More Buffoonery From Voters

by BH

I know I've made it clear that the voting process in college football is ridiculous and poorly thought out, but come on. USC, despite beating Washington 51-24 on Saturday, lost first-place votes to Texas, who beat #10 Texas Tech 52-17. USC, as the season has progressed, has slowly been leaking votes to the Longhorns. This is most likely due to USC's tougher than expected matchups with schools like #14 Arizona State, #24 Oregon, and #9 Notre Dame. Below are bolded excerpts from an ESPN.com article.

"I didn't move USC down as much as I moved Texas up," said Joe Giglio of The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., one of two voters to switch Texas and USC this week.

This is a brilliant quote that is nothing but bullshit. He makes an attempt to make both USC and Texas fans happy by saying, in essence, it wasn't what USC didn't do, it was what Texas did. No dude, you did move USC down and Texas up. You did this because you think USC wasn't convincing in some of their wins, like their 45-13 win over Oregon in which the Trojans started slowly, or their 38-28 win over ASU, in which they again started slow. Or maybe USC's win over Notre Dame wasn't convincing enough. And maybe Texas' squeaker over an overrated Ohio State team was convincing , as was their dominating performance over a severely overrated Tech team.

"I feel [the Longhorns] have a more complete résumé and I'm really impressed with how they've handled their business."

Me too. The way the Longhorns rode roughshod over the likes of Rice, Louisiana Lafayette, Missouri and a down Oklahoma realy impressed me. More so than USC's victories over Hawaii, Arkansas, and Arizona. But let's examine this assertion that Texas has a more complete resume a little more closely, shall we? At this point, both USC and Texas have played three ranked teams and four unranked teams. USC's four unranked opponents have a combined record of 7-21, while Texas' opponents record is 11-17. Here, Texas gets the nod, but I mean we're fighting over scraps. We would be comparing USC's victory over Arizona, a team that plays legitimate conference teams, to Texas' victory over Louisiana Lafayette, who plays in the Sun Belt Conference. When one looks at ranked opponents, USC's have a record of 15-7, with ASU having plummeted following its loss to the Trojans. Texas' ranked opponents are 16-5, so again, the nod goes to Texas, barely. Of USC's victories over ranked teams, Oregon is currently #14 in both polls, and Notre Dame is #9 and #10, with ASU having fallen out of both polls. Meanwhile, OSU is #12 and 13, and Texas Tech has fallen to 17 and 16, with Colorado having dropped out of the polls. I guess the point of all this is to demonstrate that it is virtually impossible to demonstrate that Texas has a better resume or has done a better job than USC. A voter in a major poll, who basically shares a portion of the responsibility for determining who gets into the major bowl games at the end of the year and has demonstrated in his voting over the course of the season that he believes USC to be the best team in the country, has to come up with something better than, "I feel," and speculation.