Is the key to BCS. I’ve never understood why the people selected to vote either treat it frivolously, or can’t do the job properly because their job keeps them from watching the games; i.e. sportswriters and coaches. It’s almost like the voters are too close to the game to get the full picture, most would freely admit this.

Conversely, read Peter King or Paul Zimmerman’s articles about the Hall of Fame voting process. They take it so seriously, treat it as the tremendous honor that it is, and the process is better for it. The voting process in college football needs to be treated similarly.

I’d suggest appointing a panel of not necessarily “experts” but of educated people who take an oath to watch as much football as they can on Saturday and participate in a caucus on Sunday for as long as it takes to arrive at a consensus top 25 each week. Coupled with the computer models they use already the ranking system would finally be impartial.

just surprised we didn’t get ranked below ND.

Here is Schlabach’s top 25 at the end of spring practices. There are a bunch of changes. No team really shoots way up or down the rankings, but there are a number of teams that moved a few spots. My question is…..what’s changed? What has happened since May 9th that makes Georgia now better than Ohio State? Why did Missouri drop 3 spots? This stinks of Schlabach just needing a column to meet a deadline.

From last year, as you can see their ranking on total offense was 119, sacks 119, rushing offense 115. Their defense was average. They return their EMU at QB and the same offensive line. Good luck with staying in the top 25. The only good things about ND this year are their schedule and the fact that if Weis gets run into on the sideline during a game he is more likely to injure the player than to sustain an injury himself, lardass.

TEAM RANKINGS

119 teams ranked in Division Football Bowl Subdivision
3 teams ranked in Div IA Independent
Category National
Rank Actual National
Leader Actual Conf
Rank Div IA Independent
Leader Actual
Rushing Offense 115 75.25
Passing Offense 110 167.00
Total Offense 119 242.25
Scoring Offense 116 16.42
Rushing Defense 96 195.42
Pass Efficiency Defense 22 111
Total Defense 39 357.00
Scoring Defense 72 28.75
Net Punting 13 37.89
Punt Returns 52 9.12
Kickoff Returns 93 19.69
Turnover Margin 55 .00
Pass Defense 2 161.58
Passing Efficiency 113 104.63
Sacks 96 1.50
Tackles For Loss 113 4.75
Sacks Allowed 119 4.83

I also heard that the NBC contracts states that if ND is .500 or better this season that lil Jimmy automatically wins the Heisman, Charlie is coach of the year, and ND gets to pick which BCS bowl game they’d like to play in.

If you want to climb out of the 24th spot just win and the pools will take care of themselves. Should PSU be 12-0 at the end of the season, the voters would not deny Paterno a chance for the National Championship regardless of where they began the season in the pools. (Be that fair or not, it will be the reality for Paterno’s last deemed hurrah.)

Best of luck to you guys this year. Some advice, however – cheer for your Blue and White, and quit bashing other teams. You will all be a lot happier if you lose the inferiority complex and quit pretending that once again "the world is against us".

Go Irish.

NBC thought enough of their future to renew its TV contract another five years.

I get a kick out this too, Notre Dame Football is on NBC right before the Pro Rodeo Tour comes on. For god’s sake NBC televised Arena Football and the XFL. Why not renew the contract, what the hell else are they going to show on Saturdays, cock fighting?

Everybody says this contract is a huge advantage, but how has that advantage manifested itself? It sure hasn’t been in the Win column.

I think you could make an argument that you get as much exposure by playing on ESPN and ABC because they obviously promote their own games and about 85% of college football games are on those two channels. I’ll concede that the national coverage probably gives them more exposure, but how much more is debatable. Just as often they are out of sight and out of mind on a channel nobody looks to for football.

Apparently, yes. Does the sports writer job pay much? Because if it does, sign me up. I’d love to get paid good money to make some ridiculous guesses based on half-ass information and hearsay. This is even worse than the weathermen who change their forecast several times a day.

just win your games and you’re in the playoffs. Beat up on your division and you have a good shot.

This poll stuff is just total BS. It’s made me look at NCAA and my PSU fandom as more of a hobby whereas the NFL is my fan job. The NCAA is too quaint to take seriously… as long as we beat michigan…

are who I blame for this tripe list by Schlabach. The end product is so elementary (and the wee comments about each team so frivolous), it’s clear to me that they have specifically asked for fluff, in this dead time. Have any of you been reading the Ombudsman columns by LeeAnn Schreiber on the WWL’s site? It’s been a fascinating look into the big machinery up there. I love it when she interviews biggerwhig production dudes and evp’s in charge of programming and such. They all sound so shady. While they seem to want to at least appear to be interested in improving their overall journalism, they nonetheless fail to totally mask their arrogance at being in a position with real power to shape how sports get covered these days.

And with all due respect to speedomike, arguments like ‘as BS as things like the polls are, they are part of what makes it all so interesting’ are what the people of power in our favorite sport hear the most and are part of what helps them maintain their righteousness about all these things we clearly identify as effed up.

The problem with college, however, is that all the different voters are using off the wall criteria. The poll sponsors need to come out with some type of set of standards if they are to be respected. One guy may rank solely by on-field performance, and thus would punish a team for losing by a small margin over a crappy team. Others think a win is a win and don’t care. Others still rank based on who looks the best on paper but then create some type of punishment for losing. Finally, you have pollsters that will punish a team for not winning their conf, which kept UGA out of the MNC discussion even though there is no reason to (it didn’t apply to OU when they were blown out by Kansas several years ago).

The NFL system sucks for different reason: you can lock a playoff spot up very early and sandbag for several weeks at the end of the season: that to me is the biggest downside to a CFB playoff.