' Non-conference schedule. I have highlighted the for-sure bowl teams. Probably one of the Missouri- Kansas- Baylor trio will make a bowl, but the rest of the schedule is pretty poor. The non-conference is embarrassing. la-Monroe, Wyoming, UTEP, and UCF? Texas can't even be bothered to schedule a BCS conference team. If they go undefeated, I'll have them close to the top, but Texas could be one of the undefeated teams to be passed by a one or two loss team.
Sep. 5 La.-Monroe 6:00pm
Sep. 12 at Wyoming 2:30pm
Sep. 19 Texas Tech 7:00pm
Sep. 26 Texas-El Paso 2:30pm
Oct. 10 Colorado TBA
Oct. 17 Oklahoma 11:00am
Oct. 24 at Missouri TBA
Oct. 31 at OK State TBA
Nov. 7 UCF TBA
Nov. 14 at Baylor TBA
Nov. 21 Kansas TBA
Nov. 26 at Texas A&M 7:00pm
The one Big-12 team that does make the list is Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State couldn't play a lick of defense last year, but that's irrelevant here, because this poll is about schedules, and Oklahoma State's ability will show up in their resume. They make the list because they play Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia.
No Big-10 or Big East teams. I think this should be fairly obvious. These two conferences aren't very strong and they don't make much of an effort to schedule out of conference. If you think one should be eligible, let me know.
No Mid-Majors. This should be fairly obvious. There isn't a mid-major with a schedule difficulty in the top half of the country, much less the top 25.
So, let's have your thoughts? How would you have handled the requirement to submit a poll, keeping in mind I want to use a team's resume, knowing that no teams have played ganmes?
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I think
you’re going to lose your vote because you have UF way down and FSU so high. Regardless of any SOS or other arguement, anyone who looks at this (without knowing your other work) will say you are the biggest FSU homer on the planet (not the worst thing to be, you could be a UF homer or UM homer).
I understand your logic though, but wonder how many people are going to see that ranking without the explanation and pitch a fit and call you names.
Definitely won't lose my vote.
They like it when people submit ballots that make you think, provided there is reasoning. Plus, nobody has played a game yet!
by Bud Elliott on Aug 20, 2009 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions
If Florida Dominates Georgia and beats LSU and crushes Tennessee, etc, I will obviously have them quite high.
by Bud Elliott on Aug 20, 2009 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I have a bad feeling your going to have them high by the end of Sept.
Why is the sky blue? Because, God Loves the Infantry
I am going...
to the UF/Tennessee game. I will try to do a decent write up about it. FSU will be at BYU. Not a trip I really wanted to try and make. Figured I would go see how full of crap ol’ Coach Kiffin is. 99.99% sure it will be an absolute beat down. But if it is an upset…you guys should look forward to one awesome recap. HAHA. I was in the swamp for the come from behind victory by LSU in 2006. What a great, great game. I’ll be hoping for some more magic.
Not an alcoholic, just an FSU grad.
by onebarrelrum on Aug 20, 2009 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm loving the no Big 10 teams....
I’m glad at least someone else realizes how weak the conference is. Ohio St does play USC this year in the second half of their home and away at the Shoe tho. But we all saw how well that went last year for them. I still think the conference as a whole is awful…
Ok St vs Georgia Labor Day weekend should be a very interesting game. Since this game is at Stillwater it could be close, but I still think Georgia takes this game…
They aren't aweful
The Big 10 has some of the greatest players that football has ever seen. Doesn’t it shock you how many great NFL cover corners and WR hail from the Big 10? For a conference built on size their skill position play is outstanding.
With that being said, the cold does not lend itself to the spread offense… And even when running the spread you often need to look for toughness and coordination (ability to look the ball in… muscular concentration,etc…) over speed just because its soo damn cold…
The programs @ Illinois & Michigan are challenging the norm and I think that OSU is interesting in their approach as they are making adjustments to the new game with an older style…
Look for Big 10 dominance in 3-5 years. Look for ACC dominance in 2-4… Its all a part of the cycle :)
Sacrilege
How dare you not have a single team from the Big Ten or call out the Big Twelve for basically scheduling Sister Mary’s School of the Blind or a directional school for every ocg! Too funny. The more I look at the ACC in football the more they remind me of a mini NFL. Parity rules.
Cedat Fortuna Peritis
Looks perfectly reasonable to me.
“They like it when people submit ballots that make you think, provided there is reasoning.” If this is true, you should be more than fine. (PBD wonders above if Uncensored will lose his vote because FSU is 20 spots ahead of Florida.) I’ve seen Uncensored’s polls run throughout the course of a season. They WILL be dynamic, as they should be. Other preseason polls (predictions) are a joke. We often throw around the term “power poll” in the preseason too, and I agree with Uncensored here – polls are about resumes, period. I don’t publish a poll, but here’s what I care about: who you beat, who you lost to, and I don’t care how you did it. Basing a preseason poll on nothing but SOS is perfectly acceptable to me.
