Read the debate intro and Loyal Homer’s argument about what the best method for evaluating the strength of a college football team is.
If there is one thing in college sports that I hate, it is the ability of the media to influence rankings. Through the bogus power of the hype machine, the media holds more control over determining bowl consideration than do the teams that actually play in the games.
As proof of that statement, look no further than the 2009 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
After a three-win season in 2007, Notre Dame managed to pull out six wins in 2008. As a result, the media in their obsession with promoting Notre Dame (because the Fighting Irish can draw a crowd and drive viewership on TV) felt they deserved a bowl game invitation with only a 6-6 record. In fairness, the Irish DID win the bowl game, but it came against the fourth place team in the WAC – the Hawaii Warriors.
Following that 2008 finish which I would rate as average at best, Notre Dame entered 2009 facing a schedule that most expected would pose no challenge to the Irish. Slotted to play teams such as Washington (0-12 in 2008), Washington State (2-11), and Michigan (3-9), it was safe to assume that the Irish would manage to win at least six games again this season. Does that make Notre Dame one of the 25 best teams in the country,? Absolutely not!
If we were talking about the Buffalo Bulls of the MAC, nobody would have even thought twice about considering them as being worthy of any national attention in 2009. Even though the Bulls finished 2008 with a better record than Notre Dame (8-5), including a win over #12 ranked Ball State in the MAC Championship (and like Notre Dame entered 2009 against a very weak schedule), Buffalo was given no love coming into the new season. Notre Dame, on the other hand, undeservedly got a preseason ranking as being the 3rd best team in the nation. ESPN analyst Lou Holtz even went so far as projecting Notre Dame to play for the BCS Championship.
Notre Dame, on the heels of receiving that top 25 ranking, went on to lose the second game of the season to a very weak Michigan team. What did the analysts do in response to that loss? Rather than acknowledge that Notre Dame was perhaps not as good as they originally thought, the analysts instead perpetuated the hype machine even further by errantly inflating their opinions of Michigan, bumping them up to the top 25. How has Michigan played since then? After wins against two MAC schools and against Indiana (annual bottom-feeders of the Big Ten), the Wolverines have lost five of the last six games… hardly top 25 play.
The problem boils down to bias. Whether that bias is the result of networks hoping to attract large television audiences for the broadcast, or former coaches blatantly supporting programs they once led, reporting and analysis by sports media must always be taken with a grain of salt. ESPN does not exist to fairly report sporting events from an unbiased perspective. ESPN exists to sell commercials and earn Nielson ratings. It makes good business sense for the NCAA, and sports outlets such as ESPN, USA Today, and the Associated Press to pay the most attention to (and pour the most praise on) those “major-market” teams, regardless of whether or not they are TRULY better than teams in the Mountain West or the MAC.
Just last week, BCS officials openly admitted to bias. A bowl director publicly voiced hope that Notre Dame finishes the 2009 season ranked among the top 14 teams in the BCS, because of the economic benefit of having the Irish play in one of the BCS bowl games. The implication of those comments was that a two-loss Notre Dame (a team that had not been ranked higher than #18 in the nation during the first nine weeks of the season) would STILL be considered a “better” team than either TCU or Boise State, despite the fact that those teams had not yet lost a game. As a side note, Notre Dame decided to repay that unfounded support with a loss against Navy the following weekend. That is HARDLY playing like a BCS-caliber team.
Another example is Utah, the only undefeated school in the country last season, and a team that did not get the opportunity to play for a national championship because people “thought” the team was not as good as Florida or Oklahoma. Why not give them a chance to prove the team’s strength?! Utah was the only unbeaten team in the entire nation, yet it did not even get consideration for the BCS title.
It is the same problem that has USC ranked ahead of Oregon today. Oregon has the exact same record as USC, actually BEAT USC this season, and also crushed California (a team that was also ranked in the top-ten when playing the Ducks), but is still ranked behind them. Why? Because USC is SUPPOSED to be better than Oregon, not because USC IS better than Oregon. The fact that USC lost to Oregon, apparently, has no bearing on the team’s evaluation.
Football standings should be decided ON THE FIELD, not by the opinions of sportswriters and analysts. Analysts can be wrong from time to time, but numbers do not lie, and numbers cannot be influenced by bias or self-serving interests such as trying to attract viewers. The most objective and fair way to evaluate and measure strength in a sport is to use facts and results, not expectations and assumptions.
