On the PS3. Boo-yah!
Before you drag the mouse up to that little X next to the tab you're reading this on, I ask you to just hang with me for a second. There's actual substance to this post, and I will get to it fairly quickly. But in order to get to the meat, you first have to chow down the airy, spun sugar/like substance that is the backdrop of my story.
I'm playing a dynasty on NCAA Football 11 as the Air Force Falcons. I've always had this mythical interest in the football programs of the service academies. I think this is because there is nothing quite as manly as the idea of playing football at a military institution combined with that fact that military institutions generally make use of the Option offense (my absolute favorite football offensive system).
Anyways, so I'm playing as Air Force. Obviously I needed to be on the team- that's the whole reason why dorks like me play sports games. Right? So I created myself as a dynamic, dual-threat quarterback (a lot like real life, without the 'dynamic' or the 'dual-threat'. Or even the 'quarterback') and started plowing through Conference USA (I know Air Force is currently in the Mountain West- but I just had to find a league that played a conference championship game so I could have that extra game's worth of stats) like I was a warm knife and the Tulsas and Houstons were melted butter.
My latest season started off with a 21 point win over a #6 Florida Gators squad- on the road. I shouldn't brag, but I was impressed. After all, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit had both predicted Florida to win. Boy I showed them. I played on Varsity level and everything!
The very next week, I skyrocketed up to #19 in the polls. Where was I the week before- I don't know. Limbo, oblivion, Dante's inferno- it really doesn't matter. The fact is that now I'm #19. Scratch that- #15 after I creamed Army last week by 20 (who is the civy now, huh?).
I'm really close to actual real-life application, so if you've made it this far, you are about to be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams (which probably says more about the state of your dreams than it does about my writing). I was looking at the rest of my schedule, and I realized that at the rate I'm going, I will probably be playing for a National Championship at season's end. I'm in the top 15 in week 3- I'm basically already sitting at the cool table! Most of my games will be conference games (in a weak conference), with a trip to Mississippi State (hardly a Florida-level challenge) and a conference championship game that will give me an extra week to move up in the polls. BCS, here we come!
And so naturally I then started thinking about the problem with polls- because this is how my mind works. I don't question it anymore, I just roll with it. Mostly I was thinking about college football polls (which I've talked about in the past), but it's no stretch to apply that to other polls as well. Particularly since we're currently in the middle of a GOP Presidential candidate orgy.
The use of polls to determine the national championship is, I believe, an inherently flawed strategy. I feel like it gives artificial favor to the teams that are ranked in the preseason polls as well as teams from BCS conferences. This is because, unless you have a colossal faceplant to start the season, or multiple losses throughout the season, the chances are pretty good that you are going to be in a strong position to remain ranked in the top 25 throughout the season. And if you are in a BCS conference, you have a greater chance of being ranked in the first place (and less of a chance of falling out of the top 25 should you lose a game).
This is no mere academic issue, either. Being ranked brings prestige with it. You get nice little write-ups in the beginning of college football preview mags. Your scores come first on ESPN's homepage. The byproduct of the increased attention gets you more love and attention from the top recruits, which means you're more likely to continue to have good football teams in the future, which means you'll be ranked in the top 25, which means that....you see where this leads, don't you? A self-sustaining cycle of artificially enhanced dominance. And what does that dominance get you?
MONEY. The better your team, the more money that gets brought into the school. So obviously there is a great deal of interest in maintaining the status quo, which is that certain programs are granted the advantage of being ranked before actually playing a single game. This serves usually to keep the money inside the big BCS conference super-circle while leaving the teams like TCU and Boise State on the outside looking in.
Let me show you a little bit how the BCS schools get favored in this system. First of all, a majority of preseason ranked schools come from the six BCS conferences (Big 10+2, Pac-whateveritisnow, Big not-really-12, used-to-be-Big East, ACC, $EC). A fairly large proportion of BCS conference teams schedule very winnable games in the early season. Sure, there's always early-season high-profile showdowns, such as Oregon versus LSU, but most of the time they schedule cream-puffs. The kind that E. Gordon Gee eats for breakfast.
So by the time the average conference season starts, a team that started the season ranked highly is already going to have 3-4 wins under their belt, and if they're in a BCS conference, they're going to be playing against other ranked teams whose rankings are most likely reinforced by a series of wins against inferior competition (not always, but more often than not). So then a ranked team beats another ranked team which enhances its artificially bestowed status (or a non-ranked conference team boosts their status because they beat a ranked team)- even though we don't actually know whether or not the ranked team is actually any good yet. Does this make sense? Am I taking crazy pills?
Sure, there are guidelines to help make sure that the voters are remaining as objective as possible. But come on. There is a subjective human element here that makes this whole thing stink. Ask 1994 Penn State about their level of confidence in voter judgment.
I read an article done by a guy that seems to know more about statistics than I do, and he came to the conclusion that preseason polls do matter (although not as much as we might think). Using a complex formula, he deteremined the difference typically comes down to around 1 poll spot. Even though most of the time 1 poll spot is inconsequential, it can also be absolutely devestating. 1 poll spot seperates #3 from #2, and only #2 gets to play against #1 for crystal football.
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| Note- this is not the BCS trophy. It's a warning to those that think SafeSearch is truly safe. Or search. |
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| T IS FOR TROPHY, THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. NOM NOM NOM NOM |
Sometimes teams win and lose ground in the polls, for sure- sometimes you just don't win that impressively or someone else leapfrogs you because they
So how does tie into politics? Simple- polls influence the headlines, which in turn influences how most people perceive or feel about candidates (or at least the perception of how people perceive or feel about candidates. Man my head is spinning!). And the candidates respond accordingly. Don't believe me? Look at the action, and how much of it is dictated by polls. It's like candidates are not even addressing ideas anymore- they're defending their rank. They're on constant campaign mode, always trying to make their case to be #1.
The obvious problem with this is that our focus as voters can become about things like debate performance instead of policy content. We start to pay less attention to what Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan consists of and more time about how he sells/defends his image. And then we have the audacity to get upset when we find out that the people in office are not as compentant as we thought they were based on the performances that we asked for.
So what's the moral of this story? Obviously I'm telling you to do everything you can to artificially enhance yourself. Whether that means that you schedule easy wins for your football team, become a charismatic public speaker, or make your speed rating a '95' (even though in reality it's more like '65')- just do what you have to do. Because in today's society, it's where you start that determines where you finish.
PICS- Golf trophy- http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2010/4/11/1415660/jumble-in-the-rumble
Chris Leak- http://s3.amazonaws.com/collegeotr/images/blogs/9aa2c206e2ff225abedfaf9f6f414b2f.jpg
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