In case you needed another reason to believe preseason polls are BS
I saw this on r/CFB.
Brett McMurphy provided his ballot for the AP preseason poll.
1. Alabama
2. OSU
3. Georgia
4. Wait for it... Miami
5. TAMU
6. Utah
7. Michigan
8. Oregon
9. NC State
10. Baylor
15. Wisconsin
16. Penn State
20. USC
21. Iowa
25. Nebraska
That's right. Nebraska in the top-25 but no Sparty.
Bonus points to anyone that can explain why people care about Brett McMurphy. I only know him from being on top of the Zach Smith stuff, but I've seen him mentioned on here and other sports boards on several occasions.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:43 PM ^
It's one guy's individual opinion in what is an aggregate poll. I bet if you looked at all the individual submissions you would see quite a few "outliers" from the aggregate.
August 13th, 2022 at 10:20 AM ^
Should we tell him about the person that submitted their rankings and had Texas ranked #1?
August 12th, 2022 at 4:44 PM ^
Didn’t you know it was mandated that one of: Florida St, Texas, or Miami needs to be in the Top 10 of preseason polls?
August 12th, 2022 at 5:03 PM ^
Well, or--honestly--us. I think we're easily a top 10 squad to start this season, but we're a big name and have benefited from the recognition, and assumption we would be good, in plenty of past seasons. I have a friend who is a professor at the U of Alabama; to tease me, he would never mention the words Michigan Wolverines without placing the words "perennially overrated" in front of them. All of which is not wildly interesting, but does probably suggest that we've been the beneficiaries, too.
August 13th, 2022 at 1:00 AM ^
Unless it's Alabama Football or Alabama Rush, an Alabama guy is hardly in a position to be throwing shade at a Michigan guy.
August 13th, 2022 at 6:36 AM ^
+1 for the Alabama Rush reference! Let me know if you’d like me to share my OOTD video here.
August 13th, 2022 at 11:48 AM ^
DO IT!
OMG, I never knew that was a thing until I had a teenage daughter that lives 90% of her life on Tik Tok. I, I, can't describe it, there are no words. Could they be any more self unaware? They are a walking parody of themselves. And these are college girls.
Every girl my daughter's age in every corner of the globe wants to go to Alabama and be a part of Alabama Rush and then post their OOTD's (Outfit Of The Day) on Tik Tok. Even the smart ones that you would think would be above that. But their parents (like me) won't let them go there.
So the smart ones gravitate toward wanting to go to Michigan especially, because they view it as an acceptable "Alabama" because it has all that rah rah Sorority stuff and big time sports but still has actual academics.
I will need to gently remind her that her answer to "Why do you want to go to Michigan?" on her college application essay can't be: "Because it's like Alabama but my parents will let me go there because it has actual academics." There is such a thing as too much honesty.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:31 PM ^
....mandated by Ron DeSantis???
/no politics
August 12th, 2022 at 6:18 PM ^
They didn’t get the memo that Bobby Bowden is no longer coaching the Noles. R.I.P. Dad Gum
August 12th, 2022 at 4:46 PM ^
He's my uncle.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:48 PM ^
I didn't know you were part Irish. That explains everything.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:56 PM ^
Dang. I did not know we are related.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:04 PM ^
Oh, I was sure that that was Bob.
August 12th, 2022 at 9:25 PM ^
As long as it's not Colleen McMurphy.
August 13th, 2022 at 10:31 AM ^
I thought that was Brezhnev.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:55 PM ^
Meh, at least we know he isn't the one who voted for Texas as #1. His guess is as good as any.
But I agree, pre-season polls are total BS, but it at least passes the time for the next 3 weeks.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:04 PM ^
Texas was ranked #1 by somebody in the coaches poll, this is for the AP Poll
August 12th, 2022 at 9:52 PM ^
Thanks, admittedly I totally missed that.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:58 PM ^
No, this totally makes sense. Nebraska was the best 3-9 team in the country last year, after all, with an 0-8 record in games decided by 8 or fewer points.
