Virginia Tech led the way for ACC schools, being tabbed for 6th place on the inaugural 2010 coaches poll, followed by Miami (13th), Georgia Tech (17th), North Carolina (18th) and Florida State (20th). Additionally, Clemson (31st) and Boston College were among schools receiving votes in the poll.
The last time the ACC had five schools in the Top 20 of the preseason coaches poll was in 2004 when Miami (5th), Florida State (6th), Clemson (16th), Virginia (19th) and Maryland (20th) were chosen.
The ACC had five teams selected to the pre-season USA Today coaches Top 25 in 2005, but only three of the teams—Virginia Tech (7th), Miami (8th) and Florida State (12th)--were among the Top 20, with Boston College ranked 22nd and Virginia 23rd.
In all, ACC teams will play 10 schools in 2010 ranked in the pre-season Top 25 including No. 1 Alabama (Duke, Sept. 18), No. 2 Ohio State (Miami, Sept. 11), No. 3 Florida (Florida State (Nov. 27), No. 5 Boise State (Virginia Tech, Sept. 6), No. 8 Oklahoma (Florida State, Sept. 11), No. 15 Pittsburgh (Miami, Sept. 23), No. 16 LSU (North Carolina, Sept. 4), No. 21 Georgia (Georgia Tech, Nov. 27), No. 23 Auburn (Clemson, Sept. 18), and No. 24 West Virginia (Maryland, Sept. 18).
The Conference will also play no fewer than 19 games against teams which were ranked or received votes in the pre-season USA Today coaches poll.
Posts
In the current system only two teams are eligible to play for the National Championship at the end of the season. With a preseason pecking order established only by reputation, there is an unfair advantage to teams at the top of the list. Those teams truly underrated at the beginning must wait for teams ahead of them to lose.
ReplyDeleteFor this reason the Department of Commerce should ban the publishing of polls until the first game is played. Of course, we know that will never happen.
While I like preseason polls for fun and entertainment, and wouldn't want them to end, I don't think the AP and Coaches polls should be released in preseason since they help determine the two teams playing for the national championship. I think I would go further than Hoopla and not have the AP and Coaches polls start until the first week in October. I won't hold my breath.
ReplyDeleteBelow is the BCS formula as described on Wikipedia:
AP Poll: A team's AP Poll number is the percentage of the possible points it could receive in the poll. As an example, in the final regular-season poll of 2003, LSU received a total of 1,580 out of a possible 1,625 points from the voters, giving them an AP Poll percentage of 97.2.
Coaches' Poll: This is calculated in the same manner as the AP Poll number. For LSU, their final regular-season number in this poll would have been 99.4 (1,516 out of 1,525 possible points).
Computer Average: The BCS used six ranking systems: Jeff Sagarin, Anderson/Hester, Richard Billingsley, Wes Colley, Kenneth Massey, and Peter Wolfe. In the calculation, the highest and lowest ranking for each team are dropped. Then, it will give a team 25 points for a Number 1 ranking in an individual system, 24 points for Number 2, and so on down to 1 point. Each team's set of numbers is then added, conveniently making the number compatible with the percentages from the two polls. To address concerns about loss of the schedule strength factor, the description of the computer rankings explicitly included schedule strength as a consideration.