After looking at the week 9 rankings, which to me should be listed as week 8 since it reflects the results for week 8 not week 9, I noticed a couple things. The schedule for this weekend's games is listed as week 9 schedules. It's very confusing so I'll let it go. Back to my point, I think this week's rankings shows the biases the voters have. I know the AP and Coaches polls do not count towards who makes the playoffs, but I think they do play a small part. The reason being is that very first playoff committee ranking is clearly being influenced by the current ranking of the teams in the AP and Coaches polls. That first poll is so similar to the original two polls, I think the committee probably uses these polls as a starting point as they evaluate each team. There's no way they can completely ignore it. After the first poll, then both the AP and Coaches polls fall in line with the playoff committee poll and making their polls irrelevant.
Back to my original point and the title of this post, in this week's polls the SEC bias and blue blood bias is clearly in view. If you look at the breakdown of the AP Top 10 this week, there are 4 SEC teams, 2 ACC teams, 2 B1G teams, 1 Big 12 team and 1 AAC team. Let's look at the B1G first. Ohio State moved up 2 spots and Wisconsin moved up 5 spots for their first and only win so far. Now, Wisconsin will drop since they have shut down football operations due to losing a bunch of players to COVID, including most of their QB group so who knows how they'll do going forward. I know Ohio State is really good, but it is only 1 game and it's not like they totally dominated Nebraska.
Next, my favorite bias we see every year is of course, drum roll...…..the SEC. Take a look at records for all the AP Top 10 teams. All are undefeated, as well as they should be being ranked that high, except for 3 teams. You guessed it, all 3 teams are in the SEC, #5 Georgia, #8 Texas A&M and #10 Florida. First off, both UGA and A&M lost to #2 Bama so that's understandable and both games were in Tuscaloosa. However, A&M lost by 4 TDs and the game was not that close. The UGA-Bama game was more competitive, but the Crimson Tide pulled away in the 2nd half to win by 17 points. After this loss, UGA only dropped 1 spot, which is wrong. Again the SEC bias showing. If another team, outside the SEC elite teams played that game with that result, they would drop at least 5 spots. The reason they only dropped 1 spot is so that if both Bama and UGA win out, they'll meet in the SEC title game and it gives the SEC a better chance to get 2 teams in the playoffs.
The blue blood bias this week goes to Oklahoma. How the hell can a 3-2 team get put back into the rankings this week. If they continue to win and have a 5-2 record, then fine put them back in the polls, not at 3-2. There is also another 3-2 team in the AP Top 25, Iowa State, but they were previously ranked #17 so they dropped 6 spots to #23 so I don't have as much a problem as moving Oklahoma back into the polls.
One of the most underrated teams this year so far is BYU. They were not ranked in the preseason and they debuted in the first weekly poll, oddly called "week 3", at #21 after they went back to Navy and absolutely dominated them on both sides of the field. The next week they did move up 3 spots to #18 and they didn't even play, which is strange. Especially, because the following week, they won big again, but dropped 4 spots to #22. I had a hard time understanding how a team that again won huge and was 2-0 could drop that many spaces until I looked more closely at the teams in the poll. This week, week 5, the polls added 4 teams from the B1G (#6 Ohio State, #10 Penn State, #19 Wisconsin and #23 Michigan). The polls also added 1 team from the PAC-12 (#14 Oregon). The B1G was still FOUR weeks away from playing their 1st game and the PAC-12 was SIX weeks away. No teams from any of these conferences should not be ranked until maybe the week before they actually start playing. BYU was wrongly dropped to allow 3 B1G teams to be ranked ahead of them. Not sure why they dropped another spot, but it is probably due to their weak schedule, which is totally out of their control. Below is BYU's original 2020 football schedule and their current schedule:
This scheduled included 3 PAC-12 teams (Utah, at Arizona St and at Stanford), 2 B1G teams (Michigan St and at Minnesota) and 1 SEC team (Missouri), along with 3 MWC teams (Utah St, at Boise St and San Diego St. Both Boise St and San Diego St were rescheduled) and a decent Houston team. This is a very strong and competitive schedule and if they had the same record they have now (6-0), they should be in the Top 10. As you can see, they have been blowing out their opponents, with the exception of UTSA and the Houston road game (BYU scored a couple times late due to Houston turnovers). Bottom line is BYU is really good and if they go undefeated, that would include a win at Boise St, which is not easy. They should be considered for a playoff spot, but to be honest, the best they probably could do would be a New Year's 6 bowl game.
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