Preseason Poll

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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by vinteuil »

Cheynem wrote:For what it's worth, numerous people (a.k.a. JACOB REED) have submitted a revised ballot.
Or even two revised ballots! (sorry!!)
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Cheynem »

Poll results to be released on September 1st (Labor Day). Fifteen ballots are currently in.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Cheynem »

Preseason Poll Results
17 ballots were in.

I am aware some voters did not seem properly informed about roster switches. Because it is preseason, I let it go.

Voters: Ike Jose, Will Alston, Sean Smiley, The Viper Jordan Brownstein, Charlie Dees, Matt Jackson, Adam Sperber, Saajid Moyen, Sinan Ulusoy, Will Holub-Moorman, Brian McPeak, Stephen Liu, Dan Puma, Jacob Reed, Dylan Minarik, Nicholas Karas, and Richard Yu. I found Nick Conder's ballot so I added it in.

1. Virginia (441, 15 1st place votes, lowest #6)
2. Penn (429, 1 1st place vote, lowest #3)
3. Chicago A (422, 2 1st place votes, lowest #3)
4. Michigan (384, highest #3, lowest #6)
5. Stanford (369, highest #4, lowest #8)
6. Maryland A (360, highest #4, lowest #19)
7. MCTC (309, highest #7, lowest #13)
8. Columbia (295, highest #7, lowest #13)
9. Harvard (289, highest #4, lowest #15)
10. Yale (285, highest #4, lowest #14)
11. MIT (278, highest #8, lowest #16)
12. Georgia Tech (246, highest #8, lowest #19)
13. Alberta (241, highest #7)
14. UCSD (208, highest #7)
15. WUSTL (176, highest #12, lowest #24)
16. North Carolina (158, highest #15, lowest #23)
17. Dartmouth (123, highest #12)
18. Berkeley (116, highest #14)
19. Illinois (102, highest #14)
20. Northwestern (89, highest #15)
21. Minnesota (76, highest #16)
22. Chicago B (72, highest #14)
23. Maryland B (53, highest #15)
24. Brown (46, highest #17)
25. Cornell (30, highest #18)

Also Receiving Votes: Harvard B (28), Stanford B (28), Washington (27), Michigan State (25), Rutgers (25), Columbia B (24), Ohio State (22), William and Mary (14), Virginia B (13), McMaster (10), Rice (9), Ottawa (7), Texas A&M (7), Western Kentucky (6), Missouri (5), Louisville (4), Notre Dame (4), Berkeley B (3), McGill (3), Carleton (2), Oxford (2), Penn B (1) and UCLA (1).
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Maybe next year people will read this thread, find out which teams have roster changes, and then submit a ballot actually reflecting current reality.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Church51907 »

Louisville will have Ram and Nick back. The A team for SCT will most likely be completed by Megan Seldon and Ann-Claude Rakotoniaina. the team wishes Austin Brownlow good luck and continued success at Stanford.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by merv1618 »

Does anyone know who's actually going to be on Chicago B?
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Mewto55555 »

merv1618 wrote:Does anyone know who's actually going to be on Chicago B?
Yeah, we've actually got our roster lined up, before our school year has even started, before we've seen any of the new first years, and before we've settled on an A team. It's a secret though.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by merv1618 »

Mewto55555 wrote:
merv1618 wrote:Does anyone know who's actually going to be on Chicago B?
Yeah, we've actually got our roster lined up, before our school year has even started, before we've seen any of the new first years, and before we've settled on an A team. It's a secret though.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

merv1618 wrote:Does anyone know who's actually going to be on Chicago B?
I do, but I'm not telling you.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by merv1618 »

Ukonvasara wrote:
merv1618 wrote:Does anyone know who's actually going to be on Chicago B?
I do, but I'm not telling you.
fiend, i say
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by gyre and gimble »

Hypothetically, this could have been a real ballot consisting of the same top 25 teams:

1. Penn
2. Chicago A
3. Michigan
4. Yale
5. Harvard
6. Virginia
7. Alberta
8. Stanford
9. MCTC
10. Columbia
11. MIT
12. Dartmouth
13. Georgia Tech
14. Berkeley
15. Illinois
16. Minnesota
17. Northwestern
18. Brown
19. Maryland A (????)
20. Cornell
21. Chicago B
22. UCSD
23. North Carolina
24. WUSTL
25. Maryland B

No offense to any of these teams of course. I was just trying to highlight the most amusing outlier votes.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

I've gotten approval to write up a "season preview" article in the style of Sinan's article from last year, which will likely go on the hsquizbowl.org front page this upcoming Sunday [EDIT: or a day or two after that if the IRC thing is happening that day]. I don't know if anyone's for-sure planning an IRC team rundown or podcast/audio roundtable before that [or after that]; if they are, it'd be good to know in the event that people want me to accommodate stuff that surfaces as part of that discussion.
Last edited by Adventure Temple Trail on Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

I could run an IRC discussion anytime this month, but I'd prefer to do it sooner. Would people be available this Saturday or Sunday at 8PM?
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

I would definitely take part in this discussion, but Sunday would have to be the day for me.

EDIT: Since I've decided to skip out on the Northwestern game Saturday I can do that day as well.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by 1992 in spaceflight »

Sunday works best for me as well.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Since these things never include people from the southeast, I can take part in this, probably on either day.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

Quizbowl has become a mockery of its former self.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Tees-Exe Line wrote:Quizbowl has become a mockery of its former self.
Care to explain that cryptic and nonsensical declaration, or are you just trying to cultivate an air of mystery for yourself?
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

I do wish to cultivate an air of mystery, but what I was specifically referring to is that various individuals' submitted rankings seem to have been based on how informed each was about the reallocation/eligibility of past prominent players for next academic year. And that level of inside baseball isn't really what these rankings ought to be about--they should be informed predictions under the assumption of infinitely recursive common knowledge.
Last edited by Tees-Exe Line on Fri Sep 05, 2014 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Cheynem »

Unfortunately, that knowledge isn't infinitely available. This isn't a pro sports league where all transactions are public record. On the other hand, it's the preseason; voters will have more opportunities to get informed as the season rolls on.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Cheynem wrote:Unfortunately, that knowledge isn't infinitely available. This isn't a pro sports league where all transactions are public record. On the other hand, it's the preseason; voters will have more opportunities to get informed as the season rolls on.
Let me be a person to go on record saying that preseason polls are inherently bad ideas for this reason. In general the polls conducted on this board are skewed by regional perceptions, not knowing who is active on what teams, and probably other issues; I'd also like to think no one was putting enough stock in these things to believe a particularly odd result was making a mockery of something that has been quite laughable for at least as long as I remember.

EDIT: I guess I can take this chance to say that the voters lack of faith in my team is a great motivation tactic, and I'll be sad to lose such a tactic at later points in the season!
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Mewto55555 »

Yeah, if I were a voter wondering if Matt Bollinger were coming back for another year, where in the world could I possibly find that sort of information?!?! Only a special kind of idiot (and based on some of these poll results, there's at least one out there!) would have the chutzpah/lack of common sense required to cast a ballot without spending the two minutes needed to glance at the first post in this thread.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Yeah, I mean, what else do you (Marshall) expect them to be informed by? Guessing? Wishing? Haruspicy? If you're excluding "where players will be playing" from the pool of available knowledge on which to base a prediction, the only thing you can reasonably consider infinitely recursive common knowledge is which schools had quizbowl teams last year.

