Public Perception and College Football Rankings

As Georgia struggles through its worst season since Mark Richt came to Athens, many people are worried about the direction of the Georgia program. After an 8-5 campaign last year, the Dawgs reputation as one of the best programs in the SEC has certainly taken a hit. While it is clear that the Dawgs will not return to the top 25 this season, it is not out of this world to think the Dawgs will at least be mentioned in the "others receiving votes" at the beginning of next season. So, how long does it take for the public perception to completely lose faith in a program? To illustrate this question, I will examine two schools currently ranked in the top 25: Michigan and LSU.

In the fall of 2007, Lloyd Carr of Michigan had announced his retirement as long time coach of the Michigan Wolverines. The team had began the year at #4 in the country, but an embarrassing loss in week 1 to 1-AA Appalachian State changed the complexion of the season. The leading candidate to take over the job was LSU coach Les Miles. After rumors that he would be leaving Baton Rouge for Ann Arbor ran wild during the week of the SEC Championship game, Miles publicly declared that he was staying with the Tigers. LSU beat Tennessee and earned a chance to play Ohio State for the BCS Championship.

With Miles staying in Baton Rouge, Michigan had to find another person to replace Carr. West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez was soon hired. Just a year before, Rodriguez had agreed to take over the Alabama coaching position, but changed his mind (resulting in Nick Saban coming to Tuscaloosa). Michigan closed its season with a thrilling victory over Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators. LSU won the National Championship. For the next two years, these programs would fail to match the success they had in the previous seasons.

The next two years in Michigan were a complete disaster. Without the players to run his spread offense (particularly after Terelle Pryor chose Ohio State), the Wolverines struggled through back to back losing seasons. Compiling a record of 8-16 in the next two years, Michigan entered the 2010 unranked, with many expecting this to be Rodriguez's final season on the sidelines.

Following its second national championship in 5 years, LSU lost its perch atop the SEC West as the Saban coached Crimson Tide retunred to national prominence. Unusual coaching decisions be Les Miles combined with poor offense and bad pass defense marked a complete change from the Tiger teams of the mid-2000's. They entered the 2010 season ranked 19 in the country.

2010 has been a successful season for both Michigan and LSU. Michigan, who in quarterback Denard Robinson finally has the correct player to run Rodriguez's offense, has looked impressive in winning 5 straight games to start the year. They appear to be a team on the rise and have returned to the rankings after a two year absence. LSU is also 5-0, but their path has been much different. The offense has been horrible with quarterback Jordan Jefferson already benched a number of times. The team struggled to beat a North carolina team missing 14 players and needed a Tennessee penalty to escape a horrible time management gaffe by Miles to beat the Volunteers. Despite the undefeated record, many are calling for Miles to be fired.

And here in lies the problem that the Georgia Bulldogs may face in the future. Michigan has looked impressive this season, climbing from the bowells of the unranked to #18 in the country. LSU, on the other hand, has looked horrible. But they currently sit at #9 in the AP Poll and #12 in the Coaches Poll. Now ask yourself, which team should be in the top ten?

After a few bad seasons, Georgia may be faced with a similar uphill battle when (or if) they get back to the winnings ways they once enjoyed. The SEC schedule is tough enough that an undefeated team will almost certainly always play for the national championship. But in the ever important recruiting season, only the top teams in the national get billing on national television. And while I think most people would rather watch Denard Robinson right now over Jordan Jefferson, LSU's #9 ranking says otherwise. Hopefully the Dawgs can find some magic like Michigan has this year, or else the climb back to the top may take longer than you think.

WEEKEND GARBAGE

WHY IS USC BAD, BUT EVERYONE ALWAYS FORGETS ABOUT OKLAHOMA?

While I take pleasure in the USC loss, I am befuddled by the across the board reaction from pundits, bloggers, etc. I've heard so much talk about this has somehow "exposed" USC, and that they might not have ever been as good as most thought since dropping a game like this weekend's is a yearly occurrence.

