If he was....then why has he been sitting behind him the past 2 years?? I have a feeling if he were so good he would have won the job. From what I saw in the A-Day game, he is mediocre and the backups are pathetic.

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Posted by Jimbeaux

Member since Sep 2003

21327 posts

Posted on 7/8/09 at 10:12 am to Indiana Tiger

quote:

All this is just a bunch of assertions unsupported by facts. Voters adjust their rankings all the time, particularly early in the year. They might not adjust as fast or as often as you want, but they do.

Seriously?

Come on dude. The rankings have a self-fulfilling nature to them. Surely you can see that.

The rankings throughout the year are affected by how a team performs against its own schedule. The strength of that schedule is both explicitly and implicitly included in the rankings.

Voters see that Dimwitty U. beat Butt Crack State, who was ranked #1 in the country in pre-season polls. That has a slightly positive impact on their polling for the following week, no?

Most observers, even dedicated college football fans, look at a team's ranking in the polls as a measure of how good the pollster thinks they are relative to the other teams. Later in the year, it is assumed that a team's actual performance is rewarded in the polls, and the measure of how good they are relative to other teams takes more of a back seat.

Furthermore, you cannot deny the fact that pollsters are resistant to jump one team over another if both have won, regardless of how good they think the relative teams are. This effect gives serious weight to early rankings, which is only complicated even more by the fact that these rankings were not intended to be a reflection of the strength of the teams, but a prediction of how they would finish at the end of the year.

If a pollster wanted to be honest, he'd have two seperate rankings. One ranking the relative strength of the teams, and another listing his predicted finish for the season.

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Posted by Indiana Tiger

Member since Feb 2005

4113 posts

Posted on 7/8/09 at 10:28 am to Jimbeaux

It would be helpful if you could come up with some real examples to demonstrate that this has consequences in real life. I have to leave in a few minutes and won't be able to fully respond until much later, possibly tonight. One question I would like you to consider regarding a voter's reluctance to change. Why is this all that relevant to method? Whatever method you choose does not make you immune to this phenomena does it?

quote:
Seriously?

Come on dude. The rankings have a self-fulfilling nature to them. Surely you can see that.

The rankings throughout the year are affected by how a team performs against its own schedule. The strength of that schedule is both explicitly and implicitly included in the rankings.

Voters see that Dimwitty U. beat Butt Crack State, who was ranked #1 in the country in pre-season polls. That has a slightly positive impact on their polling for the following week, no?

Most observers, even dedicated college football fans, look at a team's ranking in the polls as a measure of how good the pollster thinks they are relative to the other teams. Later in the year, it is assumed that a team's actual performance is rewarded in the polls, and the measure of how good they are relative to other teams takes more of a back seat.

Furthermore, you cannot deny the fact that pollsters are resistant to jump one team over another if both have won, regardless of how good they think the relative teams are. This effect gives serious weight to early rankings, which is only complicated even more by the fact that these rankings were not intended to be a reflection of the strength of the teams, but a prediction of how they would finish at the end of the year.

If a pollster wanted to be honest, he'd have two seperate rankings. One ranking the relative strength of the teams, and another listing his predicted finish for the season.