I think you are on to something...
There should be no preseason rankings of TEAMS…just pre-ranking of TEAMS SCHEDULES. After the first or 2nd week of the seaon it would be much easier to accurately assign a ranking to a TEAM.
How to account for a team like UTAH?
Relatively weak schedule last year but demolishes the 2nd best the SEC has to offer?
I'm 6', 190#, can I play D-Line
Call me Thacker-lite
6'3 250LB
Fast and ok hand very athletic. I got dibs on MLB.
Why is the sky blue? Because, God Loves the Infantry
6'2" and 230...and can chunk a football
You can sign me up for qb and call me a short weinke….wait, nevemind, don’t call me that.
6"4" 275, old, slow, and ugly. I would be the perfect TE because no one will ever throw me the ball.
>-----:----:------>Spear 'em then Scalp 'em
TOO LATE---FROM NOW ON YOU SHALL BE KNOWN AS
SHORT WEINKE
>-----:----:------>Spear 'em then Scalp 'em
Lack of opportunity for attrition and small sample set.
Bama was missing 4 or 5 starters in that game. They played tough games almost every week. They didn’t get to sit their starters because they didn’t have the blowouts Utah had.
Utah played a joke of a schedule, were completely healthy, and beat a Bama team that was both banged up and bumming that they lost to UF.
Utah’s resume last year was what? List it out and this will become ob
by Bud Elliott on Aug 20, 2009 11:59 AM EDT up reply actions
Lack of opportunity for attrition and small sample set.
Bama was missing 4 or 5 starters in that game. They played tough games almost every week. They didn’t get to sit their starters because they didn’t have the blowouts Utah had.
Utah played a joke of a schedule, were completely healthy, and beat a Bama team that was both banged up and bumming that they lost to UF.
Utah’s resume last year was what? List it out and this will become obvious.
Also, welcome to the site. Enjoying your posts.
by Bud Elliott on Aug 20, 2009 12:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks for the welcome AND....
all those factors you mentioned re: Utah are relevant and I agree. Maybe there should be No rankings at all until sometime in OCtober as some have suggested.
Focus , Size Matchups , Attrition
I think attrition is only PARTIALLY the case here.
I think that teams who face these Mid-Majors feel a higher ceiling for failure than when facing a more vetted opponent.
I also think that these Mid-Majors present bizarre match-ups. For instance, USF, who plays in a Major-Mid league, had a great run in 2007 with a team of undersized, physical and FAST-as-HELL athletes… It was like watching a team of all those Tampa and Miami kids no one wanted who were undersized and mad as hell just putting hits on everyone left and right… It can get you far… but only so far… but far enough to knock off a giant every so often
In fairness,
USF can take a bunch of non-qualifying athletes, and a few of their players from that 2007 team, includign 2 or 3 of their starting secondary are in the NFL.
Oh, and that USF team finished the season unranked.
Good point
You are right… But I think that goes with my “it can only get you so far”
USF knocked off a damn good West Virginia team and helped start the dismantling of Tommy Tubthumper with their Auburn win.
Utah had a series of “Almost Big” games that really got them ready for the first truly-big upset of that season.
I agree, their secondary was first class… I wonder if any Utes will fair well in the NFL
My other option was to go alphabetical
to show how silly a pre-season poll really is.
Someone else already did that, however
Abilene Christian is bringing the pain this year....
by coonhound on Aug 20, 2009 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
To emphasize, I really do find Uncensored's poll to be completely legitimate...
…and all others (preseason mags, AP, coaches’, etc.) to be a complete joke. If you’re not buying in, rethink the absurdity (and unfairness) of these things. But I’d love to meet the guy who went alphabetical. That’s just brilliant.
You should change it to a ranking based on unis
“best dressed” so-to-speak
A very nice poll
Frankly I am ready to move past sample sets and get on with the job at hand which is preparing a beat down welcome for the canes in Tallahassee.
It is time the Seminoles avenge my blatant off season koolaide drinking and homerism.
Playstation All American, right again!
TomahawkNation
Better to bear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools
Congratulations, you are one of the small minority of poll voters that actually get what your job is.
FSUn I dont get your poll at all.
You seem to base it on SOS only. Though FSU has a strong SOS and should win I dont think they should be Ranked that high. Also I think OK St should not be ranked Cake SOS and I dont think they are the better out of the big-12. I think OU is the best and has a much harder SOS (at least on paper) and Last UVA might have a tough SOS but they wont win where as OSU has a Strong SOS but should win.