While it is troublesome USC does that typically, I don't think the loss to Washington is as big of a deal as most make it out to be. They have a QB who has never started a game, potential for a down year given player losses to the draft, throw in a better Washington team coached by USC assistants, and you can have an ideal upset. Perhaps the high expectations and just basic realities are finally crossing paths, but losing one game does not diminish what USC is and what Pete Carroll has accomplished.

However, what really pisses me off about this most is that while people are lambasting USC, they completely forget about Oklahoma. Oklahoma also has a habit of consistently losing games to lesser teams. Try TCU, Boise State, BYU, and West Virginia (you could even throw in Oregon, but I don't). Yet, no one's calling them "frauds" like they are USC. In fact, people are making excuses for Oklahoma. Bob Ryan on the Sports Reporters said the BYU game can be considered a mulligan for Oklahoma. What!?! A mulligan? That's complete garbage.

Somehow, I don't think anyone will hold BYU getting thrashed by Florida State against Oklahoma as much as they would for any other team.

Oklahoma continues to be the most overrated team of the decade, and everyone constantly seems to have short memories when it comes to their foul ups.

I have USC's back in this debate, but I still don't mind seeing them lose.

MEYER vs. KIFFIN, COMPLETE DOUCHEBAG vs. NEWBIE DOUCHEBAG

Urban accuses Tennessee of not trying to win, Laney says Floriduh is simply trying to make excuses for a sub par performance.

I say, who cares! Floriduh wins in an ugly manner and their weaknesses are exposed.

Tennessee still loses, and both coaches continue to appear as massive tools.

Sounds like we got everything we could have hoped for out of this game!

POLLS - I THOUGHT WE WENT DOWN WHEN WE WON?

Georgia was ranked #21 in both the AP and Coaches Polls before the South Carolina game. We win that game, and what happens? We drop to #23 in the AP Poll, just as we won our first two games last year and dropped a spot each week. We seem to be the only team that has a habit of winning games and dropping in the polls (oddly enough, the reverse never seems to happen).

Luckily, the AP has now put us back up #21 (the Coaches Poll has us at #17).

The Countdown 2009: 33 Days to Go

33

The number of times Georgia has appeared in the Associated Press Final top 25 poll since 1941. The Dawgs finished #13 in 2008.

G Day Week 2009

This Saturday will mark the end of Georgia's 2009 spring practice with the annual G-Day game at Sanford Stadium. While the game it self often tends to be boring, there is typically a large amount of excitement heading into the game. I went to my first G-Day in 2001 and just look at the stories that have surrounded the annual spring game each year since:

2001 - Coach Richt and the New Quarterback
- Coach Donnan was fired and replaced with Mark Richt, the young offensive coordinator from Florida State. While many people were excited about the new coach, the biggest headline was around the battle for the starting quarterback position. Quincy Carter had left Georgia, leaving the battle between Cory Phillips and redshirt freshman David Greene.

2002- Excited about Shockley
- After spending his true freshman year on the bench, Coach Richt's prized QB recruit would finally get to see the playing field.

2003 - Defending SEC Champions
- Coming off its first SEC Championship in 20 years, the Dawg Nation was still buzzing about the beat down of Arkansas and the win over Florida State. Fans had their eyes on the running back position, as Musa Smith had left early for the NFL leaving Tony Milton, Michael Cooper, amongst others, competing for the job.

2004 - Senior Leadership
- A senior laden team, led by David Pollack, David Greene, Reggie Brown, and Fred Gibson were expected to open the season in the top5 of most polls.

2005 - A Rebuilding Year?
- During the spring of 2005, most people had a feeling that Georgia would be rebuilding around senior QB DJ Shockley, finally getting his chance to start. Little did they know just 8 months later they would have the second SEC championship of Mark Richt's tenure in Athens.

2006 - Matthew Stafford's Debut
- The highest profile recruit of the Richt era enrolled early in 2006, allowing him to take part in G-Day. The freshman from Texas did not disappoint the fans, throwing a 67-yard touchdown pass to Mikey Henderson on hist first pass attempt.

2007 - Who is this Moreno guy?
- The coaches had been buzzing about this tailback from New Jersey who did not see the field as a true freshman in 2006. This was the first action for Moreno, who would put on a show that fall.

