Monday Poll Bashin’/Worst #1 Ever Par for the course

I must admit that I am somewhat gleefully rooting for a Missouri/West Virginia BCS Championship game. If there’s one sporting event that could do worse in the ratings than the Pistons/Spurs NBA Finals in ’05, that would be it. If when Oklahoma beats Missouri for a second time, the BCS will luck into a non-controversial championship game involving Ohio St. and West Virginia. That would set the playoff movement back five years as BCS officials will surely refer to that one success whenever forced to defend its ridiculous championship system. Meanwhile, Missouri sits atop the AP Poll in the most absurd ranking of the season and possibly all-time. At least, S. Florida, BC, and Kansas only made it to #2. Missouri is ranked ahead of at least 10 teams that nobody would expect it to beat. Is there anyone out there—outside of the state of Missouri—who thinks that Missouri would beat Florida? If Missouri is #1, then Hawaii may as well be #2.

Just when I thought the dumbness was over for the year, this week’s polls were released…

Va. Tech over LSU

I’ve been waiting for it all season since it would be the ultimate sign of group-stupidity and unbelievably—and really not unbelievable at all when you think about it—it happened. Virginia Tech is ranked ahead of LSU. I know three months is a long time to remember but just three months ago, LSU beat Virginia Tech, 48-7. The yardage discrepancy was 598-149. Both teams share an identical record at 10-2. LSU reached its record against a much more grueling schedule. This sort of reasoning is what gets dumb Presidents elected. “Don’t pay attention to this (LSU 48 Va. Tech 7/Thousands of soldiers killed in a manipulated war). Pay attention to this (Va. Tech has pretty uniforms/Democrats love Satan).”

Texas at #17

Texas A&M had been so mediocre that its coach resigned before the administration could beat him to the punch. Texas hadn’t beaten a ranked team all season and barely snuck by a slew of mediocre teams including Central Florida, Nebraska, and Oklahoma St. So how is it that Texas—with its already empty resume—only drops four spots after losing to Texas A&M? Virginia dropped six spots for losing to #6 Va. Tech. Is there any incentive whatsoever to not filling out an absurd ballot? How the polls managed to keep Hawaii out of the top spot with its shiny undefeated record is beyond me.

S. Florida is underrated

The AP and Harris polls are the only polls to rank S. Florida and it’s only at #25. Every poll has Auburn ranked ahead of S. Florida. If you follow college football at all, then I don’t need to explain this to you so I’ll just address the voters since they obviously don’t follow college football. S. Florida has a better record than Auburn. S. Florida beat Auburn at Auburn. S. Florida has wins over two ranked teams including a win over #1/#2 West Virginia. Auburn has one win over a ranked team. I know that sound evidence is tough to accept so I’ll even dispel the myth that all SEC teams are simply better than all Big East teams. West Virginia destroyed Mississippi St. 38-13. S. Florida beat West Virginia. Mississippi St. beat Auburn. At the very minimum, S. Florida should be ranked ahead of Auburn. Realistically, S. Florida should be ranked in the top 15. It has one of the more impressive combination of wins in the country. Yet, S. Florida was lucky to be ranked at all this week. I think the new slogan for polls should go something like “where 1+1=4”.

Kansas over USC, Oklahoma, and Florida

Here is an inevitable and unfortunate byproduct of ignorant polls: when two overrated teams play a close game, we’re still left with two overrated teams. Missouri beat a vastly overrated Kansas team to vault to #1 in the AP Poll. Kansas lost to an overrated Missouri team and thus only fell to #5 in the USA Today Poll and #7 in the AP Poll. Who did Kansas beat again? That’s right, I forgot about the win over Central Michigan. My bad. Kansas has two wins over teams with a winning record; Central Michigan and Texas A&M. In all seriousness, doesn’t Hawaii have an equally impressive resume? It beat Boise St. and Fresno St. If Kansas was ranked #2 with its resume before last weekend, then Hawaii should be ranked #2 this week. Would Kansas be within a seven-point spread against USC, Oklahoma, and Florida? Don’t you love the fact that the BCS is based almost entirely on this sort of stupidity? Who needs a playoff?