Smells good.
- Year2’s summary of the contenders in the SEC East – Florida’s offense has to stay out of its own way for the Gators to have a chance; South Carolina’s depth is questionable, especially on defense; Georgia’s offense has to play well enough to overcome questions about the significant turnover on a defense coming off a disappointing season – is good as far as it goes. But I wonder why nobody talks about special teams.
- Scot Loeffler says he was a bad coach last year because he was stuck with lousy players. Nice.
- One reason this year might be the year of the quarterback in the SEC? If Georgia’s got the fifth-best secondary in the conference, it definitely isn’t the year of the defensive back.
- NFL referees laugh at your quaint college notions of pace, Coach Kelly.
- Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald proposes an interesting tweak for the new targeting rules.
- Here’s the list of when SEC schools start preseason practice.
- Georgia is third on this list of the five most overrated football programs of the last five seasons.
- Georgia Tech’s non-conference scheduling is a real profile in Jello.
- Big Ten inferiority complex.
- If the preseason happy talking is getting to you, Groo provides a Munson-esque antidote here.
Get The Picture 
How is Notre Dame not on that most overrated teams list? They end up in the discussion at some point every year.
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Last year, the Irish were unranked in the preseason AP poll and finished fourth. That’s how.
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They were over-ranked at forth.
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sorry…”fourth”.
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The methodology of the underrated/overrated list is flawed IMHO. Just because BS gets printed doesn’t change the fact that it is BS.
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Any list of overrated teams that doesn’t include FSU fails. Heck, FSU’s 2011 season alone is reason enough to put them at the top of the list.
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That is a decent method for considering who is over rated/under rated, but the basic problem with any examination of that subject is that if you are a powerful team there is only so far you can “go up”.
For example, say you are a powerhouse program that is expected to be in a slight rebuilding year. You start the season ranked #10, but wind up going 14-0 and destroy everyone on the way to a national title. The next season you start out #1 and drop 2 games during the regular season and show up flat in a bowl game to finish 11-3 and ranked #11.
For that 2 year period the team went 25-3 and obviously exceeded expectations overall, but would be considered -1 on the over rated scale. Put simply, if you start out well ranked you can’t be rewarded as much for over achieving.
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While your point is valid about the downside/upside, the bigger issue to be is the wild-ass guesses that makes up all preseason rankings. A very recent example of this absurdity is USC being ranked #1 preseason last year and unranked at the end, or ND being unranked and finishing 4th (that 4th place vote proves the polls are pathetic.) Does anyone really think UGA was only the 19th best team in America after winning the SEC East?
An analysis of this nature is more valid over several decades and not a 5 year snapshot, but polls are still a terrible way to rank teams. Just another strong reason why playoffs should include all champions of major conferences. You might have to use polls, or some other subjective method, to fill out the 8 team field but at least you have the geographical leaders included every year. Given the inequities in schedule strengths around the US, it is the only way to determine relative strengths.
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Overranked, underranked – buzz words to get us liquored-up for the polls.
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I think Chris Stassen does a better job at this.
http://preseason.stassen.com/
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That list is disheartening, because the other four teams on that list were abysmally overrated – but not ours.
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Couldn’t agree more with #1. OU is probably the only team, outside of maybe Columbus, OH, that can lose virtually every contributing starter and still be in the preseason top 10 annually.
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Green wavy jello, at that. Tech sure do like them some Tulane.
Gee, the recruiting has dried up in Ohio where Meyer grew up. Why doesn’t he recruit in familiar ground? Oops! That old familiarity works two ways and no one wants anything to do with him in Fl. How could that have ever happened? Cue Bianchi.
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Mmmm…lot’s to sample on today’s buffet:
– TV controls the pace of play in the NFL. Good luck with that Kelly.
– Funny, I hate soccer but was also thinking the yellow card / red card idea might be a better solution to targeting rule. Interesting interview on Tim Brando’s show this morning with Steve Shaw, head of SEC officiating. The “targeting rule” can only be imposed on an expanded definition of a defenseless player. So the Dial hit on Murray is clearly a foul now since a QB will always be defenseless after a turnover. He also said that the ACC ref was wrong, and the conference refs have all talked and gotten on the same page that a hit like Clowney’s on the Michigan back is not a foul. Also, using the helmet’s crown to initiate a hit is a penalty and will be called, even if “targeting” does not exist. But this infraction would not carry the automatic ejection. Finally, he stated that there were 99 targeting calls last year in the SEC, which were “too many” and hopes education and coaching on the new rule actually cuts down on this. We shall see.
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Yep. The ACC ref was wrong, but you still get his 15 yd penalty.
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Groo’s comments are, unfortunately, a reality check.
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Shorter Loefler: “Did you see the pile of crap out there?”
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Shortest Loeffler: ” With this pile of crap, Charlie, there must be some Football Points in there somewhere…”
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So….let me get this straight. Vandy’s secondary is 4th best in the SEC and better than UGA’s, South Carolina’s and A&M’s. Riiiiight.
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Hey I love the Yellow Card idea it will go well with the “flopping” that is sure to occur as we proceed to play a lighter more genteel game. Why the heck don’t we just go back to Rugby.
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In response to the over/underrated teams article.
It’s almost to the point of being unbelievable when I see the logic (or lack thereof) some of these guys use when writing articles like this. This type of logic is how and why the Dunning-Kruger experiment came into being ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect ). How much more sense would it make to say the media totally whiffed on these teams? Because, there’s much less proof after a complete season as to how good a team is compared to how good the team is when the media ranks them in August. Or, how much more sense would it make to take a close look at each teams schedule (particularly SEC teams) and see which teams that were ranked high in the preseason but drew the short end of the stick and played a couple top 10 teams (top 10 at year end, not preseason) and another one or two in the 11-15 range. There’s a good chance that team may end up losing three games and finish ranked in the 20’s for a negative ranking in the teens that year. Hell, what am talking about? It was totally and completely these team’s fault when they didn’t finish according to a media preseason poll. The media isn’t capable of making a mistake.
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