2008 - The Anticipation of #1
- After finishing the electric 2007 season #2 in the country, everyone was fired up about the possibility of opening the season at #1. There was much anticipation about the Bulldog debut of running back Caleb King as well.

So what are the stories for 2009? The competition at running back, the lack of healthy players, particularly DEs, seeing the freshmen quarterbacks, or just the fact that the game is on ESPN. Vote on the poll and leave your comments below.

Chaos In Tejas

I said in this post last week that Texas' loss to Texas Tech does not have the same weight as Texas beating Oklahoma. If you're not going to include Texas Tech and consider ranking them above both Oklahoma and Texas (and I can't find anyone outside of Mike Leach that would do this), then their defeat of Texas is not as important as Texas beating Oklahoma. While I wrote this post beforehand, it has become a counterpoint to Earl's post here.

This is a raw deal for Texas, but the Longhorns are doing a pretty good job of dealing with this situation. While they are sinking into madness in some instances, I think it is understandable to a point. Texas fans need to remember that the only thing they can do at this point is win their bowl game and then complain and hope the AP listens. As I said with Georgia last year, there's no reason to whine now and then lose your bowl game. Doing so will make you look like you didn't belong in the conversation in the first place (such as Michigan in 2006).

While I do think Texas being left out is ridiculous, I do not blame the BCS. It is not the BCS' job nor its intention to determine the participants in conference championships. This decision was the Big 12's, so they created their own problem. Every conference uses BCS rankings at some point for a tie breaker, and I think it's understandable that conferences would use it in some form in order to not leave this thing up to a coin flip (which I believe was next), or some sort of obstacle course game show tournament.

If this situation does result in a split national title, people are going to completely blame the BCS for it. I think such blame would be misplaced. It's not that you could absolve the BCS completely, but I think there are entities you could blame for having a larger role in creating such an instance.

The first to blame should be the Big 12, for reasons I outlined earlier. The next blame should be placed on irrational voters who placed Oklahoma above Texas. How can I blame voters, but not blame the BCS? Simple, the BCS is reactive to the choices the voters make. If voters in both the Harris Poll (which did rank Texas ahead by a small margin), and the Coaches Poll (who defy logic as often as they can), had largely ranked Texas above Oklahoma, the BCS would have appropriately responded.

Again, I'm getting ahead of myself. Everyone lambasting the BCS for having failed this year reminds me that nothing's actually been decided yet

Weekend Garbage Late Edition

Greetings from Sin City! I apologize for this being late and shorter than I anticipated, but I've got to go lose more money on everything.

Polls

After our first week victory over Ga Southern, we dropped to number 2. After our trouncing of Central Michigan, we lost first place votes (even some to a team that didn't even play that week).

Now, after our close victory in South Cacklacky, we've dropped to number 3. At this point, we will be 10-0 and ranked number 12.

We also lost all but 2 of our first place votes in each poll, and Oklahoma also has less first place votes than they did last week.

However, I've never seen such a quick regression of a team's ranking this early WHEN THEY ARE WINNING ALL THEIR GAMES.

With this precedent, what happens if we lose a game? Do we drop out of the polls?

At this point, unless the Gayturds lose to the Vols, we will drop to number 4 even if we beat AZ State.


PAC-10

BUH-LOWS!!! Alright, lemme get this straight. Four of your teams lost to Mountain West Conference teams. Wow. You also lost to 3 other out of conference teams. In a week where all of your teams played out of conference, you went 3-7 and four of those losses were to a non-BCS conference.

Guess that PAC-10 domination never quite got off the ground.

USC

I hate you because Mark May loves you, and therefore I hate you. I'd typically be happy to watch a Big 11 team get slapped around like you did to Ohio State, but this means I have to listen to Mark May tell me how this is the return of the greatest team in history (everyone knows it's Bama, c'mon).


Gregg Doyel Can Suck A Nut

Thanks to the Senator for pointing this out nn his blog.