Incidentally, I'm even less clear on how any of this means that quizbowl is "a mockery of its former self".
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

The whole point of my post was that "who's playing on which team" should, for the purposes of making this a meaningful predictive exercise, be common knowledge and not a matter of speculation or insider knowledge and the corrupt trades that proceed thereon. And what I meant by "quizbowl has become a mockery of its former self" is that an endeavor in which outcomes are determined (or even believed to be determined) solely by the (mysterious) juggling of the same personnel between the same small set of teams is firmly in the self-referential dominating cabal phase.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by theMoMA »

It's unfortunate that people are coy about their playing status. If you don't know if you'll be in school or things are still up in the air, that's fine. If you do know where you'll be and that you're likely to play, why not just make it common knowledge? We even have a thread for it.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

theMoMA wrote:It's unfortunate that people are coy about their playing status. If you don't know if you'll be in school or things are still up in the air, that's fine. If you do know where you'll be and that you're likely to play, why not just make it common knowledge?
In my case, there were some prereqs I had to take and pass before actually getting accepted. I wasn't even officially "in" when Jerry brought it up in the thread in early August. I waited until then to make it public because I didn't really want to announce I was back and then have to withdraw.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by theMoMA »

That's fair, and obviously all cases are different. This isn't your fault, but there's a lot of buzz behind the scenes because the IRC operates as a sort of trading post for gossip like "Player X is applying to grad programs." For the 15 or so people who keep up with the IRC, that's great, but for everyone else, I can imagine it's frustrating to be out of the loop (not to mention difficult to fill out preseason polls).

Obviously people don't have to do this, but dropping a note in the "where are you going" thread to the effect of "I'm applying to [whatever program it may be] and I might be back in school if things turn out the way I'd like" might help keep the offseason from turning into a speculation-fest over whether graduating players will be playing.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Tees-Exe Line wrote:The whole point of my post was that "who's playing on which team" should, for the purposes of making this a meaningful predictive exercise, be common knowledge and not a matter of speculation or insider knowledge and the corrupt trades that proceed thereon. And what I meant by "quizbowl has become a mockery of its former self" is that an endeavor in which outcomes are determined (or even believed to be determined) solely by the (mysterious) juggling of the same personnel between the same small set of teams is firmly in the self-referential dominating cabal phase.
Image

I agree that player movement should be common knowledge for predictive purposes, but I disagree that gamesmanship or shadowy back-room deals or whatever windmills you're tilting at are the reasons why it's not. People generally did their best to announce important roster moves in this very thread, though some such moves were announced late because of circumstances like, e.g., what Matt describes, or Stephen's late law school admissions. Further, I have no idea what possible solution there could be to the ostensible problems you hypothesize--the question "who's going to be playing quizbowl" is a pretty integral part of the question "which teams are going to be good at quizbowl", and the fact that good undergraduate players continuing to play in grad school (or relevant players switching schools for any reason) must to an extent "determine" the "outcome" of the quizbowl season is a pretty inescapable one. I can't even imagine an idyllic past from which you think quizbowl has descended into darkness, since it wouldn't make any sense.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by theMoMA »

Rob, I don't think anyone can deny that someone whose main interaction with the quizbowl community is the forums will hear a lot of nebulous rumbling before hearing a lot of these announcements. I don't think it's unfair to call for players to be more open about their intentions to play during the offseason. (Or less open, at least until you get into your program; what I find annoying is the back-channel rumbling based on partial information.)

Obviously no one's under an obligation to act in a way that would minimize my personal annoyance or make it easier for people to fill out preseason poll ballots, and I'm sure no one intends to fuel team speculation by holding off on announcing their intentions to play. But hopefully this discussion will make players aware that announcing their intentions does make a difference to some people.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

theMoMA wrote:Rob, I don't think anyone can deny that someone whose main interaction with the quizbowl community is the forums will hear a lot of nebulous rumbling before hearing a lot of these announcements. I don't think it's unfair to call for players to be more open about their intentions to play during the offseason. (Or less open, at least until you get into your program; what I find annoying is the back-channel rumbling based on partial information.)

