The preseason college football top 25 polls came out this week. Ratings of teams that haven't played a snap yet, that are populated with kids who on any given week could amaze or flop. I continue to have a huge problem with this.
It's not enough that we have deal with a system in which people's (so-called experts) opinions of a team has a say in what amounts to the national standings. Not wins or losses, games played, or points scored- opinions. Now I understand there are too many teams, and varying competitive levels throughout the college game, so standings based on wins and losses doesn't really work. But the current system doesn't really work either, because it is based too much on these "expert" prognostications- or guesses, really. Something's gotta change.
The way things are done now, a team's preseason ranking has way too much to do with how they finish. Think about it. A team ranked at the top of the preseason polls can lose a game or two early, and still wind up with a shot to end up near the top- and a shot a big-time bowl game or even the national title. But a team the in bottom half of the rankings, or even just outside the top 25: they lose a couple games and they have to scratch their way back just to get back in the picture, let alone have any shot of inching towards the top. Now I'm not asking for playoff (although there frickin should be). I'm not asking for a drastic change to the way things are done. Just give everyone a fair shot.
Perhaps wait a month, maybe 5 weeks into the season before releasing the first official rankings. Have everybody play a few games, separate the contenders from the pretenders- then rank them. Have the experts gather information and base their opinions on fact- wins and losses, points scored- not on somewhat educated guesses. Is it a perfect solution? No. But there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution to this issue. And this one, seems a little less imperfect than the way things are now.
