I have this theory when it comes to the Coaches Poll in college football and it’s not very flattering.
I believe coaches only want to do it to manipulate where their team is ranked and possibly demote some of their competitors. Aside from that, they basically check who was in the poll last week, move a few teams around, and if someone drops out, they just pick a school they’ve heard of.
As grossly unfair as that may sound, take a look at this week’s first coaches poll. Then look at the last one of the season last year released in January. You may notice that 21 of the teams in the final poll are in today’s poll, with only a few schools moved around to higher or lower positions. Big brand names like Notre Dame are always there, and of course for the 137th straight year, the University of Miami is in there.
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: The U is BACK!
Four teams dropped out from last year’s final poll: Louisville, SMU, West Virginia and Washington, which is 26th in today’s poll, leading the pack of “others receiving votes. Coincidentally, none are what you’d consider big brand names, although Washington comes close.
Those 4 were replaced with what are big brand names: Southern Cal, Texas A&M, We’re Back University (also known as Miami) and Utah. There does not appear to be any intense scrutiny that identified a team or two who is not in the spotlight but has retooled in the offseason and could be a sleeper team in 2024. The rankings look more like George Carlin’s famous monologue where he told everyone “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
Of course, Carlin also once said ”“some people have no idea what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.”
Which could apply to today’s poll 😊
