Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Why Polls Are Stupid, Volume 375

If you've been a regular reader of this blog you know that almost nothing in sports annoys me more than the dumb ways that people vote in the Top 25 polls. It's completely irrational. You can scroll down on the left side of the page to "BP Classics" to click on a number of long pieces I've written on the topic. But today I saw a story that, in one quote, manages to sum up everything wrong with how people vote:

The link to the story is here.

The story is about Jackson State coach Tevester Anderson, whose team had been been destroyed by Ohio State by 44 points last week. After the game he spoke to reporters:

"I’m one of the (31 voters)," he said, "and I voted them No. 1 to begin with. I thought they were just as good as North Carolina, and after seeing them up close tonight, they didn’t change my mind."


A number of writers then noticed that in the new poll that came out two days ago, Ohio State didn't pick up any #1 votes. So Jackson State's coach, after getting destroyed by them, dropped them to #2 on his ballot? Turns out that's not what happened. In fact, neither he or any other coach had given Ohio State a #1 vote all season long. So did he just misspeak to reporters? Um, kind of:

"I may have mis-spoken," he said. "I said I thought they should be a No.1 team. I thought that they were better than the teams ahead of them. I didn't intend to say I voted them No.1. If I said it, I made a mistake, and I do apologize."


Wait, what? If you think Ohio State is better than the teams ahead of them, why did you place those other teams ahead of them?

The answer, of course, is that the Top 25 polls have nothing to do with how good teams are. I understand that, and many of my readers understand that. But I love the "I voted for it before I voted against it" inanity of that quote. Let me parse out that one sentence again so you can read it again. Just let this line breathe like a fine wine:

"I said I thought they should be a No.1 team. I thought that they were better than the teams ahead of them. I didn't intend to say I voted them No.1."
Yep. I can't sum up the human polls any better than that.

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