FB: Liberty League

[IC798891]

A reasonable person can think Hopkins is the #13 team, or that Dickinson is not a top 25 team, but the only way you can think both at the same time is if you ignore what's happened on the field in favor of pre-history

Correct.

Sometimes, what happens on the field isn't a referendum on who is better overall, but merely better that day.

Did you really think, in 2012, when Buffalo State (of all teams) ended Whitewater's 46-game winning streak, that the Bengals were better? Like, you'd have continued to have them ahead of Whitewater in the rankings, even in early-October, when they were 2-4 and Whitewater was 4-1?

[unionpalooza]

1) It's simply not possible to rank 25 teams so that no one is ahead of a team they lost to and or behind a team they beat.

2) But even if you could, doing that takes it away from being a national rankings and turns it into a national standings.

To illustrate this using your specific example:

Dickinson, has not posted a winning record in the CC since 2006, and has one winning season overall since then. Hopkins ass been to the national semifinals two straight years, won 10+ games in 12 of their last 14 seasons, and beat Dickinson 55-10 last season. If you think they're *better* than Hopkins, well...

Besides, they're fun and they give us something to talk about.

Sure, but it still makes no f*cking sense.  A reasonable person can think Hopkins is the #13 team, or that Dickinson is not a top 25 team, but the only way you can think both at the same time is if you ignore what's happened on the field in favor of pre-history and personal bias. That said I agree it's fun and gives us something to talk about.  I just think one of the most fun things to talk about is how Week 2 polls are goofy exercises in radically uninformed and logically indefensible decision-making.  I'm a weirdo and think it was cool how back in the day you'd make the playoffs and by the second round draw a team you only vaguely knew, and if you made the quarters, you'd play a school you never heard of.  A littler mystery in life is under-rated.

Do you think the Top 25 is just a reflection of what a team has done this season? That still makes it way more like standings rather than rankings. The subjectivity allows us to share what we think will happen the rest of the season. We will see how those three schools end up compared to each other.

I have no idea what it's a reflection of.  It's 25 people ranking teams according to their own idea of what they're supposed to be ranking.

[Jonny Utah]

1) It's simply not possible to rank 25 teams so that no one is ahead of a team they lost to and or behind a team they beat.

2) But even if you could, doing that takes it away from being a national rankings and turns it into a national standings.

To illustrate this using your specific example:

Dickinson, has not posted a winning record in the CC since 2006, and has one winning season overall since then. Hopkins ass been to the national semifinals two straight years, won 10+ games in 12 of their last 14 seasons, and beat Dickinson 55-10 last season. If you think they're *better* than Hopkins, well...

Besides, they're fun and they give us something to talk about.

Sure, but it still makes no f*cking sense.  A reasonable person can think Hopkins is the #13 team, or that Dickinson is not a top 25 team, but the only way you can think both at the same time is if you ignore what's happened on the field in favor of pre-history and personal bias. That said I agree it's fun and gives us something to talk about.  I just think one of the most fun things to talk about is how Week 2 polls are goofy exercises in radically uninformed and logically indefensible decision-making.  I'm a weirdo and think it was cool how back in the day you'd make the playoffs and by the second round draw a team you only vaguely knew, and if you made the quarters, you'd play a school you never heard of.  A littler mystery in life is under-rated.

Do you think the Top 25 is just a reflection of what a team has done this season? That still makes it way more like standings rather than rankings. The subjectivity allows us to share what we think will happen the rest of the season. We will see how those three schools end up compared to each other.

This discussion is exactly why many feel there should be no polls/rankings until after a few weeks of games.  So the poll is what it is at this point.  It isn't going to make sense for the most part the first few weeks.  No one is losing or getting a playoff spot based on week 1 rankings.  Gotta just keep all this in mind when looking at early season polls at any level.