Who’s Over-rated / Under-rated in the BlogPoll?

Brian, at MGoBlog - one of my favorite blogs to visit at least a couple times a day - has put forth a challenge for all fellow bloggers to identify who is over-rated and under-rated regarding their initial 2007 pre-season Top-25. Although I asked to be a part of Blog Poll - I was denied due to the fact I haven’t established myself as a heavyweight in blogging 101 (even though this is my 4th year running my BCS Busters Poll), I don’t have an ax to grind because this is, of course, just a pre-season poll. So lets have a little fun shall we!

BCSBusters Poll vs. The Blog Poll

BCS Busters Poll vs Blog Poll
	#1			#1	-
	#2			#2	-1
	#3			#3	-16
	#4			#4	-6
	#5			#5	+3

In analyzing the Top-5 in each poll, you can immediately see we already have a couple of discrepancies. The Blog Poll has Michigan #3, while I have the Wolverines at #19 and I have Louisville #4, while the Blog Poll has the Cardinals at #10. Although I enjoy watching Michigan play, as a west-coast college football enthusiast, I would consider Michigan (next to Tennessee) to be one of the all-time most vastly over-rated programs, especially in the Lloyd Carr era.

Two years ago as I began to hone in on the idiosyncrasies of the BCS Controversy, I noticed some pretty peculiar things across the country pertaining to the teams who were associated with the College Football Association movement. Specifically, they were severely protected within the poll system, even after losing several games or performing poorly in early season wins.

For example, In 2005, Michigan opened their first 6 games with the following results:

2005-Michigan (Big Ten)
9/3	vs.	Northern Illinois (7-5)	W	33	17
9/10	vs.	Notre Dame (9-3)	L	10	17
9/17	vs.	E. Michigan (4-7)	W	55	0
9/24	@	Wisconsin (10-3)	L	20	23
10/1	@	Michigan State (5-6)	W	34	31
10/8	vs.	Minnesota (7-5)	L	20	23

If you take the MAC Conference out of the above equation, Michigan would have been 1-3 with an ugly win over in-state rival Michigan State and yet were still ranked as high as 14th in week four after starting out at #4 in the 05′ pre-season poll and moving as high as #3 after their opening win over Northern Illinois. I respect Lloyd Carr, but I don’t think he is an elite coach, especially given the fact that he is coaching at an elite venue.

If you put Michigan under the microscope since 2000 and compare how they have performed against the elite teams - I only analyzed the teams they competed against who finished their respective season’s with at least 9 wins - the Wolverines are an abysmal 11-13, and this after going 4-2 last year against the same criteria. The schedule this year is favorable, but I’m not sold on either Oregon or Notre Dame, two teams that could propel the Wolverines to Fort (BCS) Knox. I’ve watched Oregon thoroughly now in the pre-season camp for the last two weeks and still do not see enough consistency out of the quarterbacks or offensive line, and their over-hyped star Stewart is ONCE AGAIN nursing an injured ankle.

In addition, I am not convinced that Wisconsin will duplicate last years 12-1 season, although I have them at #6 in my BCS Busters pre-season poll. Have I mentioned Carr’s record against rival Ohio State? The bottom line - Lloyd Carr is not a big-game coach as his teams play tight and inconsistent - not to mention the conservative play calling -which I observed first hand when Michigan visited Oregon several seasons ago. I left that game wondering why he didn’t ditch the run game early in the second quarter when it became apparent that the noise level at Autzen wouldn’t allow for effective audibles, which is needed to run against 9 in the box. When they finally went to a wide open aerial attack, they shredded the duck defense to the tune of 500 total yards, with nearly 400 yards passing - most coming in the second half. Yes, Carr and company won the national title in 97, but the BCS wasn’t in existence then.

Louisville (and other traditionally tabbed non-BCS / non-CFA teams) on the other hand drops like a rock whenever they lose, case in point - last season. The Cardinals began the year ranked #6 in both the AP and Coaches Polls, but dropped radically after a season opening WIN(?) against in-state rival Kentucky. Imagine, they actually get penalized by dropping 7 spots in the polls after beating a bowl team who went on to win 8 games playing in the SEC, the juggernaut of all conferences?

In the meantime, Michigan - who started the season #14 and #15 in both polls respectively, suddenly vaults to #6 in both polls after walloping the Irish 47-21 in South Bend in week three of 2005. Notre Dame hasn’t beaten an elite team in so long…I can’t even remember the last time they won a bowl game or regular season game of significance (over a decade). Both Louisville and Michigan had the same records (3-0) at this point in the season so how do you explain the rise of one and the sinking of another?

But wait…it gets worse!

