The problems with College Football polls

Sep 16, 2014, 10:30 PM

1. Teams only slip down the polls if they lose (or have close games with inferior opponents). The missing link: What if one of their signature wins turns out to be a blunder?
The Fix: Significant wins over big teams must be evaluated THROUGHOUT the remainder of the season. Just because #17 Michigan beats #14 Notre Dame (last year) at the start of the season and propels them into the #11 spot, when Notre Dame almost loses to Navy followed by a loss to FREAKIN PITT down the road, Michigan's ranking should tumble as well (if Michigan didn't already crap the bed against bad teams).

2. Preseason rankings are a complete SWAG (Some Wild ### Guess). Having them as the starting point for your rankings is terrible.
The Fix: Don't make that the foundation for your rankings. No polls until AT LEAST week 3. NONE at ALL.

3. Everyone needs to be on the same page with injuries to key players. Some people vote a team high even if they lost a close game due to a key player being injured; some people don't care who's hurt...they vote based on wins and losses.
The Fix: Ask everyone to not consider who is or is not playing. Everyone votes based on wins and losses.

There are others, but these are the top 3 from my point of view.
Here's the perfect scenario to play the system:
Let's say I have the returning Heisman Trophy QB (or at least a really significant player). During summer/fall workouts, he gets hurt and we all know it's a season-ending injury. Instead of telling the media right then, I wait until AFTER the preseason polls come out. This way, my team is rated significantly higher than what we'd likely be without such a game-changer (see Braxton Miller). By starting at such a high rating, my chances of sliding ONLY come from when we lose games (ie. to VT), and even then, we don't necessarily slide that far (even though VT then loses to an ECU team). If I would have announced my QB was out for the season at the beginning of the year, my team would likely be ranked outside the top-25 (or at least a lot lower). Because I held the news until after the polls came out, I have put my team in a better position in the polls and gave us more cushion for sliding down the rankings.

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The problems with College Football polls

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