Editor's Note: Travis Kriens is good friend of Traxler's Take and staff assistant for media relations at Tennessee State University. He is also a voter in the weekly Sports Network Top 25 FCS Poll.
What is the purpose of polls in sports?
In every sport not named Football Bowl Subdivision level college football, a playoff at the end of the regular season decides the eventual champion. FBS is also the only sport that takes the top two teams at the end of the regular season and faces them off to determine that season’s champion. Besides that, what is the reason we rank teams week after week?
In this week’s Football College Subdivision media poll, there are two examples of confusion.
South Dakota State is the first team receiving votes outside of the Top 25 and has a 5-2 record. Indiana State is ranked #15 and has a 6-2 record. These two teams played last month in Terre Haute, Ind., and Jacks soundly defeated the Sycamores, 24-10. Those that have Indiana State ranked over SDSU will argue ISU’s 17-14 win at then #1 North Dakota State is proof the Sycamores are the better team. I would argue the 14 points win for SDSU when the two teams faced each other is the reason why I have SDSU (#20) ranked ahead of Indiana State (#21).
There is a similar situation in the Ohio Valley Conference. #18 Eastern Kentucky is 6-2, while #21 Tennessee State is 7-1. TSU defeated EKU 23-20 less than three weeks ago. How you can have EKU ranked ahead of TSU when the two teams played recently and EKU lost is beyond me.
In a month's time, the regular season will be over and this won’t matter much because the FCS selection committee will take over. They'll select the 20 teams that will qualify for the 2012 playoffs and have a chance at the national championship. The polls at that point are meaningless. There will be a few teams inside the Top 20 that don’t qualify and a few teams outside the Top 20 that will and that's far from unusual.
It should be noted that the weekly coaches' poll is no better when it comes to ranking teams. So what is the purpose of ranking these teams week after week?
"I think the polls capture the national landscape,” said Craig Haley, who is The Sports Network Senior Editor/FCS Executive Director. “I think they are a guide for the members of the FCS playoff committee, but strength of schedule and results are important."
There are 121 universities that play at the FCS level. That’s a lot of teams to keep track of, so if the Top 25 does anything, it is used as a barometer. You may watch one or two FCS games a week from start to finish. How do the voters keep track of them and know that team A is better than team B or better than team C?
"Well, so much information is at the tip of our fingers with the Internet, so it's easy to be informed,” Haley said. “I send out a scoreboard to the voters before they vote. Over time, a team's scores usually reflect what kind of team it is."
That is really the only way to do a national poll the takes into account such a large quantity of teams. However, there is no way to watch the amount of games that you would need in order to make an informed and fair decision. As we know, the box score, the stats and the final score don’t always tell the story.
So who makes up the voting population?
"I hope all the voters are objective because The Sports Network wants a widespread panel reflecting all the FCS conferences,” Haley explained. “We have about 175 voters. Personally, I value the bigger conferences a bit more on my ballot, but I like schools that play a tougher schedule."
"I think the depth of the poll speaks volumes,” Haley continues. “We've been around a long time and the FCS schools respect The Sports Network. But in addition to the media, we have voters who are SIDs (Sports Information Directors). I think that can cause a problem if a voter tries to favor his school and conference. I see the ballots and it's not rampant, but it happens."
In last week’s poll, Georgia State picked up their first win of the season to improve to 1-6. They received 23 points in the poll, which is the same as voting a team third in the country. It’s no coincidence that Georgia Southern is a top ranked team and that whoever put Georgia State third meant to put Georgia Southern. Those are the kind of mistakes that can’t and shouldn’t be made by a voter.
Why do voters punish teams for losing to higher ranked teams? For example, if #15 loses to #1, why is #15 dropped in the polls the next week? Are they any worse of a team because they lost a game everyone expected them too? You, the voter, placed them at #15, which says that you don’t think they are as good as the #1 team or any team above them.
Late in September, #21 Montana lost to #7 Eastern Washington on the road by six points and dropped out of the Top 25 to #28. They dropped seven spots for losing a close game that they were expected to lose.
The most polarizing team early in the season was Northern Iowa. A top 10 team in the preseason poll, the Panthers lost four of their first five games to Big Ten foes Wisconsin (26-21) and Iowa (27-16), #3 ranked Youngstown State (42-35) and then #1 NDSU (33-21). Four games that Northern Iowa was not expected to win, all on the road expect for NDSU. People could not figure out how someone could vote for UNI despite being 1-4. They didn’t lose any games to anyone ranked lower than they were. If you vote with the philosophy of ranking the teams one through 25 based on who you think is better, it’s not that far-fetched to consider the Panthers as a ranked team. They did defeat SDSU this past Saturday 27-6 to knock the Jacks out of the polls.
Polls are most prevalent in college sports but in recent years they have made their way into professional sports.
I don’t know of many things that are a bigger waste of time than putting together or reading NFL power rankings. They matter about as much as your single vote in the upcoming November elections. At the end of the season, the teams with the most wins make the playoffs. End of discussion.
That is not the case in college sports. With so many teams and a wide variety of schedules, you just can’t go by wins and losses. Recently, it seems like voters don’t even go by that anymore.
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