Analyzing the AP Poll

I remember way back in the eighties when the "parachute pants" were such a cool thing to wear.  Later, they were often referred to as "M.C. Hammer pants" (or just "Hammer" pants), for those are the type of pants he wore in his music videos that flooded MTV for about a year, solid.  They were made of a light material (parachute-like) that fit in the butt and then loosened up in the thighs with a zipper that revealed additional material (commonly a different color than the outside pant color) and slowly tapered down to hug the ankles.

As a youth, my single mom could not afford new clothing for the four of us children, so most of the time, my brother and I had to scrounge up odd jobs or paper routes to earn money to buy "special" clothing for ourselves.  I had done so the summer before seventh grade and purchased the sweetest pair of parachute pants.  They were a royal blue and instead of zippers, I had snaps on the sides that exposed a black material.  I just knew the chicks would flock to me the first day of school, which ultimately turned out to be the only day of school I wore my Hammer pants.  Middle school-aged kids are very cruel to begin with, but when you are a newer kid in town (one year) and not very popular and in a small town where Wranglers and Levi's are the norm (for decades), it was inevitable to get the non-parachute-donned, popular boys to tease in all ways imaginable to humiliate me in front of those potentially swarming girls that now wouldn't even look in my direction.  At the time, it was an awesome idea and I thought I could predict how people would react to wearing such sweet attire, but I was quickly put into reality when the test finally came.  I'm sure that there were some parts of the country that these Hammer pants were more accepted by peers in middle school, but in the rustic cowboy town in Central Oregon, it was not meant to be.

My optimistic view of parachute pants and the reality check I experienced in the seventh grade remind me of the grossly inconsistent adjustments made from week to week by the AP poll voters.  I feel like they are voting for teams like how I felt when purchasing those royal blue beauties.  It seems like a good idea at the time, but the real test hasn't occurred yet and reality hasn't hit.

First of all, those voters have a stewardship over their pre-season votes and have to stick with them, or do they?  They are responsible to provide accurate accounts of all the FBS schools in the nation.  All the teams must be monitored closely and fairly represented in the weekly top 25 with respect to the teams' success (or failure).  So, as I glance through the first couple weeks of the AP top 25, I see some accurate representation of some schools and others where they may seem to be way off due to how things have unfolded thus far.  It's like a work in progress for the voters.  They need to make necessary adjustments each week and fess-up when they don't make the wisest decision one week and change it immediately for the following week.

An obvious example that we witnessed already this season, is the pre-season #10 team, Arkansas.  Of course this is a pre-season #10 team!  The Hogs are in the SEC!  'Nuff said, right?  Well, for me, that's not good enough.  They just lost their offensive guru and head coach in the off season.  Arkansas was starting a new season with a new coach that hasn't really glistened with success, but with the talent that flows to the SEC, anybody would be successful, right?  Well, that #10 team jumped two spots by beating that hard-nosed, bruising team from Jacksonville State (yes, sarcasm was intended) with a score of 49-24, who put up 322 yards on an SEC defense.  Yikes!  The good thing was that Tyler Wilson, arguably the best QB in the conference, needed to play only two and a half quarters and Arkansas still put up 564 yards.  Jacksonville State had garbage points and yards in the second half while the starters were resting and letting the second and third stringers get some reps.  The following week is when the tragedy happened.  Louisiana-Monroe came to town and put up a real fight.  They hung in long enough to be able to get a last minute score to force overtime with 21 unanswered points.  Arkansas made a field goal in overtime.  Then the shocking thing happened when the Warhawks QB seemed to have muffed up a play but found himself with a huge amount of green in front of him to sprint into the endzone.  Ouch!  This is when Coach Smith should have put in his bankruptcy papers.  He'll be lucky to have a job by season's end.  Now, Arkansas may have started off ranked too high with a new coach, but the voters were seeing stars or unicorns chasing rainbows or something to advance Arkansas more than one spot to fill in the Michigan loss after the Razorbacks' initial win.  However, the voters got it right when they tucked in their pride and took Arkansas completely out of the top 25.  That's got to be hard for the voters to put a team at #8 one week and the next, leave that same team unranked.  Like my mom never told me, doing the right thing is not always easy.  So, Arkansas was definitely a pair of those parachute pants that made it to the second day of school and now is a nice, classic pair of Wranglers like everyone else that doesn't find themselves in the top 25.  Now if only that second game of the season would have been Alabama and the Tide would have slapped them around a few hours and humiliated them, that would have been expected and the Hogs would have dropped a few spots, but not completely out of the top 25.  Unfortunately, it happened to be a much, much lesser team.  This will not look good when conference play begins unless Coach Smith can make a total one-eighty and utilize the talent he has on this squad.

