Great article here. Using actual data. Where you started vs where you finish. It also uses the all to familiar 'last 10 years' which of course means it shows that its truly relevant to the game today. Enjoy http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/preview07/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=2980407
I would say the Ron Zook years did not help Florida at all in this ranking system. I believe it is post bowl and UF won no bowl games during Zook's tenure and therefore dropped at the end every year for three years. I would like to see this ten year window 8 years from now with Meyer at the helm although UF is likely to start very high every preseason with Urban as coach. In any event it's not bad company in that top ten. :wink:
Interesting but not very revealing IMHO. To me it just shows how hard it is to predict the season, the hanging of labels on teams who are good but not quite as good as preseason prognositicators is bogus.
One thing about these rankings is that the higher you are ranked in the preseason the harder it is to meet those expectations and therefore you get overrated much easier than if you were never ranked at all. The point is the top ten shows some elite programs because they have good programs year in and year out and are ranked as such early on. ND hasn't been a preseason favorite much in the last ten years except for maybe last year so ND managed to stay out of the top ten.
I disagree <t>I think it is a revealing list. People look at this list and area almost proud, seemingly, because of the good company they are keeping.<br/> <br/> Its my contention that there are some teams who are put in position to be in the NC hunt on reputation alone annually that AREN'T Notre Dame. In fact, this shows that a good many of the 'power' teams in college football (those that fill your schedule with 'respect') have been anything but in the big picture.<br/> <br/> I know Terry isn't a fan of a playoff (or hasn't in the past) because its more of a test to see who the best team in the tourney is..rather than a real 'NC'.. I believe that this has always been the case...We just didn't call it a tournament and apply actual fair 'rules' to the dog and pony show. Some teams have a shot for the NC because of who they are and who they play. I think this list goes a long way to showing that the common perceptions of what 'quality' really is in college football is rather variable...and most common perceptions in which the polls are based is rather bunk.</t>