After climbing all the way back from their perilous fall to #13, the Cards climbed all the way to #3 - one spot behind Michigan - by week #9, and then came the loss to Rutgers, in perhaps one of the greatest games in Knights history, and this after Louisville jumped off-sides before the Rutgers kicker missed a chip-shot field goal, giving the Scarlet thunder another chance. The bottom line is Louisville lost by 3 on the road in a hostile environment to one of the hottest teams of the season last year and dropped all the way to 10th and 13th in the AP and coaches polls? How can this be explained? Compare this with Michigan’s 3 point loss three weeks later in the final week of the regular season, a game in which they were vastly outplayed for most of the game before a 4th quarter surge brought the game in doubt in the final minutes.

Michigan didn’t drop a single spot in the polls? Why the discrepancy?

Even more mysterious, why wasn’t Louisville considered an equal to Florida at the end of the season BCS controversy between Michigan and Florida, especially after we witnessed the death roll the Gators put on the Buckeye’s in the championship game? We’ve witnessed this before in the polls and the common denominator is the College Football Association alliance that exists in the polls.

BCSBusters Poll V. BlogPoll

BCS Busters Poll vs Blog Poll
	#6			#6	+2
	#7			#7	-1
	#8			#8	-
	#9			#9	-2
	#10			#10	-2

There are only minor differences between the BCS Busters Poll and the Blog Poll when considering the bottom half of the Top-10. Oklahoma is certainly a wise choice…it’s hard to bet against Bob Stoops given their history of accumulating championship level defenses from year-to-year.

Wisconsin should have been a BCS team last year, certainly more deserving than Notre Dame who hasn’t won a bowl game this century.

The Gators are a solid pick as well. Many of the pundits out there including Mark May and company think the Gators are vastly over-rated. I too, doubt they will play for the national championship again, but they will likely end up in the “Outback” or the “Capitol One Bowl” and they will most certainly end up in the Top-10 by the end of the season. In contrast to Lloyd Carr, Urban Meyer is a big-game coach, who has proven he can win big games even with inferior talent!

The difference for me when analyzing the bottom half of the Top-10 is Nebraska and California, two teams who I believe are flying a bit under the radar. I’ve always felt it is much easier to be the hunter rather than the hunted as both of these programs have been just under the elite threshold. Last year, both were expected to rise to the top of the mountain, only accompanied by the other eight members of the BCS family, but California faltered trying to ascend Rocky Top and the Huskers were throttled by USC, Texas and Oklahoma. Both failed miserably, validating the above hunter and hunted theory.

I believe this will be their year. The questions will abound on the defensive side as Nebraska finally has a quarterback who can operate the wide open west coast regime and California may have the eventual Heisman in Desaun Jackson. Both offenses will be prolific, but will they have the defense to carry them in the thunderous match-ups with Oklahoma, USC, Texas and Tennessee?

BCS Busters Poll vs Blog Poll
	#11			#11	0
	#12			#12	-6
	#13			#13	-
	#14			#14	+7
	#15			#15	+2

If you are still mystified by my assessment of a possible CFA (College Football Association) alliance within the poll system, you don’t have to look any farther than the Top-15 in the Blog poll, or the AP Poll, or the Coaches Poll, or the upcoming BCS poll in October for that matter.

The elite are protected in this system, both by the branding identity television created for these programs in the pre-85 scholarship era, and also by the improprieties that occur each week in the poll system. Need further proof?

In 2004, after the CAL-Texas debacle - both the USA Today - ESPN Coaches Poll, and the AP Writers Poll pulled out of the BCS formula for determining the elite in college football. When the BCS Godfathers had every opportunity to fix the system, they imploded inward with the creation of the Harris Poll.

Both Vince Dooley (former athletic director at Georgia) and Chuck Neinas (former Chief Administrative Officer of the College Football Association), the two primary pundits involved in the pivotal Board of Regents Antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, rounded up the good ol’ boys and created the Harris Poll.

Nearly 85% of the members have direct ties to the CFA and the chief mission of the CFA was to garner as much money from television as possible by matching up the pre-85 scholarship traditional powers as often as possible in college football. Not to mention the ironic coincidence that the lights of the CFA organization as a whole expired in 1997, less than 30 days prior to the creation of the BCS.  The same people were behind the creation of both entities.

It’s an amazing story and well chronicled in my book “The Grass Ain’t Blue in Georgia - The Story Behind The BCS Controversy.”

Just look at the picks here in the Blog poll in spots 1-15. Twelve of the 15 picks are teams who whole-heartedly supported the CFA movement. Only Louisville, Wisconsin and California have cracked the prestigious rankings for if you are not ranked in the Top-15 at the start of the season, history has proven you have a limited shot of garnering a championship or BCS event.

What do Louisville, California and Wisconsin have in common? All three members were not a part of the CFA and all three were voted out of the BCS events and were replaced by an elite member of that southern-fried fraternity called the CFA, and I haven’t even mentioned TCU who was ousted from a BCS event a couple of season’s ago as well?

