The college football season starts on Thursday, if you can believe that. Actually, it technically started last Friday. Our apologies to California and Hawaii, but a Friday 10 p.m. ET kickoff for a game in Australia is not going to resonate in our heads that long afterward.
The start of the season means the return of a weekly tradition among college football fans everywhere: scouring the Associated Press (AP) College Football Poll, long since rendered irrelevant with the former BCS, to complain about a lack of respect for our favorite college football program. My take on the AP Poll is a bit more nonchalant. AP voters display either considerable groupthink or contrarianism that's fun to discern by diving into the data. This is Eleven Warriors' "Poll Watch" feature as you come to know it.
Let's start with the AP pre-season poll, which is rife with #takes fodder before the season even started.
There's That Man Again
Long-time readers of this feature know I routinely single out one AP voter. This voter's ballots every week are conspicuous as the most capricious rankings. Its lack of any outward logic and external reliability makes his ballot resemble more performance art than earnest ranking of the top 25 programs in the country in the given week.
That voter is Jon Wilner (San Jose Mercury News) and he's at it again. He's Ohio State's lone No. 1 vote in the AP pre-season poll.
He explained his rationale on his blog at the San Jose Mercury News.
Not ready? Too much attrition? Wait ’til 2017? Nah. Urban Meyer proved two years ago that he can make it work ahead of schedule. Yes, the Buckeyes were slammed by departures to the NFL, but they have experience where it matters most (QB J.T. Barrett), there are future draft picks everywhere, and motivation shouldn’t be an issue after last year’s disappointment. Get ’em early — that means you, Oklahoma! — or get the heck out of their way.
I'm still not seeing much of a justification for the No. 1 vote beyond "2014 happened". It was awesome; don't misunderstand. It's just an apples-to-oranges comparison when you dig deeper to compare both squads.
Also don't mistake that I would love for Wilner to be right and for the reader to advise me to figuratively eat my hat in January. Just be cautious with Wilner's takes as they weekly require oven mitts to handle.
Wilner stands at odds with the AP consensus elsewhere. His No. 5 vote for Clemson and No. 4 vote for Alabama are the second lowest either national championship participant got in the pre-season poll. No. 12 Michigan State is his No. 19. He doesn't have No. 11 Ole Miss or No. 18 Georgia on his ballot.
In my vanity, I think Jon Wilner does these things just to get my attention for this feature. Casting a No. 1 vote for a team that replaces 16 starters will guarantee my attention, but it's not necessary. Wilner's ballots are fun to discuss without that.
A Challenger Appears
I routinely flag Jon Wilner's ballot as performance art. I might have to start looking at Mitch Vingle's (The Charleston Gazette) ballot every week. I don't think anyone had as many extreme picks as him without having to carefully examine each ballot. Here are the highlights:
- Notre Dame is his No. 2. That's a full eight spots above its AP ranking and the highest vote for Notre Dame.
- Clemson is his No. 7. That's tied with Sam McKewon (Omaha World-Herald) as the lowest ranking for Clemson on any ballot.
- Oklahoma is his No. 10. That's second to Wilner in the lowest ranking for the Sooners.
- Auburn is his No. 11. At this point, the reader is convinced Vingle is drunk. Auburn appears on just two other ballots. The highest vote for Auburn besides Vingle is No. 22 (Robert Gagliardi, Laramie Boomerang).
- Florida is his No. 12, a full 13 spots ahead of its AP ranking. Only Tom Murphy (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) had Florida higher on his ballot.
Inside Michigan's No. 1 Vote
Ohio State's No. 1 vote isn't the only peculiar top rank on a given AP ballot within the Big Ten. Scott Wolf (Los Angeles Daily News) has the Wolverines at No. 1 on his ballot.
There's reason to be optimistic about what Jim Harbaugh could do in Ann Arbor in his second year, even with a new quarterback and a schedule that runs through Columbus and East Lansing. I could be convinced a No. 1 vote for Michigan might be capturing even greater optimism than my limited intellect could discern right now.