There are many questions I have for the voters besides, "How can I get your job?"  Some of the placements of rankings each week draw my finger to the temple of my head and make me say, "Hmmm."  Let me mention a few of those now.  The obvious one, is why would anybody vote USC at number one?  A great team? Yes!  (My favorite.)  However, with the NCAA sanctions, USC lacks the depth to make it a whole season without injuries in key areas that could potentially find them struggling to win games - especially with the increasingly competitive conference of the Pac-12 and the nine conference games that the conference schedules every year (of course, Colorado is developing into the Duke and Vanderbilt of the Pac-12 - a.k.a. "bye week").  A top ten ranking would suffice, but #1 is really pushing it.  Same with my second favorite Pac-12 team, Oregon - ranked too high.  Hello!  They lost the starting QB and have to start either a sophomore or a freshman, and they lost arguably the best running back the Ducks have ever had with Heisman finalist, LaMichael James.  Again, near the top ten is feasible, but top five?  C'mon!  Let the teams who lose personnel and star players prove themselves a few times first.  Another team is Florida.  Why are they ranked at all?  This is the same team that had Urban Meyer at the helm two seasons ago as one of the best recruiters, ever.  The cupboards were left full of talent, with some stored in the pantry, as well.  You just need to be a decent coach to win 10 games with all that talent.  Well, Will Muschamp's 7-6 record was a huge disappointment, and he does NOT recruit better than Coach Meyer, so I have no idea how Coach Muschamp will improve from the 7-6 record in his first year as a head coach and who he paid off to find the Gators in the top 25.  I hope they prove me wrong, but this trend doesn't bode well for the Florida faithful.

After week two of the 2012 season, I learned a few things in regards to how things are perceived by the voters in the AP poll.  First thing I learned was, I'm not the only person in the world that regrettably purchased a pair of parachute pants in middle school.  I saw four top 20 teams lose to unranked teams and found themselves on the outside looking in.  I mentioned Arkansas falling like the net worth of its coach, but then there was the offensively anemic Wisconsin team with the best returning running back in the nation ranked at #13, who couldn't score against a questionable Oregon State team until less than two minutes left in THE GAME.  Now the media wants to make a big stink about the call on the on-side kick?  Really?  Do you think the Badgers suddenly had super momentum to score a "quick one" in just over a minute left from the 50-yard line?  Please!!  Maybe the Beavers really played defense or Wisconsin needs to get rid of the offensive line coach (oh, wait!  The latter did occur), or maybe it was actually a combination of both.  With the game against Nichols State being postponed, Oregon State essentially had more than one week to prepare for the Badgers.  Is it really that far fetched?  The third team that lost was the #16 Nebraska squad that played in the Rose bowl against UCLA.  The Huskers left LA as losers by six, even with the huge 92-yard run by Martinez.  The Red Shirts defense didn't corral Johnathan Franklin and let him go on a 217 yard day.  The Husker defense kept Franklin out of the endzone until the short pass in the fourth quarter.  The fourth team that left their high-profile offense home was the Oklahoma State Cowboys when they traveled to the deserts of Arizona.  The Wildcats tried their best to give the Pokes a taste of their own medicine when Oklahoma State put up 84 points the week prior on the lowly Savannah State.  The Cowboys went from shutting out one team the first week to getting 59 pasted on them the next.  As a Pac-12 fan, the second week of the 2012 season went like a dream - of the four unranked Pac-12 teams playing ranked, non-conference foes, three came out winners (the only loss was Washington losing - badly - to the #3 ranked LSU Tigers).  So, besides Washington not showing up and Colorado looking like a community college and Utah losing their starting QB and a rare game to Utah State, the conference was well represented with wins against mostly BCS conference opponents.  So, keeping up with the annual standards of the AP poll, an SEC school loses its way out of the top 25 (although, replaced by Tennessee) while Pac-12 teams have to win their way in with the additions of UCLA at #22 and Arizona at #24.  It's weird not to see the other team, Oregon State, who had the biggest upset of the three to not break into the top 25.