Obviously no one's under an obligation to act in a way that would minimize my personal annoyance or make it easier for people to fill out preseason poll ballots, and I'm sure no one intends to fuel team speculation by holding off on announcing their intentions to play. But hopefully this discussion will make players aware that announcing their intentions does make a difference to some people.
Sure, I agree with you here (as I alluded to but probably could've made more obvious)--any vitriol in my posts is aimed primarily at Marshall's weirdly hyperbolic tone and/or inexplicable doomsaying.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Cheynem »

Look, fellas, it's a preseason poll. It's meant to start discussion and see what the community believes to be the top teams. No one's getting denied a berth to the BCS because of it. Yeah, it would be nice if we had more information about everything (and contra I think Max's point, you could have checked this and the other thread quite regularly and still been blindsided by, say, Stephen LIu's announcement), but we don't. It would be nice if everyone could think about every team in the country equally, but we don't. I don't know why this makes it an "inherently bad idea" or "quite laughable." I know Nick didn't mean it in this manner, but it's annoying to go through the work of compiling everyone's ballot and keep organizing this year after year only for people to immediately post about what a bad idea or how stupid it was.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by vinteuil »

For me, a good chunk of the worth of the preseason poll is that it gets people publicly to come out of the woodwork about their prospects for next year, and all in one place too. So, maybe all I'm looking for is a "where are you going next year?" thread, but the poll is a nice added benefit. (Thanks, Mike, for all of your hard work, putting up with people like me revising endlessly as new info comes in!)
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by minusfive »

Why not just wait to do the "Preseason Poll" until the school year(s) start(s) (sometime in August for the US, day after Labo(u)r Day in Canada), since tournaments don't start right away? Plus, people at schools doesn't necessarily translate into being able or willing to play; accidents are rare, but too much work is common.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Cheynem »

The preseason poll was run in August and was not revealed until Labor Day.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Sam »

People certainly had idiosyncratic beliefs about the rankings of quiz bowl teams. If only there were some way to aggregate these opinions while at the same time canceling out the more extreme ones.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Beevor Feevor »

Sam wrote:People certainly had idiosyncratic beliefs about the rankings of quiz bowl teams. If only there were some way to aggregate these opinions while at the same time canceling out the more extreme ones.
So basically, it would be a diving style judging, with the most extreme scores being rejected, which would allow for the median opinion to be shown then.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by gyre and gimble »

I hope my post in jest upthread didn't reflect any negative attitude toward the poll. I appreciate the poll for what it is and find it fairly informative even with all its flaws. I also don't find it laughable at all that Harvard was ranked 4th or Virginia was ranked 6th because the relevant announcements were made late. But it does seem prudent to read all the posts in this thread, or at least processing the summary in the original post, before casting a ballot. Otherwise the ballot that you cast is an irresponsible vote. As I noted with the question marks, it seems pretty ridiculous that Maryland was ranked 19th on a ballot or that Yale was ranked 4th, because there's not really an excuse, if you are voting in this poll, for not knowing that Jordan Brownstein and his Maryland team are very good or that Matt Jackson has left Yale. There is responsibility for voters to be well informed, and maybe not knowing very recent updates is premissible, but stuff you could have known back in June, you should really take into account.

I apologize for the late changes in my personal status by the way. I actually was admitted a few days before I posted about it, but like Matt, I wanted to make sure things were finalized before going public with the information in case something went wrong and I had to revert my status.

EDIT: Spelling
Last edited by gyre and gimble on Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

I now see it as my duty to live up to that one person who ranked us twelfth, with or without Nick.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:I now see it as my duty to live up to that one person who ranked us twelfth, with or without Nick.