With that in mind, Scott Wolf offered a reason why Michigan is his No. 1 to convince a skeptical consumer like me.
I don't have any profound (reasons why)...
This is not a great start, but continue.
...but the main reason I think I did it was Jim Harbaugh. He's a great coach and I know how he transformed Stanford and we saw how he transformed Michigan last yea... And I think they'll be even better in year two than year one with him.
That's an odd defense of a No. 1 vote. Alas, it's the pre-season. Everyone is shaking off some analytical rust in the summer.
Variety in the Pac-12 AND a Washington Renaissance
My limited recollection of watching California play Hawaii reminded me of a discussion from the commentators and ESPN halftime crew that the Pac-12's strength might be its undoing when it's time to decide the four participants in the playoff. The Pac-12 is good enough to guarantee a participant in the field of four but without the established birthright the SEC has. Blemishes are not easily forgiven out west as they are down south.
In other words, the collective strength of the Pac-12 may be a weakness come December.
The AP votes seem to suggest that. Five teams in the Pac-12 appear in the AP Top 25. That's one more than the Big Ten's four and one less than the pro forma six (or more) SEC teams that appear in the AP Top 25. However, the highest is Stanford at No. 8. The Pac-12's highest ranked program is closer to the conference median than the SEC.
No. 14 Washington might be the greatest intrigue, not just within the conference but for analysts trying to forecast plausible paths for the Pac-12 to the playoff. Long-time fans of college football remember a time when Washington was so unbeatable under Don James that sanctions were the only means to stop the Huskies. Fast-forward through 25 years and a hurricane named Tyrone Willingham, the Huskies are a trendy pick to win the Pac-12. That's not bad for a 7-6 team from last year.
The timing is perfect. Washington has the conference's best scoring defense and arguably its best quarterback in Jake Browning. His favorite target (Myles Gaskin) returns, as do four starters on the offensive line. The Huskies host Arizona State, Stanford, and USC and don't see UCLA in the Pac-12 South. The only difficult division game on the road is Oregon, a program that Ohio State ruined after the 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship. Oregon, as a program, is an evident downturn. It's one less major obstacle to a Pac-12 championship in a conference otherwise dominated by Oregon or USC this century.
Kirk Bohls (Austin American-Statesman), who cast the Huskies as his pre-season No. 7, is the most bullish on Washington's chances. The Huskies picked up two No. 8 votes from Pete DiPrimio (Fort Wayne News-Sentinel) and Sam McKewon. However, Washington is off two ballots in the pre-season cast by Rob Long (WJFK - 105.7 TheFan) and Marq Burnett (SEC Country).
Washington is a trendy pick but it might be difficult for it to win the Pac-12 and get into the playoff. Its schedule starts with Rutgers, Idaho, and Portland. In other words, Washington will be jockeying for attention and favors from East Coast selectors with a non-conference schedule that includes a below-the-median Big Ten team with a first-year head coach, a program that is somehow not an FCS program with its limited resources and dwindling fortunes, and an actual FCS team. The Huskies follow that with games at Arizona, against Stanford, and at Oregon. An undefeated Washington has a good enough case. A one-loss Pac-12 champion Washington program has almost no chance, and that would take down the Pac-12 from the playoff picture.
Other Peculiar Observations
- Miami is nominally the No. 26 team in the country. Sam McKewon even has the 'Canes as his No. 11 team. Someone's got "7th Floor Crew" (NSFW) cranked and his "U" up.
- There's some optimism for Washington State in the Pac-12 this year. I don't quite see it even if the Cougars cobbled together a solid nine-win season last year. Washington State appears on 17 ballots with the highest vote at No. 15 (Michael Lev, Arizona Daily Star).
- Recall that SEC pre-season votes are pro forma and that's why Arkansas appears on seven ballots.
- Arkansas, Texas, and Nebraska combined for 37 points across all AP ballots. That's three points fewer than Wisconsin, nine points fewer than San Diego State, and ten points fewer than Boise State. Try explaining that to a die-hard college football than just woke up from a coma started in 1971.
