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The True College Football Rankings: The way I saw them and now see them

By bsd987, Section College
Posted on Tue Nov 16 2004 at 6:55 PM EST
More on: (all tags)

I have always had two ratings: a power rating and a poll-style rating. I rate all 119 teams for both.

Now you ask what the difference is, and I answer it by telling you that the power ratings is the analysis of the team as a whole with a slight emphasis on winning/losing, while the poll is how I think the team really is.

Some people know I have them, others do not.

Though I do not gamble on college sports as it takes away the fun of rooting for the upset, especially when you have the favorite, I do sell my picks on occasion and I use my ratings along with an analysis of the team.

I have always had two ratings: a power rating and a poll-style rating. I rate all 119 teams for both.

Now you ask what the difference is, and I answer it by telling you that the power ratings is the analysis of the team as a whole with a slight emphasis on winning/losing, while the poll is how I think the team really is.

For example, my power ratings for this week had Wisconsin at #7, while my poll had them at #18. No wonder the AP does not give me a vote.

Now they lost to Michigan State who was #43 in my power ratings and #42 in my poll. In the easiest of decisions, I picked Michigan State with 4* (out of 5). Not just did they cover as the dog, they crushed Wisconsin 49-14.

Does my #18 look more realistic now?

Unlike the pollsters who are going to can Wisconsin out of the top 15, I will barely drop them. I knew they were not a top 15 team. In fact, they are not REALLY a top 25 team, but their record merited respect. I most likely will put them at #22.

Their poor ratings have something to do with their weak conference.

However, I do not put full emphasis on the conference like the real power ratings and real polls. A truly top team from the Sun Belt can be ranked as high as their Big XII counterparts if they are truly that good.

But I knew Wisconsin was not. Look at how bad the Big Ten was and how Wisconsin had struggled. Heck, they struggled against Central Florida, the only winless team remaining. Why should they be the #4 team in the country? Why should they be ahead of a team that had actually played some quality opponents and beaten them as Georgia had?

That was how I thought. Score one for me.

Before I continue, let me mention that Boise State had played a tougher schedule than Utah or Wisconsin coming into this week, and yet people thought they should be the lowest? Maybe they should, but they have had to show themselves against some decent foes. I don't count Illinois, Penn State, or Indiana "decent," and those teams play competitively with the upper echelon of the Big Ten. Illinois should have beaten conference leader Michigan. Am I wrong?

OK. I have bastardized the Big Ten. Let me move on.

The ACC is 11 average teams. Wake Forest has lost 5 games this year, none by more than 7 points and in all those games they were tied or leading in the fourth quarter including 2 overtimes. They struggled to defeat conference cellar-dweller Duke, who beat Clemson (who beat Wake in OT), who beat Miami, who beat Florida State, who beat Virginia.... You can keep going around. They are eleven equally average teams. No team is great; no team is bad.

So my ratings reflect that. I have Wake Forest, who is 4-5 and 1-5 in the conference in my top 50 for the poll. They will stay in my top 50. Duke is a long ways out, but they'll close within breathing range. Each team in the ACC could beat 3/5 of the teams in any other league, no questions asked. Oh wait, I think they have.

I stopped picking ACC games ATS four weeks ago when I realized that. There was no point. It was a coin toss unless the spread was outrageous. Then I picked ATS.

However, real polls fail to show such parity. The teams hovering around .500 are never voted on and sites that rank all 119 teams (or 117 depending on whether you count FAU and FIU) rate these teams lowly. These teams are even fairly decently ranked in my power ratings.

However, teams in the Big XII North are all equally terrible. There is no way around that. Yet, cbssportsline.com has Iowa State, the first place team in that division, at #41. Division foes Nebraska and Colorado are the two teams behind them. You know that was set up and not a coincidence.

But now let me tear cbssportsline.com to shreds.

They want to respect those teams. Why? Iowa State has won three in a row to improve to 5-4 and 3-3 in the Small, whoops, Big XII. Their wins were 26-25 over a pitiful Baylor team that put it all together one day for a stunning upset and have lied flat on their face ever since, 13-7 over a meaningless Kansas team that nearly upset Texas, who struggled to beat a woefully young and inexperienced Arkansas team which even lost to Florida and got shut out by a defense that surrendered 35 points to Oklahoma State and bunches to all the other teams they played in Oklahoma, and they also hold off a Nebraska team 34-27 that lost at home to a borderline bowl team in Southern Mississippi. Are they a top 50 team?