In conclusion, the AP poll is very inconsistent with how they vote the weekly top 25.  Each time I look at a new week of the poll, I feel like I'm a Wrangler-wearing cool kid watching a parachute pants-wearing kid walking onto the playground at middle school and saying to myself, "What was that kid thinking when he bought those?"  I'm sure at the time the vote seemed like it made sense and would be popular with the ladies, but ultimately that will be the last time the vote will be like that again.  As long as the correct adjustments are made throughout the season, everything should all work out in the end, right?

There's A Lot of Good Out There

  A few days ago my family and I went for a bike ride to go get some ice cream.  We got ourselves all prepared and ready for a safe and fun ride.  We had two $2 gift cards to help with the cost of that yummy goodness that we were looking forward to on a warm summer day.  We all had our helmets on and my son even had elbow and knee pads donned.  The trip to Baskin Robbins is not quite two miles one way, so the kids would work up just enough sweat to earn their ice cream and be able to work it off with the ride back home.  When we arrived at the ice cream parlor there were only a few people inside getting their orders, including two attractive women with a cute, older teenager (maybe in her early 20's) tasting flavors and browsing a bit.  So, the young gal behind the counter finished with the departing couple to help me and my family.  Of course, my children either decide on something plain and boring or take forever deciding what special flavor they want to try.  My kids get their ice creams first and head outside so we don't leave a drippy mess on the floor of the shop.  My wife gets the ice cream that we will share and follows the children.  Then I'm left to pay the bill and open my wallet to get out my debit card when the young thing behind the counter tells me that they don't take any cards, only cash and check.  What?  Are you kidding me?  Are we living in the 80's?  I'm sure my face was priceless.  My head went wild thinking of alternatives of how to pay for this expensive treat.  I knew we didn't have the check book because my wife didn't want to bring her purse or wallet on a bike ride.  I knew that I hardly ever have cash in my wallet and if I did, it was for my pre-season college football magazines that I buy this time of year.  What the heck was I suppose to do?  So, with my best attempt of getting the retarded look off my face to try to save it, I hand over those two $2 gift cards and hope that the $4 will cover most of it.  The total now comes to $7.11.  As I slowly open my wallet, I offer a silent prayer that I had some cash in it.  I open to reveal a $5 bill and with a big sigh of relief, I draw the bills out to count the rest.  I count, five, six, seven....  Let me count again, five, six, seven....  Really?  I have $7 and knew that I don't have an ash tray on my bike where I keep loose change for parking meters, etc.  Crap!  To stall while I think of another solution to come up with $0.11, I check all 23 pockets of my khaki cargo shorts one at a time wishing I could gesture to my wife to come and help me out so I don't have to go through this humiliation alone.  I think my pathetic glance toward the window was too much to bare on one of those women, who was now finishing up their business, who said, "I think I have $0.11."  Oh, you wonderful woman!  I think I love you!  "Really?" I reply.  Then the girl behind the counter says that she has eleven cents too.  Now I'm rolling in it!  The lady next to me gets her wallet and shuffles through a bit and scares me for an instant when she says, "Nope."  Then quickly says, "Oh, here's some."  Phew!  I mention the extreme embarrassment of the situation and graciously thank this stranger.  She kindly shrugs it off as no big deal.  Well, yes, $0.11 doesn't seem like a big deal, but I went from thinking I had to march outside and take away my wife's ice cream and return it, to getting the whole bill paid for, it is a big deal (my wife would have killed me).  My gratitude for this kind act of service from a stranger made me wonder if I'm doing enough to help out people in need.  I questioned whether I'm being an example of good for those to see (and there were plenty of people to see this woman's kindness because the place was packed by the time I paid for the order).  Her small, simple act is what we are all capable of if we can stop long enough being self-consumed with our own daily problems and challenges and not being concerned whether someone is trying to take advantage of us or not.  I doubt this stranger will ever read this blog posted under the college football theme, but I will still say thank you, again, for showing me your kindness.  Even in a world of so much evil and extreme hatred that fills some people, I was reminded that there is a lot of good out there.

