Top 25: Insufficient Data are a Cold Bitch

Pre-season polls are difficult to create and almost impossible to rationalize.  There isn't any data with which to make any attempt at a resume ranking; thus we are left to struggle with bogus intangibles such as "momentum" and meaningless quantifications such as returning starters and we ultimately end up with either a poorly contrived power poll or a futile attempt at projection.  

That being said, it may be even more difficult to rank teams within the first three weeks of the season.  The issue is no longer a paucity of data but of the relevance of what little data we have.   With so many teams scheduling FCS teams or their functional equivalents (Syracuse, Duke, Utah State, etc), how do sort out all of the 2-0 and 1-0 teams?  Florida State beat Western Carolina 69-0, Penn State has blowout wins over Coastal Carolina and (a clearly down) Oregon State, Oregon has hung a combined 110 points on Washington and Utah State.  Who really gives a shit?  How are we to judge monumental blowouts by perceived "good" teams against blowouts by teams who are clearly amongst the dregs of FBS (Baylor's 51-6 win against Northwestern State and and Minnesota's 42-17 win over Bowling Green readily come to mind)?  And even after all of that how are we to compare the gimme games to those narrow wins over assumed decent, or even great, teams?  What are we to make of Cal's narrow win over Sparty, Wake's clutch win over Ole Miss, and Alabama's obliteration of Clemson?  

Now we see what a total cluster fuck is on our hands.  

I scoured the interwebs this past week searching for a solution to the Poll conundrum and fell upon cocknfire's BlogPoll ballot over at Garnet and Black Attack (a fantastic site for South Carolina and general SEC discourse).  Cocknfire filled out his ballot by first creating a poll off of the top of his head, he then created a spreadsheet listing the merits of "28 credible teams", he assigned appropriate point values (25 pts for the top spot, 1 for the 25th, etc) to each team in both polls and took the aggregate as his official BlogPoll Ballot. Mimicry is the most sincere form of flattery cocknfire, and I am fully prepared to mimic you...with one slight change.  

I'm reluctant to arbitrarily assign values to a team's wins and losses, that lends itself to too many inconsistencies and subjective measures.  To solve that I'm adopted Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings as a team's hypothetical "worth."  

Top of the Head Poll

1. Oklahoma

2. Florida

3. Georgia

4. Mizzou

5. USC 

6. Ohio State

7. Cal

8. LSU

9. Penn State

10. Texas

11. Auburn

12. Oregon

13. Wisconsin

14. ECU

15. USF

16. Arizona State

17. Alabama

18. BYU

19. Texas Tech

20. Wake Forest

21. Kansas

22. Utah

23. GTech 

24. Fresno State

25. UCLA

Resume-ish Poll

1. ECU (83.145)

2. UCLA (83.04)

3. Utah (82.14)

4. USC (76.93)

5. Cal (72)

6. LSU (68.97)

7. Bama (68.085)

8. Fresno St. (67.965)

9. BYU (67.515)

10. Auburn (67.045)

11. Wake Forest (66.5)

12. Texas  Tech (64.69)

13. Wisconsin (64.345)

14. Arizona State (63.73)

15. Oregon (63.57)

16. Oklahoma (61.935)

17. Georgia (60.255)

18. Ohio State (58.815)

19. Penn State (58.37)

20. Texas (58.34)

21. UConn (57.225)

22. Arizona (56.31)

23. Kansas (55.105)

24. USF (54.21)

25. Mizzou (53.285)

*Again the number in parentheses is Team's "Value"; Value has been computed as being the avg. rating (according to Sagarin) of the teams that Team has beaten.

** Remember this is not a rating of the BEST teams.  Its just a rating of who has done what this season.

Quick Observations from Resume-ish Poll

-Apparently a win over Illinois (70.75) isn't as valuable as a win over Washingto (72.25)...huh?

-The most valuable wins thus far have been VT, Tennessee, Michigan, WVU, and BC.  Boston College...huh?

-I'm surprised to see Oregon State and UVA valued right around Cincy.

-Is Utah's win over a depleted Michigan squad really that valuable?  Was it really that impressive?  

Final Poll

1. USC

2. Florida

3. Cal

4. LSU

5. ECU

6. OSU

7. Oklahoma

8. Auburn

9. Georgia

10. Bama

11. Utah

12. UCLA

13. BYU

14. Wisconsin

15. Oregon

16. Penn State

17. Mizzou

18. Fresno

19. Wake

20. Arizona State

21. Texas

22. Texas Tech

23. Oklahoma State

24. Georgia Tech

25. South Florida

Quick Observations

- I'm somewhat surprised to see Auburn ranked that high, though I'm fairly certain of their talent, they have yet to really impress me.  

- I'm actually VERY surprised to see Cal below USC.  Cal's wins over Sparty in week 1 was very impressive while their win over Wazzu was, in my eyes, at least, just as impressive as USC's win over UVA.  

- I'll work on a formula that will include such factors as margin of victory and home/away  for next week.  Bama's win over Tulane should NOT have gotten them as many points as it did.