The great polling debate....

If they are going to be preseason rankings, teams should be ranked on how good they are. You shouldn't look at schedules and what not to do it, polls are supposed to rank the best teams, not predict the finish.

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Neither, they should be ranked after week three according to how good they look at that point.

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In that case, LSU will be #1. I'd give it 5 games.

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Neither, they should be ranked after week three according to how good they look at that point.

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I've always agreed with this, but I don't think we'll ever see it happen. I would actually add that the first poll shouldn't come out until October.

week three or four. NOT before then.

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THOU SHALT NOT BE RANKED AHEAD OF A TEAM THAT BEAT YOU UNLESS THAT TEAM HAS MORE LOSSES.

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Rank the following:

Team A: 11-1
Team B: 11-1
Team C: 11-1

Team A beat Team B
Team B beat Team C
Team C beat Team A

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Three way tie

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1. Team D is 12-0
your 3-way tie is next.

It's just a fact that only one of the three can go. Who's it going to be?

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In your view, should teams be ranked according to how good they look going into the season (hype, etc.), or by looking at the schedules and trying to predict how they will finish the season?

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Neither, they should be ranked after week three according to how good they look at that point.

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I agree with your premise but, like BBATiger, I'd go 5 games but even three would be better.

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ranking a team based on how good they look or how talented they seem is trash. teams should earn a ranking on the field.

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No doubt and though it's changed a lot, pre-season polls were never intended to carry so much weight. In fact, the AP was was initially just for chits and giggles:

In reading Stewart Mandel’s book, Bowls, Polls, & Tattered Souls, which I highly recommend to fans who enjoy reading books about college football, it was very interesting to learn the origins of the AP Poll.

According to Mandel, Sports Illustrated writer and college football historian Dan Jenkins’ book in 1973, tells us the first person to rank teams was Frank Dickinson. Dickinson was an economics professor at the University of Illinois and used a mathematical formula he had derived.

Ironically, he had begun, and had been, doing it for his own private enjoyment and went public with it in 1926. Shortly thereafter, several other polls started being done as well; however, Dickinson’s was perceived as the most legitimate poll of the era.

Later, Associated Press sports editor Alan J. Gould was responsible for bringing college football rankings to the country on a weekly basis. It was midway through the 1935 season that Gould began sending his college football rankings to the AP’s subscribers. His reason? In his own words, “It was a case of thinking up ideas to develop interest and controversy between football Saturdays. Papers wanted material to fill space between games. This was just another exercise in hoopla.” Gould is also quoted as saying, “All I had in mind was something to keep the pot boiling.” It is safe to say, that much, he did achieve.

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Neither, they should be ranked after week three according to how good they look at that point.

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I wish someone would actually provide some evidence that preseason polls have the power that they are claimed to have. Personally, I don't see it, and I enjoy the polls.

anyone who takes schedules into account is a dumbass. Before the games have been played, of course.