BCMess
Well, I’m a day late, but as promised here is a little college football talk. I’m thoroughly unhappy with the BCS rankings as of this week. I am only focusing on the BCS for this column because it’s the only ranking system that really matters in the end. But truly, my discontent somewhat lies in the general concept of the rankings.
I think this all goes back to the pre-season rankings and the importance placed on them. All of the analysts get together before the season, before a single meaningful snap has occurred, and they rank who they think is going to be good for the upcoming season. I understand that watching teams practice and scrimmage can offer some insight into what they might look like when facing actual opponents. But until the season starts, how can you postulate accurately on who will be good? Look at my beloved Wolverines pre-season ranking. They started the season as the #5 team in the AP rank. As happy as it made me to see that, it looked farcical after the contest with Appalachian State. Even more so after the rout by Oregon…So now Michigan is being punished when compared to other 2-loss teams because they were beaten by an unranked Division I-AA team. I do understand the ramifications of this happening to a traditional powerhouse team like U of M, but if they had started the season at a lower ranking, it probably wouldn’t have quite the impact that it has now. So that leads me to my main contention and that is I’m not sure we should rank college teams, in any ranking system, until at least 6 games into the season.
This is one thing that the BCS gets right. But consider that the BCS formula includes the AP ranking that begins before the season, and once again pre-season rank becomes a factor. Take LSU and Oregon. You could probably land on either side of the fence of the argument over which team is better. My money says Oregon, having watched them both play. LSU has needed last-second victories in too many games for me to believe they’re the #2 team in the country. I suppose this is as appropriate a time as any to state that I believe strongly in margin of victory as a factor in ranking teams. This is one reason why it doesn’t bother me that the Patriots continue to thump their opponents by such a large margin instead of sending in second-string players in the second half. Beating a team by 3 points or 6 points as time is expiring, especially when that team is not ranked, doesn’t impress me. Now, I know, I wrote earlier about the great comeback win that BC engineered over Virginia Tech so you’re probably thinking I sound like a giant hippocrate at this point. But if you re-read that entry, nowhere did I say that BC should have maintained their #2 ranking simply because they won. It took two scores in the final 4 minutes of the game to win but for the first 44 minutes of that contest, BC was dominated. That’s not a hallmark of a #2 team. I’m not saying you can’t trail your opponent at any point in a game and still be considered top-tier, I’m just saying LSU has let too many teams hang around too long for me to give them the edge over Oregon.
I propose that we eliminate pre-season rankings altogether. Let the season start, let the teams start playing their games. Let’s see how they look a few weeks into it. Then, let the BCS formula kick in, and at that point, if the AP ranking is a factor, no biggie. Because the pre-season, artificial ranking has been removed and it’s a clean slate at that point. I just don’t like to see teams have inflated rankings because they were good last season. It’s the same reason I nearly steered my car into on-coming traffic this morning when I heard Phil Simms on Mike and Mike saying that San Diego is one of only a few remaining teams that could challenge Indy or New England. San Diego. Really? The same San Diego that gave up 500+ yards to the Minnesota Vikings? Or maybe the same San Diego that doesn’t remember that LaDainian Tomlinson is one of the greatest players in football right now…They’re a team that could challenge the Pats or the Colts? Pittsburgh I’ll give you. Not San Diego.
Tomorrow I’m going to delve into the Patriots quest for perfection as there is a wealth of discussion occurring on the subject and I feel the need to weigh in.