Read why Gregg Doyel is a buffoon. Rather than go through and react to every line this moron has written with all the fury imaginable, I'll just say this:

This sumbitch thinks Bama is probably a superior team to the Dawgs and should be ranked above us, because we're obviously vastly overrated. Are you kidding? I wasn't even that mad about how you said we suck, but I cannot stand for any notion that Bama is "superior" to us. I mean, they were the greatest team ever in the first week of college football, but Tulane almost received the torch of upset from UL-Monroe the following week. Now, you're feeding the the fan base that defines being in denial.

For that, your actions are inexcusable. Suck-a-nut.

Reactions to Being #2

Well, that was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it? I’m delighted to say that I was in attendance Saturday to hear with my own singular functioning ear (that’s a story I’m sure will surface at some point during our ramblings on this blog…but not now) when the PA announcer at Sanford Stadium proudly introduced the Number one ranked Georgia Bulldogs.

I warned Earl and Streit on the way home that I didn’t think the Dawgs’ performance Between the Hedges would warrant keeping them in the top spot of the polls. Knowing full and well that the pollsters would display their utter disregard for common decency and sportsmanship during this week’s voting, I am not at all surprised that USC jumped two spots to sit at the Apex of college football, previously occupied by our beloved Peach State Doggies. As for the expectations of the voters, both coaches and writers, that a team assert its dominance against a lesser foe by running up the score to unconscionable levels…well, I place that blame squarely on the shoulders of one Steve “Satan Spurrier. The era of the “fun and gun” in Gainesville has shifted the perspective of what makes college football great.

Satan and his minions

Sure, it’s about rivalry, and deep-seated, generational reinforced hatred of one’s arch nemesis (and in the case of the SEC, all schools except Vandy…who usually just doesn’t pose enough of a threat for us to worry about). Sure it’s about the debate over “how much better my team is than yours.” One of the great things about conference play is that a college football fan can puff out his chest and boast about how his team will beat your team by four touchdowns with little risk that your two teams will actually ever have to play each other (especially in the case of the power teams from the Pac-10 and SEC, thanks to the Rose Bowl’s embargo on teams from south of the Mason-Dixon line). I don’t think that leaving in your first-string players for the whole game and completely dominating an inferior team in the first few weeks of non-conference play makes those arguments any more valid. To me it seems that teams who run up the score on the little guys are acting out on a secret inferiority complex and hiding behind the big numbers on the scoreboard. Is USC an inferior team trying to hide something? I don’t think so. They’re as legitimate a #1 as anyone else in the country. They are certainly more likely to finish their schedule undefeated than is Georgia. But maybe it’s the weakness of their schedule that they’re trying to hide with point totals nearing triple digits...

Am I angry that we were ousted from our #1 ranking in both polls even though we won convincingly against a Division I-AA team who may have given “ACC powerhouse” Virginia a run for their money? Not really. I really didn’t want to start at #1 anyway. When you start at the top, the status quo becomes good enough; there’s no incentive for improvement. I want our Dawgs to get better, and better, and better. I want to move up in the polls each week and make whoever sits at the top scared. I’ve said since January that the optimum place for Georgia to start the season would be in the top 5…but behind Florida. I would much rather enter an undefeated Showdown on the St. John’s as an underdog according to the polls than having the bulls eye from our end zone celebration lit up by a great big neon #1 sign hanging over our sideline in Alltel Stadium.




This just never gets old...


I am; however, disappointed in the fickle, knee-jerk reactions of coaches and writers who likely only put the scores of the USC-UVA game and the UGA-GSU game up against each other and picked the biggest margin. Mark Richt has had some great thoughts on running up the score:

“I would say you’re running it up if you’ve got your first-team players in the game with five minutes to go and you’re up by 40. If you’re still throwing bombs, maybe that’s running it up. I think it’s the defense’s job to slow people down anyway.”

And to paraphrase Evil Richt’s position on running up the score: “Who said I haven’t tried to run it up before?!? Maybe we just couldn’t!”

While it may cost us a spot in the polls here or there, I hope that Georgia remains a classy program with integrity enough to resist the temptation to score as many points as humanly possible in a plot to defile and humiliate the opponent. Unless, of course, that opponent is Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina, LSU, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, USC…