     I know you are wondering what this has got to do with college football, yet again.  The kind woman in Baskin Robbins showed me that there is good left in people, while observing a possible trend in college football recruiting shows me that there is good left in the Pacific 12 conference.  Well, as I browse through Scout.com (nearly) daily and seeing the latest on the college football recruiting scene, it has helped confirm what I feel is coming in the near future to change the outlook of NCAA football as we know it now. All the years that I've been following the recruiting process, the Southeastern conference has dominated like no other.  It is very clear that they have a strangle-hold on getting the top blue-chips in the country year after year.  Sure, occasionally there will be a Florida State, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Oklahoma, or Notre Dame finding themselves at the top of the heap after the national letter of intent signing day in February; however, it is always the SEC schools jamming their football programs with excessive talent that carry two full teams of starters apiece that compete with elite teams across the nation.  When tallying the 4 and 5-star athletes each year, it is that conference that picks up roughly twice the number of elite athletes than the next best recruiting conference.  Double!  That is amazing!  The SEC is reaping the recruiting rewards by winning the championship annually for the past several years straight.  I don't believe anyone who claims that recruiting high school kids is not a big deal.  Just ask the SEC schools how they feel about the importance of recruiting.

Admittedly, I was disappointed by the elite talent that did not show interest in Oregon after they lost by three points to Auburn for the national title a couple years ago.  There was only a slight increase of 4 and 5-star players that had Oregon on their short list of schools they were interested in.  Only a small number of these great players ended up finally choosing Oregon to play for.  DeAnthony Thomas was a huge pick-up that year and was evident on the field where he demonstrated his electrifying speed and all-around talent with the ball.  USC has had to deal with players leaving and post season bans and now scholarship limitations due to some violations USC committed several years ago.  This has had an impact on how well USC has been able to draw in high-talented players to keep the program strong.  But it's still USC and some kids just want to go there.  There was a slight drop in quantity of talent with the fear of all the sanctions surrounding the program, but now the bowl ban is raised and USC will have a chance of increasing the amount of talent coming in, once again (except the limitations of 75 scholarships allowed in each of the next three years when it will then return to 85 again).  During the Jim Harbough days at Stanford, the recruiting efforts grew tremendously and saw the level of competitiveness jump up immensely.  There was fear of a drop-off in recruiting after Coach Harbough went off to the NFL, but David Shaw didn't miss a beat.  Stanford is still solid in the recruiting efforts.  Under Rick Neuheisel, the recruiting for UCLA was decent, but I think the high school kids noticed that those superstar athletes weren't getting on the field to play there in the Rose Bowl each Saturday.  I'm still asking myself where all those elite players went.  Now UCLA has Jim Mora who has come in with a winning attitude and will bring a "Harbough effect" on the program with better recruiting and ability to utilize the great talent to become great again.  The rest of the Pac 12 conference with respect to recruiting is just good to okay.

I predict that overall recruiting for the Pac 12 conference will improve dramatically over the next few years.  Not many people want to rush into programs that have new head coaches like Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, and Washington State have all inherited this last off season.  These new coaches will have to prove themselves first before they can bring in some additional elite talent.  I feel that the offensively-minded athletes may lean a little toward Arizona and Washington State where Rich Rodriguez and Mike Leach have both excelled at with past coaching stops.  Rich Rodriguez will not have to chase off a Ryan Mallett-type talent at Arizona because the Wildcats will be better suited for his offensive needs.  Mike Leach has a great foundation, thanks to Paul Wolff and his recruiting efforts after he inherited a bare talent pool in Pullman (thanks to Bill Doba).  Mike Leach will be able to work around the talents of Jeff Tuel and Connor Halliday behind center and the superstar Marquess Wilson catching the majority of the passes thrown.  I've already mentioned UCLA and its immediate impact on recruiting, so that leaves Arizona State as the wild card and the unknown future of that program.  Todd Graham at ASU will have to earn his stripes in this conference with only a few significant coaching years in the Big East conference.

