Posted on 01/05/2005 8:38:56 AM PST by RedBloodedAmerican
The AP poll of sports writers has been going since 1935. UPI used to have the Coaches' poll before it was taken over by CNN/USA Today. Many sports almanacs list the "National Championship" based on those two traditional polls.
Of course you can add the polls by various sports magazines, or as I mentioned, some of the "look-back" studies by people such as Jeff Sagarin.
Notice too, that I use "national championship" in quotations, because it is mythical.
And I think that's fine. I have no problem with more than one team being recognized as the "strongest" team in college football. This is especially true when you have so many teams and relatively" so few games.
Even if you ran the whole of Div I-A as a knockout tournament, like the NCAA basketball tournament, it would take 7 weeks to obtain a champion. That would cut the season in half (or more) for most teams and cause their college sports programs financial ruin.
The SEC is a traditionally strong conference, that was off its peak this year. Next year might be different.
They could run a playoffs with the top 12 teams in mid December and January. Then have a National Championship game.
The "computer numbers" are a model that makes comparisons by reiterative analyses. It is a statistically valid method for assigning "strength" values to the teams, based on perfromance. However, with any statistical system, it is neither foolproof nor clairvoyant. Such as system deals with probablities.
"That is why guys like Ryan Leaf could never make it in the NFL. Over hyped PAC 10 joke."
For every Ryan Leaf from the Pac-10 I can name a Gino Torretta or a Charlie Ward from other conferences. I can also tell you some of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game came out of western schools.
The PAC-10 and its forerunners (PAC-8, etc) have always been under-appreciated by the eastern and southern writers. I can remember one year in the 1970's, in which USC beat Alabama during the season, ended up with a better record, and still only split the "national title" with them. Such is the south-east bias.
I read that same blurb on the Alabama link you provided.
You do realize that some of the titles were based on rankings provided by Dunkle, Litkenhous, and Sagarin - all of which use statistical methods. In other words, they are the computer rankings you think area joke!
Do you still stand by your boast that Alabama has won more "national titles" than all of the PAC-10 combined?
How do you decide the top 12 teams?
Well the NCAA can do it in Division I just like they do it in Division IAA, II, or III. Or they could make it something like the NFL when it comes to the playoffs.
I'd like to see the betting line on that game. Can you name a recognized poll that places Auburn over USC?
I don't think any serious person believes that USC is NOT the best college football team in the nation this week. Of course, there are always a few nutcases who live in some sort of an alternate reality while occupying the same planet we do, but there's not much point in debating them anyway.
A playoff system would likely create a permanent elite group of about two dozen teams. If this were international soccer, that might be a good thing. But it is college football.
Zogby?
He got just about everything else wrong! Why not this one too?!
"Zogby?" ROFLOL!!!!!
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