Preseason Coaches Poll

[maize77blue]

And for people who think this isn't really an issue, the fact that which refs get used is a point that needs to be negotiated, and reported in the press, is evidence of how important it is. I just wish we had a group that had some interest in ND's success.

Your university choose them referees, so who's fault is it? Talk to your university about the referee's but now you probably be using acc's officials. Can't blame anyone but yourselves.

 

[KnuteRoc]

Irish7478 I think I see where you're coming from and on some levels I seriously wouldn't doubt if conferences collude to some degree on that aspect. I mean it only makes sense. The more SEC teams in the T25 the higher likelihood for higher revenue at the end of bowl season.

Conversely, ND has positioned itself as an Indy player and almost has to have as good a SOS, record or better than conferences due to Tie-ins.

And Maize is exactly right, we put ourselves in this position with respect to officials and on down the line. I however don't share the sentiment that any other team or conference has a vested interest in having ND ranked high at any point. ND MUST schedule strong or fairly strong so they'd have to come back around to those teams anyway whereas the SEC for instance doesn't have to schedule ND at all.

I don't find anything inherently wrong with being an independent, except for how At-Large tie-ins work presently and how they'll work when we get into the pending playoff format. The changes may ultimately make it difficult on independents and almost force an alignment, we'll see.

It's hard for me to recollect because I normally don't pay attention to preseason polls and we've had so many lean years that our preseason placement has been subjective for quite awhile. I can't say in particular we 'certainly deserved' higher rankings in some years but I can say this, I have noticed that we commonly start out outside the top10 and have to work our way in where the SEC powers have been top10 almost exclusively in preseason polls. Now, putting the argument of where they fall in the polls and if that is justified or not aside, I do see Irish's point about preseason 'poll-fixing' as it were. It doesn't determine the end-order, but it can certainly pay good dividends for a team that has a good season that was already highly ranked to begin with over say another team that had to work through the ranks of the 20s and Teens to crack the top10 by mid/late season. That is a valid argument in my eyes and I think that's why a lot of Playoff proponents would prefer that format to the bowl format and conference affiliations and tie-ins, BCS computers, etc. It should be as close to the NFL model as possible because it promotes record more than SoS or ranking (which is commonly subjective).