I went online yesterday and saw an interesting headline: “View the top-ten photos from top-25 action this week in college football.” I browsed more: “College Football Power Rankings,” on si.com, “NFL Power Rankings: 2008 Week 4 edition” on espn.com.
One site even gave you, the lonely Web browser, the option of submitting your own NFL rankings.
And so it seems that you can’t open a newspaper or go onto the Internet without seeing at least one ranking or poll. We rank literally everything that can possibly be ranked.
Hottest athlete couples? Rank them. Which sports are most physically demanding? Check out the latest poll (fishing came in last, just behind billiards, in case you were wondering). Who are the best and worst sports analysts? There’s a ranking somewhere that will tell you.
These artificial ranking scales are more common than a Roger Clemens scandal. They don’t tell you much of anything, and worse, they don’t even really matter.
It’s ironic that a system that is meant to be an objective structuring of the best and worst in sports is submerged in so much subjectivity.
But people love to see the latest rankings. They are easy to look at — very little reading is actually required — they are neatly organized and they give people something to argue about.
So I’ve decided to give in. Forget trying to write a soliloquy about the impracticality of rankings. I’m going to give you my own version: a ranking of the top-three dumbest ranking systems in sports.
3. The ESPN/USA Today poll and the AP poll in college football.
In a sport that relies so heavily on these rankings — perhaps the most of any college or professional sport, thanks to the BCS — it’s ironic that these two polls are so arbitrary. So why do we give so much credence to these two polls? Perhaps it’s because it is a fun (and profitable) way to showcase a matchup of two “top-10” teams. It certainly gives us something to argue about. And it most definitely gives the gambling world something to pay attention to. But when you strip away all of the flab, all of the fodder it gives the analysts, all of the excitement or disappointment it gives fans, you realize these two polls are about as objective as the French figure skating judge at the 2002 Winter Olympics. They are based entirely on whims and predilections. Should a team with a strong offense (i.e. Oklahoma) be ranked higher than a team with an equally strong defense (i.e. USC)? Should a team with a coach that has been to a BCS bowl game before be given a slight edge in the rankings over a team with a first-year coach? All other things equal, is a Tiger better than a Duck?
I don’t know. But apparently Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Chris Fowler and the rest of the ranking gods do.
2. Preseason rankings in any sport.
If I really wanted to know how the teams in the NFC East would finish the 2008-09 season, I would ask a psychic.
Have you ever compared the end-of-the-season standings of a sport with the preseason rankings? It’s almost comical. One sports expert on espn.com tried his hand at preseason MLB rankings before the start of the 2008 season. Some of the teams in his top 10 included the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds. The players on all six of those squads will be watching the playoffs from their couch this October; for the first time in more than a decade the Yankees are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Two of those teams are dead last in their division.
I’m not saying I could predict better. I’m just saying it’s meaningless to try and give teams a rank before they even step on the field.
Then again, three of his top 10 teams are probably heading to the postseason this year. From a baseball player’s perspective, a .300 average isn’t that bad.
1. The top 100 high school football players and teams in the nation.
Bet you didn’t know Brandon Gibson was the 100th ranked recruit in the nation in 2007. Who?
You know, Brandon Gibson. He has “above average wiggle,” according to rivals.com. (Isn’t being ranked 100th almost an insult?) Well good for Brandon. And good for whatever school he went to (Alabama). But does anyone really care where he was ranked among the graduating seniors in 2007 — or if he was ranked at all?
You could say that the coaching staff and fans at Alabama care. But I doubt they do. What they care about is that the kid can run and catch for his quarterback — regardless of whether he’s ranked first, second or 100th coming out of high school.
I’m glad there are people who have the patience to sit around and rank these high school seniors. In all likelihood, many of the players will go on and have good careers in college — perhaps the NFL. But why the need to rank them before they even commit to play in college? There is honestly little to no observable difference in skill between players in the top 50. And there is almost certainly no difference between players ranked 200 to 250.
If you still like to defer to rivals.com and other prep Web sites for high school rankings, consider this: Peter Lalich was ranked second among all high school football players in Virginia his senior year. J’Courtney Williams was ranked fourth. I still don’t know how good either of these players are. Nor will I see either of them make an impact on Virginia football anytime soon.
If anything for Cavalier fans, these rankings are just a tease.
Add trying to rank high school football teams for that matter. Don’t try to tell me that Edison High School (Calif.) is really the 59th best team in the country and that Central High School (Ohio) is slightly worse, ranked 60th and Westfield High School (Texas) is slightly worse than Central, ranked 61st.
It’s arbitrary. It’s meaningless. And I feel bad that there are some people that spend their time trying to rank the top 100 high school teams with no benchmark by which to differentiate them.
Now that I have provided you with some fodder, go argue. Try to think of dumber ranking systems. Debate. Confer. Wrangle.
And if your name is Brandon Gibson, my apologies. You probably were more like the 98th best high school football player in the country in 2007.
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