AP Poll Week 4

[u/donald_flap]

https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll#000001a0-257a-d09f-a9e4-75fbb1b90000

[u/TacticalDesire]

You can say a win is a win and a loss is a loss but that’s not how it’s been treated. We still dropped out of the poll after the WMU game.

The voters have been really punitive toward Michigan this year and a handful of other teams. The polls don’t matter right now and Michigan isn’t great but it’s clear the voting has been inconsistent at best.

[u/Our-Gardian-Angel → u/TacticalDesire]

I mean, yeah? Do you think you're the first team to be dinged in voters' minds because of an underwhelming performance? You were 27.5-point favorites who needed a Hail Mary under dubious circumstances to escape. It's going to still be held against you. You still got "credit" for the win by still getting some votes in the following week's AP poll and being the equivalent of 28th. No way that's the case with an actual loss.

In a vacuum, losing by 1 to Iowa on a last-second TD in a game where you guys looked like the better team shouldn't be that costly. But combine it with that horrid WMU performance and the OU win losing all its luster? Hard to argue that voters are being overly punative to Michigan. They've looked underwhelming and it's hard to make a case for them deserving to be ranked. They've gotten deserved treatment.

[u/Breakfast-Burrito → u/Our-Gardian-Angel]

If what you are saying were true, Iowa shouldn’t have jumped 4 spots for beating us the same way we beat WMU.

[u/Our-Gardian-Angel → u/Breakfast-Burrito]

I'm perfectly fine with the argument that Iowa rose more than they should have. But I don't really agree with the idea that Iowa's win and Michigan's win over WMU are all that equivalent other than last-second endings. A narrow escape on the road in a Big Ten game is just not fundamentally close to barely escaping at home as a 27.5-point favorite. They should not be treated the same.

[u/Breakfast-Burrito → u/Our-Gardian-Angel]

You were making the case that Michigan has not had an impressive enough season to be ranked. What I am saying is that, if Michigan is not that good relative to Iowa, beating them by 1 point should drop them just like the WMU win dropped Michigan.

You’re relying a lot on pre-season gambling odds for a team who didn’t even play a snap with their new staff yet.

[u/Our-Gardian-Angel → u/Breakfast-Burrito]

That's just a very silly false equivalence. I'm making the argument that Michigan is not impressive enough to be ranked. That's not the same as saying they're a team so bad that Iowa barely scraping by necessiates a plunge in the polls. Michigan is a flawed but solid enough team and a team getting a Big Ten road win against that caliber of opponent (no matter how flukey) isn't going to get you dinged in the rankings.

The gulf between Iowa and Michigan is nowhere near the gulf between Michigan and Western Michigan. Let's be serious. There's obviously some guesswork involved in trying to prognosticate Week 1 games, but let's be serious. Michigan is a blue blood and new staff or not, they quite obviously were heavy favorites against Western Michigan and that performance by Michigan was horrendous.

[u/Breakfast-Burrito → u/Our-Gardian-Angel]

You’re conflating what a team should be with what a team is.

If you are saying Michigan’s resume is not impressive enough to remain in the top 25, then it should not be that impressive to beat them by 1. Yes, Michigan won by 1 at home vs. Iowa on the road, but the gap between what happened in the poll when Michigan won and what happened when Iowa won is so vast, you can’t say it’s consistent.

If you want to judge wins on school resources, Michigan’s win against Oklahoma should still shine bright.

[u/Our-Gardian-Angel → u/Breakfast-Burrito]

Your entire argument is predicated on the idea that if a team's resume isn't good enough to remain in the top 25, then it's nothing short of a total failure for a ranked team not to beat them convincingly. That's incredibly silly and unnuanced. Treating a Big Ten vs. Big Ten game as being anywhere close to a Big Ten vs. MAC game is deeply disingenuous and I'm sure you know it is.

Iowa-Michigan was somwhere in the neighborhood of a coin flip game that Iowa won on the road despite being outplayed. Michigan-Western Michigan was a David vs. Goliath situation where Michigan barely scraped by at home against a team they should've beaten handily. And it's not like WMU has lit the world on fire since that game. They just got their asses completely handed to them by Boise State.

The gap between what happened to Michigan and Iowa in the polls should be dramatically different. Personally I don't think Iowa should've moved up much, but that's about the only quibble. Iowa's win also wasn't tainted by a game-ending clock controversy. I know that's a sore subject for a lot of Michigan fans because they were fed up with the public pile-on afterward, but the Iowa-Michigan ending isn't resulting in the the FBS Oversight Committee releasing a statement saying that the officials fucked up the end of the game.

[u/Breakfast-Burrito → u/Our-Gardian-Angel]

Ok got it. 👍 So Michigan beating Oklahoma is still a big win because it’s Big Ten vs. SEC.

Idk how many different ways I can word this for you to understand. You’re judging teams on reputation instead of output. The top 25 should be the most deserving based on what they’ve won and lost, not who’s got the bigger brand or conference.

It’s inconsistent to say Michigan deserved to drop 20 spots for a 1-point win and 10 spots for a 1-point loss, but the team that beat them by 1 point deserves to rise.

It’s inconsistent to defend Michigan’s 20-point drop on a win by saying “MAC vs. Big 10,” while not valuing Michigan’s SEC win.

You’re being inconsistent because you don’t like Michigan and want bad rankings to be justified because they hurt Michigan.