How Accurate Were College Football's Preseason Polls In 2007?
Itโs preview magazine season in the college football world, and that means there are predictions flying around all over the place.ย Stassen.com does a great job of keeping track of these predictions and seeing how accurate everyone is.
That accuracy is of the predictions of conference standings, though, not accuracy of the preseason top 25 polls.ย I decided to see just how well everyone did in their rankings, since rankings, unlike standings, leave room for debate and subjectivity.
I decided to use the final, post-bowl AP poll as the benchmark to compare against.ย All polls have inherent flaws, but I think the AP poll is the best of them, since every ballot is published for the public to see, and the AP is not trying to sell magazines with its poll.ย Sure, the media members have their regional biases, but they all get smoothed out in the end.
With that in mind, I used Stassenโs 2007 preseason consensus page to get some rankings from last season.ย I only used the magazines and websites I have heard of for my comparison, so not everyone on that page is represented below.
I looked at the average error between each teamโs preseason rank on the polls and its position on the final AP poll.ย I used the โalso receiving votesโ category to make rankings No. 26-40, so anyone who ended up not even receiving a vote in the final AP poll got an automatic ranking of No. 41 when calculating error.ย I also took into account how many teams on the pollsโ preseason top 25 lists ended up unranked in the final AP poll.
For best pick I tried to harmonize the maximizing of the difference between a pollโs rank and the preseason consensus, and the minimizing of the difference between the pollโs rank and the final AP rank.ย Thatโs why no one who had LSU in the preseason top three got that put as the โbest pickโ, since the consensus had LSU No. 2.
For worst pick, I did the same, only with the maximizing of the difference between the poll and the final AP rank.ย Thatโs why no one has UCLA for the โworst pickโ despite nearly everyone having the Bruins in their mid-teens; the consensus had UCLA at No. 15.
I went ahead and threw my preseason top 25 on there, since I wanted to see how I did.ย It was not that I hoped to brag or anythingโafter all I had TCU at No. 22 despite not knowing a single player on the team, and Oregon State at No. 23 despite at the time not knowing who Sammie Stroughter is.ย It was a poll made of well-informed ignorance, built from an SEC bias on the assumption that the ACC and Big 12 would be down.
Now, to the rankings.ย In the best/worst pick fields, the number in parentheses is the place in the final AP poll the team ended up with.ย Also, I eliminated Michigan and Louisville from contention for worst pick, as everyone got them very wrong.
| 9.36 | 9 | BC #15 (10) | USF #24 (35) | ||
| 11.12 | 11 | Auburn #14 (15) | Florida #3 (13) | ||
| 11.24 | 9 | Clemson #22 (21) | Arkansas #12 (31) | ||
| 11.28 | 11 | Oklahoma #8 (8) | TCU #22 (NR) | ||
| 11.60 | 11 | Tennessee #12 (12) | California #15 (NR) | ||
| 11.72 | 10 | BC #14 (10) | Arizona #23 (NR) | ||
| 12.24 | 10 | Oregon St. #22 (25) | G. Tech #12 (NR) | ||
| 12.24 | 10 | Florida #11 (13) | Arkansas #14 (31) | ||
| 12.24 | 10 | Texas #8 (10) | Arkansas #11 (31) | ||
| 12.44 | 10 | Oregon #18 (23) | S. Carolina #13 (NR) | ||
| 12.92 | 11 | Tennessee #18 (12) | Florida St. #11 (NR) | ||
| 14.28 | 11 | Clemson #18 (21) | G. Tech #10 (NR) |
โSt. & Sm.โ is Street and Smithโs, CBS SL is CBS SportLine.com, TSN is the Sporting News, and CFN.com is FoxSportsโ and Pete Fiutakโs CollegeFootballNews.com.
Somehow, well-informed ignorance won out, which makes sense for such a crazy year in college football.ย The Coachesโ Poll ended up being more accurate than the APโs own preseason poll, but I donโt know what to make of that.
It was a rough year for the normally accurate Phil Steele, and I have no idea what Pete at CFN was thinking when he made his poll.ย It wasnโt just GT at #10 that got himโit was also UCLA at No. 11, Miami (FL) at No. 12, Oregon State at No. 14, Oklahoma State at No. 19, and others.
While having nine preseason top 25 picks unranked at the end of the year was as good as anyone could do in 2007, the 2006 preseason consensus had just eight top 25 teams unranked at the end.ย Eight isnโt that much better than nine is though, and 2006 was not a chaotic year like 2007 was.
In the end, it just goes to show how inaccurate preseason polls really are. Theyโre an awful lot of fun to discuss, but no one really knows much of anything.ย The unpredictability is one of the best things about this sport.
When you see someone claiming to know all or a magazine touting its accuracy, take it with a grain of saltโnay, a salt mine, and gear up for another great season of college football.
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