Why, if they had split those games they would have been 7-5 and bowl eligible for the first time since Mike Riley's second year. I can certainly see the enthusiasm for next year.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:59 PM ^
Don't know if this is sarcasm or not. Sometimes my meter doesn't always detect. But if you're serious, giving credit to a team for losing close games is a little too Notre Dame-ish for my liking.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:06 PM ^
I’m not going to give them credit, but going 0-8 in one score games is pretty crazy. Even more crazy to see how close they played the good teams and then just somehow couldn’t get over the hump against the bottom rung teams.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:49 PM ^
I logged in to make the same comment. Remove a couple of unlucky bounces, missed tackles, and dropped passes and they win games by 3 rather than losing them. However, if “if and buts were candy and nuts…” Maybe the breaks fall Nebraska’s way this year. If not, Scotty may be gone by mid-season and take all his “bad luck” with him.
August 12th, 2022 at 7:24 PM ^
It would be crazy if they had been respectable in one-score games prior to 2021 . . . but they haven't. Frost has an absolutely putrid record in close games as a coach, something along the lines of 5-22.
This record suggests two things: 1) that Nebraska has the talent to play with most teams and 2) that Frost is a terrible gameday coach.
August 12th, 2022 at 10:06 PM ^
There just aren't enough hours in the day for him to coach up his team and watch 80 hours of additional film each week just to judge how hard all NCAA teams are hitting that week.
August 13th, 2022 at 8:51 AM ^
It’s still crazy to play OU, MSU and Michigan and lose by 1 score in each, lose by 9 to OSU. And simultaneously lose one score games to Minnesota, Purdue, and Illinois.
I get Frost’s track record in close games is not good, but if you’re playing OU, MSU, Michigan and OSU close then you shouldn’t even be in a close game with some of those other teams on the schedule. That’s what is so crazy about their team last year.
August 12th, 2022 at 11:48 PM ^
Yeah, but is Nebraska better at QB this year. I know Martinez had his issues, but I think he was also part of the reason they were in those games to begin with.
August 13th, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
Nebraska's run of bad luck is too long and too consistent to be just luck in my opinion. Northwestern has a habit of getting robbed by luck once or twice a year but not 8 games a year. I think Nebraska's record falls on the coach.
However, almost every year there is a team with an above average number of returning seniors and a quality QB that goes from near bottom to near top just because they are that much more talented, and some brainless analyst says they are a surprise team.
August 12th, 2022 at 4:59 PM ^
Iowa is another WTF.
August 13th, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
Are they? They won the big ten west last year which isn't that impressive but neither is 21st. I'm not sure if you think they're too high or low...
August 12th, 2022 at 5:01 PM ^
Really, everyone's polls are wrong right now - that's why they change as the season goes on. I see nothing wrong in principle with someone who writes about sports for a living having a hunch that a particular team is going to surprise lots of folks (although I question the wisdom in this specific instance). Ad DoubleB says, this should all come out in the wash once you aggregate it all up. The bigger concern is if you see massive systematic biases - all the ESPN or southeastern journalists boosting SEC schools over all others, or FOX and midwestern journalists boosting the B1G. There was evidence of gaming the system back when folks were debating the wisdom of the BCS - I think it kept OK State out of the National Championship game 10-15 years ago...
August 12th, 2022 at 5:07 PM ^
I would like to give Brett Murphy my pole.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:56 PM ^
NTTAWWT
August 12th, 2022 at 5:06 PM ^
Disrespekt!
Except Nebraska was a better down-to-down team than MSU last year by most metrics I've seen. And MSU lost the main reason they could score (Walker). Nebraska outplayed MSU in East Lansing last year until that punting-banana-peel moment.