This was me, I was too lazy to submit a new ballot and made some errors: I assumed Nick was playing and did not know about Auroni's return.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by minusfive »

Cheynem wrote:The preseason poll was run in August and was not revealed until Labor Day.
Yes, that's my point. Perhaps September 7-15th would be a better voting window next time.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Frauny Von Smiley »

If voting were to be pushed back, I think it would make sense to wait until some tournaments have actually been run. The only real advantage I can imagine to voting in the first or second week of September is that it would allow people to know if certain freshmen/previously dormant players were showing up to practices and expressing an interest in playing.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Frauny Von Smiley wrote:If voting were to be pushed back, I think it would make sense to wait until some tournaments have actually been run. The only real advantage I can imagine to voting in the first or second week of September is that it would allow people to know if certain freshmen/previously dormant players were showing up to practices and expressing an interest in playing.
I don't see any problem running an early season poll in October, especially since the midseason poll isn't run until February. The poll as presently conducted simply gathers the opinions of a small unbalanced sample of voters with varying levels of information, and hopefully in the future we can figure out how to solicit a better selection of opinions. For at least the preseason, moving the poll to after the season starts might engage more people.

I do have one idea that might make conducting the polls a bit easier: If we're going to have a public poll, perhaps using some survey software would make it easier to conduct it. Instead of having one person collect the ballots via email, people can just request to vote and be sent a link to a form where they can fill in their ballot. The software would record the ballot immediately, people would have some confirmation their ballots are going to be counted (unlike in this poll, where I sent a ballot to Mike via email and only found out when the poll was released that he never got it!), and it would be easier to note outliers. For those concerned about security, the person conducting the survey can see who submitted a ballot, and if somebody who didn't request access had somehow breached the system, it's pretty easy to delete invalid results.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Anders Frog Rasmussen »

Frauny Von Smiley wrote:William & Mary gains Jonathan Leidenheimer and (probably) Alex Frey.
William & Mary DEFINITELY gains Alex Frey.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by ryanrosenberg »

At the very least, W&M will be fearsome at College History Bowl.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by armitage »

Why don't more people vote in the poll? There are certainly more than 17 people who are reasonably knowledgeable about the state of the college game (or are capable of gleaning some info by paying careful attention to the discussion) and it seems like it's in everyone's interest to make things like these polls more representative.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Frauny Von Smiley »

The Predictable Consequences wrote:At the very least, W&M will be fearsome at College History Bowl.
A bold prediction.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Banana Stand »

Anders Frog Rasmussen wrote:
Frauny Von Smiley wrote:William & Mary gains Jonathan Leidenheimer and (probably) Alex Frey.
William & Mary DEFINITELY gains Alex Frey.
W&M's history game is off the chart.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:I could run an IRC discussion anytime this month, but I'd prefer to do it sooner. Would people be available this Saturday or Sunday at 8PM?
Is this definitely happening tonight at 8 PM EST? If so, I should be able to draw on it and get the season preview post up Monday or Tuesday.

These discussions tend to drag. I suggest spending no more than THREE minutes per team to start and gradually increasing that a TINY BIT as you go from team 25 to team 1.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by bradleykirksey »

NickConderWKU wrote:
Cheynem wrote:Unfortunately, that knowledge isn't infinitely available. This isn't a pro sports league where all transactions are public record. On the other hand, it's the preseason; voters will have more opportunities to get informed as the season rolls on.
Let me be a person to go on record saying that preseason polls are inherently bad ideas for this reason. In general the polls conducted on this board are skewed by regional perceptions, not knowing who is active on what teams, and probably other issues; I'd also like to think no one was putting enough stock in these things to believe a particularly odd result was making a mockery of something that has been quite laughable for at least as long as I remember.

EDIT: I guess I can take this chance to say that the voters lack of faith in my team is a great motivation tactic, and I'll be sad to lose such a tactic at later points in the season!
I wouldn't worry about it. Everyone can rank UCF and WKU dead last and it won't matter if we keep on winning. This isn't college football, and as long win it couldn't possibly matter less what people in the Pacific Northwest have heard about you, no matter how many ballots they send in. It's just another example of a silly activity that some people are putting too much stock in.
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Re: Preseason Poll

Post by AKKOLADE »

i too am upset about a list of teams
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