In both of my ratings, they are 65th. Nebraska is 54th in my power ratings and 60th in my polls. No other team from that "division" is in the top 70 of either rating.

Meanwhile, Wake Forest is ranked 61st by sportsline, making them the 6th best team in the Big XII north. Bullshit. BYU who has played a brutal schedule and has a better record than half of the Big XII north teams is 63rd. Is this justified? Does being the best team in a horrible division of an average conference make you 22 places better than a team with an equal record who has played 2 unbeaten teams, nearly beaten one of them, and is going to play another? This same team played borderline bowl team Stanford and beat then and currently ranked Notre Dame.

Is BYU great? By no means. But would Iowa State, Nebraska, Kansas State, Colorado, or Missouri have a chance in living hell against BYU? Not this year. Those teams have done nothing and proven nothing. Missouri got crushed by Troy State. Do you want me to tell you whom Troy State has lost to, or do you want me to tell you who else they have beaten? Impressive? Ya right.

My power ratings have BYU #52 and my poll has them #58. Not great, but better than the Big XII north bozos. I don't completely respect the south either, as I had and will have Auburn #2. Oklahoma, as I said before, has proven nothing other than the fact that they are overrated. Wisconsin was the worst 9-0 team from a major conference in the history of college football. At least they lost.

Now, if Oklahoma plays USC for the national title and Auburn is unbeaten, I am never watching college football again. I will turn on the BCS. It is the only way.

Auburn proved to the world that they are at least better than Oklahoma. Hopefully the pollsters get back into the world.

The SEC is the only true top-to-bottom good conference in college football. Yes, Vandy and Kentucky stink like last month's milk, but you tend to get 2 pathetic teams each year. Every other team can beat any team in college football on any given Saturday or Thursday night. I promise you that. Oklahoma can barely beat an A&M team that lost to lowlife Baylor.

Now I'm going to get flustered with comments when Vanderbilt beats Tennessee in a couple of weeks, but let me explain that now. In the dumbest mistake that a good coach has made this millennium, Fulmer tried to go for a hail (20 yards shy it would have been) mary and he lost his quarterback. They will go down to Vanderbilt now. I am saying it.

But back to my ratings.

Yes, some teams surprise me and of course my ratings can be proven wrong, but my point is that if the pollsters really paid attention they'd you my poll.

I know you never saw that coming, but it is true.

My ratings, but especially the poll, are the real, genuine truth. They are not a fabrication of the truth as to respect teams that have done nothing like Wisconsin. Wisconsin did not deserve the respect.

My first ever polling came in 1997 when I was pissed off that Nebraska remained ahead of better one-loss teams after they won on the horrible call against Missouri. I would not stand for it, especially since Missouri had had similar bad luck happen before in a conference game (see 5-down game). Yes, Missouri did join the rankings (at #25) despite the loss, the last time an unranked lost a game and entered the polls the following week in the same season, but that was not enough. I wanted Nebraska to be penalized more than 2 spots. Thus I made my own poll.

It has grown since then to show my true beliefs of each team. I don't want a team ranked high because of record and another ranked low for the opposite reason. A team is ranked based on the team itself with little reference to record. I'd rank a team that has lost every game by 1 point against the top 10 teams in the country ahead of a team that has beaten every team by 1 point and those teams are all in the bottom ten in the country. I don't care. Who would win head to head? I'd bet the first team.

So I'll never get an AP vote; I know that. And even if I did, I'd lose it once they see my rankings. So I'll make my own and spill out the truth. I'll keep my smile when my preseason projections beat all the experts (again) and my two unbeatens from my preseason projections remain that way at the end of the year.

I'll do all this hard work and get paid nothing and sell a few people my picks for almost nothing. I'll do my other work and make ends meat. And then the season ends.

I'll start up again in May and June, making my projections and getting ready. The season'll start and I'll make my polls and project the games and hit my customary 60% ATS for the entire season. Oh well. I don't bet any games.

But remember, my ratings are right. They are the truth. Don't trust any of that cbssportsline garbage. They are last month's milk, not me.

Wisconsin 14, Michigan State 49. I bet the pollsters still don't know their precious #4 team lost.

But I don't care. They're #18 to me.