Comments on: USA Today Poll is a joke

By: Justin Kistner – Rockstarbrother’s Top 25 – Week 5 2009

Justin Kistner – Rockstarbrother’s Top 25 – Week 5 2009 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:20:19 +0000

[...] Why would the USA Today rank California above Oregon? I hope the BCS rankings aren’t as disappointing. The AP Poll seemed to understand. Oregon just beat California by over thirty points! California did not even score a single touchdown against Oregon! California came in as the better ranked team but they failed to even get inside the Oregon 20 yard line. [...]

By: Justin Buckley

Justin Buckley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:22:21 +0000

Being a Beaver fan, I also agree with you. I’m shocked that none of the analysts have talked about Oregon winning the Pac-10 this year. It’s always Cal & USC. Oregon looks really tough this year and despite the loss to BSU, they should at least be ranked in the top ten and need to be the front-runners for the Pac-10 title. Thanks for sending this on and like I said, despite being a Beaver fan, I completely agree with your rationale. It’s a total joke. Go Oregon schools!

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:49:10 +0000

Great point about TV, Alice. I’ve heard from a number of commentators that the sports world was hoping Cal would be the next power house of the Pac 10 because they have a good TV audience.

By: Alice Wright

Alice Wright — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:11:59 +0000

Sometimes I can’t help but think that the numbers are cast based upon what “big” games are coming up on TV that following weekend. Oregon playing the Cougs is certainly not very interesting on a national level (no matter how high the Ducks are ranked), but a well-ranked SC playing a well-ranked Cal is much easier to promote. If Oregon had a big game coming up this weekend, it’s possible we might have seen them ranked higher just to push ratings. In any case, I think the Ducks should be ranked higher. The AP and Sporting News both have them at 16 this morning. That seems more like it.

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:25:18 +0000

That’s an interesting point about who does the voting and the question about how much they are actually paying attention. Social media personalitys use ghost writers and virtual assistants, so why wouldn’t “coaches”?

By: Fredrik Eriksson

Fredrik Eriksson — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:01:17 +0000

Amen, brother.

Everyone knows that the USA Today “Coaches” Poll is a joke. The fact that Cal is ranked ahead of the Ducks after that massacre, proves the point. Maybe they had home-field advantage built into their calculations…

Most votes probably aren’t cast by the coaches themselves, but rather the ADs. No matter who casts the votes, there’s too much politics built in and protection of turf. Penn State’s ranking is a farce.

I was going off on the AP poll when it came out last night, but it’s more realistic than the USA Today one.

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:06:22 +0000

Here’s how I see the Top 25:

1. Florida
2. Texas
3. Alabama
4. LSU
5. Boise State
6. Virginia Tech
7. Iowa
8. TCU
9. Houston
10. Cincinnati
11. Michigan
12. Oregon
13. Miami
14. California
15. USC
16. South Florida
17. Kansas
18. South Carolina
19. Georgia Tech
20. Oklahoma State
21. Ohio State
22. Georgia
23. BYU
24. Oklahoma
25. Missouri

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:28:50 +0000

I agree that the Boise Blount game was bad for our respect. Blount wasn’t the only punch thrown this year. Was it really so bad that we can’t acknowledge the success of this year’s team so far? I know you are not saying it’s fair, but I’m having a hard time accepting that it’s really like that.

The Cal game was nationally televised on ABC. Before that game, people had a ton of respect for Cal. ESPN couldn’t dedicate enough real estate to Iowa for beating #5 Penn State, but almost no mention of us dominating #6 Cal. Iowa won, but no where near what we did. Penn State also didn’t play any one decent before Iowa, but Cal beat Minnesota and Maryland, who are much more respectable than Akron and Temple! It’s gross favoritism.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:52:52 +0000

The worst thing to happen to the Ducks this year was having one of the first games in all of college football, on a Thursday (only game that night), on national TV, be the Ducks worst game in nearly a decade.

Then the whole Blount thing (no need to discuss).

Because of that game, we didn’t drop, we disappeared. Even after Boise State continued to rise, and even though the Ducks proved that game was a fluke and they’re actually a decent team, they’ve continued to miss the respect they deserve, and they may not get it back for a year or two. It may not be fair, but Oregon can’t let Boise State games ever happen again. We can lose on national TV, but we can’t fail to show up like we did that night. Otherwise, we’ll continue to see discrepancies in the polls and feel the pain of low rankings despite teams like Penn State ranking highly.