How Week 2 AP Poll Would Look If There Wasn't a Preseason Poll

Preseason polls are meaningless, right?

That's the common complaint about releasing any top-25 ranking before a single college football game is played.

Sure, there's a small amount of truth to it. Ask 2012 Notre Dame, which went undefeated in the regular season and played Alabama for a national championship, about the value of preseason polls. After all, the Irish were unranked in the Associated Press poll to start the year.

At the same time, though, "meaningless" is such a strong word. For one, preseason rankings strike a nerve. They're nothing to get upset about, yet people gripe about them all the time. Thus, there's meaning on an individual level.

To put it one way: They're meaningless all the way up to the point where one team is overrated and another team—yours, probably—is being disrespected.

Furthermore, early-season rankings are largely an extension of their preseason counterparts. If you look at the AP poll following Week 1, you'll notice there's little change other than Texas A&M jumping to No. 16 after starting the season unranked.

Conversely, Arizona State, which lost to the Aggies, fell out of the Top 25. The same drop applies to Wisconsin and Stanford, which lost to Alabama and Northwestern, respectively.

But even if everybody wins—which was the case for many teams ranked in the preseason AP poll—there's still an opportunity to reshuffle because not all victories are created equally. This was seen with Alabama and TCU swapping spots at No. 2 and No. 3, and Notre Dame jumping two spots up to No. 11.

Overall, though, no news meant little to no change from Week 1 to Week 2.

This is an example of unintended bias. While some might insist such swapping is an overreaction, the reality is the scope of every team's body of work is extraordinarily small. And if that's what pollsters are using to rank teams—and not a preseason positioning—is it really an overreaction?

If the "get rid of preseason polls" crowd got its way, then, theoretically Week 2 rankings should be all over the place.

Rank	Team	Record
No. 1	Ohio State	1-0
No. 2	Alabama	1-0
No. 3	Texas A&M	1-0
No. 4	TCU	1-0
No. 5	Auburn	1-0
No. 6	UCLA	1-0
No. 7	Oregon	1-0
No. 8	Notre Dame	1-0
No. 9	Michigan State	1-0
No. 10	USC	1-0
No. 11	Baylor	1-0
No. 12	Georgia	1-0
No. 13	Ole Miss	1-0
No. 14	Georgia Tech	1-0
No. 15	Clemson	1-0
No. 16	South Carolina	1-0
No. 17	Florida State	1-0
No. 18	Northwestern	1-0
No. 19	Oklahoma	1-0
No. 20	Boise State	1-0
No. 21	Utah	1-0
No. 22	Tennessee	1-0
No. 23	Temple	1-0
No. 24	BYU	1-0
No. 25	Arkansas	1-0

What would that look like this year after one weekend in the books? It would be all about first impressions, that's for sure.

As a general rule of thumb, convincingly beating a quality opponent like Virginia Tech, Wisconsin or Arizona State would hold more weight than taking a cupcake behind the woodshed. It would be all about what you did and who you did it against. Upsets (see: Northwestern, Temple) would gain some consideration as well.

If preseason polls were eliminated, we think the AP rankings would look like the ones above. Of course, they would be subject to change—perhaps extreme change—as the season progressed.

Ohio State

It's hard not to think of the Buckeyes as the "preseason No. 1 team" in this scenario. As the defending national champions, though, it's even harder to think Ohio State wouldn't get some sort of benefit of the doubt after one week.

This team is simply too talented and head coach Urban Meyer's reputation is too strong.

Beating Virginia Tech 42-24 wouldn't do much to dissuade voters, either. Yes, the Hokies had a 17-14 halftime lead, but the Buckeyes immediately responded and pulled away. With Cardale Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, Braxton Miller and Curtis Samuel, there's too much to defend at once.

And Ohio State wasn't even at full strength with the suspension of defensive end Joey Bosa.

In his re-ranking of all 128 FBS teams, USA Today's Paul Myerberg spelled out what makes the Buckeyes the top team in the nation and why they'll be so hard to beat:

"

This will be the story of Ohio State's season: Teams will have moments of success against the Buckeyes, as did the Hokies during the second quarter in Blacksburg, but superior talent, confidence and execution will demand four quarters of excellence to unseat OSU's charge back toward the College Football Playoff.

"

Texas A&M

The Aggies had the most impressive win last weekend in terms of preseason ranking differential, though as head coach Kevin Sumlin noted, it didn't reflect the tone of the game. "We weren't ranked, but we were favored," Sumlin told the Associated Press (h/t AL.com).

Even though preseason rankings have been thrown out here, that doesn't diminish what A&M did. The defense was aggressive and got to Arizona State quarterback Mike Bercovici nine times for sacks.

Already, we're seeing the influence of new defensive coordinator John Chavis.

With A&M's new-found defensive success, it would be difficult for pollsters not to buy a lot of stock. Arizona State has the tools to be a Pac-12 South contender, and on paper, this had all the makings of a shootout. Instead, A&M won with defense, and it's only a matter of time before the offense takes off as well.

For all the talk about Alabama and Auburn in the offseason, A&M is emerging as a sexy playoff pick after its win over the Sun Devils. Here's betting a fresh AP poll with no preconceived narratives would reflect that.

Oregon

Remember when the words "as a general rule of thumb" about Week 1 opponents were uttered earlier in the piece? There's a reason. Oregon's season-opening win came against Eastern Washington, an FCS team.

However, can we go ahead and admit at this point that Eastern Washington would beat plenty of FBS—and possibly Power Five—teams? This is a program, after all, that beat Oregon State two years ago and gave Washington, which would have its top four defenders drafted, everything it could handle defensively.

Giving up 42 points, while a bit concerning, isn't unheard of when playing Eastern Washington. Meanwhile, former Eastern Washington quarterback Vernon Adams was solid in his debut.

Did the Ducks have the most impressive victory in Week 1? No, but the consensus would still be that this is a top-10-caliber program.

Matt Marton/Associated Press

Northwestern

One of the biggest beneficiaries of a reordered AP poll would be Northwestern.

Week 1 was light on upsets, which means the Wildcats' home win over Stanford takes the cake for the biggest surprise. It wasn't a blowout win by any stretch, but Northwestern dominated the Cardinal up front. That's something most people probably never thought they would say about this game.

The Big Ten West still appears to be the more wide-open division in the conference. But with Wisconsin getting pushed around by Alabama and Nebraska suffering a heartbreaking loss to BYU, there's room for other teams—like Minnesota and Northwestern—to potentially make some noise.

Certainly, the Wildcats had the most impressive win of the ones listed by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett:

Temple

Temple was a trendy American Athletic Conference title pick heading into the season. The Owls are among the most experienced teams in all of major college football, per Phil Steele, and have an outstanding defense.

That defense sacked Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg not one, not two, not three, but 10 times in Week 1.

That probably says as much about Penn State as it does about Temple, but that's a "wow" performance if I've ever seen one. It certainly caught the attention of ESPN's Ivan Maisel, who has a similar Week 2 rankings philosophy. In short, what did you do?

"

I've adopted the College Football Playoff Selection Committee's philosophy of just-in-time ranking: how good are you right now? So that's why I put Temple, which beat Penn State at not really a neutral site, No. 13. That's why I put unranked Texas A&M at No. 4. And that's why I heavily discount games against FCS opponents.

"

With the opportunity to rack up more wins in the AAC, Temple could easily enter Week 2 as a Top 25 team...and stay there.

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. All quotes cited unless obtained firsthand. All stats courtesy of cfbstats.com.