The point is the pre-season polls are pure speculation - at this point, UF has one of the strongest resumes in the entire country. Where sportswriters arbitrarily places them based on last season should mean nothing - on the field results are what matters.
Exactly. At this point I think Bama would beat UF by two TDs, but when you look at the schedule and results, they have the better resume. Right now.
I get that you're biased, but OSU is only at the top because of last year. If you wipe the slate clean and just look at this season, they're not in anyone's top 5...
You must have overlooked the word "legitimate" in the thread title. :biggrin:
I agree that OSU does not look like the best team as of right now, but nobody has exactly seized the moment either, many teams have an argument for 1 right now so I just went with the default. If this were last season I would have put FSU as 1, for example, not because they look amazing, but because nobody else has separated themselves from each other. There has to be a clear cut 1 to dethrone defending national champs in my book.
This is college football. Teams differ too much from one season to the next to be a "defending" team. This year's OSU team has won nothing yet. I get that this isn't a popular view, but it is the straight truth.
That same logic could be applied to virtually any sport, not just college football. Rarely does a championship team comeback 100% intact, there are almost always departures of some kind due to trades, free agency, graduations, etc. I believe that if you have the vast majority of your team from the previous year returning, then you qualify as a defending champ and should be given some level of respect during the early part of the season.
A level of respect - absolutely. But a team grows over the course of a season. It changes. It is not the same at the end of a season as it is at the outset.
Yeah polls are worthless at this point, but if we are talking about the committee then really who knows who will be where. Part of me thinks bama would be higher than every SEC team with the exception of LSU and aTm.
I agree with everything you just said, the problem is that everything you just said could be applied to pretty much every team vying for that number 1 spot as of now. Give it a couple more weeks and a true 1 will emerge, until that time there is no point in giving it to a different team every week.
Fair enough. I just decide not to assign numbers at all. But if I had to assign a #1 ranking right now, I would not give it to the Buckeyes. Other teams have done more this year. So our methodologies would simply be different.
What I think it will look like in December:
1) Michigan State (13-0) - They run the table including a hard fought win in the Big 10's version of "The Game of the Century."
2) Oklahoma (12-0) - They have the most talent and best coach in their conference but nobody can stop talking about TCU or Baylor long enough to realize that they have pretty good QB play right now and thats what they've been missing since the end of the Bradford era.
3) Clemson (13-0) - FSU is the only test left.
4) Alabama (12-1) - The Texas A&M game ends up being the battle for the SEC's playoff spot. My Crimson colored glasses have me believing that Coker and the offense has turned a corner and we're gonna pull it out in College Station. We'll get Florida from the East in a tough SECCG against our former OC. Cyrus Jones channels Langham for a late INT TD for the win.
-- First 2 out --
5) Ohio State (11-1)
6) Texas A&M (11-1)
