Chris Klieman prefers no polls until first College Football Playoff rankings

Kansas State coach Chris Klieman wants to take the no preseason polls a step further when it comes to the College Football Playoff. Basically, the Wildcats leader doesn’t want polls of any kind until the first playoff rankings are released.

For reference, the rankings last year didn’t start until Tuesday, November 5th last season. So you basically have two thirds of the season done before the CFP reveals its first slate.

Klieman makes a good point when it comes to roster turnover: rankings are so subjective, especially early on in the season. So basically, Klieman and every other coach would be coaching a bit blind until a big reveal later in the fall.

“I wish they would start it this year and do it whenever the playoff poll comes out, to be honest with you,” Klieman said on Sirius XM.  “Because you hit on something … the fabric of college football, it’s different now. That ain’t the fabric of college football as we all know. It’s just a different world that we’re in. And for us, it would be better for us not to just have random prognostications of who usually is supposed to be good. ‘But they were 5-7 last year. Well, they must be better this year,’  or … whatever, you know? 

“I just don’t think it’s good right now, especially with the transfer portal. And the amount of guys, changing teams, you just don’t know you have no idea what the lead is going to be like in any of the leagues. You assume what it’s going to be, but a lot of those assumptions are wrong so I just assumed we all waited until later October.”

Klieman’s suggestion is quite radical compared to the norm of college football rankings and polls. While he’s not wrong when it comes to ranking teams in the preseason, in-season polls have meaning once you have some data to go by.

Perhaps Klieman could meet in the middle by saying there needs to be four weeks of data before the first AP or Coaches Polls are released. Then, you can have a better idea of who the better teams are and how the media and coaches evaluate them.

The reason Klieman’s talking point became a big deal this summer is because the Big 12 did away with official preseason polls. After last year where Arizona State won the Big 12, they did so after being picked to finish last in the preseason.

So while there are good points from Klieman, perhaps there’s a happy medium for polls. One thing’s for sure, it won’t happen this season.