The Brigham Young Cougars football team kicks off the 2011 season this Saturday. As the Monday before the first game, BLUE COUGAR FOOTBALL is ready and kicking it into game day speed.
With the start of every season comes the feature Reaction to the Rankings (R2R). R2R was short lived last year, but it makes a return for the preseason. The game at Ole Miss will have a lot to do with whether R2R is back next week.
In both the Associated Press and the USA Today preseason polls, BYU showed up as one of the “Others receiving votes.” BYU had the 33rd most points in the AP poll and 43rd most points in the USA Today poll.
If you isolate BYU, then this “ranking” is acceptable. BYU does deserve some votes for finishing last year on a hot streak and returning over a dozen starters. However, some of those starters are still pretty young, and BYU was just 7-6 overall last year, which makes it unreasonable to expect enough votes to crack the top 25.
Looking at the rankings as a whole, BYU doesn’t seem to be treated fairly. Notre Dame was just one game better than BYU last year (8-5), and they are ranked all the way up at 16 and 18. Georgia, minus A.J. Green this year, was 6-7 in 2010 is ranked 19 and 22. BYU’s week two opponent Texas (5-7 in 2010) is ranked 24 in the USA Today poll and is the first team out in the AP with 114 points—99 more than BYU.
Admittedly, I don’t follow these teams as closely as BYU, but I can’t imagine that any of them have as much reason for improvement this year as BYU does.
Overall, my reaction to the rankings is that they are tolerable. After all, this is the preseason, and voters really have little to go on. BYU is in position to quickly climb up the rankings with a strong start to the season.
What is your reaction to the rankings?
The Editor appreciates all feedback. He can be reached via email at bluecougarfootball@gmail.com
With the start of every season comes the feature Reaction to the Rankings (R2R). R2R was short lived last year, but it makes a return for the preseason. The game at Ole Miss will have a lot to do with whether R2R is back next week.
In both the Associated Press and the USA Today preseason polls, BYU showed up as one of the “Others receiving votes.” BYU had the 33rd most points in the AP poll and 43rd most points in the USA Today poll.
If you isolate BYU, then this “ranking” is acceptable. BYU does deserve some votes for finishing last year on a hot streak and returning over a dozen starters. However, some of those starters are still pretty young, and BYU was just 7-6 overall last year, which makes it unreasonable to expect enough votes to crack the top 25.
Looking at the rankings as a whole, BYU doesn’t seem to be treated fairly. Notre Dame was just one game better than BYU last year (8-5), and they are ranked all the way up at 16 and 18. Georgia, minus A.J. Green this year, was 6-7 in 2010 is ranked 19 and 22. BYU’s week two opponent Texas (5-7 in 2010) is ranked 24 in the USA Today poll and is the first team out in the AP with 114 points—99 more than BYU.
Admittedly, I don’t follow these teams as closely as BYU, but I can’t imagine that any of them have as much reason for improvement this year as BYU does.
Overall, my reaction to the rankings is that they are tolerable. After all, this is the preseason, and voters really have little to go on. BYU is in position to quickly climb up the rankings with a strong start to the season.
What is your reaction to the rankings?
The Editor appreciates all feedback. He can be reached via email at bluecougarfootball@gmail.com
I think about the same as you in this situation. In fact, I would say the fact that we got votes at all after last season is a sign of respect - Although we had a down season, we finished on a hot streak, with a lot of young, returning players coming into there own, people noticed. Furthermore, it shows that some people are starting to expect us to be a Top 25 team every year, so even after a down year we still get a few votes. All a good sign if you ask me.
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