Miami at #4 is too high but they have talent, a good QB, and are in a bad division so... whatever
August 12th, 2022 at 5:12 PM ^
Yeah, MSU literally had about 10 yards of offense in the second half. It was putrid football. There was no way they were going to score unless NEB punted it away and then vacated the field . . . which is what they did.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
Some fine perspectives, and - you might expect a ballot like the following from those in a certain part of the country.
1. Georgia (tie with Alabama)
1. Alabama (tie with Georgia)
3. Texas A&M
4. LSU
5. Florida
6. Ole Miss
7. Arkansas
8.Tennessee
9. Mississippi State
10. South Carolina
11. Arkansas
12. Vanderbilt
13. Kentucky
14. Missouri
15. Oklahoma (honorary SEC team for this season)
16. Texas (honorary SEC team for this season)
17. Clemson
18. Florida State
19. Miami
20. UCF
21. The Citadel
22. Georgia Tech
23. Louisville
24. Ohio State
25. Michigan
That might be Finebaum’s preseason ballot.
August 12th, 2022 at 7:26 PM ^
There must be a mistake. Finebaum would never put Michigan in a top-25.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:20 PM ^
I have no problem with him leaving Sparty out of the top 25. From the reports out of camp Walker is dominating so it is possible the offense takes a big step back without him. Their defense was already bad.
August 13th, 2022 at 10:03 AM ^
You don't have to love MSU to think it is absurd they aren't preseason T25
They are returning one of the better QBs and their top WR. Their interior defense will be among the best in the conference.
Considering they also won a NY6 bowl (I know, I know) I don't see how they aren't ranked
August 12th, 2022 at 5:26 PM ^
I can't speak to McMurphy specifically, but you can take just about any preseason top 25 projection & 25% to 30% of those teams won't be in the top 25 at season's end.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:07 PM ^
I can’t find the exact stat - but I think it’s 90%+ of all seasons where a preseason top 10 team finishes unranked.
Iowa State and UNC were in the top 10 last preseason. They finished a combined 13-13 (7 wins for ISU and 6 for UNC).
August 12th, 2022 at 5:54 PM ^
So, the primary reason that any preseason poll is bullshit really is that it is based on zero knowledge or data from the season in question. A poll that is essentially based on snippets of camp footage, if that, or "vibes", as people like to say, is more or less bullshit by definition. Now, we can talk about whose opinion we value more in these polls, but they all suffer from the same essential problem.
August 13th, 2022 at 1:07 AM ^
And it's usually worse than that. Most of them are just lazy straight-line interpolations of what happened last year with an outlier or two thrown in.
August 12th, 2022 at 5:58 PM ^
Let's debate every single meaningless preseason prediction we find on the internet, shall we.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:12 PM ^
Shouldn't take too long.
August 12th, 2022 at 6:46 PM ^
I am a bit confused as to why the OP created a post about someone's preseason predictions and immediately discredited them.
August 12th, 2022 at 10:40 PM ^
Isn't it ironic?
I'm going to care so much about a guys preseason poll that I'm going to make a board post about it and then ask why anyone cares about him...huh.
August 12th, 2022 at 7:08 PM ^
These only exist for the preseason magazines. They are mostly based on last year’s season and most programs turnover 25% of the roster year to year
August 12th, 2022 at 9:24 PM ^
Pre-season polls have always been heady mix of recency bias, fall camp hype, the previous decade’s season’s results, and motivated reasoning of individual sportswriters flogging their favorite college team.
That’s why they’re an indispensable part of college football.
August 12th, 2022 at 9:28 PM ^
They're all a shot in the dark, so there's no reason to think this one will be any less accurate than any of the others.
Last year, Michigan was unranked and ended up in the CFP. (Everyone also predicted MSU to finish last in the B1G East and be one of the worst teams in the entire conference.) Had McMurphy or anyone else picked us #4, they would've been ridiculed even harder, so picking a Miami isn't totally unreasonable.
August 12th, 2022 at 9:28 PM ^
Seems to be a lot of love for Utah this year.