HBick
6/2/2010, 09:20 PM
First page of the mailbag details Mandel's take on the Phil Steele Article. Interesting take, in which he points out some of the problems with preseason polls which have been mentioned on this board before. I didn't see an article so I figured I'd post it.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/stewart_mandel/06/02/preseason-polls/index.html
Over the years, we've discussed again and again the various flaws and consequences of preseason polls. I believe I've recycled the phrase "inherently arbitrary" more often than Jimmy Traina has led Hot Clicks with Minka Kelly.
But any debate always comes back to the same, unavoidable fact: Officially or unofficially, the sport will always have preseason polls because there will always be preview magazines -- and fans love preview magazines. The first wave has already begun hitting the newsstands, and while most follow the same general hierarchy that my colleague Andy Staples first proffered last January (Alabama, Ohio Sate, Boise State, et. al.), the industry's most famous contrarian, Phil Steele, has outdone himself this year.
Phil Steele has rated Oklahoma as his preseason No. 1 team ... huh? How would you rate his ranking on a scale of 1-10, with "1" being spot-on and "10" being way past ludicrous?
-- Jason, Ankeny, Iowa
I'd put it a lot closer to 1 than 10, seeing as there are easily 100 teams out there that would be more unlikely picks. While certainly surprising, I hardly find it ludicrous to pick a team that's played for the national championship four team times in the past decade (including as recently as two years ago) to return to that level. If we're assigning a 1 to Alabama (though the more accurate term would be "safe bet," not "spot-on"), then I'd rate Steele's pick a 3.
While Steele, like all of us, has had some notable busts over the years, in general, his are the most accurate predictions of any notable publication (as he's not shy to point out). The reasons are twofold. For one, he clearly puts more time and detail into this endeavor than any reasonably sane person (I believe they had to create a new font size to accommodate all the info he crams onto a single page). But more importantly, Steele, more so than most prognosticators, puts as much emphasis on trying to project forward as backward, on guessing how a team will mature and how it will fare against its given schedule rather than defaulting to how it did the year before.
A classic example came in 2008. I was still an AP voter at the time and clung firmly to my belief that a preseason poll should be treated solely as a "starting point." If a team finished the previous year No. 2 and returned 17 starters, it deserved to start the next season just as high. Hence, most other voters and I had Georgia (which fit that exact description) No. 1. Steele, on the other hand, went with Florida, a team that lost four games the previous year -- including a blowout to Georgia -- but had both potential and a more favorable schedule. Guess who was right?
Now that I'm free of voting responsibilities, I, too, can take more chances when it comes to preseason predictions, and the fact is every one of this year's token contenders has serious questions. Therefore, I have no problem with someone taking a stab on a sleeper team, and the Sooners -- coming off a deceiving five-loss season (three came by a field goal or less) in which they seemed to gel at the end (crushing Oklahoma State 27-0 and putting up 477 yards on Stanford in the Sun Bowl) -- could theoretically fit that bill. Bob Stoops has a history of producing prolific quarterbacks and Landry Jones began fitting that mold last year once he had time to acclimate.
But here's what I don't get about Steele's pick. I don't see anything particularly advantageous about Oklahoma's schedule. The Sooners do miss Big 12 North favorite Nebraska, but they face Cincinnati, Florida State and Air Force out of conference and play in arguably the nation's toughest division. Furthermore, the single most important area I look at in the preseason is a team's offensive line. Oklahoma's was terrible last year and its most accomplished performer (Trent Williams) is gone.
This hardly seems the stuff of a No. 1 team, but again, I'd hardly call it ludicrous. In fact, 10 years ago this fall, Stoops won his lone national championship in Norman -- coming off a five-loss season.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/stewart_mandel/06/02/preseason-polls/index.html
Over the years, we've discussed again and again the various flaws and consequences of preseason polls. I believe I've recycled the phrase "inherently arbitrary" more often than Jimmy Traina has led Hot Clicks with Minka Kelly.
But any debate always comes back to the same, unavoidable fact: Officially or unofficially, the sport will always have preseason polls because there will always be preview magazines -- and fans love preview magazines. The first wave has already begun hitting the newsstands, and while most follow the same general hierarchy that my colleague Andy Staples first proffered last January (Alabama, Ohio Sate, Boise State, et. al.), the industry's most famous contrarian, Phil Steele, has outdone himself this year.
Phil Steele has rated Oklahoma as his preseason No. 1 team ... huh? How would you rate his ranking on a scale of 1-10, with "1" being spot-on and "10" being way past ludicrous?
-- Jason, Ankeny, Iowa
I'd put it a lot closer to 1 than 10, seeing as there are easily 100 teams out there that would be more unlikely picks. While certainly surprising, I hardly find it ludicrous to pick a team that's played for the national championship four team times in the past decade (including as recently as two years ago) to return to that level. If we're assigning a 1 to Alabama (though the more accurate term would be "safe bet," not "spot-on"), then I'd rate Steele's pick a 3.
While Steele, like all of us, has had some notable busts over the years, in general, his are the most accurate predictions of any notable publication (as he's not shy to point out). The reasons are twofold. For one, he clearly puts more time and detail into this endeavor than any reasonably sane person (I believe they had to create a new font size to accommodate all the info he crams onto a single page). But more importantly, Steele, more so than most prognosticators, puts as much emphasis on trying to project forward as backward, on guessing how a team will mature and how it will fare against its given schedule rather than defaulting to how it did the year before.
A classic example came in 2008. I was still an AP voter at the time and clung firmly to my belief that a preseason poll should be treated solely as a "starting point." If a team finished the previous year No. 2 and returned 17 starters, it deserved to start the next season just as high. Hence, most other voters and I had Georgia (which fit that exact description) No. 1. Steele, on the other hand, went with Florida, a team that lost four games the previous year -- including a blowout to Georgia -- but had both potential and a more favorable schedule. Guess who was right?
Now that I'm free of voting responsibilities, I, too, can take more chances when it comes to preseason predictions, and the fact is every one of this year's token contenders has serious questions. Therefore, I have no problem with someone taking a stab on a sleeper team, and the Sooners -- coming off a deceiving five-loss season (three came by a field goal or less) in which they seemed to gel at the end (crushing Oklahoma State 27-0 and putting up 477 yards on Stanford in the Sun Bowl) -- could theoretically fit that bill. Bob Stoops has a history of producing prolific quarterbacks and Landry Jones began fitting that mold last year once he had time to acclimate.
But here's what I don't get about Steele's pick. I don't see anything particularly advantageous about Oklahoma's schedule. The Sooners do miss Big 12 North favorite Nebraska, but they face Cincinnati, Florida State and Air Force out of conference and play in arguably the nation's toughest division. Furthermore, the single most important area I look at in the preseason is a team's offensive line. Oklahoma's was terrible last year and its most accomplished performer (Trent Williams) is gone.
This hardly seems the stuff of a No. 1 team, but again, I'd hardly call it ludicrous. In fact, 10 years ago this fall, Stoops won his lone national championship in Norman -- coming off a five-loss season.