September 15, 2010

Ivan Maisel is SHOCKED that voters are ranking teams based on resume

No long-winded rebuttal rant today, but this one deserves some attention. Ivan Maisel is a fantastic, scrupulous (one of the few) sports writer in the main stream media. But this one is a real head-scratcher coming from him:
"My colleague Brad Edwards has determined that no team ever began the season 2-0 and dropped six spots in the poll the way that Florida has. Couple that with Boise State’s loss of seven first-place votes while it sat at home. What does that tell you? Voters, like the rest of us, have shorter attention spans than ever. That may be social-media overload. That may be a greater dependence on what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. Whatever it is, get used to it."
So, according to Maisel's logic here, voters should be bound to their preseason ballots, no matter how teams may play once football actually starts? I wasn't going to explain this, but I feel it's necessary here.


Boise State beat Virginia Tech, was given all the love in the world for it. Then Virginia Tech turns around and loses (at home) to FCS James Madison. The value of Boise's win over VT is greatly diminished by the voters. You don't think it should be?

Florida had 26 yards of total offense in three quarters against Miami... of Ohio, before waking up. The next week, against a decent South Florida Bulls team, the Gators again struggled mightily on offense for three quarters. This isn't some middle-of-the-pack SEC team we're talking about here. It's Florida.

What should voters do? If their resumes change, should teams not suffer or be rewarded accordingly by voters?

I'll let this one go right now. It was a small blurb in a daily short post by Maisel. I don't think any less of his work. That would be shallow. But someone needed to call him out on this. You would think that after the voters royally botched everything in 2004 (re:Auburn, though they'll blame it on "those danged computers"), more flexibility in the rankings would be welcomed.

But that was six years ago. With our attention spans growing shorter by the minute, how could we possibly b--SQUIRREL!

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2 comments:

  1. I am disturbed by sportwriters like Maisel who seem intent to propel Boise State to the championship game. Somehow they see it as the last straw that will break the BCS's back, but that is still no excuse Boise State is playing the equivalent of a high school schedule and it might come back to bite them in the end.

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  2. I love it...SQUIRREL! Exactly...Even Lead Dawg Alpha was susceptible to temporary amnesia...voters no different.

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