I'm pretty sure that the current BCS system wasn't designed so that teams get screwed "less frequently". It was designed to eliminate that problem, it failed. We need a playoff.
So I have to ask, If Auburn started the season ranked 1 or 2, do you honestly think they would have been left out?
It was designed so that there could be a championship played on the field. It has succeeded at this. It still has flaws, but any system that doesn't include every team in a playoff will have some level of a flaw. Right now, it can only be 2. If you're team 3, you'll consider yourself getting "screwed" if you have the same record as them. If we make it an 8 team playoff, the 9th, 10th, and 11th teams will have been "screwed" because they had the same record as the team ranked 8th.
If Auburn started the season at #1 or #2, they likely would not have been left out, but who knows? That's the damn problem....nobody knows what they must achieve in order to compete for a title. Going undefeated IS NOT enough. If there are only 2 teams that go undefeated, one will not play if a one-loss Notre Dame team is available, and I don't believe that is even up for debate - everybody knows that certain teams are provided preferential treatment by the Media to influence voter decisions. That is a fact, not speculation. With regards to the original thread topic, Phil Steele has announced his rankings: FWIW, I love Steele's guide for the stats and player ratings it provides, but I've never thought much of his college predictions. His pro predictions are altogether a different beast - he's not bad there.
It almost always is... sorry it wasn't for Auburn. You simply got unlucky to be undefeated in a year of having 2 other teams go undefeated as well. Notre Dame will generally be the highest ranked team with their record, but with one loss they will not jump an undefeated team from a major conference into the NC. Their preferential treatment is great, but not that great.
Steele has LSU ranked 21st!? Louisville #3, VT #9, Arkansas 13th... Wow... Those are just the few that stand out the most! His entire rankings seem generally off to me.
With everything I've written, I've given you my honest opinion. If OK (preseason AP #2) and AU swtched positions, but both retained their schedules, yes I believe that AU would still have been left out. That year AU actually passed OK in the AP which caused an intense scrutiny of their SOS vs OK and they immediately fell back. All of this was supported by the computer models too. My guess is that a similar crossroads would have been reached with the reverse preseason ranking and OK will still have come out on top. With a #1 ranking it is more complicated and I think that most likely AU would not have been excluded, but it certainly would have been possible. The complicating factor is not the ranking itself, but what the ranking represents. These rankings represent a collective opinion on a team's returning talent and how they are expected to perform with their schedule. USC wasn't randomly selected as the #1 team, there were reasons for it. To supplant them with AU is to say there were even better reasons, and not having a clue what they would be, how could I possibly speculate whether you lived up to them or not. You came close to OK, so I believe I'm on firmer ground speculating there, but you didn't come close to touching USC. Many who dislike preseason rankings advocate delaying the first poll until week x. Personally, I just don't get what they think they will accomplish with this gimmick. Well, you'll get a different result they say. Well, have you ever compared week x vs preseason? It's different. They will just consider this season they say. Why? Of course it will be tempered by what has transpired, but will they forget all that they know just because a few games have been played? For example, by the first BCS poll, AU was ranked 3rd. Why was that an unreasonable ranking? I do think preseason polls matter somewhat, but nowhere near what the mythology claims.
We never passed Oklahoma in either poll until the final one...though we did tie them once...even though they still had more first place votes than us. (8 to 6).
My mistake, you are correct. My data has AU listed first, but I didn't look close enough to notice that it was a tie, but I don't think it invalidates my points. You could not have even tied them if preseason ranking was the end all. SOS, yours plus the lackluster SEC performance in big OOC games, was the problem. This, not preseason ranking, was the reason AU couldn't maintain momentum and lost ground each succeeding week in the AP.
It's inherently simple. The rankings would be based upon the results of the team on the field, not the previous season's team. Not a gimmick, but here's the problem .... it wouldn't allow media to sell more newspapers.
