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But another voting process that occurs over the fall months every year is even more stressful: College Football.
I am a rabid college football fan and an alumnus of the Mighty Florida Gators. I have spent entire beautiful fall days, on the couch, watching football. Imagine wasting away these days when you live in Minnesota. It's sad really. But I can live with sad - I mean, look at me:
Lately, however, this recreational activity that I have loved has become ridiculously stressful. It's downright stressful to watch a Gator game. As the #4 ranked team in the country to start the season, they struggled against mediocre teams. And in spite of last week's trouncing of Kentucky, they still haven't beaten a team of note (LSU is totally overrated).It simply was becoming not fun to watch a Florida game with all the stress. How stupid is that?
Well, thankfully I watch college games from around the country and last month's Texas vs. Oklahoma game was just awesome. It was fun and entertaining and gave me a much healthier relationship with this sport that I just love:
If you even loosely follow the sport, you know that much of the appeal of college football is the often controversial and very subjective voting that is integral in selecting its champion. Over the years, various systems (including computer polls) have been introduced to insert some objectivity and standard criteria into the process. Alas, this has just made it more controversial.
Imagine a bunch of people (sports writers) who have never played football beyond the age of 13 voting on the relative rank of teams of which they rarely ever watch the entire games of and actually rely on the write-ups of other poorly informed "journalists" as a proxy for watching (if they actually do anything beyond looking at the game's box score). And then imagine a bunch of equally non-athletic, uninformed fans (who may not even have attended the schools of which they are fans) arguing about the opinions of non-athletic, non-football savvy loosely informed pseud0-journalists. You can see the hilarity in all of this. Their votes are no longer factored into the equation - but this actually works to its detriment, as coaches who only get to watch film of their opponents, a board of "experts" (ala the NCAAM basketball tournament selection committee) and some computers that use arcane methodologies to rank teams now solely crown the champ.
A couple of polls that have some validity in my opinion are:
CollegeFootballNews.com (their writer Pete Fiutak is fucking awesome) - they are willing to shake up the poll, base rankings on the cumulative performance of teams and don't do stupid things like: rank Team A higher than Team B even though Team A lost to Team B; or constantly write about how overrated a team is even though they rank the team extremely high (uh, if you think the team is overrated then rate them lower). Most important, it is obvious they have watched every game and you can see them build a logical rationale for each rank.
The blogger Saurian Sagacity - a Gator blogger but constantly being recognized for consistently ranking his own team the lowest. Has a pretty rational ranking methodology, but his use of scoring offense/scoring defense ranking as a factor in the poll rewards teams for weak schedules (as these would be higher for a team which plays crappier teams) - though he does compensate by factoring in strength of schedule.
As voters in next Tuesday election, we'll use some combination of emotion and facts to formulate a decision. In that spirit, here's my fact+emotion based look at the top BCS teams:
1 - Texas (8-0)
Facts: Strength of Schedule (SOS): 8 (out of 119), Biggest Win: Oklahoma (OU's biggest win: TCU)
Emotion: Colt McCoy is completing almost 80% of his passes. People can't do that in a video game. After OU, they've beaten OSU (not the ohio state university but Okie State) and Mizzou and play next week at Texas Tech (ye of Mike Leach's dating tips). While no team they beat is particularly dominant, the aggregate performance so far is strong. They are the real deal.
2 - Alabama (8-0)
Facts: SOS = 76, Biggest Win: Georgia (UGA's biggest win: LSU)
Emotion: Handily beat Georgia (up 31-0 at half). SEC is not as strong as in recent years. UK, Ole Miss and Tulane played them all very tough.
3 - Penn State (9-0)
Facts: SOS = 79, Biggest Win: OSU Suckeyes (OSU's biggest win: None) The other OSU, Oregon State, may actually be a bigger win (as OSU Beavers beat USC unlike OSU Suckeyes), but then the Beavers lose to Utah. So, no big wins really.
Emotion: Sorry, but the Big 10 sucks. One voter suggested that the anemic game against OSU was proof that Penn State can win "any type of game". Like a game where both teams suck?
4 - Oklahoma (7-1)
Facts: SOS = 16, Biggest Win: Texas Christian (TCU = BCS 13)
Emotion: Kansas not really a strong win (OU gave up 30+ to them; texas tech held them to 14!). OU gave up 35+ to K-state. Their defense = not very good.
5 - USC (6-1)
Facts: SOS = 32, Biggest Win: OSU Suckeyes, so no big wins
Emotion: The Pac-10 is very very weak this year. Wil Ferrel is great to have come to your practice, and they get all those recruiting classes, but a close win against Arizona and mediocre performance at Arizona State suggest that the reputation is stronger than the actual team.
6 - Georgia (7-1)
Facts: SOS = 7; Biggest Win: LSU (BCS 19)
Emotion: LSU is vastly overrated (they were in the top 10 in the pre-season because the writers believed this team "would simply reload". then it started to play actual teams). The SEC is slightly down.
7 - Texas Tech (8-0)
Facts: SOS = 73; biggest win: none (Kansas)
Emotion: I love Mike Leach he is so awesome. I love watching this team play. But they haven't beaten anyone - yet (they host #1 Texas this weekend)
Also, note Mike Leach's dating tips:
8 - Florida (6-1)
Facts: SOS = 51; biggest win: LSU (BCS 19).
Emotion: Same beef as Georgia. My beloved Gators have to win out (beat Georgia, FSU, and possibly Alabama in SEC Championship) to realistically be in the conversation for a national championship.
happy couching, and make sure you get out and vote tuesday (early and often).
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