AP Poll Review - Week 4

I have given the AP Poll a few weeks to get the kinks out. There should be some semblance of order and logic there. There won't be, but we can always hope.

Just as in the preseason, I will be using the pollstalker at pollspeak.com to evaluate the voters and see all the ballots.

Most Overrated Team: Nebraska (9) – The Cornhuskers has big questions on offense and were really good on defense, at least that was the conventional wisdom. Well, the defense stinks (Washington eviscerated it but couldn't do anything defensively and Fresno St. went up and down the field all game long) and the offense, while strong right now, is just doing what it did against the soft early schedule a year ago. I suspect the Nebraska we have seen so far will not be there all season long and if the defense remains average, the Cornhuskers will lose at least 3 games in Big Ten play.

Most Underrated Team: West Virginia (16) – The Mountaineers have been inconsistent, but they have played some very good football. I expect them to put it all together this week in a huge game against LSU and have a chance to win the game at the end, especially with their spread passing game (a bit different than the spread running games LSU has devoured thus far).

Five craziest votes:

Jeremy Sampson votes TCU 19^th and Baylor 20^th: There is so much wrong with this its astounding. Later in the season, a case might could be made for this. Now though. Baylor is 2-0 and BEAT TCU. TCU has two wins and it is viable to vote them in the poll, just not in front of Baylor. Get your preseason biases out of here, especially when there are early head-to-head matchups involved.

Dirk Facer votes Arizona St. over Illinois: Really. Some guys make this too easy. Arizona St. lost to Illinois, Saturday. Illinois hasn't lost a game yet. How is this justifiable? Was Arizona St.'s ugly overtime win over Missouri really that powerful a victory? (No)... Moving On

Eight dimwits are still voting for Auburn: Have these guys not watched Auburn play? The defense is wretched by FCS standards, let alone SEC/Top 25 standards. The offense is good, but the big win over Mississippi St. looks quite average right now given what LSU did to the Bulldogs. Also, Utah St. is still Utah St. and Auburn still needed a miracle to pull that game off. Realistically, this team should be 0-3 right now, not getting top 25 votes.

Three Notre Dame voters still exist: To the three of you. I don't care how many yards they have put up. They are a 1-2 team with a crippling turnover problem (seriously, they still turned it over 3 more times in the win over Michigan St.). There is no justifiable reason to vote the Irish in the Top 25 right now. Get back to me when you get above .500

The awfulness that is Craig James: There are so many places to go with this, especially considering James is already the most vilified (seriously) analyst in college football we might have ever seen. With his terrible ballot, we can now see he is unqualified to this too. At least he got his top 4 right. The rest though... Florida St. is still at five, even with an injured quarterback. He thinks Michigan is a top 20 team (you can argue that on resume right now, but there is no way James is a resume voter in the blogging sense of it). His 22-25 teams in order are: TCU (I don't agree but whatever), Mississippi St. (1-2 with losses to awful defense Auburn and an offenseless performance where they looked like they couldn't beat a high school team against LSU), Auburn (you already read my thoughts on them being ranked earlier, but then its compounded by ranking them behind Mississippi St. who they beat and have a better record then) and Notre Dame (mind-numbing stupidity we have here). I could go on but I really don't want to. That this guy has a vote and his shiny analyst position given all the things he has done that are, at the very least, in gray areas (trying to be nice here) is quite sickening, especially considering he is also bad at his job.

Poll trends:

Overreacting early in the season – The conventional wisdom has always been its better to lose early than late. It's a lie. Losing in September is a recipe for poll burial (unless you're TCU for some reason). You fall so far back, there is no making it up. Teams that lose in October don't fall as far, making that the best month to lose in. This season, we have already seen Florida St., Oregon fall from the top 10 in losses to teams ranked in the top 3. Had both of those teams started 6-0 and lost the same games in late October, the punishment would have been a drop to about the 7 spot with still plenty of time to climb back up.

The most important thing is still not losing – Only 3 teams with a loss are currently ranked. All the others, even if they have a decent to good win are somewhere on the outskirts of the poll at best. A case can be made at the very least for Arizona St. (win over Missouri before Illinois loss) and Maryland (win over Miami who then beat Ohio St. before losing to West Virginia). Certainly what those teams have done is more impressive than Arkansas and Virginia Tech (3 cupcake snacks for Arkansas and two plus East Carolina for Virginia Tech).

Non-BCS schools get no love – The only way to get any respect from outside the power conferences is to play in the Mountain West. If you don't have then, forget about the top 25. You can make a good case that what Florida International out of the Sun Belt has done so far is better than much of the rest of the country and better than many ranked teams. They currently have 4 points. Meanwhile, Notre Dame has 8 points and Georgia 7. O Really?

Biggest Poll Games This Week:

8 Texas A&M vs 7 Oklahoma St. - Expect a wild shootout here (and I mean that considering this game has been a wild shootout for about four year running now). The Cowboys can't be stopped for the most part, but their defense is flammable to say the least and Texas A&M has shown an elite level offense.

