I think that feels about right. But just to show how crazy (stupid) the polls are:
7 teams ranked higher than us lost yesterday.
4-2 UGA is ranked ahead of us. You can can make the tougher schedule agreement, but we lost to #1. They lost to Clemson and (then) unranked Mizzou...who they were heavily favored over. Plus. They are only one spot ahead of Mizzou, who just crushed them. 3 undefeated teams are ranked lower???
Stanford lost to unranked Utah. Ranked above us.
Oklahoma got killed by rutterless Texas. Ranked above us.
Not saying we're world beaters but our season body of work is stronger than those 3.
Just because you start the year higher doesn't mean you're better now.
Isn't that right, USC?
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Comments
Our SoS would have been better if ECU hadn't just lost to Tulane.
I both agree and disagree with you...
AGREE:
The polls are BS. I've argued this before that most of the voters don't watch most of the games. You win, you go up. You lose, you go down. No matter how the game was played, conditions, injuries, score line, stats... None of it matters. I thing UGa should have dropped move from their W over UT than their L to MizzU.
DISAGREE:
You conclude that we should be ranked above Stanford, UGA, and Oklahoma. The ranking, for all their fallacies, do an ok job (not preseason) of predicting the assumed results of matchup. Yeah there will be upsets, but if we where to play any of those 3 teams next week would we be the underdog? Probably.
I agree with our ranking at 19. I don't like the ranking system and I definitely think most of the SEC teams are inflated. Someone else mentioned this in another topic but LSU is 6 and USCe is 11 whose losses come to Georiga. Mizzou jumped Georgia, which I think is OK.
My biggest complaint with the polls are when two teams closely ranked play and the team that loses gets bounced. Remeber #2 alabama vs. #1 LSU? LSU won 9-6. For the top two teams in the nation, with the number 1 school winning in overtime, I would say the polls got it right. But of course Alabama drops in the rankings and has to earn there way back. I think the polls (other than BCS maybe) do a bad job of accounting for how the teams won or lost.
Mizzou was #25 even though they haven't really played anyone until UGA and its SEC beating SEC so they will get the benefit of the doubt all year long. If UGA loses another game I could see them sitting on the edge of polls, but I wouldn't be surprised if they stayed in the low 20s somehow. Also, non AQ schools will always sit lower than 16 until the end of the season, just to see if they can make it. Then they can squeeze in and create the BCS chaos we all know and love.
As the season goes on, the rankings tend to fix themselves, but crazy weekends like this will happen and then pollsters are just left throwing darts on the board to see where people fall past the top ten.
This. As sample size increases, the polls get more accurate. There's just too many teams and not enough games to build an accurate poll at this point.
That being said, I would respect Phil Steele's top 25 far more than the AP's. Hopefully those choosing the playoff selection committee agrees with me.
I really hate that there are preseason polls. I don't think they should rank teams until after week 4 at the earliest, gives everyone a chance to see how everyone is playing and not just going off of how they look on paper/practice. I agree that for the most part the rankings fix themselves but it still has repercussions.
I think UGA, Stanford, and Oklahoma are all better than us, at least by the eye test. We really haven't beaten anyone. I would be content to stay in the 20-25 range until the Miami game, and if we win that one, big jump up.
But most teams have one less game played than us, too, so they're just starting their conference schedules, by and large. We'll see how teams like Baylor and Texas Tech progress throughout the season now that they play their conferences. Mizzou looks to be better than I ever expected.