Pre-Season College Football Coaches Poll

[nilodor]

I'm not sure if anyone else meantioned this but I hate seeing polls this early in the year. I understand their value for TV and for school spirit and such but I believe that they hurt teams later in the year. Every year it seems that there is a team deserving of being in the top 5 in week 7 or 8 but they are not because they are not even on the radar when the preseason polls come out. This makes it near impossible for the teams to get into the BCS. I would like to see the first polls come out in week 8 when the BCS comes out, just to make the system fairer(sp).

[The_herd]

This argument has been made for the past few seasons and I don't think it really has an affect on teams outside the BCS conferences. 3 of the national champions since 2000 have been ranked 13th or lower to start the year (Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma). The fact is, if you beat ranked teams you get the attention of voters. If you don't, you move up slower. I can't think of one instance where I thought, "that team would have played in a BCS game if the polls had started later in the season".

Like it or not, the BCS is set up for the BCS conferences. Teams outside of those conferences don't have a chance to get into a BCS game. Starting the polls later isn't going to get these teams into those games.