16 West Virginia vs 2 LSU – LSU has been great defensively in two hyped tests against spread offenses so far. This one comes against a little different form of spread that matches up a bit better. The West Virginia spread passing game has the potential to give LSU headaches meaning Jarrett Lee and the LSU offense will have to finish those drives that ended in field goals against Mississippi St. with touchdowns.

3 Alabama vs 14 Arkansas – We really don't know much about Arkansas. They haven't played anyone. We can say the same about Alabama, at least on defense. The Penn St. offense is that bad, believe me (and if you don't I sentence you to watching all of Penn St.'s offensive plays against Temple, you are allowed to cry afterward) and while I am nearly certain the Alabama defense will be dominant nobody can really be positive quite yet.

Follow me on twitter

AP Poll Preseason Review

Each week during the season, I will be evaluating the AP Poll and the voters who vote in it. To do this, I will use the pollstaker at pollspeak.com, a site advocating openness for college poll voters. Each week, they post each AP voters entire ballot along with extreme/odd ballots.

Most Overrated Team: Oklahoma St. (9) – Like I said in my preseason top 25, having the quarterback teach the new coordinator the offense is a bit of a red flag. That and the average defense whould give us reason for concern.

Most Underrated Team: Wisconsin (11) – Badgers were a top 5 team last season. The only question was quarterback and they filled that with former NC State quarterback Russell Wilson. I see no reason why this team shouldn't be starting near where they finished last year.

Five craziest votes:

Scott Wolf and Tom Murphy voting Boise St. number 1 – I know Boise St. is going to be good again. I have them ranked solidly in my top 10. That said, voting them number 1 just seems moronic. They might be the best team, they might now, but there is no way a team that finished on the back end of the top 10 with a decent chunk of the offense gone (but not the QB or RB) should be ranked number 1. Maybe they are still propping Boise St. over Oklahoma for the Fiesta Bowl win all that time ago.

Jon Wilner voting Air Force 19 – Another Western voter (like Wolf), another oddly propped up a Mountain West team. Air Force was good last season, but they aren't expected to be any better this year and they finished unranked last season. I just don't get it, especially this high.

Five voters leaving Ohio St. unranked – This just seems like people with an axe to grind railing in protest. Even with Jim Tressel gone and no Terrelle Pryor, this team has top 5 talent. They are not likely to end up that high with all the turmoil, but completely out of the rankings is absurd. Lee Corso is right when he says the team with the better talent wins 80% of the time.

Jeremy Sampson what are you thinking? Texas number 15. You aren't even a Texas based voter so I have no idea where that came from. Show me a quarterback or a running game, both of which weren't there last season, and then we can talk about this ranking.

Jim Wogan, some thing as Sampson. Florida at 13. Are you serious? Show me a competent offense (or at least one that can complete a shotgun snap) before ranking a team that high. At least the Gators won 8 games last season though if the offense isn't a whole lot better, it will be tough to match that.

Poll trends:

Too much SEC respect – It seems the voters took the easy way out and when in doubt chose an SEC team. 8 teams ranked in the preseason seems a bit excessive. It also will make SEC fans more insufferable for everyone else to deal with.

More respect for mid-majors – Boise St. starts in the top 5 again. TCU lost its starting quarterback and much of the defense and still is ranked 14. Further down, Southern Miss, BYU, Air Force and Houston all received double digit points, something Pittsburgh, Michigan and Tennessee can't say.

The poll voters still love their big bowl wins – Of the top 9 teams, only two lost their bowl games. One (Oregon) last the national title game. The other (Texas A&M) lost to a team ranked above them (LSU). For that matter, other than Oregon, the other top 5 teams (Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU and Boise St.) all won their bowl games in blowout fashion.

Being a big name matters – Texas got a lot of votes after a 5-7 season (though not enough to be ranked like in the coaches poll). Florida after its own terrible season is ranked 22. Auburn with virtually nobody outside of running backs returning from last year is ranked 23. Notre Dame is ranked 16. The name and tradition matters, especially in the preseason poll.

Biggest poll matchups of week 1:

3 Oregon vs 4 LSU in Dallas – The most anticipated early season matchup should be highly entertaining and could play a major role in determining the national title game participants.

5 Boise St. vs 19 Georgia in Atlanta – Boise St. starts with its toughest test for the second consecutive season. Win here and the chase for the National Title begins again. And the haters crawl out of the woodwork again too.

1 Oklahoma vs Tulsa – The top-ranked Sooners open the defense of their number one ranking against a Tulsa team with decent talent. Of course the Golden Hurricane is starting over with an entirely new coaching staff after losing head coach Todd Graham to Pittsburgh and offensive coordinator Chad Morris to Clemson. If Oklahoma really is as good as advertised, they will blow Tulsa up rather than play the kind of close game they did against inferior teams like Utah St. and Cincinnati last season.

Follow me on twitter