The collegiate ranking system is a fascinating scale that is largely unique to the amateur level of sports. Every week, voters come together and cast their vote for which colleges and universities have singled themselves out as a top program, and that distinction is much different from the ambiguous nature of professional sports leagues like the NFL or NBA.
So it's no surprise that when the AP and Coaches' Poll drop their weekly rankings every Sunday throughout the season, college sports fans line up to their computers and refresh the rankings page until they finally show us a superfluous list of which teams are the best in their sport.
This year's college football rankings have been plagued by a number of partialities, subjectivities, and outright bias--calling into question the validity of the system as a whole.
The following three voter issues are skewing the balance of college sports, and in an age where postseason prowess can be a major difference-maker in the fate of athletic programs, every mistake leaves behind a shockwave that could impact others' perspective. I plan to pinpoint these issues and shine a light on how we got to where we are, and if anything can be done to remedy our status quo.
SEC/Big 10 Bias
Ask any typical college sports enjoyer which conference stands atop the college football world, and you'll almost impulsively hear "SEC" spit out as your answer. The Southeastern Conference is home to many historic football programs like Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, and a bevvy of others, and with that history comes a legacy of success that each program is fighting to preserve.
In every week's AP Top 25 Poll this season, an SEC team has stood as the top-ranked squad in the nation, with Texas, Georgia, and Alabama dominating the spotlight. These are highly talented programs with the resumes to back up their spot up to this point. Texas has stood the test of time and maintains its spot at the peak after 8 weeks of football.
So, if a conference is this stuffed full of talented players and coaches, their wins should mean more than those of "lesser conferences", right? Well, it's not quite that simple.
The dominant Georgia Bulldogs were top dog in the early season, but a loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide dropped the dogs down the ladder while slinging 'Bama up to the top spot, with Texas following closely behind.
"When the worst teams in any conference topple the mythological beasts standing guard over the league title, does that suggest that the league is stronger or weaker?"
When the Tide fell to the lowly Vanderbilt Commodores, bedlam tore the fabric of the college football world, and goalposts were flung into the Cumberland River. This major loss sent Alabama back down the shoots while the Longhorns' continued winning ways pushed the Sarkisian-led Texas back into the top slot, where they stand today.
But this self-cannibalism in the SEC has brought images of the "Pac-12 Circle of Suck" to the front of my memory. When the worst teams in any conference topple the mythological beasts standing guard over the league title, does that suggest that the league is stronger or weaker?
Does a Vandy upset dish out a greater impact for Alabama--the team they beat directly--or Georgia, the team that fell to the Tide the week prior? The same question holds true for the Big 10 conference, which is considered to be directly beneath the SEC in prestige, and likewise possesses a significant number of slots in the top 25.
Despite this uncertainty, these two leagues earn the benefit of the doubt week by week, as a loss to a Big 10 school can be suggested as a "quality loss" to boost a team's perceived value, rather than properly dent their apparently spotless armor.
The conference realignment movement has pushed teams from fellow "power conferences" like the Big 12 and ACC into a second-tier of collegiate power, manufacturing artificial asterisks for every successful program in a lesser league.
Take, for example, the Big 12's two undefeated titans in Iowa State and BYU. Each program stands with a spotless 6-0 record, with quality wins under their belt like the Cyclones' road upset over the Big 10's Iowa Hawkeyes or BYU's victories over the ACC's SMU Mustangs and preseason conference title contender Kansas State.
Despite these programs' exceptional output over the weeks, they still sit below a number of Big 10 and SEC schools, many of which have already tasted defeat in the first half of the year. Were these 6-0 teams in one of the "Big 2" conferences, there is little doubt that such a record wouldn't earn a top position. Yet, with the most recent rankings released, neither team has broken through that invisible seal and received the green light to "play with the big boys".
Preseason Polls Carry Too Much Weight
Preseason rankings are an often-scrutinized side-effect of the rankings system. Each week requires a ranking--even before a single snap has taken place--and so the teams with the highest expectations before the season are often those that populate the preseason list.
As the season continues, however, these teams rarely match preseason expectations per the AP Poll voters. Using the 2023 season as an example, 8 teams that began the season unranked finished in the final top 25.
To put it simply: preseason rankings don't mean much. Even last year's runner-up Washington was the 10th-ranked team in the nation, yet they took down Texas in the semifinals. Look at this year's red-headed stepchild in Florida State, who began the season as the 10th-ranked squad and fell off a cliff.
And yet, with this volatility being public knowledge, many teams are given an edge thanks to preseason rankings. The BYU Cougars, despite owning one of the strongest resumes in college football, sit as the 13th-ranked team behind the likes of Notre Dame, LSU, and Clemson. Each of these teams has suffered a huge loss in their early seasons, whether it was a major upset--cough NIU cough--or a good old-fashioned blowout.
Yet, with an unblemished record and two wins over top-25 programs, BYU's status as a preseason unranked squad has slowed the Cougars' momentum in the eyes of voters. Rather than looking at each team's body of work, many voters will only lift the BYU's of the world if a team above them suffers a loss.
Using an irrelevant metric like a preseason poll as point of reference is not only unfair, it just makes no sense.
Of the the teams that were slotted int he preseason top 25, how many are currently still in the top 25?
Output < Prestige
Teams like Boise State, Army, Navy, Indiana, Illinois, and so many other unbeatens are treated as though they were guilty until proven innocent. As these schools don't own the biggest names in college football's history, voter habits suggest that these schools can't back up their records with substantial evidence that they are better than LSU, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and others.
"Voters are happier to send teams like Alabama to the top of the football world, because that's where they've always been."
Please tell me how Notre Dame's season has been better than that of unbeaten BYU, Boise State, or Illinois (and not to single out the Irish, but what has Notre Dame done in the last decade of college football?). Please share with me why LSU, who lost to a 3-loss USC squad deserves the voters' favor over the likes of Iowa State, Indiana, or Army.
If you take these teams' names out of consideration and use objective information to determine the value of these teams based on production rather than namesake, these rankings give off the appearance of fraudulence.
Voters are happier to send teams like Alabama to the top of the football world, because that's where they've always been, even as the Tide narrowly escaped a second straight loss to South Carolina last week. The rankings look stronger when LSU stands in the top 10, so when teams like Georgia or Texas take them down, the top teams can continue their ascent by standing on the hastily-crafted platform that these rankings manufactured.
I don't mean to suggest these voters submit their ballots out of malice, but I do believe that this week's rankings indicate a pattern of disrespect for the overachievers, an unwarranted favor for the sports' historical darlings, and a sway that is heavily influenced by poll inertia.
While human error will always be a factor when assessing a subjective power order, that same error is what makes the athletic arena so fascinating for its viewers. Do these biases impact the landscape of college athletics? Of course. But to take away the humanity of sport is to take away the entire purpose, and I'll take trivial bias over computerized rankings any day.
After all, it's given me plenty to talk about.