While the Texas/ND game was fun to watch, I'll tell you what I saw:
Texas: Good: Very good line play on both sides. A very talented FR QB.
Bad: bad pass defense, situations where a wildcat package had to be brought in to bail out the FR QB
ND: Good: good passing game
Bad: everything else. Porous defense. Dominated at line.
The problem: ND was ranked #10 and they're ND
Therefore UT is back again baby! Ignoring the very real possibility that ND has a a terrible defense and wasn't prepared for Swoopes AT ALL
Conclusion: This wouldn't have been as big a deal if we held off all polls until 10/1. The problem is those preseason polls sell magazines and air time.
I think ND will be an 8-4 team and will finish in the 23-25 spot in the final polls. UT will finish similar. Now that they rolled out the "18-wheeler", the B12 will have weeks to counter it.
I would also argue that the SEC has built itself on preseason rankings. If you have 3 teams in the preseason top ten and 5 in the top 20, then the best couple SEC teams will look even better when they beat those teams and can often get a mulligan for losing an SEC game since "they were ranked so high", which in essence is media driven lie. The playoff committee is just that...a bunch of humans packed into a room. Each with biases that are propagated by this farce.
Texas: Good: Very good line play on both sides. A very talented FR QB.
Bad: bad pass defense, situations where a wildcat package had to be brought in to bail out the FR QB
ND: Good: good passing game
Bad: everything else. Porous defense. Dominated at line.
The problem: ND was ranked #10 and they're ND
Therefore UT is back again baby! Ignoring the very real possibility that ND has a a terrible defense and wasn't prepared for Swoopes AT ALL
Conclusion: This wouldn't have been as big a deal if we held off all polls until 10/1. The problem is those preseason polls sell magazines and air time.
I think ND will be an 8-4 team and will finish in the 23-25 spot in the final polls. UT will finish similar. Now that they rolled out the "18-wheeler", the B12 will have weeks to counter it.
I would also argue that the SEC has built itself on preseason rankings. If you have 3 teams in the preseason top ten and 5 in the top 20, then the best couple SEC teams will look even better when they beat those teams and can often get a mulligan for losing an SEC game since "they were ranked so high", which in essence is media driven lie. The playoff committee is just that...a bunch of humans packed into a room. Each with biases that are propagated by this farce.
