There's no final AP rankings after the playoffs and bowls?
- Thread starter Thus Spoke Mainer
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it was just released. We came in #5. Hard to argue with our ranking, honestly. I think TX and Oregon might beef with being ranked below ND though. We ended up playing 1, 2, 3, 8, 12, and 16th best teams in the nation. B1G ends up with 4 of the top 10. Five in the top 20.
another interesting takeaway. PSU didn't lose to a lower-rated team all year. Only Oregon can also make that claim.
Instead of "thinking" what others care or don't care about (i.e. projecting your opinion likely falsely onto others), try putting a poll thread out there and you would actually find out what "anyone cares"........
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I'm supposed to poll the players and coaches?
What's the impact of a poll after the season? Ohio State won the title beating ND. Penn State and Texas lost in the Final Four. Oregon, ASU, Georgia and Boise lost in the QFs. Clemson, Indiana, SMU and Tennessee lost in the first round--everyone else wasn't good enough. That's all that will be remembered--what happened on the field.
The entire purpose of the playoff is to make these polls irrelevant
I can’t imagine a single ND player/coach waking up this morning wondering where the Irish finished in the final AP Top 25.
I can’t imagine many people on the PSU campus chanting “We’re No.5” today, either.
I looked at the top ten, thought that’s about right, and quickly moved on.
I’d be more interested in knowing how many coaches who “vote” in the Coaches Poll never actually cast their vote themselves or even look at that poll. Guessing that percentage is up there.
I can’t imagine many people on the PSU campus chanting “We’re No.5” today, either.
I looked at the top ten, thought that’s about right, and quickly moved on.
I’d be more interested in knowing how many coaches who “vote” in the Coaches Poll never actually cast their vote themselves or even look at that poll. Guessing that percentage is up there.
Years from now, if people look back and see several years of top 5 finishes, they will say that was a good period for us. Not quite championship level, but very solid.
What's this?
What's this???
What's this???
NCAA College Football Rankings: AP Top 25 Football Poll
The official page for the AP Top 25 college football poll, a tradition since 1936. Keep up to date and view the latest ranking updates each week.
apnews.com
I think we should be #4 over Texas. Notre Dame was better than Georgia, which beat Texas twice. We were just about as good as Notre Dame. Texas had to go to OT to beat ASU. We trounced both of our lower-tier CFP opponents. The only way you put Texas over us is if you look at the talent composite or pre-season rankings. On the field we were as good or better.
We had losses to #1,#2 and #3 by no more than 8 points.
Texas lost a game against #6 by 15, a game against #1 by 14 and a game against #6 with its backup QB who had to come in mid-game by 3.
And they'll see a Final Four appearance which is more meaningful than voters saying we were a top 5 team
I think we would beat Texas head to head and deserve a #4 ranking, but overall this season is a building block for further success next year.
not true. I was hook for 6 years on the Minutemen, a Boston Rugby Club >30 side. I think that most people who played and enjoyed sports would disagree. I have been a alum for 58 years. 2024 ranks in the top 5 of my 61 years of being a fan. Good people learn much more from their losses than wins.
What are you talking about?
This is about whether or not what people will ultimately remember is that we finished 5th or made the Final 4
Of course you learn from losing but no one said it wasn't a great year or you don't learn from losses--it's just the ranking doesn't matter
It's much easier to look at a ranking list. And what if we only made the final 8, but finished ranked number 3?
I'd say we flopped in the quarters, like Oregon.
I don't think being ranked high means anything to Oregon fans right now--they were one and done when it mattered.
Do you think Lions fans care they were the 1 seed and won the north after losing to Washington?
Does a 1 seed in March Madness care if they finish 3rd despite getting beat by an 8/9 seed?
Post season is what defines your team
I am HAPPY we finished 5th. I would rather have been higher, but we could also have ended ranked lower had we lost earlier. Our losses were to the #1 ranked team at the time, and the 2 schools which finished the season ranked 1 and 2. Could we have been higher? Sure. We could have been 4th. Finishing #5 is not the most fabulous outcome I could have imagined, but still fine. Had we performed a wee bit better in some key moments, then we would feel even better. It was an excellent season, and next year I certainly hope we do better.
This year, Oregon lost in the quarters and we didn't. And yet Oregon finished #3 and we finished #5. In the minds of the pollsters, that means something. The fans can decide if they find that useful. I'm one fan who does.
But why are you or anyone else giving the opinions of the voter more meaning than what happened on the field?
If you look back on this season thinking "we finished 5th" you missed the entire point of having a playoff
The voters no longer matter--at any point of the season
Why would Texas be allowed to complain? The way we were running the ball we would've probably b*tch-slapped the Longhorns like it was 1996, and Notre Dame managed to beat us. Texas lost twice - once by 15 points, the other against a backup QB - to a team Notre Dame beat by 13. They got 4th because Kirby and several football have nothing/know nothing coaches whose teams we would destroy (service academies, East Carolina, Pitt, among others) voted us #6 and Alex Golesh (never heard of him until today) of USF voted us 7th. Franklin must have done something to his Cheerios somewhere in one of his many stops.
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In theory, at least, the voters consider what happened on the field. And that includes who it happened against. Instead of simply considering that we got further than Oregon in the playoffs, maybe they accounted for the fact that Oregon had the bad luck of facing Ohio State, while we drew Boise State.
But again--why are you giving value to the opinion of those voting over what happened on the field.
Draws are part of the game--we got lucky. Oregon got screwed because of a dumb system but we made the final 4--they were one and out--that's all that people will remember not that Oregon was 3
The voting and what happened on the field are not mutually exclusive. On the field, Oregon had a better year than we did. The final poll shows that, while the playoff result may not make that clear.
They were a better regular season team but failed in the playoff. Only the playoff matters. The regular season is simply to get to the playoff and for seeding. Going 13-0 is great...unless you are one and done in the playoff.
Their overall season was better than ours, even when accounting for the playoffs.
Which is irrelevant--the regular season is only for a spot in the playoff
Using this logic why isn't Oregon #1 as they're the only team with just one loss
It's not that black and white. Of course the playoffs matters. In any case, relevance is in the eye of the beholder. The final poll still exists and people are talking about it. That makes it relevant by definition.
It is that black and white. The regular season is solely to determine who makes the playoff--that's all it is
The final poll exists for that exact reason--to keep people talking. People talk about all kinds of things that have no relevance.
By definition, if they are talking about it, then it is relevant to them.
And YMMV by team. For example, Arizona State fans were excited to finish #7, their highest finish since 1996.
Arizona State was happy to make the playoff and be competitive. Finishing 7th means nothing. People can be happy about all kinds of pointless thing. Hell some people still pretend bowls matter. Someone caring doesn't make it relevant. They just aren't accepting change.
By that logic, Alabama's season was no better than that of a team that lost every game. If that's how you see it, then there's nothing left to say. We just see it differently.
Correct it wasn't. Alabama's season was a complete disaster as they'd tell you. You really think Bama fans care where they're ranked?
You see it based on how things were--change is inevitable. Embrace it.
LOL. That's just a dumb.
I will take a hard pass on using Lando as the arbiter of what's relevant and what people should care about.
You do understand you're arguing that the opinion of voters (who are biased) have more importance than the outcome of the games
If you want to continue that and somehow think I'm wrong that's fine--the fact people care about the rankings is beyond laughable--it's why there's a playoff--to make those irrelevant
I guarantee that the fans would be far more upset if they had lost every game.
I guess none of the Michigan fans were happy to beat Ohio State this year. If you check their fan discussion board, I'll bet nobody was celebrating it. Because at that point, they already knew their season was a complete failure.
