A number of years ago, I worked with a guy who had this great quotable that has stuck with me ever since I first heard it. It may not have been original to him, so I will not give you his name. That and the fact that he might not want to admit that he knows me. Regardless, he would often say that “people are masters at creating confusion for their own benefit.” On an almost daily basis, I find this so true. If you don’t believe me, call nearly any government office and ask for anything that might be slightly out of the ordinary.

I once went to a DMV to get a letter saying that my driving record had an error on it and was corrected on a certain date. I needed this, on request from a municipal judge, so that I could defend myself against a driving citation that was nothing but pure horse squeeze. It literally took me 6 weeks, 4 visits to their offices and over 2 dozen phone calls just to get 1 person to type up a 3 sentence letter and fax it to me. It really didn’t have to be this difficult. Ultimately, it was the 1st department I spoke to that provided the letter, but chaos and confusion is the norm for some of these places, and you have to wonder why. It has to be because someone benefits. On the other hand, a bit of unnecessary confusion can be interesting and fun. I am a huge fan of Rube Goldberg, which as you know was absolutely brilliant at developing incredibly complex systems to accomplish the simplest of tasks. But as fun as this is at times, it has no place in college football.

I mentioned in a recent article that I was not a fan of a playoff system. I am also not a huge fan of the BCS. I’m a bit old school. I don’t mind using the polls to select a national champion because it’s a bit of a paper championship anyways. I’ve always placed more stock in winning a conference championship. It’s as objective as it comes, because you’re playing everyone in your conference, or at least your division and you’re having to beat the other division champion. There is nothing subjective about it. Even when there are ties for a division championship, there are at least a number of levels of objective criteria you go through to select your champion before flipping the coin. In that article, I made the argument that even in a playoff system, at some point, seeding will likely have to look at the polls. There are just way too many teams for a full blown playoff on the national level. However, in spite of my playoff pessimism, I also mentioned in said article that I have given some thought as to how a playoff might work, while balancing how to address the major concerns with a playoff. I also mentioned that I would let you in on my maniacal thoughts in a future article. This is that article.
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So, here we are just a few weeks prior to the kickoff of the college football season, and teams are beginning to get into the routine of things. We’re doing the same thing here at the NBL, so in getting use to the college football routine, I’m sitting here on the couch, early in the morning on Saturday watching Sports Center and reading the news. And the news of the day is the new preseason AP poll and the fact that Boise State is ranked at number 3, and how impressive that is for a non-BCS school.

Let’s be frank here. There are two things that are pissing me off about this: preseason polls and the BCS. Let’s start with this whole preseason poll thing. As most of you know, the NBL couldn’t give two left testicles about preseason polls. We decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t release a poll until at least week 3 of the season, so that we can see how teams will actually play, as opposed to voting based on how we think teams will play. Now, One of the big arguments being made out there in favor of preseason polls, is that they are fun and get fans excited about the upcoming season. Honestly, I think that argument is pretty stupid. There are over 100 teams in college football and preseason polls only mention 25 of them. You really mean to tell me that fans from the dozens of other teams aren’t excited about the start of the season. On top of that, you rarely ever hear of a coaching staff that will get excited about their preseason ranking. If anything, they get annoyed or concerned by them. In many ways, for any teams, it is a bit of a curse to be ranked high during the preseason. I just heard Texas coach Mack Brown talking about how he believed polls are irrelevant. When asked how he felt about his team being ranked 5th in the preseason AP, he responded by saying that team chemistry changes dramatically from day to day prior to the opening kickoff of the season and that you never really know what kind of team you have until your in the 4th quarter and your getting beat by the other team. The NBL philosophy in practice! Polls don’t matter when a lower ranked team is beating you in the 4th quarter. So if Mack Brown is averse to the preseason polls and most other coaches agree with him, why the polls and does it really benefit anyone in the long run?
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