Think about that for a few moments the next time we have to swallow the fact that a two, three and even four loss elite CFA power is given a ticket into the BCS events, while an undefeated or one loss team, such as California, Oregon, TCU, Boise State, Louisville or Kansas State is eliminated from the opportunity.

Case in point number two - Tennessee. As I mentioned above, in 2005 some amazing things happened early in the season with the polls. Here is the Volunteer schedule from the 05′ season:

2005-Tennessee (SEC)
9/3	vs.	UAB (5-6)	W	17	10
9/17	@	Florida (9-3)	L	7	16
9/26	@	LSU (11-2)	W	30	27
10/1	vs.	Mississippi (3-	W	27	10
10/8	vs.	Georgia (10-3)	L	14	27
10/22	@	Alabama (10-2)	L	3	6
10/29	vs.	South Carolina (7-5)	L	15	16
11/5	@	Notre Dame (9-3)	L	21	41
11/12	vs.	Memphis (7-5)	W	20	16
11/19	vs.	Vanderbilt (5-6)	L	24	28
11/26	@	Kentucky (3-	W	27	8
		5-6-0		205	205

Tennessee opened with a very alarming (too close for comfort) victory to Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), scoring late in the game to secure a 17-10 victory. Tennessee was ranked third in both polls (AP and Coaches respectively). After the lack-luster victory the volunteers dropped to 6th in the AP and 4th in Coaches poll. Compare this with Louisville’s drop that same season when they DEFEATED Kentucky 31-24. Two weeks later - on national television (CBS) - Tim Brando bashed Louisville by stating “they ought to be ashamed of their schedule.” The cards dropped 7 spots in both polls after their narrow victory over SEC high riser Kentucky, but Tennessee drops only one spot after barely beating Sun-Belt power UAB by the same margin?

The Sun-Belt Conference is 14-240 against the BCS conferences all-time!

A week later, after being humiliated and dominated by Florida in Urban Meyer’s first season in Gatorville, the Vol’s dropped four spots in the AP and 7 spots in the Coaches Poll. What did Louisville do after a loss to South Florida a week later? After climbing back from 12th to ninth in the AP and from 14th to eighth in the coaches poll, Louisville dropped a staggering 13 slots to 24th in the AP and 14 slots in the Coaches Poll.

Now I admit, the loss to South Florida 45-14, coming a week after the Cards drilled Oregon State, my Alma matter, 63-27 is an aberration. But is it any more of an aberration than Tennessee only beating UAB by 7? Would you agree that South Florida is a better football program than UAB? Why the discrepancy?

But wait…it gets worse!

Going in to week #6, Tennessee was (3-1) and riding the pollster tidal surge, but their performance on the field was inconsistent at best. Eric Ainge was not playing well and the offense, given their rich talent base, was not firing on all cylinders. I had them ranked 25th in my BCS Busters poll, one spot behind Michigan who was also performing inconsistently. It really was of no surprise to me that the Vol’s lost their next four games, but what was incredible was the blatant favoritism displayed in the polls.

With their record standing at .500 (3-3), Tennessee was still ranked at 23rd and 25th respectively. Only after losing 3-in-a-row did the Orange Express drop out of the polls. A week later, after getting manhandled by Notre Dame (I’ve already hinted at their over-ratedness and ineptitude in the bowls), Charlie Wies gave them some CFA brotherly love by stating “We know that Tennessee is still and always will be a great program.”

In closing, my point has been made for I really don’t need to evaluate or compare the remaining ten picks of both polls. This is exactly why college football desperately needs to move forward because in reality this is a civil rights issue. I don’t see a ton of difference between the civil rights issues of the sixties and what is occurring today in college football. Instead of discriminating against the color ones skin or ethnic background, we now discriminate against the conference origins of ones home, of which - in either case - a team or person can do nothing about. The fact that both of these atrocities originated in the south speaks for itself, further damaging is the conference bashing which occurs every season (a.k.a. - Les Miles and Company).

For me, it is the riddle wrapped up inside the enigma and college football’s dirty little secret. Let’s settle this on the field without any hints of prejudice, bias or corruptive factors of collusion. For a pre-season, post-season or any other type of poll, no matter where it originates, will continue to deliver nothing but homerism and bigotry.

Here is the rest of the BCS Busters and Blog poll pre-season polls for college football in 2007.

BCS Busters Poll vs Blog Poll
	#16			#16	0
	#17			#17	-4
	#18			#18	+2
	#19			#19	-16
	#20			#20	+2

BCS Busters Poll vs Blog Poll
	#21			#22	-7
	#22			#22	0
	#23			#23	-1
	#24			#24	0
	#25			#25	0