There are five schools I have not mentioned yet in regards to recruiting because you have the four universities that are holding their own with USC, Stanford, UCLA, and Oregon, while Arizona, Arizona State, and Washington State had question marks even before they brought in first-year head coaches, so that leaves California, Colorado, Oregon State, Utah, and Washington.  Jeff Tedford of Cal, Mike Riley of OSU, and Kyle Whittingham of Utah are each starting their eighth year or more at their designated universities (Tedford is the most senior in the conference with 2012 being his 12th year).  These three coaches are all settled and steady and consistent with what they bring to the table.  The Golden Bears have had some very successful years of recruiting under Tedford with some big names now in the NFL and having success at the toughest level.  Oregon State is a difficult place to recruit to.  Corvallis is not a big city with overwhelming social outlets for these young kids to flock to, but Portland is a couple hours' drive away from campus; however, Riley really knows how to get the best out of his athletes and makes me wonder what he could do if he ever did get a top ten recruiting class.  Now with UofO having a ton of success recently, most elite athletes in Oregon will go to Eugene instead of Corvallis.  This makes the hard for Oregon State even harder to recruit great prospects.  As far as the Utes are concerned, the move from the Mountain West conference to the Pac12 may have given them a recruiting advantage.  The automatic qualifying conference will lead some of the fence riders in Utah to choose red over the independent blue of BYU.

Just recently, USC picked up their final commitment that will be allotted them in 2013.  It is because they committed only 13 players in 2012, that they were able to get 18 commits for the following year and it seemed like almost a race at the end who would be the last athlete to pledge himself to the Trojans.  This is very cool and exciting!  According to Scout.com, USC has an oral commitment from only one single 3-star athlete; although, that player is rated #2 at his position.  The rest are 4 and 5-star athletes leaving the Trojans with an astounding 4.28-star average with its 18 commits.  If the top recruiting university is based on the star average, then Southern California would win 2013 with ease.  However, the lack of quantity will not allow USC to tackle the number one position in February (if all commitments stay firm).  This point system gives quantity a way of topping those who have better quality recruits overall.  The best part about the 18 athletes that have pledged to USC is that the Trojans didn't just pick up these young men from California.  Coach Kiffin was able to stretch out to Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland.  These are top athletes that are NOT choosing the SEC and being closer to home; but they want to be Trojans and play in the Pac 12 conference.

Last year's recruiting class from Stanford was an initial sign of what the Pac 12 has potential of doing, or taking away from other conferences.  Stanford pulled in top talent from places like Oklahoma, Minnesota, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida.  Even Oregon pulled guys from Colorado, Texas, and Ohio.  New Jersey and Pennsylvania were a couple other states that had top talent that chose the Pac-12 as well.  This is not a fluke!  I say that there is a trend that has begun and the Pac 12 conference will be able to reap the rewards of future talent that will flock from all over the country and be able to keep most of the local talent in the process.  Sure, the SEC will be keeping a lot of the talent in the Southeastern part of the US, but will see more and more of their targets heading West.  Now, with USC unable to pick up any more recruits, the benefactors should be the Pac 12 teams that are at or nearing the top of the conference, including Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington.  I would love to see more of the conference schools getting the blue-chip talent too, but these four programs will most likely be the top choices of the high school football players everywhere.

I can hear it now.  "The SEC rules and will never let go."  "The Pac 12 is the 5th best conference, at best."  "The SEC is so dominant that no other conference will come close to its worst teams."  Blah, blah, blah.  Uh huh!  Anyway, back to reality.  College football, like most things in life, is cyclical - meaning, there is a cycle that it will follow.  Even the BCS era has proven to be cyclical starting with the Bowden bowl (or Bowden Championship Series) each of the first three years, then it was the Big XII that couldn't be denied for a few years (or the Big XII Championship Series), then the USC era, and since it's been the SEC.  It's not to last forever (sorry SEC lovers).  It is a tremendous run (and I'm not sure if it's over yet) and will always be compared to from now on, but change is eminent.  I'm telling you now that there are signs on the wall - if you look hard enough.  I'm not saying that USC having six pledges from the top 19 athletes is the only sign, though a really big one, but that it is still early for the 2013 graduates to select their university of choice.  A game for the 2012 season hasn't been played yet and there is still over six months left before national letter of intent signing day and a lot of things can change in that time, but I am predicting more very highly touted athletes will make the choice to play in the Pac 12 conference when they also have offers from some SEC schools in the other hand.  I can see that there is a lot of good out there, like my experience at Baskin Robbins.