Thats what I dont get you are going mostly by SOS but shouldnt you add in the Possabily of the team winning the SOS. FSU has a better chance at winning there SOS so they are highter than Clemson. But UVA has a tough one but wont win.
Why is the sky blue? Because, God Loves the Infantry
But Des, the only thing they have proved is who they are willing to schedule
I rank only on what they have proved
I understand that but you are going to have to wait tell week 3 or 4 because so may team play cupcakes
Why is the sky blue? Because, God Loves the Infantry
And in Week 3 or 4, they'll move. It will be fun.
Think about it. College football polls are boring. They’re predictable. They’re more dynamic in other sports, and football is the only sport in which the polls matter. And they only matter at the end.
I throw this in here because Egret mentioned above: “Maybe there should be No rankings at all until sometime in OCtober as some have suggested.” Let me say here that I disagree when I hear that. Again, polls are should be fun. I want the little numbers before the names. And if you wait until, say, mid-October, the rankings will look just as silly then as they do in the pre-season. Just my two cents, and certainly nothing worth arguing, as, since we now find ourselves shooting through the information age, everyone will have and publish their preseason, week 1, 2, etc., polls anyway. You can’t bottle up opinion unless (insert WC joke here).
Want to really bottom-line this? The reason college football polls suck is because they DO mean something at the end. That’s when they’re no fun at all for anyone except the two usually very lucky teams who wind up at the top. Playoff. But I digress.
by TRMNole on Aug 20, 2009 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
The thing that frustrates me the most about the pre-season polls is that they actually influence the polls at the end of the year.
I don’t have the full set of stats on this but if you start pre-season number one, it’s highly unlikely that you fall out of the top 25 by the end of the year. If you’re out of the top 25 a the start of the pre-season, it is very difficult to get to the number 1 spot. And like you TRM I’m not a big fan of the impact they make on identifying the national champion.
I like polls as they generate discussion, as has been demonstrated here. I know that during the basketball season we had plenty of people looking at our Basketball BlogPoll and wondering how we came up with it. I really enjoyed those discussions.
Just my two cents…
www.Tomahawknation.com
that means this year it dont matter where we are ranked but next year and the next it will
Why is the sky blue? Because, God Loves the Infantry
Just curious, but when do you think that the first poll(s) should take place?
I’ve always been an advocate of no earlier than Oct. 2nd, so that we’ve seen everyone play 4-5 games. I chose Oct. 2nd to ensure that there would be a Saturday of games in Oct.
As an aside, I've like that Spurrier always voted Duke
into the top 25 in the pre-season since it didn’t matter. Would’ve been even cooler had he voted them #1.
He should vote Duke #1 and Paulus preseason Heisman instead of Tebow.
>-----:----:------>Spear 'em then Scalp 'em
bad poll
i thought i understood your blog polls towards the end of the year last year, but this one confuses the hell outta me, i consider you a friend budd , but that is a ridiculous stance……you dont take any effort to look at returning talent at all? you say this is a “do” poll. and you judge teams on what you do. you DO win the heisman….so sam bradford in your poll is about as good as will secord? so tom brady and peyton manning is as good as a pee-wee qb because no one has done anything THIS year. i understand you wanting to be different and have a poll that is unique….but if you dont take into account ANYTHING in the poll, then what good is it
You are basically pointing out the silliness of pre-season polls, as am I
Pre-season polls are dumb. They are projections which end up affecting where teams go to bowls! If you start outside the top 25, you really can’t get into the top 5, no matter what you do on the field, because voters are not fluid in their efforts.
After week 1, the most impressive team will be #1. Probably the winner of one of the 4 big games.
by Bud Elliott on Aug 21, 2009 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions
bad poll
ok you say after week 1, the most impressive team will be #1….well then every week during the year you have to go through every single opponent and every single team in teh country every week of the season. if schedule strength is ALL you go by, then what if a team that was supposed to be a top 10 team (aka-clemson 2008) then they suck all year and dont even get in teh top 25 at years end. if a team plays a awful team but wins 69-0 and looks great in every aspect, is that team the #1 team? that woudl be the most impressive if that if what you are going for. or lets say oklahoma state beats georgia 2-0 on a safety and looks absolutely pathetic in the game, is that the #1 team?
you wanted to make a simple poll and only look at schedule strength and what you see with your own eyes, but you actually made your poll too hard to understand even for yourself IMO. too complex, and not enough options to take into effect past performances…..sam bradford winning the heisman being example #1
I linked this over on southernpigskin
I am waiting for them to go crazy over this!
Playstation All American, right again!
TomahawkNation
Better to bear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools
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