Four votes in the preseason coaches poll

[AppfaninCAALand]

For those who wanted to see the "Others receiving votes section"

Others Receiving Votes: Nebraska 152, Boise State 118, Mississippi State 111, Miami 94, Army 91, Kentucky 79, Virginia Tech 64, TCU 63, Southern Cal 47, Utah State 32, Fresno State 32, Virginia 30, Cincinnati 25, West Virginia 24, Memphis 24, Oklahoma State 20, South Carolina 15, N.C. State 12, Duke 10, Boston College 5, Appalachian State 4, Baylor 4, Florida State 4, Houston 3, North Texas 3, UCLA 2, Temple 2, Arizona State 2, Minnesota 1, Mississippi 1, Tennessee 1, Troy 1.

My thought is a lot of P5 SIDs must just put any of their team's halfway decent conference opponents in the lower poll slots at the beginning of the year because there is no other way to justify mediocre P5s like UCLA, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Duke, Florida State, etc getting votes. The most mind blowing to me is Va Tech essentially picked 4th in the ACC with the poor showing last year and the off season locker room problems (transfers, retirements)

[AppfaninCAALand]

For those who wanted to see the "Others receiving votes section"

Others Receiving Votes: Nebraska 152, Boise State 118, Mississippi State 111, Miami 94, Army 91, Kentucky 79, Virginia Tech 64, TCU 63, Southern Cal 47, Utah State 32, Fresno State 32, Virginia 30, Cincinnati 25, West Virginia 24, Memphis 24, Oklahoma State 20, South Carolina 15, N.C. State 12, Duke 10, Boston College 5, Appalachian State 4, Baylor 4, Florida State 4, Houston 3, North Texas 3, UCLA 2, Temple 2, Arizona State 2, Minnesota 1, Mississippi 1, Tennessee 1, Troy 1.

My thought is a lot of P5 SIDs must just put any of their team's halfway decent conference opponents in the lower poll slots at the beginning of the year because there is no other way to justify mediocre P5s like UCLA, Minnesota, Ole Miss, Duke, Florida State, etc getting votes. The most mind blowing to me is Va Tech essentially picked 4th in the ACC with the poor showing last year and the off season locker room problems (transfers, retirements)

To follow up on that thought, here is the P5 breakdown of schools receiving votes in this stupid poll:

ACC. 9 of 14 64%
BIG TEN 9 of 14 64%
BIG XII 7 of 10 70%
PAC 12 8 of 12 66%
SEC. 11 of 14 79%

And rest:
Indies 2 of 6 33%
AAC 5 of 12 42%
MWC 3 of 12 25%
SBC 2 of 10 20%
CUSA 1of 14 7%
MAC 0 of 12 0%


Once you get past the top 15 or so, SIDs are basically just throwing random P5 names around to see what sticks.

[appfanz]

Hey, preseason polls are nothing but where the usual suspects are going to be ranked. We are not a usual suspect but getting a few votes does put us on the radar. Let’s play ball and see what happens.

[MountaineerMafia]

Penn State have and they ended up 11th with 4 losses?

You can't equate losses to #4 Ohio State (1 pt), Michigan State (4 pts), #5 Michigan (blowout), & #14 Kentucky (3 pts) to our schedule in the Belt.

It's just not a win/loss argument. Polls and rankings matter. One bad loss to an overachieving GSU team (albeit without our starting QB and mostly without our best (2nd best?) Linebacker, is still a bad look for voters. Especially when those voters typically don't watch the SunBelt anyway, and happened to watch that one, where we looked pretty bad most of the game.