Inside the Polls: Why Is Penn State Higher Than Utah?

While Utah fans are excited to go to a BCS game for the second time since 2004, the human polls give the Utes no love. The computers have Utah fifth, but the Harris Poll has Utah eighth and the Coaches' Poll seventh.

The culprits here are Penn State, Texas Tech, and USC. First off, Texas Tech is ahead of Utah by a mere five points, but the Red Raiders just came off a 65-21 loss to Oklahoma, who was ranked in the top five. On the Utah side, they doubled up No. 14 BYU 48-24.

A team gets beat by 44 points in the team's first true test on the season. Yes, I know Tech beat Texas at home, but being at home, Texas Tech is going to be favored. This road game at Oklahoma was their first true road test, and they were waxed—yet voters still think they are better then Utah.

This does not make sense, because while Utah is most likely not going to make the BCS title game, stranger things have happened. Plus Utah wants to finish as high as they can in the polls to help recruiting and get new fans.

Then we have Penn State, who is ranked sixth in both human polls ahead of Utah. This makes even less sense then Texas Tech. Below are results between Utah and Penn State with the final score, current record, and the ranking at the time.

Utah	Penn State
@ Michigan 25-23 Current Record 3-9	Coastal Carolina 66-10 Current Record 6-6
UNLV 42-21 Current Record 5-7	Oregon State 45-14 Current Record 8-3
@ Utah State 58-10 Current Record 3-8	@ Syracuse 55-13 Current Record 3-8
Weber State 37-21 Current Record 9-3	Temple 45-3 Current Record 4-7
Oregon State 31-28 Current Record 8-3	No. 22 Illinois 38-24 Current Record 5-7
@ Wyoming 40-7 Current Record 4-8	@ Purdue 20-6 Current Record 4-8
Colorado State 49-16 Current Record 6-6	@ Wisconsin 48-7 Current Record 7-5
@ New Mexico 13-10 Current Record 4-8	Michigan 46-17 Current Record 3-9
No. 12 TCU 13-10 Current Record 10-2	@ No. 9 Ohio State 13-6 Current Record 10-2
@ San Diego State 63-14 Current Record 2-10	@ Iowa 24-23 Current Record 8-4
@ Air Force 30-23 Current Record 8-4	Indiana 34-7Current Record 3-9
No. 14 BYU W 48-24 Current Record 10-2	No. 15 Michigan State 49-18 Current Record 9-3

 

As you can see each school played a I-AA team, and the ranked opponents are pretty similar. Well, Illinois was overrated at the time, but Michigan State is similar to BYU, TCU is similar to Ohio State, and Air Force is similar to Wisconsin.

The overall record of their opponents is Utah 72-70 and Penn State 70-71. Not much of a difference except that Penn State lost to an unranked Iowa. It'd be better if the loss was to Ohio State, who is ranked in the top 15 then. But to an unranked team—yes, it was a road game, but it was a loss.

They are very close in their opponents' record, and the Big Ten might be slightly better in overall depth. The top four teams in each league favor the Mountain West, and with all things so equal, an unbeaten team should be ahead of a one-loss team.

The national media is in love with the tradition of Penn State and the Big Ten because they are an automatic qualifier conference for the BCS and gives the benefit of the doubt to those schools.

The reality is that both teams are good, but an undefeated team should trump a one-loss team, because all the Big Ten honks do not want to admit that they are closer to the level of play of the Mountain West then they are to the SEC or Big 12.

My next post will go over the same scenario as USC as to why they are ranked higher.