Overrated vs. Underrated 2000 - 2006

USC,

The intent was to show how preseason polling is ridiculous.

I agree. Really look beyond THESE stats and you will see that it is the polling that is overrated, not the teams. FSU was going on a 15 year period where they were top 5 every year. Same coach, mostly the same recruiting, so the preseason polls gave them the benefit of the dou bt more of ten than not. It just shows the problems with preseason polls


If you waited until week 6 to rank teams, this would be a non issue and there would be no speak of these teams being overrated but simply rated accordingly

[Feel Real Good]

Fantastic analysis looking beyong the surface of the stats, USC Rules.

USC,

The intent was to show how preseason polling is ridiculous.The data should be reviewed by season.   I only put up the past seven years to reflect that there is a small number of teams who have an advantage year in and out with their preseason standings.  That should add fuel to start up's like USF. 

Like all data you can argue either point which was the intent. 
If you are strong SEC you can argue that the B12 is over rated.  If you are a KY fan, you could argue Tenn is over rated.  If you are West coast you could argue the preseason polling of the E. Coast teams. 
Cheers,

Well really though, you aren't proving Pre-season polling to be ridiculous at all with this.  Looks like 5 of 7 years they pegged Florida fairly good.  I wonder how many years they got the others right? 

There are much better ways to argue pre-season polling to be ridiculous than adding subtracting several years and calling a team overrated because of it.  As I showed with Florida the voters got it right more often than not, just 2 seasons were bad inflating the number.  Over that 7 year period Florida was rated right where they should be 5 of 7 years.  Can't ask or expect much more than that.

[redtab78]

USC,

The intent was to show how preseason polling is ridiculous.The data should be reviewed by season. I only put up the past seven years to reflect that there is a small number of teams who have an advantage year in and out with their preseason standings. That should add fuel to start up's like USF.

Like all data you can argue either point which was the intent.
If you are strong SEC you can argue that the B12 is over rated. If you are a KY fan, you could argue Tenn is over rated. If you are West coast you could argue the preseason polling of the E. Coast teams.
Cheers,

While I do agree with the pre-season ranking, I think they should hold all rankings untill after the 5th game...

[ranman]

USC,

The intent was to show how preseason polling is ridiculous.The data should be reviewed by season.   I only put up the past seven years to reflect that there is a small number of teams who have an advantage year in and out with their preseason standings.  That should add fuel to start up's like USF. 

Like all data you can argue either point which was the intent. 
If you are strong SEC you can argue that the B12 is over rated.  If you are a KY fan, you could argue Tenn is over rated.  If you are West coast you could argue the preseason polling of the E. Coast teams. 
Cheers,

This thread merely points out the teams that have been highly rated and where they end up in a given year.  If a pattern is shown then that should reflect historically being overrated. 

This is simply not true.  As I showed with Florida, they were only "overrated" 2 of these 7 years.  How you can call a team overrated based on that I am not sure. As I said before, 5 of the 7 seasons they were within 6 spots pre/post.  The data is skewed by 2 seasons, that's the bottom line.  This is another example of someone trying to manipulate data to make it appear that something that is not true, is in fact true.  2/7 is not a trend.  Taking 35 spots out of 2 seasons and saying it makes the whole picture true is dishonest. 

[ranman]

USC,
The stats were AP pre and post.  We can break it out by year but there always seems to be chatter about the chronic overrated hence the stats for this decade.  You are correct though.  One or two seasons (ZOOK) could skewer the ratings.  Regardless - they are what they are.

[BUCFAN4LIFE]

But Ranman it is obviously skewed and it is blanketed as the most overrated teams of the decade. Yet USC's data clearly shows UF was only over- rated  2/7 years. Surely one can't consider 2/7 years a trend. Interesting slant but bogus at best.

[redtab78]

I disagree with your Florida overated and I think USC should be up there...Florida won the 2006 BCS championship, how is that over rated?

[redtab78]

and I should note, my opinions are based on the confrence strength...pac-10 not much after USC besides Oregon and Cal...but they will always loose 3-4 a year...and SEC is high tempo...Florida, LSU, South Carolina, just to name a few....the SEC is a very tough conference to be in...

