Wash
0-12 was last year without Locker or Polk on offense, Savannah on D, and a coaching change. This is not the same team as last year so 0-12 isn’t really relevant. I think we are ok team this year.
Stanford
Harbaugh is doing good work, they have been steadily improving, they are a much better team than I think most people realize. I didn’t see the Wake Forest game, but I do know that Stanford dominated our O and D lines, both of which had decent performances against LSU and USC.
LSU
Clearly a better team than us, but also clearly not a dominant team, maybe a good team.
USC
Clearly a better team than us with Barkley and Mays, but also clearly not a dominant team, maybe a good team. Although, maybe Barkley and Mays make enough of a difference to move them to very good, not sure.
Also, if you want to figure out if the polls are accurate, first you need to figure out what they even mean.
Do they represent recognition of victories like being in first place in normal conf standings, regardless how those victories came about?
Or do they represent an estimation of future wins based on past performance, which would need to include “style” points and weight more recent performance to get it close to right?
Or do they represent some bizarre unquantifiable combination of the two previous ideas that changes with every voter?
I would like to see is some accountability in the polls. Everyone’s preseason ballot is rated against to the final composite post season poll. The ones that are in the bottom 25% lose their voting privileges for the next season.
That’s a pretty ridiculous idea. These people are responsible for ranking football teams; they’re not psychic. If a team possesses a great deal of talent but underperforms throughout the season, why should a pollster be dinged for that?
(And I actually like that guy’s ballot. It’s not a final ballot; it’s a snapshot of the season thus far, and so it seems pretty accurate to me.)
I guess my point is that many teams have poll power. No matter what, they are going to be ranked in the top 10. Florida, Ohio State, USC, LSU, OU, Texas. Basically it based all on reputation rather than actual predictions. Ole Miss did crash the top 10 party this year.
One day when i get time, I will review the past 10 preseason polls. i would guess there are only about 20 different colleges out of the possible 100 colleges in the top 10.
(10 seasons times 10 teams/season)
I bet there are more than 20 teams in the final poll of the last 10 years.
Preseason polls are just silly. There shouldn’t be any polls prior to October. But to penalize voters basing preseason polls on reputation…well what the hell else is there to base them on? Reputation, players lost to graduation, speculation on incoming class talent levels. It’s a crapshoot.
It wasn’t second down, it was third down & the ND bench was signaling a spike. They could have been trying to fool the D, but I doubt it. Even if they were, you’re still forcing an offense to try and hurry up at the goal line, which helps the D out significantly.
There are good football teams and then there are good football programs. Some teams just seem to reload every year. If all things were equal teams would just come and go. But USC, Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma. Notre Dame, Michigan , and a few others have a history of staying near the top. Sometimes they slide but they come back .Overall they stay competitive with the best and have for decades. Miami had a run at joining the top echelon a few years ago but, seems to have melted away.
Sportswriters recognize that and early season voting shows the slant toward the traditional powerhouses. If you start out as a top 5 team, it takes a while to drop below the top 25. If you start with no notice, moving up is difficult. you have to leapfrog a lot of teams .
Did a little research this morning. ESPN has the preseason AP polls for the last 8 years. So there were 80 possible teams in the top ten in those 8 years. I was surprised to see that there were 29 teams:
Oklahoma 8
Texas, USC 7
Florida, Ohio St 6
LSU 5
Miami, Mich, Va Tech, West Vir 4
Auburn, Georgia 3
FSU, Tenn 2
1 time apiece for these teams:
Alabama, Cal, Clemson, Colorado, Kansas St, Louisville, Ole Miss, Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oklahoma St, Penn St, Pitt, Wash, Wisc
There are some interesting mathematical analysis(es?) of the polls, google for ap poll archive, someone found that about 10 programs get a regular dose of over ranking when all teams are compared based on won/loss, etc.
Also, pre-season #1 ends up at post-season #1 about maybe 10% to 15% of the time, but does seem to end up in top 7 or 8 most of the time.
Just based on my recollection of the past 8 years, I’d say there’s a lot of weight given to prior performance, that turned out to be unwarranted. Like, 4 out 5 times for Miami, and both appearances by FSU and Tennessee. The writers are just plugging them into the pre-season top 10 out of habit.
I don’t remember seeing that, but if ND did spike the ball on 3rd down with 30+ seconds left that would have been the dumbest play this season, and perhaps ever. Im almost certain that they would have taken their time, called a pass play, and then easily got down 4 off.
Given that ND is not good at clock management, spiking the ball and settling down for a 4th down play was probably a good idea. You’re right that they shouldn’t have needed to do that, that they should have been well coached and organized enough to get off two plays if they needed to, but they aren’t well coached or well organized.
“Taking their time” would have meant burning an additional 15-20 seconds, then another 6 or 7 to run the play, leaving a maximum of 8 to 10 seconds left to call a play in, get your players on the line, and snap the ball. It would not have been easy in any sense of the word.
Getting set twice, calling in the play twice, then running a play twice in a period of a half a minute is extraordinarily difficult to do with any kind of efficacy. That was what Purdue had on its side.
To offset this, Notre Dame would have been forced to run a pass play, but it would have to be in the end zone & the QB wouldn’t have much time to hang around looking for the receiver to open up. Not a stretch, to be sure, but it very well may be that Weiss didn’t want to rush in a half-assed play that would be extremely well covered. If you take the TO, the the D has to watch the run, the short pass, or the run.
The simple explanation is that they didn’t have a play ready yet.