[oregonbucfan]

and I should note, my opinions are based on the confrence strength...pac-10 not much after USC besides Oregon and Cal...but they will always loose 3-4 a year...and SEC is high tempo...Florida, LSU, South Carolina, just to name a few....the SEC is a very tough conference to be in...

Right now the top of the pac-10 is equal to the top of the SEC. The rest of it can be debated. Game**CENSORED**s are no better then Cal and I think Cal is almost equal to kentucky. Oregon= LSU. USC=Florida. Then theres the wildcard teams like UCLA Bama Tenn etc who play great one week and **CENSORED**ty the next.

The stats dont show that these teams are overrated, they just show that once again preseason ranking are useless. FSU and Miami are at down points in their programs, but all the coaches know that they still have top recruiting classes annually so they get ranked higher than they deserve to at this point

Im sure UF is on this list for a similar reason. Earlier in the decade they were at a downpoint, but were probably still getting high preseason ranks because their overall recruits were better than most everyone elses around the nation. I never considered them overrated, I could see they were at a downpoint and that their ranking was consistently higher in the beginning of the season than towards the end. Doesnt make them overrated to me, just shows the flaws in the preseason ranking system

Interesting slant.

Very interesting.  A couple looked puzzling so I chose Florida just to see if this was accurate.  It was, in a sense, but for what he is trying to say it is a bit off.  If the idea is to say these teams are overrated annually it is not true.  They can be seriously skewed just by 1 or 2 seasons.  In the case of Florida, their "delta" was -36.  However, 99% of that came from just 2 of these 7 seasons.....Pre-season rating of 6 in 2002 (Zook's 1st year I believe) with a finish of 26 and pre-season rating of 11 in 2004 (Zook's final year) with a final rating of 26.  35 of the 36 delta comes form those 2 years.  The other 5 years Florida was -1 pre/post polls.  Overrated those 2 years?  Yes, but overrated as a whole I think that's a stretch.  I am sure you will likely find the others to be quite the same.  I don't put much weight if any into thus analysis.  On the flip side, a team could be unranked to start the season just 1-2 years, end up ranked, and be on the underrated side but again, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say as a whole.

Also, I think for the Stassen ratings he used a pre-season "consensus" and used just AP for post-season.

Here were the Florida ranks:

2006 - 7 and 1
2005 - 10 and 12
2004 - 11 and 26
2003 - 26 and 24
2002 - 6 and 26
2001 - 1 and 3
2000 - 7 and 10

I'd say most of those years was pretty damn good.  Outside of the 2 outliers they were pegged within 6 spots all 5 years and within 3 spots in 4.  I'd give a pass to 2002 since nobody knew what to expect going from Spurrier to Zook. 

[ranman]

This thread merely points out the teams that have been highly rated and where they end up in a given year.  If a pattern is shown then that should reflect historically being overrated. 

You could also argue E. Coast bias in the since that this decade there were many more E. Coast teams that have dropped from preseason to postseason.  Conf ratings are below:



2006:

Big 12      -25
ACC         -23
Indep      - 16 (ND)

2005
B12         - 22
WAC       - 14
B10         -11

2004

B12        - 19
SEC        -19
ACC        -16

[redtab78]

and I should note, my opinions are based on the confrence strength...pac-10 not much after USC besides Oregon and Cal...but they will always loose 3-4 a year...and SEC is high tempo...Florida, LSU, South Carolina, just to name a few....the SEC is a very tough conference to be in...

Right now the top of the pac-10 is equal to the top of the SEC. The rest of it can be debated. Game**CENSORED**s are no better then Cal and I think Cal is almost equal to kentucky. Oregon= LSU. USC=Florida. Then theres the wildcard teams like UCLA Bama Tenn etc who play great one week and **CENSORED**ty the next.

I wouldnt go so far as to say Oregon=LSU....I like  Oregon, alot...but with out Dennis Dixon, they dont have much threat, where as LSU has them all over thier program...